“AN EXTRAORDINARY BOOK” — Joseph E. Davies FORMER AMBASSADOR TO THE SOVIET UNION The GREAT CONSPIRACY against RUSSIA by MICHAEL SAYERS AND ALBERT E. KAHN AUTHORS OF SABOTAGE Special Introduction by Senator Claude Pepper NEW COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED EDITION ABOUT THE AUTHORS The authors of this book, Michael Sayers and Albert E. Kahn, have won an international reputation for their investigations of se- cret diplomacy and fifth column operations; For a number of years Mr. Sayers specialized in investigating and writing about Axis fifth column intrigue; and the first compre- hensive exposes of Nazi conspiracy in France, England and Ireland to be published in the United States were written by Mr. Sayers. Mr. Sayers is also well known as a short story writer, and Edward J. O’Brien dedicated one of his famous anthologies to him. Albert E. Kahn was formerly the Executive Secretary of the American Council Against Nazi Propaganda, of which the late Wil- liam E. Dodd, former Ambassador to Germany, was Chairman. As editor of The Hour, a confidential newsletter devoted to exposing Axis fifth column operations, Mr. Kahn became widely known for his exclusive news scoops on German and Japanese conspiratorial activities in the Americas. The first book on which Mr. Sayers and Mr. Kahn collaborated, Sabotage! The Secret War Against America, was one of the out- standing best-sellers of the war period. Their second book, The Plot Against the Peace achieved top sales in the early months of the postwar period. Their current work, The Great Conspiracy Against Russia, was first published early in February, 1946. Because of its sensational content, this book has been widely quoted upon both here and abroad. The book is already being translated into a number of foreign languages. • Professor Frederick Lewis Schuman, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government at Williams College, author of Soviet Politics at Home and Abroad and other books, writes: “The authors have brilliantly told a story which is more fas- cinating than any fiction and yet is sober fact, documented and indisputable even in its most startling and incredible epi- sodes. Here is the fantastic tale of the long and devious series of plots against the Soviet Union from the White émigrés, anti-Bolsheviks and interventionists of 1918 to the Trotsky- ites and Rightists of the 1920’s and 1930’s, the America Firsters, anti-Semites and native Nazis of yesterday, and the contemporary preachers of World War III.” THE GREAT CONSPIRACY AGAINST RUSSIA BY MICHAEL SAYERS AND ALBERT E. KAHN With a Special Introduction by SENATOR CLAUDE PEPPER First Printing, February, 1946 Second Printing (Paper Edition), June, 1946 Third Printing (paper Edition), September, 1946 CONTENTS Introduction by SENATOR CLAUDE PEPPER BOOK ONE: Revolution and Counterrevolution I. THE RISE OF THE SOVIET POWER 1 1. Mission to Petrograd — 2. Counterrevolution — 3. Revolution — 4. Non-recognition — 5. Secret Diplomacy II. POINT COUNTER POINT 18 1. British Agent — 2. Zero Hour — 3. Mission’s End III. MASTER SPY 29 1. Enter M. Massino — 2. Sidney Reilly — 3. Money and Murder — 4. The Lettish Plot — 5. Exit Sidney Reilly IV. SIBERIAN ADVENTURE 45 l. Aide Memoire —2. Intrigue at Vladivostok — 3. Terror in the East... V. PEACE AND WAR 56 1. Peace in the West — 2. At the Peace Conference 3. Golovin’s Mission VI. THE WAR OF INTERVENTION 70 1. Prelude — 2. Northern Campaign — 3. Northwestern Campaign — 4. Southern Campaign — 5. Eastern Campaign — 6. The Poles and Wrangel — 7. The Last Survivor VII. AN ACCOUNTING 90 BOOK TWO: Secrets of the Cordon Sanitaire VIII. THE WHITE CRUSADE 98 1. The Ferment of the Aftermath — 2. White Russia Exodus — 3. A Gentleman from Reval — 4. The Hoffmann Plan IX. THE STRANGE CAREER OF A TERRORIST 109 1. The Return of Sidney Reilly — 2. “A Business Like Any Other!”— 3. Sunday at Chequers — 4. Moscow Trial, 1924 X. TO THE FINNISH FRONTIER 126 1. Anti-Bolshevism on Broadway — 2. Agent B1 — 3. Black Hundreds at Detroit — 4. The Last of Sidney Reilly XI. OVERTURE WITH WAR DRUMS 138 XII. MILLIONAIRES AND SABOTEURS 142 1. A Meeting in Paris — 2. Plan of Attack — 3. A Glimpse Behind the Scenes — 4. World’s End XIII. THREE TRIALS 152 1. The Trial of the Industrial Party — 2. The Trial of the Mensheviks — 3. The Trial of the Vickers Engineers XIV. DEATH OF AN ERA 160 BOOK THREE: Russia’s Fifth Column XV. THE PATH TO TREASON 164 1. Rebel among Revolutionaries — 2. The Left Opposition — 3. The Path to Treason — 4. The Struggle for Power — 5. Alma Ata XVI. GENESIS OF A FIFTH COLUMN 190 1. Trotsky at Elba — 2. Rendezvous in Berlin — 3. The Three Layers XVII. TREASON AND TERROR 212 1. The Diplomacy of Treason — 2. The Diplomacy of Terror XVIII. MURDER IN THE KREMLIN 231 