Zinoviev Letter
Encyclopedia
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow
to the Communist Party of Great Britain
. The letter, which later investigation suggested was a forgery
, purported to be a directive from Moscow calling for intensified communist agitation in Britain and helped ensure the fall of the Labour
government of Ramsay MacDonald
in the October elections. The letter took its name from Bolshevik
revolutionary Grigory Zinoviev
, its purported author.
, the moderate socialist Labour Party
formed a government for the first time. However it was a minority government
, and was liable to fall if the Conservatives
and Liberals combined against it. On 8 October 1924, the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald
suffered defeat in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence
, causing MacDonald to go to the King to seek a dissolution of Parliament
. The immediate cause of the parliamentary loss had been the government's decision to drop the prosecution of communist editor John Ross Campbell
under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797
for publication of an open letter in Workers Weekly encouraging members of the military to join together in preparation for future revolutionary action. New national elections were scheduled for 29 October.
, head of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (Comintern) and Arthur MacManus
, the British representative to ECCI, and addressed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain
.
One particularly damaging section of this letter read:
newspaper four days before the election. The letter came at a sensitive time in relations between Britain and the Soviet Union
, due to Conservative opposition to the parliamentary ratification of the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement of 8 August.
The publication of the letter was severely embarrassing to Prime Minister MacDonald and his Labour Party. Although his party faced long odds in the voting booth, MacDonald had not given up hope in the campaign. Any chance of an upset victory was dashed as the spectre of internal revolution and a government oblivious to the peril dominated the public consciousness. MacDonald's attempts to cast doubt as to the authenticity of the letter were in vain, hampered by the document's widespread acceptance among government officials. MacDonald told his Cabinet he "felt like a man sewn in a sack and thrown into the sea."
proceeded to a decisive victory in the October 1924 election
. This ended the country's first Labour government. After the Conservatives formed a government with Stanley Baldwin
as Prime Minister, a cabinet committee investigated the letter and concluded that it was genuine. The Conservative government did not undertake any further investigation despite continuing allegations that the letter was forged. On 21 November 1924 Britain's new Conservative government cancelled the unratified trade agreement with the Soviet Union.
, the so-called "Zinoviev letter" was a decisive part of the October 1924 British election which installed a new Conservative government:
A 1967 British study deemed that the Labour Party was destined for defeat in October 1924 in any event, and argues that the primary effect of the purported Comintern communication was upon Anglo-Soviet relations:
Contemporary scholarship on the so-called "Zinoviev letter" dates to a 1967 monograph
published by three British journalists working for The Sunday Times
. The trio — Lewis Chester, Steven Fay, and Hugo Young
— asserted that two members of a Russian monarchist organisation called the Brotherhood of St. George composed the document in question in Berlin. The widow of one of the two men said to have authored the document, Irina Bellegarde, provided the authors with direct testimony that she had witnessed the forgery as it was performed. The authors are said to have studied Bolshevik documents extensively before creating a sensational document in an effort to undermine the Soviet regime's relations with Great Britain. The British Foreign Office had received the forgery on 10 October 1924, two days after the defeat of the MacDonald government on a confidence motion put forward by the Liberals. Despite the dubious nature of the document, wheels were set in motion for its publication; members of the Conservative Party combining with Foreign Office officials in what Chester, Fay, and Young characterised as a "conspiracy."
This book motivated the British Foreign Office to initiate a study of their own. For three years Millicent Bagot
of MI5
delved into the archives and conducted interviews with surviving witnesses. She produced a long account of the affair, but the paper ultimately proved unpublishable because of its containing sensitive operational and personnel information. Still, Bagot's work would prove important as a secondary source
when the Foreign Office revisited the matter nearly three decades later.
Early in 1998, reports of a forthcoming book allegedly containing revelations about the origins of the so-called "Zinoviev letter," based on information from Soviet archives led to renewed press speculation and parliamentary questions. In response British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
announced on 12 February 1998 that in the interests of openness, he had commissioned the historians of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to prepare a historical memorandum on the Zinoviev Letter, drawing upon archival documents.
