In October 1930 a former ‘rebel and socialist’ – as Reader Bullard described himself – arrived in the Soviet Union on a posting from the British Foreign Office. Although broadly sympathetic to the aims of the Russian Revolution, he was unable to ignore the evidence of his own eyes: and he recorded his impressions in a secret diary, which he considered so incriminating that parts of it had to be written in code.

26 March 1933. According to Muggeridge even the young enthusiasts who come out to work on that rag, the Moscow News, are drifting away now that they no longer have permission to buy at special shops. Muggeridge’s wife is a niece of Mrs Sidney Webb, and she has shown her aunt his letters from Russia. She describes how after reading one of them, Mrs Webb walked up and down the room wringing her hands and saying: ‘Old people become set in their opinions and perhaps I was deceived.’ She was deceived.
FromInside Stalin’s Russia: The Diaries of Reader Bullard, 1930–1934 edited by Julian and Margaret Bullard

ISBN 0953 2213 1 8/978 0953 2213 1 8; 320 pp + 8 pp illustrations; £19.50 hardback

Reviews

‘A wonderful find’ – Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

‘His integrity shines like his prose’ – Martin Amis, Observer Books of the Year

‘Fascinating. …A pleasure to read’ – Roy Hattersley, The Guardian

‘It is early to start picking the Book of the Year but this should be a strong contender’ – Richard Ollard, The Spectator

‘A stunning portrait. … Julian and Margaret Bullard have performed a service for history and literature by editing this remarkable diary’ – Rupert Cornwell, The Independent

Reader Bullard in Tehran, 1943, flanked by Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill. Josef Stalin gives a wave