The article beat me to it, but I had no idea that SMERSH was real, completely thought it was Flemming's fiction. Next thing you'll tell me is that SPECTRE is a thing.
Fleming himself was a British agent, and knew SMERSH so well that he put this foreword at the beginning of From Russia With Love:
"Not that it matters, but a great deal of the background to this story is accurate.
SMERSH, a contraction of Smiert Spionam--Death to Spies--exists and remains today the most secret department of the Soviet government.
At the beginning of 1956, when this book was written, the strength of SMERSH at home and abroad was about 40,000 and General Grubozaboyschikov was its chief. My description of his appearance is correct.
Today the headquarters of SMERSH are where, in Chapter 4, I have placed them--at No 13 Sretenka Ulitsa, Moscow. The Conference Room is faithfully described and the Intelligence chiefs who meet round the table are real officials who are frequently summoned to that room for purposes similar to those I have recounted.
I. F."
Well I'll be damned, thank you for that bit of history.
SPECTRE absolutely isn't a thing and the white cat on my lap can confirm that statement.
Says the guy holding a pinkie to the corner of his mouth...
Don't go full Stalin, never go full Stalin
Smersh: why Putin has ~~reinstated~~ stolen the name of Stalin's notorious and much-feared anti-spy unit
tbh I’m kinda surprised they weren’t there already. It’s separate from KGB/GRU I guess.
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