In January 2014, a monograph by a researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS)was published in Germany P. V. Gustert 's "Soviet Intelligence in the Near and Middle East in the 1920s-30s" (Saarbrücken, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2014, 200 pages, in Russian, English). The book consists of three chapters - "Political Intelligence", "Military Intelligence" and "Eastern Intelligence"./Special Faculty of the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M. V. Frunze", - examines the organization of work and operations of Soviet intelligence services in the Near and Middle East in countries that depended on Great Britain, and countering the activities of German special services in this region. It is mainly about the events that took place in Afghanistan, Persia (Iran) and Turkey, as well as in some Arab countries (Egypt, the states of the Arabian Peninsula). The author notes some features of the work of Soviet intelligence officers. The author paid considerable attention to the role of the Foreign Department of the OGPU in the fight against Basmachism in Central Asia. The greatest achievements of the Soviet special services in these countries during the period under review, P. Gusterin considers the return of General Ya. A. Slashchev* from Turkey to Russia, the recruitment of the Persian minister Teymurtash** and interaction with the Afghan authorities in the fight against Basmachism. Much attention in the monograph is paid, on the one hand, to the interaction, and on the other - to the complex relationships of Soviet intelligence agencies, which sometimes caused the failures of Soviet intelligence officers. The author is not silent about the repressions that swept the special services, as a result of which the personnel of Soviet intelligence officers was thoroughly thinned out in the pre-war years. The victims of the persecution were, in particular, the heads of the intelligence services-A. Kh. Artuzov, Ya. K. Berzin and others. Striving for obje ... Читать далее