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Guy Burgess: Revolutionary in an Old School Tie
Guy Revolutionary in an Old School Tie is based on extensive research in archives, including those of the BBC, Eton, King's College (Cambridge), Christ Church (Oxford), the National Archives (Kew) and many others. It is the first book to take Burgess seriously as a political figure, interpreting his espionage activities in the context of the Depression, the Second World War and the first years of the Cold War. Guy Revolutionary in an Old School Tie shows how Burgess used his flamboyant personality to conceal his extraordinary activities as the center of the Cambridge Five spy ring and how, after his departure for Moscow, that personality and his well-known homosexuality, were used by the British Establishment as part of its effort to minimize knowledge of his effectiveness as an agent.
387 pages, Paperback
First published July 21, 2012
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June 21, 2020
Having recently read Stalin's Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess, written by Andrew Lownie and a newer book than this one by Holzman, I wanted more information about Burgess, who I find a fascinating person. Lownie's book was obviously biased against Burgess. As Holzman points out, "Burgess's name is almost always preceded by one of two Homeric epithets: 'The spy Guy Burgess' or 'The traitor Guy Burgess.' Holzman's book presents us with "The revolutionary Guy Burgess" and to me that is the more accurate portrayal of the man.
Holzman dismissed the traitor by saying that in a technical sense, this is simply untrue. "As Noel Annan, the score keeper for his generation observed, Burgess 'never committed treason as the Soviet Union was never at war with Britain.' ... He simply believed that Britain's future lay with Russia not America." Actually, the Soviet Union was an ally during WW II.
As a spy, "he was extraordinarily effective: no one knew, no one suspected, that he was a spy." He provided the Soviets with mountains of important and useful information, and he helped to organize and maintain the network with the other Cambridge spies.
"Guy Burgess made no secret that he was, indeed, defined himself as, both a homosexual and a Marxist." He felt that the Empire was unjust and after the war, he saw |in capitalist Smerica the Empire's successor as the guarantor of inequality and then as the main threat to peace in the world."
This book seemed to me a little bit to scholarly for my taste, that is, it went into political details that didn't particularly interest me, probably in part because I had difficulty following some of it. But overall, I appreciate that it painted what seems to me the most objective portrait of Guy Burgess that I have found so far.
I have always found Guy Burgess to be a sympathetic figure. Even when authors say he was a traitor, I see him as an idealist. He was charming, very well informed on most topics ranging from history and politics, to art and literature. He was, by all accounts (even by those who despised him, and note that there were only a very few people who disliked him before he defected) a brilliant conversationalist and someone whose company was very much enjoyed.
That is why I always feel very sad for what happened to him. The Russians tried to make him comfortable. But by that time he was ill. He had been already for a few years due to a fall (pushed down stairs by a friend!) when he suffered a concussion and cracked skull that he never fully recovered from, as well as having diabetes. For the last years of his life, he wanted to come home but the British wouldn't let him in, and the Russians wouldn't let him out. "He knew too much and too much about too many people."
Note: This publisher needs to hire a competent copyeditor.
Holzman dismissed the traitor by saying that in a technical sense, this is simply untrue. "As Noel Annan, the score keeper for his generation observed, Burgess 'never committed treason as the Soviet Union was never at war with Britain.' ... He simply believed that Britain's future lay with Russia not America." Actually, the Soviet Union was an ally during WW II.
As a spy, "he was extraordinarily effective: no one knew, no one suspected, that he was a spy." He provided the Soviets with mountains of important and useful information, and he helped to organize and maintain the network with the other Cambridge spies.
"Guy Burgess made no secret that he was, indeed, defined himself as, both a homosexual and a Marxist." He felt that the Empire was unjust and after the war, he saw |in capitalist Smerica the Empire's successor as the guarantor of inequality and then as the main threat to peace in the world."
This book seemed to me a little bit to scholarly for my taste, that is, it went into political details that didn't particularly interest me, probably in part because I had difficulty following some of it. But overall, I appreciate that it painted what seems to me the most objective portrait of Guy Burgess that I have found so far.
I have always found Guy Burgess to be a sympathetic figure. Even when authors say he was a traitor, I see him as an idealist. He was charming, very well informed on most topics ranging from history and politics, to art and literature. He was, by all accounts (even by those who despised him, and note that there were only a very few people who disliked him before he defected) a brilliant conversationalist and someone whose company was very much enjoyed.
That is why I always feel very sad for what happened to him. The Russians tried to make him comfortable. But by that time he was ill. He had been already for a few years due to a fall (pushed down stairs by a friend!) when he suffered a concussion and cracked skull that he never fully recovered from, as well as having diabetes. For the last years of his life, he wanted to come home but the British wouldn't let him in, and the Russians wouldn't let him out. "He knew too much and too much about too many people."
Note: This publisher needs to hire a competent copyeditor.
Displaying 1 of 1 review