German. Even fighting on their own territory, the Russian service
had only a limited number of reliable sources with access to Ger-
man military or political intelligence.
The war stretched the ability of the Okhranaand military intelli-
gence to the breaking point. By 1916 troops in many urban garrisons
were in a state of mutiny. While frontline troops were loyal, troops in
St. Petersburg were under the influence of agitators from a number of
left-wing parties. The most successful covert action of the war was
Germany’s financing the travel of Bolshevikleader Vladimir Lenin
and a number of his supporters from Switzerland to neutral Sweden
in a protected train in 1917 after the March Revolution. Lenin and his
entourage then made their way to the Finland Station in Petrograd
(St. Petersburg). The German leadership realized how fragile Russia
was, and believed—correctly—that Lenin might upset the provi-
sional government and bring peace on the Eastern Front.
Demobilized frontline Russian soldiers and deserters played a
critical role in the newly minted Workers and Peasants Red Army
and the Cheka. Many disillusioned noncommissioned and junior
officers joined the Bolsheviks. World War I ensured the destruction
of the tsarist regime and provided the new revolutionary authorities
with many of its most effective military commanders and intelli-
gence agents.WORLD WAR II.The Soviet regime signed a nonaggression pact with
Germany in August 1939, and following Germany’s invasion of
Poland, the Soviet Union on 17 September sent troops of the Red
Army into eastern Poland. The Soviets also gained territory in Fin-
land and the Baltics. But the Soviets were not drawn into the war
against Nazi Germany until the German invasion of the Soviet Union
on 22 June 1941, which began what is known in Soviet history as the
Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan in
August 1945, and Red Army troops entered Japanese-occupied
Manchuria on 9 August. During the course of the war, the Soviet mil-
itary suffered more than 8 million killed in action or dead of combat
wounds, more than 4 million captured or missing, and more than 15
million wounded. Soviet citizen casualties were far greater: estimates
put the loss of life between 10 and 15 million.288 •WORLD WAR II06-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 288