This book has compiled all available information from and about Soviet intelligence and security service defectors up to the purge that followed Stalin's death. It has used the revelations and personal backgrounds of eighty-eight officers with access to Soviet intelligence information to explore the insights that defectors provided into Stalin's closed political system. These officers represented political, S&T, and military intelligence; covert action and assassinations; border guards; internal security; political investigations; forced-labour camp administration; and finance specialisations. Their aggregate information spanning these fields and time provides valuable insights into Soviet national security decision-making. The result is a detailed picture of threat perceptions and national security priorities from the Bolshevik revolution to 1954.

Several major themes thread through each of the five groups of defectors, and these themes reflect the priorities and focus of Soviet intelligence and state security, and thus Soviet national security, throughout this period. First, the motivations that led intelligence officers to defect provide insights into the anxieties and pressures that state security officers were feeling. Second, the vetting standards that intelligence and state security organisations applied to recruiting and hiring employees are an indicator of stability and crisis within the system. And finally, the threats that the Soviet intelligence and state security system was tasked to counter show evolving priorities of the Soviet national security system overall. This conclusion chapter analyses those three themes that cut across all of the five chronological groups.

Evolution of Motivations

Motivations for defection changed over time among the five groups described in this study. In modern literature, the motivation to commit espionage is often described in terms of the acronym MICE– money, ideology, compromise, and ego. Although these four factors were often present in the defectors described herein, other fundamental factors drove them to break with the Soviet Union. These factors and their evolution over time are a reflection of the environment within the Soviet national security establishment at the time, and thus provide some insights into that environment.

The motivation for defecting among members of the first group of defectors from 1924 to 1930 was often based on dissatisfaction with the people that the new Bolshevik regime was attracting.