'Russia...is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.' Churchill's words were never truer than when the Russian Revolution developed in 1917 from the orderly abdication of an autocratic Tsar to his barbaric murder, and from the establishment of a moderate government to the seizure of power by violent Bolsheviks
But opinion in the West was slow to grasp the import of what was happening. Everyone knew that Russia was overdue for change, and everybody wanted to keep the new Soviet state as an ally in the war against the Kaiser's Germany. No one seemed aware that a reign of terror unequalled since the French Revolution was gripping a nation the size of a continent. It was left to a handful of British adventurers to lift the curtain on this troubled and bloody scene, and to expose the brutal machinations of a new order which was to shake the stability of western democracies and threaten their very existence.
Who were these whistle-blowers? Some were diplomats, some were spies, some were scholars and intellectuals; some were novelists and journalists, one was a clergyman, and there were also innocent youngsters - often governesses - who suddenly found themselves living in an alarming land. Many risked their lives and their liberty to reveal to the outside world what was happening in the secretive and sinister state that lay behind a smoke-screen of deceit and a prison-wall-like frontier.
John Ure - who has himself lived as a diplomat in Russia - brings their stories vividly to life, largely on the basis of accounts which have been gathering dust unread for a century. Once again (in the words of The Sunday Times) 'his adventurous spirit sweeps across continents and through history'.
