Why then did Stalin ignore the information he was receiving from Sorge and other agents working for the Soviets? Sorge was a member of a group of Soviet agents that became known as the "Great Illegals" who agreed with Leon Trotsky on the subject of world revolution. This is why they were willing to work undercover in the countries hostile to the Soviet Union in an effort to ferment revolution. This group included Arnold Deutsch, Walter Krivitsky, Theodore Maly, Ignace Reiss, Leopard Trepper, Alexander Orlov, Artur Artuzov, Yan Berzin, Boris Vinogradov, Peter Gutzeit, Boris Bazarov, Dmitri Bystrolyotov and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko. By the summer of 1937, Stalin became convinced that these agents were conspiring against him and over forty of them serving abroad were summoned back to the Soviet Union. Deutsch, Maly, Berzin, Artuzov, Vinogradov, Gutzeit, Bazarov and Antonov-Ovseenko were all executed. Reiss and Krivitsky refused to return and were murdered abroad. (4)

As Peter Wright, the author of Spycatcher (1987), who worked for British intelligence, pointed out: "They were Trotskyist Communists who believed in international Communism and the Comintern. They worked undercover, often at great personal risk, and traveled throughout the world in search of potential recruits. They were the best recruiters and controllers the Russian Intelligence Service ever had. They all knew each other, and between them they recruited and built high-grade spy rings like the Cambridge Five in Britain, Sorge's rings in China and Japan, the Rote Drei in Switzerland and the Rote Kapelle in German-occupied Europe - the finest espionage rings history has ever known, and which contributed enormously to Russian survival and success in World War II." (5)

Although it is clear that Joseph Stalin never trusted Richard Sorge and considered him a Trotskyist, he was persuaded by senior members of the NKVD that he was such a valuable agent he should be allowed to stay in place. (6) Leopold Trepper has argued: "They realized... that Sorge could not be replaced, and in the end, they left him in Tokyo. From then on Sorge was suspected at the Center of being a double agent and - crime of crimes - a Trotskyite. His dispatches would go for weeks without being decoded." (7)

In November 1929, Richard Sorge was instructed by the the Government Political Administration (GPU) to join the Nazi Party and to break off contact with his left-wing friends. Elsa Poretsky, the wife of Ignace Reiss, a fellow agent in the GPU, commented: "His joining the Nazi Party in his own country, where he had a well documented police record was hazardous, to say the least... his staying in the very lion's den in Berlin, while his application for membership was being processed, was indeed flirting with death. Such actions were typical of... his superb self-assurance." (8)

It seems Sorge convinced people that he was indeed a fascist. A Japanese journalist claimed he was a "typical, swashbuckling, arrogant Nazi... quick-tempered, hard-drinking". As fellow agent, Hede Massing, pointed out: "He (Sorge) read voluminously any and all things he could find, to be prepared for discussion of the Nazi doctrine. He had familiarized himself with the phrases and sentiments. He had practically memorized Hitler's Mein Kampf." (9)

To help develop a cover for his spying activities Richard Sorge obtained a post working for the newspaper, Getreide Zeitung. In 1930 Sorge moved to China and made contact with another spy, Max Klausen. Sorge also met Agnes Smedley, the well-known left-wing journalist. She introduced Sorge to Ozaki Hotsumi, who was employed by the Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun. Later Hotsumi agreed to join Sorge's spy network. (10)

In 1933, Artur Artuzov, the head of GPU decided to get Richard Sorge to organize a spy network in Japan. He was asked to visit Moscow and was given his instructions by Yan Berzin: "We want you to take up residence in Japan. Rapprochement between Germany and Japan is coming; in Tokyo, you will learn a great deal about military preparations... Our objective is for you to create a group in Japan determined to fight for peace. Your work will be to recruit important Japanese, and you will do everything in your power to see that their country is not dragged into the war against the Soviet Union." (11)

