On September 18, 2020, the City of Moscow daily newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda published a chapter from the upcoming book on the Soviet intelligence officers by journalist Ilona Yegiazarova. The chapter describes the life and work of Africa de las Heras (1909-1988), a Spanish-born Soviet intelligence officer active both during the World War Two and the early Cold War. In her later life, de las Heras was active in training the new generations of Soviet illegal intelligence officers. Below is my translation available only on this blog.
Ilona Yegiazarova: Colonel Africa
Moskovskaya Pravda September 18, 2020
Moscow. The Red Square. Dawn is about to break. The square is unusually deserted and there is a certain mystique in that: it seems as if the shadows of the historical figures will emerge from behind the red bricks, come to life, and begin to reveal the secrets of the past. But instead of the ghosts, a beautiful gray-haired woman appears on the square carrying a bouquet of blood-red carnations and walks sadly to the Kremlin wall...
I witnessed this episode several years ago: the SVR Press Bureau invited me to the set of the docudrama about the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Africa de las Heras entitled “Patria. The Woman Classified ‘Top Secret’.” The director of the film, our former compatriot and half Basque, Algis Arlauskas, came from Spain and brought a group of Spanish actors with him to Moscow. The SVR consultants were also present on the set, and from their detailed comments and the conversations with the director and actors, who were themselves immersed in the material, the image of this amazing woman began to form in my head.
Usually, when working on biographical docudramas, the scriptwriters and directors complain about the lack of “catchy” details from the lives of their heroes. However, in this case, they were faced with the opposite extreme: they had to pare down and cut so much and leave out a lot of very interesting facts. Indeed, the real biography of our heroine is amazing.
The Sultry Girl
She was born in the city of Ceuta (Spanish Morocco) in 1909, where her father, an officer who was critical of the ruling regime of Miguel Primo de Rivera, worked in the military archive. And although Zoilo de las Heras Jimenez was the brother of the famous Spanish general Manuel de las Heras, working in Morocco was for him essentially an exile. (Remember the uncle who was the general; we will come back to him later in our story). The father gave his daughter an unusual name – Africa - in gratitude to the African continent which has sheltered him and his family. After some time, they returned to Spain where Zoilo died suddenly in 1933. Africa and her older sister Virtudes found themselves on their own.
Our heroine got married early; she barely turned 19 and her husband was an officer, of course. He was a supporter of Francisco Franco, but at that time Africa did not attach any significance to that. Then the couple had a child, and, with all the passion of her nature, she plunged into the joys of motherhood. But the baby died.
This was the traumatic turning point that changed her life. The unhappy woman looked for an outlet for her emotions; she did not know where to direct her unspent energy... Her husband seemed not to understand what was going on and they divorced. Then Africa turned to the parties of the Left.
In mid-1933, she worked in a textile factory in Madrid and joined the Communist Party. Soon, she took part in the preparations for the miners’ uprising in the province of Asturias. She carried out the most dangerous assignments: she distributed weapons and acted as a liaison between the various detachments of the rebels all the while using the cover of being the famous general’s niece.
She ended up in jail a couple times and then hid from the authorities for the whole year.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out, “Afrikita” enthusiastically joined the fight against the Franco regime. It was then that she was recruited by the Soviet foreign intelligence in Madrid. On its behalf, she began taking dangerous trips to neighboring countries. She took on the operational pseudonym “Patria” which she used in her reports to the Center for the rest of her life.
Leon Trotsky, Ramon Mercader, and Nikolay Kuznetsov
Our heroine has faithfully served in the Soviet foreign intelligence service for more than 45 years. It is breathtaking just to try to count the roles she played and the missions she was involved in. However, the truth and the legend are difficult to keep apart in this respect. Her full biography is still classified and there are gaps that many have filled with invented tales.
The most intriguing chapter in her life is perhaps her acquaintance with Leon Trotsky. It is said that she was assigned to him in the role of a translator and a secretary. It is also said that she was a friend of Ramon Mercader and helped him prepare the assassination of the “demon of the revolution” on Stalin’s orders. She was active in the circle of [Mexican] artists, Frida Kahlo and David Siqueiros. However, she was urgently recalled to the USSR in 1939 when the Soviet intelligence chief in Madrid Alexander Orlov, frightened by the purge in the intelligence service, defected to the West. The Center feared that he would expose Africa and recalled her to Moscow. Here our heroine received the Soviet citizenship and got a job in the textile factory. Many Spaniards arrived in the USSR at that time and no one even suspected who this dark, fragile beauty really was. And Orlov never exposed his former subordinate...
When the Great Patriotic War began, Africa made every effort to be sent to the frontline. She enlisted in the Special Medical Unit of the OMSBON (Independent Motorized Brigade for Special Operations) of the NKVD, then she attended the accelerated courses for radio operators. After graduating with honors, she was sent to the newly formed reconnaissance and sabotage unit “Victors” under the command of the future Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Medvedev. In her memoirs, she wrote:
“Sometime later, I took the oath of a radio operator. I solemnly swore that I would never surrender to the enemy alive and would blow up with grenades the transmitter, the quartz mechanism, and the ciphers. I was handed two grenades, a pistol, a curved [Finnish] knife. From that moment on, I constantly carried with me all of that...”
