Officially:a graduate of an exclusive school and a sophisticated English gentleman. Privately:drunkard and sybarite. At the same time, a traitor to his own country, who was selling British state secrets to Moscow. Was it thanks to his reports that Stalin decided in 1939 for the pact that influenced the fate of World War II?
Guy Burgess, a British traitor for Soviet intelligence, was part of the communist spy network known as the "Cambridge Five" on the eve of World War II. They were eminent employees of the English secret services and diplomacy who sent thousands of secret information to Moscow. At least one of them could have induced Stalin to enter into an alliance with Hitler ...
The Spy Who Loved Different
Guy Burgess, born on April 16, 1911, was the son of an officer in the Royal Navy and a wealthy lady from the British financial elite. At the age of 9, the boy was transferred to a private school for high society youth, where discipline was extremely strict. This institution was to be a ticket to such renowned universities as Eton College, where Guy found himself in 1924. He quickly became one of the best students there.
Eton College is one of England's oldest boarding schools for boys. Founded in 1440 by King Henry VI, it was considered one of the most prestigious in the whole country.
Soon there was a tragedy in the boy's family that had a huge impact on his further life. One summer night, while Burgess was in the family home, he heard shrill screams from his parents' bedroom. Disturbed, he decided to run to the room where he found his father naked, crushing his mother. The man died during sexual intercourse, and the shocked son had to separate his parents Or so Burgess described it. It was this event that would have a decisive influence on his future sexual orientation.
After his father died, Guy left his studies at Eton and entered Dartmouth Naval College, a college that trained officers for the British Navy. He stayed there for three years, but never finished it. He officially left Dartmouth due to a visual impairment. In reality, however, his inclinations towards men probably began to be revealed then. The school in this "elegant" way got rid of the troublesome cadet. So Guy continued his studies at Eton, where he discovered a passion for politics and enjoyed homosexual practices. It was supposed to be so common there that, as he later admitted to the Russians: even teachers seduced students - we read in the latest book by Andrew Lownie entitled Stalin's Englishman. All-time espionage story .
Greetings from Moscow
In October 1930 Guy Burgess enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, one of the most respected universities in Great Britain. Andrew Lownie in the book Stalin's English stated that "Cambridge was the perfect choice for him [Burgess], offering him presence in certain influential circles, intellectual development and sexual freedom." Guy took full advantage of these opportunities. He got to know the sons of people from the higher social, business and political elite, and he sometimes went to bed with them. Despite the fact that he was described by his colleagues as a sloppy bastard, he was able to make new friends easily, he could even make people dependent on himself, which he later took advantage of.
The article was inspired by Andrew Lownie's latest book, Stalin's Englishman. A spy story of all time "(Bellona 2017), which is a biography of one of the most famous British spies, Guy Burgess.
It was in Cambridge that Burgess met Kim Philby and Antony Blunt, with whom he later spied on behalf of the Soviets. He also introduced the latter to the secrets of the homosexual sado-maso. It was also then that he became infected with the communist ideology, which was quite fashionable at the time among students who saw it as an antidote to the spread of fascism. Burgess became part of a communist cell at the university. There he then met another member of the future "Big Five" Donald Maclean, whose colleagues introduced him to the charms of hours of drunkenness and "male" sex.
Communism took over Guy Burgess's soul and mind to such an extent that in 1934 he traveled to the Soviet Union. At about the same time, Kim Philby was recruited to cooperate with Arnold Deutsch, a Soviet intelligence agent in Britain. Philby was to present Detsch with a list of potential spies:Cambridge students who might later occupy important senior positions in British government. Besides Maclean, Burgess was also among them.
Who would have thought that such innocent-looking young students would become traitors of their own country? Certainly neither the teachers at Eton nor at Trinity suspected that they were raising capable but cunning spies.
Spyware license
Burgess had been considered by the NKVD as a possible collaborator much earlier. One of the main factors in this assessment was precisely his homosexuality. The Soviets knew that it was punishable in the UK. The gay community was thus hermetically sealed and its members sufficiently loyal to each other, which was a huge advantage in the case of intelligence work . Often, however, pressure was used to win over a spy. In this case, it was not difficult to find compromising materials that could be used to blackmail potential colleagues.
There was no need to persuade Burgess to serve for the USSR. Sam actually forced Philby and Maclean to set him up with Deutsche. Thus, in December 1935, Guy Burgess became an associate of the Soviet secret services. It must be added that due to extensive social contacts, it was a very valuable acquisition.
