The blow delivered automatically meant a blow to all organisations subordinate to the GRU, that is to the intelligence directorates of the military districts. Here the death-dealing whirlwind came twice, literally destroying everything. During the pre-war years, in the areas of western military districts the intelligence directorates had extended the existing reserves of underground armies in case of the occupation of these areas by an enemy. Secret depots and stores of weapons and explosives had been established, radio sets had been secreted and refuges for partisans and intelligence officers had been set up. In the terror, all this was destroyed, and tens of thousands of trained partisans and saboteurs, ready to meet the enemy, were shot or perished in prisons and concentration camps. Military intelligence ceased to exist. And not only military intelligence; the Army had been bled white, and military industry, too. But Ezhov, the head of the NKVD, had made a fatal mistake in taking Berzin's place when he was executed on 29 July 1938. The very next day, Stalin received only one report on both GRU and NKVD activities, instead of the usual two. The implication was clear: a monopoly of secret activity had begun, and Stalin now had no way to balance the power of the NKVD. With his customary precision and deliberation he realised that his control of Soviet intelligence was slipping away and the same day, 30 July, he set in train the events which would lead to Ezhov's removal and execution.
In the winter of 1939/40 there occurred an improbable scandal. The Red Army, whose strength at the moment of the attack was more than four million men, was unable to crush the resistance of the Finnish Army, whose strength was only 27,000 men. Reasons for this were quickly found. Of course there was the cold. (The German Army's right to claim the same reason for its defeat in the winter of 1941 was unanimously denied.) The second reason was the intelligence service. In all Soviet historical works (which may be published only with the permission of the Propaganda Department of the Party Central Committee), even to this day, the cold and poor intelligence are the reasons always given. The Party forgets to specify that from 1937 to 1939 Soviet military intelligence was practically non-existent, at the Party's own wish.
After the Finnish scandal, Stalin did not order a purge of the GRU. It is probable that at that time there was nobody to purge, but he still ordered the execution of General Proskurov, the new head of the GRU, and his staff because of Proskurov's disagreement with him over the Hitler-Stalin pact. In June 1940 General Filipp Golikov was appointed chief of the GRU. Under Golikov the GRU was reborn amazingly quickly into an effective intelligence force. There has been much speculation about this period. Did the GRU know of the plans for Germany's attack on the Soviet Union or not? The best answer to the question must lie in Golikov's own survival. Seven leaders before him and two after him were murdered, yet he went on to become Stalin's Deputy of Personnel and Marshal of the Soviet Union. The political leadership may not take the right decision, even with the best information that Golikov could give, but it will not bite the hand that feeds it.
The war had begun with a catastrophic defeat for the Soviet Union. In the first few hours the German Army succeeded in securing a strategic initiative. Thousands of serviceable aircraft were destroyed on their airfields and thousands of tanks burned in their own parks.
It may have been that Stalin spared Golikov in order to give him a testing assignment. He was certainly told to take himself abroad and revive and renew the GRU agent network which had been cut off immediately. He went first to England and then to the United States and, to give him his due, this time he succeeded in carrying out his work in an exemplary manner. For his visits to Great Britain and the United States he naturally did not use faked documents. He came, with a numerous entourage, as the head of an official Soviet military delegation to obtain American and British armaments. For the chief of the GRU and his colleagues the doors of secret factories and laboratories were opened - the very places Soviet intelligence had been trying for decades to penetrate. This historical visit was the beginning of intense penetration by Soviet military intelligence of the armaments industries of America and Britain. Golikov also succeeded, albeit only temporarily, in establishing communications with GRU illegals who were functioning on territory occupied by Germany; but this also signalled the beginning of GRU penetration of the German general staff from many different quarters. The consequences of this were that, beginning with Stalingrad, even top secret plans of the German High Command were known to Soviet front-line generals before they were known to the German field commanders. And the Soviet military leadership was equally enlightened as to the plans of its allies, the Americans and the British. Churchill bears witness to the fact that Stalin enumerated several points as to the contents of British top secret plans, though he attributes such enlightenment to Stalin's genius in foreseeing the future. The only thing that is not clear is why Stalin did not display a similar clairvoyancy with regard to Hitler's intentions in 1941 and the beginning of 1942.
In the autumn of 1941 Golikov returned from the United States, an another exceptionally successful visit. He could not, of course, expect to keep his post, but he stayed alive, and even kept his General's rank. On 13 October he was relieved of the command of the GRU and appointed commander of the 10th Army.
Later, in 1944, Stalin gave Golikov yet another chance to expiate his guilt with regard to the sudden German attack. In October he was appointed plenipotentiary of the Council of People's Commissars on Questions of the Repatriation of Soviet Citizens. At the same time as he was occupied with this task several of the former residents of the GRU in Europe were assigned to him. He acquitted himself again with great credit and, being able to count on the help of the GRU, succeeded in returning to the Soviet Union several million people who were practically all shot on arrival. Golikov's career was on the up and up, and he eventually reached the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
In the autumn of 1941, after Golikov had relinquished his post, the GRU was divided into two. One of the newly-created organisations was directly answerable to Stalin and entitled the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Supreme High Command. In the hands of this organisation was concentrated the agent network controlled by illegals and undercover residencies of the GRU in a small number of Soviet embassies. The 'other' GRU was subordinated to the general staff and preserved its former name of Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff. But now this junior branch of the GRU co-ordinated the efforts of intelligence officers on all Soviet fronts in action against Germany. This new set-up was fully justified at that time. The GRU general staff was freed from having to make decisions on global problems which at that moment had lost their importance for the Soviet Union and instead was able to concentrate all its attention on carrying out intelligence operations against German forces. In order to distinguish between the two GRU's; the term 'strategic intelligence' was introduced for the first time and applied to the GRU of the Supreme Command, and the new title of 'operational intelligence' was given to the Intelligence Directorate of Fronts and the GRU of the general staff which controlled these directorates. Both the strategic and operational intelligence services of the Red Army conducted themselves with great distinction in the course of the war. The finest achievements of the strategic agent network were of course the penetration of the German general staff through Switzerland (via the illegal residency 'Dora') and the theft of American atomic secrets by way of Canada (through the residency 'Zaria'). Operational intelligence meanwhile developed activities unparalleled in scale. Besides its agent intelligence, a very large role was allocated to diversionary intelligence. Groups of guard-minelayers were formed in the intelligence units of the fronts and armies whose basic purpose was to hunt down the German military staff. Parallel with these diversionary elements of the GRU, analogous groups of NKVD men were in action at the rear of German forces. Between these two groups the traditional enmity fostered by the Party continued.