Quote taken out of "In and Out of Stalin`s GRU - A Tatar`s Escape From Red Army Intelligence" by Ismail Akhmedov, 1984.
For all my tall talk to Tamara about intelligence, I really knew nothing at all about it when that transfer came through. That was made very plain to me when I started work in Colonel Kuzyuberdin's office. For general theory I was assigned a pair of volumes, Strategic Intelligence, by Colonel Walther Nicolai, World War I chief of intelligence and counterintelligence of the German general staff.
When I had digested that, my colonel examined my reactions to it, then told me what I have never forgotten, so basic is it to the operations of Soviet intelligence:
"Ismail, what you have read is just the beginning. We Communists are different. Our intelligence must be different. It must be more active, stronger. Nicholai is, so to speak, a technician.
We are revolutionaries.
Our revolutionary ethics and Communist tactics are the foundations upon which we must build our intelligence. Following the rules laid down by Nicolai, by theTsarist Okhranka, and by many others is okay, provided we do not stop there.
Instead of razvedka [intelligence] we must use the termpodpol'naya rabota [undergroundwork] because we are the secret army of our Party. We do not just collect and disseminate intelligence data. We must do that, of course, but we must also do much more. We must know the plans and intentions of not only ourenemies, but also those who are now our friends. We must know the roads in our countries of interest, the terrain, the deployment of troops, their tables of organizations, and dispositions and types of armaments. We must recruit and train agents, dispatch them across borders, establish agent residenturas abroad. But such tasks were and are being carried by other countries as well. Ours is much greater. The most important thing to remember is that our purpose is to destroy the world as it now is and build a new one.
We do not shout "Long Live the Revolution" for nothing. We mean it."