The story of how this PDF ended up on Vikram’s desk was as labyrinthine as the Cold War itself. It began with a man named Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior archivist for the KGB’s First Chief Directorate. For decades, Mitrokhin had been smuggling handwritten notes out of the Lubyanka, hiding them in his shoes and milk churns, documenting the Soviet Union’s most guarded secrets.
Researchers, journalists, and Cold War historians look for the PDF version because the out-of-print World Was Going Our Way volume is expensive and not widely available in Indian libraries. However, the complete archive is not legally available as a free PDF from legitimate sources.
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of politicians or journalists mentioned in the archives.
While the FBI and Western intelligence agencies have hailed the Mitrokhin Archive as a monumental intelligence find, its authenticity has not gone unchallenged. Skeptics, including some Russian officials, have raised important questions. Leonid Shebarshin, who handled the KGB's India desk between 1964 and 1977, dismissed the archive's claims, arguing that while Indira Gandhi valued the Soviet Union's friendship, she always took her own independent decisions. The story of how this PDF ended up
The original papers, including those relating to India, are available for academic research at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University .
, a senior KGB archivist, spent twelve years secretly copying hundreds of thousands of top-secret files. Following his defection to the United Kingdom in 1992, he brought this cache of information with him. Researchers, journalists, and Cold War historians look for
Despite the explosive nature of the archive, readers seeking the complete truth about the Mitrokhin Archive have often been left frustrated. For legal reasons, the names of many alleged Indian informers and the ten newspapers said to be on the Soviet payroll were redacted from the published book. Instead of their real identities, the authors were forced to use only the code names assigned by the KGB. This key omission has fueled conspiracy theories, protected potentially guilty parties, and prevented a full historical accounting of the KGB's activities in India. It also serves as a reminder that even the most celebrated intelligence archives often present an incomplete picture.
According to the Mitrokhin papers, India was considered a priority target for the KGB, described as a model for successful penetration of a third-world country. The archive suggests that the scale of KGB operations in New Delhi during the 1970s and 1980s was larger than in almost any other capital outside the Soviet bloc.
This article explores the origins of the Mitrokhin Archive, the specific disclosures regarding India, the political controversies they ignited, and how to access these historical documents today. What is the Mitrokhin Archive?