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Jonathan Haslam's history of Soviet intelligence runs from the October Revolution to the end of the Cold War. Its distinguishing move is to cover military intelligence (GRU) and the code-and-cipher service alongside the KGB, which earlier histories treated as the whole story. Haslam draws on Russian archival sources to argue that all three services were central to the Soviet state's survival, and that after Stalin the regime shifted from ideological recruitment to blackmail and bribery. It suits readers who already know the KGB narrative and want the fuller institutional picture; it is scholarly in tone rather than a spy-thriller read.
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Reviewers treat it as a serious, well-sourced contribution that widens the field beyond KGB-centric histories. The common reservation is that the writing is scholarly and slow for general readers.
Near and Distant Neighbors is a history of Soviet intelligence from the October Revolution to the end of the Cold War. Author Jonathan Haslam covers the KGB, and also military intelligence and the special service, which specialized in codes and ciphers. Earlier histories focused on the KGB and left these two services in the shadows.
Haslam draws on previously neglected Russian sources. He shows that military intelligence and the special service were crucial to the survival of the Soviet state. This was especially true after Stalin's death in 1953, as the Cold War heated up and dedicated Communist agents such as Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs and Donald Maclean were betrayed.
After these failures, Khrushchev and his successors dropped ideological recruitment in favor of blackmail and bribery. The book argues that the West ultimately triumphed despite, not because of, the espionage war. It also presents the history as essential to understanding Vladimir Putin's power today.
