Spies and Commissars

by Robert Service

  9. Talks at Brest-Litvosk

  1. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, p. 115.

  2. B. Pearce, How Haig Saved Lenin, p. 7.

  3. Arthur M. Free Papers, folder Mb (HIA).

  4. N. A. Ioffe, ‘O moëm ottse’: N. A. Ioffe Papers (HIA).

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

  6. O. von Czernin’s diary reproduced from the 1923 Russian translation in N. Ioffe, Moi otets Adol’f Abramovich Ioffe, p. 135.

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

  8. Mirnye peregovory v Brest-Litovske, vol. 1: Plenarnye zasedaniya. Zasedaniya Politicheskoi Komissii, pp. 67–8 and 72.

  9. Ibid., pp. 52–3.

  10. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 176: letter to A. Thomas, 22 December 1917/4 January 1918.

  11. Ye. P. Shelepina, ‘Journey to Brest’ (notes written in March 1918): Notes by Ye. P. Shelepina, 18 March 1918: http://arthur-ransome.spb.ru/index/0–8.

  12. Ibid.

  13. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 35, pp. 179–80.

  14. Mirnye peregovory v Brest-Litovske, vol. 1, p. 208.

  15. Ibid., pp. 209–10.

  16. Protokoly Tsentral’nogo Komiteta RSDRP(b): avgust 1917–fevral’ 1918, pp. 194–5.

  17. R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Petrograd), 2 February 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 364, fols 66–7.

  18. R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Petrograd, via Lindley), 16 February 1918: ibid., fols 34–8; R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Moscow), 21 February 1918: ibid., fol. 143.

  19. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, pp. 4–5.

  20. House of Commons Debates, 18 February 1918, vol. 103, col. 462.

  21. Manchester Guardian, 26 February 1918.

  22. House of Commons Debates, vol. 103: 27 February 1918, col. 1478; 28 February 1918, col. 1605.

  23. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, pp. 7–10.

  24. Protokoly Tsentral’nogo Komiteta RSDRP(b): avgust 1917–fevral’ 1918, p. 199.

  25. Ibid., p. 200.

  26. Ibid., pp. 204–5.

  27. Undated memorandum on 1917–18 by Stephen Alley. I am grateful to Andrew Cook for giving me a copy of this document.

  28. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 243: letter to A. Thomas, 21 February 1918.

  28. Ibid., p. 244: letter to A. Thomas, 22 February 1918.

  30. A. A. Ioffe, ‘N. Lenin i nasha vneshnyaya politika’ (dated 20 October 1927), APRF, f. 31, op. 1, d. 4, pp. 212–13.

  31. Protokoly Tsentral’nogo Komiteta RSDRP(b): avgust 1917–fevral’ 1918, pp. 206–8.

  32. Ibid., p. 215.

  33. O. M. Sayler, Russia White or Red, pp. 160–1; J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, p. 231, and vol. 2, pp. 29, 36 and 38; L. de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia, p. 237.

  34. B. Pearce, How Haig Saved Lenin, p. 15.

  10. Breathing Dangerously

  1. B. Pearce, How Haig Saved Lenin, p. 9.

  2. A. A. Ioffe to V. I. Lenin, 11 March 1918, reproduced in V. Krasnov and V. Daines (eds), Neizvestnyi Trotskii. Krasnyi Bonapart: Dokumenty, mneniya, razmyshleniya, p. 40.

  3. Sovnarkom formally made Chicherin the ‘Acting Deputy’ on 13 March 1918: RGASPI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 5483. See also RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 104, p. 43b (Central Committee and Central Control Commission meeting, 26 October 1923).

  4. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 36, p. 324.

  5. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, pp. 138–9.

  6. Ibid., p. 141.

  7. O. Wardrop to A. J. Balfour, 16 April 1918: National Archives, FO 371/3331/9741.

  8. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, pp. 140–5. On Francis’s links to the American railway engineers in Siberia see B. O. Johnson, ‘American Railway Engineers in Siberia’, American Engineer, no. 81, May–June 1923, pp. 187–91.

  9. Letter (in French, on Crédit Lyonnais notepaper) by unknown person to unknown addressee, summer 1918(?), p. 2: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), folder: Robin Bruce Lockhart, ‘Reilly: Russian Revolution, Etc.: Sources: Sir Edward Spears’.