Sorge returned to Nazi Germany where he was able to get commissions from two newspapers, the Börsen Zeitung and the Tägliche Rundschau. He also got support from the Nazi theoretical journal, Geopolitik. Later he was employed by the Frankfurter Zeitung. Sorge arrived in Japan in September 1933. He was warned by his spymaster not to have contact with the underground Japanese Communist Party or with the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo. His spy network in Japan include Max Klausen, Ozaki Hotsumi, and two other Comintern agents, Branko Vukelic, a journalist working for the French magazine, Vu, and a Japanese journalist, Yotoku Miyagi, who was employed by an English-language newspaper. (12)

It has been argued by Oliver Bullough that "Sorge was part of a generation of committed communists who took lunatic risks to help Stalin understand the threat from the Axis powers. They were rewarded by being belittled, ridiculed and smeared... This highlights the contrast between the lofty professed ideals of the Soviet Union and its squalid reality, along with the sad fates of those people unwise enough to trust the communist state with their lives. Stalin didn’t deserve Sorge, and these poor women deserved far better than Sorge too." (13)

Sorge was successful at appearing to be a passionate supporter of the Nazi Party. This helped him develop good relations with several important figures working at the German Embassy in Tokyo. This included Eugen Ott and the German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen. This enabled him to find out information about Germany's intentions towards the Soviet Union. Other spies in the network had access to senior politicians in Japan including prime minister Fumimaro Konoye and they were able to obtain secret details of Japan's foreign policy. (14)

Sorge always maintained that his job as a writer for newspapers and magazines helped him enormously in his quest for intelligence. "A shrewd spy will not spend all his time on the collection of military and political secrets and classified documents. Also, I may add, reliable information cannot be procured by effort alone; espionage work entails the accumulation of information, often fragmentary, covering a broad field, and the drawing of conclusions based thereon. This means that a spy in Japan, for example, must study Japanese history and the racial characteristics of the people and orient himself thoroughly on Japan's politics, society, economics and culture." (15)

In 1938 Eugen Ott replaced Herbert von Dirksen as ambassador. Ott, by now aware that Sorge was sleeping with his wife, let his friend Sorge have "free run of the embassy night and day" as one German diplomat later recalled. As the New York Times pointed out: "Sorge won the confidence of the German military attaché, Eugen Ott, who upon assuming the ambassadorship in 1938 made Sorge press attaché and informal adviser. The head of the Gestapo's intelligence network in the Far East also maintained a close relationship with Sorge, who was regarded as a devoted Nazi." (16)

Each morning Sorge would regale Ambassador Ott with gossip and information about Japanese affairs and in return the latter would tell him all manner of things about his own relations with the Japanese. Sorge warned Moscow that Germany was turning from her traditional friendship towards China in favour of an alliance with Japan. This posed a danger to the Soviet Union on two fronts, the east and the west. Sorge warned that Japan would attack wherever the great powers were weakest and the Soviet Union needed to build up her defences in the east. Sorge also forecast that sooner or later Japan would strike a blow against the British Empire. "Singapore," reported Sorge, "is a symbol of British unpreparedness. It is not a citadel, but an open invitation to an adventurous invader and can be taken with comparatively small casualties in less than three days." (17)

In 1939 Leopold Trepper, an agent for the NKVD, established the Red Orchestra network and organised underground operations in several countries. Richard Sorge was one of its key agents. Others in the group included Ursula Beurton, Harro Schulze-Boysen, Libertas Schulze-Boysen, Arvid Harnack, Mildred Harnack, Sandor Rado, Adam Kuckhoff and Greta Kuckhoff. Arvid Harnack, who worked in the Ministry of Economics, had access to information about Hitler's war plans, and became an important spy. Harnack had a close relationship with Donald Heath, the First Secretary at the US Embassy in Berlin. (18) According to Viktor Mayevsky, in the spring of 1939, Sorge told Moscow that Germany would invade Poland on 1st September, 1939. (19)

