Spies and Commissars

by Robert Service

  Its determination was rewarded in September 1919 when a contract was drawn up with the Antaeus Export and Import Company which wanted to buy furs from Petrograd. Another deal was put together for Soviet Russia to import pork and corned beef via the National Storage Company.13 While the British and French governments continued to ban trade with the territory under Soviet rule, a small breach in the Allied economic barriers was achieved in America.

  This phenomenon inevitably made the US authorities edgy about the spread of communist influence from Russia. With President Wilson ailing, Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer sprang into action — had the President been in better health he might have asked him to be more cautious. On 8 November 1919 the Department of Justice arranged for two hundred ‘Russian Bolsheviki’ to be taken into custody and an official announcement was made: ‘This is the first big step to rid the country of these foreign trouble makers.’14 All were alleged to belong to the Union of Russian Workers as irreconcilable subversives. Bomb-making materials were said to have been found as well as Red flags, revolvers, printing presses and banknotes ready for circulation. A further sequence of raids was organized in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo. The Union of Russian Workers, which had been founded by Bill Shatov (though in 1917 he left to join the Bolsheviks in Petrograd), was among the organizations targeted. The most prominent detainees were the anarchist leaders Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who were accused of having invalid immigration and naturalization papers — and it was emphasized that they were hostile to political elections and the market economy.15

  Palmer revelled in the publicity stirred up by his raids; it was widely believed that he had fixed his sights on standing for the Presidency in the near future. His officials indicated that a further search was under way to lay hands on five hundred leading ‘Red sympathizers’ across the country.16 On 1 December 1919 Charles Ruthenberg, secretary of the Communist Party of America, was arrested in Chicago.17

  Although a mass deportation of ‘Russian Reds’ was in the offing, Nuorteva and Martens were spared arrest — an omission which did not go without adverse comment.18 An editorial in the New York Times was headed ‘The Plot against America’:

  The testimony of Ludwig Martens before the Lusk committee puts an end to his pretensions as an Ambassador from Soviet Russia. He is not even in the status of an unrecognized Ambassador. His errand here is not diplomatic in any sense. He is here as an enemy of the United States, as the agent of conspirators in Russia who are planning to bring about a bloody revolution in this country and destroy its Government by force.19

  Nuorteva spoke up for his comrade with the odd claim that Martens had no objection to being deported. Just as bizarrely, Nuorteva added: ‘But if he goes he will take a million residents in this country of Russian origin with him. The Soviet Russia Republic [sic] has eighty-seven vessels ready to bring them back as soon as the way is open. All they want is to be landed in some safe place where the Soviet Government is in control. Petrograd would suit us.’20 The press campaign intensified as William C. Bullitt was reported as having had contact with Nuorteva and Martens. The newspapers, at least those not under socialist ownership, aimed to demonstrate that an international conspiracy was at work; and the fact that Bullitt had worked for the State Department and the White House gave a piquant menace to the media assault.21

  Martens claimed that the Soviet leaders generally limited themselves to ‘affirmative propaganda’; but when pressed, he admitted that the Bolsheviks had employed terror. The New York Times pointed out that Lenin and Trotsky believed in violent revolution everywhere. One of its editorials went further by levelling the charge that the October 1917 seizure of power was effected ‘largely by men from America who went to Russia’.22 With the exception of Trotsky and Bukharin, it was a fantastic exaggeration to assert that ex-residents of New York had supplied the vanguard of the October Revolution. But the newspaper did not feel the need to stick to provable facts. Wild claims were the norm.

