Rating: 
Summary: the Forgotten Truth
Review: the two "piles" of communism were RED TERROR(theorized and legislated by a decree on 5th september of 1918 against the "enemies of the people" - we should read its OWN people!)and the LIE( propaganda and desinformation in the western public opinion,and totalitarian control of the information behind the "iron curtain").
this book is about the second pile. It shows what was already known(but forgotten): that the degree of infiltration and colaborationism between soviet communism and many western institutions(like some "pacifist" organizatins, "ecological"parties, several european left parties, and several newspapers and magazines)were Very Frequent (and shameful).
Some of the book's material gave origin to judicial and criminal investigations in many countries, and ultimately lead to inprisonment of some people in two nations: USA and BRITAIN, for treachry to its own country.
this is not only a brilliant book written by a brilliant scholar(Dr.C.Andrew is Director of the History's faculty of Cambridge(UK),and former visitant Teacher of Harvard). this is a book that should be read by all who worry abouth TRUTH.
Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary and invaluable historical record
Review: The book summarises and gives context to a remarkable set of documents: the notes smuggled out of the KGB over 12 years by a trusted archivist, Vasili Mitrokhin. The courage that this entailed on the part of a man who had seen through the tawdriness and oppression of the totalitarian state he served is almost beyond comprehension. The notes that he made are an invaluable historical record of the clandestine actions of a brutal regime, and expose thousands who served that cause. The book comprises both fascinating history and devastating political analysis. For example, anyone who still harbours illusions about the murderousness and sadism of Leninism should read the chapter dealing with the conduct of the Cheka in the Civil War, and the authors' exposure of the myth that the nascent Bolshevik state faced a determined effort by the western democracies to crush it. The authors also stress the essential point that our side, the liberal democratic side, was qualitatively different in its conduct of espionage from our totalitarian adversaries: we confronted an aggressive external threat, while they harried, incarcerated and in many cases murdered their own subjects. Much the most revealing and shocking part of the book is its account of the 'active measures' (i.e. persecution and fabrication) undertaken against the courageous men and women who opposed the Sviet regime from within. All credit to Mitrokhin for his valour, and to Andrews for fashioning such a readable and authoritative narrative from the source material.
Rating: 
Summary: A Valuable Reference, But Not What It Purports To Be.
Review: Let me begin by saying that this book would make a valuable contribution to anyone's collection of espionage literature, especially for it's tremendous bibliography. Having said that I must express my disappointment in the poor editing of the book and in it's not so hidden agenda. First, this book is neither a "secret history of the KGB" nor is it the "Mitrokhin Archive." If it is a secret history of anything it is of the foreign intelligence arm of the KGB, the Pervoye Glavnoye Upravleniye (PGU.) Of course, from a marketing point of view it's easier to sell a history of the "KGB" than of the "PGU", isn't it? As far as I can recall, the abbreviation KGB is not once expanded or translated as the Kommitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti/Committee of State Security, an unforgiveable ommision, especially in light of the fact that the abbreviation for the KGB's foreign intelligence successor, the SVR, is expanded on page one of the book! How bizarre. Most other abbreviations are not expanded in their original language, either, but are rendered in loose - and sometimes inaccurate - translations. This sort of thing goes on throughout the book. Sloppy editing is everywhere. In the first edition that I read French President Mitterand's first name is even rendered as Franaois (sic), and this is only scratching the surface of the editing problems in the book. Of much more concern, however, is the general tone of the work. Former British Defence Minister Tom King, MP, in a report of the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, reports on the handling of the original archive that, "Mr Mitrokhin is not content with the way in which the book was published and he feels that he has not accomplished what he set out to achieve. He made it clear to us that he wished he had had full control over the handling of his material." The report goes on to say that Christopher Andrew was chosen by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to edit and collate the Mitrokhin Archive because "the SIS regarded Professor Andrew as a safe pair of hands." In other words, a tame historian who could be counted on to spin the material in the manner desired by MI-6. For an organization that has infiltrated the highest echelons of governments and their intelligence services, the KGB's foreign intelligence arm is damned with faint praise by Andrew. He seems to think that to give full credit to the Russian service is to credit the monstrous ideology which it served. One might expect that from a politician, but not from an historian. I understand that another volume based on Vasili Mitrokhin's archive is to be published in the future. Let's hope that Mr. Mitrokhin has more input into that book - and SIS and Mr. Andrew less.