On 18th December, 1940, Adolf Hitler signed Directive Number 21, better known as Operation Barbarossa. It included the following: "The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign even before the conclusion of the war against England. For this purpose the Army will have to employ all available units, with the reservation that the occupied territories must be secured against surprises. For the Luftwaffe it will be a matter of releasing such strong forces for the eastern campaign in support of the Army that a quick completion of the ground operations can be counted on and that damage to eastern German territory by enemy air attacks will be as slight as possible. This concentration of the main effort in the East is limited by the requirement that the entire combat and armament area dominated by us must remain adequately protected against enemy air attacks and that the offensive operations against England, particularly against her supply lines, must not be permitted to break down. The main effort of the Navy will remain unequivocally directed against England even during an eastern campaign. I shall order the concentration against Soviet Russia possibly 8 weeks before the intended beginning of operations. Preparations requiring more time to get under way are to be started now - if this has not yet been done - and are to be completed by May 15, 1941." (20)

Within days Richard Sorge had sent a copy of this directive to the NKVD headquarters. Over the next few weeks the NKVD received updates on German preparations. At the beginning of 1941, Harro Schulze-Boysen, sent the NKVD precise information on the operation being planned, including bombing targets and the number of troops involved. In early May, 1941, Leopold Trepper gave the revised date of 21st June for the start of the Operation Barbarossa. On 12th May, Sorge warned Moscow that 150 German divisions were massed along the frontier. Three days later Sorge and Schulze-Boysen confirmed that 21st June would be the date of the invasion of the Soviet Union. (21)

In early June, 1941, Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg, the German ambassador, held a meeting in Moscow with Vladimir Dekanozov, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, and warned him that Hitler was planning to give orders to invade the Soviet Union. Dekanozov, astonished at such a revelation, immediately suspected a trick. When Joseph Stalin was told the news he told the Politburo it was all part of a plot by Winston Churchill to start a war between the Soviet Union and Germany: "Disinformation has now reached ambassadorial level!" (22)

On 16th June, 1941, an agent cabled NKVD headquarters that intelligence from the networks indicated that "all of the military training by Germany in preparation for its attack on the Soviet Union is complete, and the strike may be expected at any time.". Later Soviet historians counted over a hundred intelligence warnings of preparations for the German attack forwarded to Stalin between 1st January and 21st June. Many of these were from Sorge but by this time Stalin was convinced that he was a double-agent and working on behalf of Britain. Stalin's response to an NKVD report from Schulze-Boysen was "this is not from a source but a disinformer." (23)

On 21st June, 1941, a German sergeant deserted to the Soviet forces. He informed them that the German Army would attack at dawn the following morning. War Commissar Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and Chief of Staff General Georgy Zhukov, went to see Stalin with the news. Stalin reaction was the alleged German deserter was an attempt to provoke the Soviet Union. Stalin did agree to send out a message to all his military commanders: "There has arisen the possibility of a sudden German attack on June 21-22... The German attack may begin with provocations... It is ordered to occupy secretly the strong points on the frontier... to disperse and camouflage planes at special airfields... to have all units battle ready... No other measures are to be employed without special orders." (24)

Stalin now went to bed. At 3.30 a.m. Timoshenko received reports of heavy shelling along the Soviet-German frontier. Timoshenko told Zhukov to call Stalin by telephone: "Like a schoolboy rejecting proof of simple arithmetic, Stalin disbelieved his ears. Breathing heavily, he grunted to Zhukov that no counter-measures should be taken... Stalin's only concession to Zhukov was to rise from his bed and return to Moscow by limousine. There he met Zhukov and Timoshenko along with Molotov, Beria, Voroshilov and Lev Mekhlis.... Pale and bewildered, he sat with them at the table clutching an empty pipe for comfort. He could not accept he was wrong about Hitler. He muttered that the outbreak of hostilities must have originated in a conspiracy within the Wehrmacht... Hitler surely doesn't know about it. He ordered Molotov to get in touch with Ambassador Schulenburg to clarify the situation." (25)

