So who exactly were these men, and what did they do for the USSR?

1. Vladimir Lenin (1917-1924)

Lenin was a revolutionary socialist: exiled under Tsar Nicholas II for his political beliefs, he returned following the February Revolution of 1917 and played a major role in the October Revolution the same year.

His political ideology was centred on Marxism (communism), but he believed Russia could never make such a dramatic departure from centuries of autocratic rule by the tsars. Instead, he advocated for a period of socialism, a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, to transition from one political state to the next.

The 1917 revolutions were far from a complete victory however, and the next few years saw Russia engulfed in a bitter civil war. Lenin had assumed that there would be widespread support amongst the working classes for Bolshevism – and whilst there was support, it was not as much as he had hoped for. It took 3 years for the White Army to be defeated.

In 1920, Lenin also introduced his divisive New Economic Plan (NEP): described as a retreat by some, NEP was a kind of state-run capitalism, designed to get Russia’s economy back on its feet following a disastrous five years of war and famine.

A photograph of Lenin by Pavel Zhukov, taken in 1920. It was widely disseminated as publicity material across Russia. Image credit: Public Domain.

By the second half of 1921, Lenin was seriously ill. His incapacitation gave his rival Stalin a chance to build up a power base. Despite attempts to dictate his successor (Lenin advocated for Stalin’s removal, replacing him with his ally Trotsky), Stalin’s influence and ability to portray himself as close to Lenin won out.

Lenin suffered a stroke in March 1923, and died in January 1924. His body was embalmed, and is still on display in a mausoleum in Red Square today. Although he showed little care for the immense suffering inflicted on the Russian people during the revolution, civil war and beyond, Lenin is credited with being one of the most important – and often revered – men in Russian history.

2. Joseph Stalin (1924-1953)

Stalin was born in Georgia in 1878: his real name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, but he adopted the name ‘Stalin’ which literally means ‘man of steel’. Stalin began to read Marx’s works and join local socialist groups when he was at seminary school.

After joining the Bolsheviks, Stalin met Lenin for the first time in 1905, and quickly began to climb the ranks within the Bolshevik party. In 1913, he was exiled to Siberia for 4 years, returning just in time to play a part in the revolutions of 1917.

During Lenin’s premiership, Stalin consolidated his position as a senior party official, although his relationship with Lenin was far from perfect. The two clashed over questions of ethno-nationalism and foreign trade.

Stalin quickly assumed power on Lenin’s death: as General Secretary of the party, he was in prime position to do so. He ensured those loyal to him were dispersed through his new administration and across the country in order maintain his position of power.

A new ideology, ‘Socialism in One Country’ was adopted by the party, and in 1928, the first of Stalin’s Five Year Plans was announced. This basically amounted to rapid industrialisation (Stalin was concerned about threats from the West) and collectivisation of farming: this was met with opposition, and resulted in the deaths of millions, both through famine and targeting purges of kulaks (land-owning peasants).

A cultural revolution followed, as conservative social policies were implemented and old ‘elite’ culture was bulldozed, in favour of culture for the masses. By the 1930s, Stalin had begun a period known as ‘The Great Terror’, where any potential opposition was quashed in a brutal series of purges.

After initially signing pacts with Stalin, Hitler turned on his former ally and invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy casualties (including famously the Siege of Leningrad), Soviet forces held out, engaging the Wehrmacht in a war of attrition that they were not fully prepared for. The Soviets began launching attacks of their own on weakened German forces, and pushed back into Poland, and eventually, Germany itself.

Stalin’s later years in power were characterized by increasingly hostile relationships with the West, and growing paranoia at home. He died of a stroke in 1953.

3. Georgy Malenkov (March-September 1953)

Malenkov’s inclusion in this list is divisive: he was de facto leader of the Soviet Union for the 6 months following Stalin’s death. With links to Lenin, Malenkov had been one of Stalin’s favourites, playing a major roles in the purges and the development of Soviet missiles during the Second World War.

When Stalin died, Malenkov was his (initially) unchallenged successor. It did not long for the rest of the Politburo members to challenge this, and he was forced to resigned as head of the party apparatus although allowed to remain as premier.

The front page of Pravda announced the severity of Stalin’s stroke – a day before his eventual death. Image credit: Public Domain.

Khrushchev mounted a serious leadership challenge, and following a brief power struggle, Malenkov was forced to resign as premier. Following a failed coup in 1957, he was briefly exiled to Kazakhstan and returned to Moscow once this was over, living the rest of his life out quietly.

4. Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964)

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was born in western Russia in 1897: he worked his way up the party hierarchy following his role as a political commissar during the Russian Civil War. A supporter of Stalin’s purges, he was dispatched to govern the Ukrainian USSR, where he enthusiastically continued purges.

^{Following the end of the Second World War (known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia), Stalin recalled him from Ukraine to Moscow as one of his most trusted advisors. Khrushchev was involved in a power struggle with Malenkov after Stalin’s death in 1953, emerging victorious as the First (General) Secretary of the Communist Party.} 

He is perhaps most famous for his ‘Secret Speech’ in 1956, in which he denounced Stalin’s policies and announced a relaxation of the repressive Stalinist regime, including permitting foreign travel and tacitly acknowledging the West’s more desirable living standards. Whilst this rhetoric was welcomed by many, Khrushchev’s policies were not in fact that effective, and the Soviet Union struggled to keep up with the West.