A paper by the Chief Historian of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Gill Bennett, was published in January 1999 and contains the results of this inquiry. Bennett had free and unfettered access to the archives of the Foreign Office as well as those of the Secret Intelligence Service
(SIS), MI5, and MI6. She also visited Moscow in the course of her research, working in the archives of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
, and the Comintern archive of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Although not every operational detail could be published because of British secrecy laws, Bennett's paper remains the definitive account of the affair of the so-called "Zinoviev letter". Her report showed that the letter contained statements similar to those made by Zinoviev to other communist parties and at other times to the CPGB, but at the time (Anglo-Soviet trade talks and a general election) when Zinoviev was being more restrained towards the British. Despite her extensive research, she concluded "it is
impossible to say who wrote the Zinoviev Letter" though her best guess was that it was commissioned by White Russian intelligence circles from forgers in Berlin or the Baltic states, most likely in Riga.
In 2006, FCO historian Gill Bennett incorporated some of her findings on the Zinoviev letter into chapter four of her biography of SIS agent Desmond Morton
. Another 2006 book on spycraft
attributes authorship to Vladimir Orlov (1882–1941), a former aide to Baron Wrangel
during the Russian Civil War
.
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
to the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
. The letter, which later investigation suggested was a forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
, purported to be a directive from Moscow calling for intensified communist agitation in Britain and helped ensure the fall of the Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
government of Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
in the October elections. The letter took its name from Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
revolutionary Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
, its purported author.
History
Background
After the 1923 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1923
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
, the moderate socialist Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
formed a government for the first time. However it was a minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
, and was liable to fall if the Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and Liberals combined against it. On 8 October 1924, the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
suffered defeat in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence
Motion of no confidence
A motion of no confidence is a parliamentary motion whose passing would demonstrate to the head of state that the elected parliament no longer has confidence in the appointed government.-Overview:Typically, when a parliament passes a vote of no...
, causing MacDonald to go to the King to seek a dissolution of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. The immediate cause of the parliamentary loss had been the government's decision to drop the prosecution of communist editor John Ross Campbell
John Ross Campbell
John Ross "Johnny" Campbell , best known as "J.R. Campbell," was a British communist activist and newspaper editor. Campbell is best remembered as the principal in the so-called Campbell Case...
under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797
Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797
The Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797 was an Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. The Act was passed in the aftermath of the Spithead and Nore mutinies and aimed to prevent the seduction of sailors and soldiers to commit mutiny....
for publication of an open letter in Workers Weekly encouraging members of the military to join together in preparation for future revolutionary action. New national elections were scheduled for 29 October.
The letter
Near the end of the short election campaign there appeared in the press the text of a letter purporting to have originated from Grigory ZinovievGrigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...
, head of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (Comintern) and Arthur MacManus
Arthur MacManus
Arthur MacManus was a Scottish trade unionist and communist politician.-Political career:MacManus joined the De Leonist Socialist Labour Party and began work at Singers in Clydebank, then known as part of the Red Clydeside...
, the British representative to ECCI, and addressed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
.
One particularly damaging section of this letter read:
Publication
The damning document was published in the conservative British Daily MailDaily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
newspaper four days before the election. The letter came at a sensitive time in relations between Britain and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, due to Conservative opposition to the parliamentary ratification of the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement of 8 August.
The publication of the letter was severely embarrassing to Prime Minister MacDonald and his Labour Party. Although his party faced long odds in the voting booth, MacDonald had not given up hope in the campaign. Any chance of an upset victory was dashed as the spectre of internal revolution and a government oblivious to the peril dominated the public consciousness. MacDonald's attempts to cast doubt as to the authenticity of the letter were in vain, hampered by the document's widespread acceptance among government officials. MacDonald told his Cabinet he "felt like a man sewn in a sack and thrown into the sea."
Election result
The Conservative PartyConservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
proceeded to a decisive victory in the October 1924 election
United Kingdom general election, 1924
- Seats summary :- References :* F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987* - External links :* * *...
. This ended the country's first Labour government. After the Conservatives formed a government with Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
as Prime Minister, a cabinet committee investigated the letter and concluded that it was genuine. The Conservative government did not undertake any further investigation despite continuing allegations that the letter was forged. On 21 November 1924 Britain's new Conservative government cancelled the unratified trade agreement with the Soviet Union.
Denial by Zinoviev
The Comintern and Soviet government vehemently and consistently denied the authenticity of the document. Grigorii Zinoviev issued a denial on 27 October 1924, which was finally published in the December 1924 issue of The Communist Review, the monthly theoretical magazine of the CPGB, well after the MacDonald government had fallen. Zinoviev declared:Impact
In the view of historian Louis FischerLouis Fischer
Louis Fischer was a Jewish-American journalist. Among his works were a contribution to the ex-Communist treatise The God that Failed, The Life of Lenin, which won a 1965 National Book Award, as well as a biography of Mahatma Gandhi entitled The Life of Mahatma Gandhi...
