Foreign Office restricted MI5 action against Soviet spies to "barest minimum"
By Constance Bell ·
Diplomatic courtesy shielded Moscow's agents in Britain during the Second World War while security officers were forced to watch from the sidelines.
Soviet agents moved through the British capital with a degree of impunity that endangered the very state they ostensibly helped defend. Security officers were ordered to watch these intruders, unable to act, while Moscow harvested the secrets of the West.
These are the conditions recorded in the archives of the Security Service. The file's catalogue entry for record KV 4/228 describes a four-page report on the operations of F2C, the MI5 section tasked with the coverage of Soviet intelligence activities in Britain during the Second World War. The report does not describe a victory over enemy espionage, but rather a systemic paralysis.
"Barest Minimum"
The report identifies a fundamental conflict between the needs of national security and the requirements of wartime diplomacy. According to the archival description, the central point of the document is that the USSR's status as an ally compelled the Foreign Office to impose "rigid rules" on MI5. These rules did not merely guide the investigation of Soviet agents; they restricted action against Soviet Intelligence to the "barest minimum."
In the world of counterintelligence, the "barest minimum" is an invitation to the enemy. While F2C was tasked with "coverage," the actual ability to disrupt or neutralize Soviet operations was curtailed by diplomats who feared that a public clash with Moscow might jeopardize the alliance. This prioritisation of the diplomatic facade over the security of the state left the door open for agents to operate with a level of protection rarely afforded to other foreign intelligence services.
The catalogue entry notes that the report briefly touches on the Glading and Oliver Green cases, as well as the activities of the Soviet defector Krivitsky. These names represent the fragmented reality of a security service that could identify the threat but was often forbidden from excise it.
Far Eastern Fur Trading Co. Ltd.
The scale of the deception the Foreign Office helped shield is evident in the related files. The Soviet intelligence apparatus did not rely on lone wolves but on institutionalized cover. Record KV 2/1655 describes the "Far Eastern Fur Trading Co. Ltd.," a company identified by the defector Krivitsky as a cover established by Russian military intelligence in Berlin in 1922.
The company provided "notional employment" for agents, a classic tradecraft maneuver that allowed spies to maintain a legitimate public profile while conducting clandestine work. When the Foreign Office limits MI5 to the "barest minimum" of action, it effectively grants a diplomatic shield to these kinds of front organizations. The archival records indicate that the Security Service held information on several individuals associated with this fur trading company, yet the overarching policy of the era remained one of restraint.
Ottawa and France
The British experience was not an isolated failure of nerve, but part of a wider Soviet strategy of penetration that utilized diplomatic postings as shields. Record KV 2/1650 identifies Sergei Koudriavtsev, a military intelligence officer who served as First Secretary in the Russian Embassy in Ottawa from 1942 to 1944. Koudriavtsev was eventually implicated in a spy-ring whose existence was only brought to light by the defector Gouzenko.
Similarly, record KV 2/2565 details the movements of Georgiy Kislov, a man of many names—Sirenev, Vorobiev, Afanasiev. According to the description, Kislov was identified by the defector Orlov as the head of the Russian intelligence presence in France in the late 1930s, with previous assignments in Moscow, Persia, and China.
These records illustrate a professional, globalized intelligence machine. While men like Kislov and Koudriavtsev moved across borders and titles to build networks of influence and theft, the officers of F2C in London were bound by the "rigid rules" of their own government. The tension is clear: the intelligence services saw a predator, but the diplomats saw a partner.
This conflict of interest suggests that the Foreign Office viewed the Soviet Union through a lens of necessary convenience, ignoring the fact that Moscow's alliance was one of convenience as well. By restricting MI5, the British government essentially subsidized the Soviet intelligence effort during the war, trading long-term security for short-term diplomatic stability.
The files do not provide the full text of the "rigid rules" that handcuffed F2C, nor do they explain why the Foreign Office believed such a risk was acceptable. They do, however, record the administrative response to the leakage. Record KV 4/334 details the established procedure for bringing "alien defectors from Russian Intelligence Services, Russian Official Missions and deserters from the Russian Forces" into the UK. The state had a process for those who chose to leave the Soviet machine, but for those who stayed and operated within Britain, the rules remained strictly limited.