Russian Roulette

The Bolshevik Revolution overturned Britain’s diplomatic and intelligence position in Russia while raising fears that revolutionary agitation would spread through Central Asia towards India. Giles Milton follows agents and adventurers including R. H. Bruce Lockhart and Sidney Reilly as they attempted to understand, influence and sometimes overthrow the new regime. Their work unfolded amid civil war, diplomatic isolation and the rapid growth of the Cheka.

The book reconstructs covert meetings, escape routes, propaganda schemes and plots whose aims were often confused by rivalry between British departments and by unreliable information. It also examines Bolshevik efforts to encourage anti-imperial movements beyond Russia. By placing espionage inside the wider Russian Civil War, the account shows how improvisation, personal ambition and imperial anxiety shaped Britain’s earliest confrontation with Soviet power.