32. The Bolsheviks Get Their Revenge
Sidney Reilly’s efforts to topple the Bolsheviks had failed, but Britain’s MI6 appreciated the effort, and got him a Military Medal. However, the failure gnawed at Reilly, whose time in Red Russia had turned him into an implacable anti-Bolshevik, and he begged for an opportunity to have another go at the Soviets. His bosses declined, so Reilly decided to wage his own anti-Bolshevik campaign.
Unfortunately for Reilly, he had found his match in the Reds, whose deviousness was equal to his own. Soviet intelligence created an anti-Bolshevik organization known as the Trust, which was actually run by their own secret police, the Cheka. Trust members met Reilly, and lured him to Russia, under the pretext of meeting its anti-Bolshevik leaders. Upon crossing the border in 1925, Reilly was arrested and taken to Moscow’s dreaded Lubyanka prison for interrogation and torture, before he was eventually executed.