Russian Spies Get Vocal

Dec. 21, 2000 -- Theirs is a cloak-and-dagger world, but after an 80-year tradition of secrecy, Russian spies can finally sing their songs out loud.

Back in the dark days of the Cold War, at least some Soviet spies apparently relaxed between missions with a round of music.

The songs were of blood, sweat and patriotic tears, and for the first time, they have been compiled on a 22-track CD of favorite spy songs titled This Difficult Job Is Called Intelligence.

Some of the songs of subterfuge include “From Kabul to Washington,” “I Obey Orders” and “Profession: Espionage.” Most of them have been written and performed by intelligence officers themselves, the Moscow Times reported.

The unusual CD was issued to mark Chekist’s Day, a Soviet-era holiday commemorating the Dec. 20, 1917, establishment of the secret police, the Cheka.

The Cheka later developed into the KGB, the dreaded repression machine that executed and imprisoned millions under the Soviet Union.

But things have changed since the 1991 Soviet collapse. In a telling sign, this year the heads of the KGB’s successors — the FSB, or Federal Security Service, and the SVR foreign intelligence agency — broke with their usual secrecy and gave rare media interviews.

And it isn’t even called Chekist Day anymore, but a more politically correct “Day of Security Organs.”

The Country Is Safe

In the spirit of good anniversary cheer, security heads largely glossed over the excesses of the past.

“Being an intelligence officer means being reliable, itmeans dedication, dedication to one’s homeland, to one’scomrades, it means being noble,” SVR chief Sergei Lebedev told the newspaper Izvestia .

The lyrics from one of the songs mirrors his sentiment: “We travel on land, in the sky or by sea./ As long as intelligence work is being done, the country is safe.”

The country is also being run by a former spy. President Vladimir Putin, a KGB veteran, marked the occasion by urging former colleagues to learn from the past.

“Fundamental changes in the country have given a new meaning to your work,” he told agents in Moscow on Wednesday. “The state significance of your workis in the defense of the constitutional rights of Russia’scitizens.”

A Reassuring Tune

Putin has put many of his former colleagues into seniorgovernment positions, a trend started by his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Critics have voiced fears that the former KGB officials might try to re-establish elements of the repressive Soviet system and crack down on democratic freedoms.

But on Wednesday, Putin made reassuring calls for the reinforcement of democratic traditions.

“We remember the history of the security agencies. It isambiguous, we know that,” he said.

“The easiest thing would be to reject our past,” Putin added. “But it is more important, in my view, to learn its lessons, regardless of how bitter they are, and along with the harshest criticism, to preserve the valuable aspects.”

But even in the darkest days, there were moments of full-throated fun, as the song “Moments” testifies.

Written by Robert Rozhdestvensky and Mikael Tariverdiyev, “Moments” was the theme from Seventeen Moments of Spring, a blockbuster serial about a Soviet spy working undercover in Nazi Germany. It is one of the few songs on the CD written by a professional songwriter.

Most of the 22 songs, though, were penned by men and women in the spy game — some of whom are credited only as “Unknown.”

An SVR spokesman explained this unwillingness to be identified. “Naturally, spies can’t always announce that they are foreign intelligence service officers,” Boris Labusov told the Moscow Times.

“But when the time comes for them to sing a little, they choose the songs that have to do with their life’s work,” he said.

Labusov said he was surprised by how many Russian songs about spies there were to choose from — so many, in fact, that the CD couldn’t hold them all.

But some old habits die hard. Agency officials still are not ready to blow their cover and disclose how many copies of This Difficult Job is Called Intelligence has been released, the Moscow Times reported.

The CD will be distributed, perhaps on a need-to-know basis, by the association of Foreign Intelligence Service Veterans and to survivors of the KGB and its successor organizations.

More than 80 years since the Cheka was formed, it’s finally time to sing a swan song.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.