04 February, 2008

Two very different communists

Two odd biographies - the poet Yevtushenko's Precocious autobiography and the spy Kim Philby's My silent war. Both short, both strange, both by communists, but that's about all they had in common. Philby's book would have been more fun with a bit more in it about the way he met and contacted his Soviet partners (ie. geeky John le Carré tradecraft stuff) but I suppose at the time it was published he couldn't say anything for practical reasons. The Yevtushenko book was odd, but I'm still mulling it over, so maybe I'll write more later. [3] [4]

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