Academician of counterintelligence. Heads of Soviet foreign intelligence Vladimir Antonov At the end of his career

Personality

This man's APPEARANCES were deceiving. Slightly plump, intelligent face, thoughtful look. His glasses with thin metal frames made him look more like a university professor than a high-ranking leader of the Stalin-era Lubyanka. However, he was a real “academician” in the world of secret services, a talented analyst and organizer, a real master of counter-espionage. We will not give unambiguous assessments or judge his actions from our distance. We will only present to the readers certain fragments from the life of Pyotr Fedotov. The personal file of the general-chekist, stored in a secret archive, with the strict inscription “Keep forever” on the yellowed cover, will help us with this.

RED ARMY FIGHTER

Pyotr Fedotov was born on December 18, 1901 in St. Petersburg. His father Vasily Fedotovich came from peasants in the village of Staroye Rakhino, Starorussky district, Novgorod province. For many years he worked as a conductor and driver of a St. Petersburg horse-drawn horse, and shortly before his death in 1905, he got a job as a watchman at the Ministry of Education. Petra's mother Pelageya Ivanovna also came from Novgorod peasants, spent her entire life farming and raising four children: three daughters and a son. During the terrible blockade winter of 1942, she shared the fate of thousands of Leningraders who found themselves in the Peskarevskoye cemetery.

Until the age of fifteen, Peter lived dependently on his older sisters, seamstresses Alexandra and Anna, and graduated from primary school and the four-year city school named after Mendeleev. In 1915, he began independent work, joining the newspaper expedition of the Petrograd Post Office as a newspaper distributor and packer, and in the evenings he worked as a projectionist in private cinemas, first in “Mars”, and then in “Magic Dreams”.

In October 1917, Fedotov enrolled in a cell of Bolshevik sympathizers, and at the beginning of 1919, at less than 18 years old, he voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Army: he is an ordinary soldier of the 1st Petrograd Communist Brigade, fighting with the White Guards on the Eastern and Southern Fronts . In the battles near Kupyansk and Valuyki he was shell-shocked and wounded. In the summer of 1919, Peter was accepted into the RCP (b) and sent to political courses at the political department of the Southern Front.

As a student of the courses, Fedotov took part in hostilities against the units of General Mamontov, and then he was sent as a political instructor of a company to the 1st Revolutionary Discipline Regiment, which fights in the North Caucasus with the remnants of the White Guard units in the Cossack villages, in Chechnya and Dagestan.

At the end of 1920, the regiment suffered heavy losses and was disbanded, and the young political instructor Fedotov was transferred to work in a special department of the 8th Army as a censor-controller. From that moment on, fate connected the former Petrograd postal worker with the state security agencies for many years.

OPERATIONAL "UNIVERSITIES"

Less than a year has passed since a capable twenty-year-old guy becomes the head of the intelligence department of the Grozny branch of the GPU. It was then that his first career promotion came to him. In 1922, in the spirit of that time, imbued with the romance of the revolution, Pyotr Fedotov “was awarded a leather suit for his hard work and setting up an information apparatus in the district and especially in the industries.” Later, other encouragements and awards will come to him, and two Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, as well as the Order of Kutuzov 1st degree, the Red Star and the Badge of Honor will appear on his chest. Moreover, he will receive most of them during the Great Patriotic War. But all this will come later, years later. And then, back in 1923, Fedotov led his first major operation to disarm the Achkhoy-Martan region of Chechnya and defeat Mazy Shadayev’s gang.

A year later, a new test: participation in the development and destruction of large (up to 10 thousand people) armed formations of Sheikh Ali Mitaev. At the same time, in the first performance appraisal for the deputy head of the Eastern department of the Chechen regional department of the OGPU, Petr Fedotov, his immediate superior wrote the following review about the young security officer: “As someone who knows well all the specifics of Eastern work in his position, he is irreplaceable. An excellent Easterner in terms of purely analytical work, he also knows operational branch. Extremely diligent, hardworking and disciplined, a good friend, not decisive. Has initiative, but not energetic enough."

In 1925-1926 The disarmament of Chechnya and Dagestan began. Having carried out thorough preparatory work, the deputy chief of the operational group for the region, Fedotov, led the information and intelligence services, the degree of organization of which was highly appreciated by the command. This made it possible to correctly navigate the situation during operations, ensuring their success. At the same time, thanks to the operational positions created by Fedotov among the local population, it was possible to eliminate the armed formations of Sheikhs Ilyasov and Akhaev, and subsequently Sheikh Aksaltinsky, without the involvement of Red Army troops.

In 1927, Fedotov was transferred to Rostov-on-Don to the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU for the North Caucasus Territory. Here, as before, he was involved in so-called political banditry. Therefore, the routes of his business trips remained the same. As a rule, it was Chechnya. Feedback from the new management about detective Fedotov is still high: “He is a very conscientious, honest and dedicated employee. He knows his work well, shows great initiative in it. He is slow in completing tasks, which pays off with extreme thoroughness of the work and a thoughtful approach to it.”

At the turn of the 1920-30s. Significant qualitative changes are taking place in the organs of the OGPU. In accordance with party guidelines, the guidelines for their activities change. A wave of political processes like the “Industrial Party case” initiated in Moscow swept across the country. In every republic, region or territory, party leaders demanded that security officers keep up with the capital. As a result, local mini-trials arose, where representatives of the old technical and creative intelligentsia, former tsarist officers and military experts of the Red Army found themselves in the docks. A little later, after the murder of Kirov, their place was taken by supporters of the party opposition, both real and fictitious.

During this difficult period, Pyotr Fedotov, as his career grew, increasingly focused on work in the secret political department of the North Caucasus OGPU PP. Participation in dispossession, development of Trotskyist and Socialist Revolutionary groups, local intelligentsia. All this became an integral part of his operational biography. Such was the time when “revolutions are not made with white gloves.” At the same time, the main line of his activity remained the fight against the nationalist underground.

Interesting fact. While serving in such an ideological department, Fedotov remained non-partisan. His party tenure, which began in 1919, was interrupted by him on his own initiative in 1922. Later in his autobiography, he explained this situation as follows: “... due to political immaturity and a careless attitude towards party duties and assignments, neglecting the advice of senior comrades to study and actively participate in the life of the party organization, I left the party and mechanically dropped out of its ranks, which, with the onset of a more mature age, I always resolutely condemned.”

