The Trust - Part III: A Meeting in Reval

In early November 1921, Yakushev was sent abroad by the Bolshevik government to attend a conference in Scandinavia. On his way, he made a fateful visit in the Estonian capital of Reval (Talinn) to one Yuri A. Artomonov1. Like Yakushev, Artomonov had graduated from the Alexandrovsky Lycee. Unlike Yakushev, however, the young Artomonov joined the army and eventually entered the ranks of the White forces operating in the Ukraine during the Civil War. He subsequently made his way to Estonia, where, according to some sources, he worked the British passport bureau as a translator. He also had close links with monarchists groups among the emigres.
Writers disagree as to the purpose of Yakushev's visit to Artamonov. According to Wraga, it was to inveigle upon Artomonov to divorce his wife, whom he had left behind and with whom Yakushev had become romantically involved. According to the emigre writer Boris Prianishnikov, Artomonov had been a former classmate of Yakushev's at the Alexandrovsky Lycee in St. Petersburg before the war. He asserts that the overt reason for Yakushev's visit was to deliver a letter addressed to Artomonov from the latter's aunt, Varvara Strashkevich. Finally, Nikulin cliams that Artomonov had been a pupil of Yakushev's at the Alexandrovsky Lycee and that Yakushev was carrying on a romance of sorts with Ms. Strashkevich.
Regardless of the actual pretext for the visit and the exact nature of the relations between Artomonov and Yakushev, it is clear that the two men were on familiar terms. This conclusion naturally follows from the nature of the subsequent conversation between them. Once their preliminary discussion had been concluded, Yakushev began to relate to the former White officer a tale likely to enthuse even the most jaded anti-Bolshevik. The essence of the tale centered upon the supposed existence of a powerful underground counter-revolutionary organization, which embraced all parts of organized life under the Bolshevik regime.
Yakushev's account followed three main themes. First, that the Soviet regime was stumbling towards internal collapse, and that in the resulting maelstrom the technical and bureaucratic state apparatus, consisting of former Tsarist specialists and civil servants, would step into the breach and seize power. Yakushev reckoned on a period of no more than three or four months before this would ensue. Second, that an underground monarchist organization had already formed to take advantage of this situation. Third, that this process of state change would be an entirely internal affair. There was no role to be played for either foreign emigres or for foreign interventionists.
Throughout, Yakushev stressed that the lead role was to be played by those monarchists who had remained in Russia and who knew modern Russian conditions, adding that "the monarchist organization in Moscow will give directions to the organizations located abroad and not the other way around." Not surprisingly, if foreign emigres were to be marginalized, the role of foreign powers would be even more curtailed. The inference was that intervention would merely inflame nationalist sentiment and elicit support for the Bolshevik regime.
Their conversation, which also apparently included a close monarchist friend of Artomonov's - Vsevolod I. Shchelgachev, a representative of one of the main monarchist emigre organizations - concluded with mutual affirmation on the need to improve contact between the monarchists in Moscow and those abroad. With this, and the promise of future contact, Yakushev departed for Scandinavia - but not without first arranging a secret code in the form of a pawnshop receipt number.
It remains a source of contention whether Yakushev expected Artomonov and Shchelgachev to pass on his information to responsible emigre figures in the West. Undoubtedly, this must have been implied, since the tenor of the conversation, Yakushev's position within the MOTsR, and the arrangement for future communications all would seem to lead to the idea that the MOTsR wished to impress upon the monarchist emigres the need to limit their subversive activities in Russia and their lobbying of foreign governments for intervention, since these efforts would have impeded the 'natural' collapse of the Bolshevik government and its replacement by the monarchist-inclined bureaucratic and technical elements.
That being said, it must also be asserted that Yakushev probably did not expect the amateurish manner in which Artomonov conveyed this information to his contacts in the monarchist movement. Rather than using the secure route of presenting this information in person, the former White guardist penned a letter to a leading member of the Supreme Monarchist Council (VMS) in Berlin, Prince Kirill A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov. Within short order, a copy of the letter had found its way to the counter-intelligence department of the Cheka, and from their to Dzerzhinsky and his lieutenants. Although Artomonov had apparently taken the precaution of not mentioning Yakushev by name, his reference to a 'high Soviet official' passing through Estonia limited the potential list of culprits to an exceedingly small number.

1. Also known as "Captain X" in some accounts.