REILLY, SIDNEY• 443March 1918, he was transferred to theSecret Intelligence Service
(SIS) and posted to Murmansk with the code name ‘‘ST-1.’’ His task
was to foment resistance against the Bolsheviks and, together with
George Hill, he played a key role in the Lockhart Plot, the failed
assassination attempt on Lenin. When Reilly and Hill eventually es-
caped to Sweden, in October 1918, they were decorated with the Mil-
itary Cross and the DSO, respectively.
Reilly’s commitment to the anti-Bolshevik movement became
something of an embarrassment to SIS, although he continued to ad-
vise the Foreign Office of developments in Moscow until his eventual
return in September 1925. The journey from Finland was sponsored
by ‘‘the Trust,’’ a shadowy opposition group that claimed extensive
support even within the Communist party’s hierarchy. In reality the
Trust was a sophisticated deception, manipulated by theOGPU, that
exercised control over the dissidents and occasionally enticed trou-
blesome opponents of the regime across the frontier and into elabo-
rately staged traps. Its history, written by KGB archivists, is
contained in 37 volumes. Reilly’s political mentor, Boris Savinkov,
was a victim of just such a scheme and in August 1924 he set off
from Berlin, under the Trust’s protection, with the intention of rees-
tablishing contact with his supporters. He was arrested immediately
upon his arrival and, after a trial at which he was sentenced to death,
received a pardon that effectively marked his conversion to Commu-
nism. He is believed to have committed suicide in May 1925, as was
recorded by his biographer,David Footman.
Despite Savinkov’s experience, Reilly was persuaded to slip
across the Russian frontier on 25 September 1925 to address a secret
gathering of the Trust’s senior membership. The meeting took place
in a dacha at Malakhova and afterwards Reilly was driven not, as he
expected, to a safehouse but to the notorious Lubyanka Prison.
Months of interrogation followed, but neither SIS nor his most recent
wife, actress Pepita Bobadilla, had any news of his whereabouts. She
knew he had been in Helsinki, and SIS had last heard of him via a
postcard mailed from Moscow two days after he had left Finland. In
fact Reilly, shaken by the speed and efficiency of his entrapment, had
written a very full confession and had agreed to cooperate with his
captors. The person responsible for leading Reilly across the Finnish
border was a leading member of the Trust, Toivoi Vjahi, who was
later identified as a senior OGPU officer, I. M. Petrov.