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As
of late the media seems to be full of articles about
informers/agents of influence that have penetrated
the Provisional IRA, supposedly at all levels. The
most prominent to be exposed so far being the informer
the British code named Stakeknife. Before this, although
on the loyalist side, there was Brian Nelson, an ex
British soldier who was encouraged to infiltrate the
UDA, becoming its intelligence chief with murderous
consequences. As the man named as Stakeknife, Freddie
Scappiticci was a very senior member of PIRA security
department; this meant that the British at one time
controlled those at the top of both the largest Republican
and loyalist organisations intelligence and security
departments. If one considers this and the murder
and mayhem these two agents were sanctioned to do
by their British handlers, or decided to carry out
off their own backs, it brings state collusion onto
a totally new level.
Those reading the current crop of stories could be
forgiven for believing that touts were a peculiarly
Irish phenomenon, whilst the Irish have had their
fair share of such people, this is only to be expected,
they have after all been struggling for the last 800
years, often against enormous odds to fully liberate
their country from under what the majority still see
as unjust occupation. With Britain's political experience,
wealth and guile it is hardly surprising they have
been able to corrupt the odd few Irish men and women
along the way.
No, the Irish have no need to beat themselves up over
the comparatively small numbers of their race who
have succumbed and become informers for their nation's
tormentors. For such people are prevalent in all countries
which have passed through the humiliating and soul-destroying
experience of foreign occupation. Not least in Britain
itself when William the Conquerors golden coins crossed
the palms of many an Englishman for services rendered,
as elsewhere it was often the case that the wealthier
the local the more willing they were to be corrupted.
A fine example of how base the human spirit can become
is the film Le Chagrin et la pitié 1971.
(The Sorrow and the Pity) by Marcel Ophuls which covers
the years during World War Two of the Nazi occupation
of the French city of Clermont-Ferrand and the surrounding
countryside, a town close to Vichy and located in
the Auvergne region that was home to much Resistance
activity. In the film we meet those who collaborated
as well as resisted. As always the former did so for
a host of reasons, whilst the majority of people,
as in most places caught in similar situations, at
first just wanted life to go on without violence intruding
into their lives and did their best to survive, but
gradually they realise that to do so is an impossibility
and they are forced to take sides more openly. The
overwhelming majority choose to side, if only silently
with those who oppose the occupier. But there are
always individuals who are too short sighted, greedy,
stupid, frightened or demoralised and who end up supporting
the powers that be and by so doing bringing down disaster
on their family, friends, neighbours and more often
than not their own heads.
Historically, governments have a long history of recruiting
informers/agents of influence via their intelligence
agencies throughout the world. This was true within
Ireland long before the post 1969 troubles. It seems
pretty certain that Parnell's one time right hand
man Tim Healy who went on to become Governor-General
of the Irish Free State was throughout much of his
political life, what today would be called an 'agent
of influence' of the British State. A number of incidents
point to this. Born in Bantry, County Cork, Healy
worked as a parliamentary correspondent for The
Nation newspaper before becoming Member of Parliament
(Westminster) for Wexford in 1880. Initially a passionate
supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell, he supposedly
became disenchanted with his leader and all but abandoned
him in his hour of need. During the O'Shea divorce
controversy, when it was revealed that the party leader
had been having a lengthy relationship with the wife
of a fellow MP and was the father of some of her children,
Healy became his sternest and most outspoken critic
despite having known about the relationship for years
and in the process, all but destroyed his former master.
When Parnell asked his colleagues at one party meeting
'who is the master of the party,' Healy famously retorted
with another question, "Aye, but who is the mistress
of the party?"
After this he gradually disappeared to the wings of
Irish Nationalism; however when the Irish Free State
was established the British, it is said by putting
pressure on W.T. Cosgrave who in turn proposed Healy
as the First Governor General of the new state. An
important position because all Free State government
papers went across the GG desk. Normally British State
Papers are released after 30 years or on the death
of those mentioned in them, however those concerning
Mr Healy have not been released to this day. One does
not have to be a paranoid witch-finder to conclude
that in all probability Healy was a long term British
asset.
Recruiting such people was of course not confined
to the British. One of the more pleasant outcomes
of the 1917 Russian Revolution was the Tzar's security
service archive was captured intact. Thus from it
one can learn much about how security services operate.
