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Boris Volodarsky

The KGB's Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko Hardcover – 30 Nov. 2009

by Boris Volodarsky (Author)

4.1 122 ratings

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In late November 2006 the world was shaken by the ruthless assassination in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Lt Col of the Russian security service (FSB). The murder was the most notorious crime committed by the Russian intelligence on foreign soil in over three decades. The author, Boris Volodarsky, who was consulted by the Metropolitan Police during the investigation and remains in close contact with Litvinenko s widow, is a former Russian military intelligence officer and an international expert in special operations. His narrative reveals that since 1917 beginning with Lenin and his Cheka the Russian security services have regularly carried out bespoke poisoning operations all over the world to eliminate the enemies of the Kremlin. The author proves that the Litvinenko s poisoning is just one episode in the chain of murders that continues until the present day. Some of these assassinations or attempted assassinations are already known, others are revealed here for the first time. Uniquely Volodarsky has had a personal involvement in almost every each of the 20 cases, from the radioactive thallium poisoning of the Soviet defector Nikolai Khokhlov in Frankfurt in September 1957 to the ricin umbrella murder of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London in 1978. "Here, for the fan of murder thrillers and modern history alike, is a cracking good read. In brilliant light we see what lay for nearly a century behind the London polonium poisoning of British citizen Alexander Litvinenko, former Russian. It was just one recent hit by the world's most prolific serial killer -- the Russian state. With original research guided by his insider's eye and scholarly care, Boris Volodarsky recounts scores of murders. Assassination emerges as state policy, as institutionalized bureacracy, as day-to-day routine, as laboratory science, as a branch of medicine researching ways not to stave off death but to deliver it in apparently innocent or accidental forms, and as engineering technology, devising ever-new devices to meet each new requirement, from umbrella tips and cigarette cases and rolled-up newspapers -- to Litvinenko's teacup." Tennent H. Bagley, former CIA chief of Soviet Bloc counterintelligence.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Frontline Books
Publication date

30 Nov. 2009
Dimensions

16.6 x 2.8 x 24 cm
ISBN-10

1848325428
ISBN-13

978-1848325425
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Alexander Litvinenko
253
Paperback
21 offers from £3.17
Ben Macintyre
11,133
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42 offers from £1.00

Product description

About the Author

Boris Volodarsky is a former captain of the GRU Spetsnaz, a member of the World Association of International Studies and co-editor of the International Personal Files intelligence magazine. He is the author of Nikolai Khokhlov: Self-Esteem with a Halo and The Orlov File: The Greatest KGB Deception of All Time. He is an advisor to the film director Michael Mann.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Frontline Books (30 Nov. 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1848325428
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1848325425
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.6 x 2.8 x 24 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 698,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,594 in Espionage Biographies
- 2,434 in History of Russia
- 3,802 in International Relations

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4.1 122 ratings

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4.1 out of 5

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Nomad in Caledonia

Useful read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 September 2010

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Contrary to the name this book it is largely about Litvinenko's murder and other famous assasinations are only used as context or pre-text to help understand methods of KGB and the Kremlin that it dominates. Author is well informed, I suspect often not without help of Berezovsky, and makes sound and largely unbiased intrepretation and judgements on events surrounding the murder as well as current affairs in Russia. If you're into understanding of (modern) Russia or like post cold war intrigue this book is for you. With some enthusiasm one would not be bothered about small stylistical drawbacks of the book- authoor jums quickly form subject to subject which makes following difficult sometimes. In quite a few places he provides so much (unncessary) detail that it becomes hard to follow an already complicate plot.

5 people found this helpful

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Henrietta

KGB’s poison factory

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 May 2021

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This is a very densely packed book that really needs to be read more than once but it is well written and researched and would appear to be well vouched for regarding facts etc. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the murky situation that has existed in Russia and former Soviet Union for the past 100 years

One person found this helpful

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Eddie McGann

what a read this is .

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 May 2022

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Absolute brilliant could not put this book down.

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Derek Bolton

The truth about Russia's Putin

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 May 2021

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Extremely informative and very well written. Shows quite clearly what a nasty Mafia based man Putin is.

