The Soviet GRU brigadier general who fled Stalin's purges and became one of the few defectors the hunters never caught
「When I work on my book, I feel as though I were walking in a graveyard. All my friends and life associates have been shot. It seems to be some kind of mistake that I am alive.」 — One Who Survived (1945)
A Soviet GRU military intelligence officer and diplomat who served as GRU rezident in France and chargé d'affaires in Athens. In July 1937, as colleagues vanished into the Great Purge and his 14-year-old son wrote warning of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky's execution, he defected to France, one of the earliest high-level Soviet intelligence defectors. He emigrated to the United States, served in the OSS, and spent sixteen years as chief of the Russian branch of the Voice of America. In his 1945 memoir One Who Survived he wrote: 'When I work on my book, I feel as though I were walking in a graveyard. All my friends and life associates have been shot.'
Career Timeline
- 1919Joined the Red Army, fought in the Civil War; joined RCP(b)
- 1920–23Studied at Infantry Officers' School and Frunze Military Academy (Eastern Dept)
- 1921–25RVS commissioner Turkestan Front; consul in Karshi; consul-general in Gilan, Persia
- 1929–32Soviet trade delegations in Paris, Milan, and Brussels
- 1934–35Chairman of Avtomotoeksport; 1st Secretary, Soviet Embassy in Afghanistan
- 1935–37GRU rezident in France; chargé d'affaires, Soviet Embassy in Athens
- 1937.7Defected from Athens to France — among the earliest high-level Soviet intelligence defectors
- 1940–44Emigrated to US; served as private in US Army, then with the OSS
- 1948–64Chief of the Russian branch, Voice of America
- 1964–72Senior adviser on Soviet affairs, US Information Agency
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionRed Army enlistment
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeGRU brigadier general who fled the purge by defectingIn July 1937, as colleagues were arrested and shot and his son wrote of Tukhachevsky's execution, he fled Athens for Paris, a defection just ahead of a recall to Moscow. Whittaker Chambers wrote in Witness: 'Of the four I have named, only Barmine outran the hunters.'
The Defection: A Son's Letter and the Rudzutak
In early 1937, Barmine spent several months in Moscow, where he observed firsthand how the show trials against oppositionists were fabricated. Upon returning to Athens, he shared his doubts about the trials' authenticity with colleagues, conversations that were soon reported back to Moscow. In July, after discovering coworkers searching his desk and offices at night, a letter arrived from his 14-year-old son Boris. "Dear Papa, they read to us in school the sentence passed on the Trotskyist spies Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Kork, Uborevich, and Feldman... Wasn't it Feldman who used to live in our apartment house?" His son added that he, his brother, and Barmine's mother were going "far, far away to bathe in the sea," a coded warning that the family was already under NKVD control. That same month, the steamer Rudzutak suddenly docked at Piraeus without prior notice to the Soviet legation. The captain insistently urged Barmine to dine aboard; when Barmine declined, the captain pressed him at a local restaurant to return home. Constantly shadowed by NKVD agents, Barmine resolved to flee to Paris, where he had previously served as GRU rezident. At this very moment, Soviet agents assassinated Ignace Reiss, the former chief of Soviet intelligence in Western Europe, in Switzerland. Whittaker Chambers later wrote of the defectors: "Of the four I have named, only Barmine outran the hunters." On July 18, 1937, Barmine defected from Greece to France and was granted political asylum. He never saw his family again.