Necroment

A story about a general who killed his subordinates with occult aims, cremated their corpses, and hid the ashes, adding it to the “laying policemen” material as an “ecological additive.” As one military archivist put it, the general’s story differs from other high-profile cases connected with shuffling in power structures in much the same way that the process of Gilles de Rais differs from the dismissal into reserve of some half-literate feudal lord who was blocking historical progress.

The comparison with Gilles de Rais contains no exaggeration. The French marshal who was burned at the stake in 1440, confessed to dealings with the devil and to ritual alchemical murders, could quite reasonably be called the spiritual twin of the former deputy head of Moscow’s GAI (Krushin preferred to call his department in the old way, just as the people still do—and in our small essay we follow his example). Most of the information about the Krushin case is still classified, and attempts to compile at least a somewhat complete biography are unknown. Of course, we make no claim to provide a final revelation. Our task is to gather in one place fragments of information that appeared at different times in different sources—and let the reader make their own conclusions.