W. Somerset Maugham: Anglo-American Agent in Revolutionary Russia
1976; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2712479
ISSN1080-6490
Autores Tópico(s)Soviet and Russian History
ResumoW. SOMERSET MAUGHAM (1874-1966) WAS CHIEF AGENT IN RUSSIA for the British and American secret services during the crucial few weeks which preceded the Bolshevik coup of 1917. Yet the voluminous literature concerning him has been almost exclusively devoted to fiction and personality, and mainly confined to French and English interests. Historians have left the field to literary critics, and they in turn have paid little attention to the political side of Maugham. Primarily interested in the author's plays, novels, and stories, students of literature have never examined Maugham's intimation that sojourn in revolutionary Petrograd was both reluctant and pointless. R. L. Calder echoed the sentiments of fellow literary critics in characterizing subject as a habitue of the Cafe Royal who had gone to war, and in maintaining that his mission did not succeed, of course.' This essay qualifies and explains Maugham's reputation for failure, and emphasizes the historical significance of undercover activities.2 The distortions of Maugham's memory help to explain reputation for failure in Russia. Ten years elapsed before he wrote about 1917, and then he cast himself in the fictional role of Ashenden. This was the name of the central character in Maugham's semi-autobiographical collection of short
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