Spies and Commissars

by Robert Service

  35. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, p. 52.

  4. Cheering for the Soviets

  1. R. Chambers, The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, pp. 72–82.

  2. MI5g1: S.F. 39/9/150[?]: Extract from A. Ransome’s letter to his wife Ivy, 1 July 1917.

  3. Ibid.

  4. R. Chambers, The Last Englishman, p. 166.

  5. ‘Svidetel’stvo’, 7 August 1917: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), folder: Robin Bruce Lockhart, ‘2 Reilly: Documentary Material’, folder 2.

  6. R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent, Being an Account of the Author’s Early Life in Many Lands and of his Official Mission to Moscow in 1918, p. 122.

  7. W. F. Ryan, ‘The Great Beast in Russia: Aleister Crowley’s Theatrical Tour in 1913 and his Beastly Writings on Russia’, in A. McMillin (ed.), Symbolism and After: Essays on Russian Poetry in Honour of Georgette Donchin, p. 155.

  8. ‘Svidetel’stvo’, 7 August 1917: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), folder: Robin Bruce Lockhart, ‘2 Reilly: Documentary Material’, folder 2.

  9. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 2, p. 115.

  10. M. Philips Price (ed.), The Diplomatic History of the War, p. 46.

  11. J. Reed, ‘Almost Thirty’, New Republic, April 1936, pp. 267–70.

  12. Washington Post, 4 July 1917.

  13. Ibid., 13 April 1917.

  14. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Sixty-Fifth Congress, Third Session and Thereafter Pursuant to Senate Resolutions 439 and 469 — February 11, 1919 to March 10, 1919, p. 467.

  15. L. Bryant, Six Red Months in Russia, pp. 19–20.

  16. Ibid., pp. 24–5.

  17. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, p. 563.

  18. Ibid., p. 476.

  19. Ibid., p. 604.

  20. B. Beatty, The Red Heart of Russia, p. 132.

  21. Ibid., pp. 693–4.

  22. J. S. Clarke, Pen Portraits of Russia under the ‘Red Terror’, pp. 165–6.

  23. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, pp. 37–41: letter to A. Thomas, 2/15 October 1917; J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, p. 83; A. Dunois, draft introduction to an edition of J. Sadoul’s correspondence, dated May 1941, p. 2: Jacques Sadoul Papers (HIA).

  24. J. Sadoul, ‘La Condition des agents consulaires at diplomatiques au point de vue fiscal: thèse pour le doctorat’ (Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence: Paris, 1908).

  25. A. Dunois, draft introduction to an edition of J. Sadoul’s correspondence, dated May 1941, p. 1: Jacques Sadoul Papers (HIA).

  26. J. Reed, Red Russia, book 1, p. 10. See also J. Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World (1960), pp. 78–9.

  27. B. Beatty, The Red Heart of Russia, pp. 201 and 203.

  28. Ibid., pp. 13, 196 and 244.

  29. J. Reed, Red Russia, book 2, p. 12.

  30. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, p. 542.

  31. Ibid., p. 721.

  32. J. Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World (1960), p. 332.

  33. B. Beatty, The Red Heart of Russia, p. 134.

  34. A. Rhys Williams, Lenin: The Man and his Work, p. 79.

  35. Ibid., pp. 79–80.

  36. Ibid., p. 73.

  37. Ibid., p. 80.

  5. Revolution and the World

  1. E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 3, pp. 9–14.

  2. See R. Service, Lenin: A Political Life, vol. 2, p. 273.

  3. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Sixty-Fifth Congress, Third Session and Thereafter Pursuant to Senate Resolutions 439 and 469 — February 11, 1919 to March 10, 1919, p. 494.

  4. See for example J. Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World (1960), pp. 220 and 336.

  5. Ibid., pp. 240 and 298.

  6. B. Beatty, The Red Heart of Russia, pp. 193 and 195.

  7. L. Bryant, Six Red Months in Russia, p. 145.

  8. Ibid., pp. 145–6.

  9. L. Bryant, Mirrors of Moscow, p. 140.

  10. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 68: letter to A. Thomas, 28 October/10 November 1917.