1. Yagoda — 2. The Murder of Menzhinsky — 3. Murder with a Guarantee — 4. “Historical Necessity” XIX. DAYS OF DECISION 245 1. The War Comes West — 2. A Letter from Trotsky — 3. A Flight to Oslo — 4. Zero Hour XX. THE END OF THE TRAIL 265 1. Tukhachevsky — 2. The Trial of the Trotskyite Parallel Center — 3. Action in May — 4. Finale XXI. MURDER IN MEXICO 280 BOOK FOUR: From Munich to San Francisco XXII. THE SECOND WORLD WAR 295 1. Munich — 2. World War II XXIII. AMERICAN ANTI-COMINTERN 312 1, Heritage of the Black Hundreds — 2. “Saving America from Communism” — 3. Paul Scheffer: A Case History — 4. The Dies Committee — 5. Lone Eagle XXIV. THE CASE OF THE SIXTEEN 350 XXV. UNITED NATIONS 361 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 369 BY MICHAEL SAYERS AND ALBERT E. KAHN Sabotage!—The Secret War Against America The Plot Against the Peace The Great Conspiracy Against Russia INTRODUCTION I do not know of a greater contribution which has been made to world peace through better international understanding of Russia, her present as influenced by her past, than Albert E. Kahn and Mi- chael Sayers have made through their great book, The Great Con- spiracy Against Russia. If there can be real understanding between Russia on one hand, Great Britain and the United States on the other, there can be a true lasting peace. We of the Western world know our own past and see it in terms of our own experience, of course. But so few of us know what has been the experience of the people of Russia and, therefore, most of us do not realize why they happen to have their present opinions. What the authors of this book have done is to take the period beginning with the Revolution in Russia and let us see the world a bit through Russia’s experience. In short, they have bestowed the rare gift for which the poet Burns yearned by letting us see our- selves as the Russians see us—out of their experience. A continuation of the disastrous policies of anti-Soviet intrigue so vividly described in this book would inevitably result in a third world war. That is why this book should be read and studied by all those eager to see peace durably established in the world. This work is required reading for every American and British statesman, and, for that matter, required reading for every citizen of both countries. Surely, if the major nations and peoples of the earth can look upon each other with sympathy and genuine understanding, we have the brightest hope for an enduring peace mankind has ever had in its heart. All of us are debtors to Mr. Kahn and Mr. Sayers for their tell- ing us this story containing so much of pathos and tragedy. CLAUDE PEPPER United States Senator from Florida June, 1946 None of the incidents or dialogue in The Great Conspiracy Against Russia has been invented by the authors. The material has been drawn from var- ious documentary sources which are indicated in the text or listed in the Bibliographical Notes. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY AGAINST RUSSIA BOOK ONE: Revolution and Counterrevolution CHAPTER I The Rise of Soviet Power 1. Mission to Petrograd In the midsummer of the fateful year of 1917, as the Russian revolu- tionary volcano seethed and rumbled, an American named Major Raymond Robins arrived in Petrograd1 on a secret mission of the utmost importance. Officially, he traveled as Assistant-Chief of the American Red Cross Division. Unofficially, he was in the service of the Intelligence Division of the United States Army. His secret mis- sion was to help keep Russia in the war against Germany. The situation on the Eastern Front was desperate. The ill-led, wretchedly equipped Russian Army had been cut to pieces by the Germans. Shaken by the impact of the war, and rotted from within, the feudal Czarist regime had tottered and fallen. In March, Czar Nicholas II had been forced to abdicate and a Provisional Govern- ment had been established. The revolutionary cry of Peace, Bread and Land! swept across the countryside, summing up all the imme- diate longings and ancient aspirations of the war-weary, famished and dispossessed Russian millions. Russia’s allies—Britain, France and the United States—feared the collapse of the Russian Army was at hand. At any moment, a million German troops might be suddenly released from the Eastern Front and hurled against the tired Allied forces in the west. Equally alarming was the prospect of Ukrainian wheat, Donets coal, Cauca- sian oil, and all the other limitless resources of the Russian land falling into the rapacious maw of Imperial Germany. The Allies were striving desperately to keep Russia in the war—at least until American reinforcements reached the Western Front. Major Robins was one of numerous diplomats, military men 1 Petrograd was the capital of Czarist Russia.