Kim Philby was an MI6 agent who had been working for the KGB since college. The man looked like a young Noam Chomsky, but spent his career fucking over MI6, the CIA, and notably Stephen Bandera's fascist 'resistance' movement in Ukraine.
Despite some gross but typical ingrained excuses for Western fascism...
When his forces reached the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, they found thousands of political prisoners had been slaughtered by the Soviets.
In retaliation, they joined the Gestapo in murdering thousands of Jews and Poles in the Lviv Pogrom. It is estimated that around one and a half million Jews were killed in Ukraine during the Holocaust.
The article is pretty damn good and talks frankly about Bandera and the UK/US effectively working with Nazis and spin-off fash as well as that legacy being celebrated in modern Ukraine.
I don't think it's smuggling in positive propoganda by stealth though. Just an accurate account and that reality, especially then, had a Soviet bias.
Also, Kim Philby Soviet stamp emoji when?
Having my face put on a Soviet stamp, that’s all I actually want from this communism thing. I’m not in this for the brotherhood of man, I’m here for that aesthetic. Goddamn what a cool stamp.
Philby trained the first class of agents, including James Jesus Angleton, who he became friends with. When Philby defected it drove Angleton into paranoia. He literally thought everyone at the CIA was a soviet spy.
This isn't Philby specifically but I'm reminded of hearing about an American double agent asking for help when faced with a lie detector test.
Supposedly his handlers just told him to chill out, get hydrated properly and be polite to the guy running the test, and it worked.
That's a good story and even better if true. Definitely highlights the power of social hacking and how much unconcious bias is based on social interaction. Probably just how interpretable the results of fairly junk science like lie detectors are too.
Probably was Aldrich Aims, he's is one of the best known American double agents and passed a bunch of lie detectors. He did it for money though so he's not as cool as the Cambridge Five in my opinion.
Kendall Myers is his wife Gwendolyn were very based however. They worked for the state department and passed secrets to the Cuban government for 30 years out of ideological loyalty.
According to a "law enforcement official", they were "true believers" in the Cuban system.[11] The United States federal affidavit quoted a diary entry by Kendall Myers as saying, "I can see nothing of value that has been lost by the revolution. The revolution has released enormous potential and liberated the Cuban spirit",[11] and referred to Fidel Castro as "one of the great political leaders of our time."[13] Other entries quoted reference a comparison of health care in the United States and healthcare in Cuba, and "complacency about the poor" in the United States.[11]
Unfortunately they caught him and he is now locked up at ADX Florence supermax facility, where they put all the terrorists.
the trick to beating the lie detector is to squeeze your anus muscle
I like the obligatory “retaliation” excuse, even though it literally fucking says the OUN went on to murder poles, who had fuck all to do the Soviets executing “political prisoners” too (I mean, same for their Jewish victims but the fash were operating under “Judeo-Bolshevism”). As if Bandera or any other fascist thug needed an excuse to act like fascist thugs.
Can you imagine giving the German nazis that much leeway?
“In retaliation for the murder of a German diplomat by a Jewish person in Paris, the Nazis then proceeded to launch the Kristallnacht pogrom. Then invade the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Yugoslavia, Denmark, and the USSR.”
Aside that and the disgusting framing of the OUN as “Ukraine’s resistance” (despite being dwarfed massively by Ukrainians loyal to the Union), it’s a decent article on the actual events.
You could definitely make a comparison to the post-WW1 "stab in the back" accusations going into the general Nazi accusations of Jews among other groups as inherent opponents and subversive elements towards "the German people" and state.
Not exactly the same situation given the time passing between WW1 and the Nazis taking power, but they used it as one part of their justifications for the Holocaust.
Hell yeah, the Cambridge Spies are super based/interesting. There were also several Labour MP's suspected of giving information to the Soviets which really puts into perspective how far the party has fallen :tory:
