His replacement, Boris Bazarov (codenames, Kin, Da Vinci, Nord), worked in tandem with the “legal” rezident (who was under diplomatic cover), Pyotr Guttseit (codename Nikolai). Yuri Markin (codename Oskar), the illegal “rezident”- as the Russians called their station chiefs-from 1932-34, was murdered by persons unknown, the victim of a violent encounter in a New York bar. Initially the civilian branch of Soviet intelligence-OGPU, then NKVD-had little luck recruiting American spies. And recent archival revelations from Moscow show just how persistent the Kremlin was in its attempts to penetrate the American system.
But, as was the case with Communist Parties elsewhere in the world, those recruited saw it as their duty to serve. Most adherents had no idea this kind of thing was going on-the practice was confined to the shadows, restricted to a few specially chosen for what they had to offer.
But, having cried wolf once too often, doomsayers then faced an uphill task through the ’30s trying to convince the government and the American public that Communist threats of any kind actually existed.įear of Communism and fear of Soviet espionage were closely entangled because a few members of the miniscule American Communist Party were, in fact, involved in spying for Moscow. Ironically, it was around this time that real dangers actually began to emerge. The 1927 execution of Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italianborn anarchist immigrants accused of murder on doubtful evidence, marked the high tide of the irrational anti-red (and mostly anti-foreigner) hysteria in American life. And the American opposition to wider Jewish immigration from these areas was clearly colored by racism, especially the anti-Semitism of the time.Īlthough there was little justification for the scare-mongering, the hysteria was enough to spur the passage of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which put a halt to the inflow of immigrants without visas. But they were a minority, drawn in by radical idealism and anti-fascism. Responding to hostility, many Jews embraced the inclusive internationalist ideals of Communism rather than the outlandish idea of building a Jewish state in the deserts of British-controlled Arab Palestine. The Red Scare blended neatly with popular hostility to mass immigration in America, particularly against a surge of Jews fleeing the anti-Semitic heartlands of Eastern Europe. The issue, however, was whether this goal was at all practicable. Global domination was indeed Moscow’s declared aim. Russian spies held a morbid fascination in the minds of Americans dating back to the Red Scare in 1919, following the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of the Communist International, of which the Communist Party of the USA became a constituent member, subject to extra-territorial discipline imposed from Moscow.
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