Khrushchev also backed the development of the Soviet space programme, which in turn helped to lead to some of the most tense periods of the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis. For the majority of his time in office, Khrushchev enjoyed popular support, thanks to victories including the Suez Crisis, Syrian Crisis and the launching of Sputnik.

However, his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, combined with his ineffective domestic policies, led members of the party to turn against him. Khrushchev was deposed in October 1964 – pensioned off generously, he died of natural causes in 1971.

5. Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)

Brezhnev had the second longest term as General Secretary of the Communist Party (18 years): whilst he brought stability, the Soviet economy also seriously stagnated during his tenure.

Becoming a member of the Politburo in 1957, Brezhnev ousted Khrushchev in 1964 and took over his position as Secretary of the Communist Party – a role which was tantamount to leader. Keen to minimise dissent in the party, Brezhnev was a natural conservative and encouraged decisions to be made unanimously rather than dictating them.

Colourised photo of Leonid Brezhnev. Image credit: Public Domain.

However, this conservatism also manifested in an opposition to reform, and lack of progress. Living standards and technologies in the USSR began to lag dramatically behind those in the West. Despite a massive arms build-up and an increased global presence, frustrations grew within the Soviet Union.

Corruption also proved to be a major problem, and there was little done by Brezhnev’s regime to combat this. Brezhnev suffered a major stroke in 1975, and effectively became a puppet leader: decisions were made by other senior politicians, including his eventual successor, Andropov. He died in 1982.

6. Yuri Andropov (1982-1984)

Andropov was born in 1914 and his early life is relatively obscure: he gave away a variety of stories about the year and place of his birth and his parentage.

Named Chairman of the KGB (the USSR’s national security agency) in 1967, Andropov wasted no time on cracking down on dissent and ‘undesirables’. Following Brezhnev’s stroke in 1975, Andropov was heavily involved in policymaking, alongside Gromyko (Foreign Minister) and Grechko / Ustinov (successive Defence Ministers).

In 1982, Andropov formally succeeded Brezhnev as General Secretary of the Soviet Union: he was totally incapable of reinvigorating or saving the increasingly worrying state of the Soviet economy, and further escalated Cold War tensions with the US.

Andropov died in February 1984, 15 months after formally being appointed leader. Whilst his time in office is relatively unremarkable, he did begin to streamline the party system, investigating corruption and inefficiency. Some see his legacy as the generation of reformers who emerged in the years following his death.

7. Konstantin Chernenko (1984-1985)

Chernenko held the role of General Secretary for 15 months: many see Chernenko’s election as a symbolic return to policies of the Brezhnev era, and he did little to ease hostilities with the US, going as far as to boycott the 1984 Olympics.

For most of his premiership his health was seriously failing and he left little tangible mark on the Soviet Union, dying from chronic emphysema (he had smoked from the age of 9) in March 1985.

8. Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)

Gorbachev was born in 1931, and grew up under Stalin’s rule. He joined the Communist party and went to study in Moscow. After Stalin’s death, he became an advocate of the de-Stalinization proposed by Khrushchev.

As a result, he rose through the ranks of the party, eventually joining the Politburo in 1979.

Gorbachev was elected General Secretary (de facto premier) in 1985 and he promised reform: he is most well known for two of his policies – glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).

Glasnost meant relaxing rules surrounding press regulation and restrictions on freedom of speech, whilst perestroika involved the decentralisation of government, the relaxation of rules on political dissent and an increased openness with the West. Gorbachev and Reagan worked together to limit nuclear armament and effectively end the Cold War.

Perestroika as a policy undermined the idea of a one-party state, and increasingly nationalistic sentiments from countries within the Soviet Union became problematic. Faced with dissent from both within and outside the party, and attacked in several coups, the Soviet Union eventually dissolved, and Gorbachev resigned his office in 1991.

Whilst he may have been the last leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev’s legacy is mixed. Some view his regime as a total failure, whilst others admire his commitment to peace, curtailing human rights abuses and his role in ending the Cold War.

But what happened to those they swept away? The Russian aristocracy, headed up by the Romanov tsars, had ruled the country for nearly 500 years, but now they found themselves classified as ‘former people’. Their lives were wrenched from under them and their futures became deeply uncertain. On 17 July 1918, former tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed in the basement of a Yekaterinburg house.

But why did the Bolsheviks execute the exiled, imprisoned imperial family? And what exactly happened on that fateful day in 1918? Here’s the story of the Romanov family’s demise.

After the Russian Revolution

The Romanovs were one of the primary targets of the revolution as the blame for much of Russia’s suffering could be laid at their feet, directly or indirectly. After Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, the first plan was to send him and his family into exile: Britain was the original choice, but the idea of the exiled Russian royal family arriving on British shores was met with outrage by many politicians of the day, and even the King, George V, who was Nicholas’ cousin, was uneasy about the arrangement.

Instead, the former royal family were kept under house arrest, initially at their palace in Tsarskoye Selo, on the outskirts of St Petersburg. They were permitted servants, luxurious foods and daily walks in the grounds, and in many respects, the lifestyles of the tsar, tsarina and their children remained largely unchanged.

However, this could not last forever. Russia’s political situation was still turbulent, and the Provisional Government was far from secure. When rioting erupted in the newly renamed Petrograd, it became apparent that the comfortable arrangements of the royal family were not secure enough for the liking of the Bolsheviks.

