Zinoviev Letter, 1924, Brit., hoax. In 1924, England's first Labor government introduced the issue of entering into a commercial treaty with the U.S.S.R. At the same time, a hoax involving a letter from a high Soviet official was perpetrated. The "very secret" letter, supposedly from a high Soviet official named Zinoviev and addressed to members of the British Communist party, advised open violence, sedition, and subversion in the British army and navy as the first steps toward a British proletarian revolutionary movement.

Prior to a general election in 1924, the forged document was published in the London Mail where it was editorialized: "The country now knows that Moscow issues orders to British Communists and they are obeyed by Communists here. British Communists, in turn, give orders to the Socialist government, which it tamely and humbly obeys." The people of England overwhelmingly defeated the treaty favored by the Labor party.

From the World Encyclopedia of Con Artists and Confidence Games