Prior to the Russian revolution and the over-throw
of the Tzar, his secret service the Okhrana recruited
a long list of informers within Lenin's Bolshevik
Party. The most prominent of these was named Roman
Malinovsky; he took a prominent role in organising
workers during the 1905 revolution. However, due to
this activity he had become well known to the police
and in November 1909, he was arrested and expelled
from St. Petersburg.
Malinovsky went to Moscow but in May 1910, he was
arrested once again. It was while he was in prison
he agreed to become an undercover agent for the Okhrana
and for 100 rubles a month Malinovsky supplied reports
on Bolshevik members, locations of party meetings
and storage places for illegal literature.
In 1912 Lenin suggested that Malinovsky should join
the Bolshevik Central Committee. Lenin also advocated
that Malinovsky should be a Bolshevik candidate for
the Russian Duma (Parliament). Lenin rejected objections
from Martov and others who claimed Malinovsky was
a police spy, claiming they were his main political
opponents and only claimed Malinovsky was an informer
to damage Lenin and his Party faction. After being
elected to the Duma in October 1912, Malinovsky became
the leader of the group of six Bolshevik deputies
(MPs). Thus the leader of the Bolshevik Members of
Parliament was a Tsarist State asset.
In 1914 rumours again began to circulate that Malinovsky
was a spy working for the Okhrana. The Bolsheviks
carried out another investigation into Malinovsky
and concluded that his "political honesty"
was not in doubt. On the outbreak of the WW1, Malinovsky
resigned from the parliament and joined the Tzars
Army. He was wounded and captured by the Germans in
1915 and spent the rest of the conflict in a prisoner
of war camp.
After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917
they signed a peace treaty with the Germans that brought
their involvement in the Great War to an end. Malinovsky,
like millions of other Russian prisoners of war, was
released and returned home, reporting to the Bolshevik
Party headquarters, presumably believing he could
return to at least some of the duties the war interrupted
him from. What he had overlooked was that on taking
power the Bolsheviks had captured intact the Okhrana
files and were able to read all about his role as
an informer. Surely he must have had some idea that
this might have happened and, considering the knowledge
he had about Lenin’s Bolsheviks, he would have
been welcomed by the security services of Germany
or after their defeat, Britain or France. Yet he chose
to return home and bluff it out. This does seem to
be a common trait amongst many informers when they
are first exposed; Mr Scappiticci seems to have behaved
in a similar manner. After a brief trial Malinovsky
was found guilty and executed.
Another example that came into the public light after
the Russian Revolution of the Okhrana running an agent
of influence/tout within the Russian revolutionary
movement was Yevno Philovich Azev. His case has similarities
with those prominent examples in Ireland I mentioned
at the beginning of this piece as he too became engaged
in the armed struggle. He was born in 1869 and on
reaching adulthood became a petty criminal to make
ends meet and had to flee Russian for fear of being
arrested, ending up in Karlsruhe, Germany. Prior to
this he had played a minor political role. He had
signed a manifesto that found its way into the hands
of the Ochrana. He attended the Karlsruhe Polytechnic
at which there were also many other Russian students,
some of whom supported left wing organisations such
as the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Short of money
and sensing an opportunity, Azev wrote a letter to
the Ochrana back in Russia offering to spy on these
students for a fee. The Okhrana replied to his offer
by hiring him. Thus he was what these days would be
described as a walk-in. In 1893 he became a paid agent
of the Ochrana on, at first, fifty rubles a month.
He quickly graduated from spying on his fellow students
and sending gossip, which amounted to little more
than tittle-tattle back to his Okhrana handler in
Russia, to becoming, at their suggestion, a member
of the Union of Socialist Revolutionaries Abroad and
an agent provocateur. He soon ingratiated himself
with USRA leaders who endorsed him wholeheartedly
and selected him to be the group's chief emissary.
Azev was sent by the USRA throughout Europe and into
Russia to maintain contact with the party's leaders
at home and abroad. He was able to send detailed reports
on these radicals to the Okhrana back in Russia, whose
head, Zubatov, believed that Azev was made in his
own image, an individual who would sacrifice anyone
for a price. Since Zubatov could afford to pay more
money than any other source, Azev would forever be
in his pocket and could be used effectively more and
more as an agent provocateur. Azev looked at everything
from the point of view of personal gain, Zubatov once
wrote, and worked for the government not out of conviction
but for the sake of personal profit. In 1901, Azev
was given funds and moved to Moscow where the Okhrana’s
chief Zubatov obtained a job for him as an engineer
at the GEC.