The “second coming” to the ranks of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of the senior lieutenant of state security (which corresponded to the rank of major of the Red Army) Pyotr Fedotov took place only at the beginning of 1937. By this time, on the left side of his tunic, the “Honored” badge, especially revered in the KGB environment, had been shining for two years already. NKVD worker." Wise with experience and in the prime of his life, the counterintelligence analyst was then considered one of the leading experts on the North Caucasus. Soon he will be transferred to Moscow. Probably the most difficult period of his life will begin. Unlike many, he will be able to walk on “thin ice” without failing...

REPRESSIVE YEARS

After the arrest of the long-term chief of Lubyanka, Genrikh Yagoda, and his people in the authorities, the need for personnel in the central apparatus was high. In June 1937, together with a group of other employees of the North Caucasian NKVD, Fedotov found himself in the capital and until October worked as an assistant to the head of the secretariat, after which he finally received a “core” position - head of the 7th (eastern) department of the 4th th Secret Political Department (SPO) of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD of the USSR. This time marks the peak of Yezhov’s “operational strikes,” carried out on direct orders from the Kremlin. In July 1938, Fedotov became deputy chief, and from September 1939 - chief of the 4th department.

Fedotov’s appointment to such a high post occurred after the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs was headed by the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) Lavrentiy Beria, and the GUGB was headed by Vsevolod Merkulov, the ex-head of a department of the same party committee. Fedotov turned out to be one of the few people who worked in Yezhov’s apparatus who was not rejected by Beria; moreover, he received a promotion.

Of course, Peter’s seventeen-year stay in the North Caucasus played a certain role, where the then head of the Transcaucasian OGPU, Lavrentiy Beria, could have known about his work. But this is not the main thing. Fedotov was never listed as a close associate of Yezhov or any of his loyal associates who ended up on the chopping block along with his people's commissar. He was an example of a typical “service man” who pulled his weight. In addition, he was not on the list of those who “distinguished themselves” in operational and investigative work in the meat grinder in 1937, but was better known as a good analyst.

However, in fairness, it should be noted that, having become the head of the SPO, the central body of the “secret political police” of the USSR, Fedotov simply could not help but be involved in acts that were later called illegal mass political repressions. Despite the fact that by that time their peak had already passed, his signature remained on the arrest warrants for many innocent people.

In September 1940, when the whole country was living in anticipation of an imminent war, State Security Commissioner 3rd Rank Fedotov was appointed to a new responsible position - the head of the 3rd (counterintelligence) department of the NKVD GUGB, which was transformed six months later into the 2nd Directorate of the new People's Commissariat - the State security (NKGB).

Fedotov's appointment as chief of Soviet counterintelligence coincided with the beginning of the development by strategists of the Third Reich of operational plans for the invasion of the USSR, which later received the code name "Barbarossa", which entailed the intensification of the work of German intelligence diplomats in Moscow. Therefore, the new head of the 2nd Directorate saw his primary task as making it as difficult as possible for the employees of the embassy of Nazi Germany, as well as the embassies of its allied countries, primarily Japan, to collect information.

The NKVD counterintelligence officers, led by Pyotr Fedotov, sought to prevent so-called “tourist” trips around the country by employees of German, Japanese and other diplomatic missions. Their movements and contacts were carefully monitored. Sources were acquired among embassy staff, as well as from correspondents of foreign newspapers and news agencies. Rarely, but still it was possible to catch incriminating evidence and recruit diplomats directly.

Under Fedotov, perhaps one of the most valuable secret counterintelligence officers of that time appeared in Moscow, the future Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov (“Colonist”), who began working in the capital through the SPO, but in 1940 was transferred to the 2nd Control. The unique ability to transform this Ural “nugget” opened up significant operational opportunities for the security officers.

According to the idea born at Lubyanka, Colonist, under the guise of a test pilot at a Moscow aircraft plant, was set up for employees of a number of embassies, including Germany and Japan. The calculation turned out to be correct, and foreign intelligence diplomats began to show increased interest in the NKVD agent. Thanks to the Colonist, counterintelligence became aware of their intentions, plans and aspirations. The sharpness and seriousness of the combinations carried out by the Colonist is evidenced by the fact that Fedotov personally supervised his actions.

In the spring of 1941, Fedotov's subordinates achieved great success. Thanks to a cleverly carried out event, they managed to introduce auditory control technology into the office of the main German intelligence officer in the USSR, military attaché General Ernst Köstring. This made it possible in the last pre-war months to report almost daily to the country's leadership about the moods and preparations of the Germans. Indicative, by the way, is the transcript of May 31, 1941, which sheds light on the root causes of Stalin’s serious fears of provocations from Germany. Kestring, talking in his office with the Slovak envoy, declared: “Some kind of provocation must be carried out here. We must ensure that some German is killed here, and thereby cause a war...”

The German and Japanese embassies were not the only objects of operational attention on the part of Fedotov and his employees. The 2nd Directorate also carried out active and very effective work in relation to the diplomatic missions of Great Britain, Finland, Turkey, Iran, Slovakia and other countries.

MOSCOW UNDERGROUND

The Great Patriotic War posed new tasks for the Soviet intelligence services. There have also been organizational changes. In July 1941, the NKGB again merged with the NKVD, which was still led by Beria. Fedotov remained the head of the 2nd Directorate, but now the NKVD, which was entrusted with the following tasks: recording and developing German intelligence agencies and carrying out counterintelligence operations; identification, development and liquidation of enemy intelligence agencies in Moscow; operational work in prisoner of war and internment camps; observation and control over the developments of local NKVD bodies; accounting and operational search for enemy agents, traitors and accomplices of the fascist occupiers; protection of the diplomatic corps.... Later, when the front line began to move west, another one was added to them: ensuring the clearing of cities and areas liberated from the occupiers from enemy agents left here and organizing operational work in them.

But the hottest days for the subordinates of Pyotr Fedotov and Pavel Sudoplatov came when the Nazis stood at the gates of the capital. In case the Germans captured Moscow, a powerful underground was created, staffed by security officers, their secret assistants, and citizens who voluntarily expressed a desire to carry out special tasks behind enemy lines.

The scale of the preparatory work done is simply impressive. The occupiers were in for big trouble in Moscow. According to the plans of the Lubyanka leadership, 243 people were transferred to an illegal position, of which they formed 36 groups that received operational combat, sabotage and reconnaissance missions. 78 people were trained for individual implementation of reconnaissance and sabotage and terrorist actions.

