The Secret World: The Terrifying Report of a High Officer of Soviet Intelligence Whose Conscience Finally Rebelled

by Peter Deriabin

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000J0KYX4
• Release Date: January 1959
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An engaging account of how the Soviet espionage system worked

While this book is slightly dated (almost anything about the Soviet Union is, by definition) this is a well-written account of how the Soviet espionage system (both inside and out of the USSR) worked.

The Secret World by Peter Deriabin

Peter Deriabin's autobiography is a microcosm of the best and worst of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Deriabin was born into a system which educated, designed,and shaped him. He rose from an unknown provincial status as a bright Komsomol (Communist Party Youth--equivalent of the Boy Scouts), fighting heroically in WWII, to being wounded and assigned to Stalin's personal bodyguard unit. Later, he worked for the KGB in espionage while stationed in Austria. Ultimately, Deriabin became a defector to the West because even this priviledged life was simply too dangerous and arbitrary to survive in. For example, he compares the battle to be the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to that of Sir James Frazer's sacred kings constanty prowling the hold woods in search of their future murderer, killing everybody he encounters until his age and wits fail, and he is himself murdered and replaced by the next sacred king. The detail of the way that the Soviet Union functioned socially is terrifying for any normal man or woman from the free world. For example, it was perfectly acceptable to beat and murder your wife and be accepted back into society after a brief jail term whereas if you exchanged currency, you could be shuttled into a gulag and forgotten, living a life of torture and starvation. This is not chauvanism from an occidental anti-Communist; it is the memoirs of a man whose whole life was designed to protect Stalin's variety of Communism. If you have ever wondered why the Cold War was fought, Deriabin's life serves as a prime example