One person found this helpful

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andrew pettitt

delivered as advertised

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 May 2015

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delivered as advertised

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Neutral

The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But The truth?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2010

There are many excellent accounts of the activities of the Russian security service. Unfortunately, Boris Volodarsky's is not one of them. This in no way invalidates his research or conclusions but his personal involvement and an absence of a definitive chronology of the many Soviet assassination attempts interrupts the flow of what should have been an interesting narrative. In addition, although Volodarsky makes reference to Fanny Kaplan's unsuccessful attempt on Lenin's life in 1918, he does not provide the historical background to political assassination in Russia, including the actions of Narodnaya Volya "People's Will", or refer to the work of the Tsarist secret police (Okhrana) which organised many assassinations, including those of von Plehve and Stolypin. Although the terror introduced by Lenin was ruthless in some respects it merely extended an established pre-Soviet political practice.

The work of the secret services in any country is shrouded in mystery, much of it generated by those services by means of disinformation. Thus those of us unfamiliar with the detailed context are left wondering what is fact and what is fiction. For example, Volodarsky labels Trotsky's guard, Robert Sheldon Harte, a Stalinist agent, which would make Harte's kidnapping and murder by Stalinist agents a double cross. Stalin's determination to kill Trotsky was widely known and Trotsky himself had been warned by Alexander Orlov, Stalin's agent in Spain. This division provided a major problem for western Marxists who supported the physical reality of Soviet Russia against theoretical Marxist objections from Trotsky. Thus when the Spanish Communist Party, aided by the NKVD, liquidated the leaders of the rival CNT, FAI and POUM most on the Left supported Stalin. Victor Gollancz refused to publish George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" because of its anti-Stalinist views.

Volodarsky does not mention all Stalin's victims perhaps for reasons of space. Yet it is surprising that the death of of Trotsky's son, Leon Sedov, does not feature, although it was widely believed he was murdered while in a hospital run by White Russians who had links with the NKVD. In fairness to Volodarsky the immediate focus of his book was the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Litvinenko died of radiation poisoning caused by polonium-210. As he was dying Litvinenko identified Andrey Lugovoy (now a Russian MP) as his killer. Volodarsky claims that only the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, had the authority to order the killing. Attempts to extradite Lugovoy have been unsuccessful. Lugovoy accused British intelligence and the Russian exile Boris Berezovsky of murdering Litvinenko to discredit Putin.

Assassination by poison was not new. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian exile, was poisoned by ricin via an umbrella tip in 1978, a month after another Bulgarian exile, Vladimir Kostov, was poisoned in a similar manner in Paris but survived thanks to the thickness of his clothing. In addition, the Soviet Union is not the only state to sponsor the murder of dissidents. Such actions appear endemic in authoritarian states whereas in western democracies they tend to be the work of small ideologically driven groups or individuals. However, such a division is not totally exclusive as the history of Mossad shows. Although there is an advantage to authoritarian regimes in being able to maintain secrecy, the only safeguard in a democracy is open government which remains a chimera in most democratic states on grounds of "national security".

V Volodarsky was the pseudonym of one of Soviet Russia's earliest censors, a ruthless opponent of the idea of free speech outside the Bolshevik party. He was assassinated by a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1918. Less than a quarter of a century later surviving prominent members of the SRP were amongst 150 political prisoners shot by the NKVD just after the Nazi invasion. As far as we know such executions no longer take place and, although Putin has clearly consolidated his position, there is insufficient evidence to show the Russian state is as active as Volodarksy suggests.

This is not to deny his claims (several British newspapers have done so) but the murders of Anna Politkovskaya and Marina Pisareva appear likely to remain mysteries for some time to come, if not forever. That being so Volodarsky's account remains credible if not totally convincing. For example, he lists the deaths of Trotsky's assistants who were victims of Stalin's hatred for Trotsky and writes, "the last victim, albeit coincidental, was Jean van Heijenoort, Trotsky's secretary from 1932 to 1939, who was murdered in Mexico City in 1986 aged 73". In fact van Heijenoort was murdered by his fourth wife who then killed herself. No one suggested she was a Stalinist agent. There's an excellent bibliography and good index. Three stars does not indicate any conviction on my part but, as a starting point, it's as good a place as any.

6 people found this helpful

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Emba

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 August 2015

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Yes the book meet my expectations

One person found this helpful

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Amélie

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 August 2015

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A very interesting read.

One person found this helpful

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