Sometimes the KGB secretly installed listening devices in the homes of brothers who took the lead in the congregation. Grigory Sivulsky, a district overseer for 25 years during the ban, recalls how in 1958 he discovered one such device in the attic: “We lived in Tulun, Siberia, on the second floor of a two-story apartment building on the outskirts of town. Once when I got home, I heard drilling noises coming from the attic of the building. I realized that the KGB were bugging the attic to listen in on us​—a widely known method of theirs. Most of the literature was stored in the attic, as well as in the eaves of the roof.

“In the evening, when our family gathered together, I told them about my suspicions, and we agreed not to talk about congregation matters at home for the time being. We put on the radio, turned up the sound, and left it like that for the entire week. At the end of the week, a brother and I crawled up into the attic and found a cable that was attached to the listening device. The cable went between two rows of planks, around the eaves, and straight out to the city toward the KGB offices. There was no doubt that they were recording everything, but at that time, they got only radio programs.”

THE KGB INFILTRATE THE ORGANIZATION

The KGB saw that open persecution could not dampen the zeal of the Witnesses. Therefore, using cunning and deception, they began sowing seeds of distrust among the brothers toward those appointed to give oversight and the organization as a whole. One of the KGB’s strategies was to plant experienced agents in the congregations.

As suspicions grew, some brothers stopped sending congregation reports to the Country Committee. The publishers in the congregations continued to be active in the ministry and turned in their reports regularly, but most of them did not know that the reports were no longer being sent to the Country Committee. By 1958 several thousand publishers had been cut off from the Country Committee by groups of brothers. In Irkutsk and Tomsk and later in other Russian cities, the groups of brothers who separated from the organization continued to grow. In March 1958 the separated ones had organized their own “country committee” in hopes that it would be recognized by all the congregations.