Alexander Kerensky, the new Prime Minister, decided to send the Romanovs further away from the major cities, deep into Siberia. After over a week of travelling by railway and boat, Nicholas and his family reached Tobolsk on 19 August 1917, where they would remain for 9 months.

The Russian Civil War

By the autumn of 1917, Russia was engulfed in civil war. Bolshevik rule was far from universally accepted and as factions and rivalries developed, civil war broke out. It was loosely divided along the lines of the Bolshevik Red Army and its opponents, the White Army, who were made up of a variety of factions. Foreign powers quickly found themselves involved, in part out of a desire to stem the revolutionary fervour, with many backing the Whites, who advocated for the return of the monarchy.

The Whites launched significant offensives and proved themselves to have the potential to be of great danger to the revolution. Many of these offensives were initially aimed at reinstalling the Romanovs, meaning they became figureheads for the Whites. Nicholas and Alexandra certainly believed that help was at hand and that they would be rescued by their royal relatives or loyal Russian people in the not-too-distant future. Little did they know that this was looking less and less likely.

Instead, the Bolsheviks had loose plans to bring the Romanovs back to Moscow for a show trial. By the spring of 1918, conditions were growing steadily worse for the family as they endured captivity in exile. In April 1918, plans changed once more, and the family was moved to Yekaterinburg.

Tsar Nicholas II and his daughters Olga, Anastasia and Tatiana in the winter of 1917 on the roof of their house in Tobolsk.

Image Credit: Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University / Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

The House of Special Purpose

Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg – often referred to as the ‘House of Special Purpose’ – was the Romanov family’s final home. There, they were subject to stricter conditions than ever before, with guards specifically instructed to be indifferent towards their charges.

Back in Moscow and Petrograd, Lenin and the Bolsheviks feared their situation might be deteriorating: the last thing they needed was unrest, or to lose their prized prisoners. With a trial looking less and less likely (and it becoming increasingly difficult to transport the family across such large distances), and Czech forces encroaching on Yekaterinburg, orders were sent that the family should be executed.

In the early hours of the morning of 17 July 1918, the family and their servants were woken and told they were going to be moved for their own safety as forces were approaching the city. They were hustled into the basement: a firing squad entered shortly after, and the family were told that they were to be executed on the orders of the Ural Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.

There is little doubt that the entire family was murdered in the room: some of the Grand Duchesses survived the first hail of bullets as they had kilos of diamonds and precious stones sewn into their dresses which deflected some of the first bullets. They were killed with bayonets, before their bodies were taken to nearby woodland and burned, drenched in acid and buried in a disused mine shaft.

The cellar of Ipatiev House, where the family was murdered. The damage to the walls was done by investigators looking for bullets.

Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

A haunting decision

The Bolsheviks were quick to announce that the family had been executed, stating Tsar Nicholas was “guilty of countless, bloody, violent acts against the Russian people” and that he needed to be removed prior to the arrival of encroaching counter-revolutionary forces who wanted to release him.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the news dominated the media across Europe. Instead of getting rid of a potential threat or distraction, the Bolsheviks’ announcement diverted attention away from military campaigns and successes and towards the execution of the former royal family.

The precise circumstances of the deaths and the burial site of the bodies was a source of contention, and the newly-formed Soviet government began to change their statement, covering up the murders and even going as far as to announce in 1922 that the family were not dead. These oscillating statements helped fuel the belief that the family may have still been alive, although these rumours were later widely dispelled.

It wasn’t just Nicholas and his direct family who were murdered in this period. Assorted Romanov cousins and relatives were rounded up and executed by the Bolsheviks in their anti-monarchy drive. It took years for their remains to be uncovered, and many have since been rehabilitated by the Russian government and church.

1. There were actually two Russian Revolutions in 1917

The February Revolution (8 – 16 March) overthrew Tsar Nicholas II and installed a Provisional Government. This was itself overthrown by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution (7 – 8 November).

2. The dates of the Revolutions are slightly confusing

Although these revolutions occurred in March and November, they are referred to as the February and October Revolutions respectively because Russia was still using the old-style Julian Calendar.

3. Severe Russian losses in World War One contributed heavily to growing dissent in 1917

Russian military blundering had led to combatant losses in the millions, while hundreds of thousands of civilians had died or been displaced due to the effects of the war. Meanwhile, economic hardship was mounting at home.

4. 12 March was the decisive day of the February Revolution in 1917

Unrest had been building in Petrograd throughout March. On 12 March, the Volinsky Regiment mutinied and by nightfall 60,000 soldiers had joined the Revolution.

This revolution was one of the most spontaneous, unorganised and leaderless mass revolts in history.

5. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on 15 March

His abdication marked the end of over 300 years of Romanov rule over Russia.

6. The Provisional Government continued the war with Germany with devastating consequences

During the Summer of 1917 the new Minister for War, Alexander Kerensky, attempted a large-scale Russian attack called the July Offensive. It was a military catastrophe that destabilised an already unpopular government, sparking unrest and domestic demands to end the war.

Russian infantry practising manoeuvres some time before 1914, date not recorded. Credit: Balcer~commonswiki / Commons.

7. The October Revolution of 1917 was spearheaded by the Bolshevik Party

The Bolsheviks considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia.

8. The principal figures in the October Revolution were Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky

Lenin had formed the Bolshevik organisation back in 1912 and had been in exile until just before the October Revolution. Meanwhile Trotsky was a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee.

A painting of Vladimir Lenin in exile.

