Posted by Duncan on April 21, 2002 at 18:09:52 from 64.12.104.176:
In Reply to: Ransome as British Secret Agent posted by Phil Tomaselli on April 19, 2002 at 19:35:13:
I'll be absolutely frank and say I don't believe it.
Nor, actually, do I believe the 'Cheka' argument because he was so strongly associated with the Bolsheviks that he could only have made a pretty naff Russian agent.
I would be absolutely horrified if you're right because I see AR as a very consistent anti-imperialist (as his later thoughts about China also seem to substantiate), and I would hate to think that he was double-crossing close friends of his, like Karl Radek, or indeed that he managed to have such influence over Evgenia as to 'convert' her (unless you suggest she never knew).
You suggest a bizarre amount of detail so I must discover your sources. I refuse to believe that a British agent would write so eloquently about the revolution, particularly his words about it's glorious romantic doomed fate... He was so PARTICULARLY opposed to British policy in Russia - particularly so in the period you mention - and for extremely good reasons. Sections of the autobiography (coupled with the short story 'The Unofficial Side' suggest to me that he was quite the opposite of the double-dealing nasty character you present him as. OK, as someone whose position on the Russian revolution is close to AR's public position at the time, as well as quite close to Paul Foot's avowed position, it is obvious that I would be disappointed to learn that my literary hero did not share my politics in the way that I thought he did, and that might narrow my mind...
Please, present some of your evidence. My own understanding of the Stockholm episode was that he greatly wanted to go to Britain and was prevented, because of his bolshevik associations.
Reading that interview with Lenin again - it doesn't make sense as the work of an agent - it presents an economic position which is not particularly close to that of Lenin at that point in time (therefore he was not acting a part to seem sympathetic) and was a million miles away from the view of the British government (okay you could understand that from an agent) - it just... grrr... I'll stop commenting until I've seen some of your evidence because at the moment you could have just made all of that up for some bizarre reason...
I'm quite vexed!
Duncan