In the capital and Moscow region there were safe houses, warehouses with weapons, ammunition, explosives and incendiary substances, fuel, food, as well as safe houses under the guise of small workshops, shops, hairdressing salons, in which radio equipment, weapons were to be repaired and special equipment for the underground was made. All groups were provided with carefully hidden radio stations. Illegal immigrants received the necessary documents, got a job or were already working as artisans, sellers of stalls and pharmacies, teachers, artists, drivers, watchmen, church ministers, etc. A significant part of the Moscow underground was being prepared for infiltration into the administrative apparatus of the occupation authorities and the intelligence agencies of the German army.

With each operational group and individuals, tasks, legends for legalization, communication methods and passwords were thoroughly worked out, classes were conducted on, so to speak, special combat training, behavior in case of detention and interrogation. Buildings and objects that could have been used by the Nazis were studied by members of the task forces for possible sabotage and terrorist attacks. The families of the underground participants were taken to the rear areas.

The head of this entire “economy” was assigned directly to the head of the 2nd Directorate of the NKVD, Pyotr Fedotov, who, according to the plan of the leadership of the People’s Commissariat, having gone illegal, was supposed to coordinate the activities of all the intelligence groups left in the capital.

At the beginning of 1943, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs underwent another reorganization. As before the war, the NKGB was separated from it. Pyotr Fedotov still led the department under #2 in the newly recreated People's Commissariat. At the same time, several more tasks were added to the counterintelligence department: operational maintenance of industrial facilities, the fight against anti-Soviet elements within the country and the nationalist armed formations of the UPA and OUN in Ukraine, as well as the “forest brothers” in the Baltic states. Among the activities carried out by the security officers of the 2nd Directorate of the NKGB, the counterintelligence support of the conferences of the heads of government of the allied powers - the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in Tehran (November-December 1943), Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July-August) stands out. 1945).

MOLOTOV - CHIEF AND... DEFENDER

After the war, there was a change in leadership at Lubyanka. Key positions in the MGB system were occupied by the people of Viktor Abakumov, head of the GUKR "Smersh" NGO of the USSR. Lavrentiy Beria was “thrown” by Stalin to solve the “nuclear problem”, and Vsevolod Merkulov, who seemed too soft to the leader (“the Minister of State Security should be feared”), was sent to another job.

At the end of 1947, the structure of the Soviet security agencies underwent changes again. A centralized analytical center is being created to process information received through foreign policy and military intelligence channels. This was Stalin's response to the creation of the US CIA. The new body was called the Information Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and included the 1st (intelligence) Directorate of the MGB and the GRU of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. The head of the Committee was Vyacheslav Molotov, and his deputy was Lieutenant General Pyotr Fedotov, whose penchant for analytical work had long been known in Lubyanka and Staraya Square.

Fedotov’s contribution to the development of domestic intelligence is characterized in a military way by dry, but quite succinct lines from his performance appraisal (1951): “... He made a lot of efforts in strengthening the foreign intelligence apparatus, in particular in selecting and replenishing it with relevant employees, "and also on working out practical tasks for organizing intelligence work in each individual country. Conducted a number of activities aimed at strengthening the central apparatus and improving its work."

In February 1952, the Information Committee was abolished, and Fedotov, removed from the staff, had to wait a year for a new appointment. This was again not an easy period of his life. Molotov was threatened with arrest, after which, it is possible, Fedotov could also end up in a cell... But this time too, fate was favorable to him.

After Stalin's death, the Ministry of State Security merged with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose head was again Beria. At the same time, Fedotov again received the post of head of the counterintelligence department, where he worked for a year and a half. The arrest of Beria and the defeat of his “team” from among the generals of the state security and internal affairs bodies in no way affected the fate of Fedotov, who continued to regularly head Soviet counterintelligence, including as part of a new department - the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Apparently, Molotov helped Pyotr Vasilyevich not to become one of Beria’s “conspirators” with all the ensuing consequences.

AT THE END OF YOUR SERVICE CAREER

What was the secret of Fedotov’s “longevity” in leadership positions at Lubyanka? His high professionalism and diligence played a positive role in this. He, apparently, never sought to play any independent role, not to mention participation in the behind-the-scenes apparatus, and even more so in the political struggle (let us recall the fact of his departure from the party at the dawn of his service in the organs). But the main thing is that his personality is not biased by such figures as Yezhov, Beria or Abakumov.

Pyotr Fedotov’s career received its first and very serious crack in 1956, when, after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the exposure of Stalin’s cult of personality at it, he was “exiled” to the KGB Higher School to the position of deputy head of the editorial and publishing department. It is noteworthy that the persecution of Fedotov, accused of participating in mass repressions, occurred at a time when the chairman of the KGB of the USSR was none other than Ivan Serov, on whose conscience lay not only illegal arrests and almost all operations to resettle repressed peoples, but and hundreds of death sentences, which he signed with his own hand, being repeatedly the chairman at meetings of the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR.

Perhaps Fedotov’s disgrace testified to the flaring up struggle in the upper echelons of power, when Khrushchev’s protege (Serov) sought to remove from a key post in state security a person close to Molotov, who had gone over to the opposition to the new party leader? It's possible.

However, for Fedotov this was not the worst option, if we remember the fate of his colleagues Pavel Sudoplatov and Naum Eitingon (Sudoplatov’s deputy), who were sentenced to many years in prison, or Pavel Fitin (former chief of foreign intelligence), who ran a photo studio in Moscow. Not to mention the executed Viktor Abakumov and Solomon Milishtein.

They “finished off” Fedotov three years later, when the KGB found itself under the recent First Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, Alexander Shelepin, who was apparently in a hurry to purge the Committee of Stalin-era generals. As a result, Pyotr Fedotov was demoted, expelled from the party and fired from the state security agencies “due to inadequacy for his position,” but at the same time he retained his awards and, most importantly, his pension, taking into account the need to support and feed his minor daughter.

Expelled from Lubyanka and excommunicated from the business to which he devoted his whole life, the seriously ill Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov soon died (1963). For the first time, his name and portrait appeared only three years ago in the book “Lubyanka, 2. From the history of domestic counterintelligence,” prepared by FSB officers.

Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Fedotov. Wikipedia has articles about other people named Fedotov, Semyon. Semyon Vasilievich Fedotov Date of birth ... Wikipedia

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Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Fedotov. Fedotov, Peter: Fedotov, Peter Vasilyevich (1900 −1963) head of the NKVD, MGB and KGB, lieutenant general. Fedotov, Pyotr Ivanovich Hero of the Soviet Union, military figure (cavalry) ... Wikipedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Fedotov. Fedotov, Semyon: Fedotov, Semyon Aleksandrovich (born 1992) Russian football player. Fedotov, Semyon Vasilievich (1913 1980) participant in the Great Patriotic War, rifle commander... ... Wikipedia

Fedotov Alexander Vasilievich Encyclopedia "Aviation"

Fedotov Alexander Vasilievich- A. V. Fedotov Fedotov Alexander Vasilyevich (19321984) Soviet test pilot, Major General of Aviation (1983), Hero of the Soviet Union (1966), Honored Test Pilot of the USSR (1969), Master of Sports of International Class (1976).… ... Encyclopedia "Aviation"

- (1932 84) Honored Test Pilot of the USSR (1966), Major General of Aviation (1983), Hero of the Soviet Union (1966), Master of Sports of International Class (1976). Testing of a number of experimental supersonic aircraft, including MiG 21, E 266. World... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (1932 1984) Soviet test pilot, Major General of Aviation (1983), Hero of the Soviet Union (1966), Honored Test Pilot of the USSR (1969), Master of Sports of International Class (1976). In the Soviet Army since 1950. Graduated from the flight school (1953), ... ... Encyclopedia of technology

Books

Neonatology and pathology of newborn animals. Textbook, Sergey Vasilievich Fedotov, Gennady Mikhailovich Udalov, Natalya Sergeevna Belozerzeva. The textbook describes the basic physiological processes occurring in the body of the fetus and mother; features of the formation, growth and development of newborns; diagnostics, therapy and...
Veterinary obstetrics with neonatology and biotechnology of animal reproduction. Workshop, Sergey Vasilievich Fedotov. The training manual covers educational material on veterinary obstetrics, neonatology and biotechnology of animal reproduction, taking into account the requirements of the modular training system. For a deeper...

The head of Soviet counterintelligence during the war, Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov, was a controversial personality. In appearance, he resembled a professor or a doctor, but in fact he was one of the most experienced heads of state security agencies.

Film Professor of Counterintelligence
Year of release: 2005 Genre: Documentary Director: Evgeniy Dyurich

Academician of counterintelligence

Personality

RED ARMY FIGHTER

OPERATIONAL "UNIVERSITIES"

A year later, a new test: participation in the development and destruction of large (up to 10 thousand people) armed formations of Sheikh Ali Mitaev. At the same time, in the first performance appraisal for the deputy head of the Eastern Department of the Chechen Regional Department of the OGPU, Pyotr Fedotov, his immediate superior wrote the following review about the young security officer: “As someone who knows all the specifics of Eastern work well, he is irreplaceable in his position. An excellent easterner in terms of purely analytical work, he also knows the operational industry. Extremely diligent, hardworking and disciplined, a good friend, not decisive. He has the initiative, but is not energetic enough.”

In 1927, Fedotov was transferred to Rostov-on-Don to the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU for the North Caucasus Territory. Here, as before, he was involved in so-called political banditry. Therefore, the routes of his business trips remained the same. As a rule, it was Chechnya. Feedback from the new management about detective Fedotov is still high: “A very conscientious, honest and dedicated employee. He knows his work well and shows great initiative in it. He is slow in completing tasks, which pays off with extreme thoroughness of work and a thoughtful approach to it.”

Interesting fact. While serving in such an ideological department, Fedotov remained non-partisan. The party experience that began in 1919 was interrupted by him on his own initiative in 1922. Later in his autobiography, he explained this situation as follows: “... due to political immaturity and a careless attitude towards party duties and assignments, neglecting the advice of senior comrades to study and actively participate in the life of the party organization, I moved away from the party and mechanically dropped out of its ranks, which, with the onset of a more mature age, I always resolutely condemned.”

REPRESSIVE YEARS

After the arrest of the long-term chief of Lubyanka, Genrikh Yagoda, and his people in the authorities, the need for personnel in the central apparatus was high. In June 1937, together with a group of other employees of the North Caucasian NKVD, Fedotov found himself in the capital and until October worked as an assistant to the head of the secretariat, after which he finally received a “profile” position - head of the 7th (eastern) department of the 4th th Secret Political Department (SPO) of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD of the USSR. This time marks the peak of Yezhov’s “operational strikes,” carried out on direct orders from the Kremlin. In July 1938, Fedotov became deputy chief, and from September 1939, chief of the 4th department.

Fedotov’s appointment as chief of Soviet counterintelligence coincided with the beginning of the development by strategists of the Third Reich of operational plans for the invasion of the USSR, which later received the code name “Barbarossa,” which entailed the intensification of the work of German intelligence diplomats in Moscow. Therefore, the new head of the 2nd Directorate saw his primary task as making it as difficult as possible for the employees of the embassy of Nazi Germany, as well as the embassies of its allied countries, primarily Japan, to collect information.

Under Fedotov, perhaps one of the most valuable secret counterintelligence employees of that time appeared in Moscow, the future Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov (“Colonist”), who began working in the capital through the SPO, but in 1940 was transferred to the 2nd Control. The unique ability to transform this Ural “nugget” opened up significant operational opportunities for the security officers.

In the spring of 1941, Fedotov's subordinates achieved great success. Thanks to a cleverly carried out event, they managed to introduce auditory control technology into the office of the main German intelligence officer in the USSR, military attaché General Ernst Köstring. This made it possible in the last pre-war months to report almost daily to the country's leadership about the moods and preparations of the Germans. Indicative, by the way, is the transcript of May 31, 1941, which sheds light on the root causes of Stalin’s serious fears of provocations from Germany. Kestring, talking in his office with the Slovak envoy, declared: “Some kind of provocation must be carried out here. We need to make sure that some German is killed here, and thereby cause a war...”

MOSCOW UNDERGROUND

The Great Patriotic War posed new tasks for the Soviet intelligence services. There have also been organizational changes. In July 1941, the NKGB again merged with the NKVD, which was still led by Beria. Fedotov remained the head of the 2nd Directorate, but now the NKVD, which was entrusted with the following tasks: recording and developing German intelligence agencies and carrying out counterintelligence operations; identification, development and liquidation of enemy intelligence agencies in Moscow; operational work in prisoner of war and internment camps; observation and control over the developments of local NKVD bodies; accounting and operational search for enemy agents, traitors and accomplices of the fascist occupiers; security of the diplomatic corps... Later, when the front line began to move west, another one was added to them: ensuring the clearing of cities and regions liberated from the occupiers from enemy agents left here and organizing operational work in them.

