Although MI5 was officially founded in 1909 and MI6 in 1911, their roots go back much farther - in fact, Britain had what was probably the longest consistantly running officially-backed espionage service in the world. The roots of MI6 go back in an almost unbroken line to spymaster Francis Walsingham's extensive 16th-century network of foreign spies in the service of Elizabeth I, and MI5's predecessors probably date back at least to the late 17th century domestic espionage service of Daniel Defoe(!) The British intelligence network had been of crucial use in, for example, the Napoleanic Wars. In part as a result of its long history, in the 20's it was one of the most sophisticated organizations of its type in the world.
Also in part as a result of its history, espionage in Britain in the first half of the century was considered to largely a game of gentlemen and intellectuals - both MI5 and MI6 were well known for recruiting bright graduates of prominent colleges, particularly Cambridge, with a distinct taste for the well-bred. They also added to their ranks by way of their legendary knack for "turning" disaffected agents of foreign governments (one popular technique, demonstrated with ample talent by Jon, was a kind of friendly, hands-off, really-this-is-in-your-best-interests pressure.)
MI5 seems to have had a reputation as a solid, professionally run, no-nonsense kind of organization. Like many domestic spying networks, it was periodically called on the carpet for exceeding its authority (sometimes disturbingly so . . . to take some examples from a little later in history, there are persistent rumors about anti-nuclear activists who mysteriously disappeared, and also about MI5's role in the destabilization and fall of Prime Minister Wilson, whom they actively disliked . . .) In the 20's, it was an open secret that they had infiltrated and were spying on many organizations that were completely legal, just because the government didn't like them. But this is not to say they were disliked and distrusted by the majority of British citizens - they were, in fact, regarded much the same way the FBI is today; most everybody thought it was a good, necessary, well-run organization that was occasionally misused or let its power go to its head. And as far as I can tell, in the 1920's at least, this opinion was probably largely accurate.
MI6, on the other hand, was a *very* different kind of organization. Throughout the first half of the century, it was dominated by ingenius and eccentrics figures and wild tactics - one gets the impression that it was only tolerated by the stodgy British government because it was so very remarkably effective. The figures that dominated MI6 in its early days included the brilliant but strange bureau chief, known as "C", who liked to unsettle new subordinates by stabbing a knife into his artificial leg in the middle of conversation to see how they would react (I swear I'm not making this stuff up - his real name was Cummings and you can look it up.) Another figure was Sidney Reilly, field chief of British intelligence operations in Russia, arguably the best spy in history, and real-life basis for the character of James Bond (down to the womanizing - when Reilly died, a surprisingly large number of women from Russia and other countries claimed to be his widow, many pregnant, most with reasonable proof.) Reilly's exploits were legend in the circles that knew of them - he was known to have escaped the Russian secret police by leaping out of his lover's window completely naked, only to show up again at her door later that evening impeccably dressed and groomed, with no explanation given. The tactics of MI6 ranged from conventional spying to some very strange plots - for example, for many years, there was a pretence maintained that the organization was entirely fictional, which convinced a not inconsiderable number of people.
In the 1920's MI5 and MI6 were probably best known (unsurprisingly) for their effective work against Germany and German spy rings, which continued between the wars. MI5 was also well know for its (somewhat less effective) work against Irish terrorists. However, at the same time, another secret war was being fought with . . .
The origin of the Russian secret service was very different from that of the British. The British learned their lessons at the hands of Elizabeth's spymaster; the Russians learned theirs from the tactics of the Tsars' dreaded secret police force, the Okhrana. If we have British history to thank for laying down the foundations for modern information-gathering techniques, then we have the Tsars to thank for laying down the foundations for the modern police state.
The tactics of the Okhrana are familiar to anyone who has studied such a state - political terrorism, Kangaroo courts, constant surveillance, and a culture of betrayal. When the Tsars were finally overthrown, the Okhrana was one of the things everyone was most happy to see gone with them.
And at first, they were gone. Although the Soviet secret service was founded almost immediately after the revolution, at first it was, in its domestic aspect, an organization not unlike MI5 or the FBI, very much restrained in its actions by the laws and the courts.
