The labyrinth of neutrality

 

Ernst Wollweber 

"Stora sabotageligan: Kominterns och Sovjetunionens underjordiska nätverk i Sverige" is a book by Wilhelm Agrell, a Swedish historian. It was published in 2016. While the book is well written and presumably directed at a wider audience (not at other historians), it´s nevertheless so filled with facts - page up and page down - that it might confuse the casual reader, not to mention the occasional reviewer. But then, a work about wartime espionage is bound to be complicated, especially if dealing with neutral Sweden, which had a complex relationship to both sides during World War II. Or where they actually three sides? 

The main characters in "Stora sabotageligan" is the so-called Great Sabotage Gang (as they were called in Sweden), better known as the Wollweber Organization, led by the exiled German Communist Ernst Wollweber. Already before the war, Wollweber recruited other Communists, often sailors, to carry out acts of sabotage against Nazi German, Italian and Japanese shipping. He also built up a sabotage network in Norway and Sweden tasked with attacking Swedish railways and other targets in the event of a Nazi German occupation (or Swedish collaboration). Sweden was an important supplier of iron ore to Germany. When the Nazis occupied Norway but not Sweden in 1940, Wollweber fled to the later country, only to be apprehended by the police (mostly by chance). The Swedish police and secret police did collaborate with Nazi Germany, but extraditing Wollweber was nevertheless considered a too obvious breach of Swedish neutrality, so the old fox was sentenced to a jail term in Sweden instead. When the Allies got the upper hand in the war, Sweden became more pro-Allied and released Wollweber, who promptly left for the Soviet Union. After the war, Wollweber resurfaced in East Germany, where he eventually became head of the Stasi, only to later lose an internal power struggle and being forced to resign. He died in obscurity in 1967. It´s actually quite amazing that he survived for so long! Stalin´s genocidal regime in Moscow purged even its own people on a semi-regular basis, and secret agents working abroad were no exception.

And then there´s the rest of the book...

It´s obvious from Agrell´s study that the Communist parties were not just politically subordinated to the Soviet Union, but frequently also micro-managed and financed from that source. Sweden and Denmark were important hubs for Soviet couriers carrying money from Moscow to various European CPs. Even day-to-day political campaigns of the Swedish Communist Party (SKP) were decided upon in Moscow, the orders relayed to the SKP leaders through short-wave radio (sic). After a damaging split in 1929, when the majority of SKP´s membership defected to form a new leftist party, the rump Stalinist SKP became completely dependent on Soviet financial assistance.

The Communist International and its member parties also created clandestine organizations. These quickly became de facto Soviet spy rings, and part of the same vast intelligence networks as the NKVD or the GRU. The Wollweber organization was unusual in that it had relatively few direct contacts with its superiors in Moscow, in order to give the Soviets "plausible deniability" in case of exposure. After all, Wollweber and his group were active saboteurs or "terrorists" in peace time. 

Agrell also describes some aspects of Western Allied espionage activities. It´s interesting to note that the United States actively tried to recruit unionists and Social Democrats to its intelligence services during World War II. The post-war alliance between the US and European Social Democracy seems to have been cemented already during the war itself. Since Sweden was neutral, many anti-Nazi refugees lived in the country during the war, and those who weren´t Communists proved a fertile ground for US recruitment. Assets within the Swedish railway union provided the Western Allies with intelligence about German trains transiting Sweden. 

The British intelligence service was also very active in Sweden, and even carried out a succesful sabotage against a German freight train at Krylbo. Independently of the Soviets, the British also planned attacks on Swedish railways and ports in case of a Nazi occupation of the country. They also created a "stay behind" network together with the anti-Nazi "Tuesday Club". Agrell claims that many of those who joined the network belonged to the "syndicalist party", presumably a reference to the Syndicalist Youth League (SUF), which was openly pro-Allied during the war. (There was no syndicalist "party", of course.) 

I admit that I hate Stalin and Stalinism even more (if that´s possible) after reading "Stora sabotageligan". Every other Communist mentioned in the book seems to have been purged by Stalin, who frequently acted in an irrational manner, decimating the Soviets´ own intelligence networks. The Western intelligence services noted that many Soviet stations abroad stopped transmitting during 1936 and 1937, clearly because many of the agents had been recalled to Moscow and liquidated. This makes me wonder what kind of person Wollweber was, since he survived Stalin, only to be disavowed and declared a non-person (but not killed or jailed) a few years after Uncle Joe´s death. Probably not the most sympathetic guy around! In a way, Wollweber´s life is a recapitulation of Communist history: he started out as a revolutionary sailor, became the head of Stasi, and then...a non-person, eaten by the system he had loyally served most of his life. 

What struck me most when reading "Stora sabotageligan", however, was how primitive much of the espionage seems to have beeen during the 1930´s. Ordinary Communist workers made bombs in their basements, radio transmitters often malfunctioned since the agents didn´t know how to use them, agents frequently got themselves arrested, and many started singing or turned coat. British intelligence was heavily understaffed before the war, and its various agencies were like cat and dog. The Wollweber operation used home-made explosives or stolen dynamite to sabotage fascist shipping, and the charges didn´t always go off. At least the Soviets were good at forging Swiss passports!

Perhaps I´m missing something here, but the technological development of spying must have taken a quantum leap during the immidiate post-war period... 

With that, I end my occasional review.