The threat from Russia’s spies has only increased since the fall of Communism

‘Stalin’ was also an alias. The Soviet dictator’s real name was Ioseb Vissarionovich Jugashvili, born into the family of a Georgian cobbler. His education, which he never finished, was limited to a theological seminary. Those were two leaders who successfully stood their ground against such personalities as David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Stanley Baldwin and Clement Attlee.

Extraordinary political decisions and secret intelligence wars fought between Russia and Britain between the two world wars comprise the general subject matter of Victor Madeira’s excellent Britannia and the Bear, published in the ‘History of British Intelligence’ series with a foreword by Christopher Andrew. The book covers the period between 1917 and 1929 — that is, from the Bolshevik revolution masterminded by Lenin to the five years following his demise, when Stalin established himself as the unchallenged master of the country. And for all those decades from Lenin and Stalin to the three-time Russian president Vladimir Putin, the largest country in the world has continued to be unpredictable, as the recent events in Ukraine show.

Madeira’s pioneering work, which in the words of Professor Andrew is ‘the first to integrate successfully the early history of British counter-subversion with the development of the British intelligence services’, will certainly be of interest to students and historians of intelligence.