The article covers the role of Soviet counsellors in the period of the civil war in Spain. The authors relied on memoirs of event participants - Soviet military counsellors and various sources of modern researchers. A special role was played by Marsel I. Rozenberg, Soviet diplomat, the first representative of the USSR in the League of Nations who was in fact coordinating a huge mechanism of operations of two intelligence services of the USSR: the Intelligence Directorate of the Workers` and Peasants` Red Army and the foreign intelligence service of the Foreign Department of the Main Directorate for State Security of the People`s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. Scientists are still arguing over the motives for destruction by the People`s Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the elite of outstanding employees of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, the Workers` and Peasants` Red Army, military and foreign intelligence services, party and Soviet workers, popular writers. The authors leave this topic