Viktor Suvorov Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Viktor Suvorov real name Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun is a historical fiction author best known as one of only two GRU officers to defect and live to tell the tale. He was born to a Ukrainian-Russian military family in 1947 and spent a lot of time working in military intelligence. As a former GRU intelligence officer that defected to the UK at the height of the Cold War, he has become a military historian. Ever since he started writing, he has been one of the most popular authors of alternative history of World War II. His more than ten novels on the subject of intelligence, the Soviet army organization, prominent figures in the USSR and Germany, and Spetznaz are based on his experiences as a GRU officer and a spy. He made his debut as an author with the publishing of “The Liberators” in 1981. His many novels have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages over the years. The Hamish Hamilton published novel “Aquarium” that came out in 1985 is his most popular work.

Having been born to a father that was a World War II veteran military officer in the Russian artillery, going into the military was a no-brainer for Viktor Suvorov. As a teenager, he attended the Suvorov Military Schools in Kalinin and Voronezh between 1958 and 1965 as he intended to pursue a career in the military. He was a good student and between 1965 and 1968 he would attend the prestigious Kyiv Higher Military Command School for further studies. Once he graduated, he joined the Russian Army as an officer. He was one of the youngest officers of the 145th Motorized Rifles Guard Regiment. As part of the reconnaissance unit, he was an integral member of the team that would later invade Czechoslovakia in 1968. Once he was done with his mission and went back home, he got a promotion and for several years she was a tank company commander. Between 1970 and 1971, he was an officer in the 808th Special Army Reconnaissance and the Volga Military District Reconnaissance Headquarters of the “Spetsnaz” company.

Between 1971 and 1974, Viktor Suvorov attended the Military Diplomatic Academy. He would then be posted to Geneva, Switzerland where he worked as a Soviet diplomat between 1974 and 1978 while also doubling up as a GRU intelligence officer for the Soviet military. He would surprise everyone in 1978 when he defected from the GRU and left his post in Switzerland. He fled with his wife and two children and sought asylum in the United Kingdom, where he has been living ever since. He was smuggled out of Switzerland by NATO forces and soon he was established in England and giving vital information to the block. As a man that had access to the training of elite intelligence and military forces, he had a lot of information and value to give. In the United Kingdom, he used his experiences as a spy, military man, and diplomat and intelligence officer to start a new career. He would work as a lecturer, intelligence analyst appear in several documentaries, give interviews and give commentaries on political happenings on TV and a variety of publications. However, it would be as an author of alternative history that he would become best known.

Viktor Suvorov’s “Aquarium” takes its readers into the Moscow headquarters of the GRU called the Aquarium. It is at the aquarium that agents are brought to be disciplined, trained, and sometimes broken. On his first day of training, Suvorov had to watch the film of a disillusioned agent being burned alive as a lesson. This taught the agents that the only way out of the GRU was death. The GRU also uses other methods to ensure loyalty that includes electric shocks for agents that have a bad memory, hand to hand combat with vicious death row prisoners, and being tossed off a moving train. The agent is expected to gather any information from the enemy using any resources they have available. They take advantage of every source of information and have been to exhibitions on tanks, military electronics to mundane ones having to do with Chinese goldfish or flowers. They are also expected to have extreme loyalty to the point of taking the lives of friends just to protect the organization. Suvorov bailed when he was made to betray his best friend and decided it was time he defected.

“Ice Breaker” by Viktor Suvorov is an alternative view of World War II. The generally accepted narrative is that Hitler had deceived Stalin to sign a pact by bribing him with the spoils of Eastern Europe. Hitler had thus managed to ensure that he would be fighting on only one front and then turn back to fight the Russians when he had decimated his other enemies. Once he was done taking over Western Europe, North Africa, and the Balkans, he believed the time was right to invade the Soviet Union. The Russian army was mobilized along the border to face the approaching German war machine. But Stalin’s purges in the late thirties had severely weakened the Red Army as they had few experienced officers. Moreover, they had very little time to prepare since Hitler had attacked without warning. After ignoring warnings of an attack from Churchill and a German embassy spy, the Red Army was caught unawares and was routed even though they fought bravely. It would take several weeks for the Russians to mount any kind of organized defense even though they got some respite when Hitler went to bail out Mussolini who had a lot of issues in Romania. While Hitler believed he could beat the Soviets in no more than four months having captures more than 4 million soldiers and thousands of tanks and aircraft, just like Napoleon it was the winter that would be his undoing.

Viktor Suvorov’s “The Liberators” tells the thrilling story of life in the Soviet Army as told by an officer who participated in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. In practice, the Red Army had been a series of interconnected courts during peacetime. Most of the officers spent much of their time pandering to inspectors and superiors to hide the fact that they were in charge of soldiers unprepared for any type of fight. It was a bizarre situation that obsessed overdress and paved underwater roads to pretend that their tanks were the best at crossing swollen rivers. The army went to great lengths to exaggerate its prowess and stockpile an arsenal that went largely unused. As such, the Soviets had many people just pandering and not doing any real or serious work. Thus Suvorov spent a lot of time singing to switchboard operators, staff officers, florists, cooks, and engineers that were often the courtiers of colonels, generals, and Soviet marshals. Even though he was an officer, he also provides a confusing and brutal account of the lives of the junior soldiers and the disastrous invasion of Czechoslovakia.