A former KGB lieutenant colonel warns against the
security organs' revenge against "first-wave
democrats" who discredited the KGB during
glasnost. KGB veteran Konstantin Preobrazhensky, who
retired with the same rank as Putin, writes in the Moscow
Times, "An open letter [published in Versiya]
from former KGB General Oleg Kalugin to Putin --
accusing the new president of placing Russia once
again on a totalitarian track -- has struck like a
thunderbolt. Kalugin wrote the letter because Putin
called him a traitor in a pre-election interview with
Kommersant. Putin, a lawyer, called Kalugin a traitor
without a trial, ignoring the presumption of
innocence. That's the logic of the KGB. As a democrat,
appointed by Boris Yeltsin, Putin should have fought
against such views; instead, he has used them
cynically, leading us to understand that the KGB will
be the main organ of power in Russia."
"The KGB generals are out to get [Kalugin]
because, at the end of the 1980s, he destroyed the KGB
with a single word 'truth.' After Kalugin's exposes
were published [during glasnost], the KGB lost
society's moral support," Preobrazhensky
continues. "Kalugin committed a courageous,
self-sacrificing deed. The abolition of the KGB played
a positive role in Russian history: It allowed
democratic reforms to proceed."
"Dozens of highly placed [KGB] generals lost
their posts as a result of Kalugin," according to
Preobrazhensky. "Unable to do anything other than
'manage,' they are forced to live on niggardly
pensions. In their impotence, they pour heaps of dirt
on Kalugin. The offended generals appear on
television, and Putin himself has pronounced their
baseless accusations of Kalugin's betrayal. Among the
generals are those who took part in the August 1991
coup, including Vladimir Kryuchkov and Viktor Grushko.
It was Grushko, according to Kalugin, who threatened
him at the end of the 1980s, saying that, for his
pronouncements against the KGB, Kalugin would be
declared insane. But fate decreed otherwise: Grushko
was the one accused of being disloyal to the
government and sent to prison."
"It turns out that, in today's Russia, it is
better to have been a coup organizer in 1991 than a
first-wave democrat who put the country on the path
toward democracy and freedom," Preobrazhensky
continues. Kalugin lives in the U.S. and, though he is
not a defector and has not exposed Soviet agents in
the U.S., he cannot safely return to Russia.
"This is no accident. The hounding of Kalugin
acts as a backdrop to the resurrection of the KGB.
This is the security services' vengeance for a decade
of humiliation by democrats. . .The hounding of
General Kalugin has exposed the dangerous process of
the KGB's resurgence and the rise of the role of the
security services in the political life of
Russia."
