Modern espionage was structured in the 20th century around men in the shadows with troubled motivations, often more interested in power than by the ideal. On the border of intelligence, manipulation and crime, Sidney Reilly left a lasting footprint in the history of the secret services. British agent in the blurred past, he served several powers, organized political conspiracies and his name. Secret, ended up re -emerging, associated with the famous character of James Bond, of which he would have been inspiration.
However, reality goes far beyond fiction. Reilly was not a hero, but a man whose choices influenced the geopolitical balances in the middle of the world war and Russian revolution. Understand who it is to shed light on the origins of modern intelligence and the weight of individuals in the gray areas of history.
An identity built in the blur
From his first traces in the archives, Sidney Reilly escapes any certainty. The versions differ in his place and date of birth. Some documents situate it in Odessa, others in Kherson, two cities in the Russian Empire. The year varied between 1873 and 1874. He was born Shlomo-or Sigmund-Rosenblum, a doctor father, perhaps even a family cousin. Historian Benny Morris argues that it was an illegitimate child, hidden in a Tsarist society marked by anti -Semitic discrimination. This troubled origin would have encouraged a erasure and reinvention strategy very early in Reilly.
He will later claim to be Irish, born in Clonmel, without ever producing convincing evidence. This false nationality will nevertheless allow him to access circles reserved for British subjects and to facilitate his integration into the secret services. Reilly has continued to manipulate his biography, creating several versions of himself, adapted to his interlocutors of the moment. He would even have claimed to be linked to two emblematic figures: the Vilna Gaon, a great Jewish scholar of the 18th century, and Léon Trotski, a Bolshevic revolutionary. None of these statements have been verified.
© © Hulton Archive/Getty Images
© Hulton Archive/Getty Images
His studies of chemistry in Vienna between 1890 and 1893 were one of the rare documented facts. He then mysteriously disappeared to reappear in Brazil. There, it rubs shoulders with British officers on mission in the Amazon and is recommended to intelligence services. From then on, the man fades behind the character. Reilly becomes a myth under construction, shaped at will according to his interests.
A spy with a thousand faces
The trajectory of Sidney Reilly, between duplicity and improvisation, goes beyond the classic patterns of espionage. From his beginnings, he infiltrated the networks of Russian exiles for Scotland Yard, while serving Okhrana, the Secret Tsar police. These contradictory affiliations bear witness to a more loyal man to his interests than a flag. In London, he set up a questionable business of “Tibetan remedies”, perfect coverage for his clandestine activities.
Its efficiency in the field impresses. Disguised as a priest in 1905, he influenced a key industrialist, William Knox in Arcy, to transfer oil concessions to the British crown, bypassing French maneuvers. In Russia, in Saint Petersburg, he gained the plans of the German fleet, which he transmits to the MI6. In the midst of war, he acts from New York, merchanting the purchase of weapons for Russia and preventing German sabotage against Allied factories.
But Reilly is not content to spy. He manipulates, seduces and kills. Polyglot, a worldly end, it seduces women as much as its political interlocutors. His marriage to the widow of Hugh Thomas, whom he would have murdered himself, illustrates the level of cynicism he reaches. To hide this crime, he would have taken on the role of the doctor and signed the death certificate.
Reilly is much more than a secret agent: it is a social predator, comfortable in palaces as in the shallows, using each face to better deceive.
The plot against Lenin: peak and fall
In May 1918, when Bolshevik Russia was still politically unstable, Sidney Reilly tried the most daring operation in his career: overthrowing the Lenin regime. Mandated unofficially by the British services, he infiltrated Moscow by presenting himself as a potential ally of the new authorities. In reality, he coordinates a conspiracy alongside the left -wing revolutionary socialists. The objective? Organize the simultaneous arrest of Lenin and Trotsky during the Panrusse des Soviets Congress, which is held at the Bolchoi Theater.
The blow had to rely on the participation of the Latvian guards, supposed to return their jacket at the last moment. But the plan collapses suddenly after the failed attack against Lenin by Fanny Kaplan on August 30. This event triggers the “red terror” and allows the Cheka, the political police, to repress without limits. The conspiracy is partially dismantled. Reilly, warned in time, narrowly escapes the arrest when leaving Moscow hurry. Back in London, he was tried in absentia by the Soviet authorities and sentenced to death.
But Reilly remains obsessed with the fall of the Bolsheviks. In 1925, he tried to return to the USSR, seduced by a false organization of opponents, the trust, mounted from scratch by the OGPU. The British services had however warned him of the trap. Arrested as soon as he arrived, he was questioned for a long time. According to the testimony of Boris Gudz, participating in the operation, Reilly is shot in the woods of Sokolniki, on the personal order of Stalin. His death definitively closes the chapter of the legendary spy.
The James Bond myth: Truth or manufacturing?
The posterity of Sidney Reilly is not only due to his secret operations, but to the image he helped to build – then that others consolidated after his death. In the 1930s, his widow, Pepita Reilly, in collaboration with diplomat Bruce Lockhart, central actor of the plot aborted against Lenin in 1918, orchestra a large company of romantic legitimation. Reilly's accounts are published in the form of soap operas in the British press, presented as the memories of a “spy”. Many episodes are embellished, even invented, but the effect is immediate. Reilly becomes a cult figure of British intelligence, the “Ace of Spies”.
This aura directly influences Ian Fleming, future creator of James Bond. Employed by British naval intelligence during the Second World War, Fleming knew the history of Reilly, its links with operations in Russia and its extraordinary behavior. He is inspired by it to shape the character of 007: a polyglot man, luxury lover, inveterate seducer, follower of bluff and gadgets. Reilly's taste for multiple identities and high -risk missions fuels the imagination of Fleming, just like its ambiguous links with power.
But the resemblance remains superficial. James Bond, although morally ambivalent, acts with a sense of clear duty. Reilly did not hesitate to manipulate her employers, betray for his profit or commit crimes. He was a free agent, without real loyalty. For the secret services, it was both an asset and a danger, a brilliant, but uncontrollable spy. Behind the fictitious hero, therefore hid a much more troubled figure, whose charisma concealed a total absence of scruples.
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