Spies and Commissars

by Robert Service

  His captors yet again handled him with care. He was allowed visits by his lover Moura, now freed from imprisonment, who brought him food and tobacco. They were permitted to write to each other on condition that Peters could vet the letters.15 Peters questioned Lockhart in a seemly fashion before handing him over to Karakhan. He too adopted a gentle approach. It was Karakhan who had issued Lockhart with diplomatic immunity and the two had often conversed. Now state interests and allegiances divided them.16

  The two men had a fiery discussion lasting several days. Karakhan put the blame for the Red terror on the British. If the British had not interfered in Soviet affairs, he exclaimed, there would have been no need for the Bolsheviks to let loose the Cheka. He told Lockhart that Lenin had demanded: ‘Stop the terror!’17 Karakhan must have known that Lenin held exactly the opposite opinion at that very time. In a speech at the Cheka Club, no less, Lenin ridiculed the soft-bellied comrades who sought a gentler dictatorship.18 As Lockhart knew, Karakhan was one of the more moderate Bolsheviks. What he said about Lenin was really an indication of the kind of communist regime he himself desired. Lockhart for his part upheld the official British line. By signing the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the Bolsheviks had reneged on Russia’s contractual obligations as one of the Allies and had facilitated the massing of German military strength on the western front. Their foreign policy had put a dagger to the throats of Britain and France; they had only themselves to blame if they found themselves the object of Allied hostility. This, at least, is how Lockhart later described the discussion; the Cheka report suggested that he was less robust in putting his case. What is anyhow clear is that there was no meeting of minds.19

  Lockhart attributed his easy treatment to the Soviet appreciation of the growing likelihood of an Allied victory over the Germans. If Germany was defeated, the Allied armies would have the military capacity to advance into Russia. Karakhan asked Lockhart courteously what it would take for Britain and Japan to end their intervention. He claimed that the communist leadership had no concern about the Americans, who were half-hearted about invading; and he judged that the French were too exhausted to be a serious threat. The Kremlin would offer commercial concessions to the United Kingdom, the US and Japan if they would agree to pull out their armed forces. It would even offer an honourable settlement to the Czech Corps and grant free exit from Russia. Conversations with Lockhart continued between 15 and 25 September, and Lockhart thought he was being sounded out as the conduit for a deal with the British. The Soviet leadership had gained a respite through Brest-Litovsk and now wanted some kind of equivalent so as to forestall an all-out British invasion.20 A similar overture was made through Jacques Sadoul to the French government, no doubt without the disrespect that Karakhan had expressed to Lockhart for France’s capacity to strengthen its force of intervention in Odessa.21 This was a pretty desperate idea. Sadoul had long since lost the trust of French diplomats in Russia.

  Dozens of Allied officials, including Grenard, the French consul-general, fled to sanctuary with DeWitt Poole in the American consulate. As an additional security measure, Poole ran up the Norwegian flag since Norway was a neutral country in the war and Poole rightly calculated that Soviet leaders would not like to offend the Norwegians.22 Hill was still operating under cover and could not warn Reilly, who was on a trip to see Cromie in Moscow, about what had happened. Reilly’s network of helpers and informants remained vulnerable. When Hill tried to alert them, one of his own ‘girls’ was arrested while visiting one of those working for Reilly.23 Moreover, Marie Fride who also worked for the Americans turned up in the course of the raid. She panicked, inadvertently alerting the Cheka that she too was an Allied agent — and it was her arrest and interrogation that led to the rounding up of the American network.24 Among those brought into custody was Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Fride — Maria’s brother — from the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs. Another was former Major General Alexander Zagryazhski.25 On 18 September Kalamatiano himself was caught coming back from a trip to liaise with the Czechs in the Volga region.26

