INFORMANTS. The key to the success of the Soviet security services,
from the Chekato the KGB, was a huge stable of informants. Se-
myon Ignatiev, chief of state security during Joseph Stalin’s last
years, stated that his service had 10 million informants in 1952. Dur-
ing World War II, it is estimated that 22 million Soviet citizens
served as informants. And the KGB is reported to have had more than
10 million informants at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
During the collectivizationof agriculture, informants were re-
cruited among the poorest peasants to identify rich peasants (kulaks)
who had hidden grain and animals and had refused to join collective
farms. Pavel Morozov, a young boy who informed on his father and
was subsequently murdered by his family, became a national hero.
Informants who turned in their neighbors received major cash re-
wards and were selected for Communist Partymembership. Many
suffered Morozov’s fate as well. During the Yezhovshchina, inform-
ing was driven by a demand for the name of traitors and dissidents.
According to Nikita Khrushchev, one woman informer caused the
arrest of hundreds of residents of Kiev in 1937–1938.
During World War II, the security service and Smershrecruited in-
formers at all levels of Soviet society. Smershwas responsible for re-
cruiting informants in every battalion of the Soviet army. Informers
were also recruited in every village and housing bloc, as well as in
forced labor camps; a recent American study found that 12 percent of
Soviet military personnel were informants. Information from inform-
ants allowed the security service and Smershto question nearly 7 mil-
lion people and arrest 2 million during the course of the war. After the
war, informers continued to be recruited in every state and nonstate
institution, including in the few working churches and the many pe-
nal institutions. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, while serving a sentence in
a gulag, was approached by a security officer and offered the oppor-
tunity to inform. A history of the Russian Orthodox Church identified
the majority of the church leadership as active informers.
People informed for a variety of reasons: vengeance, securing
privileges such as foreign travel, and patriotism all played a part. It
was far harder to refuse offers to inform than Westerners realize. In
many cases, Soviets informed to protect themselves and their fami-
lies from more intensive investigations of their private lives. The
post-Soviet security services almost certainly continue to recruit in-
formants. While many Russians see the heritage of informants as a122 •INFORMANTS06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 122