The Maisky diaries
Subtitle: Red ambassador to the Court of St James's, 1932-1943
By: edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky ; translated by Tatiana Sorokina and Oliver Ready
Contributors: Gorodetsky, Gabriel, 1945- editor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 584
ISBN-13: 9780300180671
Subjects: Sources; World War, 1939-1945; Diaries; Diplomatic history; Ambassadors; Foreign relations
Other titles: Red ambassador to the Court of St James's, 1932-1943
Description: The terror and purges of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s discouraged Soviet officials from leaving documentary records let alone keeping personal diaries. A remarkable exception is the unique diary assiduously kept by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to London between 1932 and 1943. This selection from Maisky's diary, never before published in English, grippingly documents Britain's drift to war during the 1930s, appeasement in the Munich era, negotiations leading to the signature of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Churchill's rise to power, the German invasion of Russia, and the intense debate over the opening of the second front. Maisky was distinguished by his great sociability and access to the key players in British public life. Among his range of regular contacts were politicians (including Churchill, Chamberlain, Eden, and Halifax), press barons (Beaverbrook), ambassadors (Joseph Kennedy), intellectuals (Keynes, Sidney and Beatrice Webb), writers (George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells), and indeed royalty. His diary further reveals the role personal rivalries within the Kremlin played in the formulation of Soviet policy at the time.
Notes: Translated from the Russian.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Text translated from the Russian.