The Compatriots
The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The authors of The Red Web examine the shifting role of Russian expatriates throughout history, and their complicated, unbreakable relationship with the mother country--be it antagonistic or far too chummy.
The history of Russian espionage is soaked in blood, from a spontaneous pistol shot that killed a secret policeman in Romania in 1924 to the attempt to poison an exiled KGB colonel in Salisbury, England, in 2017. Russian émigrés have found themselves continually at the center of the mayhem.
Russians began leaving the country in big numbers in the late nineteenth century, fleeing pogroms, tsarist secret police persecution, and the Revolution, then Stalin and the KGB--and creating the third-largest diaspora in the world. The exodus created a rare opportunity for the Kremlin. Moscow's masters and spymasters fostered networks of spies, many of whom were emigrants driven from Russia. By the 1930s and 1940s, dozens of spies were in New York City gathering information for Moscow.
But the story did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some émigrés have turned into assets of the resurgent Russian nationalist state, while others have taken up the dissident challenge once more--at their personal peril. From Trotsky to Litvinenko, The Compatriots is the gripping history of Russian score-settling around the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moscow-based investigative journalists Soldatov and Borogan (The Red Web) give an absorbing account of Russian governments' attempts to "use the Russian migr community to achieve their goals to neutralize any potential dangers posed by Russians abroad." The Russian diaspora, numbering 30 million, is the third largest in the world after India's and Mexico's; many were forced out of the country for political reasons. Since Soviet times, the Kremlin has attempted, through ominously named special directorates such as "Department K" and the "Fifth Section," to control those living beyond its borders and to bring together emigr s and Russian residents into a single "Russian world." The authors narrate Russian spymasters' attempt to produce "a sanitized version of its own bloody history specifically geared to a Western audience" in the 1990s; the plan backfired when its operative author defected with eight notebooks filled with top secret material. They also argue that president Vladimir Putin used both the media and the Russian Orthodox Church to sway communities of Russians abroad into supporting his policies. Colorful characters and piquant details ("Overweight, suspicious policemen in black uniforms... guarded storefronts featuring pre-reform Cyrillic signage") make this a lively story. Readers curious about Russian political affairs and espionage will eat it up.
