What was Kim Philby really up to when he started working for the Soviet Union?

Boris Volodarsky follows the complicated story:

Stalin had decided that one of the ways to solve the ‘Spanish problem’ would be to assassinate Franco. In 1937 Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, sent several operatives on a mission to murder the Caudillo.

Before the GRU officers started to move, the NKVD asked Maly in London to find an agent for a risky assignment in the rebel zone. Philby was chosen partly because he had expressed interest in Spain and had holidayed there with his wife in 1935. It was not concealed from Philby that his task would be to find a way to approach Franco and kill him…

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