  11. Ibid., pp. 55–6: letter to A. Thomas, 25 October/7 November 1917.

  12. Letters to A. Thomas, 26 October/8 November 1917, ibid., pp. 58–60, and 27 October/9 November 1917, p. 65.

  13. Ibid., p. 83: letter to A. Thomas, 2/15 November 1917.

  14. See R. Service, Lenin: A Political Life, vol. 2, pp. 183–90.

  15. L. Trotskii, Moya zhizn’, vol. 2, p. 64.

  16. J. Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World (1960), p. 347.

  17. L. Trotskii, Sochineniya, vol. 3, book 2, pp. 164–6.

  18. H. Hoover, The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, pp. 78–81.

  19. General Max Hoffman, War Diaries and Other Papers, vol. 2, p. 190.

  6. In the Light of the Fire

  1. N. Bukharin, Vseobshchaya delëzhka ili kommunisticheskoe proizvodstvo (Izd. VTsIK R., S., K. i K. Deputatov: Moscow, 1918), p. 8.

  2. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, pp. 2–3.

  3. N. Bukharin, Vseobshchaya delëzhka ili kommunisticheskoe proizvodstvo, p. 8.

  4. A. Kovrov, Domashnyaya prisluga (Kniga: Petrograd, 1917).

  5. L. Trotskii, Chto zhe dal’she? (Itogi i perspektivy) (Priboi: Petersburg [sic], 1917), p. 6.

  6. Ibid., p. 26.

  7. Ibid., p. 28.

  8. I. I. Kutuzov, V strane ‘ego velichestva’. Pis’ma i zametki ob Anglii russkogo rabochego diplomata, pp. 8–10.

  9. L. Trotskii, Chto zhe dal’she?, p. 6.

  10. M. Lur’e (Yu. Larin), Prodovol’stvie v Germanii i Rossii (Kniga: Petrograd, 1918), pp. 7–11.

  11. Ibid., pp. 14–15.

  12. Ibid., pp. 15 and 21.

  13. Yu. Larin, Voina i zemel’naya programma (Kniga: Petrograd, 1917), pp. 8 and 10.

  14. Ibid., pp. 8 and 11.

  15. N. Bukharin, Vseobshchaya delëzhka ili kommunisticheskoe proizvodstvo, pp. 4–6.

  16. Kii, Vozmozhna-li otmena chastnoi sobstvennosti (Kniga: Petrograd, 1917).

  17. I. Litvinov, autobiographical fragment, pp. 15–16: St Antony’s RESC Archive.

  18. R. Bruce Lockhart, ‘Last Words on Lenin: An Inaugural Address [as] Honorary President of the Associated Societies, Edinburgh University, 26 October 1960’, pp. 15–16.

  19. L. Trotskii, Chto zhe dal’she?, p. 23.

  20. A. Ioffe, O samoupravlenii (Kniga: Petrograd, 1917), pp. 8–10.

  21. V. A. Mau, Sochineniya, vol. 1: Reformy i dogmy: gosudarstvo i ekonomika v epokhu reform i revolyutsii, 1860–1920-e gody, pp. 207–26.

  7. Diplomatic Impasse

  1. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, p. 155; Washington Post, 2 March 1918.

  2. C. Anet, La Révolution russe: la terreur maximaliste; l’armistice — les pour-parlers de paix (Novembre 1917–Janvier 1918), pp. 127–8.

  3. Notes by Ye. P. Shelepina, 18 March 1918: http://arthur-ransome.spb.ru/index/0–8.

  4. Ibid.

  5. L. Bryant, Six Red Months in Russia, pp. 145–6.

  6. Notes by Ye. P. Shelepina, 18 March 1918: http://arthur-ransome.spb.ru/index/0–8.

  7. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, p. 180.

  8. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 124: letter to A. Thomas, 15/28 November 1917.

  9. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Sixty-Fifth Congress, Third Session and Thereafter Pursuant to Senate Resolutions 439 and 469 — February 11, 1919 to March 10, 1919, p. 50.

  10. C. Anet, La Révolution russe: la terreur maximaliste; l’armistice — les p
our-parlers de paix (Novembre 1917–Janvier 1918), pp. 54–5.

  11. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, p. 186.

  12. Général Niessel, Le Triomphe des bolchéviks et la paix de Brest-Litovsk: souvenirs, 1917–1918, p. 203.

  13. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, p. 1; G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, pp. 145–6.

