revolutionaries. The Menshevik (Minority) faction supported a
mass-based party similar to the German Social Democratic Party or
the British Labour Party. But Lenin and his closest associates broke
with the majority of European socialists, who believed that the keys
to the victory of socialism were control of the electoral process and
the parliamentary process. Lenin advocated a more “Jacobean” pro-
gram. Victory, he argued, would go to the more ruthless. He was
willing to raise money through robberies (“expropriations”) and ar-
gued that capital punishment and terrorism were necessary ingredi-
ents of a successful revolution.
Lenin—as dictator of a revolutionary Russia—put his ideas to
work. He believed with every fiber of his being that there was no
greater cause than victory. For this victory, he first tolerated and then
encouraged revolutionary violence in the name of the Bolshevik
Party. Nevertheless, Lenin did not run a tight ship from the standpoint
of security: the Okhranahad repeatedly penetrated the movement
with informers, including Roman Malinovskiy. Once the tsarist
archives exposed the degree of penetration, Lenin called for a strong
counterintelligenceservice to protect the party and the regime.BORDER GUARDS.The Border Guards were part of the structure
of the Soviet security service from the Russiancivil warto the col-
lapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During its history, the Chief Di-
rectorate of the Border Guards had counterintelligence, security,
and military responsibilities. At the beginning of World War II, the
Border Guards had a staff of 167,000 troops. In the 1970s and
1980s, the Border Guards were further expanded to cover the Chi-
nese and Afghanistan borders. At the time of the 1991 August
putsch, the Border Guards had a strength of 240,000. See KGB;
KGB ORGANIZATION.BREZHNEV, LEONID ILYICH (1911–1982). As Nikita Khru-
shchev’s deputy and later as general secretary of the Communist
Partyfrom 1964 until his death in 1982, Brezhnev artfully used the
KGBto secure his position. In the end, however, the KGB brought
him down and probably hastened his death.
Brezhnev rose in the Communist Party during the 1930s; his base
was the party organization of the Ukrainian city of Dneprepropetrovsk.36 •BORDER GUARDS06-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 36