In my last, lengthy post discussing the Russian IED Godfather Ilya Starinov and his efforts to encourage sabotage and partisan operations (using IEDs) behind enemy lines, I touched on the resistance to such activity that was prevalent in parts of the Russian government. Stalin’s purges really started in about 1933/1934. It was the NKVD that drove the purging activity and Starinov observed them destroy his partisan strategies, and arrest and liquidate those partisans whom he had trained to make and deploy explosive devices. At the same time, Starinov felt that production of manufactured explosive devices was prevented by the NKVD, because the availability of a stockpile of sabotage devices might, in the eyes of the NKVD, enable counter-revolutionary warfare against the Soviet Union, and so he emphasised improvised explosive making as a result, before the NKVD prevented even his training activity and associated sabotage schools out of a fear of the capability it might provide to people intent on overthrowing the now established government of Stalin. Starinov thought such precautions were ridiculous and attempted to work around them. And that generally makes sense.
But. But… What if the NKVD’s concerns had a real grounding? What if there was evidence that those trained to conduct partisan operations against an enemy really could be a threat to their own nation? What if the NKVD had bought onto that concept, that mechanism, to create a capability, what evidence is there to indicate that? I think I have found some.
In 1938/1939 a British SIS (MI6) officer made a convincing suggestion that Britain needed a sabotage training school. It would address how British sponsored partisans would work behind enemy lines, gather intelligence and use explosive devices to disrupt the economy and the warfighting of the enemy nation they operated in. The concept is/was remarkably similar to Starinov’s. I think that might not be a coincidence. The school was established soon after and the SIS officer who suggested the requirement became its Second in Command and a syllabus was developed by another SIS officer acting as Chief Instructor. Training began in 1939. Amusingly the officer who had the idea wanted to call the facility “The Guy Fawkes School”, but this was turned down and the place was called “D School”
So that’s all fine, I hear you thinking, big deal, what’s the connection between this British Sabotage School and Russia, and using the capability of a school against the nation for which it as purported to support?
Well you see… the MI6 officer who suggested the school and became its 2IC was a man called Burgess. The Chief Instructor was called Phiby.
Guy Burgess and Kim Philby were both double agents of the NKVD. So Britain’s sabotage school was doing in the UK exactly what the NKVD was worried about in Russia. The Sabotage School was completely within their very direct and nefarious interest. No wonder they were nervous about Starinov’s training facilities.
Guy Fawkes indeed.
Two Guys – Burgess and Fawkes