  Reilly escaped to London via Tallinn and Stockholm.27 He has sometimes been accused of being a Cheka double agent — or alternatively of being tasked, as a British intelligence officer, with closing down the rival network of US agents. Reilly and Kalamatiano met and talked frequently in the office of British businessman William Camber Higgs.28 The story goes that it was on a visit to Reilly that Colonel Berzin secretly found Kalamatiano’s address. DeWitt Poole, on his departure from Russia later in September, told a British diplomat about circumstantial evidence pointing to the conclusion that Reilly had either compromised Lockhart or ‘even betrayed him’.29 Kalamatiano later noted that people connected exclusively with Reilly were released whereas all but one of his own associates were given prison terms. Such speculation is common in matters relating to the operation of intelligence agencies. But the case remains unproven in this instance. It was simply untrue that the French and American networks in Russia were wrecked beyond repair that September or that the British Secret Service Bureau continued to work undisturbed.30 Lockhart was in prison; Reilly and Hill were in hiding and their teams too had been broken up. The likelihood is that the Cheka had got its result by its own diligent efforts. It did not have or need help from Reilly.

  Other Western prisoners in Moscow did not receive the courtesies accorded to Lockhart. And in Petrograd the treatment was still rougher. Captain Francis Cromie, left behind to protect the British embassy residence in Petrograd, barred the way to intruders on 31 August. He killed two of them before himself falling victim to the third.31 The other British and French officials in the city were dragged off to the Peter-Paul Fortress. The cells were already crowded and the sanitary arrangements were abysmal. Rats scurried around the floors; the food was no better than when the Romanian ambassador had been held there. The prisoners suffered from diarrhoea and lack of medicines. The Petrograd Cheka expressed indifference to Allied complaints, but governments of neutral countries in the Great War were horrified by the murder of Russian citizens and soon indicated that they would expel all known Bolsheviks if the executions were not immediately halted.32 The Swiss minister M. Odier became dean of the diplomatic corps after the Allied ambassadors’ departure for Vologda. While asserting that he did not want to interfere in Russian politics, he protested to Zinoviev and Chicherin against the Red terror in Moscow and Petrograd; and he believed that only his vigorous intervention prevented Lockhart from being executed on 4 September.33

  The German government was unconcerned about these events. When its Ukrainian puppet administration expressed outrage about the killings, Hintze blandly replied that he did not regard the repressive Soviet measures as terror and anyway did not wish to poke his nose into Russia’s internal affairs:34 the reality was that it suited the Germans that the Soviet leadership were at last turning on Allied officials.

  The British government had at first reacted merely by increasing the surveillance over Litvinov in London. When he arrived at the tube station at Charing Cross, respectful policemen would ask: ‘Going home, sir? Goodnight.’ Then they queued for tickets and followed him home to Hampstead.35 A few days later he was arrested and taken off to Brixton prison. The Defence of the Realm Act authorized the arrest without warrant of any person ‘whose behaviour is of such a nature as to give reasonable grounds for suspecting that he has acted, or is acting, or is about to act in a manner prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the realm’. Seized at the same time were his secretary Mr Wintin and his military adviser Captain Oshmyanski; Nikolai Klyshko, a party comrade and a draughtsman at Vickers Ltd’s engineering business in Croydon, was also imprisoned.36 They were effectively held as hostages to deter maltreatment of Lockhart. No decision was made about what to do if Lockhart was shot. Although Litvinov did not appear very disturbed, it was a truly shocking situation. European politics for centuries had regarded hostage-taking as behaviour only savages indulged in. The British in autumn 1918 f
elt they had no alternative if they were to keep their officials safe. Taking a diplomat captive was bad enough. But by implicitly threatening to retaliate physically against Litvinov if anything happened to Lockhart and his colleagues, Britain shattered the international consensus.

