From mid-May Lockhart had convened several meetings with Boris Savinkov’s Union for the Defence of the Fatherland and Freedom (UDFF) organisation. Savinkov, a Social Revolutionary, had been War Minister in the Provisional Government, and was now one of the Bolsheviks’ most vociferous opponents. A former member of the Social Revolutionary Party, he had now formed his own underground movement, the UDFF, for which he claimed a fighting force of some 2,000 men. In July, Lockhart was reporting on contacts with an anti-Bolshevik group called ‘the Centre’, who had links with both Savinkov and the Volunteer Army of Gen. A.V Alekseev in the south of Russia. Lockhart followed up these contacts with large sums of money and became more deeply involved in fermenting and encouraging anti-Bolshevik groups. Contacts were also being developed with Fernand Grenard, the French Consul General, De Witt C. Poole, the US Consul General, and their respective intelligence functionaries, Col. Henri de Vertement and Xenophon Kalamatiano.
In June two Chekists by the names of Jan Buikis and Jan Sprogis, both ex-Latvian army officers, began the process of infiltrating themselves into opposition circles in Petrograd. Posing as disaffected Letts, it did not take long for them to come across Capt. Cromie, the British Naval Attaché and ‘Mr Constantine’. As a result of this positive development and the possibility that the Lett Regiments might be open to revolting against the Bolsheviks, Reilly arranged for Schmidkhen and Bredis to meet Lockhart at the British Mission in Moscow in August. The Letts were seen as the Bolsheviks’ praetorian guard and were entrusted with the security of the Kremlin and other centres of government. It could now be argued that Lockhart was thus entering realms for which he had little if any official clearance. If this were so, then Reilly, who had already gone well beyond his brief, was now, in effect, seeking to trump Lockhart by planning a coup d’état.
His longstanding idolisation of Napoleon and his borderline megalomania had convinced him that the time was now ripe for a strong man to emerge, just as it had been for Napoleon Bonaparte a little over a century before. It is doubtful whether C had ever intended Reilly to become directly involved in any covert actions against the Bolshevik regime, let alone in actually taking the initiative and attempting to install a new regime into power! Reilly had already begun the process of drawing up a list of ‘shadow ministers’ who would be ready at a moment’s notice to assume responsibility for their portfolios on the fall of the Bolshevik government. Among those on Reilly’s list was Gen. Nikolai Yudenich, who was to be Minister of War, and several old cronies such as: Alexander Grammatikov, Internal Affairs; Vladimir Orlov, Minister of Justice; and Vladimir Shubersky, Minister of Communications.
On 4 July Reilly attended the meeting of the 5th Congress of Soviets at the Bolshoi Theatre, along with Robert Bruce Lockhart and other Allied representatives. It was during a break from the proceedings that he first noticed Olga Dmitrievna Starzhevskaya in the theatre lobby. Olga was an attractive twenty-five-year- old typist who worked for the VTsIK (Vserossyiskiy Tsentralniy Ispolnitelniy Komitet – the All Russia Central Executive Committee). According to Edward Van Der Rhoer, Reilly introduced himself to her as Konstantin Georgievich Rellinsky of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and brought her a glass of Georgian champagne.23 Her own recollections of the meeting are somewhat different in that she knew him as Konstantin Markovich Massino who worked for an unspecified Soviet organisation. An affair began shortly after their first meeting, and ‘Massino’ gave her 20,000 roubles to buy an apart-ment and furniture and they began living together there.24 The third day of the Congress also marked the outbreak of a brief rebellion by the left wing of the Social-Revolutionary Party, who assassinated the German Ambassador, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, in the hope of sabotaging the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Letts were sent in to crush the revolt and cordoned off the Bolshoi Theatre, the Kremlin and other important locations. Fearing a search, Reilly apparently tore up several compromising documents he had in his possession and swallowed them. No search, however, took place and he was eventually able to leave the building unhindered.
While his plans for a coup were taking shape, an Allied force had landed at Archangel on 4 August. Its objectives were not to actually lock horns with the Bolsheviks, but to prevent the Germans from obtaining unused Allied military supplies that were stored in the area. Besides, this token force of 5,000 men was far too small to actually take offensive action. When the Bolsheviks learned the true size of the force they must have breathed a huge sigh of relief. This did not, however, stop them from raiding and closing the British and French diplomatic missions on 5 August as an act of retaliation.
This would mean that the meeting which Reilly arranged between the Letts and Lockhart at the British Mission must have taken place during the first four days of August, as the mission was closed after the Cheka raid on 5 August. Lockhart, although sceptical, was certainly intrigued by this development and asked to be introduced to a Latvian commander. The Cheka therefore arranged for Lt-Col. E.P. Berzin, the commander of the Special Light Artillery, who guarded the Kremlin, to make contact with Lockhart. Berzin was not a Chekist, but was known to be a loyal supporter of the Bolsheviks.
Buikis, Sprogis and Berzin therefore presented themselves at Lockhart’s apartment at the Hotel Elite on 14 August.25 Lockhart, still somewhat unsure about becoming involved in a Lettish rebellion, discussed his meeting with the French and American Consuls later that day. The following day he met Berzin again, only this time ‘Mr Constantine’ and the French Consul, Grenard, were in attendance. It was at this meeting that the fateful decision was made to entrust all further liaison with Berzin to ‘Mr Constantine’. This effectively meant that Reilly was now in the driving seat of the plot. Berzin raised the matter of other Lettish regiments, who he believed could be recruited to assist the Allies in liberating Latvia. This, he estimated would cost something in the region of 4 million roubles. Lockhart and his colleagues promised to consider this.26
On 17 August27 the first of several meetings between Reilly and Col. Berzin took place. Reilly informed Berzin that the requested funding had been approved and would be paid to him in several instalments, the first being 700,000 roubles which Reilly handed over there and then. Reilly then proposed something that had never been raised before by Allied representatives. Why, he asked, could there not be a Lettish rebellion staged in Moscow to coincide with further Allied intervention? Achieving his own ends by exploiting his role as an intermediary was a tactic Reilly had used successfully time and again in business.28
According to Lockhart, Reilly reported that his negotiations with the Letts were going smoothly, and suggested that he might be able, with the Letts, to stage a counter-revolution in Moscow. Lockhart, in his book, Memoirs of a British Agent, states that he consulted Gen. Lavergne and the French Consul Grenard, which resulted in Reilly being told in no uncertain terms to have nothing to do with ‘so dangerous and doubtful a move’.29 A detailed memorandum written to Foreign Secretary Balfour on 5 November 1918,30 seeking to set the record straight on the ‘alleged Allied conspiracy against the Soviet Government’, however, makes no reference to so instructing Reilly. In this version, Reilly is merely told that, ‘there was nothing to be gained by such action’, which could hardly be described in anyone’s language as a veto.