KGB: The True Story of the Soviet Secret Service

A deep dive into the heart of the most fascinating of all secret services: the KGB.

Three decades have passed since the collapse of the USSR in December 1991. Since then, in Moscow, the archives have been opened, personal testimonies have proliferated, revelations upon revelations have emerged. Notably about the most secretive pillar of the Soviet system: the KGB.
After all this time, from the Bolshevik political police's beginnings (in December 1917) to its failed attempt to save the regime (in August 1991), it had become crucial to summarize, correct, complete and conclude the profuse history of its campaigns, exploits, metamorphoses, crimes and failures. How many episodes have punctuated this rich history: the Cheka, the civil war, the GPU, the Stalinist trials, the Gulag, the Cold War, Dissent ! How many extraordinary characters have embodied it over the years: Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria, Stalin, Serov, Andropov ! And how many ambiguous and romantic silhouettes have traversed the stage of this formidable shadow theatre: Munzenberg, Mercader, Philby, Trepper, Kravchenko, Fuchs, Rosenberg, not to mention...a certain Vladimir Putin !
With his flamboyant style, Bernard Lecomte deciphers the history and mysteries of the most fascinating of all secret services. A real page-turner.

BERNARD LECOMTE, a former international correspondent and specialist in Eastern Europe, covered the entire downfall of communism for the magazine L'Express. We owe him notably Le Bunker (JC Lattès, 1991), Gorbachev (Perrin, 2014), Les secrets du Vatican (Perrin, 2009 / 18,000 copies sold); Les derniers secrets du Vatican (Perrin, 2014 / 16,000 copies sold) and Les secrets du Kremlin (Perrin, 2017).