Moskovskaya Pravda: The Story of Africa de las Heras, A Spanish-Born KGB Illegal Intelligence Officer

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 2^nd  degree and the Order of the Red Star, as well as the medals “For Courage” and “Partisan of the Patriotic War” of the 1^st  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.

 

 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Interview of a 100-year-old NKVD Officer Boris Gudz Who Knew the 'Iron Felix'

On February 5, 2020, the Russian state-owned newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by a well-known journalist and intelligence historian Nikolay Dolgopolov in which Dolgopolov described his meetings with Boris Gudz (1902-2006), the oldest living Chekist at the time. Gudz told Dolgopolov several anecdotes about the early activities of the OGPU/NKVD in which he took part personally, including the famous Operation Trust. Below is my translation available only on this blog.

Nikolay Dolgopolov: Boris Gudz – The Oldest of the Mohicans

Rossiyskaya Gazeta February 5, 2020

We met two days before he turned 100. He entered the Cheka [OGPU] in 1923. He participated in the famous Operation Trust in which the Chekists set up a non-existent underground organization of monarchists and deceived their fierce enemies from the Russian emigration for seven years, effectively paralyzing all sabotage work against the USSR.

Under the last name Gintse, Gudz headed the legal intelligence station in Tokyo. After his return home, he coordinated the work of [Richard] Sorge-Ramsay’s network in Japan. He was fired from the Cheka [NKVD] in 1938 for having ties with the “enemies of the state,” and it was a miracle that he was not arrested. He got a job as an ordinary bus driver. He was not spared, he was simply forgotten. Only at the end of 1970 was he remembered and his nonexistent sins were forgiven. To begin with, he was hired as a consultant for the very popular film Operation Trust in which he also played a small role - the young Chekist Boris Gudz [himself]. Then he began to be invited to the Lubyanka frequently. Foreign intelligence service [PGU] even gave him an assistant, and he became the final arbiter of internal disputes over the historical events of long ago, the  participants of which were almost all executed by Yezhov or died without a trace. 

When he was over 100 years old, he got married for the third time. At 103, he went skiing and asked me whether to take his own, high-speed skis to the sanatorium or rent the ones they had there.

I worked with him - he preferred to meet in late evenings - for four years. We did a lot, but plenty of things remained unfinished. We began a book about [Vyacheslav] Menzhinsky, Dzerzhinsky’s successor, but…

Only ten people attended his funeral at the very end of December 2006. But we all heard the farewell salvo by the military guards in honor of this former brigade commissar.

Without changing the manner in which Gudz narrated the events of his life, I will present a few events he openly talked out, which I deciphered from my notes in January 2020.

How the Famous Terrorist Boris Savinkov Died

We lured Boris Savinkov to the Soviet Union in August 1924 and arrested him in Minsk. The Supreme Court sentenced him to death, but the sentence was later commuted to ten years in prison. And then Savinkov committed suicide. It all happened on the fifth floor, in the office of the deputy chief of the counterintelligence department, [Roman] Pilyar. My room on the third floor overlooked the Lubyanka Square, and Pilyar’s office looked into the courtyard, into the interior. At an earlier time, the office had a door to the balcony. Later, the door was closed up and replaced with a low windowsill. I’d say it was about eighty centimeters above the ground.

I know what actually took place. Grisha [Grigory Syroezhkin] and I shared an office, our tables were next to one another, and the next day, twisting his face, he told me how it all happened. Savinkov kept walking up and down the office in a nervous state. He went to the window, looked down, and climbed up. Grisha was sitting in a chair next to him. He immediately jumped to stop him. Syroezhkin was a former professional wrestler and one of his arms was weak because he got hurt in a fight. He should have grabbed Savinkov with his good arm. But it didn’t work out that way. They shouted to him: “Grishka, you yourself will go down with him.” However, he held on to Savinkov, but Savinkov slipped out. Syroezhkin couldn’t hold him anymore. Otherwise, he would have fallen to his death as well.

However, there were two death certificates. In the first, the detection of alcohol in Savinkov’s blood was mentioned. And in the second, there was nothing about alcohol. The first death certificate was kept under the wraps. Of course, Savinkov was a bit tipsy. During the autopsy, they found almost a liter of alcohol in his body. Before the tragic event, they took him – and this was not the first time - to a restaurant, where they all ate and drank. All officers immediately learned about Savinkov’s suicide. It could not have been covered up.

Under [Nikolay] Yezhov, Syroezhkin was imprisoned and a testimony was forced out of him that he had pushed Savinkov out of the window into the courtyard. That’s not credible! And he signed that he deliberately threw Savinkov out. I read his statement and grabbed my head in my hands. That was horrific! Syroezhkin was executed. And he fought in Spain and received a medal for it.

