Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for Stalin’s Apostles:
Traitors be thy name.
Quick synopsis:
The story of the Soviet spies embedded in the U.K during World War II and the Cold War.
Fact for Non-History People:
One of the apostles, Kim Philby, was put in charge of the MI6 section which focused on finding…Soviet spies.
Fact for History Nerds:
They were so effective that Stalin could regularly read personal correspondence between the U.K. Prime Minister and the U.S. President.
My Take on Stalin’s Apostles:
This is by far one of the most frustrating books I have ever read. That’s not Antonia Senior’s fault, though! She has done a wonderful job with Stalin’s Apostles. However, reading about the sheer incompetence of nearly everyone in the narrative is mind-blowing. This includes the actual apostles! They were just lucky enough to be going against governments that were completely asleep at the wheel.
For the uninitiated, the Cambridge Five were five communists who would ultimately rise to the highest levels of British government and society while filtering all the biggest secrets to Stalin. Stalin, you may know, is one of the most ruthless and disgusting mass murderers in human history. Needless to say, this narrative is certainly not going to make the apostles look like, well, the actual Apostles.
The five men — Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, and John Cairncross — would be active for decades. They would directly lead to the death of many partisans trying to break into the Iron Curtain. While Senior is not sympathetic to these men for obvious reasons, she keeps a mostly neutral tone on them. That said, she doesn’t need to editorialize much to make them look bad between the backstabbing, severe alcoholism, narcissism, and spousal abuse. Perhaps being a spy is bad for your mental health?
Senior makes this read like a novel and it flies by. You may be pulling your hair out in frustration, but you will still enjoy the reading part of it.
(This book was provided as an advanced reader copy by NetGalley and PublicAffairs.)
Verdict:
Highly recommend it. Buy it here!
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