  10. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, pp. 148–9 and 151–2.

  11. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 36, p. 105.

  12. Ibid., p. 250.

  13. Ibid., p. 323.

  14. R. H. Bruce Lockhart to A. J. Balfour, 7 November 1918, pp. 1–2: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), box 12; R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Friends, Foes and Foreigners, p. 273.

  15. R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Friends, Foes and Foreigners, p. 275.

  16. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, pp. 262–3: letter to A. Thomas, 13 March 1918.

  17. Ibid. See also N. V. Salzman, Reform and Revolution: The Life and Times of Raymond Robins, p. 141.

  18. A. Rhys Williams, Lenin: The Man and his Work, p. 97.

  19. R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Moscow report to London), 18 March 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 364, fol. 126.

  20. A. J. Balfour to R. H. Bruce Lockhart, 13 March 1918: ibid., fols 88–9.

  21. Col. A. Knox, ‘The Delay in the East’, 18 March 1918: ibid., fols 131–2 and 134.

  22. M. J. Carley, Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil War, 1917–1919, p. 57.

  23. P. N. Vrangel Collection (HIA), box 33, folder 5.

  24. D. S. Foglesong, America’s Secret War against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920, pp. 194–5.

  25. ‘President Wilson’s Views on Allied Intervention in Russia’, circulated to King and War Cabinet, 10 May 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 141, fols 2–4.

  26. 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. 248–9.

  27. Ibid., pp. 249–50. Lockhart’s estimate of Francis’s age was out by a decade.

  28. C. Kinvig, Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918–1920, p. 24.

  29. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, pp. 294–5: letter to A. Thomas, 7 April 1918.

  30. C. Kinvig, Churchill’s Crusade, pp. 23–4.

  31. I. N. Steinberg, ‘The Events of July 1918’: typescript (HIA), p. 3.

  32. Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Ukrainian Peace Delegation, 23 September 1918: P. N. Vrangel Collection (HIA), box 35, folder 10.

  33. Sovnarkom meeting, 2 April 1918: GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 1.

  34. Central Committee meeting, 10 May 1918: Izvestiya Tsentral’nogo Komiteta KPSS, no. 4 (1989), pp. 143–4.

  35. Pravda, 24 May 1918.

  36. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 2, pp. 27–8 and 55.

  37. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 271: letter to A. Thomas, 18 March 1918; J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 2, pp. 26–7.

  38. Général Niessel, Le Triomphe des bolchéviks et la paix de Brest-Litovsk: souvenirs, 1917–1918, p. 326.

  39. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, p. 190.

  40. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, pp. 197–9.

  41. Ibid., pp. 202–3.

  42. R. H. Bruce Lockhart report (Moscow), 5 June 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 365, fol. 78.

  43. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, p. 178; J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 367: letter to A. Thomas, 28 May 1918; V. Fić, The Bolsheviks and the Czechoslovak Legion, pp. 5–8, 10–13 and 41–3.

  44. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, pp. 202–3.


  45. G. Swain, ‘“An Interesting and Plausible Proposal”: Bruce Lockhart, Sidney Reilly and the Latvian Riflemen, Russia 1918’, Intelligence and National Security, no. 3 (1999), p. 83.

  46. C. Kinvig, Churchill’s Crusade, p. 13.

  47. Sovnarkom meeting, 20 July 1918: GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 2.

  48. Sovnarkom meeting, 22 January 1918 (NS): ibid., d. 1.

  49. V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 36, p. 324.

  50. The Times, 8 March 1918.

  51. L. de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia, p. 252.

  52. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, pp. 208–9.

  53. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 319: letter to A. Thomas, 26 April 1918.

  54. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, p. 209.

  55. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 319: letter to A. Thomas, 26 April 1918.

  56. Ibid., p. 322: letter to A. Thomas, 27 April 1918.

  57. Ibid., p. 365: letter to A. Thomas, 27 May 1918.

  58. Sovnarkom meeting, 25 June 1918: GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 2.

  59. Pravda, 27 April 1918.

  60. Sovnarkom meeting, 4 April 1918: GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 1.

  61. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, p. 273; G. V. Chicherin, Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskoi Rossii za dva goda, pp. 18–19; New York Times, 6 July 1918.

  62. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 313: letter to A. Thomas, 16 April 1918.

