tionaries, and he was elected a member of the SR central committee.
During the same period, he was the Okhrana’s highest paid inform-
ant, providing information that saved the life of the tsar and doomed
countless plots by the Battle Organization. His treachery was uncov-
ered by Vladimir Burtsev, a revolutionary journalist, who convinced
his colleagues that only Azev could have been responsible for the ar-
rests that were undercutting the SR’s efforts to build a revolutionary
organization inside Russia. Azev fled to Germany, where he lived to
see the Bolshevik Revolution.
Azev’s motivation is unknown. Was the assassination of von Ple-
hve a strike against a notorious anti-Semite? Was it money that led
him to betray friends, or a desire to play God? Was it his love of no-
toriety, or an interest in being the hero of two elite combat organiza-
tions? This much seems clear: he badly disrupted the SR political and
paramilitary organization and weakened their ability to compete with
the Bolsheviks.- B –
BACK CHANNEL. Moscow frequently used intelligence officers and
journalists working with the intelligence services as a back channel
of communication with other governments. An alternative channel of
communications allowed Moscow to speak candidly with politicians
and address issues that were off-limits to diplomats. This tactic prob-
ably developed out of the 1920s and 1930s, when the Soviet govern-
ment had diplomatic relations with only a few Western governments.
In the 1970s, the KGBmaintained separate channels of communica-
tions with West German politicians as the Socialist Democratic ad-
ministration of Willy Brandt developed its policy of Ostpolitik. An
American historian of the KGB noted: “The KGB back channel com-
bined the secrecy of 19th century cabinet diplomacy with the speed
of 20th century transportation and communications to transform
Soviet–West German relations.”
Senior KGB officers, including Yuri Andropov, were strong sup-
porters of back channel diplomacy, arguing that the intelligence ser-
vice was less corrupt and more competent than the Ministry of For-
eign Affairs. Andropov, according to a subordinate, believed that heBACK CHANNEL•1906-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:54 AM Page 19