How close did we come to a world without the USSR? A world with no Stalin, no KGB, or even Putin today? In this episode of Travels Through Time we head back to 1918 and the scene of the audacious, thrilling Lockhart Plot to find out.

Our guide in this episode is the American historian Jonathan Schneer. He takes us back to revolutionary Russia to visit the Smolny Institute in Petrograd, the American Consulate and the scene of the final showdown in Grain Alley.

He explains just who Bruce Lockhart was and what his plot set out to achieve.

The subject matter and scenes that feature in this episode come from Jonathan Schneer's book, The Lockhart Plot: Love, Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin's Russia 

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Scene One: February 15, 1918: Bruce Lockhart’s first appointment with Leon Trotsky at the Smolny Institute in Petrograd.

Scene Two: August 25, 1918: secret meeting at the American Consulate in Moscow, hosted by American Consul General, DeWitt Clinton Poole, but presided over by French Consul General Josef Fernand Grenard.

Scene Three: Earliest hours of September 1, 1918: #24 Khlebnyi pereulok (Grain Alley), Cheka agents arrive to arrest Lockhart, George Hicks, and Moura von Benckendorff .

Memento: Sidney Reilly’s full report on the status of the plot for British Intelligence

Presenter: Peter Moore

Interview: John Hillman

Guest: Jonathan Schneer

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Colorgraph

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