  63. Ibid.

  64. Ibid., p. 325: letter to A. Thomas, 28 April 1918.

  65. R. Vaucher, L’Enfer bolchévik à Petrograd sous la commune et la terreur rouge, p. 35.

  66. Ibid., p. 157.

  11. Revolts and Murders

  1. Krasnaya kniga VChK, vol. 2, pp. 38–9.

  2. W. G. Rosenberg, Liberals in the Russian Revolution: The Constitutional Democratic Party, 1917–1921, pp. 316–20.

  3. R. H. Bruce Lockhart to A. J. Balfour, 1 November 1918: National Archives, FO 371/3337/9828, pp. 8–9.

  4. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, p. 178; J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 367: letter to A. Thomas, 28 May 1918.

  5. V. Fić, The Bolsheviks and the Czechoslovak Legion, pp. 206, 242, 262, 307–8 and 313.

  6. National Archvies, FO 371/3324/107587, cited in B. Pearce, How Haig Saved Lenin, p. 44.

  7. R. H. Bruce Lockhart to A. J. Balfour, 7 November 1918: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), box 12.

  8. Z. A. Zeman, Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915–1918: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry, pp. 130 and 137; M. Occleshaw, Dances in Deep Shadows: The Clandestine War in Russia, 1917–20, pp. 130–3.

  9. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 1, pp. 132–3, and vol. 2, pp. 120–1.

  10. Sovnarkom meeting, 11 February 1918 (NS): GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 1.

  11. Sovnarkom meeting, 9 March 1918: ibid.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Sovnarkom meeting, 2 May 1918: ibid.

  14. Trotsky’s 1935 diary in L. Trotskii, Dnevniki i pis’ma, p. 102.

  15. Sovnarkom meeting, 17 July 1918: GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 2.

  16. A. A. Ioffe, ‘N. Lenin i nasha vneshnyaya politika’ (dated 20 October 1927), APRF, f. 31, op. 1, d. 4, p. 216.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Enquiries to Lenin at the Eighth Party Congress, March 1919: RGASPI, f. 5, op. 2, d. 2, p. 5.

  19. G. V. Chicherin, Vneshnyaya politika Sovetskoi Rossii za dva goda, pp. 18–19.

  20. M. Ustinov, ‘Svoevremennye mysli’, in S. Rudakov (ed.), Vokrug moskovskikh sobytii, p. 10.

  21. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, pp. 202–3.

  22. R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Moscow), 10 and 26 May: Milner Papers, dep. 364, fol. 288, and dep. 365, fol. 47.

  23. R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Moscow), 16 May 1918: ibid., dep. 364; R. Bruce Lockhart and A. Kerensky, ‘Ordeal by Oratory’ (draft; n.d.), p. 5: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), box 5, folder 7.

  24. Notes taken by Robin Bruce Lockhart from George Hill’s account, p. 5: ibid., box 11, folder 1.

  25. George Hill’s answer to Robin Bruce Lockhart’s questionnaire, p. 6: ibid., box 11, folder 1; Ya. Peters, ‘Protokol pokazanii Ksenofontova Kalamatiano, on zhe Serpovskii’, in Arkhiv VChK. Sbornik dokumentov, p. 512.

  26. Savinkov’s testimony in ‘Sudebnoe razbiratel’stvo’, Pravda, 30 August 1924, pp. 4–5.

  27. R. H. Bruce Lockhart (Moscow) 17 May 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 142, fol. 4; see also dep. 365, fols 171–2.

  28. Lockhart’s telegram, 26 May 1918: National Archives, FO 371/3332/9748.

  29. Savinkov’s testimony in ‘Sudebnoe razbiratel’stvo’, Pravda, 30 August 1924, pp. 4–5.

  30. F. Grenard, La Révolution russe, p. 322.

  31. Krasnaya kniga VChK, vol. 1, pp. 166–7.

  32. Savinkov’s testimony in ‘Sudebnoe razbiratel’stvo’, Pravda, 30 August 1924, pp. 4–5.

  33. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, p. 207.

  34. F. Grenard, La Révolution russe, p. 321.

  35. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 405: letter to A. Thomas, 10 July 1918.

  36. A. A. Ioffe to the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, copied to Lenin, Trotsky, Sverdlov and Zinoviev, June 1918: N. Ioffe, Moi otets Adol’f Abramovich Ioffe, pp. 65–6.