, the so-called "Zinoviev letter" was a decisive part of the October 1924 British election which installed a new Conservative government:
A 1967 British study deemed that the Labour Party was destined for defeat in October 1924 in any event, and argues that the primary effect of the purported Comintern communication was upon Anglo-Soviet relations:
Current scholarship
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
published by three British journalists working for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
. The trio — Lewis Chester, Steven Fay, and Hugo Young
Hugo Young
Hugo John Smelter Young was a British journalist and columnist and senior political commentator at The Guardian.-Early life and education:...
— asserted that two members of a Russian monarchist organisation called the Brotherhood of St. George composed the document in question in Berlin. The widow of one of the two men said to have authored the document, Irina Bellegarde, provided the authors with direct testimony that she had witnessed the forgery as it was performed. The authors are said to have studied Bolshevik documents extensively before creating a sensational document in an effort to undermine the Soviet regime's relations with Great Britain. The British Foreign Office had received the forgery on 10 October 1924, two days after the defeat of the MacDonald government on a confidence motion put forward by the Liberals. Despite the dubious nature of the document, wheels were set in motion for its publication; members of the Conservative Party combining with Foreign Office officials in what Chester, Fay, and Young characterised as a "conspiracy."
This book motivated the British Foreign Office to initiate a study of their own. For three years Millicent Bagot
Millicent Bagot
Milicent Jessie Eleanor Bagot, CBE was a British intelligence officer, and the model for the character Connie Sachs, the eccentric Sovietologist expert who appeared in John le Carré's novels Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People.Bagot was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford...
of MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
delved into the archives and conducted interviews with surviving witnesses. She produced a long account of the affair, but the paper ultimately proved unpublishable because of its containing sensitive operational and personnel information. Still, Bagot's work would prove important as a secondary source
Secondary source
In scholarship, a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed; a primary source can be a person with direct...
when the Foreign Office revisited the matter nearly three decades later.
Early in 1998, reports of a forthcoming book allegedly containing revelations about the origins of the so-called "Zinoviev letter," based on information from Soviet archives led to renewed press speculation and parliamentary questions. In response British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
Robin Cook
Robert Finlayson Cook was a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Livingston from 1983 until his death, and notably served in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001....
announced on 12 February 1998 that in the interests of openness, he had commissioned the historians of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to prepare a historical memorandum on the Zinoviev Letter, drawing upon archival documents.
A paper by the Chief Historian of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Gill Bennett, was published in January 1999 and contains the results of this inquiry. Bennett had free and unfettered access to the archives of the Foreign Office as well as those of the Secret Intelligence Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
(SIS), MI5, and MI6. She also visited Moscow in the course of her research, working in the archives of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, and the Comintern archive of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Although not every operational detail could be published because of British secrecy laws, Bennett's paper remains the definitive account of the affair of the so-called "Zinoviev letter". Her report showed that the letter contained statements similar to those made by Zinoviev to other communist parties and at other times to the CPGB, but at the time (Anglo-Soviet trade talks and a general election) when Zinoviev was being more restrained towards the British. Despite her extensive research, she concluded "it is
impossible to say who wrote the Zinoviev Letter" though her best guess was that it was commissioned by White Russian intelligence circles from forgers in Berlin or the Baltic states, most likely in Riga.
In 2006, FCO historian Gill Bennett incorporated some of her findings on the Zinoviev letter into chapter four of her biography of SIS agent Desmond Morton
Desmond Morton (officer)
Major Sir Desmond Morton KCB CMG MC was a British military officer and government official. Morton played an important role in organizing a response to appeasement of Germany under Adolf Hitler during the period prior to World War II by providing intelligence information about German re-armament...
. Another 2006 book on spycraft
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
attributes authorship to Vladimir Orlov (1882–1941), a former aide to Baron Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire...
during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
.
External links
- The National Archives of Britain has made available the complete text of the Zinoviev Letter.
- Gill Bennett, "'A Most Extraordinary and Mysterious Business': The Zinoviev Letter of 1924." Historians, LRD History Note No. 14. London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, January 1999. Part 1 (pdf), Part 2 (pdf), Part 3 (pdf), Part 4 (pdf), Photos (pdf).