The Deadly Game: British Spies in Lenin’s Russia

The nature of spying requires its operatives to commit the worst acts of betrayal against those who consider themselves their friends or colleagues. Spies are hated by those they deceive and are distrusted by those who employ or use them. Therefore a spy is always an outsider whose work and personal life are permanently in opposition. To succeed, a spy requires certain peculiar characteristics that are found in few people. Spies must immerse themselves in a life of perpetual deception in the world’s most despised and lonely profession.

Even before the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, Britain had long been involved in the internal politics of Tsarist Russia. However, with the rise of Lenin and the communist threat to unleash world revolution a small group of Russian-speaking British spies infiltrated the Russian government and changed the course of history.

 

Oswald Rayner and the murder of Rasputin

The life story of Grigori Rasputin is well known. So also, it would appear, are the details of his murder in December 1916 at the hands of Prince Felix Yusupov and his co-conspirators. To leave no doubt about the event, Yusupov wrote two books describing the murder and the conspiracy.

The Yusupov conspirators’ plan was elaborate and foolproof (in theory anyway). First, Rasputin was lured to the Yusupov Palace with the promise of a night of debauchery. According to Yusupov’s confession there were four other plotters with him, waiting for the arrival of some “ladies” so the party could begin. Dr Lazovert had laced some cakes and the wine Rasputin was to drink with potassium cyanide. Rasputin ate the cakes and drank the wine without showing the slightest effect of the poison (which Lazovert had assured Yusupov was enough to kill several men instantly). The poisoning having failed, Yusupov ran upstairs and obtained a Browning pistol from Grand Duke Dmitri. He returned to the cellar and shot Rasputin through the heart. Rasputin fell to the ground and lay motionless. Dr Lazovert inspected the body and declared him dead.

As the conspirators discussed how to dispose of the body, Yusupov leaned close to the face of Rasputin—and nearly collapsed with shock when first one eye opened, then the other, and stared straight into his own eyes. Rasputin leapt to his feet, attacked Yusupov like a wild animal, then ran up the stairs and escaped into the courtyard, where he collapsed. Another conspirator, Vladimir Purishkevich, ran after the dying Rasputin as he crawled away and shot him four more times with a Sauvige automatic pistol, finally killing him. The body was taken to a high bridge and dumped over the parapet into the Neva River, where it was expected it would be trapped in the ice until the spring thaw swept out it into the Gulf of Finland.

Unfortunately for the murderers, Rasputin’s body was discovered within two days, and the initial autopsy showed that Yusupov’s story was a complete fabrication. There was no sign of poison, and it was clear that Rasputin had been severely tortured before being murdered. In addition to his terrible injuries, there were only three bullet wounds, two from an automatic pistol and the fatal one through the forehead at point-blank range from a large-calibre revolver.

Yusupov and his fellow conspirators stuck to their story that there were only five Russians involved in the plot, but even the Tsar heard that a sixth British agent may have been present. He went so far as to ask the British ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, to find out and report directly to him. Eventually, the British denied everything, but years later a report on the murder was found in the Foreign Office archives that had been sent to London before Rasputin’s body was found. To say the least, this is hard to explain. Enter Oswald Rayner of the British Foreign Service.

Oswald Rayner never claimed to have fired the fatal shot from the .455 Webley revolver he carried, but the circumstantial evidence is strong that he may have, or more likely, that he lent his weapon to the person who completed the murder. In later years Rayner admitted to many of his associates that he was indeed the sixth man in the palace when Grigori Rasputin was brutally murdered.

Extraordinary as this incident was, Rayner was part of one of several British spy networks in Russia working independently of each other. With the rise of the Leninist Bolsheviks following the tumultuous October 1917 Revolution, it became clear that the British intelligence networks in Russia needed to co-ordinate their activities. Under the formidable Chief of the Secret Service Bureau the British were soon able to demonstrate their extraordinary capabilities.

 

Mansfield Smith Cumming

In 1909 the Head of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Bethell, sent a letter to a naval commander who had been invalided from active service because of seasickness. Bethell wanted someone to set up a foreign intelligence service, particularly now that the diplomatic relationship with Germany was becoming tense. In offering the job to Commander Mansfield Smith Cumming (who had no background in intelligence) Bethell made an inspired choice that would create one of the most effective and unusual spy networks in history.