From a partisan detachment, deep behind enemy lines, she fearlessly sent to Moscow secret information obtained by intelligence officer Nikolay Kuznetsov who operated undercover as the officer of the German secret police Paul Siebert. In order to send his encrypted messages to the Center, three radio operators, accompanied by guards, would go out of the camp into the forest. Two radio operators would broadcast disinformation, and only Africa – because she was the best – was chosen to transmit accurate information to Moscow. This was done to deceive the potential German interceptors. Nikolay Kuznetsov called her his favorite radio operator.
She steadfastly endured all the hardships of partisan life: “We received telegrams from about thirty partisan units. We handled encryption, transmission, reception, decryption... We had almost no time left for sleep.” The Russian winter caused physical suffering in this woman from the South: she felt cold all the time. Once Kuznetsov got three short fur coats for his radio operators and he also gave Africa a beautiful woolen shawl. For the rest of her life, she remembered him fondly.
Was there something romantic in the relationship between Kuznetsov and Africa? Nobody can answer that now. But if the movie were made about it, no doubt a full-fledged love story could be constructed on the fact of his giving her the shawl.
For the successful performance of combat missions and active participation in the partisan movement during the war years, Africa was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 2nd degree and the Order of the Red Star, as well as the medals “For Courage” and “Partisan of the Patriotic War” of the 1st degree.
She Got Married on the Orders of the Center
By the way, in the docudrama on the set of which I was present, there was a lot of focus on the love themes. The filmmakers suggested that romantic feelings were shared by Africa and Ramon Mercader, who eventually killed Trotsky. There was even a short episode that depicted them, after having met each other again decades later in the 1970s, piece together a single photograph, the two halves of which they carried their whole lives. Film director Arlauskas told me: “Both of our heroes were rebels in Spain at the same time, they were both good-looking and professed the principle of free love. Why not bring them together? After all, I see my main task as creating the image of a living person.”
And she really was vivacious, passionate, amorous. She got married four times. But the family was never her priority, the main thing for her was her work. And she did plenty of it.
In the first year after the war, Africa settled in Paris. Then she was transferred to one of the countries in Latin America. Her cover was that of the owner of a fashion studio and later of an antiquarian shop. And you know, she had some brilliant successes. Elegant, with a lot expertise in art, a painter herself, she easily made friends with the upper society ladies. Through them, she met their high-ranking husbands and obtained valuable information. She spent 22 years in Latin America. There was a lot of work to do. After eight years of solo work, in 1956, the Center sent her a husband!
She obeyed without a protest and did not ask a single question. Her husband, the station chief Giovanni Antonio Bertoni was an Italian by birth and worked for the USSR since 1936. He was Africa’s supervisor and a friend. Was there any romantic love between them? When, after eight years of marriage, he died suddenly, she was crushed with grief.
The Center highly valued the results of their work as family illegals. They attained legal status and established themselves in the country of assignment, set up a two-way radio communication, and provided a reliable safehouse. Africa was also engaged in covert missions linked to the Cuban missile crisis and the struggle against the American atomic program. Although she could have retired after the death of her husband, “Patria” wanted to remain working. The country where she was based seemed to be on the verge of a military coup, and she remained there for another three years to collect and transmit important information.
Afterword
She returned to the USSR in the 1970s. She trained young intelligence officers and shared her experiences with them. She did not have any children of her own and her maternal care and tenderness found an outlet in her relations with her students. She would give her jewelry as presents to her students and often recalled “that very shawl” given to her by Kuznetsov, which, she, alas, was not able to preserve over the years. She loved good music and liked to sing. She talked about passionately dancing during the moments of rare calm at the front. Of course, she longed for her family members left behind in Spain, whom she had not seen since 1939. Once she heard on the radio how the Spanish Red Cross was looking for the lost loved ones. The list of endless names included her sister Virtudes who was looking for her. Her heart sank, but she could not reply because of her intelligence work. That’s the kind of life she led: she was completely devoted to the ideals of peace and security.
Was she happy? The actress Estrella Salatero, who played the role of Africa in the docudrama that started our story, correctly noted: “The loss of the first homeland, the lack of the second, the unrealized maternal instinct... All this made her into a warrior. Her ideals were more important to her than any particular man or family. And you know, she was happy in her struggle. She remained faithful to her ideals all throughout her life, she had a wholesome personality and although she was constantly freezing in your country, she was hot in her soul.”
Africa de las Heras died at the age of 78, on an important day - March 8, 1988. On an international women’s holiday, on a date with three eights, which symbolize infinity. The infinity of her life, continuing in her accomplishments and in her students’ work. The docudrama about her was eventually shown on Channel One. But I think the story of this heroine will receive many more screen adaptations in the future.
