My comment on Marc Bennett’s article Elite Russian spy unit ‘given job of sowing chaos in Europe’ in The Times, 10 October 2019.
The western thinking goes along the lines of specialized units and members of intelligence, while ignoring other enduring aspects of the legacy of the Communist dictatorship.
Vyacheslav Molotov proclaimed in the 1930s: “Every toiler a security agent”. He also said that millions were helping in the work of the Soviet intelligence.
The system relied on millions of prying eyes. The whole Communist criminal state was one big intelligence agency, not just in the Soviet Union, but in each of the Communist countries.
Has this really changed? I don’t think so.