Our guest is a person, who put his whole life on the block for the sake of ideals. And being 5 years younger than the Russian Revolution, he remembers almost this whole century.
In Moscow, he was called George Ivanovich. His Russian wife calls him Zhora. But in England, he was George Blake. When he was exposed, he received the maximum sentence in the UK at the time, 42 years. But he managed to escape from prison to Moscow. He is the last known survivor from MI6 British Intelligence, who started working for the KGB, for the for USSR, being inspired by the ideas of communism.
Was he mistaken or not when he believed in socialism? Today we will ask him in person. In this footage taken just days ago, he's at home in near Moscow, with his wife, Ida Mikhailovna. Renegade for the West, an inspiration for the USSR, he's a symbol of the epoch. And also its face.
But today, in order to understand his motives, we'll look not only into his house, but also his time.
And to start, his month and year of birth, November 1922. "Puss in Boots" — the first Disney cartoon. This is what November 1922 is remembered in the West, who wanted bourgeois entertainment.
At the same time in Italy, the fascist, Benito Mussolini receives extraordinary powers. In Germany another transformation of money into a heap of useless papers: 6,156 marks for 1 USD. Such huge inflation. And such protests. And young Hitler showed himself just in the month of Blake's birth in 1922 as a rebel hero, the first published article about him in The New York Times.
Even then, capitalism with such excesses, naturally didn't suit many. They were looking for an alternative. And found the Communist one.
George Blake: "If I didn't believe in it, I would have probably died, but there was a faith that supported me and gave me the opportunity to overcome all the hardships and adversities that I met on my way".
But we started our interview a little early, let's go out into the cold for now.
Moscow region near Kratovo. Blake's house. The dacha was received back in the late 60's, when, after fleeing from prison in London, Blake arrived in Moscow as an official employee of Soviet intelligence, the PGU KGB. Now it's the SVR.
With its director, who invited us here, we met on the way.
- He's an acting employee?
Sergei Naryshkin: There are no ex-spies.
- I see.
We see one interesting detail on the plot, but later about that. And now finally inside, a very modestly furnished house.
Sergei Naryshkin, Director of SVR:
"George Ivanovich, I know that you are a modest person, and Ida Mikhailovna is modest, I know that you almost always refuse all of our proposals on how to help you, but nevertheless, I beg you, don't refuse our help, it's in our rules..."
George Blake: "I want you to understand that I constantly feel the help and the closeness of my comrades from the foreign intelligence and I know that they will do everything to help and ease my difficulties".
Sergei Naryshkin: Don't be shy.
Yes, back then in Europe only the good old England was the island of calmness. And in honor of the then English King, George V, he looks similar to Nicholai II, they're cousins, in the family of a respectable British citizen on that November a newborn was named in honor of the King, our guest.
- George Ivanovich, do you recognize today's world?
George Blake: "Yes, of course, on the one hand, but on the other no".
It's difficult to understand, of course, because what seemed like a model to follow has also changed.
At the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow in the same November 1922, preparations were underway for the congress, which next month will proclaim the creation of the USSR in much of the former Russian Empire.
And already in November in Soviet Russia 4th Congress of the Comintern was held. And there they discussed how to spread the alternative to capitalism, socialism, to the whole world.
And the unrestrained fox-trot of entertainment in the West soon, completely according to Marx, gave way to sad lines of hungry unemployed: the Great Depression spread from the US to the whole world of capital. The greatest crisis-paralysis of capitalism, against which a country aimed at communism, the country of Soviets, showed unrestrained rates of industrial development.
It's known what went on in the background. But then it might have appeared like an alternative. As we know today, it did not work. Why?
"Because people, here and in the West, were not yet ready for the doctrine that demands so much from the person himself, and this chasm between people as they are in reality and the ideal person that is needed for the success of socialism will not be conquered soon", — says Blake.
But this is a familiar thought: the teaching is correct, it's the people who are failing. And is it true that the owner of many icons, the Communist George Blake, sounds like a pastor? He was going to become one.
But he, George Blake, found another calling. And he went to change his oath. The most famous visible consequence of his work for the USSR is a tunnel from West Berlin to the East, along which US and British intelligence got to the wires of Soviet military communications. Moscow was informed about this by Blake, a member of the Berlin MI6, but in reality an employee of the Soviet intelligence. As a result, for many months, the Soviet military was transmitting misinformation through these cables.