  Although Ruthenberg was soon released from prison, 249 communist and anarchist leaders who were held on Ellis Island were loaded on to an old transport ship, the Buford, and deported on 21 December 1919. The ship was popularly known as ‘The Red Ark’. Their ultimate destination was Soviet Russia and the entire group sang the Internationale before embarkation. They refused to be demoralized, believing that their punishment was yet another sign that the American capitalist class was starting to panic. They elected Berkman as their spokesman, who said that he expected to be greeted by old friends in Moscow. His wife Emma Goldman declared: ‘I do not consider it a punishment to be sent to Soviet Russia. On the contrary, I consider it an honor to be the first political agitator deported from the United States.’ With her flair for publicity she left nobody in doubt about her confidence: ‘Incidentally, I am coming back. The plan we have considered, which I am going to work on particularly, is the immediate organization in Soviet Russia of the Russian Friends of American Freedom. I insist that I am an American. This practice of deportation means the beginning of the end of the United States Government.’23

  Further deportations followed as Palmer, abetted by a young J. Edgar Hoover in the Bureau of Investigation in the Department of Justice, broke up the early communist groupings, and the organization of support for Comintern became downright dangerous for militants even though they succeeded in producing political literature and holding public meetings, albeit on a smaller scale than before. Nobody could be sure that the authorities would not strengthen the measures against the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party by means of lengthy terms of imprisonment for people who could not easily be deported. The communist Linn A. E. Gale fled to Mexico City and took his Journal of Revolutionary Communism with him. He recommended exile as a way of avoiding ‘the most savage and brutal penalties’ that he predicted would be applied by ‘the minions of capitalism’.24 But somehow the remaining militants reassembled their links and resumed activity; and the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of America, cajoled by Moscow, agreed in principle to unification with the Communist Labor Party in mid-March 1920.25 The number of members was in the tens of thousands and was geographically patchy — in 1920 the Communist Labor Party had only 4,525 members and most of these lived on the eastern side of the country.26 Discipline, moreover, was shaky. A furore occurred in the same year when Jay Lovestone, a leading young activist, appeared in court as a witness for his friends and forswore any adherence to Leninist principles to save them from a potentially heavy sentence.27

  The militants recognized the need to bring order into their affairs. If they wanted to join Comintern they would have to demonstrate a capacity to be as dedicated and dynamic as the Bolsheviks. The Communist Party of America laid down its guidelines as follows:

  Don’t betray Party work and Party workers under any circumstances.

  Don’t carry or keep with you names and addresses, except in good code.

  Don’t keep in your rooms openly any incriminating documents or literature.

  Don’t take any unnecessary risks in Party work.

  Don’t shirk Party work because of the risk connected with it.

  Don’t boast of what you have to do or have done for the Party.

  Don’t divulge your membership in the Party without necessity.

  Don’t let any spies follow you to appointments or meetings.

  Don’t lose your nerve in danger.

  Don’t answer questions if arrested, either at preliminary hearings or in the court.28

  Gradually a spirit of conspiratorial comradeship was implanted. Recruits were expected to accept the guidelines or risk being shunned or expelled.

  The desirability of such precautions was obvious if the communist revolutionaries were going to make any progress in the US. A ‘Red scare’ billowed as newspaper editors united against the spread of ideological contagion from the east. Attorney-General Palmer had displayed his combative
disposition, and many groups of employers were delighted. Politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties were equally pleased to support him. Industrial strikes were increasingly treated as tantamount to treason and the police used much violence.

  In December 1921 a founding Convention was at last held for the united Workers’ Party of America, bringing together the Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party and placing it under Comintern’s authority. Comintern immediately set out its priorities. American communists were to infiltrate and manipulate as many organizations as possible in the US, including associations of farmers and ‘Negroes’ — indeed the line of recruitment was drawn only at the Ku Klux Klan. Moscow stressed that the Workers’ Party had to break out of the confines of the party’s immigrant ethnic supporters. Key matters for agitation were to involve a campaign against the current legal restrictions on organizing strikes. Illegal activity was not to be abandoned by the Workers’ Party — in fact the undercover leaders and militants were to be regarded as ‘the real Communist Party’ and were to have permanent precedence over the broad open party. No duty was to be regarded as superior to the calls for support for Soviet Russia. While revolution in the US remained the dream for American communists, their primary obligation was to do whatever was required to sustain the October Revolution in Moscow.29 Although factionalism continued to plague the Workers’ Party of America, this served only to strengthen the Russian hold on its affairs. Whenever a dispute arose it was Comintern headquarters which gave the decisive ruling.

