Suvorov Viktor. Aquarium. The Career and Defection of a Soviet Military Spy

Grafton, 1987. — 403 p.Aquarium - The Career and Defection of a Soviet Military Spy is the biography and memoir of Viktor Suvorov. Viktor Suvorov (Виктор Суворов) is a former Soviet GRU officer who is the author of non-fiction books about World War II, the GRU and the Soviet Army, as well as fictional books about the same and related subjects. After defecting to the United Kingdom in 1978, Suvorov began his writing career, publishing his first books in the 1980s about his own experiences and the structure of the Soviet military, intelligence, and secret police. He writes in Russian with a number of his books translated into English, including his semi-autobiographical The Liberators (1981). In the USSR, according to Suvorov and according to an interview with the former head of the GRU, he was sentenced to death in absentia.Aquarium (Russian title Аквариум) is a partly-autobiographical description by Viktor Suvorov of the GRU (Soviet military intelligence directorate). The book was initially released on June 1, 1985, by Hamish Hamilton. The account starts in 1969, when Suvorov, as an ordinary tank company commander, is recruited into intelligence analysis by an up-and-coming lieutenant colonel. From there, he transfers to Spetsnaz and, from there, into the GRU. A combination of circumstances leads to his eventual defection to the United Kingdom.The "Aquarium" of the title is the nickname given to GRU headquarters in Moscow by those who work there. "What sort of fish are there swimming there?" asks Suvorov of his boss when he learns about it. "There's only one kind there—piranhas." Suvorov admits that some details of his career have been altered; for example, he portrays himself as being posted to Austria when, in fact, he was in Switzerland. The reasons given are to hide his identity while the Soviet Union still existed and to protect from retaliation against friends and relatives.