Having been given his mandate (and very few resources or funds) Cumming set about selecting and training his “rascals”. Cumming split his staff into two: the “back office” organisers had to be imaginative and brilliant administrators, while the “front office” field operatives had to have nerves of steel, initiative, a laser-like focus on their task, be ruthless risk-takers and, in many cases, liars and conmen with little conscience and few scruples.

Among the staff Cumming recruited during the First World War were the writers Compton Mackenzie, John Buchan, Somerset Maugham and Valentine Williams. In the 1930s and 1940s these authors all knew Ian Fleming (an intelligence officer in the Second World War). There is no doubt they would have told Fleming stories of the legendary Chief of the SSB and their exploits in a previous era. Evidence of this is a quirk that Cumming adopted by signing his memos with a simple “C” in green ink. When the world’s most famous spy author began writing his James Bond novels his irascible spymaster was simply known as “M”, so it is highly likely he was based on Cumming and the SSB.

In 1914 Cumming was involved in a car accident on a lonely road in France in which his son was killed and he was trapped under the wreck. To reach and help his son he cut off his own leg with a penknife and covered his son with his coat before fainting. A month later he was back at work, where he used the results of his accident as a means of assessing the nerves of his field operatives. At the end of the recruiting interview Cumming would pick up a knife and stab himself in his (wooden) leg. If the potential spy flinched, Cumming would announce, “I’m afraid you won’t do.”

From the time of the Bolshevik Revolution onwards, the SSB concentrated its spy efforts on Russia, where the operatives became involved in a bewildering array of extraordinary operations. Although their exploits overlap, the story of each agent will be the told individually.

 

George Hill

George Hill was a rotund, balding Flying Corps officer who spoke perfect Russian. He had been sent to Russia during the First World War to train Russian fighter pilots. While there he had witnessed the execution of two Bulgarian spies, so he had no illusions as to his own fate if he was exposed and captured. With the collapse of the Tsarist regime, Hill left Petrograd and returned to London.

In England, Hill was recruited by C, given some rudimentary training, a new identity as “George Bergmann” (if required) and a list of potentially “interesting” contacts in Moscow. Russia was still in the war against Germany, so Hill returned to the British embassy as an official liaison officer to the Bolsheviks. His first attempt at infiltrating a network of German-favouring Russian agents run by “Madame B” almost ended in disaster. On leaving his first meeting with Madame B, he was followed by two men clearly intent on doing him harm. As soon as the first one closed on him, Hill pointed his walking stick at the man. The man grasped it, only to find himself in possession of a swordstick scabbard. Hill ran him through. The second man fled. Hill sheathed his sword and returned to his hotel.

As a liaison officer Hill was able to offer his services to the Bolsheviks on some days, while on others he went undercover as the dishevelled spymaster with a growing entourage of “rascals”. When the Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from the war, Hill went fully underground as a German businessman, George Bergmann. He grew a beard, moved into a cheap safe-house and recruited four Russian girls to help him manage his network. Within weeks, the personality of George Hill had ceased to exist. George Bergmann now couriered the information from many of the spies in this article.

Hill did not have the contacts or the conman’s skills to be a good spy, but as he was a brilliant organiser he became a spymaster managing couriers, paying spies (such as Sidney Reilly, “Ace of Spies”) and using a small group of disaffected Russians as saboteurs.

After six of his couriers were caught and executed, Hill reorganised his couriers to work out of the perfect cover of a brothel, where the comings and goings of many strangers attracted no attention. Thereafter, the system worked perfectly. Hill was living an exceptionally dangerous life with the possibility of betrayal and execution at any moment. He organised more than a hundred couriers into an efficient system that delivered messages, documents and intelligence to London without fail. Hill also sabotaged German military targets and infrastructure. On one occasion, Hill blew up a German industrial gas works with homemade explosives and on another he killed a hired assassin who had failed in an attempt to kill him.

By mid-1918, Hill had had enough. For nearly a year he had been a hunted man working under cover and he was feeling the strain. His exit from Russia was pulled off with unusual flair. In September 1918 the Bolsheviks had broken all the diplomatic rules by attacking and ransacking the British embassy (killing Captain Cromie, the military attaché). Now they were expelling the embassy staff. Hill simply reappeared and resumed his old position as staff liaison officer without giving any explanation about why he had not been seen for months. He openly departed Russia by train to Finland.

