Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

revolution could only succeed with a competent and tightly organized

party. Lenin and Trotsky, who flirted with the Bolshevik Partybe-

tween 1905 and 1917, saw the keys to success as organization and vi-

olence. Their model was not totally Marxist; rather, it was more Ja-

cobin, from the Paris of the French Revolution of 1789–1793.

REVOLUTION OF NOVEMBER 1917. The revolution that

brought the Bolshevik Partyto power in Petrograd in November

1917 was little more than a military putsch. The provisional gov-

ernment that had come to power following the March Revolution

had little credibility in the countryside. Divided among radical and

liberal parties, it had lost control of the army garrison in Petrograd

and lacked any security service to protect it from enemies on the

left and right. In Petrograd, the Soviet, composed of radical parties

but dominated by the Bolsheviks, occupied the power vacuum left

by the death of imperial authority.

Vladimir Leninsaw strategic and tactical opportunities in the

situation in Petrograd. He ordered that his senior subordinates, in-

cluding Leon Trotskyand Feliks Dzerzhinsky, arm Red Guards to

form an organized Bolshevik militia capable of seizing power.

Lenin also insisted on tight operational security in the run-up to the

putsch. Agents of the Bolsheviks, called commissars, worked with

naval and army units around the capital. This ensured that the party

would not face an organized resistance. The storming of the Winter

Palace on the evening of 7 November went off like clockwork in

large part because of Lenin’s planning and the gross incompetence

of his adversaries.

The November revolution did not create Soviet power in Russia; it

took five years of civil warand several million dead to accomplish

that. Rather the events of 7 November signaled the Bolsheviks’ will-

ingness to seize and hold power by any means necessary. Many of the

leaders of the November Revolution were appointed to the new So-

viet security service, the Cheka, in December 1917.

REZIDENT. The Russian word for chief of the intelligence presence in

a city or country is rezident (resident). Both the KGBand the GRU

used the term. (The American equivalent is chief of station, or COS).

KGB residents had tremendous power in Soviet missions during the

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