A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy

by Deborah McDonald

  22 Lockhart, British Agent, pp.178–80.

  23 Abraham, Alexander Kerensky, p. 301.

  24 Prince Alexis Scherbatow, letters to Serge Troubetskoy and Andrew Boyle, via Robert Keyserlingk, 27 & 29 Sep. 1980, CUL Add 9429/2B/55–60. Prince Alexis (1910–2003) was a child at the time of the Revolution, and knew both Kerensky and Moura in later life.

  25 Hill gives an account of Madame B’s work in his memoir (Go Spy the Land, pp. 87–8). He certainly knew Moura well, and was not the only one who referred to her discreetly as ‘Madame B’. Gen. Knox did the same in his published diary.

  26 Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin and the Russian Revolution’, p. 587.

  27 Garstin, letter, Jul. 1917, reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin and the Russian Revolution’, p. 594.

  28 Buchanan, Petrograd, pp. 125–6.

  29 Quoted in Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, pp. 170–71.

  30 Abraham, Alexander Kerensky, p. 343. Among those who suffered reprisals in the period that followed were Boris Flekkel (former administrative secretary to Kerensky), who was captured and shot by the Cheka, and Kerensky’s brother Fyodor, shot in Tashkent by the Red Army in 1919. The deputy head of the Cheka said of Flekkel, ‘He admitted that he had been Kerensky’s secretary – that’s enough to be shot for’ (quoted in Abraham, p. 343).

  Chapter 3: Red Winter

  1 Denis Garstin, letter, 27 Nov. 1917 (NS), reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, p. 595.

  2 Figes, People’s Tragedy, pp. 540–44.

  3 The precise date of this incident is uncertain. Buchanan (Ambassador’s Daughter, p. 181) implies that it was before Christmas 1917, citing it as the reason Christmas couldn’t be spent at Yendel, whereas Moura’s daughter Tania (Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 7) seems to place it in late 1918, during a second outbreak of anarchy after the German withdrawal. However, Tania does state that there were many such incidents at various times; also, she was too young to remember the incidents directly.

  4 Smith, Former People, p. 131.

  5 Garstin, letter, 8 Dec. 1917 (NS), reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, p. 596.

  6 Russia, one of Britain’s most important diplomatic missions, was Buchanan’s first ambassadorial posting, which he took up in 1910 (Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, pp. 87–8).

  7 Garstin, letter, 6 Jan. 1918 (NS), reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, p. 598.

  8 Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia, pp. 239, 243; Cabinet minute quoted in Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, p. 181.

  9 Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, pp. 190–91; Petrograd, p. 249.

  10 Buchanan, Dissolution, pp. 273–4.

  11 Buchanan, Petrograd, p. 249.

  12 Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, p. 191.

  13 Meriel Buchanan (Ambassador’s Daughter, pp. 194–5; Petrograd, pp. 233–4); Sir George Buchanan (My Mission to Russia, pp. 249–50). Gen. Knox noted the presence of ‘Madame B—’ and remarked that ‘more [Russians] would have come if they had dared’ (With the Russian Army, p. 740).

  14 Lockhart (British Agent, p. 191) refers to her as a ‘Russian Jewess’, but Kenneth Young, editor of his published diaries, identifies her as French and names her (in Lockhart, The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, vol. 1, p. 30).

  15 Smith, Former People, pp. 133–7.

  Chapter 4: The British Agent

  1 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 220; Diaries vol. 1, p. 33.

  2 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 3.

  3 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 25–8.

  4 Lockhart, Diaries vol. 1, pp. 22–8; Hughes, Inside the Enigma, p. 66.

  5 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 191–2.

  6 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 198–200.

  7 Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, p. 164. Col. John Buchan (the novelist) was at this time an assistant director in the Ministry of Information.