9. The October Revolution was a prepared and organised coup d’etat

Seeing the anarchy that engulfed Russia following the February Revolution, the Bolsheviks had started making detailed preparations for an uprising long before it occurred (in complete contrast to the first revolution). On October 25 Lenin and Trotsky’s followers seized many strategic points in Petrograd.

10. The Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd on 7 November

Formerly a residence of the Tsar, in November 1917 the Winter Palace was the headquarters of the Provisional Government. Although there was some resistance, the storming was almost bloodless.

The Winter Palace today. Credit: Alex ‘Florstein’ Fedorov / Commons.

11. The October Revolution established the permanent dictatorship of the Bolsheviks…

Following the overthrow of the Provisional Government, Lenin’s new state was called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

12. …but this was not accepted by everyone

Civil War broke out in Russia in late 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution. It was fought between those supporting Lenin and his Bolsheviks, ‘the Red Army’, and a conglomeration of anti-Bolshevik groups: ‘the White Army’.

Bolshevik forces advance during the Russian Civil War.

13. The Russian Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history

Having suffered greatly in World War One, Russia was engulfed another hugely destructive conflict. At least 5 million people died as the result of fighting, famine and disease. It lasted until 1922, and some anti Bolshevik rebellions were not extinguished until the 1930s.

14. The Romanovs were assassinated in 1918

The former Russian royal family were held under held under house arrest in Yekaterinburg. On the night of 16-17 July 1918, the former Tsar, his wife, their five children and others who had accompanied them in their imprisonment were executed. The execution allegedly happened at Lenin’s own request.

15. Lenin died shortly after the Bolshevik victory

The Red Army won the Russian Civil War, but the Communist leader died after a series of strokes on 21 January 1924. One of the most influential people of the 20th century, his body was put on show in a mausoleum in the centre of Moscow, and the Communist Party developed a personality cult around their former leader.

16. Josef Stalin won the ensuing power struggle for party leadership

Stalin was General Secretary of the Central Committee and used his office to outmanoeuvre his political opponents during the 1920s. By 1929 his main rival and former Red Army leader Leon Trotsky was forced into exile, and Stalin became de facto dictator of the Soviet Union.

17. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is an allegory of the Russian Revolution

In Orwell’s novella (published in 1945), the animals of Manor Farm unite against their drunken master Mr Jones. The pigs, as the most intelligent animals, assume command of the revolution, but their leader Old Major (Lenin) dies.

Two pigs, Snowball (Trotsky) and Napoleon (Stalin) battle for political control of the farm. Eventually, Napoleon is victorious, with Snowball being forced into exile. However, many of the ideas which drove the revolution are extinguished, and the farm returns to a mode of autocracy as it was at the beginning, with the pigs assuming the previous role of the humans.

One of the main tools of repression in Russia for much of the 20th century, the Gulag camps were used to remove anyone who was deemed undesirable from mainstream society. Those sent to them were subjected to months or years of gruelling physical labour, harsh conditions, the brutal Siberian climate and almost complete isolation from family and friends.

Here are 10 facts about the infamous prison camps.

1. Forced labour camps were already in existence in Imperial Russia

Forced labour camps in Siberia had been used as punishment in Russia for centuries. The Romanov tsars had sent political opponents and criminals to these internment camps or forced them into exile in Siberia since the 17th century.

However, in the early 20th century, the number being subjected to katorga (the Russian name for this punishment) skyrocketed, growing five-fold in 10 years, at least in part fuelled by a rise in social unrest and political instability.

2. The Gulag was created by Lenin, not Stalin

Although the Russian Revolution transformed Russia in a multitude of ways, the new government was much like the old tsarist system in its desire to ensure political repression for the best functioning of the state.

During the Russian Civil War, Lenin established a ‘special’ prison camp system, distinct and separate from the normal system in its innately political purpose. These new camps aimed to isolate and ‘eliminate’ disruptive, disloyal or suspicious people who were not contributing to society or were actively jeopardising the new dictatorship of the proletariat.

3. The camps were designed to be correctional facilities

The original intention of the camps was ‘reeducation’ or correction through forced labour: they were designed to give inmates plenty of time to think about their decisions. Similarly, many camps used what was known as the ‘nourishment scale’, where your food rations were directly correlated to your productivity.

Inmates were also forced into contributing to the new economy: their labour was profitable for the Bolshevik regime.

A map showing the locations of Gulag camps with a population over 5,000 across the USSR between 1923 and 1960.

Image Credit: Antonu / Public Domain

4. Stalin transformed the Gulag system

After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin seized power. He changed the existing Gulag prison system: only prisoners who received a sentence longer than 3 years were sent to Gulag camps. Stalin was also keen to colonise the far-flung reaches of Siberia, which he believed the camps could do.

His programme of dekulakization (the removal of wealthy peasants) in the late 1920s saw literally millions of people exiled or sent to prison camps. Whilst this was successful in gaining Stalin’s regime a vast amount of free labour, it was no longer intended to be corrective in nature. The harsh conditions actually meant that the government ended up losing money as they were spending more on rations than they were getting back in terms of labour from the half-starved inmates.

5. The numbers in the camps ballooned in the 1930s

As Stalin’s infamous purges began, the numbers being exiled or sent to the Gulag rose drastically. In 1931 alone, nearly 2 million people were exiled and by 1935, there were over 1.2 million people in Gulag camps and colonies. Many of those entering the camps were members of the intelligentsia – highly-educated and dissatisfied with Stalin’s regime.

