French Resident Agents and their Intelligence Activities In North-West Russia during the Civil War

The article covers France’s intelligence activities in the north-west of Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War. Whereas Soviet historians, for ideological and political reasons, used to highlight the 1918–1920 intervention of the western countries against Soviet Russia, they failed to research into the organization of foreign intelligence agencies and their activities against the Bolshevik state due to no access to archival documents both in the USSR and abroad. The article mainly resorts to French military missions’ reports on the Red Army and the situation in Soviet Russia based on French intelligence reports. The author focuses on the network of French intelligence agencies operating against Soviet Russia, the role of military missions within the system, French intelligence residences, their closeness to Soviet leading establishments, the degree of their awareness of the Soviet state’s armed forces and defense capability. Also, the author reveals certain aspects of intelligence activities of Great Britain and Germany carried out in north-west Russia and Finland. It is concluded that during the period of 1918–1920 the French intelligence agencies were active in the north-west of Soviet Russia collecting varied information not only about the Bolsheviks and their armed forces, but also about anti-Bolshevik military and political forces in this area, France’s Entente allies and Germany, its defeated enemy.