ANTONIA SENIOR chats to Paul about her new history of the Cambridge Five STALIN'S APLOSTLES, Albania, radio games, spy rings, Burgess, Philby, Maclean, Cairncross and Blunt. Â
STALIN'S APOSTLES is a radical new look at the way five people allowed their obsession with Communist ideology to overshadow any sense of morality or decency - or loyalty to their country. Why did these gilded charming men, blessed with brains, and beauty and opportunities, choose to betray their country?
Using recently declassified files, STALIN'S APOSTLES explores as never before the treachery of Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, John Cairncross and Keeper of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt, all radicalised while at Cambridge University in the 1930s. Their clandestine supply of British and US intelligence material gave Stalin an inside track on US and British decision-making until the implosion of the spy-ring in May 1951. There was barely a secret, barely a decision made, that Stalin did not know about, thanks to his Cambridge spies, and his networks in the United States. The Five became tools in Stalin's imperial scheme, responsible directly and indirectly for the death of thousands of men and women fighting against Soviet domination.
Shielded for so long by the British Establishment, four of the five were never prosecuted for their crimes. As STALIN'S APOSTLES reveals, they were exposed as much by their own incompetence as by forensic investigation by the CIA, MI5 or MI6. And in time another dictator emerged as ruthless as Stalin, but with an even greater desire to establish a Russian Empire that would threaten Western democracy. The legacy of the Cambridge Five is not only in the graveyards of eastern Europe, but at the heart of Putin's Kremlin.
Antonia Senior is a writer, critic and journalist. She has been the historical fiction reviewer at The Times newspaper for the past 14 years. Her columns and journalism have appeared in, among others, The Guardian, The Spectator, The Times.
She launched and hosted The Spymasters Podcast from 2023 to March 2026. She now podcasts as co-host of The History Book Buffs, which reviews history books and interviews authors on a range of topics, including espionage.
Antonia’s first work of non-fiction is Stalin’s Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire. ‘Outstanding.. A darkly fascinating account of an infamous spy ring.’ (Kirkus).
Antonia lives in London, with a dog and two cats. Her children would not let her name any of the pets Dzerzhinsky.
Paul Burke is edito
Produced by Junkyard Dog
Crime Time
Crime Time FM is the official podcast of
Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025
CrimeFest 2023
CWA Daggers 2023-2026 & National Crime Reading Month
& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 2024
2024 Slaughterfest,
Ireland