6. The camps were used to hold prisoners of war

When World War Two broke out in 1939, Russia annexed large parts of Eastern Europe and Poland: unofficial reports implied hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities were exiled to Siberia in the process, although official reports suggest it was just over 200,000 Eastern Europeans who had proved to be agitators, political activists or engaged in espionage or terrorism.

7. Millions died of starvation in the Gulag

As fighting on the Eastern Front became progressively more intense, Russia began to suffer. The German invasion caused widespread famine, and those in the Gulags suffered the effects of the limited food supply severely. In the winter of 1941 alone, around a quarter of the camps’ population perished from starvation.

The situation was worsened by the fact that prisoners and inmates were required to work harder than ever before as the wartime economy relied on their labour, but with ever diminishing rations.

A group of Gulag hard labour inmates in Siberia.

Image Credit: GL Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

8. The Gulag population shot back up after World War Two

Once the war was over in 1945, the numbers sent to the Gulag began to grow again at a relatively rapid pace. The tightening of legislation on property-related offences in 1947 saw thousands rounded up and convicted.

Some newly released Soviet prisoners of war were also sent to the Gulag: they were viewed as traitors by many. However, there is a degree of confusion surrounding the sources on this, and many of those who were originally thought to have been sent to the Gulag were in fact sent to ‘filtration’ camps.

9. 1953 was the beginning of a period of amnesty

Stalin died in March 1953, and whilst there certainly wasn’t a thaw, there was an increasing period of amnesty for political prisoners from 1954 onwards. Further fuelled by Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ in 1956, the population of the Gulag began to drop as mass rehabilitations were undertaken and Stalin’s legacy was dismantled.

10. The Gulag system was officially closed in 1960

On 25 January 1960, the Gulag was officially closed: by this point, over 18 million people had passed through the system. Political prisoners and forced labour colonies were still operational, but under different jurisdiction.

Many have argued that the Russian penal system today is not so different from the intimidation, forced labour, starvation rations and inmate on inmate policing that happened in the Gulag.

Who were the spies and politicians trying to have Lenin removed from power, alive or dead?

The US State Department

American Secretary of State Robert Lansing, a bored pacifist who doodled and daydreamed in White House cabinet meetings, became alarmed after Lenin seized power in October 1917 and proceeded to remove Russia from the war in a secret money deal struck with Germany.

Robert Lansing, 42nd U.S. Secretary of State (Credit: Public Domain).

Speaking of Berlin’s offer, Lenin later told a comrade: “We would have been idiots not to have taken advantage of it.” This “separate peace” allowed Germany to move army divisions over to the Western Front, the main battleground of the war. As a result, the Allies feared defeat in France.

Lansing decided to hire a Cossack army to march on Moscow and turn out the Bolsheviks, then install a Western “military dictatorship.” But the Western nations had not declared war on Russia. And Russia was a former ally in the war. This was politically dangerous territory.

A deal was worked out in which U.S. dollars would be sent to London and Paris as war aid, then laundered to finance the conspiracy. President Wilson, publicly an opponent of interfering in the affairs of other nations, privately told Lansing that this had his “entire approval.”

The Cossacks – along with the Socialist Revolutionaries – were the Bolsheviks’ main enemies, and there’s little doubt that Lenin would be executed by whatever general was hired. After all, the Bolsheviks were doing the same thing – killing their enemies, often without a trial.

Still, in its goal to eliminate Comrade Chairman, the Lenin Plot did exude a certain odour of international terrorism on the part of the Allies.

In December 1917, a U.S. consul in Moscow, DeWitt Clinton Poole, travelled down to the Don on a secret mission to interview several Cossack generals. But the generals were antagonistic toward one another and could not be counted on to mount a unified attack against the Bolsheviks.

The plot segued into 1918, still under direction of the U.S. State Department.

The Americans

At the top of the plot was American ambassador David Francis, a bourbon-sipping old Confederate gentleman who once faced down a Bolshevik mob armed only with a shotgun. He sent reports to the State Department’s Bureau of Secret Intelligence, a predecessor to the CIA and NSA.

Ambassador David Francis and with Nikolai Tchaikovsky, c.1918 (Credit: Public Domain).

Immediately under Francis was Poole, a tennis player from the University of Wisconsin nicknamed Poodles. Poole was control officer for Xenophon Kalamatiano, Kal, a University of Chicago track star who had sold tractors in Russia before the war.

Kal ran Russian and Latvian agents, including a mole inside the Red Army’s communications headquarters. William Chapin Huntington, a U.S. commercial attaché, doled out millions of dollars to anti-Soviet sources in Russia.

The British

British agent Bruce Lockhart, a dedicated footballer and a dyed-in-the-tartan Scot who didn’t particularly like the English, joined the plot in 1918.

Lockhart had been first sent to Moscow in 1912 as a vice consul but his penchant for exotic women had seen him recalled to London in 1917. His lover was identified only as a beautiful “Jewess” named “Madame Vermelle.” She might have been wife of a Bolshevik official, which could have posed a security threat to British interests.

The Foreign Office also recalled their disinterested ambassador, Sir George Buchanan.

Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart by Elliott & Fry, 1948 (Credit: National Portrait Gallery/CC)

Prime Minister David Lloyd George and King George V were, however, aghast at the lack of a coherent British response to the Bolshevik reign of terror in Russia, and Lockhart was soon called in for a briefing. “Our people are wrong,” Lloyd George told Lockhart. “They have missed the situation.”

