Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

Furthermore, the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinskytorn down in August

1991 has been placed back in a position of honor at the Lubyanka.

In a recent Russian poll, half of the respondents believed Stalin was

a positive figure. The speaker of the Russian Duma in 2004 hailed

Stalin as a “positive force.”

STARINOV, ILYA GRIGOREVICH. (1900–2001).After fighting in

the civil war, Starinov joined the GRU. In the 1930s he became one

of the founders of GRU Spetznazforces, preparing Soviet soldiers

and foreign communists to conduct operations behind invaders’lines.

In 1936 Starinov was dispatched to train Spanish Republicans in

Spetznaztactics. As “Comrade Rudolfo,” he was successful in train-

ing a cadre of dedicated saboteurs and partisansduring the Spanish

Civil War. To his Soviet colleagues in Spain and Moscow, he was

known by the codename “Volk” (Wolf). Starinov barely escaped ar-

rest on his return to Moscow, and he continued to work in the GRU.

He ran schools for special forces and partisan forces. In the terrible

first days of the Great Patriotic War, he established bases for parti-

sans behind enemy line. He reportedly also played a critical role in

the destruction of Soviet installations as German forces occupied key

industrial cities.

STASI.The most important KGBally in the Cold Warwas the East

German Ministry of State Security (MfS or Ministerium fur

Staatssicherheit), known to all as Stasi. In 1989 the Stasiemployed

91,000 men and women—four times as many as the Gestapo in a

state one-quarter as populous. Coverage of the population was en-

sured by more than a million informants. The activities of the Stasi

were later documented by the Gauck Commissionafter the collapse

of the East German state.

The Stasiforeign intelligence directorate (Hauptverwaltung Aufk-

larung), the HVA, led for more than 30 years by Markus Wolf, pro-

vided Moscow with critical military and scientific intelligence. For-

mer KGB officers rated Stasias the best of the satellite intelligence

services, and they estimated that 80 percent of their information on

NATO came from Stasi. A large number of KGB officers were sta-

tioned at a large rezidenturaat Karlshorst in East Berlin and in

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