The Secret Intelligence Service and China: The Case of Hilaire Noulens, 1923–1932

Abstract

The arrest in June 1931 of Hilaire Noulens, the Comintern representative in Shanghai, heralded a major breakthrough for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in targeting the Bolshevik threat in the Far East during the inter-war years. At the time, Noulens, finally identified by Frederick Litten in 1994 as Jakob Rudnik, was playing a central part in nurturing Communist parties across the Far East, carrying out activities for the Department for International Liaison or Otdel Mezhdunarodnoi svyazi (OMS), the logistics, communications and intelligence arm of the Comintern.1 Records released to The National Archives (TNA) in 2005 revealed for the first time that Major Valentine Vivian, Head of Section V, SIS’s counter-espionage section, was responsible for drawing up a report in 1932 on the value of the papers found upon Noulens. Vivian’s report, available previously only in sanitised form, was released in full along with all its exhibits and enclosures detailing the extent of the Noulens haul. These papers, together with releases from Security Service (MI5) records, provide a unique glimpse into the role SIS played in piecing the case together.2