Lockhart was sent back to Moscow in January 1918 as a “special commissioner” for the Foreign Office. He was instructed to contact American Red Cross Colonel Raymond Robins, head of a very successful U.S. spy operation in Russia.

A new British ambassador was not posted to Russia, so Lockhart became England’s top diplomatic official in the country. At first, Lockhart and Robins tried to convince Lenin and commissar for war, Leon Trotsky, to get Russia back in the war. When those efforts failed, they called for direct Allied intervention in Russia.

Another key British agent was Sidney Reilly, who arrived in Moscow in May 1918. Reilly was a Russian adventurer and profiteer hired as a freelance spy by the Secret Intelligence Service. He was also a drug addict who saw himself as Napoléon reincarnated; at other times he thought he was Jesus Christ.

1918 passport photo of Sidney Reilly. This passport was issued under his alias of George Bergmann (Credit: Public Domain).

Ian Fleming told a colleague at the Sunday Times in 1953 that Reilly was the inspiration for his fictional spy James Bond. But considering the fact that Sidney was a ruthless freelancer primarily in service to himself, he probably qualifies more as one of Fleming’s SPECTRE agents.

Reilly was instructed to just pop in, take a look-see, then get out. But he immediately saw opportunities to overthrow the Communists (the Bolsheviks’ new name). He envisioned himself as Bonaparte leading the charge.

“And why not?” he asked. “A Corsican lieutenant of artillery trod out the embers of the French Revolution. Surely a British espionage agent, with so many factors on his side, could make himself master of Moscow?”

The French

Joseph Noulens in 1919 (Credit: Public Domain).

The British and American agents in the Lenin Plot worked closely with a number of French plotters. Ambassador Joseph Noulens, a grandiose monarchist who traveled like a rajah, set the pace by going on a crusade to collect 13 billion francs the Soviets had stolen from French investors.

Consul General Joseph-Fernand Grenard, an author and former explorer, dispatched agents across Russia to recruit resistance armies to support the Allied coup.

Henri de Verthamon – a saboteur who wore a black trench coat and cap and slept with explosives under his bed – blew up Soviet bridges, oil wells, and ammo dumps.

Finally, there was the impressively named Charles Adolphe Faux-Pas Bidet, a former Paris cop who had worked the French case against Mata Hari.

This was the stuff of classic European intrigue.

Details of the conspiracy are detailed in Barnes Carr’s new Cold War history, The Lenin Plot: The Unknown Story of America’s War Against Russia, to be published in October in the UK by Amberley Publishing and in North America by Pegasus Books. Carr is a former reporter and editor for Mississippi, Memphis, Boston, Montréal, New York, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. and was executive producer for WRNO Worldwide, providing New Orleans jazz and R&B to the USSR during the final years of Soviet rule.

Lenin remained as leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, however, until his death in 1924. Following is an account of the plot formed by the American, British and French conspirators, and of why it did not succeed.

Planning

It’s been said that spy work is 90 percent preparation and 10 percent actually getting out of the car and doing something. After much frustration, the car doors were suddenly flung open for the Allied spies in August 1918.

Captain Francis Cromie, a naval attaché and saboteur at the nearly deserted British embassy in Petrograd, was approached by Jan Shmidkhen, a Latvian army officer stationed in Moscow.

Captain Francis Newton Cromie. Naval attaché at the British Embassy in Petrograd, Russia from 1917-1918 (Credit: Public Domain).

Shmidkhen said that Latvian troops hired by the Soviets as executioners and palace guards could be persuaded to join an Allied coup. He offered to contact a Latvian commander, Colonel Eduard Berzin. This idea was approved by Cromie.

Shmidkhen then made the pitch to Berzin, who then reported the approach to Felix Dzerzhinsky, chief of the Soviet secret police, the Cheka. Felix instructed Berzin to proceed as an agent provocateur for the Cheka.

Organisation

Berzin met with British agents Bruce Lockhart and Sidney Reilly, and French Consul General Grenard. Lockhart promised 5 million rubles to the Latvians. Reilly then gave Berzin initial payments totaling 1.2 million rubles.

To back up the planned Moscow coup, the Supreme War Council in Paris deputized the Czech Legion as an Allied army in Russia. Boris Savinkov, leader of an anti-Soviet independent Socialist Revolutionary army, was also recruited.

Boris Savinkov (in the car, right) arriving at the Moscow State Conference (Credit: Public Domain).

Like Reilly, Savinkov was a drug addict, and a superstitious one. He saw himself as a Nietzsean Superman and believed that wearing silk underwear made him impervious to bullets. The Allied plotters had discussed simply arresting Lenin and taking him to England to stand trial for treason against Russia, but Reilly and Savinkov advanced the conspiracy to an out-and-out assassination plot.

To back up the coup, Allied military forces invaded Murmansk and Archangel in North Russia, just below the Arctic Circle, and seized their port and railroad facilities. The local soviets in those cities feared invasion from Germans in neighboring Finland, and welcomed the Allied landings. The cities’ rail lines would have allowed the Allied invaders to push southward to Petrograd and Moscow.

American Troops in Vladivostok, 1918 (Credit: Public Demand).

Invasion

The Allies began fighting the Red Army on seven fronts. But the invasion quickly turned sour. Most of the combat troops were American and French, commanded by “crocks,” British officers who were mental and physical rejects from the Western Front.

