Highlights of the extraordinary wartime diaries of Ivan Maisky Soviet ambassador to London.
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
documentsBritain 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. Scrupulously edited and checked against a vast range of Russian
and Western archival evidence this extraordinary narrative diary offers a fascinating revision
of the events surrounding the Second World War.
