Tsarist Spy Catcher Reburied in Moscow

Friday, October 22, 2004. Page 3.

For MT Nikolai Batyushin The reburial of a tsarist-era counter-intelligence hero in Moscow on Wednesday by agencies affiliated with the Federal Security Service has sparked a flurry of media speculation that the FSB could be looking for a new symbol to replace its Soviet founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky. Soldiers of the Kremlin regiment fired off a three-round salute as World War I spy catcher Nikolai Batyushin, who died in Belgium in 1957, was laid to rest at the Nikolo-Arkhangelskoye cemetery. "General Batyushin always served the law and the state to which he had vowed loyalty," Itar-Tass quoted Lieutenant General Vladimir Nosov, first deputy chief of the FSB's Military Counter-Intelligence Department, as saying at the burial ceremony. "He regarded it as his sacred duty to ensure the security of his Fatherland. The military intelligence service of Russia also adheres to these principles today." The exhuming of Batyushin's remains in Belgium and their reburial in Moscow was in line with public sentiments to build a bridge between tsarist and contemporary Russia, said Vitaly Shlykov, a retired officer in the Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, and a member of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. "Dzerzhinsky will little by little take a secondary role and they will turn to their origins more," Shlykov said of the FSB on Thursday. "It's been almost 15 years [since the breakup of the Soviet Union]. The Dzerzhinsky generation has decreased in numbers, and a new generation has come along."

Some newspapers speculated Thursday that Batyushin could be about to replace Dzerzhinsky in the FSB's affections.

"Today's security officers apparently need a new role model because 'Iron Felix' doesn't have moral authority in society," Izvestia said in a comment Thursday.

Novaya Gazeta on Thursday went as far as to speculate that Dzerzhinsky's portraits in the FSB's Lubyanka headquarters could be replaced in the future by portraits of Batyushin.

The FSB, Russia's main successor agency to the KGB, did not officially participate in the reburial and declined to comment Thursday.

Alexander Zdanovich, president of the Society for the Study of the History of Russian Special Services and a former FSB spokesman, said the reburial was not meant to give a new image to the FSB.

"That's absolute rubbish," he said.

The way to improve the FSB's image is to be more open to the public and the news media, he said.

Vasily Soima, president of the fund for the social and legal support of the FSB's former and current officers, which also helped organize the reburial, said the move was not about image.

No one was taking care of Batyushin's grave in Belgium and it could be damaged, he said.

Zdanovich said the decision to rebury Batyushin's remains was made in 2003, 100 years after the creation of the tsarist intelligence service. In 1903, Tsar Nicholas II ordered the creation of an intelligence unit reporting to the General Staff, Zdanovich said.

The reburial was carried out this year to coincide with the 130th anniversary of Batyushin's birth, Zdanovich said.

As an intelligence officer in the Warsaw Military District, Batyushin uncovered 30 spies during World War I, Zdanovich said. Batyushin came to prominence when Nicholas II appointed him to investigate why Army supplies were not getting through to the front.

Some of his investigations targeted people close to Grigory Rasputin.

Batyushin emigrated to Serbia after the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, where he wrote the book, "Secret Military Intelligence and How to Combat It." During World War II he went to live in Belgium, where he died at the age of 84.

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