Interview with Lieutenant Colonel K.G. Preobrazhensky, Former Aide to the Head of Scientific and Technical Intelligence of the SVR KGB USSR.
Exclusive Interview with the “Russian West” Portal: Lieutenant Colonel K. G. Preobrazhensky, Former Aide to the Head of Scientific and Technical Intelligence of the SVR of the KGB of the USSR.
Konstantin Preobrazhensky — intelligence officer and writer, retired KGB lieutenant colonel.
1980–85 — TASS correspondent in Tokyo.
1987–91 — aide to the head of Scientific and Technical Intelligence of the KGB of the USSR.
In 2003, fleeing persecution for his whistle-blowing speeches about the KGB in the 1990s, he moved to the United States, where he was granted political asylum.
Author of books: “KGB in Russian Emigration” (New York, 2007), “KGB in Japan” (Moscow, 2000), “The Spy Who Loved Japan” (Tokyo, 1994), “Unknown Japan” (Moscow, 1993), “How to Become Japanese” (Moscow, 1989), “Sports Kimono” (Moscow, 1985), “Bamboo Sword” (Moscow, 1982)
A classic of modern Russian literature: the novellas “Karate Begins with Bows” and “The Very New Old Pagoda”, written at the age of 22, were included by the Leningrad Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the academic anthology “Soviet Writers on Japan, 1917–87” (Leningrad, 1987)
Sasha Shans: Konstantin! First question: what religious faith do you adhere to?
Konstantin Preobrazhensky: Orthodox. I am a member of the part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia that has survived, despite Putin’s machinations, and has not united with the Moscow Patriarchate, which is run by KGB agents.
S.Sh.: In a nutshell, how did you come to believe in God?
K.P.: I never “came” to it. I was born that way. From birth I sensed that God exists. I remember playing church as a child: I would wrap a sheet around myself, pretending it was a cassock, and walk around the apartment swinging a censer made of plasticine. My parents chuckled but said neither “yes” nor “no” — they, too, kept their faith hidden. Later I learned that some Russian saints also played at church in childhood. It was the voice of my priest-ancestors speaking in me. After all, my surname belongs to the clerical estate. In the 18th century, one of my forebears was the rector of the Transfiguration Church, from whose name he and his descendants got the surname.
S.Sh.: Today, as the American media report, you are the most consistent critic of Putin for his Soviet practice of using religious figures in subversive and espionage work against the West. But here is a question: with Orthodoxy and Russian (that is, those from Russia) immigration it is more or less clear, but what about Protestant Slavic immigration as a whole? This immigration has turned out to be primarily Ukrainian, Moldovan, Belarusian, and, last of all, Russian. How can such immigration — I mean non-Russian — be controlled by and subordinated to the FSB? Or are Putin’s agents so well-informed and influential that they can hold former Soviet pastors by the throat because of their past involvement in persecuting their own co-religionists? After all, under new laws, exposing them leads to criminal prosecution and disgraceful deportation. Or is there something else, not as crude as I assumed?
K.P.: We are all native not so much of Russia or Ukraine as of the former Soviet Union or the former Russian Empire. This new national division confuses us ourselves. And the KGB that handled us was Soviet, not Ukrainian or Moldovan; there were only branches of the all-union KGB. Its structure has been preserved to this day. Chekists from all the former Soviet republics, even including some Baltic ones, still form a single community. They are friends, they gather in Moscow for alumni reunions of the Chekist schools. We are all former Soviet citizens, and the former Soviet KGB, whose center is in Moscow, still deals with us.
And for this purpose, the EM directorate was created. On the FSB side, these are the tentacles of the former KGB for work among emigrants; the EM department has its numerous FSB operatives in all embassies and consulates. From there, Putin’s people run the agent network that abounds among Protestants. That is why Ukrainian, Moldovan, and other pastors — agents (it must be especially emphasized that these are largely people from the VSEKhB) and not only pastors but also embedded agents of influence — work for Moscow. Because in Soviet times (few know this) they were agents of all-union subordination, not republican. Their personnel files were kept in Moscow, in the Fifth Directorate of the KGB. This was considered a great honor.