MOLOTOV - CHIEF AND... DEFENDER

After the war, there was a change in leadership at Lubyanka. Key positions in the MGB system were occupied by the people of Viktor Abakumov, head of the GUKR “Smersh” NGO of the USSR. Lavrentiy Beria was “thrown” by Stalin to solve the “nuclear problem”, and Vsevolod Merkulov, who seemed too soft to the leader (“they should be afraid of the Minister of State Security”), was sent to another job.

Fedotov’s contribution to the development of domestic intelligence is characterized in a military way by dry, but quite succinct lines from his performance appraisal (1951): “... He made a lot of efforts in strengthening the foreign intelligence apparatus, in particular in selecting and replenishing it with relevant employees, as well as to work out practical tasks for organizing intelligence work in each individual country. He carried out a number of activities aimed at strengthening the central apparatus and improving its work.”

In February 1952, the Information Committee was abolished, and Fedotov, removed from the staff, had to wait a year for a new appointment. This was again not an easy period of his life. Molotov was threatened with arrest, after which, it is possible, Fedotov could also end up in the cell... But this time too, fate was favorable to him.

AT THE END OF YOUR SERVICE CAREER

What was the secret of Fedotov’s “longevity” in leadership positions at Lubyanka? His high professionalism and diligence played a positive role in this. He, apparently, never sought to play any independent role, not to mention participation in the behind-the-scenes bureaucracy, and even more so in the political struggle (let us just remember the fact of his departure from the party at the dawn of his service in the organs). But the main thing is that his personality is not biased by such figures as Yezhov, Beria or Abakumov.

They “finished off” Fedotov three years later, when the KGB found itself under the recent First Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, Alexander Shelepin, who was apparently in a hurry to clear the Committee of Stalin-era generals. As a result, Pyotr Fedotov was demoted, expelled from the party and fired from the state security agencies “due to inadequacy for his position,” but at the same time he retained his awards and, most importantly, his pension, taking into account the need to support and feed his minor daughter.

Chapter 2. FEDOTOV PETER VASILIEVICH

On September 7, 1946, foreign intelligence of the USSR state security agencies was headed by Lieutenant General Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov, who replaced Pyotr Nikolaevich Kubatkin in this post. The day before his appointment, he was approved as Deputy Minister of State Security.

As we noted above, in May 1947, the state security agencies of the Soviet Union underwent another reorganization. At the suggestion of V.M. Molotov, a centralized analytical center was created under the Council of Ministers of the USSR to process information received through foreign policy and military intelligence channels, as well as from Soviet diplomats in various countries of the world.

This was the response of the Soviet leadership to the creation of a unified intelligence community in the United States led by the Central Intelligence Agency, whose director headed this super agency, while simultaneously being the coordinator of the entire intelligence system of the United States.

Bearing in mind that until 1943, Soviet foreign intelligence did not have an information-analytical unit designed to identify grains of reliable information from the general flow of various intelligence information, including disinformation, Stalin approved the proposal of his closest ally and gave the go-ahead to the creation of the Information Committee ( KI) under the leadership of Molotov.

The “Essays on the History of Russian Foreign Intelligence” on this matter, in particular, says:

“On May 30, 1947, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution on the creation of the Information Committee (CI) under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which was entrusted with the tasks of political, military, scientific and technical intelligence. As a result, the intelligence services of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Defense were merged into a single body, headed by V.M. Molotov, who was at that time Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and at the same time Minister of Foreign Affairs. An experienced security officer, who had previously led the work of intelligence and counterintelligence units of the Ministry of State Security, P.V., was appointed as his deputy, who was in charge of the foreign intelligence section. Fedotov. The Deputy Chairman of the CI was also Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Y. A. Malik and from the Ministry of Defense - F.F. Kuznetsov. They represented the interests of their departments in the Committee.

Such a structure, as conceived by the reformers, should have contributed to better coordination of various intelligence units, focusing their efforts on the main directions, and most importantly, would have made it possible to place intelligence under the direct control of the country's leadership. Abroad, in intelligence countries, the institute of chief residents was created. They had to ensure greater focus on the activities of “legal” residencies based on the foreign policy guidelines of the Soviet government.

The Information Committee existed in this status until February 1949, when, after the departure of V.M. Molotov from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Committee was transferred under the auspices of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its head was the new Minister of Foreign Affairs A.Ya. Vyshinsky. However, he did not remain at the head of CI for long. In September of the same year, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs V.A. was appointed chairman of the Information Committee. Zorin. His first deputy, responsible for the current operational work of all intelligence, became S.R. Savchenko, who previously headed the Ministry of State Security of Ukraine. A P.F. Fedotov remained one of the deputy chairmen of the CI and continued to be involved in the operational activities of foreign intelligence.”

So, in May 1947, 47-year-old Lieutenant General Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov, who earlier, on September 7, 1946, replaced Pyotr Nikolaevich Kubatkin as head of foreign intelligence of state security agencies, became the deputy head of the CI for foreign intelligence. Before joining intelligence, Fedotov headed the 2nd (counterintelligence) directorate of the NKGB and gained fame as one of the most powerful analysts of the Soviet state security agencies.

Pyotr Fedotov was born on December 18, 1900 in St. Petersburg into the family of a horse-car conductor. His father Vasily Fedotovich came from peasants in the village of Staroye Rakhino, Starorussky district, Novgorod province. For many years he served as a conductor and carriage driver on the St. Petersburg city horse-drawn railway, colloquially known as horse-drawn horses, and shortly before his death in 1905, he got a job as a watchman at the Ministry of Public Education of the Russian Empire. Peter's mother Pelageya Ivanovna also traced her ancestry back to the peasants of the Novgorod province, was illiterate and, according to the custom of that time, did not work anywhere, taking care of the household and raising four children: three daughters and her only son.

After the death of his father and until 1915, Peter was dependent on his older sisters, seamstresses Alexandra and Anna. In 1911, he graduated from the three-year city primary school, and in 1916 from the four-year Petrograd School named after D.I. Mendeleev. Having received his education, 15-year-old Peter began to earn his own living and help his mother. In August 1916, he got a job as a newspaper spreader and packer in the newspaper expedition of the Petrograd Post Office, where he served until February 1919. The earnings were small, so in the evenings Peter worked as a projectionist in private cinemas, of which there were a great many in pre-revolutionary Petrograd, first in “Mars”, and then in “Magic Dreams”.