Joseph Stalin was too shocked and embarrassed to tell the people of the Soviet Union that the country had been invaded by Germany. Vyacheslav Molotov was therefore asked to make the radio broadcast. "Today at four o'clock in the morning, German troops attacked our country without making any claims on the Soviet Union and without any declaration of war... Our cause is just. The enemy will be beaten. We will be victorious." (26)

In the autumn of 1941, Sorge and his comrades provided Stalin with the information that the Japanese were preparing to make war in the Pacific and were concentrating their main forces in that area in the belief that the Germans would defeat the Red Army. (27) According to Pravda, Sorge informed Soviet intelligence two months before Pearl Harbour "that the Japanese were getting ready for a war in the Pacific and would not attack the Soviet Far East, as the Russians feared." (28)

The Japanese became convinced there was a spy inside the German Embassy. They also discovered that an illegal radio transmitter was being used by the Russians in Tokyo. In October, 1941, the Japanese police arrested Yotoku Miyagi, one of the key figures in Sorge's network. He attempted suicide by leaping head-first from an upper-storey window of the police station, but shrubbery broke his fall. Under torture he confessed, and gave the name of Sorge and his associates. (29)

Sorge was placed under surveillance and it was arranged for him to have an affair with Kiyomi, a spy working for the Japanese secret service. One night they were in a restaurant together she noticed the waiter drop a tiny ball of rice paper on the table they were sharing. Sorge picked it up and learned that he was in danger of being arrested and was urged to escape immediately. When he was in the car, Sorge attempted to set fire to the piece of paper. When the lighter failed him he asked Kiyomi for a light, but she pretended she could not give him one. Exasperated, he threw the rice paper out of the window and drove off. Kiyomi asked Sorge to stop the car so that she could warn her parents that she was staying out for the night. He agreed and she rang up the secret police and told them exactly where the paper had been dropped. It was immediately recovered and Sorge was arrested. (30)

Ambassador Eugen Ott was outraged when he heard that Sorge had been arrested "on suspicion of espionage" and thought it was a "typical case of Japanese espionage hysteria". He told people around him "Sorge a spy? What twaddle! I would put my hand in the fire for the man." Heinrich Loy, a German working in Tokyo, also found it difficult to believe: "I've known Sorge personally for a long time, but this news surprised me and made me realise he was different from other people. Normally people you've known a long time will make a careless slip on some occasion. Particularly when someone drinks like a fish, as Sorge did, you expect that he will reveal his true self. Considering that he managed to conceal his identity up until now, I have to say he was an exceptional man." (31)

Japan and the Soviet Union were not at war at the time. General Tominaga, Vice-Minister of Defence, later told Leopold Trepper that: "Three times we proposed to the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo that Sorge be exchanged for a Japanese prisoner. Three times we got the same answer: The man called Richard Sorge is unknown to us." Trepper suggested that Stalin had no desire to see Sorge returned. "Richard Sorge paid for his intimacy with General Berzin. After Berzin was eliminated, Sorge, in the eyes of Moscow, was nothing but a double agent, and a Trotskyite in the bargain!" (32)

Stalin even had Sorge's wife, Katya Maximova, arrested by the NKVD on the charges that she was a "German spy", and was deported to the Gulag where she died in 1943. Hanako Miyake visited Sorge while he was in prison. According to Miyake, Sorge eventually struck a deal with the Kempeitai that if they would spare his mistress and the wives of the other members of the spy ring, he would reveal all. (33)

Richard Sorge was executed by the Japanese on 7th November 1944 his last words were: “The Red Army!”, “The International Communist Party!” and “The Soviet Communist Party!”, all delivered in fluent Japanese to his captors. "Sorge was bound hand and foot, the noose already set around his neck. Tall, blue-eyed, ruggedly good-looking and apparently unperturbed by his imminent demise, Sorge was contributing the perfect denouement to what he might well have assumed was an enduring myth in the making." (34)