  The Soviet leaders were not as wise about America as they thought they were; ideas that worked for communism in Russia did not always find a suitable environment in New York. Max Eastman, Trotsky’s admirer and confidant, prepared a memo for him and Lenin, pointing out that capitalism was not on the verge of collapse in America and American workers were not in ‘a revolutionary frame of mind’. He asked for Comintern to take better account of this. Eastman had a number of organizational bugbears. He denied that Comintern’s emphasis on conspiratorial methods was a sensible one. He also objected to the national and ethnic associations that were still permitted in the party. The ‘Slavic federation’ was deeply distasteful for him.30 He jibbed at the endless celebrations of Lenin, the October Revolution and the Red Army and called for American specificities to be analysed and acted upon. He was not alone in sensing that the Workers’ Party of America would get nowhere if it was a ‘hip-hip-hurrah society’ for the celebration of the good news from Russia.31 Consequently America had less to fear from American communism than American political leaders thought. It was a paradoxical situation. If he had but known it, Attorney-General Palmer would have been pleased that American communists were doing such an effective job of rendering the Workers’ Party ineffectual.

  The Soviet communist leaders in Moscow reinforced the phenomenon. They felt sure that they knew what was best for communism in every country, and they sprayed their advice worldwide. American communists seldom rebelled against Moscow for long. If there was discontent, it was ultimately resolved by forced submission or expulsion from the Workers’ Party. American communism was swaddled from birth in Russian clothing that constricted its growth.

  23. SOVIET AGENTS

  As the world communist movement emerged into the light in Europe and North America, the Cheka steadily discovered how to operate from the shadows. This was slow work as the Chekists felt their way. But the Politburo had a crucial need for a network of secret agents in the West if it wanted to achieve its political and economic purposes abroad. The Chekist leadership had to start their operations almost from scratch. And the fact that Soviet Russia was the declared enemy of absolutely every other state in the world meant that its foreign activity was under constant close scrutiny. In such an environment it is impressive how much the Chekists managed to achieve.

  Intelligence agencies are predictably shy about releasing the names of their employees. This has often opened the door to speculation, and one of the enduring controversies from the early Soviet years is about whether Sidney Reilly was a Cheka agent.1 Suspicion enveloped him after the temporary destruction of the Allied intelligence networks in autumn 1918. DeWitt Poole, acting consul-general for the Americans in Moscow, had left Russia with the rest of the American diplomatic personnel in those weeks. He had formed a poor opinion of Reilly and sounded an alarm when talking things over with Sir Mansfeldt Findlay at the UK embassy to Norway. Poole recounted the rumours that Reilly was a Cheka agent provocateur. Although the evidence was no more than circumstantial, it worried Findlay enough for him to place it before the Foreign Office and the Secret Service Bureau. Poole’s concerns had sprouted from the discrepancy between what Lockhart had discussed with him and what Reilly had apparently enacted. He wanted the British to investigate the possibility that Reilly had betrayed Lockhart.2 Kalamatiano, the American secret service leader in Russia, languished in Soviet custody and Poole naturally felt sore about this. Poole had confidence in Lockhart and mistrusted Reilly. It did not cross his mind that Lockhart too might have been less than frank with him in Moscow.

  Although Lockhart had private reservations about Reilly’s personal integrity,3 he never queried his political allegiance. Reilly expressed outrage at the insinuations against him and complained to Lockhart, a few weeks after they returned from the Russian capital, about ‘those unfortunate libels’.4 Like Lockhart, he called for a hard line to be taken on Soviet Russia; he described Lloyd George as being soft-headed about Bolshevism and planning to use philanthropy as a ‘panacea for all social evils’. He thought the British cabinet failed to understand the menace to civilization that would soon spread abroad if it was not stamped out in Moscow.5 He rejected the view that the Soviet order was an unworkable or weak one. Having seen it in motion in Russia, he had no doubt that it could be made operational elsewhere.6