Before he left Russia, Hill passed on his courier duties to John Merrett, who owned an engineering firm in Petrograd that was of great value to the Bolsheviks. In London, Hill was awarded the Military Cross and made a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order.

After a brief holiday, Hill and Reilly were summoned to a meeting with C and given a new assignment to travel to southern Russia and assess the capabilities of General Denikin’s “White Russian Army”. Their report was pessimistic and predicted that Denikin would fail. In their view supplying equipment to him would simply be a waste. Their report proved to be accurate when Denikin was easily defeated by the Red Army.

After one more assignment to the Middle East, Hill found his services were no longer required. In the inter-war years he worked at a number of routine jobs. In the Second World War he was recalled to train a new generation of spies. Unfortunately, one of his best students was Kim Philby, the British traitor who worked for the Russians for over twenty-five years. Hill died in 1968.

 

John Merrett

John Merrett was a wealthy man. Born in England, he had moved to Russia to develop an engineering business and had become immersed in Russian culture and society. Whereas Reilly and Hill had nerves of steel that allowed them to escape from dangerous situations, Merrett sought danger. Once, asked what would he do if a Cheka agent tried to arrest him, he replied laconically, “Knife him.”

Before the storming of the British embassy, Merrett had been regularly supplying intelligence to Cromie. Now he replaced Hill as the spymaster in the greatly depleted network. However, his main task was to run a “ratline” to help people of value escape from Russia. This was far more dangerous than couriering documents, as people are not as easy to hide and move. As his work with Cromie was known to the Cheka, Merrett was now being hunted, so he too adopted a new persona and went under cover.

At this point the SSB almost collapsed as interdepartmental rivals in London tried to take it over. C successfully resisted, only to be assaulted by an enemy far greater than the Russian secret police: the British Treasury wanted to slash his budget, as he could not provide receipts for much of the money he spent. Fortunately, the rhetoric of Winston Churchill carried the day and the SSB remained intact and funded.

Despite being hunted by the Cheka and constantly having to move locations, Merrett found time for his ratline to rescue 247 people while rebuilding his courier service. Finally, after several close calls it was time for Merrett to escape along his own ratline, but before he did he handed over his work to Paul Dukes, whose exploits outdid the adventures of all those who went before him.

 

Arthur Ransome

Arthur Ransome was one of C’s best rascals. In his formal role as a journalist Ransome wrote many reports supporting the ideals and aims of the Bolsheviks. His writing drew their approval and opened doors into the Politburo’s inner circle. In fact his deep cover was so good that the British Foreign Office thought he was so much of a Russian sympathiser they wrote to Cumming saying that he should never be trusted. Lenin, Trotsky, Radek (Chief of Counter-Intelligence) and most of the other Bolshevik leaders were so convinced that Ransome was a true believer that they invited him to attend their high-level policy meetings.

Good as this was, everything turned to gold when Ransome asked Trotsky’s secretary, Evgenia Shelepina, for some assistance in obtaining exit papers for his newspaper dispatches. They quickly became friends, then lovers, and through her he obtained extra copies of the Politburo minutes, Trotsky’s memos, and copies of all incoming letters from Politburo members. C and the Foreign Office in London were now reading the most secret intelligence of Russia’s leaders.

In September 1918 Russia decided to expel all foreigners, including Ransome. Although he was already married, Ransome was appalled at the idea of leaving Evgenia behind, both from a personal and professional point of view. With the help of Bruce Lockhart (a diplomat-spy) he arranged for his own departure to Sweden and for Evgenia to attend a Bolshevik mission to Germany. From there she made her way to Sweden, where they were reunited. Ironically, the British government refused her a visa to enter England.

Although they had escaped from Russia at great risk, C had further work for Ransome and Evgenia in Moscow. The SSB arranged for them to be widely condemned in the British press as Bolsheviks, so much so that they were expelled from Sweden and deported to Russia. The Politburo was again convinced by this propaganda. Ransome resumed his journalistic and spy work, passing his information via Hill’s couriers to England. In early March 1919 he had had enough, as he knew that by now both Trotsky and Radek suspected him of being a double agent (which placed Evgenia in great danger). He announced to them his intention of returning to England, but was persuaded to stay on by the Bolsheviks for the “Great Announcement”. Ransome was intrigued and agreed to attend the meeting, which was the founding meeting of the Comintern, whose objective was to foment a worldwide Marxist revolution.

