The book features two KGB-produced dictionaries that outline the agency's strategies in offensive and defensive intelligence operations. These translated documents reveal the methods and targets of the KGB, providing valuable insights into its activities. The content is designed to engage both general readers and specialists interested in the intricacies of Soviet intelligence work.
The Mitrokhin Archive tells for the first time in full the startling story of Soviet attempts to infiltrate the West. Working from Vasili Mitrokhin's archive and his own unrivalled expertise in the history of intelligence, Christopher Andrew has created an extraordinary picture of a USSR committed to covert activity at home and abroad to maintain Communism. From technological espionage to the cultivation of agents of influence, the KGB's methods ranged from financial inducements through sexual blackmail to assassination as they pursued their aims. What emerges is a state apparatus devoted to - even obsessed by - gathering information yet quite incapable of analysing it realistically.