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Dealing With the Devil:
The Anglo-Soviet Parachute Agents (Operation ‘Pickaxe’)
by DONAL O’SULLIVAN -- abstract

From 1941 to 1944, the Royal Air Force dropped more than twenty NKVD agents into Western Europe by parachute. The goal of the little-known operation called 'Pickaxe' was to organize resistance and sa­botage in Nazi-occupied territories. For decades afterwards, details of 'Pickaxe' were classified in East and West until the recent release of material by the Public Record Office. Together with Russian official publications, the sources allow a glimpse into NKVD operational matters and shed light on the human tragedies involved. According to the internal history of the Special Operations Executive (SOE),’Pickaxe’ managed to drop 34 Soviet agents over Western Europe (the official Russian count is 29).
On the political side, the scheme underscores the ambivalent attitude of mistrust and hope between the Allies. As Winston Churchill’s famous phrase ‘If Hitler invaded Hell, [he] would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons,’ succinctly put it, fighting the common enemy meant co-operating with the ideological adversary. For the Soviet Union, ‘Pickaxe’ offered the chance to re-establish contact with operative networks in Western Europe at a critical stage in the war. The British were eager to use Soviet assets to advance the general strategy of  ‘setting Europe ablaze’. However, the operation suffered many setbacks and did not lead to significant results. Most of the agents did not survive. The majority were arrested and executed by the Gestapo. In contrast to the Anglo-French, Anglo-Norwegian or Anglo-Dutch co-operation, Anglo-Soviet subversion efforts lacked the necessary level of trust and consequently could not influence the war effort substantially.