  8 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 198–200. Colonel Byrne had recommended that Lockhart be sent to Kiev, and that Gen. Frederick C. Poole (who had previously been responsible for British supplies to the Russian Army) be put in charge in Petrograd (Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, p. 166). Lloyd George disagreed. Poole was instead tasked with an ongoing scheme to buy up Russian banks and use them as a means of channelling funds to anti-Bolshevik movements (Kettle, pp. 204ff.).

  9 Maxim Litvinov (born Meir Wallach-Finkelstein) was a socialist who came from a Russian Jewish banking family. His appointment as Bolshevik Ambassador was said by some to be Trotsky’s joke – an insult to Britain (Garstin, letter, 8 Dec. 1917, in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, p. 596). However, Litvinov took it entirely seriously, and went on to have a distinguished diplomatic career, serving as Soviet Ambassador to the United States and as People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

  10 Lyons’ Corner Houses were a chain of large, popular restaurants founded by the food conglomerate J. Lyons & Co in 1909. The Lockhart–Litvinov meeting most likely occurred in the one at the corner of Coventry St and Rupert St (near Piccadilly Circus) or Strand/Craven St (off Trafalgar Square).

  11 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 201–3. Reginald ‘Rex’ Leeper worked for the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and headed the Political Intelligence Dept in the Second World War. Rothstein was a Russian émigré journalist who wrote for the Manchester Guardian; he later returned to Russia, joined the Party and became a diplomat.

  12 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 204.

  13 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 76–8; editor’s note in Lockhart, Diaries vol. 1, p. 22.

  14 Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, p. 190.

  15 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 204–5.

  16 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 211–12; Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, pp. 195–200.

  17 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 115.

  18 Lockhart, memoranda to Sir George Buchanan, 12 Aug. 1915, quoted in Hughes, Inside the Enigma, p. 66. Lockhart’s diary entries from late 1915 (Diaries vol. 1, pp. 25–6) also indicate his awareness of the growing popular unrest and how dangerous it could be.

  19 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 221–2.

  20 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 224. In his unpublished diaries, Lockhart gives the address as 10 Dvortsovoy Naberezhnoy (Russian for Palace Quay), and the moving-in date as 10 February (NS).

  21 Lockhart, unpublished essay, ‘Baroness Budberg’, p. 3. Their first recorded encounter took place on Sunday 17 February, whereas in his Memoirs of a British Agent (pp. 243–4) he implies that he first met Moura in March. Interestingly, he is more discreet about her in his private diary than in his published memoir, referring to her always as ‘Mme Benckendorff’ and giving no hint that there was any personal involvement between them. Possibly he was wary of his diary falling into Bolshevik hands; when he wrote his memoir in the early 1930s, his relationship with Moura was too well known for him to gloss over it.

  22 Lockhart, unpublished diary entry for 17 Feb. 1918.

  23 Rabinowitch, Bolsheviks in Power, pp. 157–60.

  24 Lockhart, diary entry for 15 Feb. 1918, reproduced in British Agent, pp. 226–7.

  25 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 227.

  26 Hughes, Inside the Enigma, pp. 122–3; Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, pp. 122–3.

  27 Hughes, Inside the Enigma, p. 123.

  28 Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks in Power, pp. 160–61.

  29 Lockhart, diary entry for 18 Feb. 1918, Diaries vol. 1, p. 33; British Agent, p. 228.

  30 Figes, People’s Tragedy, p. 545.

  31 Lockhart, unpublished essay, ‘Baroness Budberg’, pp. 3–4.

  32 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 243–4.

  Chapter 5: ‘What Children We Were’

  1 Moura, letters to Lockhart, 31 Oct. and 16 Dec. 1918, LL.

  2 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 242.

  3 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 76.

  4 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 31 Oct. 1918, LL.

  5 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 168; Hughe
s, Inside the Enigma, p. 130.

  6 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, pp. 165–6.

  7 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 31 Oct. 1918, LL.

