326 • MALLY, THEODORE
chael Straight, and the leader of theOxford ring,amolecode-
namedscott. Mally left England in June 1937 but was arrested in
Moscow the following September and executed in Stalin’s purge of
the NKVD.
Mally’s file in theKGB archivesreveals that, as the illegal resi-
dent, he had described briefly theCommunist Party of Great Brit-
ain(CPGB)’s status in Oxford and Cambridge:In the course of the last five years, about 250 Party members have left
Oxford and Cambridge Universities and a considerable number of them
are now employed in the Civil Service. Where exactly they are and what
they are doing, nobody knows. At present there are about 200 Party mem-
bers in those universities of whom about 70 will leave this year. Apart
from this, there are about 1,300 students who are members of the Left
Wing clubs (which have the same platform as we).Upon receipt of Mally’s letter,Moscow Centerbecame worried
about the Londonrezidentura’s activities, and warned it to be more
cautious:We are very worried about [scott’s] activity. All this is too much based
on thecompatriots[the CPGB]. The practice of previous years has
shown that this is fraught with great danger. The danger of failure is espe-
cially great when we are dealing with groups and not with individuals.
Usually, groups of such people discuss all questions amongst themselves,
in spite of all prohibitions, and you, thinking you are dealing with one man
only, have all his friends on your hands....Youshould explain this to
scott.... There should be no mass recruitment on any account. From
among the many and promising candidates, select the most valuable.
Check ten times, do not be in a hurry and recruit only when you have suf-
ficient data.bunny’s recruitment, for instance, was much too hurried. Bear
in mind that all this is not unsubstantiated caution on our part, but that you
are running a most valuable network, the preservation of which is a task of
the highest importance. We were very interested in the number of students,
established by you, who are sympathetic to our cause. This material should
certainly be collected and it would not be a bad thing to keep a regular
account so as to know where these people end up and, in certain cases
direct them to institutions, which are of interest to us. We think that this
should be done in such a way that not every one of them would know be-
forehand what we want of him. In any case, whenever this is possible, we
should cover up our ultimate aim to the last moment. Such a way of pro-