Backed up by 40,000 cases of Scotch whiskey, the crocks refused medical supplies, hot food, and warm clothing to the poilus and doughboys under their command. The drunkenness of the crocks caused a number of battlefield deaths.

American and French mutinies broke out. One doughboy confronted a British officer, told him to say his prayers, and shot him. Other British officers were beaten to death on the streets of Archangel.

The British commander in chief, Major General Frederick Poole, a vindictive man who ignored the needs of the American and French troops, stayed in his warm mansion in Archangel and refused to go out to the different fronts to check on the men.

Poole was sacked by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and replaced by Brigadier General Edmund Ironside, a decorated commander from the Western Front. Ironside was a huge Scot, as wide as the River Clyde. Naturally, his nickname was Tiny. He put on furs and personally delivered supplies to his troops. They loved him. Sanity had arrived.

Brigadier General Edmund Ironside (Credit: Public Domain).

Downfall

Lockhart’s new exotic lover at this time was Maria Benckendorff, his Russian “translator.” The Sûreté later identified her a triple agent for the British, Germans, and Soviets. She might have denounced Lockhart to Dzerzhinsky, causing his arrest.

The plot was blown in August 1918 as the Cheka rolled up the Allied spy networks. Lockhart was swapped for a Soviet diplomat jailed in London. Kalamatiano was sentenced to death. Most of the other main Western conspirators managed to flee the country.

The Soviets called the Lenin Plot the Lockhart Conspiracy because Bruce had promised money to the Latvians. Others have called it the Reilly Plot because Sidney actually paid the Latvians.

It could also be called the Cromie Conspiracy, since he first met with Shmidkhen. And why not the Poole Plot, since he first got the ball rolling in 1917? Or the Wilson Plot or the Lansing Plot, since they were the original architects of the conspiracy. Russians now call it the Conspiracy of the Ambassadors because of the Allied diplomats involved.

As it turned out, the roll-up which ended the plot was part of a sting operation developed by Lenin and Dzerzhinsky. That made it a “Lenin Plot” in more ways than one.

Details of the conspiracy are detailed in Barnes Carr’s new Cold War history, The Lenin Plot: The Unknown Story of America’s War Against Russia, to be published in October in the UK by Amberley Publishing and in North America by Pegasus Books. Carr is a former reporter and editor in Mississippi, Memphis, Boston, Montréal, New York, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. and was executive producer for WRNO Worldwide, providing New Orleans jazz and R&B to the USSR during the final years of Soviet rule.

For many men in the Royal Navy, the war did not end on 11 November 1918. No sooner had the German fleet been interned at Scapa Flow, than the navy was ordered into the Baltic Sea to hold the ring and protect the fragile nascent states of independent Latvia and Estonia.

In the aftermath of war

British squadron in Koporye Bay in October 1919 (Credit: Public domain).

Along the Baltic littoral, a plethora of factions staged a bloody and vicious conflict for control of the region.

The Bolshevik Red Army and Navy fought to bring it under Communist rule; German-Baltic Landwehr were intent on making a new German client state; White Russians were bent on reinstalling a tsarist monarchy (and taking back the Baltic States).

Then there were local freedom fighters, at war with all and with each other. Even the German army was there, forced by the Allies under Article XII of the Armistice to remain in place as a reluctant barrier to communist expansion.

Into this maelstrom was thrown the Royal Navy. Small ships only, light cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers, submarines, motor launches, eventually even an aircraft carrier, they were tasked with containing the Red Baltic Fleet battleships and cruisers based at Kronstadt, near St Petersburg.

The cheaper political option

British ships in Liepāja, 1918 (Credit: Imperial War Museums).

The navy had been given this difficult task because neither Britain or France wised to commit troops to a new conflict; indeed, governments might have fallen if they had tried.

It was a cheaper and lower political risk decision to use ships, a plan supported to the hilt only by Secretary of War Winston Churchill. Prime Minister Lloyd George was less than lukewarm, as were the rest of the British cabinet.

However, through the navy, Britain could provide sea-based artillery support, prevent a breakout or raids by the Bolshevik fleet and supply arms and ammunition to the armies of the Baltic States.

In 1919, Rear Admiral Sir Walter Cowan was placed in charge of this difficult mission.

In one way he was the right man for the job, for he was aggressive by temperament and always looking for a fight to get into.

On the other hand, he drove his men hard and without thought for their well-being. This would eventually have consequences.

On the sea battlefield

Royal Navy fleet in the Baltic on its way to Reval (Tallinn), December 1918 (Credit: Imperial War Museums).

The Communist army and navy, headed by Leon Trotsky, were unleashed by Lenin who declared:

the Baltic must become a Soviet sea.

And so from late November 1918 and for the next 13 months, the Royal Navy was in action against Soviet ships and ground forces, inspired by Trotsky who ordered that they should be “destroyed at any cost”.

Sea battles raged between the Red Navy and the RN with losses on both sides.

Eventually, in two daring actions, Cowan was able to neutralise the Bolshevik fleet; tiny coastal motor boats sank the cruiser Oleg, two Soviet battleships and a depot ship in attacks which resulted in the award of three Victoria Crosses.

Royal Navy ships were also involved in providing a constant artillery barrage in support of the forces of the Baltic States, protecting their flanks and helping drive back their enemies.

Aircraft from an early form of aircraft carrier also played a role. As one Latvian observer recorded:

the Allied fleet rendered irreplaceable help to the fighters for freedom.