  Lloyd George’s tactic had a rapid impact as Chicherin announced a willingness to exchange Litvinov and others for the arrested Britons.37 Karakhan and Peters made a last-minute attempt to secure Lockhart for the Soviet cause and asked him to consider staying on in Soviet Russia. Sadoul and Marchand were staying, and it would be a great success for Sovnarkom if an official of the British Foreign Office defected. They played on Lockhart’s love affair with Moura. He saw what they were up to, as he was to confide to his notebooks over two decades later: ‘Tempted. But this time heard the referee’s whistle.’38

  Lockhart was released from the Kremlin on 1 October. Karakhan and Peters amicably bade him goodbye, and Peters offered to replace the broken valuables in Lockhart’s apartment.39 Lockhart rejected the promise of monetary compensation. He had hardened his heart. Bolshevik Russia was no longer safe for him and he made arrangements to leave — without Moura. First, though, he had to secure the freedom of Major Hicks and get permission for him to marry ‘the Russian lady of his heart’.40 Lockhart’s right-hand man had taken refuge in the American consulate and wanted to take Lyubov Malinina out of Russia with him. This could happen only if they were man and wife. Peters agreed, being ‘highly entertained by the request’;41 he then made a request of his own: ‘I have a favour to ask of you. When you reach London, will you give this letter to my English wife?’ He handed over snapshots to help to identify her before second thoughts occurred to him: ‘No, I shan’t trouble you. As soon as you’re out of here you’ll blaspheme and curse me as your worst enemy.’ Lockhart told him not to be a fool and took the letter, which he duly delivered to its addressee.42

  Negotiations proceeded for the safe exit of all Western official personnel from Moscow. It was a tense situation. By then the British and French diplomats had taken refuge in the Norwegian legation. But even though the Bolsheviks were unlikely to attack the building, they held it under siege. The Allied diplomats stiffened their resolve: when water supplies were cut off, a Frenchman adroitly caught the rainwater, which enabled everyone to have a drink.43

  Eventually an agreement was reached with the assistance of Swiss diplomats and the Swedish government;44 and Arthur Ransome explained that it would be easier to promote the Soviet cause among British workers if Lenin showed mercy.45 Lockhart and his party left the Russian capital by train in the first week of October; Litvinov had already been released from prison and was living at home with his wife and children. A policeman in ‘a long rubber raincoat’ was posted at their garden gate — he touched his peaked hat on sight of Litvinov.46 As Litvinov finalized his arrangements to return to Russia, he bluntly told Ivy: ‘You would just be a burden to me. I would have to waste days trying to get you settled.’ Ivy felt it hard to disagree even though her uncle Sidney opined: ‘I always said that fellow would abandon her.’47 Having given birth to their second child just months earlier, she was in no physical condition to travel, and Maxim and Ivy agreed that Russia in the middle of civil war and being subjected to foreign military intervention was not an appropriate place for a young family.

  The bartering of Lockhart for Litvinov prefigured situations in the Cold War when captured Soviet intelligence agents walked over the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin as their Western counterparts proceeded simultaneously from the other side. The Times in London reported that Litvinov and about thirty of his compatriots departed for Scandinavia on 25 September 1918. They were not to be allowed to reach Russia until Lockhart and the other Allied officials crossed the Russian frontier.48

  With Major Hicks and his new wife in the British party at the Finland Station in Petrograd was George Hill, who appeared in uniform for the first time in months; he needed to leave the country in order to arrange a fresh source of funds for his work.49 Lockhart stayed impassive as he bade goodbye to Moura, perhaps so as to avoid transgressing public politesse, and she left the platform an hour before departure.50 When the full group of thirty-one British and twenty-five French nationals crossed into Finland, preparations were made to convey Litvinov and his friends up to the Swedish–Finnish frontier. The British and French arrived in groups. When everyone was assembled the Allied representatives walked over the bridge across the river from Tornio to Haparanda where they boarded a train to Stockholm, arriving there on 9 October.51 Others remained under guard in Russia until Chicherin heard confirmation that Litvinov had reached neutral Norway, but soon the full exchange of officials was completed.

