When the Cold War Ended and the UN Finally Started Working
Imagine showing up to a new job and the Berlin Wall falls. That’s basically what happened to Chan Heng Chee.
Cold war
Final Thoughts on the KGB Plays Chess - Why This Book Still Matters
This is the twelfth and final post in my series retelling The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0, Russell Enterprises, 2010). Over the past eleven posts we covered every chapter, every author, every story in this book. Now I want to step back, take a breath, and talk about what all of it means.
A Letter From the KGB Officer Who Watched Over Soviet Chess
Most of The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0) is written from the outside looking in. Players telling you what the KGB did to them. Historians connecting the dots. But Chapter 4 is different. It’s a letter. Written by Vladimir Popov, a retired KGB lieutenant colonel, addressed directly to the historian Yuri Felshtinsky. And it reads like nothing else in the book.
Viktor Kortschnoi's Afterword - A Defector's View of KGB Chess
Viktor Kortschnoi opens his afterword with a quote from Radishchev’s Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow: “A monster horrid, hideous, huge, hundred-mouthed, and barking!” That line was originally about Russian autocracy in the 1700s. Kortschnoi uses it for the KGB. Same country, different century, same monster.
Storming the Castle - How Boris Gulko Finally Won His Freedom
This is the final part of Boris Gulko’s chapter in The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0). After seven years as a refusenik, Gulko and his wife Anya decided to stop waiting and start fighting. What follows is one of the most intense stretches of the entire book.
Years Without Time - Chess, Dissidents, and Survival in Soviet Moscow
Continuing the retelling of The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0). Boris Gulko describes the long, empty years of being stuck in the Soviet Union. Years when time stopped. And the strange games the KGB played off the chessboard.
Life as a Refusenik Chess Player Fighting the Soviet System
Continuing the retelling of The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0), Chapter 2 by Boris Gulko. Last time, Gulko described his early career and the decision to apply for emigration. Now comes the hard part. What happens when the Soviet Union says “no” but won’t let you live a normal life either.
Boris Gulko's First Encounters With Soviet Chess and the KGB
A New Voice in the Book
Chapter 2 of “The KGB Plays Chess” is where Boris Gulko takes over the storytelling. The previous chapter was the insider account from the KGB officer. This one is deeply personal. Gulko titles it “The Letter Lahmed Problem” and dedicates it to his sister Bella, “my loyal companion on the road to freedom.”
Karpov vs Kortschnoi and the KGB's Role in World Chess Championships
The 1980 Moscow Olympics and the Gulko Problem
This section of the book shows what the KGB was willing to do when they felt threatened. And the threat was not some foreign spy or military secret. The threat was a chess player and his wife who wanted to leave the country.
Spies, Defectors, and Chess Players Under KGB Watch
Continuing my retelling of The KGB Plays Chess by Boris Gulko, Vladimir Popov, Yuri Felshtinsky, and Viktor Kortschnoi (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0). This part covers the KGB’s grip on individual athletes, the hunt for defectors, and how chess became a battlefield for Soviet intelligence.
How the KGB Controlled Soviet Athletes From the Inside
Chapter 1 of The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0) is written by Vladimir Popov, a former KGB officer, and Yuri Felshtinsky, a historian. And it starts with a bang. No slow warm-up. Just a blunt description of how the Soviet secret police turned sports into a branch of intelligence operations.
How Chess Became the Soviet Union's Favorite Political Weapon
The foreword of The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0) is written by Boris Gulko. He’s one of the very few people who held both the USSR and US chess championships. And he spent seven years as a “refusenik,” trapped in the Soviet Union, fighting the KGB just for the right to leave. So when he writes about chess and Soviet power, he knows exactly what he’s talking about.
The KGB Plays Chess - A Book Retelling Series About Soviet Spies and Chess
What This Series Is About
I just finished reading one of the wildest books about chess I have ever come across. It is called “The KGB Plays Chess: The Soviet Secret Police and the Fight for the World Chess Crown” (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0, Russell Enterprises, 2010). And I want to walk you through it.