Robert Bruce Lockhart (1887-1970) — the most colourful character among the writers — was born in Scotland, spent three years as a rubber planter in Malaya and was forced to leave the country after a scandalous affair with the daughter of a Malay prince. He recorded: “I arrived in Moscow early in January 1912, as a young Vice-Consul of 24 and, apart from two short visits to the United Kingdom in January 1913 and in the autumn of 1917 [when he was recalled to London and briefed King George V], I remained in Russia until October 1918.” In January 1918 he returned as a secret agent and first British envoy to the Bolsheviks, and became the lover of the flamboyant Moura Budberg. The widow of a murdered Tsarist diplomat, she was a heavy-drinking double-agent for Russia and Britain. Later on, she became the mistress of Maxim Gorky and H. G. Wells.

The tough and daring Lockhart disingenuously noted that he was cursed with an ultra-sensitive nature that was responsible for his mistaken “reputation of calculated insolence”. But he gained considerable popularity by playing soccer for the British team in Moscow. Lockhart praised his own expertise in Russia by stating that “I had excellent sources of information . . . I had friendly relations not only with the leading lights of the Moscow intelligentsia, but also with the big industrialists. I knew intimately the editors of the Moscow newspapers, and I had immediate access to the Prefect of Moscow.” Moura Budberg confirmed his egoistic claims and thought he was perfect for his job: “Lockhart was intelligent, he spoke Russian, he was observant, he knew how to cultivate contacts, he had wit and vigour and a great many friends everywhere.” The French ambassador to Russia agreed that Lockhart “at once intelligent, energetic and clever, was one of those whom the English government employs, with rare felicity, for confidential missions, and whom it reserves, should the occasion arise, for disavowal.” Lockhart would soon provide excellent reasons for official disavowal.

In June 1915 Lockhart saw the first signs of the mob’s rampage against the enemy that would soon be directed against the government: “Every shop, every factory, every private house, owned by a German or bearing a German name, was sacked and looted . . . I went out into the streets to see the rioting with my own eyes.” In September, when the incompetent Tsar mistakenly assumed command of the army, Lockhart wrote that Nicholas “became personally responsible in the eyes of the people for the long succession of defeats” and intensified their desire to abandon the war. He accurately predicted the revolution in March 1917, and recorded that with no armed defenders of the old regime there was, strangely enough, no bloodshed in Moscow. He also gave a lucid account of the main causes of the revolution: “It took place because the patience of the Russian people broke down under a system of unparalleled inefficiency and corruption . . . the disgraceful mishandling of food-supplies, the complete break-down of transport, and the senseless mobilisation of millions of unwanted and unemployable troops . . . the shameless profiteering of nearly everyone engaged in the giving and taking of war contracts.”

Opposing the official view, Lockhart thought the only way to save Russia from the Bolsheviks was to allow them to make peace. He wrote that Kerensky’s “face has a sallow and almost deathly pallor. His eyes, narrow and Mongolian, are tired. He looks as if he were in pain, but the mouth is firm, and the hair, cropped close and worn en brosse, gives a general impression of energy.” But Kerensky — not energetic enough and out of touch with the Russian masses — was overthrown because he would not make peace and, unlike Lenin, would not shoot his political opponents.