Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun) was born in 1947. He graduated from the Military Diplomatic Academy of the Soviet Army in 1974 and was dispatched to Geneva to work as an agent in the Soviet military intelligence service (the GRU). For four years he was part of a team of analysts processing intelligence data. When his life came under threat, he and his family fled to the UK, where he received political asylum. He was meanwhile sentenced to death in absentia in the USSR.
Viktor Suvorov is the author of 16 books which have been translated into 27 languages. Over two million copies of his book Aquarium were published in Poland alone (Literaturnaya Gazeta, 17th August, 1991) where it went through at least 11 editions. His main work, however, was The Icebreaker, which was published in France by Edition Olivier Orban in 1988, and in the UK by Hamish Hamilton in 1990,
and deals with the beginning of the Second World War.
A review of The Icebreaker in Die Welt said: "this book was written by a professional intelligence agent, not by a historian, and that greatly increases its value...read The Icebreaker: it's an honest read."
An excerpt from a review in The Times said: "Viktor Suvorov is not arguing with the Red Star. He is arguing with every book, every article, every NATO directive...every Soviet song, poem and piece of music ever heard...during the last 50 years. For this reason alone, Icebreaker is the most original work of history."
The arguments presented in The Icebreaker are elaborated on in Suvorov's later books Day M, The Last Republic, Purification and Suicide.
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