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| - The "Zinoviev Letter" is a 1924 letter that was allegedly addressed from Grigori Zinoviev, president of the presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (Comintern), and Arthur MacManus, the British representative on the presidium, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It purported to advocate intensified Communist agitation in Britain, not least in the armed forces. Generally considered a forgery, it is thought to have been instrumental in the Conservative Party's victory in the United Kingdom general election, 1924, which ended the country's first Labour government. In 1999, an official enquiry finally determined that the letter had probably been a concoction by elements of the SIS based in Riga, Latvia to help the Conservatives defeat Labour in the 1924 election. In 2006, a new biography of Desmond Morton, Churchill's Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence by Gill Bennett, confirmed that it was a hoax perpetrated by Morton, then with the Secret Intelligence Service of the British government. Published in the conservative British Daily Mail newspaper four days before the election, the letter came at a sensitive time also in relations between Britain and the Soviet Union, owing to Conservative opposition to the forthcoming parliamentary ratification of the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement of 8 August. Dated 15 September 1924, the letter is generally thought to be a forgery. Although much of its content otherwise persuasively echoes Comintern vocabulary, the letter contains errors which led many even at the time to denounce it as a hoax. A particularly damaging section of the document identified the normalization of inter-governmental relations under the Anglo-Soviet agreement as an opportune moment for increased Soviet propaganda activity within the British Labour movement: "A settlement of relations between the two countries will assist in the revolutionizing of the international and British proletariat not less than a successful rising in any of the working districts of England, as the establishment of close contact between the British and Russian proletariat, the exchange of delegations and workers, etc. will make it possible for us to extend and develop the propaganda of ideas of Leninism in England and the Colonies." British Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald's attempts to cast doubt on the letter's authenticity were hampered by its widespread acceptance among government officials. MacDonald "felt like a man sewn in a sack and thrown into the sea", he told his Cabinet on 31 October as they prepared to leave office. The Soviet authorities for their part were prevented by poor communication with the Moscow-based ECCI from delivering the immediate unequivocal refutation of the letter required following a British Foreign Office protest note of 24 October: not until 17 November did the ECCI even discuss the matter. On 21 November Britain's new Conservative government repudiated the unratified treaty. An 11-month study by British Foreign Office chief historian Gill Bennett, undertaken with the assistance of Russian archivists, concluded (January 1999) that the document was probably forged at the behest of "White [i.e. anti-communist] Russian intelligence services" to "derail the treaties and damage the Labour government”. 'Head office' British intelligence responsibility for the letter was "inherently unlikely" as it "implied a degree of cohesion and control, not to mention political will, which simply did not exist". Anthony Eden, Prime Minister from 1955–57, reputedly believed that the letter was the work of MI5. (en)
- La cosiddetta "lettera di Zinoviev" era un documento falso, probabilmente prodotto dal Secret Intelligence Service allo scopo di favorire il partito conservatore nelle elezioni generali britanniche del 1924.Le elezioni furono effettivamente vinte dai Tories, e misero termine al primo governo laburista nel Regno Unito.La prova definitiva che tale lettera fosse un artefatto del servizio segreto fu data da un'inchiesta ufficiale (Telegraph, 5 febbraio 1999).Il documento appariva essere una lettera di Grigorij Zinov'ev, in quel periodo presidente del comitato esecutivo dell'Internazionale Comunista, inviata al comitato centrale del partito comunista britannico, invitando ad una maggiore azione di agitazione nel paese e nelle forze armate inglesi.La lettera fu pubblicata dal giornale conservatore Daily Mail, solo quattro giorni prima delle elezioni, in una situazione delicata dei rapporti fra il Regno Unito e l'Unione Sovietica, data l'opposizione dei conservatori alla ratifica parlamentare dei trattati commerciali stabiliti dai due governi l'8 agosto 1924. Molti sospettarono la falsità del documento, dato che conteneva alcuni grossolani errori (ad esempio, "la Terza Internazionale Comunista"). Tuttavia, la lettera fu presa come vera anche da alcuni esponenti del governo, nonostante i dubbi espressi dal primo ministro Ramsay MacDonald.Le difficili comunicazioni con la sede centrale moscovita della Internazionale Comunista impedirono una pronta smentita della lettera: la questione fu discussa solo il 17 novembre. Il 21 novembre il nuovo governo conservatore annullo' i trattati commerciali stabiliti dal precedente governo. (it)
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| - The "Zinoviev Letter" is a 1924 letter that was allegedly addressed from Grigori Zinoviev, president of the presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (Comintern), and Arthur MacManus, the British representative on the presidium, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It purported to advocate intensified Communist agitation in Britain, not least in the armed forces. (en)
- La cosiddetta "lettera di Zinoviev" era un documento falso, probabilmente prodotto dal Secret Intelligence Service allo scopo di favorire il partito conservatore nelle elezioni generali britanniche del 1924.Le elezioni furono effettivamente vinte dai Tories, e misero termine al primo governo laburista nel Regno Unito.La prova definitiva che tale lettera fosse un artefatto del servizio segreto fu data da un'inchiesta ufficiale (Telegraph, 5 febbraio 1999).Il documento appariva essere una lettera (datata 15 settembre 1924) di Grigorij Zinov'ev, in quel periodo presidente del comitato esecutivo dell'Internazionale Comunista, inviata al comitato centrale del partito comunista britannico, invitando ad una maggiore azione di agitazione nel paese e nelle forze armate inglesi.La lettera fu pubblicata dal giornale conservatore Daily Mail, solo quattro giorni prima delle elezioni, in una situazione delicata dei rapporti fra il Regno Unito e l'Unione Sovietica, data l'opposizione dei conservatori alla ratifica parlamentare dei trattati commerciali stabiliti dai due governi l'8 agosto 1924. (it)
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