Once he had this scoop, Ransome and Evgenia left Russia for the last time, but they were still not allowed into England. Finally, three years later, in 1924, after Ransome’s divorce, they married and moved to England after the ban on Evgenia was overturned by the Foreign Secretary in person when he was apprised of her services to Britain. Naturally, they were ostracised by polite society. Ransome’s cover was so effective he received no awards or recognition for his extraordinary achievements. Settling in the remote and picturesque Lake District, Ransome had the best form of revenge by achieving financial security as the successful author of children’s books.

 

Robert Bruce Lockhart

Bruce Lockhart was a diplomat, sent to Russia to establish lines of communication with Lenin’s government. His major failings were that he was indiscreet and could not resist the charms of beautiful women.

For his social indiscretions he was briefly expelled from Tsarist Russia by the British ambassador, but in 1918 he returned with a brief to gather intelligence and act as paymaster for the network of spies set up by C’s SSB. Lockhart was above reproach in his job as he could operate in the open, contact Bolshevik government officers at all levels, and gather intelligence. Although married, he also fell in love with the aristocratic widow Maria (Moura) Zakrveskia.

Lockhart’s position was brought undone by the ambitious and fearless Sidney Reilly, who had become involved in a plot to assassinate the whole Bolshevik government in a single stroke. On August 30, 1918, a week before the intended massacre, Lenin was shot and wounded by the Socialist revolutionary Fanya Kaplan. In the “Red Terror” that immediately followed, Moura was arrested, the British embassy was sacked, and evidence was uncovered that Lockhart knew of the counter-revolutionary plot. He was arrested and Reilly’s attempted coup became erroneously known as “The Lockhart Plot”.

A month later the British embassy staff were expelled from Russia. Lockhart was exchanged for a senior Bolshevik imprisoned in London. At the station in Moscow he said goodbye to Moura. He would not see her again until she visited him as he lay dying in 1970, fifty-two years after their separation.

 

Sidney Reilly

Sidney Reilly had already achieved some remarkable feats of espionage before and during the First World War. He is reputed to have attended a conference held by the German High Command dressed as a German colonel. Whether this was true cannot be confirmed, but he did return from his mission with top-secret strategic and technical documents.

When C recruited Reilly he expressed doubts about his character and his own ability to control his agent. However, C also recognised that Reilly was fearless, intelligent, a conman capable of talking his way into the highest echelons of power, and absolutely ruthless. Reilly, for all his faults, was too good an opportunity to miss. Reilly was sent to Russia ostensibly as a diamond buyer, but through his old contacts he soon established a network of disaffected Russians. Within weeks he was collecting considerable quantities of secret documents for George Hill to dispatch to London.

Reilly went well beyond his brief and became involved in a plot to assassinate the complete Bolshevik leadership. Gradually, the British spies who were aware of the plot withdrew, regarding it as too risky a venture with their untested Latvian allies. The whole conspiracy now fell entirely on Reilly. Reilly organised the coup with his usual efficiency and set the date of the massacre for the Politburo meeting of September 6, 1918.

Unfortunately, in unrelated events a military cadet assassinated the head of the Cheka in Petrograd and Fanya Kaplan seriously wounded Lenin in an assassination attempt. The coup was off as the Cheka unleashed its Red Terror against all real and suspected enemies.

In Petrograd, the Cheka stormed the British embassy and killed Captain Cromie, who Reilly was due to meet. Seeing the commotion and hearing the shots, Reilly used his forged Cheka pass to approach a guard and ask what was happening. He was told that the Cheka had taken this extraordinary action to try to capture a British spy called Sidney Reilly. Reilly wished them luck, then left for Moscow to continue his work. Bruce Lockhart and Captain Hicks were arrested and confronted with the original letter of introduction that Lockhart had written for the Latvian colonel. It appeared that the net had closed on them, but the next day they were released without explanation. However, the hunt for Reilly was on.

The Cheka found out about the Lockhart/Reilly plot and rounded up and executed a number of key Russian agents. C’s network all but collapsed, though Hill, Reilly and the surviving agents soon began rebuilding it as if nothing had happened.

Lockhart was arrested again and after a time under sentence of death he was expelled from Russia. Lockhart and Reilly were then both sentenced to death in absentia, the sentence to be carried out immediately should either of them set foot in Russia again.

