On a Field of Red : The Communist International and the Coming of World War II

London: Robert Hale Ltd,. Very Good/Very Good. 1982. Hard Cover. Lge 8vo 0709197942 Most people believe the Cold War began after World War II, but it actually originated in January 1919, in the uneasy aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, when a triumphant Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Communist International - the Comintern - which was to fight a secret war against the capitalist states. To be waged by highly trained subversives operating within those very countries, the Comintern'smission was to overthrow those governments and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The western powers were swept by such social and political unrest in the wake of World War I that such a takeover was a real possibility. Under the passionate urging of Winston Churchill to preserve the old order, the western powers sent secret agents, armies, and armaments to help the White Russian forces overthrow Lenin. But to no avail. The Soviet state endured, its Comintern activities prospered, and vast inroads were made into the power and stability of European countries and the United States. Ranging across four continents, this book depicts a world plunging inexorably toward World War II, enmeshed in a drama of incredible intrigue and espionage, played out by a cast of master spies, diplomats, propaganda chiefs, military geniuses, and government leaders. Among them were such figures as Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Rosa Luxemburg, Nikolai Lenin, Josef Stalin, Leon Trotsky, J. Edgar Hoover, Emma Goldman, John Reed, the Duke of Windsor, Harry Gold, Klaus Fuchs, Whittaker Chambers, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, and Anthony Blunt. This volume is a work of historical significance as well as a saga of high strategy and low tactics; it is a true story that sheds new light on the nature of the Cold War and on the continuing relationship of the western powers with Soviet Russia today. In writing this book, the authors had access to previously classified and unexploited files of the intelligence and counterintelligence bureaus of the United States, and to a large collection of private and official papers assembled by Major-General William J. Donovan, the first head of the OSS, predecessor agency of the CIA. .