SECOND CHANCE FROM RAMSAY

Reading military diaries, letters, reports and official information, it is sometimes difficult to believe how the Soviet Union was able to win the Great Patriotic War. Steeped in paranoia, the country's leadership made a lot of mistakes, did not trust anyone, and most importantly, exterminated the best men and officers. And the same diaries give an answer - the difficult victory came thanks to the common efforts of the few who escaped the harsh fate.

One of those who contributed to this victory was our compatriot Richard Sorge, "a German journalist", known as Ramsay in the intelligence department of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (WPRA) from 1930. The spy was born in Baku into the family of a German engineer Gustav Wilhelm Richard Sorge, who was engaged in oil production at Nobel's Baku oilfields.

Under conditions of mistrust

The second half of the 1930s in the Soviet Union took place in an atmosphere of fear and general mistrust. Both neighbours in communal apartments and sleek generals - veterans of the "world revolution" - reported on each other. It was in such circumstances that Soviet intelligence had to work. Stalin and his entourage regarded many of their reports as a result of a double game and misinformation. 1937 saw the first harsh repression against intelligence personnel. In September of that year, the General Staff received a decision to recall Soviet agents from Japan, including the head of the residency Sorge. Given the circumstances, it was not hard to guess that the recall would be followed by flimsy charges (most likely double espionage) and an imminent execution. Semyon Gendin - head of the intelligence department - put in a word for Sorge. He personally wrote a letter to the top leadership, explaining that the intelligence network that was created over the years must not be destroyed. Gendin rescued Sorge, but six months later he himself was accused of espionage and executed.

Those who replaced Gendin had little knowledge of the intelligence business, and that is what saved Sorge. He was left alive most likely only because they considered him a major specialist. Nevertheless, his reports were not only treated with scepticism but regarded as outright misinformation. It was written on his reports that "the agent has probably been unmasked by the enemy and works under his control".

The same stamp was on a report by Richard Sorge, distrust in which led to fatal consequences for the country and millions of deaths. In May 1941, Sorge was already working as press secretary at the German embassy and radioed to the centre that Germany was ready to attack the USSR on 15 June. Saying this, he referred to several sources - directly to Ambassador Eugen Ott and a number of German officers.

When this day was over, Sorge continued to send messages to the centre. He reported honestly that he did not know the exact date, but was sure that the war would begin in the next few days. Ramsay sent the last desperate message on 20 June - two days before the fateful night. Alas, all these reports were ignored. The new leaders who had executed the true professionals obviously measured against their own yardstick, considering Sorge a double agent. The result was that the Soviet Union, which had no fortifications and prepared exclusively for an offensive war, lost 30 million lives of soldiers and civilians. This was the price of such mistrust.

Continuing

In the 1960s, a document was published according to which Ramsay supposedly knew the exact date of the attack by Nazi troops. Alas, the document turned out to be a fake. But other circumstances surfaced. It turned out that the Wehrmacht had a special instruction to deceive foreign spies. It was clear that it would be impossible to unmask all agents, and then, as they say in the language of intelligence, "a blind trick" was played on German ambassadors and generals. From time to time, in friendly conversations, they were told about different dates for the attack. In this case, letting it slip over a pint of beer, they only confused the enemy.

Sorge discovered this plan. However, intensive changes in the dates and "leaks" only meant one thing - the war was to start in the coming days.

When the inevitable happened, Sorge made his own conclusions from it, and took a more careful approach to sources of information. Soviet intelligence made conclusions as well. The Soviet army experienced the heaviest battles in fateful 1941, and it is this year that saw the lion's share of losses. And now, in the summer of that year, Sorge sent a new report to the centre. With reference to many sources, he said that Japan was not ready to go to war in 1941 or 1942 and that its exclusively naval army was not ready for a long war on its own territory with the Soviet adversary that had a ground army. He gave his country a second chance.

This information was a great help in the future victory as it exempted the country from the need to wage a war on two fronts. This time they listened to Ramsay's words. Twenty-six Siberian divisions were transferred from the eastern border to help the front. Many of them turned out to be a big force in the decisive Battle of Moscow, in which the army of the Wehrmacht suffered its first major defeat.

Recognition

Sorge and the entire related network were unmasked and arrested in October 1941. He and some of his friends were sentenced to death. However, the implementation of the sentence was delayed for another three years - Japan tried to exchange Ramsay for its agents all this time, but received a strange answer from Moscow: "We do not have such an agent." The homeland disowned him. Sorge was executed in Tokyo's Sugamo Prison on 7 November 1944. The doctor recorded in the minutes that Sorge's heart continued to beat for eight more minutes. The Japanese government, apart from a statement issued on 17 May 1942, gave no information about the case.

Similarly, the Stalinist regime dealt with his wife Katerina - she died in 1943 in solitary confinement in Lubyanka, where she had spent more than a year. The Soviet Union did not recognize Richard Sorge's contribution to the common victory for a long time. Moreover, until the 1960s, the name of this agent was not mentioned anywhere at all. Even the book of his colleague and friend Hans-Otto Meissner "The Sorge Case", which was published in Munich in 1955, was completely ignored. And it was only in 1964, when the United States (i.e., the ideological enemy) released a documentary called "Who Are You, Mr Sorge?", that the country recognized its hero.

A little bit about love

Everyone knows the monument to Richard Sorge in the Sorge Park in Baku and on Sorge Street, which is one of the main streets of the city. In the village of Sabuncu, a memorial plaque has been put up on the wall of the house, where Sorge lived from 1895 to 1898. But he himself is buried in one of the most expensive cemeteries Tama in the Tokyo suburb of Fuchu. After the execution, his last wife Hanako Ishii moved her husband's body here from the prison cemetery. His tomb is large and well-groomed by local standards. Hanako Ishii, who died recently, looked after it until the end of her days.

Shortly before the arrest of Sorge, counterintelligence tried to recruit Hanako, force her to bring them his documents and give evidence, to which she replied: "I love him. You can torture and try me as you like, but I admire Richard. He is the man of my life."