Now that Reilly was a fugitive who could be shot on sight, the obvious course of action was to flee the country as fast as possible. But Sidney Reilly was no ordinary person, and he continued his espionage activities through his network inside the Bolshevik government. He was able to supply a constant stream of high-quality intelligence to London through Hill’s couriers.

Reilly was in extreme danger, as all his covers had been exposed. Although he heard Cheka agents were searching Moscow for him, that was where he went. He stayed in a safe-house while a trusted friend brought him news of the search for him and of the arrests that were taking place daily. He was aided in avoiding capture by the local newspapers, which extensively reported the hunt for him.

Hill and Reilly constantly moved, but the net was closing on them. One night, Reilly was awakened by the sound of a Cheka raiding party breaking into his apartment block. He left by the back entrance, calmly approached the sentry who had been stationed there to stop him escaping, and asked him for a match. After a few words of conversation, Reilly strolled into the night and freedom.

Recognising that the hunt for him was risking the whole network, Reilly obtained forged papers from George Hill and left Russia for London via Petrograd and Sweden. He went on to further adventures, but he could no longer work for C in Russia. For his work he was awarded the Military Cross.

Unfortunately, after he left the Secret Service Bureau, Reilly was lured back to Russia by Cheka agents. He was arrested in October 1925 and executed on November 5.

 

Paul Dukes

Paul Dukes was a musician and orchestra conductor who had lived in Russia for ten years. He had provided intelligence on Tsarist Russia to the British embassy and had stayed on after the Bolshevik Revolution. Now that Hill and Reilly had been compromised, C needed a replacement, so he summoned Dukes to London and offered him the job. Dukes accepted.

Dukes re-entered Russia by illegally crossing the border from Finland. He was spotted by Russian border guards and barely escaped by burying himself in the snow. When it was safe to do so he made his way to Petrograd and contacted John Merrett. As the Cheka were closing in, Merrett handed over the network to Dukes and made his escape. Dukes soon made contact with anti-Bolshevik officers in the Russian navy who passed him the latest reports—including the layout of the minefields protecting their major naval base at Kronstadt.

Dukes established an elaborate cover by adopting three different personas, requiring three different disguises. He established several safe-houses and had a network of spies working for him. Their loyalty saved him when he found out that one of the senior collaborators passing him information had turned and reported his activities to the Cheka. The hunt for him was on. Dukes completely changed his persona and continued work, but now that he knew they were looking for him the dangers were multiplied considerably. He escaped one raid by faking an epileptic fit that frightened the Cheka agents looking for him.

In June 1919 the Bolsheviks carried out one of their purges that left gaps in their ranks. Dukes saw this as an opportunity and joined the party. Once he had exploited some of the advantages this gave him, he went even further and joined the Red Army. He was soon elected as the official delegate of his regiment and was invited to military planning meetings. Having gathered vital intelligence Dukes then had to escape before his regiment was sent to the front to fight the White Army. Lieutenant Augustus Agar of the Royal Navy was to penetrate the Russian minefields in the Gulf of Finland in a skimmer (a fast shallow-draft motorboat) to meet and collect Dukes.

On the appointed night Agar reached the rendezvous and waited. Dukes and a Russian agent, Gefter, had reached the shore and pushed off in a small boat. Unfortunately, before they reached Agar’s skimmer they discovered that a plug used to drain the boat was missing. Their boat flooded and sank and Dukes and Gefter had to swim back to shore suffering from hypothermia. At first light, Agar turned the skimmer for home, distraught that he had failed. He believed that Dukes was now probably dead.

Dukes was certainly in serious trouble. He left Gefter with a local fisherman’s family and set off to walk the hundreds of miles out of Russia via Latvia. Two months later, Agar returned to London to report to C. He noticed another man was also waiting: it was Paul Dukes. Dukes had succeeded in his epic trek, remaining just one step ahead of his Cheka pursuers.

In 1920 Paul Dukes was knighted for his services. Sir Paul turned to yoga and mysticism and wrote several successful books on yoga and other subjects, including one about his experiences in Russia. He died in Cape Town in 1967.