  14. C. Anet, La Révolution russe: la terreur maximaliste, p. 128.

  15. L. Bryant, Six Months in Red Russia, pp. 201–2; Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, p. 564.

  16. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, pp. 473 (Bryant) and 682 (Rhys Williams).

  17. Ibid., p. 566.

  18. Ibid., p. 565.

  19. B. Beatty, The Red Heart of Russia, pp. 222–3; Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, p. 564.

  20. D. R. Francis, Russia from the American Embassy, April 1916–November 1918, pp. 173–4.

  21. Ibid., pp. 176–7.

  22. Sir G. Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories, pp. 225–6.

  23. Ibid., p. 220 (diary).

  24. L. de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia, p. 222.

  25. HO 144/2158/322428/16, 22 and 29. My thanks to Harry Shukman for sharing this document with me as well as the documents in the next three endnotes.

  26. HO 144/2158/322428/33.

  27. HO 144/2158/322428/85.

  28. HO 144/2158/322428: Assistant Commissioner of Police, 25 October 1917.

  29. Sir G. Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories, pp. 226–7 (diary); see also J. McHugh and B. J. Ripley, ‘Russian Political Internees in First World War Britain: The Cases of George Chicherin and Peter Petroff’, Historical Journal, no. 3 (1985), p. 736.

  30. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, pp. 170–1.

  31. C. Anet, La Révolution russe: la terreur maximaliste, pp. 162–3.

  32. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, p. 179.

  33. Sir G. Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories, p. 243.

  34. Ibid., pp. 239 and 247.

  35. D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 1550–1.

  36. Ibid., p. 1551.

  37. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, pp. 963–4.

  38. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, pp. 97–9.

  39. Ibid., pp. 57–8, 64–5 and 70.

  40. L. Bryant, Six Red Months in Russia, ch. 24.

  41. G. Buchanan (en clair report to London), pp. i–ii, 2 January 1918: Milner Papers.

  42. C. Anet, La Révolution russe: la terreur maximaliste, p. 201; Général Niessel, Le Triomphe des bolchéviks et la paix de Brest-Litovsk: souvenirs, 1917–1918, p. 187.

  43. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 140: letter to A. Thomas, 25 November/8 December 1917.

  44. L. Bryant, Six Red Months in Russia, ch. 24.

  45. Général Niessel, Le Triomphe des bolchéviks et la paix de Brest-Litovsk: souvenirs, 1917–1918, p. 186.

  46. L. de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia, p. 186; Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, p. 942.

  47. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, p. 961.

  48. D. R. Francis, Russia from the American Embassy, April 1916–November 1918, pp. 168–9.

  49. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, pp. 962–3; D. R. Francis, Russia from the American Embassy, April 1916–November 1918, pp. 210–11.

  50. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, pp. 152–3; G. A. Hill, Dreaded Hour, pp. 133–4.

  51. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, pp. 183–4.

  52. L. de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia, p. 190.

  53. Sovnarkom meeting, 1(14) January 1918: GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 1, item 1.

  54. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, pp. 186–7.

  55. Ibid., pp. 185–9; D. R. Francis, Russia from the American Embassy, April 1916–November 1918, pp. 216–17.

  56. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, pp. 190–1; Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, pp. 963–4.

  57. D. R. Francis, Russia from the American Embassy, April 1916–November 1918, pp. 219–20.

  8. The Other West

  1. Russia. Posol’stvo (HIA), box 1: Russian ambassador in France to the embassy in Washington, 24, 26 and 29 December 1917 (Old Style).

  2. D. S. Foglesong, America’s Secret War against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920, p. 57.

  3. National Archives, FO 371/3295/6933.

  4. A. E. Senn, Diplomacy and Revolution: The Soviet Mission to Switzerland, 1918, pp. 43–53.

  5. I. Litvinov, untitled autobiographical fragment: Ivy Litvinov Papers (HIA), box 10, folder 5, p. 27.

  6. Ibid.

  7. D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 1552–3.

  8. Ibid., p. 1553.

  9. Russia. Posol’stvo (HIA), box 1: Nabokov’s telegram to the US embassy, 3(16) January 1918.

  10. Ibid.: Paris ambassador to all Russian embassies, 6(19) January 1918.

  11. Ibid.: Nabokov’s telegram to the US embassy, 4(17) January 1918.

  12. I. Maisky, Journey into the Past, p. 78; Protokoly Tsentral’nogo Komiteta RSDRP(b): avgust 1917–fevral’ 1918 (Gosizdat: Moscow, 1958), p. 165.