  By then a new factor was being considered by the Bolshevik supreme leadership. The Germans were unmistakably losing the war on the western front. With the Western Allies nearing the point of victory, it might prove unhelpful for the Soviet regime to have discriminated against French citizens. On 30 October the Bolsheviks dispatched Sadoul to interview Ludovic Naudeau, a French journalist arrested in the summer. Sadoul’s purpose became clear when he asked Naudeau for his opinion on the Allied military intervention in Russia. The journalist replied that he had supported the arrival of the Allies chiefly out of anti-German motives; but he stressed that he was now out of touch with events. Sadoul was blunt. If Naudeau wanted his freedom he would have to sign a denunciation of the intervention, allowing it to be printed in Izvestiya and Pravda and declaring his endorsement of Soviet principles. Peters of the Cheka had insisted on this as a condition. Naudeau sent Sadoul packing, but it was a sign of the uncertainties of the international situation that the Soviet leadership thought it worth while to try and do a deal with him just as they had sought to entice Lockhart to remain in Russia.52

  The Bolsheviks soon reverted to a firmer line. Although Lockhart, Reilly and Verthamont had escaped their clutches, the Cheka had assembled a mass of evidence to put before the Russian public. It also had several prisoners; and although Kalamatiano was not half as culpable as the departed British and French, he was conveniently under lock and key and could serve as the main defendant in a show-trial. The Cheka referred to the ‘Kalamatiano–Lockhart & Co. counter-revolutionary espionage organization’.53 Until then the Americans in Russia had been treated gently. As late as 15 October 1918 a young US consul was released from Butyrki prison whereas his fellow prisoner, a Frenchman captured at Tsaritsyn on the Volga, was refused his freedom.54 The implication was that Americans received softer treatment than the French — at least this was how Lockhart, safely back in Britain, interpreted the development.55

  Soon after his return, he received a letter from a distressed Moura Benckendorf, writing from Moscow: ‘I love you, Baby, past all balancing or cool reasoning. I love you more than all the world. If only you knew the longing for you. I lie awake repeating your name, visualising your surroundings, all you, my Baby.’56 On 2 November Lockhart sent a flirtatious reply, saying she was naughty for thinking that his ship might go down in the North Sea. He also mentioned that his wife Jean had nursed him back to health after a bout of Spanish flu, adding: ‘I cannot leave her.’ He had told Jean about Moura — ‘she was very nice’ about it.57 Moura wrote back jealously about how Jean was monopolizing his medical recovery.58 But by then Lockhart had put Moura at the back of his mind, ready to be fetched out only if ever the fancy and opportunity occurred. At the time such a prospect seemed permanently out of reach. Moura was both less sanguine and less fortunate. On 19 April 1919 she wrote to ‘Locky’ that ‘some Esthonians out of revenge’ had murdered her husband.59

  The Lockhart Case opened before the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal on 25 November 1918. Prosecutor-General Nikolai Krylenko outlined a plot against Soviet rule and a Pravda editorial announced: ‘It is well known that the Allied missions in Russia have tried by means of conspiracies directly through their agents to overthrow the hated Workers’ and Peasants’ government.’60 The art of the showtrial had yet to be refi
ned in Soviet Russia. The authorities fumbled their hand by changing the charges between the original arraignment and the lengthy statement by Krylenko — and Angelika Balabanova, a fair-minded Bolshevik, drew attention to this.61 At the heart of the case was the contention that there had been a violent conspiracy against Sovnarkom and that Lockhart and Reilly had led the plot. In their absence it was Kalamatiano who suffered along with his right-hand man Alexander Fride.62 Altogether there were twenty defendants in court.63 The majority were people who had worked for the Americans or the British. At the second sitting, on 28 November, the Cheka’s deputy leader Peters recited the evidence that implicated Lockhart as the instigator of the plot. He recounted the activities of Reilly and Kalamatiano as well as the amount of foreknowledge in the possession of all the Allied diplomatic personnel.64