Stalin’s Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire with Antonia Senior, in Conversation with Roger Moorhouse

Antonia Senior, in conversation with Roger Moorhouse, will explore the lasting impact of the Cambridge Five on Russia.

About the event

Using recently declassified files, Antonia Senior, in conversation in Roger Moorhouse, explores 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. Thanks to Stalin’s Cambridge spies there was barely a secret, barely a decision made, that he did not know about, 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.

As Antonia 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.

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About the speakers

Roger Moorhouse is a historian specialising in modern German and Central European history. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Warsaw and has written a number of books, including ‘Killing Hitler’, ‘Berlin at War’, ‘The Devils’ Alliance’, ‘First to Fight: The Polish War 1939’ and ‘The Forgers’.

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.