In October 1918, Fedotov joined the CPSU(b). In February 1919, while the White Guard General Yudenich stood at the gates of Petrograd, Peter, who had just turned 18, volunteered for the Red Guard as a private soldier in the 1st Petrograd Communist Brigade. He fought with the White Guards on the Eastern and Southern Fronts. In the battles near Kupyansk and Valuyki he was wounded and shell-shocked. In the summer of 1919, Peter was sent to political courses at the political department of the Southern Front.

As a student of the courses, Fedotov took part in military operations against the army of General Mamontov. In September of the same year, he was appointed political instructor of the company in the 1st Revolutionary Discipline Regiment of the 8th Army, in the ranks of which he fought in the North Caucasus with the remnants of the White Guard units in the Cossack villages, as well as in Chechnya and Dagestan.

At the end of 1920, the regiment suffered heavy losses and was disbanded, and 20-year-old political instructor Pyotr Fedotov was transferred to work in the Special Department of the 8th Army as a censor-controller.

From January 1921, Pyotr Fedotov served in the Chechen district department of the Cheka, which a year later was transformed into the Chechen regional department of the GPU. He alternately held the positions of responsible controller of censorship, head of the information department, and head of the Information department of the Grozny Cheka. In 1922, Pyotr Fedotov “for his hard work and setting up an information apparatus in the district and especially in the oil fields” was awarded a leather suit.

In 1923, as deputy head of the regional GPU department, Fedotov led his first major military operation to defeat Mazy Shadayev’s gang in the Achkhoy-Martan region of Chechnya and confiscate weapons from the population. A year later, he takes part in the development and destruction of large (up to 10 thousand bayonets) armed formations of Shykh Ali Mitaev. In March 1924, he was appointed to the post of commissioner for systematization of materials of the Military Department of the Chechen Regional Department of the GPU. His job description for that period contains the following review: “As someone who knows all the specifics of Eastern work well, he is irreplaceable in his position. An excellent easterner in terms of purely analytical work, he also knows the operational industry. Extremely diligent, hardworking and disciplined, a good friend, indecisive. He has the initiative, but is not energetic enough.”

In January 1925, Pyotr Fedotov was appointed to the position of assistant to the head of the counterintelligence department of the Chechen GPU. Takes part in the disarmament of Chechnya and Dagestan. As an analyst who knows the intelligence and operational situation well in the North Caucasus, he carried out thorough preparatory work, which allowed the leadership of the Red Army to correctly navigate the situation in these areas. During the operation to disarm Chechnya and Dagestan, Fedotov led the information and intelligence services. Thanks to the agent positions he created among the local population, the security officers managed to eliminate the illegal armed formations of Sheikhs Ilyasov and Akhaev, and subsequently Sheikh Aksaltinsky, without the involvement of regular Red Army troops.

In February 1927, Fedotov was transferred to Rostov-on-Don to the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU for the North Caucasus Territory as an investigator. Here, as before in Grozny, he was engaged in the fight against political banditry. He regularly went on business trips to Chechnya and Dagestan, where security officers finished off the remnants of armed nationalist gangs. The leadership of the Plenipotentiary Mission continued to highly appreciate his work. The performance characteristics for that period noted: “A very conscientious, honest and dedicated employee. He knows his work well and shows great initiative in it. He is slow in completing tasks, which pays off with excessive thoroughness in the work and a thoughtful approach to it.”

In October 1930, Fedotov was appointed head of the 6th department of the Information Department of the Plenipotentiary Representative Office of the OGPU in the North Caucasus Territory. A year later, in November 1931, he became the head of the department

Secret political department, whose task was to develop internal opposition, as well as conduct searches, arrests and detention of “counter-revolutionary elements”. The times were difficult. The former head of the Plenipotentiary Representative Office of the OGPU in the North Caucasus, Evdokimov, inspired a high-profile trial of the so-called Industrial Party. During a rigged trial, members of the non-existent party were accused of organizing acts of sabotage and sabotage at mines and industrial enterprises in Donbass, Rostov and other regions, and having connections with the former owners of these enterprises. In the dock were representatives of the old technical and creative intelligentsia, former tsarist generals and officers, and military experts of the Red Army.

After the murder of S.M. Kirov, Stalin set a course for the political and then physical liquidation of the leaders of the inner-party opposition. The security officers were required to decisively root out counter-revolutionary elements. This campaign, launched on Stalin’s initiative, resulted in the tragic events of 1937–1938, called “Yezhovshchina.” As a result of massive unfounded repressions against Stalin's obvious and fictitious opponents, the country's economy fell into decline by 1938. Entire industries were paralyzed, including the defense industry, as prominent “captains of industry” were arrested on false charges, and many of them were shot. The situation was the same in the Red Army, whose combat effectiveness, as shown by the results of the Finnish campaign of 1939–1940, fell sharply compared to 1935.

During this difficult period, Pyotr Vasilyevich continued to work in the secret political department of the OGPU Plenipotentiary Mission for the North Caucasus. He had the opportunity to participate in the dispossession campaign, in the development of local Trotskyist and Socialist Revolutionary groups, local creative and technical intelligentsia. Such was the time, and he should not be judged harshly for this, especially since there are no facts indicating his direct participation in bloody atrocities. Working in the secret-political department, Fedotov concentrated his main efforts on operational and analytical work. While participating in the work of the SPO, he was not even a member of the CPSU(b).

We have already mentioned that in 1919 Fedotov was accepted into the Bolshevik Party, but in 1922 he automatically dropped out of it. This was explained by the fact that the security officer plunged headlong into operational work, working day and night on the leaders of the nationalist underground in Chechnya. He simply did not have time to regularly attend party meetings. Members of the party cell voted for his “automatic withdrawal” from the membership of the RCP (b). It is symptomatic that Stalin’s wife, Svetlana Alliluyeva, was expelled from the party in the same way. V.I.’s personal intervention was required. Lenin to restore her to the ranks of the RCP(b).

However, Fedotov could not remain non-party for long. In July 1937, senior lieutenant of the OGPU (which corresponded to the rank of major in the Red Army) Pavel Fedotov, who by that time had been awarded the highest Chekist award - the badge “Honorary Worker of the Cheka - GPU,” was again accepted into the ranks of the CPSU (b). Being one of the leading experts on the North Caucasus, in September of the same year he was seconded to the personnel department of the NKVD of the USSR. On November 10, he was appointed head of the 7th (eastern) department of the 4th department of the GUGB NKVD. The most difficult period in his work in the state security agencies begins. This time marks the most active period of purges carried out by Yezhov on the direct orders of Stalin.