 

Augustus Agar

On June 30, 1919, a tall, slim Royal Navy lieutenant was ushered into the King’s presence by the already legendary C. As the King pinned the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military award for courage, on the uniform of Augustus Agar, he commented, “They tell me this has been awarded for a secret mission. Can you tell me what it was for?” Lieutenant Agar regaled his king with the daring story for which he had been awarded the Victoria Cross. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Order. After the ceremony Cumming and Agar joined Dukes and some of the Foreign Intelligence Service staff at the Savoy Hotel for dinner.

Lieutenant Agar had a “quiet war” from 1914 to 1918, commanding a coastal motorboat squadron of just two boats. As these boats were skimmers, most regular naval officers would consider such an appointment a demotion. But the skimmers’ shallow draft meant they could pass over German minefields and carry out raids against enemy shipping inside harbours and coastal waterways where larger vessels could not go. The war ended before the squadron was fully ready for action, though they had participated in the Zeebrugge Raid and had attacked several German patrol craft along the Belgian coast.

C’s network in Russia needed a reliable means of delivering fresh agents, collecting reports and picking up returning agents or ones escaping from Russia. When offered the opportunity to undertake these dangerous missions, Agar jumped at the chance and immediately moved his skimmer squadron to Terijoki in Finland, near the Russian border. He made frequent crossings into Russia to deliver and pick up agents.

The Bolsheviks had seized the Tsarist fleet. At Kronstadt the Russians had two battleships, the 17,400-ton Andrei Pervozanny and the modern Petropavlovsk, a cruiser, the Oleg, and several other supporting warships. Although the Baltic Fleet of the Royal Navy, commanded by Admiral Sir Walter Cowan, blockaded the base, the Russians had the more powerful warships. Agar and Cowan formed a sound working relationship. Like Nelson, Admiral Cowan turned a blind eye to a daring raid proposed by Agar that was well outside the scope of his operational orders.

To carry out the planned raid, Cowan supplied Agar with three torpedoes. Agar then requested permission from the Foreign Office for permission to attack the Russian fleet. He received a negative reply just before he was ready to set out with his two boats, CMB4 and CMB23, just after dark on June 17, 1919. Agar decided the reply to his request was ambiguous and proceeded as planned. Before reaching Kronstadt, CMB23 developed engine problems and had to turn back, but Agar continued on into the bay. To reach his attack position against the battleships Agar had to pass a number of forts and ships guarding the approaches, then cross a barrier minefield. At one point CMB4 was spotted and fired on by a destroyer, incurring damage to its hull. Undeterred, Agar closed on a large warship and was preparing to fire his torpedoes when the skimmers’ engine broke down. For twenty minutes while repairs were hastily carried out, his boat was in full view of the bemused enemy. Once the repairs were completed Agar returned to the planned attack and when his torpedoes hit home the 6,645-ton cruiser Oleg quickly sank. The skimmer sped back across the bay under heavy fire. This was the action for which Agar was awarded the Victoria Cross and promoted to lieutenant commander.

Agar continued to rise through the ranks until 1931 when he was divorced, which was unacceptable at the time. Agar was not concerned, as it meant that he continued to command ships and small flotillas. In 1941, he was appointed commander of the Dorsetshire, which was attacked and sunk by Japanese dive bombers in the Indian Ocean in 1942. Lieutenant Commander Agar had been wounded and had a dangerously infected leg. He had also swallowed fuel oil and had gone so deep when his ship sank that he had the “bends”. He never fully recovered and was retired with the rank of captain. He lived quietly on his farm until he succumbed to time and his injuries in 1968.

 

Frederick Bailey

The vast underbelly of the Russian empire was not the responsibility of C, but of the Indian Political Intelligence Service based in London. Three British envoys, Frederick Bailey, Stewart Blacker and Percy Etherton, travelled openly from India to Kashgar, where there were British and American consulates. Their mission was to contact the Bolsheviks and find out their intentions. Bailey and Blacker then moved on to Tashkent where they discovered a chaotic situation governed by corrupt and brutal Bolsheviks with no experience in managing a city. They realised they were in danger of arbitrary arrest and execution. Blacker solved his problem by becoming genuinely ill and was permitted to leave. Bailey remained, but was virtually a hostage. After being arrested, interrogated and set free after a clever ruse, he was told by a contact that he would be rearrested and shot. He decided it was time to implement his backup plan of disguising himself and going under cover. On the chosen day he was followed home as usual, where he quickly changed then left by the rear door dressed like the thousands of Austrian prisoners of war housed in Tashkent. Within a day there were posters everywhere offering a reward for his arrest.

