KGB Lexicon

The name of Vasily Mitrokhin burst into the public's consciousness in the autumn of 1999, with the publication of "The Mitrokhin Archive" and the exposure of a grandmother living in South London as a Soviet spy. The resultant enquiry conducted by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee paid tribute to the unique contribution which Mitrokhin had made to the public's understanding of how the former KGB had operated, and to Mitrokhin's commitment and bravery in accumulating and preparing his archive alone and in secret for 20 years before defecting to the United Kingdom in 1992. This publication marks a new departure for this extraordinary man, now approaching his 80s. He remains as determined as ever to bring home to the world the extent of Soviet espionage in the West and beyond and, most importantly, the abuses of power - indeed the criminality - practised in the former Soviet Union by the ruling Communist party primarily through the medium of the KGB, so that they should never re-occur. In this volume Mitrokhin presents two dictionaries produced by the KGB itself to define their activities in both offensive and defensive intelligence work. The translated documents tell the basic story of the KGB's methods and targets and should be of interest to the general public as well as to the specialist.