Review | Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess
It’s Friday night, and I have just finished a biography of one of the most fascinating figures in Cold War espionage, Guy Burgess. For those who are not familiar with the subject, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean created an international scandal when, in 1951, they both defected from England to Soviet Russia, starting a complete erosion of trust in the British intelligence system. It was then discovered that the two had belonged to a larger group called the Cambridge Spy Ring, a network of British spies who were strategically placed in the top echelon of the British government and were trusted with some of the most explosive Cold War secrets of the time. It was not so much the betrayal that shocked the nation; it was more the fact that Burgess and Maclean, along with the third and fourth men of the ring, Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, were members of the British upper class who enjoyed the trappings of wealth and privilege that their class afforded them, the very things that their communist ideals were trying to neutralise.
More than 50 years after the famous disappearance of Burgess and Maclean and dozens of books, plays, films and TV shows written about or based on them, I really did not think that a new book could provide any more insight into the well hashed story of the defectors. I am glad to be proven wrong on this. Andrew Lownie’s book is a very eloquent build up of a novel argument: Guy Burgess was not simply the tragicomic clown most people believed him to be. Burgess, as argued by Lownie, was the charismatic central figure who was instrumental in recruiting fellow Soviet agents and, between his time in Cambridge and 1951, had managed to pass copies of over 4000 confidential documents to his Soviet master.
The biography started and progressed very conventionally, following Burgess’ life in a chronological order. Brought up destined to follow in the footstep of his Naval officer father, Burgess spent a brief period of his late childhood in Eton College before being sent up to Dartmouth, where a strict routine of discipline and obedience was a drastic change from a carefree and spoilt early years that Burgess was accustomed to in the company of a very indulgent mother and an absent father. The latter died when Burgess was not yet 14 and the tragedy was to cement the tight bond between Burgess and his mother, one which Lownie suggests was almost Oedipal. As a student (he later returned to Eton), Burgess excelled academically and received many prizes for doing exceptionally well in History, ultimately winning a scholarship to read History at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Cambridge proved to be a decisive period for the inquisitive and, by this time, politically aware Burgess. In the chapters relating to the Cambridge years, Lownie took great care in recounting Burgess’ complicated fervour for communism, starting with a friendship with a coal miner’s son and culminated in his joining the Apostles, a secret society predominantly made up of communists from Trinity and King’s. Take for example the reports of how he would organise workers’ marches and turn up with an Old Etonian tie hidden underneath his collar, in case it might prove useful if he was arrested. Even then, Burgess was acutely aware of what he as a privileged member of the upper class could get away with in 1930s Britain. This membership in the top tier of the British society would prove helpful to Burgess’ covert spying, as Burgess very effectively relied on his extensive social network that included Winston Churchill to put himself in positions that allowed him access to very sensitive information and policy making at the height of Cold War.
While the conventional narrative opted by Lownie could easily turn monotonous, I could not help but to be increasingly fascinated by the picture of Burgess painted by the author, in the words of close friends and contemporaries, some of whom had shared Burgess’ communist ideals and almost all of whom had been wealthy social peers in status. It is very telling that one of these friends, Goronwy Reese, was ostracised when he chose to reveal too much personal correspondence between himself and Burgess years after the latter’s defection, suggesting that loyalty to class and members of the same is expected to continue even when such members prove to be agents for a foreign and hostile power. Also of note is how Burgess’ homosexuality, rather than being a massive obstacle to his career, turned out to be an asset that allowed him to run around in the circle of homosexual powerful men of politics and the civil service. It was even suggested that the secrecy of these men’s sexual lives made them more trusting of fellow homosexuals and information passed freely amongst them. In this respect, as supported by Burgess’ Soviet handler, Burgess helped the KGB into the homosexual network by winning their trust simply by being one of them.
Lownie, very wisely in my view, waited to compile his own opinions on Burgess’ personality and motives until the very end of the book. I say motives, when in fact, even Lownie admitted that the best that we have are still mere speculated reasons for Burgess’ action. Could it be the fact that despite his privileged background, Burgess was always an outsider longing to belong? Or, as was claimed repeatedly by Burgess himself to explain his own bad behaviours, was he just in it for the fun and a desire to shock, not grasping the full extent of the consequences? My guess is, we will never know. But it is just our good luck that this book tries very hard at bringing together more pieces to the puzzle and comes out very well indeed.
Verdict: I cannot recommend this highly enough to students of Cold War history.
Available in Kindle format, though for some reason, it costs way more than the paperback version. I am still reeling with indignation over this.
Coming up next: Mary Beard’s SPQR? I finished it a couple of weeks ago, but I am thinking of persuading a dear friend whose writing I’ve admired for a long time to do it instead. We’ll see what comes up. Until then, have a good weekend and keep your fingers crossed for a more well kept and well updated Buku Project. Later, all.
