BLUMKIN, YAKOV (1898–1929). Blumkin joined the Chekaat age
19 and was convinced to kill the German ambassador to Russia in
1918 to prevent a German–Russian peace accord by dissidentmem-
bers of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The assassination, planned
by the junior member of the political coalition of Bolsheviksand So-
cialist Revolutionaries ruling the country, was meant to derail the
Brest–Litovsk accord with imperial Germany. Remarkably, he was
forgiven and allowed to continue serving in the Cheka. Blumkin was
close to Leon Trotsky during the Russian civil warand admired his
domestic and foreign policies.
Following the civil war, Blumkin entered foreign intelligence and
in 1929 was serving in Turkey as an illegal. He was tasked with sell-
ing ancient Talmudic texts, which had been expropriated from Jew-
ish congregations in the Soviet Union by the Communist Party.
Blumkin clandestinely met with Trotsky, who had just been exiledto
Turkey, and offered to be his channel of communications with his
supporters in the Soviet Union. Blumkin was betrayed by his wife,
Zoya Zarubina, and arrested on his arrival in Moscow. He was tried
and, at Joseph Stalin’s command, executed.
Blumkin was a talented officer with a genius for languages. He
spoke Yiddish, Polish, Persian, Hebrew, and Russian. His talent for
conspiracy was far more limited. Blumkin was the first member of
the party and the police to be executed for political reasons. Stalin
used the executionto send a signal to the Soviet elite that he would
treat Trotskyism as a capital crime.BLUNT, ANTHONY (1907–1983). A Soviet agent who recruited
agents for Soviet intelligence in the 1930s, Blunt survived exposure
for more than a decade and was never prosecuted for his treachery. A
brilliant art historian, he had become Queen Elizabeth’s principal ad-
visor on art.
Arnold Deutsch, a Soviet illegaloperating in Western Europe, re-
cruited Blunt in the early 1930s as a talent scout and gave him the
code name “Tony.” In the late 1930s, Blunt helped recruit Michael
Straight, John Carincross, and Leo Longfor Soviet intelligence.
During World War II, Blunt worked for the British Security Service
(MI5) and provided Moscow with information on British strategic
planning and counterintelligenceoperations. According to the SovietBLUNT, ANTHONY (1907–1983) •3306-313 A-G.qxd 7/27/06 7:55 AM Page 33