  37. Sovnarkom, 15 July 1918: GARF, f. R-130, op. 2, d. 2.

  38. J. Sadoul, Notes sur la révolution bolchévique, octobre 1917–janvier 1919, p. 405: letter to A. Thomas, 10 July 1918.

  39. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, pp. 210–11.

  40. V. I. Lenin, Neizvestnye dokumenty, 1891–1922, p. 229.

  41. 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. 947; J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 2, p. 146.

  42. J. Noulens, Mon ambassade en Russie Soviétique, 1917–1919, vol. 2, p. 148.

  43. Ibid., p. 149.

  44. D. R. Francis, Russia from the American Embassy, April 1916–November 1918, pp. 248 and 250.

  45. Bolshevik Propaganda: Hearings before a Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, pp. 949–50.

  46. Ibid., p. 948.

  47. W. Hard, Raymond Robins’ Own Story, p. 191; R. H. Bruce Lockhart report (Moscow), 13 May 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 365, fol. 2.

  12. Subverting the Allies

  1. Most notably in The State and Revolution: see Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 33.

  2. I. S. Rozental’, Provokator. Roman Malinovskii: sud’ba i vremya, pp. 198–207.

  3. M. Occleshaw, Dances in Deep Shadows: The Clandestine War in Russia, 1917–20, pp. 93–4; C. Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community, pp. 261–2.

  4. G. Nowik, Zanim zlamano „Enigmę”. Polski radiowywiad podczas wojny z bolszewicką Rosją 1918–1920, pp. 866–9.

  5. Kh. Rakovskii and K. Radek, 29 October 1918: P. N. Vrangel Collection (HIA), box 35, folder 10.

  6. R. Blobaum, Feliks Dzierzynski and the SDKPiL: A Study of the Origins of Polish Communism, p. 30.

  7. C. Sheridan, From Mayfair to Moscow: Clare Sheridan’s Diary, p. 95.

  8. Ibid.

  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. 557.

  10. G. A. Hill, Go Spy the Land, p. 154.

  11. Karl Radek interview reported in ‘Anarchist
s as Bandits’, New York Times, 23 April 1923.

  12. The Diaries of Robert Bruce Lockhart, 1915–1938, p. 35.

  13. N. A. Ioffe, Moi otets Adol’f Abramovich Ioffe, p. 38.

  14. S. Dzerzhinskaya, V gody velikikh boëv, pp. 269–70; N. Zubov, F. E. Dzerzhinskii, pp. 219–21; A. E. Senn, Diplomacy and Revolution: The Soviet Mission to Switzerland, 1918, p. 100.

  15. See here.

  16. B. Thomson, Queer People (Hodder & Stoughton: London, 1922), p. 290.

  17. Call, September 1918 (‘Dictatorship and Democracy’) and July 1919 (‘Towards a Revolutionary World War’).

  18. 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. 201–2.

  19. B. Thomson, Queer People, p. 290.

  20. See here.

  21. C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, p. 37.

  22. Report of the Dutch Legation in Petrograd, 15 September 1918: SF 401/3/2; Report from Stockholm, 12 September 1918: CX 050167; File on Ransome, 11.1.5 (no further indication); political report from ‘our representative’ in Helsinki, 1 May 1920: CX 3646. I am grateful to Andrew Cook for supplying secret service reports on Ransome.

  23. The Times, 12 July 1918.

  24. R. H. Bruce Lockhart to A. J. Balfour, 7 November 1918, p. 2: Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart Papers (HIA), box 12.

  13. Germany Entreated

  1. K. Baedeker, Russia with Teheran, Port Arthur, and Peking: Handbook for Travellers, pp. 334–5; F. J. Funk, ‘Fighting after the War’, Purdue Alumnus (n.d.), p. 7.

  2. R. H. Bruce Lockhart report (Moscow), 18 July 1918: Milner Papers, dep. 365, fol. 147; ‘Proposals for Allied Enterprise for Russia (assuming French concurrence): ibid., dep. 364.

  3. R. H. Bruce Lockhart report (Moscow), 21 July 1918: ibid., dep. 365, fols 156–7.

  4. Lord Reading report (Washington), p. 4, 3 July 1918: ibid., dep. 141; aide-memoire from Acting Secretary of State F. Polk, given to Lord Reading, 18 July 1918: ibid., dep. 365, fol. 154.

  5. C. Kinvig, Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918–1920, pp. 23 and 28–9.