Sidney Reilly
Ed. Castelvecchi
pp. 187
That of Sidney Reilly is a controversial myth across the Channel. There are those who defined him as "the first super spy of the twentieth century" and who as a "skilled swindler and incurable womanizer". Whatever the truth, the figure of this man has fascinated generations of Englishmen, including Ian Fleming, the "father" of James Bond, so much to push him to draw inspiration for the conception of the character of his agent "with license to kill".
Charismatic, transformist, courageous, intelligent, able to weave both social and loving relationships, animated by a visceral hatred of the Bolsheviks, a caring husband and a skilled businessman. Di Reilly is not sure of identity either when he is dead and in what circumstances. Only recently, much after the writing of this biography, the mystery surrounding Reilly's life has become a little less intense, just because the British secret services have declassified the documentation on his account.
His parable began at the end of '800 in Ukraine, where he should have been born, has passed through South America where he has done various jobs, then landed in Britain. Here he became a secret agent of His Majesty and distinguished himself in several daring actions beyond the German lines during the First World War. The highest point in his career as a secret agent was probably the organization of a conspiracy to stifle the communist revolution in Russia at birth, in the 1918. This attempt failed by a whisker and cost him the death sentence issued in absentia by the Bolsheviks. At that point his parabola took on its inexorably descending branch. Up to bringing it to fall right in the jaws of the hated and Machiavellian Bolsheviks. But let us come, in fact, to the book.
It is an autobiography edited by what he believed to be the legitimate wife of Reilly at the time of his disappearance in Russian territory in the 1925. Yes, because Pepita, shortly after the book was published, discovered that the marriage contracted with Reilly was in fact null because, later, he turned out to be already married to other women. However, in the first part of the book, thanks to Reilly's papers in possession of Pepita, the ambitious plan to make the revolution in Russia rebuild is rebuilt. With cunning, courage and determination, Reilly managed to set up a clandestine organization that by a whisker failed in its intent. However, due to a tragic circumstance of the case, the plan that could change the history of Russia and the entire world failed and the organization of Reilly was discovered and dismantled by the fearful communist political police: Čeka. Fortunately, thanks to the innovative structure of the organization created by Reilly to cope with this eventuality and the courage of the agent, most of the conspirators managed to save themselves from the terrible vengeance of the infamous Čeka. Reilly too managed to escape the Russians and Germans from a hair and to return safely to their homeland. After the story, from Great Britain begins the story based on personal memories of Pepita in the second part of the book, with the support also of some letters and telegrams preserved by it. Pepita then reports as Reilly, despite being conscious of being guarded by the Čeka and in perennial danger of life even in the homeland, expenses body and soul in an attempt to contribute to the cause of fighting the hated Bolsheviks. Until the tragic epilogue. For a sort of mocking and evil law of retaliation, it will fall into a sophisticated trap: towards the end of September 1925, convinced that he had joined a new anti-communist clandestine organization, Reilly crossed the border between Finland and Russia to meet the leaders. In reality, it was all a machination to bring out the enemies of the regime like Reilly and the agent, who acted without the cover of his government, was captured just after crossing the border and, according to local authorities, was killed in a forest from common bandits. Pepita never believed the truth told by the Russian authorities and in the third and last part of the book describes how much anguish and despair she committed herself to discovering the real fate of her husband. Until she had to surrender to the idea that her husband, indeed the one who thought she was her husband, had died in Russia.
Only long afterwards, a former Russian agent revealed that Reilly was detained for several years in a special Russian prison, until he was assassinated in cold blood by the Čeka, thus giving way to the death sentence issued years before.
It is an interesting book about a truly extraordinary figure, however you think about it. It is certainly not a fascinating novel about the amazing adventures of the world's most famous double zero agent, yet it is fascinating to read Reilly's accounts on the political plots of the time and discover the deadly and clandestine struggle between the Čeka and the external opponents and internal to the communist regime.
Ciro Metuarata
