'Montefiore's skill in transferring Stalin's tactics and the revolutionary dynamic to a story of schoolboy rivalry ensures that what might have been a narrative corset becomes a metaphorical mirror. Schoolboy machinations mimic Soviet power struggles and both, in turn, wittily reflect the daily political manoeuvrings of many organisations. The camaraderie fostered by a cause, the corruption of power and the glamour of evil are all anatomised with a light touch and an honest eye... Engaging and assured...a thoroughly nourishing confection.' The Times.
Drawing on newly declassified government files, this is the dramatic story of how a forbidden book in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West. In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to a village just outside Moscow to visit Russia’s greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the original manuscript of Pasternak’s first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: “This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world.” Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, beginning in Italy, Doctor Zhivago was widely published in translation throughout the world. From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel. The CIA, which recognized that the Cold War was above all an ideological battle, published a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago and smuggled it into the Soviet Union. Copies were devoured in Moscow and Leningrad, sold on the black market, and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend. Pasternak’s funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government to bid him farewell. The example he set launched the great tradition of the writer-dissident in the Soviet Union. In The Zhivago Affair, Peter Finn and Petra Couvée bring us intimately close to this charming, passionate, and complex artist. First to obtain CIA files providing concrete proof of the agency’s involvement, the authors give us a literary thriller that takes us back to a fascinating period of the Cold War—to a time when literature had the power to stir the world. (With 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)
From internationally bestselling historian Giles Milton comes the remarkable true story of the motley group of Allied men and women who worked to manage Stalin’s mercurial, explosive approach to diplomacy during four turbulent years of World War II. In the summer of 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, shattering what Stalin had considered an ironclad partnership. There were real fears that Stalin’s forces would be defeated or that the Soviet leader would once again strike a deal with Hitler. Either eventuality would spell catastrophe for both Britain and the United States. Enter W. Averell Harriman: a railroad magnate and, at the start of the war, the fourth-richest man in America. At Roosevelt’s behest he traveled to Britain to serve as a liaison between the president and Churchill and to spearhead what became known as the Harriman Mission. Together with his fashionable young daughter Kathy, an unforgettable cast of British diplomats, and Churchill himself, he would eventually manage to wrangle Stalin into the partnership the Allies needed to defeat Hitler. Based on unpublished diaries, letters, and secret reports, The Stalin Affair reveals troves of new material about the path to Allied victory, full of vivid scenes between celebrated and infamous World War II figures. Includes eight-page, color photograph insert.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs—and one of our pre-eminent historians—comes “a meticulously researched, authoritative biography” (The New York Times), the companion volume to the prize-winning Stalin, and essential reading for anyone interested in Russian history. This revelatory account unveils how Stalin became Stalin, examining his shadowy journey from obscurity to power—from master historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. Based on ten years of research, Young Stalin is a brilliant prehistory of the USSR, a chronicle of the Revolution, and an intimate biography. Montefiore tells the story of a charismatic, darkly turbulent boy born into poverty, scarred by his upbringing but possessed of unusual talents. Admired as a romantic poet and trained as a priest, he found his true mission as a murderous revolutionary. Here is the dramatic story of his friendships and hatreds, his many love affairs, his complicated relationship with the Tsarist secret police, and how he became the merciless politician who shaped the Soviet Empire in his own brutal image.
Winter, 1916: In St Petersburg, Russia on the brink of revolution. Outside the Smolny Institute for Noble Young Ladies, an English governess is waiting for her young charge to be released from school. But so are the Tsar's secret police... Beautiful and headstrong, Sashenka Zeitlin is just 18. In the evenings when her mother is partying with Rasputin and her dissolute friends, Sashenka becomes Comrade Snowfox and slips into the frozen night to play her part in a dangerous game of conspiracy and seduction. Twenty years on, and Sashenka is married to a dashing Communist leader with whom she has two children. Around her people are disappearing, but her own family is safe. But she is about to embark on a forbidden love affair, which will have devastating consequences. Sashenka's story lies hidden for half a century, until a young historian goes deep into Stalin's private archives and uncovers a heart-breaking story of passion and betrayal, savage cruelty and unexpected heroism--and one woman forced to make an unbearable choice.
In Roosevelt and Stalin, Susan Butler tells the story of how the leader of the capitalist world and the leader of the Communist world became more than allies of convenience during World War II. They shared the same outlook for the postwar world, and formed an uneasy yet deep friendship, shaping the global stage from the war to the decades leading up to and into the new century. The book makes clear that Roosevelt worked hard to win Stalin over, by always holding out the promise that Roosevelt’s own ideas were the best hope for the future peace and security of Russia. Stalin, however, was initially unconvinced that Roosevelt’s planned world organization, even with police powers, would be strong enough to keep Germany from starting a new war. In the end we see how Stalin’s opinion of Roosevelt evolved and how he began to view FDR as the key to peace. Roosevelt and Stalin is a revelatory portrait of this crucial, geopolitical partnership.
"The story of the fascinating and fateful "daughter diplomacy" of Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman, three glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference with Stalin in the waning days of World War II"--
On September 5, 1945, cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko severed ties with the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, reporting to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police allegations of extensive Soviet espionage in North America, providing stolen documents detailing Soviet intelligence matters to back his claims. This action sent shockwaves through Washington, London, Moscow, and Ottawa, changing the course of the twentieth century. Using recently declassified FBI and Canadian RCMP files on the Gouzenko case, author and Cold War scholar Amy Knight sheds new light on the FBI's efforts to incriminate Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White in order to discredit the Truman Administration. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover seized upon Gouzenko's defection as a means through which to demonize the Soviets, distorting statements made by Gouzenko to stir up "spy fever" in the U.S., setting the McCarthy era into motion. Through the FBI files and interviews with several key players, Knight delves into Gouzenko's reasons for defecting and brilliantly connects these events to the strained relations between the Soviet Union and the West, marking the beginning of the Cold War.
A history of one of Russia's greatest leaders explores the life and career of Potemkin, lover of Catherine the Great and architect of Russian imperial power.
From the author of The Romanovs: a vivid account of history's most successful political partnership—as sensual and fiery as it was creative and visionary. Catherine the Great was a woman of notorious passion and imperial ambition. Prince Potemkin—wildly flamboyant and sublimely talented—was the love of her life and her co-ruler. Together they seized Ukraine and Crimea, territories that define the Russian sphere of influence to this day. Their affair was so tumultuous that they negotiated an arrangement to share power, leaving each of them free to take younger lovers. But these “twin souls” never stopped loving each other. Drawing on the pair’s intimate letters and on vast research, Simon Sebag Montefiore's widely acclaimed biography restores these imperial partners to their rightful place as titans of their age.