Rating:
Summary: Facinating!
Review: THe history of the K.G.B. is revealed at last. From their backing of international terrorisn to their intelligence operations this book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Runs from fascinating to dull
Review: The part from the beginnings of the Cheka to the part about "wet" affairs was really interesting, albeit extremely dry. Afterwards, it just went downhill for me. True it did pick up with the rise of Solidarity (except that Andrew barely mentions the KGB at all during those parts) but the latter 200 pages or so just weren't all that interesting for me. I agree with a previous reviewer who said this should be more of a reference work, since it's not that easy to read sequentially. After "wet affairs" it was an uphill struggle for me to finish it. Mitrokhin's archive is mentioned every now and then, just to prove a point mostly, the rest of it is all from previous sources. Andrew likes to quote Oleg Kalugin a lot, which gave some other information but also successfully plugged his other book that Andrew wrote with Kalguin as well. Without the former KGB's archives, how do we know he's telling the whole truth anyway? And Andrew has a tendency to throw out 3000 codenames per page, and some overlap, so it's not all that easy to remember who is who. Finally, the most annoying flaw is that he repeats essentially the same outlined history of KGB operations at least 3 times. I'd say it's an okay book, just be prepared for 565 pages (and that's without footnotes) of dryness.
Rating: 
Summary: A Page Turner About Russian Intelligence
Review: This book is a must read for anyone interested in the mechanics of Cold War era intelligence (though the array of acronmyms employed here can be daunting) . Andrew does a phenomenal job organizing all the disparate documents into an edifying account. While the information provided by Mitrokhin is inevitably incomplete without having access to the totality of Soviet intelligence files, what is in this work is often jaw dropping. What may gall many Americans is that our country was such a johnny come lately to the intelligence gathering game and this book shows how we paid for that fact. I can't recommend this book enough and anxiously await the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Encyclopedic but the debate will continue...
Review: Having read the "Sword and the Shield" thoroughly, I feel that it begs as many questions as it seeks to answer. The book is a worthy undertaking at the outset, but it's poorly edited and far too long to hold the interest of anyone other than the avid student of Kremlinology or espionage fanatics looking for an encyclopedic chronology series of events in Soviet history. There are many problems and oversights within the book's content. Nowhere does Mitrokhin even explain what the acronym "KGB" actually stands for! The same phrase "one of the most successful (il)legals ... X" keeps cropping up repeatedly. There is no analysis of why, immediately after the war, defections suddenly (if Mitrokhin is right) started on a grand scale. Why were there no defections up to this point given that the NKVD (forerunner to the MGB/KGB) knew the reality of Stalinist USSR long before the war? The credibility of some of the information is clearly suspect. Mitrokhin constantly refers to Soviet conspiracy theory and paranoia about Western countries' (especially the UK's) intentions towards the USSR coloring the judgment of the Centre and Politburo's decisions. If this is the case, and it was as widespread as he claims, then surely it is reasonable to suggest that his own views and interpretations, drawn from official archives, must be colored by this ideological "fog" too. There is no corroboration of a lot of his claims, made even more worrying by snide remarks about the failings of "communism", Soviet ideology and their frequently "absurd" claims. Frankly, Mitrokhin can hardly be taken as completely subjective in this regard and does not come to the argument with clean hands. He is, after all, a traitor in some people's eyes, with a political and personal ax to grind, and some of his arguments do not follow through. For example, on the Soviet dissident's trials, he dismisses the Centre's paranoia of a Zionist plot and Western agitprop being behind much of the refusniks motives - yet fails to note that key refusnik, Sharanksy, once emigrated to Israel, subsequently became of the leading Zionist propagandists with very harsh views on the Palestinians. In all, it's an interesting read, but buy the paperback and read it within the context of a possibly embittered man making claims than cannot be verified completely. Given the developments in post-Perestroika CIS/Russia, whether a lot of what he claimed is now really nothing more than speculation hardly matters.
