Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War: The Conspiratorial Heritage

"These people were amateurs rather than professional intelligence workers, and the reasons for their success is intriguing and has never been satisfactorily explained. Using recently released Soviet archives, this book seeks to explore the foundations for these successes in the deliberately concealed tradition of underground political activity which was part of the communist movement. This tradition, which became extremely useful to Soviet intelligence, also explains the origins of the 'tradecraft' of espionage. The book seeks to contribute to the study of the causes of the early Cold War, by explaining how this underground tradition led to espionage.".