International Liaison Department (Comintern)

The OMS (Russian: Отдел международной связи, otdel mezhdunarodnoy svyazi or ОМС), also known in English as the International Liaison Department (1921-1939), was "the most secret department" of the Comintern. It has also been translated as the Illegal Liaison Section and Foreign Liaison Department.

In 1939, Soviet intelligence defector Walter Krivitsky described the OMS as "a worldwide network of permanently stationed agents." Moreover, "These OMS representatives hold the whip over the leaders of the Communist Party in the country where they are stationed... The most delicate job entrusted to OMS resident agents is the distribution of money to finance the Communist Parties."

In 1999, the historian Raymond W. Leonard stated, "Through the auspices of the Comintern and the OMS, foreign communist parties provided a ready-made source of ideologically dedicated agents." He also speculated that the Intelligence Section "was probably the organization required by the OMS to be present in every Communist party of liaison work with the Red Army."

In 2002, historian David McKnight stated:

The most intense practical application of the conspiratorial work of the Comintern was carried out by its international liaison service, the OMS. This body undertook clandenstine courier activities and work which supported underground political activities. These included the transport of money and letters, the manufacture of passports and other false documents and technical support to underground parties, such as managing "safe houses" and establishing businesses overseas as cover activities.

In 2007, historian Nigel West providesd perhaps the longest single description of the OMS in English in his book Mask. In 2011, historian Thomas L. Sakmyster stated:

The OMS was the Comintern's department for the coordination of subversive and conspiratorial activities. Some of its functions overlapped with those of the main Soviet intelligence agencies, the OGPU and the GRU, whose agents sometimes were assigned to the Comintern. But the OMS maintained its own set of operations and had its own representative on the central committees of each Communist party abroad.

In 2014, Soviet expert Boris Volodarsky called the OMS a "little known intelligence services" and referred to the it as the "intelligence branch of the Comintern," preceded by the Sluzhba Svyazi or "Communication Service."

Most sources agree that the OMS "acted as an adjuct between the two main Soviet intelligence services."

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Wikipedia