Rating:
Summary: Heavily-padded history, much of which we already know
Review: For those who know little about the history of the KGB's machinations abroad, both evil and farcical, this is an excellent starter. Andrews writes clearly and forcefully in a manner which overcomes the deadening effects of the acronyms scattered across each page. But for those who familiar with the KGB and its role abroad, this is surprisingly thin fare. Andrews quotes from a huge number of books and other texts, mentioning Mitrokhin in passing when his archive can add to our knowledge of a particular episode. Apart from revealing the existence of the so-called "granny spy" Melita Norwood and some interesting material on what the KGB was up to in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s, there is not much new here. I note that Andrews and Mitrokhin intend to use other parts of the archive to write a second book. I only wish they had produced one thumping work, full of juicy details, rather than decided to spin out the material
Rating:
Summary: It's All There
Review: While not everything in the book is news, the fact that virtually ALL the names (minor and major), dates and actions since 1917 are present makes this book a very valuable treasure indeed. Yes, folks, it's all true - the Rosenbergs were in fact guilty of espionage, Alger Hiss was in fact a Communist agent, the vicious innuendos that have been launched against J. Edgar Hoover since his death did in fact have their origin in Moscow - and the Soviet archives made public since 1991 back it all up. Andrew does sometimes go into tedious detail, but this may be necessary for those without a rudimentary understanding of the history of Soviet espionage. (The section on the Cambridge Five is especially illuminating - I would also recommend "Degenerate Moderns" by E. Michael Jones to anyone who wishes to further study that subject.) I especially agreed with Andrew's conclusion in that the collapse of the Soviet empire has revealed the traditional faultline between East and West that has existed since the division of the Roman Empire in the fourth century A.D., which culminated in 1054 with the Eastern Schism that shattered the unity of the Christian Church. The cultural and political differences between East and West have been almost 1700 years in the making and sadly will not disappear overnight. My only complaint about the book is the surprisingly large number of typographical errors, particlularly in regard to foreign names; however, this is of minor importance and does not diminish the book's effectiveness. Hopefully that minor problem will be corrected in subsequent printings.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Look Behind The Closed Doors of the KGB!
Review: From this book we learn of one of the most incredible stories to yet emerge from the history of the Cold War; the tale of this Russian defector who had laboriously hand-scribed an astonishing archive detailing the history of hundreds of thousands of secret KGB files. One is breathlessly swept along by two elements in this true story; first, by the tale of the defector himself, who calmly, deliberately and systematically copied the records of so many cases of surveillance, mistreatment, harassment, torture, and murder by KGB agents over the decades at great personal risk to himself and his family, and second, by the tales of horror these files contain. The defector himself worked for decades as the chief archivist for the foreign intelligence division of the KGB. Part of his duties was to extensively check and then seal each of the hundreds of thousands of cases on file, which gave him unhindered access to all of the secrets of the decades of KGB activity. Of course, one has to ask oneself the most important question; why? Apparently the defector had long ago become badly disillusioned by the nature of the Soviet government and its ritualistic suppression of human rights, especially by its record of systematic silencing of both domestic and international dissidents. Faced with a series of decisions about what to do, he eventually drifted into copying the records as a quiet act of protest, soon the records, smuggled out in his clothing, pockets, inside his socks,shoes, or his underwear, soon grew to fantastic proportions. The tales of KGB abuse and excess are horrifying to read about, staggering the imagination both in terms of the extent they reached, and also in terms of the absolute lunacy of much of it. It extended from assassination attempts to infiltration of civil rights leader's entourages, from tales of murder and mayhem in the days of the Bolsheviks to stories of deep-cover agents still active when the book was published, from secretly booby-trapped arm caches to hate mail and bomb campaigns in the United States. As amazing as the laundry list of misdeeds may be, what is so incredible is that most of it was so singularly unsuccessful in both conception and execution, illustrating just how culturally inept the KGB was, and how badly misconceived most of this mayhem was. This is a fascinating book, written in a very readable and entertaining fashion. The difficulties in writing it and the risks associated with smugglingit out of the Soviet Union read like something out of a John LeCarre novel. Yet because of its considerable length and its subject matter, it is a slow and time-consuming read. I enjoyed reading it, and recommend it for anyone interested in just how energetic and devilishly inspired yet motley cast of KGB characters were over a period of almost eighty years.
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