I Am Sorge: The Spy Who Saved the Soviet Union

John le Carré compared Richard Sorge to his own fictional character, George Smiley, but argued that he was a better spy. Kim Philby, Britain’s most notorious double agent, described him as the spy to end all spies. Mitsusada Yoshikawa, the Japanese Prosecutor who had him executed, said that in his whole life he had never met a greater man.

His name was Richard Sorge. Sent by Soviet General-Secretary Stalin to Tokyo just prior to WWII, he kept Moscow intimately informed on the dual streams of conflicting internal Japanese policy of whether they would expand their empire by invading North into the USSR, or South against British and American possessions in the Pacific. Simultaneously, he not only provided the exact dates Hitler would invade the USSR, but also the intelligence that allowed the Soviet Union to transfer desperately needed Eastern troops keeping the Japanese at bay to the European front and stop Hitler’s juggernaut, saving the USSR in the process.

All it cost the USSR for another half century of existence was $40,000.

All it cost Sorge was his life.