  Was this the play-acting of a double agent? Reilly’s patron Mansfield Cumming probed the possibility by asking Commander Ernest Boyce, an old Russia intelligence hand, to conduct an internal enquiry. Boyce’s researches revealed a brash man with a chaotic personal life. Reilly did everything to excess; he was abstemious only with drink. He loved women, and it was rare for him to limit himself to a single girlfriend — and on his return to London he went around with a tart who rejoiced in the nickname of Plugger.7 Reilly was a bigamist, never having divorced his first wife Margaret, who tracked him down and squeezed money out of him in return for her silence. He was a gambler who often risked everything in the casino as in the rest of his life.8 When he had money he spent it ostentatiously, and high society paid him the attention he craved. He bought a flower for his buttonhole daily at Solomons in St James’s Street. He took a suite at the Savoy Hotel and, when this palled, he moved to the Ritz. Reilly seemed the quintessential man about town.9

  Commander Boyce’s enquiry into Reilly extended to having lunch with Robert Bruce Lockhart and his wife Jean at the Langham Hotel in Regent Street in December 1918. He arranged for Jean to arrive earlier than her husband so as to do a bit of judicious questioning. Jean told him that ‘Bertie’ believed that Reilly would always ‘work for the highest bidder’.10 But even this revelation merely suggested that Reilly was nothing more than a money-grubbing rascal rather than a Chekist, and Cumming felt safe in sending him on yet another Russian mission together with George Hill.11 But the whisperings against him continued and it may well have been on his return to London that Cumming called in George Hill and Paul Dukes and set up a separate enquiry.12 Although Reilly was cleared, Cumming refused to grant him a fixed appointment, offering the excuse that the Foreign Office was the source of the hostility. At any rate the Secret Service Bureau continued to use Reilly for foreign assignments and throughout his time in London he continued to fire off tirades against Lloyd George’s softening of Allied policy on Russia. If he had been a Soviet mole, it is difficult to see why his handlers would have approved of this behaviour at a time when Sovnarkom hoped to turn Western public opinion in favou
r of diplomatic recognition and commercial acceptance. It is still not impossible that Reilly took money from the Bolsheviks at some other time. But whether he did or not, he could never be a reliable double agent: Reilly’s first and last loyalty was to himself and his financial interests.

  The Soviet authorities were still finding their way in the activities they promoted abroad. They were juggling two priorities. One was to stir communist parties into life and revolution; the other was to agitate for trade with Russia. At the very time that the Bolsheviks were trying to arrange deals with Western big business they were also sending people and funds to undermine capitalism. This ‘contradiction’ did not worry the Politburo. Communist leaders assumed that if their best hope was fulfilled — revolution — then it would no longer matter what sums had been given or promised to businessmen in the West. And if things went wrong for communism in Europe, at least Sovnarkom would possess signed contracts to facilitate Russian economic recovery from the years of fighting. Often the same agents were stirring up politics while reassuring businessmen. The Politburo lived comfortably with the paradox. Bolshevik leaders accepted that ‘history’ was messy and that twists and turns in policy were essential if communism was to triumph. They thrived on the ‘contradictions’ in world affairs. If Bolsheviks lower down the party did not yet appreciate this situation, surely eventually they would do so — and the prestige and authority of Lenin and his close comrades were deployed to ensure that this came about.

  The Soviet agents fostered organizational splits in the parties of the political far left so as to win recruits for Comintern. They sent funds and instructions abroad. They gathered reports on discussions among the great powers. They organized propaganda in translation. As agreements were signed with Western countries, the plenipotentiaries working for People’s Commissariats conducted clandestine activity behind the screen of their legal work. Comintern recruited people from the new communist parties for espionage and subversion on the Kremlin’s behalf. In June 1919 the Cheka at last set up an illegal operations department for work abroad.13 The pace of international activity was steadily being increased. Agents were sent to all continents in the revolutionary cause.