Undaunted, Bailey continued to seek out information about the anti-Bolshevik resistance of the mountain tribes. On the return journey from a trip he slipped and fell hundreds of feet down a mountain, severely injuring his knee. He was out of action for several months, hiding in a cave and supplied by local tribesmen. When he returned to Tashkent he was surprised to find that the persona he had adopted was compromised because the real prisoner of that name was in town. He quickly forged new papers and changed his disguise to become a Romanian soldier.

Other British spies working for Wilfrid Malleson had tapped into the telegraph line from Moscow to Tashkent, so the British government in India was reading the orders flowing from the Comintern to the Indian revolutionaries in Tashkent. One of Bailey’s most significant discoveries was that the Bolsheviks were trying to raise an Islamic “Army of God” of at least 50,000 men to invade India. As Moscow was aware of his presence and suspected his work, they established a “special department” to find him and his network in Tashkent. This special department of the Cheka posted notices every­where offering a reward for his capture. Bailey recognised that he would have to flee, but before he did he carried out one last remarkable exploit.

First, he changed his identity yet again to that of an Albanian mercenary, as he knew that almost nobody in Tashkent knew anything about Albania or its language. To escape he would have to cover hundreds of miles between towns, along which the Cheka had established checkpoints and regular patrols. Bailey planned to trek to Meshed in Persia via Bokhara, 300 miles to the west, and then cross the desolate Karakum Desert. His French equivalent had recently been captured attempting this same journey.

Bokhara was controlled by an anti-Bolshevik emir, so if he could reach Bokhara it would be an island of temporary safety. To find out what the situation was in Bokhara the local Bolshevik commissar had dispatched fifteen spies. None had returned—all had been captured and executed. In an extraordinary move, Bailey applied to join the Cheka and undertake a mission to Bokhara, which he claimed he knew. The commissar was so supportive he gave him the additional assignment of finding and reporting on the activities of the enemy spy, Colonel Bailey. He had been tasked with hunting for himself!

When Bailey reached Bokhara he contacted the emir and was offered assistance in crossing the Karakum Desert to Meshed, where a British officer, Wilfrid Malleson, was waging a private war against the Bolsheviks. After an epic journey of three weeks, following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, in which Bailey and his party forded the Oxus River, crossed the Karakum Desert and had several close calls as they fought off bandits, sandstorms and the freezing weather, they approached the British garrison. After one final skirmish with the Red Army border guards they reached the safety of Meshed.

Bailey served on in the Indian Army, but thereafter was mainly employed in semi-diplomatic roles until he retired in 1938. He served in the Military Staff in the early years of the Second World War. He died in England in 1967.

 

Wilfrid Malleson

Major-General Wilfrid Malleson commanded a garrison of two regiments of the Punjabi Cavalry of the Indian Army. They were tasked with patrolling and guarding the vague border between the British-controlled part of Turkestan and southern Russia. His achievements in his nine months at Meshed were exceptional, and his private war probably prevented a large-scale one. Malleson was described as a lonely, ruthless, cynical man lacking any sentiment or social interests—which meant he could focus on putting his pathological hatred of the Bolsheviks to practical use. On his arrival at this outpost he asked the British Indian government what he was expected (and permitted) to do. Their reply was that he was “on the spot and had a free hand to do whatever was necessary”. Malleson interpreted this liberally, though he understood that in the event of disaster he could expect no support from the bureaucrats.

Malleson began his private war by raiding deep into Russian Turkestan and attacking a much larger Red Army force that was engaged in suppressing local rebels. Malleson lost sixty of his soldiers in the offensive but completely routed the Russian force, mercilessly killing several hundred of them as they tried to withdraw. It was a superb example of military prowess, but it alarmed the Indian government, who prohibited him from repeating this type of operation. Malleson then turned his attention to using dirty tricks and covert operations.

Malleson had developed his own spy network and continually received superb intelligence from it. Combined with Bailey’s news he now set about countering the Comintern’s plans to raise an Islamic army to invade India.

First, he employed a clever defensive measure that countered the propaganda pamphlets financed by the Bolsheviks and issued by jihad-supporting imams. Malleson began issuing his own propaganda documents that looked identical but preached the opposite message while emphasising the atheism of the Bolsheviks. The jihadi propaganda became ineffective as its message was completely lost in the confusion.