  8 Figes, People’s Tragedy, pp. 741–2. Alexandra Kollontai advocated (and practised) free ‘marriage’ throughout her adult life, in speeches and in pamphlets such as ‘The Social Basis of the Woman Question’ (1909) and ‘Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle’ (1921) – see Kollontai, Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollonta. Her ideas were badly misunderstood at the time, sometimes with tragic results for women. When a call for the ‘socialisation of women’ was given out in early 1918, in some districts it resulted in mass rapes, with women being forcibly turned into unpaid prostitutes for soldiers (Smith, Former People, p. 133). As a radical socialist Kollontai initially rose high in the Bolshevik movement, and campaigned for women’s education and working conditions. Placing her socialist principles and the interests of the workers above the political interests of the Party, she was later sidelined by Lenin.

  9 The measured pace of Moura’s relationship with Lockhart (evidenced by her letters of the time) tends to contradict the lurid, lascivious reputation that was retrospectively attached to her by people who didn’t actually know her personally at this time (e.g. Sir Michael Postan, interview by Andrew Boyle).

  10 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 31 Oct. 1918, LL.

  11 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 229–32.

  12 Michael Kettle (The Allies and the Russian Collapse, pp. 220–22) traces the origin of these papers to the summer of 1917. The documents were intended to discredit the Bolsheviks and prevent them overthrowing the Kerensky government. They were commissioned by Russian Military Intelligence and created by a Pole called Anton Ossendowski, a professional propagandist, and a Russian newspaper editor called Semenov. The ‘Sisson papers’ (named after an American agent who bought copies and disseminated them) were part of a larger campaign of disinformation, and were promoted by British interests, including the head of the Secret Intelligence Service office in Petrograd, Cdr E. T. Boyce. The US government continued to believe in the documents, and was still publicising them as late as September 1918.

  13 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 231.

  14 Cabinet minutes quoted in Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, pp. 226–30.

  15 Hughes, Inside the Enigma, p. 130.

  16 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 236.

  17 Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, pp. 220–21, 262–3; Hughes, Inside the Enigma, pp. 130–31.

  18 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 236–8.

  19 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 238.

  20 Bainton, Honoured by Strangers, pp. 198–9.

  21 Bainton, Honoured by Strangers, pp. 201 and passim. Her real forename was Sonia, but friends knew her as Sophie.

  22 Cross, ‘A Corner of a Foreign Field’, p. 353.

  23 Some of Moura’s personal letters during this period (LL and HIA) were written on Leech & Firebrace headed notepaper, indicating the close connection between the branches of Leech’s business and propaganda enterprises.

  24 The name actually used at this time was ‘Secret Service Bureau’, under the cover name ‘MI1c’. But the name Secret (or Special) Intelligence Service came into use around the end of the First World War, and both terms were used concurrently for a while. The cover name ‘MI1c’ was replaced by ‘MI6’ during the Second World War. (See Jeffery, MI6, pp. 50, 162–3, 209.) The abbreviation SIS is generally used by non-specialist historians, and is accordingly adopted here.

  25 Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, pp. 136–7, 152, 256–7.

  26 The fact that Moura was employed in this way (not to mention her long-standing closeness to the embassy people) seems to confirm that the popular reputation she supposedly had at this time for being a German spy must be a later addition to the Moura mythology. It doesn’t rule out the (unlikely) possibility that she might have been a spy for the Germans, but it argues against the idea that she was widely believed to be a spy (which is the claim made).

  27 Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse, pp. 260–61.

  28 Lockhart (British Agent, p. 244) describes this event as a birthday party for Cromie, which is repeated by Cromie’s biographer (Bainton, Honoured by Strangers, p. 139). In fact Cromie’s birthday was on 30 January (17 January OS). Maslenitsa, which is held seven weeks before Easter, ran from 11 to 17 March 1918 (NS), and the party was held on Monday the 11th (Lockhart, unpublished diary entry for 11 Mar. 1918). It’s possible that it was in fact a belated birthday for Moura herself (usually 6 March). Equally likely, the ‘birthday’ might have been misunderstanding or faulty memory on Lockhart’s part. It isn’t clear from his account whether there were any Russian guests, but it appears not.