The navy even rescued British spies from the Russian mainland.

With the RN’s gunnery support, the armies of Estonia and Latvia were gradually successful in beating back their multiple foes. But it was a close-run thing.

Only the intervention of the Royal Navy’s fire power saved Reval (now Tallinn) and the massive 15-inch guns of the monitor Erebus and her consorts drove the invaders out of Riga when it seemed certain to fall into enemy hands.

The cost of battle

Royal Navy fleet at Libau (Liepaja). Light cruiser HMS CASSANDRA on left, 1918 (Credit: Imperial War Museums).

There was a price to pay for these achievements; 128 British servicemen were killed in the campaign and 60 seriously wounded.

Over the period of the naval effort, 238 British vessels were deployed to the Baltic and a staging base set up in Denmark; 19 vessels were lost and 61 damaged.

There was a cost in morale as well. The sailors and many officers did not understand why they were fighting there. Politicians cavilled about the navy’s orders and role, and decisions and recognition were not always forthcoming.

The living conditions for the navy were poor and the food was terrible. And the tasking was relentless and perceived as uncaring.

Mutiny broke out on several vessels, including Admiral Cowan’s flagship, and sailors preparing to sail to the Baltic from Scotland deserted.

In February 1920 the combatants signed a treaty ending hostilities and an uneasy peace prevailed until 1939.

A war-weary Royal Navy had held the ring, fighting against Russian and German opponents alike. It had helped the Baltic States gain their freedom from Bolshevik terror and German revanche.

Steve R Dunn is a naval historian and author of 8 books on the Royal Navy in World War One, with another commissioned for 2021. His latest book, Battle in the Baltic, was published in January 2020 by Seaforth Publishing.

As the architect of the Soviet Union – or, as it was officially known, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) – he is an almighty historical figure whose actions determined the course of some of the biggest political events of the 20th century. Here are 10 facts about him.

1. He became exposed to radical political ideas at university

The main building of Kazan University, pictured in 1832.

Lenin was born into a well-educated family and went on to study law at Kazan University in August 1887. But by the December he had been expelled for taking part in a student protest. He eventually enrolled as an external law student at Saint Petersburg University and completed his studies there in 1891.

2. His brother was executed

The killing of Lenin’s elder brother, who had been a member of a revolutionary group, also influenced his politics. Alexander was hanged by the state in May 1887 after allegedly taking part in a plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander III.

3. He was exiled to Siberia

A mugshot of Lenin taken on 21 December 1895.

Lenin was arrested for his political activities in 1895 and served more than a year in jail before being sent to Siberia for three years. Many of his contemporaries suffered the same fate but in Lenin’s case at least it wasn’t all bad – it was in Siberia that he met and married his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya.

4. Lenin wasn’t his real name

Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, he adopted the pseudonym “Lenin” in 1902. It was not uncommon for Russian revolutionaries to take aliases, partly as a way of confusing the authorities.

5. He developed his political theory from Marxism

A devout Marxist, Lenin believed that his interpretation of Marxism was the only authentic one. This interpretation was termed “Leninism” in 1904 by Russian revolutionary and Menshevik Julius Martov.

Karl Marx.

Leninism emphasised the need for a highly committed intellectual elite – the so-called “revolutionary vanguard” – who would drive the rest of the proletariat (working-class people) towards revolution and the eventual establishment of socialism.

6. He masterminded the Bolshevik takeover of Russia

Lenin spent much of the 17 years after his exile in Siberia in western Europe, during which time he became leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party. After Russia’s last Tsar, Nicholas II, was overthrown in 1917, Lenin returned home and began working against the provisional government that had replaced him.

Lenin (centre) is pictured here with fellow Bolsheviks Leon Trotsky (left) and Len Kamanev in 1919.

Later that year he led a Bolshevik toppling of the provisional government – what has become known as the “October Revolution” – and a civil war ensued between the various combatant forces vying for power. By 1922, this war had mostly been won by the Bolsheviks.

7. He was ruthless

Lenin’s ideology was authoritarian in nature and he showed little mercy for political opponents. Among the many instances of political repression and mass killings for which he is held responsible are the arrests and executions that constituted the so-called “Red Terror” campaign of the civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have been killed during this campaign.

A propaganda poster displayed in Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) in 1918 reads: “Death to the Bourgeoisie and Its Minions – Long Live the Red Terror.”

8. He narrowly escaped an assassination attempt

Following a public speech in Moscow in August 1918, Lenin was shot and badly injured. The attack generated much sympathy for him amongst the public and boosted his popularity. But although he survived, he was seriously ill by the end of 1921, with some attributing his sickness to metal oxidation from the bullets that were lodged in his body from the assassination attempt.

8. He permitted some private enterprise

Though an ardent socialist, Lenin was also a pragmatist. And when his socialist model began to stall, he introduced the New Economic Policy in 1921. Under this policy, which continued until a few years after his death, peasants were allowed to sell some of their produce for profit, while small traders were allowed to set up businesses. The economy picked up but Lenin’s critics accused him of selling out to capitalism.

10. He suffered three strokes

A frail Lenin is seen here in 1923.

Lenin was plagued by ill health in the last few years of his life and suffered three strokes in the space of two years – two in 1922 and one in March the following year. After the third stoke, he lost his ability to speak. Although by May 1923 he appeared to be making a slow recovery, on 21 January 1924 he fell into a coma and died later that day.