However, Pyotr Vasilyevich overcame this period quite safely. Apparently, two facts were at play here. Firstly, until 1937 he was a non-party member and, at least for this reason, was not involved in internal party disputes, did not join the anti-Stalinist opposition and concentrated all his efforts on conscientiously performing official duties and information and analytical work. Characteristics of Fedotov noted his lack of initiative. This should be understood to mean that he did not show any zeal in fabricating “false cases”, which were often inflated to universal proportions. The outcome of such “false cases” could not always be favorable. Being an excellent analyst, Pavel Vasilyevich knew how to look far ahead.

Secondly, although Fedotov was transferred to Moscow with the sanction of Nikolai Yezhov, he had no connection with him before working in Moscow. It was impossible to label him as an “executioner’s assistant” who destroyed the best party cadres. In addition, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, Lavrenty Beria, was soon transferred to Moscow, appointed first first deputy and then people's commissar of internal affairs. He knew Pyotr Fedotov from working together in the Caucasus. Already in July 1938, Fedotov, at the suggestion of Beria, was appointed deputy chief, and from September 1939 - head of the 4th (secret political) department of the GUGB NKVD.

In September 1940, Fedotov's next promotion followed. He, who received the rank of state security commissioner of the 3rd rank, which corresponded to the army rank of lieutenant general, was appointed to the post of head of the 3rd (counterintelligence) department of the GUGB NKVD, which six months later was transformed into the 2nd department of the People's Commissariat of State Security. This appointment to such a high position was associated with the intensification of the work of German and other intelligence services of the Anti-Comintern Pact countries on the territory of the USSR. Our country was flooded with “tourists”, “journalists”, “engineers” and other uninvited visitors, whose main task was to determine the degree of readiness of the USSR for a big war. Even the head of the VI department of the RSHA (Gestapo intelligence), Walter Schellenberg, visited Moscow under the guise of an engineer as part of one of the delegations of Nazi Germany.

In the pre-war period, the counterintelligence officers headed by Fedotov were given the main task of preventing the intelligence activities of the intelligence services of the Third Reich on the territory of the USSR, as well as finding out Berlin’s true plans for our country. For this purpose, Soviet security officers used numerous agents, including a very valuable counterintelligence assistant of the pre-war period, Nikolai Kuznetsov, who became a Hero of the Soviet Union during the war. It is known that under the guise of a test pilot at a Moscow aircraft plant, an ethnic German named Schmidt, he was set up for employees of a number of foreign embassies, including Germany and Japan. Kuznetsov’s actions during that period were directly supervised by Fedotov. As a result of his work, the security officers received important information about the true plans and intentions of Germany regarding our country.

But this was not the only source of information for the security officers on the German colony in Moscow. On the twentieth of April 1941, Fedotov sent, signed by the Deputy People's Commissar of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov, a special message about the content of conversations between the German military attaché in Moscow, Major General Ernst Köstring and his staff, with German colleagues from the military missions of Finland, Italy, Japan, Hungary and others countries of the Anti-Comintern Pact. The content of these materials was beyond doubt: in the near future, Germany intends to attack the USSR and is only looking for a pretext to justify its aggression.

It should be noted that the idea of the security operation for operational and technical penetration into the Nazi German embassy, located in Khlebny Lane, also belonged to Pyotr Fedotov. On his instructions, security officers, under the pretext of eliminating a water supply failure in the house opposite, entered the German embassy building through underground communications and installed special equipment in the office of the military attaché. Eavesdropping equipment recorded his conversations with visitors day after day. The Nazi intelligence officer was primarily interested in the level of combat readiness of the Red Army, the state of the defense industry of the USSR, and the mobilization readiness of our country.

The results of the interception were regularly reported to Stalin in the form of special counterintelligence messages. From them, Stalin concluded that Germany was hatching plans to attack our country and was just waiting for a suitable pretext. The purpose of the attack is to seize the natural resources of the USSR and the complete destruction of the socialist state. On May 31, 1941, Fedotov reported to Stalin the contents of the conversation between the German military attaché Köstring and the Slovak envoy. Stalin drew attention to the following statements of the Nazi: “Here we need to carry out some kind of provocation. We need to make sure that some German is killed here, and thereby cause a war.” Since Stalin knew better than anyone that our country was not yet ready for war with Germany, he demanded that the leadership of the Red Army not succumb to the provocations of the German military, so as not to give Hitler the slightest reason for aggression. He himself intended to use diplomatic measures to delay the war until 1942, when, in his opinion, the USSR would be ready for a big war, and at the same time took measures to strengthen the country's defense capability.

The German and Japanese embassies were not the only objects of development by the Soviet security officers. The 2nd Directorate of the NKGB, led by Fedotov, worked very actively and effectively at the diplomatic missions of England, Finland, Turkey, Iran, Slovakia and other countries. The growing flow of information indicated one thing: war with Germany was knocking on the door. And she didn’t have to wait long. In connection with the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, the tasks of Soviet counterintelligence changed. Fedotov still headed the 2nd Directorate, but now not the NKGB, but the NKVD, since their merger took place in July 1941. His department was entrusted with the tasks of fighting the German intelligence services and their agents on the territory of the USSR, developing and eliminating enemy agents, operational work in prisoner of war camps, accounting and operational search for enemy agents, traitors and Nazi collaborators, guarding the diplomatic corps, and later, when The Red Army went on the offensive, ensuring the clearing of liberated areas from enemy agents left there and organizing operational work in them.

At the end of 1941, when the German army stood at the walls of Moscow, hot days began for the subordinates of Pyotr Fedotov and the head of the NKVD sabotage department Pavel Sudoplatov. In the event of the capture of Moscow by the Germans, their efforts created a powerful fighting underground, staffed by security officers, agents, and volunteers. 243 people were transferred to an illegal status, of which 36 groups were formed by the security officers. 78 people were trained to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage and terrorist missions. In the capital and Moscow region, safe houses were selected, warehouses with weapons, ammunition, explosives and incendiary substances, fuel, food were established, as well as safe houses under the guise of small workshops, hairdressers, etc. All groups were equipped with special radio stations. Buildings and objects that could have been used by the Nazis for military purposes were carefully studied by members of the task forces for possible sabotage. The leadership of this Chekist underground was entrusted to Pyotr Fedotov, who for this purpose had to go underground. Fortunately, Moscow was able to be defended, and Fedotov did not have to lead explosions and sabotage in the capital.