Azev was now in the heart of revolutionary activity
in Russia. To the radicals, he continued to preach
the same crusade: terrorism and assassination. A small
minority of extreme revolutionaries embraced his beliefs
and he soon became one of the leaders of the group's
Battle Organisation, a paramilitary section of the
Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), which was devoted
to terrorism, bank robbery, and murder. Azev actually
organised several bank robberies, which were in reality
carefully staged by the Okhrana itself. Zubatov gave
his approval and in return Azev kept the stolen cash
and arranged for the perpetrators or some hapless
individual to be arrested for carrying out the robberies.
When these arrests were made, Azev told his fellow
members of the Battle Organisation (SRs) that they
had been betrayed by none other than their chief,
Gershuni. He then proceeded to denounce the same Gershuni
to the Okhrana who duly arrested him in Kiev. The
grateful but thoroughly duped radicals then promoted
Azev to the leadership of the SRs Battle Organisation.
From this position he carefully selected which radicals
to betray to the secret police. These were revolutionaries
who either challenged his authority or might learn
of his liaison with the Okhrana. To cement the belief
the revolutionaries had in him he actively planned
the assassinations of many government leaders, including
Nicolai Bogolepov, Russia's Minister of Education
who, on February 27, 1901, was shot and killed by
a student who was indirectly under Azev's control.
Azev then denounced the killer to the secret police.
He
later organised the assassination of the Tzars hated
Minister of the Interior Plehve. Bombs were hurled
under Plehve’s carriage in a St. Petersburg street,
and he was blown to pieces. After which Azev helpfully
gave the Okhranas the names of those involved in the
assassination, bar himself of course; they were quickly
rounded up and executed.
Many of Azev's scheduled assassinations were purposely
designed to fail so that he could expose the plotters
to the security services. Other times he would make
sure that the bombs used in attacks would not go off
and the culprits apprehended. When this was brought
to his attention by a few of his revolutionary associates,
he is said to have declared that he was betrayed on
every side, that the bomb makers were inept and he
then called for bigger and better bombs.
Then
what all informers must dread happened. In the middle
of 1905, a member of the revolutionary council of
the SR’s received an anonymous letter. It denounced
Azev as a police spy. They convened a secret tribunal
with Azev attending. He coolly sat before several
judges who sifted what evidence there was to convict
him. His advocates, of whom there were many, argued
that the accusation was ridiculous. How could a man
who had so brilliantly designed and executed the bold
assassination of the hated Plehve be a police spy?
The charges were dismissed and he went back to his
intrigues but with less confidence that he could overcome
the next threat of exposure
A fellow member of the SRs, Vladimir Burtzev had long
suspected Azev of being a police spy. He quietly investigated
his background, movements and, especially, the source
of this wealth. Moreover, he was able to contact a
retired police official who admitted that Azev was
the Okhrana’s top informant. Burtzev put his
evidence before a tribunal of the SRs in Paris in
December 1908. Azev actually appeared to defend himself.
When asked if he had met the head of the Okhrana on
a certain night in St. Petersburg, he confidently
provided a bill from a Warsaw hotel for that night.
The tribunal was adjourned and Azev was asked to return
the next day but realising the hotel bill would be
revealed as a forgery he never did so, neither returning
to Paris nor to Russia.
In the years before World War I it is said Azev wandered
about Europe, living comfortably on the proceeds of
his spying efforts. Burtzev, who finally exposed him,
met him by accident in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1912.
At that time, Azev sat on a park bench for a few minutes
with the very man he knew would report their encounter
and send revolutionary assassins after him, ever the
intriguer, reproaching Burtzev, Azev said: "Had
you not exposed my relationship with the Okhrana,
I would have been able to assassinate the Tzar. You
destroyed your own work and that of many others."
With that he stood up and disappeared into a crowd.
Yevno Azev died on April 24, 1918; he was buried at
Wilmersdorf Cemetery, Germany. It is said his loyal
mistress was his only mourner: then again......
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