Brian Goold-Verschoyle

Brian Goold-Verschoyle (1912 – 1942) was a member of the Communist Party of Ireland and a victim of Stalin Great Purge.

Early life

Brian Goold-Verschoyle was born in County Donegal into the Anglo-Irish gentry. After his education, he moved to England to work as an engineer. However, after visiting his brother Neill in Moscow, he was recruited into Soviet espionage.

py

He was said by MI5 to be a "naïve supporter" of the Soviet Union; unaware that he was being used to courier messages for the NKVD while he lived in London. He was controlled by Henri Pieck. Goold-Verschoyle couriered UK agent’s reports, mainly from Foreign Office clerk John King. In 1936 he traveled under an assumed name to Moscow to undergo wireless training. Previously he had been working as an engineer, he also fell in love with a German Jewish refugee, Lotte Moos. He took her to Moscow against orders and fell foul of his Soviet masters. He was then sent to the Spanish Civil War (Barcelona) on the condition that he broke off all contact with Lotte. However he disobeyed this order.

Arrest

The flash point was a disagreement with the Russian Ambassador in Valencia, for whom he was working. His increasing Anti-Stalinist views may have been a factor in his split with Moscow, as he quickly realised the Soviet Union had no interest in a world revolution which would be independent of Moscow's controll. Brian’s letters to his family in Ireland reveal a growing sympathy for Socialism and the Trotskyist-influenced POUM.

In April 1937 he was asked to report to Barcelona harbour to repair a ship’s radio. When he embarked he was escorted to the radio cabin and the door was locked behind him. He had in effect been kidnapped and when the ship arrived in Russia he was immediately transferred to the Lubyanka (KGB) prison in Moscow. He was eventually sentenced to eight years for counter‑revolutionary Trotskyist activities.

Death

According to MI5, in 1941 Brian was killed whilst on board a train that was hit by a German bomb. Where the train was coming from or going is unknown at present. However "Left to the Wolves" indicates that he died while serving his sentence in the GULAG.

Aftermath

In later years, Mrs. Goold-Verschoyle pleaded with Major General Walter Krivitsky, who had known Brian in Spain, for any information relating to the whereabouts of her son. Krivitsky had been a senior member of the GRU and was the first military intelligence officer to defect to the West. It is not known whether he answered the letters. Gen. Krivitsky was later assassinated by SMERSH in Washington DC.

This family is of the collateral branch of the Verschoyle family.

References

* I was Stalin's Spy, Major General Walter Krivitsky. pp 115-116. Ian Faulkner Publishing Ltd, Cambridge, 1992.
* Left to the Wolves: Irish Victims of Stalinist Terror, Barry McLoughlin
* International Socialism Journal – Stalin’s Irish Victims
* [http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6759483.stm BBC News – Irish Victims of Stalin uncovered]
* The IRA in the twilight years 1923-1948, Uinseann MacEoin
* The Family on Paradise Pier, Dermot Bolger
* [http://www.verschoyle.org.uk Verschoyle Official Site]
* [http://www.geocities.com/irelandSCW/ibvol-Purge01.htm Ireland & the Spanish Civil War]