At the beginning of 1943, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs underwent another reorganization. From it the NKGB was again separated, in which

Fedotov continued to head the counterintelligence department. To the previous tasks of the headquarters, the following were added: operational maintenance of military industry facilities, the fight against anti-Soviet elements within the country and nationalist armed formations of Ukrainian nationalists and “forest brothers” in the Baltic states. During the war, the 2nd Main Command, headed by Fedotov, was also involved in counterintelligence support for the Tehran (November - December 1943), Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July - August 1945) Big Three conferences.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, there was a change in leadership at Lubyanka. Lavrentiy Beria was “thrown” by Stalin to solve the “atomic problem”, as well as to rocket science. His deputy, Vsevolod Merkulov, who seemed too soft to Stalin (“just think: he writes plays instead of catching spies!”), was transferred to another job. The head of the department was the head of the military counterintelligence “Smersh” Viktor Abakumov. In June 1946, the head of foreign intelligence P.M. Fitin was also transferred to another job, and his post was taken by P.N. Kubatkin, who led intelligence for only three months.

Initially, these changes did not personally affect Pyotr Fedotov, who continued to head the counterintelligence department, and in September 1946 became the head of the First Main Directorate of the USSR MTB (foreign intelligence). However, in May 1947, the structure of the Soviet state security agencies underwent another reorganization. As we noted above, on Molotov’s initiative, a centralized analytical center was created for processing information coming from foreign policy and military intelligence, called the Information Committee (CI). It included the First Main Directorate of MTB and the GRU of the General Staff of the USSR Ministry of Defense. Molotov became the head of the Information Committee under the USSR Council of Ministers, and his deputy was Fedotov, who practically supervised the work of the entire CI.

The choice of Pyotr Vasilyevich’s candidacy was dictated not only by the fact that he was considered one of the largest analysts in the state security agencies. The matter was also explained by the fact that in the post-war period, a number of failures occurred in the foreign intelligence of the state security agencies and the General Staff of the USSR Ministry of Defense. In particular, in Canada, the cryptographer of the military station, Guzenko, took the path of treason and betrayed to the enemy a number of agents not only of military, but also of political intelligence. In the United States, the assistant to the “Sound” agent-group leader, Elizabeth Bentley, betrayed the FBI and betrayed almost the entire intelligence network of Soviet illegal intelligence in this country. To eliminate the consequences of these failures, a new, independent person was required, not connected with intelligence agencies and with experience in security work. Such a person, according to Stalin, was Pyotr Fedotov.

As the head of foreign intelligence, he made a lot of efforts to reorganize its activities in the context of the outbreak of the Cold War. A service profile for Fedotov, dated 1951, notes that he “put a lot of effort into strengthening foreign intelligence apparatuses, in particular in selecting and replenishing them with relevant employees, as well as working out practical tasks for organizing intelligence work in each individual country. He carried out a number of activities aimed at strengthening the central apparatus and improving its work.” Behind these dry lines lies Fedotov’s great organizational work on strengthening intelligence work abroad, primarily from illegal positions, improving the overall information work of the Information Committee, when the operational staff was required to receive, first of all, proactive documentary information about the plans and intentions of the aggressive NATO bloc in attitude towards the USSR and the entire socialist camp.

In “Essays on the History of Russian Foreign Intelligence” on this matter, in particular, it is emphasized:

“During its functioning, the Information Committee improved the activities of the central intelligence apparatus and stations, strengthened them with experienced employees, prepared intelligence agencies to work in a post-war situation, including in new areas of the world where intelligence had not yet worked at full capacity.

At a certain stage, the creation of the Information Committee contributed to increasing the efficiency of intelligence activities. However, the unification of its various departments within one body, despite all the advantages, complicated the process of managing the work of military and foreign policy intelligence services, which were so specific in their methods of activity. Already in January 1949, the government decided to withdraw military intelligence information from the Committee. She was returned to the Ministry of Defense. In January 1951, a decision was made to combine foreign intelligence and foreign counterintelligence and create unified stations abroad.”

In November 1951, the Committee of Information as an intelligence agency ceased to exist. Foreign intelligence again became the First Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security."

So, at the end of 1951, the Information Committee was abolished, since life itself showed that the reorganization of foreign intelligence to include military intelligence was somewhat hasty. In particular, the Ministry of Defense could not do without its own autonomous intelligence agency, operationally subordinate directly to the General Staff. The withdrawal of military intelligence from CI and its reassignment to the General Staff raised the question of the very existence of the joint intelligence service.

With the liquidation of the Information Committee, Fedotov, who was one of its deputy chairmen, was removed from the staff and was out of work for a year.

After Stalin's death, the Ministry of State Security merged with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose head was again Beria. As for Pyotr Vasilyevich, he again headed the counterintelligence department and worked in this position for a year and a half. The arrest and execution of Beria did not in any way affect the official position of Fedotov, whom Molotov knew well personally, who appreciated his high professionalism, efficiency and diligence. In addition, Pyotr Vasilyevich was always distinguished by the fact that he avoided bureaucratic games, did not join any groups within the state security agencies, was not close to Yezhov, Beria, or Abakumov, remaining a faithful “servant”, devoid of political and careerist aspirations .

The operational activities of Pyotr Vasilyevich continued until 1956, when N.S. Khrushchev made a report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU “On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences.” The First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee needed new scapegoats, since Beria and his associates had already been convicted. Fedotov became one of these victims of the “Khrushchev thaw”. By order of KGB Chairman Serov, he was relieved of his post as head of the counterintelligence department and “exiled” to a minor position at the KGB Higher School under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, where he became deputy head of the editorial and publishing department.

When, three years later, Serov was appointed head of the GRU, and his office in Lubyanka was occupied by the Komsomol promoter Shelepin, who decided to free the state security organs from Stalin’s generals, Fedotov was fired by him due to official inconsistency. At the same time, the security officer was reminded, in particular, of his trip to Armenia with A.I. Mikoyan and G.M. Malenkov in September 1937, which was allegedly followed by “gross violations of the law during the period of mass repressions in the republic.” In November 1959 he was expelled from the CPSU.

In conclusion, it should be especially noted that P.V. In his work, Fedotov always tried to pay special attention to counterintelligence support for the activities of state security agencies, and his military path as a security officer was marked by high state awards: two Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of the Red Star, Order of Kutuzov 1st degree and the “Badge of Honor” , many medals, as well as badges “Honored Worker of the Cheka - GPU” and “Honored Worker of the NKVD”.

Pyotr Vasilievich Fedotov died in 1963.

Veterans of foreign intelligence who personally knew Lieutenant General Fedotov and who had the opportunity to work under his command always noted his deep professionalism, dedication and attentive attitude towards his subordinates.

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