As for the new American laws, we must actively use them ourselves. It is quite possible to prove that this or that pastor collaborated with the KGB in Soviet times and continues to do so now. “By their fruits you will know them…”
One can achieve their deportation, just as is happening even now with Nazi war criminals. And Putin’s agents of influence are indeed strong; they exist even among Americans. Still, America has retained instruments of democracy, which we can and must use. We need to organize at least one show trial of exposed KGB agents. Only then will they quiet down.
S.Sh.: In your opinion, could pastors from the officially Soviet-loyal church, for example the VSEKhB or the “autonomists,” freely leave the USSR as refugees during that same Soviet regime? After all, as many sources show, they all had contact with the KGB, and it is not excluded that the majority of them signed a pledge and were career informants.
K.P.: Of course they could. The KGB shamelessly exploits American religious freedom. Americans have preserved a reverent and sacred attitude toward faith — after all, this is a country of religious emigrants. The idea that many Moscow spies are among them now sounds sacrilegious to many Americans! And the KGB cleverly latched onto this emigration. Americans have an incredibly deep conviction that faith and state are separate things. Even now, after the completion of a massive KGB spy operation to seize the Church Abroad, many Americans refuse to believe that their Russian friends are capable of such sacrilege!
S.Sh. As is known, many ministers from official churches freely traveled abroad during Soviet times, while others were given prison camp sentences for wanting to leave. And later, these ministers safely relocated to America under refugee status. How could the KGB, during the USSR era, let such people go free, or lose its own agents?
Or perhaps Putin was joking when he recently said at a press conference: “We have no former ones; we just move from one quality to another.” That is, if someone gets off the hook of the security services, then he is a traitor, a turncoat — an outcast! Or if one stays on the hook, wherever he is, he must continue cooperation. Are there other options?
K.P. While marveling at how pastor-agents so easily obtained refugee status (which real persecuted Protestants sometimes got with great difficulty), we must remember that there are also plenty of Soviet agents among Americans. The reason is that leftist views, which were implanted into the American intelligentsia also with the help of the KGB (NKVD) in the 1930s, are widespread in America.
Putin’s words about there supposedly being no former ones are a threat to the Chekists so that they do not defect to the West. In reality, not only are there former ones, but many of them. These Chekist intelligence officers who defected to the West and brought important information with them.
Getting off the KGB hook is very easy: it is enough to publicly declare it. As for Protestant believers recruited by the KGB or current Russian intelligence, it is not so easy for them. Of course, they need to go to American counterintelligence and tell everything.
But what to do if they have already harmed America? The question is indeed complex. They need to turn to lawyers, because the KGB will not get off them anyway, but will drag them into the abyss of cooperation. Even death will not save them, because agent files are kept eternally at the Lubyanka. The KGB will harass their children.
S.Sh. You have met with various people, from prisoners to pastors; what is your impression of the Protestant Slavic immigration?
K.P. Some, oddly enough, have retained a warm, positive attitude toward the USSR period, when they were, so to speak, persecuted. Some say: “— Ah, if only the Soviet authorities had not persecuted believers, everything would have been fine!” And they say this as if the conversation were not about them! Alas, the Soviet authorities could not help but do this! Because communism is a religion. In order to implant it, you must destroy the old one. Another thing I noticed is that among pastors there are practically no former prisoners.
S.Sh. Where do you get such information?
K.P. Last year I was in Seattle at a conference of former prisoners for faith. I was struck by the fact that there was not a single currently active pastor in America who had suffered in Soviet times for their religious views and activities.
S.Sh. Is there a positive future in churches with such leaders as Adam Bendoruk, Slavik Radchuk, Victor Prokhor, Nikolai Kotyakov, Nikolai Tachinsky, Zhenya Yakovlev? If there is, what does that future look like — in your view? And if not! Then what should be done?
K.P. I am not personally acquainted with these people, but I have heard about them. And I don’t even need to hear! What can I say about these people? It’s enough to look at what the Slavic Protestant immigration represents. “By their deeds you will know them.” So, based on their deeds, I express my opinion:
“— Maybe it’s offensive to you, but their deeds are YOU. Their face is YOUR face. I will not be hypocritical. Today, through the fault of your leaders, over a twenty-year period, you have clearly, on all counts, vividly shown everyone:
- YOU are an absolute ZERO. Yes! Yes, ZERO!