But the house the Bolsheviks had built stood on shifting sands for many years, beset by threats internal and external. Lenin introduced emergency measures extending the Cheka's power considerably, measures which were at first intended only to be temporary. But somehow, they never got revoked. Lenin soon discovered that a secret police force was a very useful weapon indeed. When the New Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, former allies of the Bolsheviks, attempted a coup early in the new country's history, Lenin discovered that having them all shot was quite an effective counter. And as the more the Bolsheviks fought to maintain their power, the more the organization became organized on familiar, effective lines - those of the murderous Okhrana.
Under Stalin, however, the bad situation became infinitely worse. The domestic arm rapidly changed from an instrument of political terrorism to an instrument of pure mass killing. Stalin's bureau chiefs tended to have nicknames like "The Butcher", "The Bloody Dwarf", and "The Triggerman", and until Beria took over and managed to outlive Stalin, they tended to last only a few years before they themselves were rounded up and shot. One famous estimation, not confirmed, counts the Soviet dead of World War II at twenty million - ten million killed by the Germans, ten million killed by Stalin.
In 1925, with Stalin still in the process of consolidating his power, the domestic wing was still in the process of changing from a feared, but at least familiar, secret police force to a dark nightmare that was something new in the world.
The foreign branch was much less well known than the domestic one, and it kept a much lower profile. In the '20's, the organization that would become the famous cold war spy service was flying somewhat under the radar - but the work it did during the '20's was surprisingly effective, and they infiltrated other intelligence organizations with great skill and long-term plans . . . but more on that later on.
Incidentally, one well-known feature of both intelligence wings was (drum roll) their propensity for recruiting female agents. Sexual entrapment was a favorite technique of the Soviet intelligence force, so good-looking female agents without a lot of prudish ideas were highly in demand (don't you love it when you design a character and their origin coincidentally turns out to have plausible aspects?) If the agents proved good enough at their job, they often "graduated" to more interesting work, so there were a number of high-ranking female agents (although there was a significant glass ceiling, and they never ascended to, say, agency control.)
At any rate, given the fact that the Russian and British governments hated each other in the twenties, but were not at war, the secret service organizations were bound to collide . . .
The British excelled at the destabilization aspect. The Bolsheviks' hold on power was often shaky, and MI-6 did what it could to add to the confusion. Stirring up insurrection, giving aid to internal enemies, even trying (multiple times) to assassinate Lenin were all considered fair game.
The Russians didn't have as much opportunity to use the destabilization ploy on Britain's home front. Britain's government, although sometimes troubled, was loyally supported by most of its citizens. Russia did what it could - supporting British organzations that were sympathetic to communism, and agitating for the proletariat to organize. This technique did bear fruit later; when the Great Depression hit the world in the head with the downside of capitalism, people remembered the Communists agitating for unions, better wages, shorter work weeks, etc., and their ranks, at least for a time, swelled. But in the '20's, although Communism had a lot of support among some classes (intellectuals, reformers, unionists, etc.), it was pretty clear that an armed insurrection against the British government was unlikely in the extreme.
What the Russians *could* do more effectively in this field, however, was encourage the destabilization of the British *Empire*. Many of the farther flung regions of the Empire were straining for independence, and it was not unknown for Russia to send agents and aid in the hopes that rebellion would result in a government with friendly memories. Probably they were only just beginning to explore this tactic in the '20's, but many years later, of course, it developed into one of the key strategies of the Cold War.
What the Russians really excelled at in their fight against Britain, however, was infiltration, something the British may not have realized until many years later. In the most famous instance, Russian agents at Cambridge managed to quite effectively and subtly counter-recruit a few students who were being groomed by the British for entry into the espionage business. The result was that a number of "moles" were placed in the British agency - most starting, of course, at low, ineffective levels. However, many years later, during the Cold War, some of them had risen to quite high levels within the agency, and they were sending valuable information to the Russians at great rates. When this finally came out, in the '60's, in scandals like the Filbin affair, it very nearly brought MI6 down. In the 1920's, most of the moles would still be at a low level of authority - but who knows how many of them there might be?
The results of British attempts to infiltrate the Russian intelligence system are less well known, but there is reason to believe that they were also quite effective. As things grew more Byzantine and complex, and double-agents and triple-agents began abounding, the spying game got more and more confusing (one theory has it that, at the height of the Cold War, both sides were giving the other side practically everything they wanted to know, so that when the time finally came to disseminate disinformation, a time which never came, it would be believed. There is reason to believe this theory may even be plausible.) Although things were less somewhat complicated in the '20's, the concept of a double agent was already well known, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to figure out who you could trust.
Pleasant dreams.
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