In 1937, Burgess took a job as an assistant editor at the BBC, where he hosted a number of radio broadcasts. At that time, the network of Soviet spies gradually grew thanks to recruiting more and more people. John Cairncross, the last of the Big Five, was also recruited.
Working for one of the largest radio stations in Great Britain, the BBC, gave Burgess the opportunity to make many important contacts. As soon as he got a job in one of the English intelligence sections, he said goodbye to the radio station. However, he used his radio experience while conducting anti-Nazi broadcasts.
In His Majesty's Secret Service
Sometime in the middle of 1937, Burgess, by a fortunate coincidence, became an associate of MI6 - English intelligence. Before the Soviets, there was an incredible opportunity to penetrate the most important agenda of British secret services from the inside. At the same time, Guy continued his work on the radio, becoming quite an influential commentator on current world political events.
In January 1938, Burgess finally said goodbye to the BBC and moved full-time to Section D of MI6. The role of this department was to support anti-Nazi organizations in Europe and to conduct anti-Nazi propaganda via radio. Thanks to this, Guy gained access to top secret information about Great Britain's preparations for the war. Soon other events followed, thanks to which his star shone brightest in the sky of Soviet spies in the British Isles.
It is not known whether Joseph Stalin would meet Joachim von Ribbentrop in Moscow on August 23, 1939 (pictured), if not for the information that Burgess passed on to Moscow ...
War will come tomorrow
On March 31, 1939, the British and French governments announced that they would grant Poland a guarantee of assistance in the event of aggression by the Third Reich. In Berlin, these declarations were met with the fury of Hitler, who perhaps then began to think about an alliance with Stalin. Moreover, in mid-April, the Western powers proposed to the USSR to establish a tripartite agreement on security in Europe. It was also to include Poland and Romania.
At that time, Burgess provided Moscow with information which clearly showed that these were only sham actions on the part of the West. In fact, the British government distrusted the Soviets and continued to seek an agreement with Hitler. In turn, at the beginning of August 1939, Burgess reported to his principals that, according to British staff officers, "the war between Great Britain and Germany can be easily won." In this situation, an alliance with the Soviet Union seemed unnecessary. So he once again convinced Moscow that the British and the French were dishonest in their intentions.
The headquarters of M16 in London, i.e. the British special service established in 1909 to conduct foreign intelligence. Burgess was a member.
To make matters worse, a British-French delegation came to Moscow in mid-August. The very fact of sending these people to the USSR via the Baltic Sea in an old ship turned out to be a mistake. They only reached their destination after six days of sailing. Additionally, the Soviets were disappointed with the low rank of the delegation - at least the ministers of foreign affairs should participate in the talks at such an important level. On the spot, it turned out that the members of the mission did not have any authority to sign any binding agreements. Yet peace in Europe was supposed to depend on the results of these negotiations. The Allies were clearly trying to stall. This action could have sent Stalin a clear signal that Burgess's revelations were most credible.
You only live once
Of course, it is impossible today to establish to what extent Burgess's reports influenced the Soviet dictator's decision to enter into the pact with Hitler - only he knew it. However, they certainly made it much easier. They were one of the most important reasons that convinced Stalin that the Western countries were bluffing and would seek an agreement with Hitler themselves. And this in the long run could thwart the Red Tsar's plans for the expansion of communism.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was one of the most important documents concluded before the outbreak of World War II. The information that Stalin received from the famous Cambridge Five assured him that the Western countries were bluffing and could soon seek an agreement with Hitler themselves. The interests of the USSR would suffer greatly then.
The Cambridge Five was the most dangerous spy network the Soviets of Britain managed to create in the twentieth century. The scale of their activity is evidenced by the fact that in 1941 alone, 7867 secret British documents were sent from London to Moscow. Among them were, obtained thanks to Enigma, intelligence data and information about the Polish government in exile. British traitors successfully operated throughout the Second World War and even at the beginning of the Cold War.
Guy Burgess fled to Moscow in the spring of 1951. He not only got a flat there, but also assumed a new identity. He drank and smoked a lot. He did not neglect his homosexual inclinations, taking care of acquiring more and more lovers. Even so, he felt lonely and missed the country he had betrayed. He died on August 30, 1963.
You can buy the book at empik.com:
