Between October 1917 and October 1929, Great Britain and Bolshevik Russia fought the “first” Cold War. Like the better-known one later on, this was above all a struggle between security and intelligence services – and not just those on opposing sides. Those early ‘dances in deep shadows’, between the imperial superpowers of the time, earned British intelligence officers the grudging respect (and enmity) of their Russian counterparts, who to this day still privately regard Britons as their toughest opponents. This illustrates the need for historical perspective in understanding the cultural-strategic mindsets of rival powers like Russia, where State needs already outweighed individual rights centuries before Communism appeared.

Even before Vladimir V. Putin’s appointment as Prime Minister in August 1999, but certainly since then, he and other siloviki (a dominant but divided faction consisting mainly of Soviet-era intelligence and military officers) have revived Chekist myths. This process has increasingly centred on what was ultimately the main concern for communist security organs: foreign subversion, however defined, of State institutions and ideology.

With warnings from the past so loudly echoing in the present, this book explores three related themes. First is the exploitation of intelligence by factions in British government to advance particular policies toward Moscow. In this context, intelligence means the information as well as the people (and institutions) providing it. The second is the influence of intelligence (in both these senses) in shaping those factional views of Bolshevik subversion. The final theme is the gap between Russian “realities” of subversion and British official perceptions of it, especially at times of diplomatic tension. Underlying these themes was a vital question that had exercised Britain’s finest legal minds for centuries but remained unanswered in the twelve years under review. What is subversion?

A blend of old fears and new conditioned Bolshevik perceptions of Western subversion. From the days of Kievan Rus eleven centuries ago, Russia’s twin terrors have been foreign invasion and internal unrest – particularly if they are simultaneous. To this mindset shaped by climate, geography and history, Bolshevism added an element of its own: a refinement of the Russian radical tradition of konspiratsya.