  29 Cromie, letter to Cdre S. S. Hall, 1/19 Feb. 1918, in Jones, ‘Documents on British Relations’ IV, p. 550. In 1918 £2 was equivalent to about £100 now.

  30 Gen. Finlayson, quoted in De Ruvigny, ‘Garstin, Denys Norman’, p. 66.

  31 Garstin, letter, 14 Feb. 1918, reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, pp. 600–01.

  32 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 244.

  33 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 245–6.

  34 Tania describes this journey sketchily (Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 5). The date isn’t given, but it was said to be early spring, and there was snow still on the ground. Tania also doesn’t specify where Micky’s passport was obtained. Possibly Moura used her secret service connections; alternatively Lockhart might have used his influence with Trotsky. Tania implies that the journey was done in a day, which in a horse-drawn vehicle over a distance of more than 200 miles is highly unlikely.

  Chapter 6: Passion and Intrigue

  1 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 258–9. Lockhart identifies the house as belonging to someone called Gracheva, but gives no further information. It is possible that the owner was Maria Gracheva, an art collector who was among the wealthy émigrés who fled Russia after the Revolution. Her collection (or the part which survived) was seized by the state and ended up in the Rumantsyev Museum (Senenko, ‘Late 19th Century Private Collections’, pp. 19–21).

  2 Moura, letter, 16 Apr. 1918, LL. This is one of her occasional letters written on the headed notepaper of Hugh Leech’s firms, this one headed ‘Farran Farranovich Leech’ in Cyrillic. The ‘red sweater’ is probably a garment he had left with her; there are occasional references in Moura’s letters in which she has been asked by him to bring him some article he has left behind in one of his various moves.

  3 The Elite Hotel (named at various times the Rossiya and the Aurora) is now the Hotel Budapest, in Ulitsa Petrovskiye Linii, off Petrovka Street.

  4 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 262–3.

  5 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 256–7. Lockhart refers to the Metropol as the ‘First House of Soviets’; in fact it was the Second, the First being the former National Hotel.

  6 Lockhart, British Agent, p. 257.

  7 Often mistranslated as ‘man of steel’, the name Stalin has no literal English translation; it would be more akin to ‘Steelman’ or ‘Steelson’, made up of the Russian for ‘steel’, stal, with the standard surname suffix -in.

  8 Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, p. 184.

  9 Lockhart (British Agent, p. 258) gives the number killed as ‘over a hundred’, but Avrich (The Russian Anarchists, p. 184) states 40 killed or wounded. Possibly some of the bodies seen by Lockhart were Chekists.

  10 Werth, ‘A State Against Its People’, p. 64.

  11 Deacon, A History of the Russian Secret Service, p. 168; Leggett, The Cheka, pp. 118–19. In an interview with a Moscow paper in November 1918, Peters insisted, ‘I am not as bloodthirsty as they say’ (quoted in Werth, ‘A State Against Its People’, p. 75). Peters’ surname is sometimes rendered as Peterss, and his forename variously as Yakov, Iacob or Jan.

  12 Lockhart, British Agent, pp. 258–9.

  13 Lockhart seems to imply that it was the former, but since prostitutes did good business in
side the Cheka headquarters in both Petrograd and Moscow (Figes, People’s Tragedy, pp. 683–4), it seems unlikely that Peters took this view.

  14 Moura, letter to Lockhart, HIA. Undated: probably Jun. 1918. (Most of the 28 letters Moura wrote to Lockhart prior to October 1918 are undated, and their chronology has had to be pieced together from content and context. She makes frequent reference to current events, which is helpful in dating.)

  15 Cromie, letter to Cdre S. S. Hall, Apr. 1918, in Jones, ‘Documents on British Relations’ IV, pp. 550–51. Cromie didn’t specify whether the ‘five million’ was pounds, roubles or marks; however, as it follows just after his mention of ‘£50,000’, one can infer that it was pounds. In 1918 £5 million would be equivalent to about £300 million today – a bargain price for a flotilla of submarines.