Boris Yakovlevich Bukov, also Boris Bykov ("Sasha") Regiment Commissar (15 November 1935) was a member of the Communist Party

Communist party

A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...

 member since 1919. Bykov was head of the underground apparatus with which Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...

 and Alger Hiss

Alger Hiss

Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...

 were connected.

Early career

Bykov graduated from Commanders' Upgrading Training School of RAZVEDUPR of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 Staff in 1929. He received further training at the Red Army Military Academy of Chemical Defense, the Military-Industrial Department (September 1932 - February 1935), and the Red Army Stalin Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization. As he was fluent in German, Bykov served as an Officer of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU

GRU

GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

) from 1920-1941, working in Germany. In 1928 Bykov became the section chief of the 2nd department of the RAZVEDUPR; later he was appointed Assistant Chief of the 2nd Department of the RAZVEDUPR.

Soviet illegal resident

In 1935 Bukov left abroad and served as Illegal Rezident of RAZVEDUPR in the United States from 1936 to 1939. After leaving the United States, he became a Lecturer (agent-operation cycle) of the Higher Special School of the Red Army Staff from July 1939 to September 1940, followed by a post as Senior Teacher of the chair of intelligence from September 1940 to June 1941.

Wartime service

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 in June 1941, Bukov headed the chair of foreign countries study of the Second Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages which later became known as the Institute of Military Interpreters.

Further reading

• Lurie, V.M. and Kochick, V.Y., GRU: Cases and People, (St. Petersburg and Moscow: Olma Press, 2003), p.356 [in Russian].
• W. G. Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service, (New York: Harper Brothers, 1939), 236.
• Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, (New York: Random House, 1997), 548, n. 16.
• Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss–Chambers Case, (New York: Random House, 2nd ed. 1997), pp. 204-208 et al.