Book description
In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, the Western powers were
anxious to prevent the spread of Bolshevism across Europe. Lenin and
Trotsky were equally anxious that the Communist vision they were busy
introducing in Russia should do just that. But neither side knew
anything about the other. The revolution and Russia's withdrawal from
the First World War had ensured a diplomatic exodus from Moscow and the
usual routes to vital information had been closed off. Into this void
stepped an extraordinary collection of opportunists, journalists and
spies - sometimes indeed journalists who were spies and vice versa: in
Moscow Britain's Arthur Ransome, the American John Reed and Sidney
Reilly - 'Ace of Spies' - all traded information and brokered deals
between Russia and the West; in Berlin, Paris and London, the likes of
Maxim Litvinov, Adolf Ioffe and Kamenev tried to infiltrate the
political elite and influence foreign policy to the Bolsheviks'
advantage. Robert Service, acclaimed historian and one of our finest
commentators on matters Soviet, turns his meticulous eye to this ragtag
group of people and, with narrative flair and impeccable research,
reveals one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century.
Robert Service is a Fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony's
College, Oxford. He has written several books, including the highly
acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a
People , Stalin: A Biography and Comrades: A History of
World Communism , as well as many other books on Russia's past
and present. His most recent book, Trotsky: A Biography was
awarded the 2009 Duff Cooper Prize. Married with four children, he
lives in London.
