Spies and Commissars: The secret intelligence war in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution Main Market Edition

`Service has produced a lively and compelling account of the dangerous years that followed the revolution, full of intriguing characters such as the US diplomat William Bullitt, the American left-wing journalists John Reed and Louise Bryant, and the maverick American businessman Armand Hammer, whose links to the Soviet Union would continue until his death in 1990. But it is ultimately the commissars rather than the spies who are the most interesting. Trotsky and Lenin have both been the subjects of acclaimed biographies by Service, so it is perhaps not surprising that, whatever the author’s intent, it is they who remain by far the most compelling figures in this fascinating book.’
–The Sunday Times Culture Michael Smith

`…if a romance born of Utopian dreams and the glamour of the barricades still tinges the brave dawn of the Russian Revolution, then Robert Service’s latest book is an effective gloss-remover. ..here he devotes his research skills to many forgotten figures, among them some imperishable treasures whose names alone sound as if they were culled from a Monty Python sketch, such as the socialite Aimee Ernesta Drinker of the French intelligence office Charles Adolphe Faux-Pas Bidet.’ –Mail on Sunday Review, Andrew Anthony

`..enthralling…Crazy times throw up remarkable people, and much of the allure of the book lies in the colourful figures of the espionage world of the time…As in his superbly demystifying biography of Trotsky, once again Service tells it like it was, and this time it is the flailing Western governments and their blundering intrigues that are in his sights. Yet, as ever, he keeps his balance. To this day, Lenin’s sympathisers claim that Red Terror was forced on him by foreign intervention. It is true that there was no lack of anti-Soviet scheming and subversion, much of it British. But as Service has shown in his many books, the subsequent history of communism confirmed that terror was always at the heart of the Marxist-Leninist creed.’ –George Walden, Sunday Telegraph

‘It was a time of ferment and Service’s colourful narrative teems with foreign mavericks and adventurers…’
–Christopher Silvester, Daily Express

`…his most vividly written book so far….at his best and most engaging when he describes the mindsets and idiosyncrasies of the Bolsheviks and their foreign admirers. He captures wonderfully the mood of the revolutionary émigrés when they heard the news of the February Revolution and the abdication of the tsar…There is much to enjoy in Spies and Commissars…’ –Christopher Andrew, Literary Review

`Robert Service’s lively book brings his characteristic blend of erudition and common sense to a retelling of this turbulent story.’ –International Affairs

`Service’s colourful narrative teems with foreign mavericks and adventurers’
–The Oldie