In the summer of 1925, just two years after the IRA\u2019s defeat in the Civil War, the organisation sent a delegation to Moscow to solicit finance and weaponry from the Soviet Union. According to Tim Pat Coogan, the Russians asked their guests, \u2018How many bishops did you hang?\u2019, and when the answer was none, they replied, \u2018Ah, you people are not serious at all\u2019.
\nThe group was led by the well-known Cork gunman P.A. Murray, who met privately with Joseph Stalin. Though Stalin expressed reservations about the IRA\u2019s determination and competence, soon afterwards both parties made a secret agreement: the IRA would spy for the Soviets in Britain and America, as well as support their strategic goals, and in return receive a monthly payment of \u00a3500.
\nSoon after approving the pact, Frank Aiken (a loyal lieutenant to Eamon de Valera) was ousted as chief-of-staff and replaced by Andy Cooney, who in turn handed over command to Moss Twomey. For the next few years Twomey, in collaboration with his close associate Cooney, oversaw the IRA\u2019s relationship with the Soviet Union. This remained one of the organisation\u2019s most closely guarded secrets, and reference to it was rarely made in writing, except in secret code, and even then often in a very cryptic manner.
\nThe IRA was in contact with Red Army intelligence officers in London and New York, and it was in the former that the monthly stipend was handed over. The IRA\u2019s senior officer in London passed along military intelligence, including specifications of British submarine detection sonar and aeroplane engines for bombers, military journals and manuals, and gas masks. In addition he arranged false passports for Soviet agents and even for a communist operative to travel to Romania in the guise of an Irish woollens salesman! It was in New York, however, that the Soviets got the most valuable information, from an IRA agent code-named \u2018Mr Jones\u2019. Jones\u2019s sources likely included serving members of the US military, as he was able to provide reports of the army\u2019s chemical weapons service, state-of-the-art gas masks, machine-gun and aeroplane engine specifications, and reports from the navy, air service and army. In Jones\u2019s estimation, Soviet intelligence in the US would have been \u2018helpless\u2019 without the information he supplied.
\nAt this time the Russians feared a British-supported invasion of the Soviet Union and they asked Jones to plan for the sinking of British merchant ships sailing from New York to England in the event of war. Jones reported to Moss Twomey in Dublin that \u2018under the excitement of war conditions we could get almost all our men to do anything, but could not give any guarantee that we could avoid casualties in killed and captures [sic]\u2019. In Twomey\u2019s opinion, \u2018destruction may be feasible, if it could be done secretly and without capture of our agents\u2019.
\nJones threw himself selflessly into his work:<\/p>\n
\u2018My job is getting very hard . . . wine and women. I am onto the right people now and can produce material of a high order, but I have to bring good whiskey along and stay up all night drinking with whores and the people who give me the stuff . . . I may not last long at this pace.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One of the more bizarre consequences of the agreement was the IRA\u2019s attempts to support Soviet interests in China. The Russians were heavily committed to Chiang Kai-shek, who was allied with the Chinese communists and engaged in a struggle with the warlords, who in turn were supported by Japan and Britain. The IRA army council resolved that \u2018the principle of [IRA] volunteers going to China was approved, provided conditions of service [and] cost of travel were satisfactory\u2019. Meanwhile, the Scottish IRA battalion claimed that it had sent 200 bombs to China, and Twomey ordered the IRA unit in Liverpool to destroy arms ships sailing from there with munitions for the warlords.
\nThough the Soviets had little intention of supplying weaponry to the IRA, individual Red Army intelligence officers continued to hint that they could be provided. Jones reported that his contact promised \u2018to give us all the material we needed\u2019. Additionally, the Russian officer passed along to Jones information on mustard gas.
\nBoth the Russians and the IRA had different reasons for consummating the relationship. Moss Twomey saw the agreement as a way of getting money and possibly weapons. Although there were a number of influential Marxists among the IRA leadership (most notably Peadar O\u2019Donnell), Twomey\u2019s interest was utilitarian rather than ideological. The Russians for their part wanted information on British and American weapons technology and hoped that the IRA would help promote pro-Soviet policies in Ireland and abroad. They avoided arming the IRA lest the weapons be captured and traced back, as they both feared Britain and needed to keep it as a trading partner. Moss Twomey wrote of the Russians: \u2018these people are so shifty . . . they are out to exploit us . . . Except for our urgent need of cash, I would not be so keen on this [agreement]\u2019. Frank Aiken referred to the Soviets as \u2018hopeless bunglers\u2019.
\nIn November 1926 the Russians abruptly decreased the monthly payment to \u00a3100, having complained about the quality of work the IRA were doing for them in London, but also blaming the financial crisis in their own country. Considering that it took \u00a3400 a month to run the IRA, this was a major catastrophe. With Moss Twomey imprisoned in Mountjoy, Andy Cooney rushed to London to meet with the Soviet intelligence officer there, but to no avail. In the coming months the IRA had to let go most of its full-time officers, while many of those who remained at GHQ were unpaid. In order to put pressure on the Russians, \u2018Jones\u2019 was ordered to hold back on the intelligence he supplied in New York. Eventually in May 1927 the Russians handed over \u00a31,000.<\/p>\nIn November 1927 an IRA army convention pledged military support for the Soviet Union in the event of an Anglo-Soviet war, and in 1930 a senior IRA officer, Se\u00e1n MacBride, reported the possibility of \u2018substantial\u2019 aid from Moscow as well as the opportunity for IRA officers to receive military training there. Around this time, however, the Soviets backed away. The Soviets were happy to have the IRA spy for them, but were very wary of being drawn into the organisation\u2019s \u2018terrorist\u2019 plans. Or, as a Soviet agent in Holland, Ignace Poretsky, complained, the IRA \u2018were convinced that their own problems were the world\u2019s most important\u2019. The IRA\u2019s lack of both subservience and ideological correctness made them unsuitable partners for the Soviet Union and it was time for Moscow to move on. And so ended one of the IRA\u2019s best-kept secrets.
\nNeither the British secret service nor the FBI appears to have been fully cognisant of the IRA\u2019s clandestine relationship with the Soviet Union, though it presented a potentially significant security threat to both Britain and the United States. In 1940 the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, confidently reported: \u2018The bureau has not been greatly concerned in the past with the activities of the Irish Republican Army\u2019. HI<\/p>\nTom Mahon is a consultant radiologist based in Honolulu and Galway.<\/i><\/p>\n
Fuentes<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n
The secret IRA\u2013Soviet agreement, 1925<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n