  13. Maisky’s notes on Litvinov’s conversational memoir, Journey into the Past, pp. 62–5; Russia. Posol’stvo (HIA), box 1: Nabokov’s telegram to the US embassy, 4(17) January 1918.

  14. Maisky’s notes on Litvinov’s conversational memoir, Journey into the Past, pp. 62–5.

  15. Russia. Posol’stvo (HIA), box 1: Nabokov’s telegram to the US embassy, 21 January (8 February) 1918.

  16. Daily News and Leader, 19 February 1918.

  17. Labour Leader, 24 January 1918.

  18. http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde/redcly074.htm; V. V. Aldoshin, Yu. V. Ivanov, V. M. Semënov and V. A. Tarasov (eds), Sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya: gody nepriznaniya, 1918–1926, p. 12.

  19. Extracts of report by Basil Thomson on Litvinov, 20 February 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 364, fols 49–51.

  20. House of Commons Debates, 19 February 1918, vol. 103, col. 607.

  21. I. Litvinov, autobiographical fragment, ‘Letters to Viola’, p. 28: St Antony’s RESC Archive.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid., pp. 28a–30.

  24. I. Litvinov, untitled autobiographical fragment: Ivy Litvinov Papers (HIA), box 9, folder 10, p. 28a.

  25. Ibid., p. 37: St Antony’s RESC Archive.

  26. Ibid.

  27. M. Litvinoff, The Bolshevik Revolution: Its Rise and Meaning, especially pp. 43–6.

  28. Manchester Guardian, 23 January 1918.

  29. Harold Kellock (Finnish Information Bureau, New York) to Lincoln Steffens, 22 April 1918, p. 1: Russian Subject Collection (HIA).

  30. New York Times, 31 January 1918.

  31. Ibid., 2 February 1918.

  32. Ibid., 19 February 1918.

  33. Washington Post, 29 February 1918.

  34. Ibid., 1 June 1918.

  35. New York Times, 11 May 1918.

  36. R. Chambers, The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, p. 177.

  37. M. Budberg to R. Bruce Lockhart, n.d.: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), box 2, folder 2.

  38. A. Rhys Williams, Lenin: The Man and his Work, p. 74.

  39. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, p. 192.

  40. Ibid., pp. 192–3
.

  41. Report from Stockholm, 12 September 1918: CX 050167. My thanks to Andrew Cook for sharing this document with me.

  42. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, p. 191.

  43. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Sixty-Fifth Congress, Third Session and Thereafter Pursuant to Senate Resolutions 439 and 469 — February 11, 1919 to March 10, 1919, p. 553.

  44. M. Philips Price, The Soviet, the Terror and Intervention, pp. 1–14.

  45. Radek and Ransome on Russia (The Socialist Publication Society: Brooklyn, NY, 1918), pp. 5–7, 10–11, 19–20 and 24.

  46. R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent, Being an Account of the Author’s Early Life in Many Lands and of his Official Mission to Moscow in 1918, pp. 200–1.

  47. The Diaries of Robert Bruce Lockhart, 1915–1938, p. 31.

  48. R. Bruce Lockhart, ‘Last Words on Lenin: An Inaugural Address [as] Honorary President of the Associated Societies, Edinburgh University, 26 October 1960’, p. 6.

  49. Ibid., p. 7.

  50. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, p. 801.

  51. T. Alexander, An Estonian Childhood, p. 41.

  52. The Diaries of Robert Bruce Lockhart, 1915–1938, pp. 32–3.

  53. Ibid., p. 33.

  54. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, pp. 802–3.

  55. Ibid., p. 803.

  56. ‘Udostoverenie’, 5 August 1918: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), folder: Robin Bruce Lockhart, ‘2 Reilly: Documentary Material’, folder 2.

  57. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 264: letter to A. Thomas, 15 March 1918; J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 2, pp. 74–5 and 115.

  58. National Archives, FO 371/3290/51340, cited in B. Pearce, How Haig Saved Lenin, p. 22.

  59. H. Wilson to the War Cabinet, 18 March 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 364, fol. 127.

  60. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 2, pp. 74–5 and 115.