Christopher Andrew
For Your Eyes Only
Spies and Commissars: Bolshevik Russia and the West
By Robert Service
Macmillan 440pp £25
Robert Service is well known for his impressive biographies of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Spies and Commissars is his most vividly written book so far. Its subject is the ‘dynamic interaction between Russia and the West’ during the early years of Bolshevik rule, which, Service argues, was shaped not merely by political leaders on both sides but also by ‘an extraordinary miscellany of people’: spies, commissars, diplomats, reporters, unofficial intermediaries, intellectuals, opportunistic businessmen and casual travellers.
Colourful characters abound. In the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University, Service’s main source of new material, he has uncovered possibly the most preposterously named intelligence officer of the early twentieth century, Monsieur Faux-Pas Bidet, who was partly responsible for expelling Trotsky from France in 1916. Trotsky turned the tables
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk