Two early influences on Gordievsky were his mother, a gentle nonconformist who kept a quiet distance from Soviet ideology, and his grandmother. From early on, there were signs that he was discontented with the communist ideology fueling the organization. Gordievsky’s career path to the KGB was settled, but his conscience was not. That was just how it worked with the children of KGB members. It seemed that he, like his brother Vasili, was assured of employment at the KGB thanks to his father’s membership. Oleg Gordievsky was born 10 October 1938. Though he never spoke of these atrocities, Gordievsky was proud of his role in the KGB, even opting to wear his uniform on the weekends. This state campaign under Stalin resulted in the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Although the exact details are scarce, he likely identified many “enemies of the state” during the Great Purge of 1936-8. Oleg Gordievsky’s father, Anton Lavrentyevich Gordievsky was a lifelong member of the KGB. To put it mildly, it was ruthlessly efficient. The Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, or Committee for State Security, was the country’s primary security agency. One name still instantly recalls the pervasive fear that riddled the country: The KGB. The communist Soviet Union’s reputation for its terrifyingly effective state apparatus has barely dimmed since its dissolution in 1991.
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