What kinds of communication does Blake have today himself? Before you go into his house, we notice an unusually large satellite dish. It turns out that with its help Blake watches foreign TV channels not usually unavailable. And in what languages?
- What do you consider to be your native language?
George Blake: "I think it's Dutch".
If you forgot or didn't know, Blake supplied the KGB with MI6 British intelligence secrets. But he was accepted first to the British Royal Navy and then to MI6 as the son of a British citizen who fled from Holland, occupied by the Germans. It is the country of tulips, windmills, and wooden shoes that he considers his homeland.
- Do you miss Holland?
George Blake: "Yes, I miss Holland, but I'm so used to life here that I don't suffer too much".
In his living room there are many landscapes of the Netherlands. When in London he's accused of treason, he replies: in order to betray, one must belong. And Blake, joining MI6 and signing a non-disclosure, as he says himself, he didn't belong to England.
And also, in truly Dutch houses, there are almost never any curtains. Blake has them, but a shortened English style.
- Do you miss England?
George Blake: "Yes, because a very important and dangerous part of my life was in England".
One of the most dangerous episodes was the escape in 1966 from this prison, where he ended up, because of the betrayal of a high-ranking Polish intelligence officer.
We'll return here, but for now a question: How did he come to not only take up the ideas of socialism, but also to go over to the USSR?
June 2, 1953 a new queen, Elizabeth II ascended to the English throne. A month and a half before, on April 22, 1953, a group of her guests arrived in Oxfordshire, at the Abingdon airbase. George Blake also came.
This is what he looked like back then. An employee of MI6, working under the guise of the British Vice-Consul in Seoul, where he was captured by North Korea.
Of course, we don't know everything, but he tells us from time to time that he crossed over to the side of socialism and the USSR when, being in captivity, he saw that even the most miserable Korean villages were pummeled by the "flying fortresses," the aircraft of such a seemingly most advanced capitalist power like the US.
As Blake confessed in a previous interview, he gave out hundreds of names of agents from the socialist camp, recruited by Washington and London.
Let's look at London. George Blake was in Wormwood Scrubs prison. Those who put him there, considered him a traitor. And those who freed him?
This is an interesting story. It was not the KGB employees, nor the British Communists who freed him. One was a freedom-loving Irishman, the other two were activists for nuclear disarmament. As far as we know, Sean Burke, Pat Pottle, and Michael Randle, who organized Blake's escape, weren't even pro-Soviet. They were humanists. They were outraged by Blake's record for then England's sentence, 42 years.
- Is there enough humanism now? The world has changed so much during your lifetime. Look only at your biography. You were going to be a priest, became a spy, got into an English prison, moved to live in the Soviet Union. If you look at these 95 years in world history, did the world become better or worse?
George Blake: "The world, has probably become worse".
- Yes?
George Blake: Yes. It's harder. It's more dangerous.
Sergei Naryshkin: I would add to what George Ivanovich said: the world has become harsher, more dynamic. And now, in view of its dynamics, it became more interesting to live.
The paradox: much of what is now perceived in the West and in the East as reliable and as a matter of course is the fruit of the confrontation between socialism and capitalism. For example, if it were not for the USSR threatening the West, it would be unlikely that women's equality would come so quickly to the West, to equality for ethnic minorities, to guaranteed holidays and a normalized working week.
We address Sergey Naryshkin also as the chairman of the Russian Historical Society.
Sergei Naryshkin, Director of SVR: "Part of the ideas, which were influenced by the events of a 100 years ago, the world civilization still took advantage of them. The revolution of 1917 gave the world a lot, especially in the social sphere".
- Can I ask you a difficult question: You began working for the Soviet intelligence for ideological reasons. But Russia is no longer a socialist country. And who or what are you loyal to? Why did you stay here?
George Blake: "Because I very much hope that this is only a stage on the long journey to real socialism and that I have became only by a fate's will a part of this stage. And for me it's still far from the end. Maybe this is the end of my life. But I mean the end of the path, which humanity must go over to achieve this ideal place, when it will be suitable for the creation of a socialist society".
- If you had the opportunity to live your life over again, would you change anything?
George Blake: "I think yes. I can say this without hesitation".
- Would you live the same way? Yes, I would like to go through it again.
- And the German occupation?
George Blake: "Yes".
- And the dangers that haunted you?
George Blake: "Everything that was".
From London and Moscow Region — Saturday News, Vesti.
