During a break between investigation, Smiley and Guillam start to discuss a Soviet intelligence officer named Karla over dinner. Smiley suspects Karla is linked in some way to the operation, and recounts a wealth of knowledge he knows on him, although admitting that there is also much speculation included. Smiley explains that Karla is believed to have followed his father, who was first an Okhrana operative and then a member of the Cheka, into the espionage world. They do, however, know that Karla got his start during the Spanish Civil War, when he posed as a White Russian émigré in the forces of General Francisco Franco, allowing him to recruit foreign, mainly German, operatives. After this, the Circus lost track of Karla, but he resurfaced during Operation Barbarossa, directing partisan operations behind German lines. Smiley explains his belief that somewhere in the gap between these two conflicts, Karla travelled to England and recruited Gerald, although again he cannot be specific about exactly when this occurred. Smiley points out that, amongst other things, Karla is fiercely loyal, and is known to have an extreme dedication to the Soviet Union, and presumably communism. He highlights, amongst other things, Karla's current rank despite his interment in a gulag by the Stalinist regime as an example of this, as well as his later decision to return to the USSR in 1955 to face presumable execution.