After the guns fell silent in May 1945, the USSR resumed its clandestine warfare against the western democracies. Stalin installed secret police services in the satellite countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Trained by his NKVD officers of the Polish UB, the Czech StB, the Hungarian AVO, Romania’s Securitate, Bulgaria’s KDS, Albania’s Sigurimi and the Stasi of the German Democratic Republic spied on and ruthlessly repressed their fellow citizens on the Soviet model. When the resultant hatred exploded in uprisings they were put down by brutality, bloodshed and Soviet tanks. Not so obvious was that these state terror organisations were also designed for military and commercial espionage in the West, to conceal the real case officers in Moscow. Specially trained operatives undertook ‘wet jobs’, including the assassinations. Perhaps the most menacing were the sleepers who who married and raised families in the west while waiting to strike against their host countries; many are still among us.

In Moscow Rules Douglas Boyd explores the relationship between the KGB and its ghastly brood – a family from hell.