Your emigration is a ZERO as a social force and voice!
You are a ZERO as an active, organized community!
You are a ZERO as a voice in defense of the persecuted!
You are a ZERO as a society interested in and concerned about the emigration quota due to ongoing persecution in some places of the former USSR, including Russia!
In the spiritual aspect, you are an even greater ZERO!
What was expected of you was not what you are today!
A loaded question in this connection: how many of your people are sitting in America? How many are under deportation and have already been deported? Turn to your leaders; this is their concern, this is their spiritual marriage, this should be their pain, like a father’s for a lost son. And how many families have been broken because of this, how many lives have been crippled?
What will they say to you? — Get away! Vanish, you unclean thing! And how many former prisoners of conscience remain among you alive? Do you even have a fund to help sick and needy former and current prisoners of conscience? I know that you have two completely impoverished associations of former prisoners. And this against the backdrop of the luxurious life, the millionaire lives, of some of your well-known pastors and so-called evangelists. This is your shame! This is your face!
And another loaded question: why do the JEWS have everything completely opposite and unequivocally on all counts? Because those who collaborated with the KGB have been in the position of outcasts among them to this day!
So, until you get out from under control or throw out the leadership of those churches, ‘Brotherhoods, and Unions,’ who have plainly pushed you lower than the baseboard, which means from under the control of the security services, you yourselves will remain in the position of outcasts!
And how else?! You managed to endure during the period of repression, but before this bunch of adventurers, do you lack the spirit?
S.Sh. Yes, your answer is uncompromising and radical, and most importantly, exhaustive! Another question: how can one determine whether a given church is under the control of the KGB here, in America?
K.P. To do that, you need to ask your pastor a test question, which I always ask local Russian emigrants to identify KGB agents among them: “Is it true that the KGB is in power in present-day Russia?” If he answers like this: “What are you talking about, the KGB no longer exists, you have outdated information!” — then, that means he is an agent.
Recently, I spoke about this method of identifying agents on one of the Russian radio channels in America. Such a scandal erupted! It turned out that very many people talk like this. They even called me at home and said that I was exaggerating! So, I hit the nail on the head! Well, jokes aside!
Here are the signs that you are under KGB control here in America:
-
You are led by those who, during the USSR, were pastors in registered churches. After all, registration was granted by the Council for Religious Affairs, a former unit of the KGB! Registration could only be obtained in exchange for recruiting the pastor into the ranks of KGB agents.
-
Your church, fellowship, or any association does not know and does not want to know those who opposed the Soviet regime and suffered for it. Your leaders scornfully, in retaliation, call such people “Politician.” Why is this a sign? Because Putin set the intelligence service the task of rehabilitating Soviet power in the West.
-
Your leaders hush up the fact of persecution of believers in the former USSR and do nothing to defend those persecuted today. They even talk you out of protests. And those who engage in Christian human rights work are harassed, isolated, and scornfully labeled “Politician.”
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Your church or your association does not fund Christian human rights work and waves it off.
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Last and most important! You are under control if your pastors have not condemned and do not condemn those who collaborated with the godless Soviet regime.
If they do not acknowledge that this regime was godless and, consequently, cooperating with it was a crime before God!
If they invent all sorts of pretexts to justify this. For example, they say that we must forgive everything, forget the past, they didn’t understand anything, and so on. After all, this argumentation is not Christian! It contradicts the very spirit of Christianity! But contrary to their own words and arguments, they still openly despise and isolate from the people those who fought against the godless regime, and now they call the traitors to repentance.
“…Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”! It was for this that you once received refugee status. And now—you wickedly hate, by your indifference, by your deeds you hate, your deeds are a clear indicator, and you hate at the behest of your leaders, those who at God’s call carried out the work for your own liberation. So it seems your immigration turned out to be a viper in the bosom of those who suffered to bring about that emigration! Can one after this submit to pastors—agents still cooperating with the KGB? “By their fruits you will know them!” Thank you!
S.Sh. Thank you! God bless you and us!
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