When two of his spies were caught and executed by the Russians, Malleson realised that his network had been penetrated. He asked India for permission to retaliate in kind, but received no reply. Malleson did not ask again, but there is evidence that his men found the sources and dealt with them, as the leaks ceased.

Malleson’s network operated deep inside the Russian empire for up to 1000 miles from his Persian base at Meshed and involved hundreds of local anti-Bolshevik dissidents, tribesmen and former Tsarist government employees. From his telegraphic intercepts, the information he received from spies like Bailey, and his own men who had infiltrated Bolshevik organisations, Malleson built up a picture of their plans. Applying this knowledge would lead to his two greatest successes.

At the great Bolshevik–Muslim conference held by the Comintern in Baku, the Bolsheviks had promised huge quantities of military equipment to the Islamic army that was to be recruited and trained to invade India. Envoys had also established a close relationship with the Amir of Afghanistan, who would provide many of the soldiers.

As a ruthless demonstration that the Red Army was neither invincible nor well-led Malleson passed detailed information about the Russian garrison at Tejend to rebel Turkmen. The warrior tribesmen used this information to maximum effect by promptly attacking Tejend and slaughtering its defenders.

Malleson then ruthlessly exploited the 1300-year divide between the Sunni and Shia Muslim sects. Graphic stories of Shia atrocities against Sunnis were spread in Sunni areas and vice versa. Soon the possibility of their co-operating as part of a single army to invade India diminished daily until it vanished altogether. Malleson also exploited old disputes and feuds between Tsarist Russia and the mountain tribes, knowing full well that Turkmen and Afghan tribesmen rarely, if ever, forgot an insult. It is said they were still retelling stories about the march of Alexander the Great’s army through their territories more than 2300 years ago!

In Moscow the Comintern leaders were at a loss to explain these adverse events, but worse was to come for them. Their relationship with the Amir of Afghanistan was the vital link that would make their revolution in India possible. Malleson had several highly placed agents working in the Afghan government. They now began to provide advice and lists of preconditions for their co-operation. Malleson knew some of their recommendations to the Amir would be unacceptable to the Comintern. These advisers also emphasised the godlessness of the Russians and reminded the Amir of the poor showing of the garrison at Tejend. “How could such men train Afghan warriors to fight?” they asked.

Their most toxic demand infuriated the Russians: this was that Russia return Panjdeh province, which the Russians had seized in 1885, to the control of the Amir. The growing lack of trust resulted in disagreements, disputes and bickering. Yet the leader of the intended invasion force, the Marxist Indian revolutionary Manabendra Nath Roy, continued to believe he could overcome the difficulties.

At this point C intervened and ended the threat once and for all. By 1921, socialist economics had devastated Russian industry and agriculture and the country was on the brink of collapse. In desperation the Russians sought aid from the British! The British agreed to help, but there was a non-negotiable condition: the “secret army” in southern Russia was to be disbanded and never raised again. The Russian delegation denied its existence until they were read selected transcripts of their own correspondence. The Russian delegation had no explanation so they agreed that the Islamic “Army of God” would be permanently disbanded.

Malleson was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Indian Empire on January 1, 1920, shortly before he retired from the Indian Army. Once more the social strictures of the day played a dismally negative role against those loyal servants who had risked their lives for the empire. Despite his submissions, arguments and entreaties, none of his network received any awards or recognition for their services or the hardships they had endured. Apparently, one of the major reasons was that Malleson’s success in covert operations and dirty tricks was considered to be underhand and ungentlemanly. It is probably just coincidence that thirty years later the empire had ceased to exist.

Masters of the Great Game

The stories of British spies, agents and supporting staff in this article are but a small part of the intelligence operation that penetrated deeply into all levels of the Bolshevik government. As each agent completed his mission and escaped he was replaced by another and the game went on in a continuous cycle. Many of the unsung Russian heroes who risked everything to bring down the bloodthirsty Marxist regime were caught, tortured and murdered—but there were always others willing to replace them, so the game went on.

As for Mansfield Smith Cumming? C died at his desk of a heart attack in June 1923. There were no tributes and no obituary. He disappeared into the shadows, as he would have wished.

The Great Game never paused and the next generation of spies and agents was already at work, including the double agent Boris Bazhanov, Comrade Stalin’s personal secretary. C would have approved.