Read Online Last of the Cold War Spies by Roland Perry - Free Book Online
Authors: Roland Perry
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Blunt remarked dryly, “this was a bit much.” 7
Wilfrid slept on deck, where he was further irritated by a Chinese deck-hand who wanted to show him dirty postcards. “What made it worse,” he remarked, “was that they were pictures of women.”
During the seminars, the lugubrious Blunt sat to one side and listened in silence. He seemed to be weighing the reactions to Madge’s comments. One member raised the matter of the toilets. Madge dismissed it as irrelevant and only something that would be brought up by someone from a privileged bourgeois background. The ship’s crew, the gullible group were reminded, were performing to a higher ideal. They could hardly be expected to concern themselves with such a triviality.
Straight shared neither Wilfrid’s disdain for the ship’s conditions nor his reticence. He was excited. He treated the trip as a true pilgrimage. He was overawed by the sight of a large female deckhand, which he took as symbolic of female emancipation and equality in a more advanced society. It was free of class barriers, both social and sexual. Straight took photos of her with his expensive Leica camera, of which she was wary. He was aglow with the thrill of a voyage to utopia, the new society of the Soviet Union.
Blunt and Fletcher-Cooke left the ship for one day to visit a German medieval town on the Baltic coast. Straight snapped them being lowered over the side in a boat.
When they arrived at Leningrad, a member of the party cried: “Freedom at last,” then stumbled on a sign ordering them not to walk on the grass verge. Brian Simon enjoyed himself. “They [the Russians] seemed to be pushing ahead all the time,” he noted through rose-tinted spectacles. “There was no unemployment. A planned economy seemed to be working.” 8
Charles Fletcher-Cooke was more circumspect. He had been given a grant to study libel law under communism and plenty of contacts. But on arrival he found they had disappeared. He learned later of Stalin’s purges.
From the first day in Leningrad they were given the usual tours of monuments to the October Revolution in 1917 and were kept well away from locals. Christopher Mayhew tried to engage them but was shunned. He wondered if it were his bad Russian, but none of the tourists understood that there was real fear in the country. Engagements with foreigners were forbidden. Any breach of this would run the risk of a heavy reprisal.
“They provided a bus [in Leningrad] for us,” Lord Young recalled, “and treated us royally.” Unlike Rycroft, Mayhew, and Wilfrid Blunt, he found the whole trip “great fun” and kept an enthusiastic diary. 9
Blunt avoided the dreary factory tours. He took his brother with him to the Hermitage, which took days to view. They both later wrote about it. The Blunts met Lady Muriel Paget, who was working on behalf of the British born “marooned” for one reason or another in Russia. Her flat, Wilfrid noted, had an air of conspiracy, with figures half-glimpsed coming and going. 10
The tour party took the night train to Moscow and stayed at the Moscow Nova at the corner of Red Square. There seemed to be much going on in the Russian capital. The seventh, and last, International Congress of the Comintern was passing resolutions on forming “popular fronts.” These Soviet-controlled organizations aimed at forming links with socialist parties in all Western European countries. The legitimate cover was an effort to defeat fascism. The second, more clandestine objective was to infiltrate non-Communist groups in order to gain control of public opinion throughout Europe.
The group was shown the Metro. Blunt wrote excitedly: “The Metro . . . is perfect in comfort and efficiency, but it has a Parisian chic and one almost expects a top hat to emerge from its doors.”
It resembled the neo-Baroque music halls of Europe, but it was limited in size—a fraction of the Paris Metro or the London Underground—and was more of a showpiece for
Wilfrid slept on deck, where he was further irritated by a Chinese deck-hand who wanted to show him dirty postcards. “What made it worse,” he remarked, “was that they were pictures of women.”
During the seminars, the lugubrious Blunt sat to one side and listened in silence. He seemed to be weighing the reactions to Madge’s comments. One member raised the matter of the toilets. Madge dismissed it as irrelevant and only something that would be brought up by someone from a privileged bourgeois background. The ship’s crew, the gullible group were reminded, were performing to a higher ideal. They could hardly be expected to concern themselves with such a triviality.
Straight shared neither Wilfrid’s disdain for the ship’s conditions nor his reticence. He was excited. He treated the trip as a true pilgrimage. He was overawed by the sight of a large female deckhand, which he took as symbolic of female emancipation and equality in a more advanced society. It was free of class barriers, both social and sexual. Straight took photos of her with his expensive Leica camera, of which she was wary. He was aglow with the thrill of a voyage to utopia, the new society of the Soviet Union.
Blunt and Fletcher-Cooke left the ship for one day to visit a German medieval town on the Baltic coast. Straight snapped them being lowered over the side in a boat.
When they arrived at Leningrad, a member of the party cried: “Freedom at last,” then stumbled on a sign ordering them not to walk on the grass verge. Brian Simon enjoyed himself. “They [the Russians] seemed to be pushing ahead all the time,” he noted through rose-tinted spectacles. “There was no unemployment. A planned economy seemed to be working.” 8
Charles Fletcher-Cooke was more circumspect. He had been given a grant to study libel law under communism and plenty of contacts. But on arrival he found they had disappeared. He learned later of Stalin’s purges.
From the first day in Leningrad they were given the usual tours of monuments to the October Revolution in 1917 and were kept well away from locals. Christopher Mayhew tried to engage them but was shunned. He wondered if it were his bad Russian, but none of the tourists understood that there was real fear in the country. Engagements with foreigners were forbidden. Any breach of this would run the risk of a heavy reprisal.
“They provided a bus [in Leningrad] for us,” Lord Young recalled, “and treated us royally.” Unlike Rycroft, Mayhew, and Wilfrid Blunt, he found the whole trip “great fun” and kept an enthusiastic diary. 9
Blunt avoided the dreary factory tours. He took his brother with him to the Hermitage, which took days to view. They both later wrote about it. The Blunts met Lady Muriel Paget, who was working on behalf of the British born “marooned” for one reason or another in Russia. Her flat, Wilfrid noted, had an air of conspiracy, with figures half-glimpsed coming and going. 10
The tour party took the night train to Moscow and stayed at the Moscow Nova at the corner of Red Square. There seemed to be much going on in the Russian capital. The seventh, and last, International Congress of the Comintern was passing resolutions on forming “popular fronts.” These Soviet-controlled organizations aimed at forming links with socialist parties in all Western European countries. The legitimate cover was an effort to defeat fascism. The second, more clandestine objective was to infiltrate non-Communist groups in order to gain control of public opinion throughout Europe.
The group was shown the Metro. Blunt wrote excitedly: “The Metro . . . is perfect in comfort and efficiency, but it has a Parisian chic and one almost expects a top hat to emerge from its doors.”
It resembled the neo-Baroque music halls of Europe, but it was limited in size—a fraction of the Paris Metro or the London Underground—and was more of a showpiece for
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