... and the Famous Spy Sydney Reilly

Sydney Reilly was deceived by the head of the fictitious organization “Trust” Alexander Alexandrovich Yakushev. Reilly was an experienced intelligence officer, a genuine fox, and the former state councilor Yakushev was just a beginner in the spying game. But he got an important assignment: to lure Reilly to the USSR.

Reilly was in Vyborg [the territory of Finland at the time]. And exactly at the same time, Yakushev arrived in Vyborg and arranged the meeting with Reilly on September 25 [1925]. Reilly was pleased: the head of a large underground anti-Soviet organization came to meet him. He was very much flattered. Certain issues of extreme importance were discussed. Reilly offered some suggestions which were taken very seriously. But Yakushev at times delicately made it clear that not all of them, though coming from a professional of Reilly’s stature, were applicable on the Bolshevik soil because Russia had changed considerably since Reilly was there last time. And he invited Reilly to meet with the people who were fighting the Bolsheviks under very difficult conditions. Sydney Reilly honestly admitted that he would very much like to do so, but that he must go to America.

Then Yakushev pulled out his trump card: “Tell me, Mr. Reilly, how much time do you have?” Reilly was frank: on September 30, just a few days later, his ship was leaving the French port of Cherbourg. Alexander Alexandrovich paused, reflected a bit, as if he had remembered something: “You can be back in four days: from here, from Vyborg, through our “open window” at the border, you could get to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow, and come back the same way. And everything will work out. Here’s what we can do: today is the 25^th, on the 26^th, we can cross the border, on the 27^th, we’ll be in St. Petersburg and on the 28^th, in Moscow. You’ll be back in Vyborg on the 29^th. Considering the guarantees we can provide you with, why miss the opportunity to take a look at everything we have done with your own eyes? The subtext was clear: “What, are you afraid?” And Reilly fell for it: “Agreed, he said, I’ll go with you.” A great job was done by Yakushev! He lured him in, put ideas into his head, made him believe in them, and that was it – the job was done. That’s how well the former state councilor learned to play the game.

Reilly was arrested at a private apartment in Moscow. Before that they went to a dacha, which was fully equipped as a safe house. They met with the members of the “Trust.” There was Yakushev, our associate, who played the host at the dacha, and two to four other officers. Genuine counterrevolutionaries were not invited. Everybody there was on the same side.

They had a banquet. And then when he relaxed a bit, the “guest” presented his terrorist program. He claimed that using acts of terrorism was the only remaining option for fighting the Bolsheviks: “We must be like People’s Will, only in the opposite direction [anti-socialist]. They also killed the governors to attract the oppressed and raise their spirits. They wanted to bring the situation to the boiling point. And we must do the same. We will strike Russia from the inside, and Europe will then treat us differently. Let the degree of security and stability in Russia come down to zero.”

They returned from the dacha to Moscow. Reilly had to leave by express train for St. Petersburg at about midnight. He was completely calm, he trusted his hosts. In the Soviet Union, hardly anyone knew how he looked like: he was not back since 1918. On the way from the dacha, he even wrote a postcard and threw it into the mailbox: “I’m in Moscow. Sydney.”

They arrived at an apartment on Maroseyka Street to rest a bit and have a snack before going to the train station. And then the spy was told: “You are under arrest.” Reilly had no weapons. This was taken care of earlier. After the arrest, Reilly made threats: “The high circles in England will find out about my arrest. Better not to fool around with me.” He had no idea that our service already planted the story of a shootout at the border to hide what was really going on. They showed him the newspaper: “Look here - you are already dead. Read - ‘Sydney Reilly was identified and killed while crossing the border illegally.’ You don’t exist anymore.”

Already in 1918, Reilly was sentenced to death by the [Bolshevik] court. But he escaped. And when he turned up on our territory, the sentence had to be carried out. The court decision had to be enforced, meaning he had to be shot. Several times he was taken out to the forest in Sokolniki for walks. And he was shot there. I know who carried out the sentence. Grigory Syroezhkin [Gudz’s friend] was in this group. Reilly didn’t expect to be shot. The final verdict was not read to him, they tried not to frighten him, or to drag him somewhere, it seemed more humane that way. He was shot in the back suddenly.

His body was buried in the courtyard of the Lubyanka. I don’t know where his remains ended up. During the perestroika, a lot of construction was going on there, almost everything has been rebuilt.

Now about Reilly’s nationality. Many believe that he was a Jew from Odessa. Though I believe that he was, very possibly, a Jew, he was not from Odessa. There are many tall tales about this, they even claim that his real last name was Rosenblum. During the interrogation, he claimed that his father was an Englishman and that his mother was Russian.

