The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West

The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West - Christopher Andrew

The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West by Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew is a detailed historical and intelligence study based on the secret handwritten notes of former Soviet KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, who covertly copied classified files over many years and smuggled them to the West after defecting to Britain in the early 1990s. The book offers an unprecedented insider account of the KGB’s covert operations during the Cold War, focusing on how Soviet intelligence penetrated Western Europe and the United States, its clandestine links with communist parties, covert actions to influence politics and public opinion, and its efforts to suppress dissidents both inside and outside the Soviet sphere. Co-authored with historian Christopher Andrew, the work places Mitrokhin’s material in broader historical context, presenting a comprehensive narrative of espionage, sabotage plans, subversion, and secret warfare that shaped much of East–West relations in the twentieth century.