Life and Death in the KGB, with The Rest is Classified’s Gordon Corera (Part One)

The KGB wasn't just a Cold War spy agency—it was a revolutionary institution born from paranoia, built on blood, and still shaping modern Russia. In this gripping episode, Gordon Corera, co-host of The Rest is Classified, reveals the astonishing true story of Vasily Mitrokin, a KGB archivist who, after decades of internalizing the agency’s ideology, became its most dangerous enemy from within. What makes Mitrokin’s journey extraordinary is not just that he stole thousands of pages of top-secret documents, but that he did so not for money or glory, but out of a moral reckoning. After being sidelined to the archives for failing as a spy, he discovered the KGB’s true nature: a machine of repression, not defense. Over 16 years, he copied every secret into tiny notes hidden in his shoe, then reassembled them in his dacha, burying them under floorboards. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he tried to deliver the archive to the CIA—only to be turned away. The Americans, overwhelmed by defectors and eager for détente, missed the most valuable intelligence in history. But the British, with a diplomat offering tea and a small MI6 team willing to act, seized the moment. In a daring exfiltration, they smuggled Mitrokin, his family, and the archive out—using a cover story that even the son didn’t know was real. This wasn’t just a spy thriller—it was a moral act, a quiet revolution by one man who believed the truth must be preserved, even if he never lived to see it published.