Filby's legacy

The novels of Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Mount Vydal, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Le Carre, memoirs, thrillers, historical research, etc. etc. - This is a list of books that the cavalier of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the British Empire Kim Filby ordered by mail from Moscow in an English bookstore. Published these documents London weekly "Spectator".

Kima Philby, a native of a prosperous English family, a graduate of the Westminster school, agents of the NKVD recruited in 1934. Subsequently, he worked in British counterintelligence. He headed the department that investigated the activities of Soviet agents in the UK. The traitor did not consider himself: "To betray, you must have something to betray, and I did not belong to anything." In 1963, Philby fled to the USSR. He died in Moscow in 1988. The documents published by the magazine Spectator quoted an excerpt from the Moscow letter of Kim Filby: "He (former intelligence and novelist John Le Carre. - I.P. ), it seems to me, although I may be mistaken, it does not sympathize with me." Filby was not mistaken. John Le Carre despised the former colleague: “He served the country in which he never visited, ideologies that he did not study deeply, the regime, which during the monstrous purges was dangerous to serve, even being abroad. And he did not question his decision for thirty years, deceived, betrayed and killed from time to time.”

Why did Kim Filby do this? I think he experienced a kind of, I would dare to say "special English high of betrayal"*. For this buzz, after he had to pay a dull life in the dim Soviet Moscow. However, the fee could be much higher.

Today's Moscow is hard to call "dim." Vicious - yes. Brutal - yes. But still not dull. The British working today in Moscow lives much more fun than Kim Filby. But work is different. I am curious that English journalists of the English -language television channel Russia Today, "representing the Russian point of view on the events taking place in Russia and abroad, think about their service. Some of them left Russia Today with a scandal. But these are units. What are the motives of most of them: career? money? Love for Russia? Which Russia? Among them are many young people. On duty, they simply must think, analyze, delve into the essence of events. I wonder if they have moral doubts? And if so, what kind of? For example, Graham Green found convincing arguments for himself, arguing about Kim Philby: "He betrayed his homeland? Yes, perhaps. But which of us did not betray something or someone, much more important than the Motherland?" My long -standing English friend, who recently visited Moscow, directly asked his compatriot, reporter Russia Today: "What are you doing here? How did you get here?" The reporter replied: "It's a challenge!" ("This is a challenge!").

I don’t know what my former BBC Angus Russian Service colleague would answer this question. He was an excellent observer (one of his predecessors was Anatoly Maksimovich Goldberg), perfectly owned Russians. After he made a brilliant career in the London press and in the World BBC television service. I remember his dramatic reports during the years of perestroika. He paid for them: in 1989, Engus was sent from Moscow. But after he worked for a long time in the PR of the Complex, whose task was to create a positive image of Russia abroad. He must have worked shoulder to shoulder with those who once sent him from the USSR. In my opinion, it was not an easy job. At least, in the end, Engus gave up and resigned - unrespective resignation.

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*Virtuoso with the theme of betrayal, J. Orwell works in the novel "1984". The remarkable psychological subtlety, the irony inherent in the English elite are fraught with hypocrisy, is double -minded: a step to the side - and you betray.