Радянські спецслужби vs японської дипломатії (на матеріалах японського консульства в Одесі в міжвоєнний період)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the activities of the Japanese consulate in Odesa during 1926–1937, which since its opening has been under the “watchful eye” of the Soviet secret services. Throughout the period of the consulate’s existence in the city, it was closely monitored externally and internally, both for its work and for the contacts of consular staff in the city and abroad. The Odesa branch of the DPU established a network of internal agencies that worked directly at the consulate. The consulate was “served” by 11 secret staff, who provided daily relevant information on the activities of the consulate and its staff. The main reasons for such actions were the absence of Japanese citizens in Odesa and the lack of trade and economic relations through the port of Odesa. The Soviet secret services concluded that the opening of the consulate was aimed exclusively at espionage in the USSR. This inference was reinforced by the active study by Japanese employees of the political, economic, cultural, and military situation not only in the consular district but also in other cities of the USSR and the USSR in general, especially the Caucasus. This was facilitated by the constant travels of the Japanese consul in the cities of the USSR. Each employee of the Japanese consulate in Odesa was given a case-form, where the defendant received a nickname, intelligence materials about his activities, personal characteristics and a list of contacts with local citizens were collected, which then fell under the “development” of DPU special agents. The article reveals the process of recruiting “important” representatives of the consulate by Soviet special services. As a result, the translator S. Feldman, the courier-security guard of the Japanese consulate in Odesa M. Tsibulko, the technical secretary Livshits, the typist I. Zagorskaya and others were taken into “agency development”. Recruiters from the DPU’s counterintelligence department took a personal approach to each of them.