A review of the book 'The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World' written by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin.
The World Was Going Our Way reveals in full the secrets of this astonishing cache, showing for the first time the extent of the KGB’s influence around the world, from making friends with Fidel Castro in Cuba to starting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. For over twenty years, the KGB believed that the Third World was the arena in which it could win the Cold War against the West.
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Coming up: A review of the book 'The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World' written by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Christopher Andrew is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Cambridge University, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, former visiting professor of national security at Harvard University, and guest lecturer at numerous American universities and the CIA. His writings, including The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Her Majesty’s Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community, and For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency, have been translated into many languages and have established him as one of the world’s leading authorities on intelligence history. Professor Andrew is also a frequent host of BBC TV and radio programs on history and world affairs.
He lives in Cambridge, England.
Let me read a brief description of the book:
QUOTE
The Baltic, 1992: A shabbily dressed old man enters a British embassy with a sheaf of top-secret documents hidden at the bottom of his battered suitcase. Ex-KGB worker Vasili Mitrokhin was about to reveal the most sensational intelligence archive the world had seen.
The World Was Going Our Way reveals in full the secrets of this astonishing cache, showing for the first time the extent of the KGB’s influence around the world, from making friends with Fidel Castro in Cuba to starting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. For over twenty years, the KGB believed that the Third World was the arena in which it could win the Cold War against the West.
Telling untold stories of conspiracies combined with bizarre black comedy on a global scale, this expose of the world’s most powerful secret organization transforms our understanding of the Cold War.
UNQUOTE
This book, co-authored by historian Christopher Andrew and former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, is a sweeping, meticulously researched exposé of Soviet espionage operations in the developing world (read: the Third World) during the Cold War.
Where the first volume (The Sword and the Shield) focused primarily on Soviet espionage in the West, this sequel shifts the spotlight to the Third World—Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East—between the 1950s and the 1980s.
Key revelations include the KGB’s role in shaping anti-American sentiment, funding communist parties, and orchestrating disinformation campaigns. Andrew and Mitrokhin provide vivid case studies, such as the Soviet backing of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, the infiltration of Allende’s government in Chile, and the manipulation of Indian politics during the 1970s.
It underscores the extent to which intelligence operations shaped postcolonial history, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Angolan Civil War.
Here are some of the extracts I found really interesting:
1. The Asian intelligence successes of which the Centre was most proud was India, the world’s second most populous state and largest democracy. It was deeply ironic that the KGB should find democratic India so much more congenial an environment than Communist China, North Korea, and Vietnam.
Oleg Kalugin, who in 1973 became the youngest general in the FCD, remembers India as both a prestige target and ‘a model of KGB infiltration of a Third World government’. The openness of India’s democracy combined with the streak of corruption which ran through its media and political system provided numerous opportunities for Soviet intelligence. As we all know, things have only gone from bad to worse in present day India.
2. The Third World country on which the KGB eventually concentrated most operation effort during the Cold War was India. Under Stalin, however, India had been regarded as an imperialist puppet. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia dismissed Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, who led India to independence in 1947, as ‘a reactionary … who betrayed the people and helped the imperialists against them; aped the ascetics; pretended in a demagogic way to be a supporter of Indian independence and an enemy of the British; and widely exploited religious prejudice’.
3. Kalugin recalls one occasion on which Andropov personally turned down an offer from an Indian minister to provide information in return for $50,000 on the grounds that the KGB was already well supplied with material from the Indian Foreign and Defence Ministries: ‘It seemed like the entire country was for sale; the KGB ─ and the CIA ─ had deeply penetrated the Indian government. After a while neither side entrusted sensitive information to the Indians, realizing their enemy would know all about it the next day.’
The KGB, in Kalugin’s view, was more successful than the CIA, partly because of its skill in exploiting the corruption which became endemic under Indira Gandhi’s regime.
Suitcases full of banknotes were said to be routinely taken to the Prime Minister’s house. Former Syndicate member S. K. Patil is reported to have said that Mrs. Gandhi did not even return the suitcases.
You will find many such eye opening anecdotes and stories in this massive book which is just under 500 pages. And also in the detailed Notes section which is almost 100 pages. And the book’s exhaustive Bibliography section is over 25 pages.
Conclusion:
Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin’s The World Was Going Our Way is a landmark work in intelligence history and Cold War studies. It is a detailed exposé of the KGB’s Third World operations that is both enlightening and sobering, revealing the high stakes of Cold War espionage offering invaluable insights into the ideological fervor and clandestine methods of the Soviet Union’s global ambitions. It remains an essential and enlightening read for students of international relations, espionage, or modern history.
I give this book 4.5/5.
The book is available in Paperback and Hardcover formats only and yet to be made available in Kindle and Audible formats. I have given the respective buy links in the show notes. Please check them out for the latest prices.
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