Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Plot for Global Revolution Read Free

all happened so quickly: a private meeting in Whitehall, some questions about his fluency in Russian and then an offer of employment, swiftly concluded with a handshake. ‘In the space of a few seconds,’ he later recalled, ‘I was accepted into the ranks of the Secret Service.’
    He was an unlikely candidate for espionage. An English baronet of the old school, he had been the Conservative Member of Parliament for Chelsea since 1910. Well-spoken, well-mannered, well-heeled, he was solidly conventional. Harrow and Oxford, old chap. Double first.
    But he had taught himself conversational Russian and this had earned him the notice of the Secret Intelligence Service. He was to be sent to Petrograd in order to forge links with Russian generals and monitor the fighting on the Eastern Front.
    It was not a question of spying on the enemy: Russia was a key member of the Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia) fighting against Germany in the First World War. However, Hoare’s role was certainly of vital importance. The conflict on the Eastern Front was tying down huge numbers of German troops that could otherwise be transferred to the Western Front. A sudden influx of battle-hardened soldiers to Northern France would spell disaster for the British Tommies struggling to hold their entrenched positions in Picardie and Champagne.
    Hoare was hoping to be initiated into a world of glamour, duplicity and deception when he first arrived in Petrograd. He had been given a rudimentary training in eavesdropping and ciphering and was looking forward to using his new skills.
    However, his work at the Russian War Ministry proved monotonous and exhausting, with twelve-hour days and no holidays. Far from infiltrating subversive meetings, he found himself helping to supply Russian ministries with much needed supplies. On one occasion, he was asked to procure thousands of beeswax candles for the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church.
    His evenings were no less tedious – a succession of champagne soirées with highly decorated generals whose knowledge of battlefield strategy was lamentable. ‘Incompetent, idle, self-indulgent, irresponsible,’ was Hoare’s opinion of the Minister of War.
    Teamwork meant everything to Hoare. He played according to the rules – taking pride in being firm but fair – and he expected his men to do the same. He was unaware that they didn’t all agree with his very British approach to espionage. Nor did he realise that there was a far more nefarious side to the activities of the bureau that he directed. Among those serving in his team was a young Oxford graduate named Oswald Rayner. Along with a handful of others, Rayner had established a clandestine inner circle that members referred to as the ‘far-reaching system’.
    This ‘system’ aimed to act in absolute secrecy, spearheading underground missions that left no trace of their involvement. These dangerous operations, of which Hoare had no knowledge, were to become a hallmark of the Russian bureau.
    Oswald Rayner’s ‘far-reaching system’ was to make the first of many spectacular strikes in the winter of 1916. It was to leave a fingerprint so faint that it would remain undetected for nine decades.

    The bitter chill of December 1916 brought a heightened sense of gloom to the city of Petrograd.
    ‘For us,’ wrote Hoare, ‘it made the ordinary routine of life difficult and irritating, but for the hundreds of thousands of working women who, badly clothed and miserably housed, stood hour after hour in queues amidst the snow and sleet of a Petrograd winter, and often went home with nothing for their families, it was a grim tragedy that led inevitably to bloodshed and revolution.’
    Hoare’s weekly intelligence reports revealed that poor leadership and inadequate weaponry had led to Russian war fatigue. ‘I am confident that Russia will never fight through another winter,’ he wrote that December.
    The imperial splendour of the Marinsky Theatre offered the