In 1961, Yves Ciampi, wrote and directed Who Are You, Mr. Sorge? about the life of Sorge. When the French film was shown in Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader saw it. He asked the Committee for State Security (KGB) to investigate the story. When they reported that the intelligence files suggested the story was true he encouraged one of the Soviet's top journalists, Viktor Mayevsky, to carry out further research into Sorge. (35)

The article eventually appeared in Pravda: "Richard Sorge is a man whose name will become the symbol of devotion to the great cause of the fight for peace, the symbol of courage and heroism... The struggle against fascism, against a second world war became the purpose of Sorge's life.... In April, 1941, Richard Sorge supplied valuable information about the preparation of a Hitlerite attack on the Soviet Union... He said 150 divisions were being concentrated at the borders of the U.S.S.R., supplied a general scheme of the military operations and in some reports, at first by one day off but later exactly, named the date of the attack, June 22.... But Stalin disregarded it. How many thousands and millions of lives would have been saved had the information from Richard Sorge and others not been sealed up in a safe! " (36)

On 5th November, 1964, 20 years after his death, the Soviet government awarded Sorge the title "Hero of the Soviet Union". Sorge's mistress Hanako Miyake, was still alive and she was granted a pension by the Soviet government. This was paid until her death in July 2000. (37)

John Simkin (29th July, 2019)

(1) Stuart D. Goldman, The Spy who Saved the Soviets (30th July, 2010)

(2) Christopher Andrew & Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (1990) page 48

(3) Viktor Mayevsky, Pravda (4th September, 1964)

(4) Gary Kern, A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror (2004) pages 402-404

(5) Peter Wright, Spycatcher (1987) page 226-227

(6) Richard Deacon, Spyclopaedia (1987) page 241

(7) Leopold Trepper, The Great Game (1977) page 103

(8) Richard Deacon, A History of the Russian Secret Service (1972) page 334

(9) Hede Massing, This Deception: KGB Target: America (1951) page 60

(10) William Boyd, New Statesman (6th March, 2019)

(11) Leopold Trepper, The Great Game (1977) pages 73-75

(12) Richard Deacon, A History of the Russian Secret Service (1972) pages 334-338

(13) Oliver Bullough, The Guardian (18th March, 2019)

(14) Christopher Andrew & Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (1990) page 239

(15) Charles Andrew Willoughby, Shanghai Conspiracy: The Sorge Spy Ring (1952) page 53

(16) New York Times (5th September, 1964)

(17) Richard Deacon, A History of the Russian Secret Service (1972) page 333

(18) Susan Ottaway, Hitler's Traitors: German Resistance to the Nazis (2003) pages 68-72

(19) Viktor Mayevsky, Pravda (4th September, 1964)

(20) Adolf Hitler, Directive Number 21 (8th December, 1940)

(21) Leopold Trepper, The Great Game (1977) page 126

(22) Christopher Andrew & Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (1990) page 212

(23) Christopher Andrew, The Mitrokhin Archive (1999) page 122

(24) Adam B. Ulam, Stalin: The Man and his Era (2007) page 537

(25) Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (2004) page 410

(26) Vyacheslav Molotov, radio broadcast (22nd July, 1941)

(27) Richard Deacon, A History of the Russian Secret Service (1972) page 333

(28) New York Times (5th September, 1964)

(29) Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (2000) page 74

(30) Richard Deacon, A History of the Russian Secret Service (1972) page 341

(31) Robert Whymant, Stalin's Spy: Richard Sorge and the Tokyo Espionage Ring (2012) pages 283-284

(32) Leopold Trepper, The Great Game (1977) page 375

(33) Stuart D. Goldman, The Spy who Saved the Soviets (30th July, 2010)

(34) William Boyd, New Statesman (6th March, 2019)

(35) Stuart D. Goldman, The Spy who Saved the Soviets (30th July, 2010)

(36) Viktor Mayevsky, Pravda (4th September, 1964)

(37) Henry Sakaida, Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-45 (2004) page 32

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