Reilly’s wife made a real scandal. She wrote a letter to the British Prime Minister in very harsh tones. She accused him of sending her husband to the Soviet Union and she demanded an apology from the British government. And she got a response. On behalf of the prime minister, signed by his secretary, the response stated that they had not sent anyone anywhere, that Mr. Reilly went to a foreign country voluntarily, and that therefore they were not obliged to render any assistance to his family.

Lenin’s Embarrassment and how Dzerzhinsky Kissed a Lady’s Hand

I was not Dzerzhinsky’s assistant. But I saw him at party meetings and met him many times when entering or exiting the building, because we all entered through the same entrance. Once I rode with him in the elevator – his office was on the third floor, and mine was on the fifth [Earlier Gudz stated that his office was on the third floor]. His demeanor was modest. I greeted him, and, he responded as usual, looking directly into my eyes.

Here’s one situation I remember well. I went up to the third floor where his office was located. And a very dignified-looking lady who was in the elevator with me was also getting off. From her appearance, I could see that she came from abroad. And he went out to meet her by the elevator. He bent over, took her hand, lifted it slightly, and kissed it. Then he accompanied the lady down the hall. She was a representative of the Polish Red Cross, Madame Simpalowska, who, under [Józef] Pilsudski, helped to take care of the Communists arrested in Poland. And we had Yekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova. She oversaw the cases of the Poles arrested in the Soviet Union. She had an official certificate, which gave her the right to visit prisoners at any time and provide them with material assistance, if needed. The principle of reciprocity. And Dzerzhinsky talked to [Simpalowska]: she provided the assistance to the Communists.

I also saw Lenin in person. He spoke at the First All-Russian Congress on Extracurricular Education. This Congress was organized by [Nadezhda] Krupskaya, and, in fact, by my father, who was Nadezhda Konstantinovna’s assistant and consultant on extracurricular affairs. His job was to eliminate illiteracy in Russia. And my father told me the day before the Congress: “Boris, come with me. Vladimir Ilyich will give a speech.” I went to the Unions’ House, took a seat in the 5^th or 6^th row, and waited. Many Congresses took place there. The doors to the foyer, which runs parallel to the hall, were open. To enter the hall, one had to climb the stairs and go further along the foyer, past the doors at the main entrance. One could enter the stage, where the speakers sat, through a small room.

Lunacharsky spoke first. He was a great speaker. Suddenly I could hear the clapping that did not have anything to do with the speech of the People’s Commissar of Education [Lunacharsky]. It turned out that the people in the hall saw that Lenin had come in through the open door. They started to get up and applaud. Lunacharsky widened his eyes and asked: “What’s the matter?” They told him: “Anatoly Vasilyevich, Ilyich has arrived.” Lunacharsky turned around, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin entered from the other side, his cap in hand, and stepped on the stage. I was sitting in the 5^th row and I could see Lenin, who seemed not to understand who the applause was for - Lunacharsky or him. So, he didn’t sit behind the table on the stage, but on the steps. Lunacharsky understood what was going on, quickly went up to Lenin, helped him get up, and invited him on the podium. And Lenin had such an embarrassed expression on his face because he interrupted Lunacharsky’s speech. Then there was more applause, everyone stood up, and Lenin began his speech. Lenin spoke well. But Lunacharsky was a real performer. Lenin’s speech was simple, coming from the heart. He needed no papers to rely on.

Not An Informer on [Varlam] Shalamov

A painful question for me. The writer Varlam Shalamov was convinced and even wrote down that I “reported him to the Chekists.” But how could I have done that? My sister was married to him. And in those days, if your close or even distant relatives got arrested, you were in trouble. Well, would I want my own sister to be arrested? When they arrested Shalamov, Galya [Gudz’s sister] was also arrested and exiled to Chardzhou [Turkmenabad], where she, poor woman, led a miserable life until 1946. And shortly after my brother-in-law’s arrest, I was expelled from the Communist party and expelled from the Cheka [NKVD]. Well, think, would I really want to ruin my own life and that of my siblings? The only truth is that I never had or could have any special affection for Shalamov.

 

The longest living Chekists:

I will note only the best known:

Boris Ignatievich Gudz - 104 years (died in 2006).

Alexey Nikolaevich Botyan - Hero of Russia – 103 years (died in 2020).

Mikhail Isaakovich Mukasey – illegal intelligence officer - 101 years (died in 2008).

Ivan Georgiyevich Starinov – Hitler’s personal enemy - 100 years (died 2000).

 

Gudz’s Advice on How to Live Long

This advice was written down when Gudz was 102.

- I didn’t drink and didn’t smoke. Only a glass of red wine on the New Year’s Eve and on the Day of the Chekist [December 20]. What I ate was simple: oatmeal, rolled oats. I rode my bike until I was 80, and I drove until 90. I’m now over a hundred, but I still go skiing. [Advice] Do not get mad for nothing and destroy your own mental balance by yourself.