Spies and Commissars - Robert Service

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Résumé :

Robert Service, world-leading expert in Russian history, presents a fresh portrait of the early years of the Revolution.

'Fascinating . . . Service has a wonderful eye for the telling detail' - Independent

1917. The world is locked in an ideological battle.

The Western powers are anxious to prevent Bolshevism spreading across Europe. Lenin and Trotsky are equally anxious that their Communist vision should do just that. But in the wake of the Revolution and Russia's withdrawal from the First World War, there is a distinct lack of reliable information available to either side.

Into this intelligence void step an extraordinary collection of journalists, spies - sometimes not mutually exclusive categorisations - and opportunists. In Moscow Britain's Arthur Ransome, the American John Reed and Sidney Reilly -the 'Ace of Spies' - trade information and broker deals between Russia and the West...

Biographie:
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, Blood on the Snow, Stalin: A Biography and Comrades: A History of World Communism, as well as many other books on Russia's past and present. Trotsky: A Biography was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize. Married with four children, he lives in London....

Sommaire:
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, Blood on the Snow, Stalin: A Biography and Comrades: A History of World Communism, as well as many other books on Russia's past and present. Trotsky: A Biography was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize. Married with four children, he lives in London....

Library Journal [A] well-researched, detailed, and thoughtful analysis of the Russian Revolution, here removed from the global vacuum into which it is often relegated.... Service is careful not to lose focus on the cultural, political, and economic weight that the revolution brought to a dispirited Russia.... [A] nuanced and important contribution to the history of the Russian Revolution. Readers of Russian and early Soviet history, both in and out of academia, will find it illuminating.

Kirkus Reviews Careful, dense scholarly study that paints detailed portraits of the revolutionary principals and their sometimes-surprising allies and enemies.