In this gripping narrative Peter Hopkirk tells how Lenin and his revolutionary comrades tried, in the period between the two world wars, to set the East ablaze with their heady new gospel of Marxism. Their dream was to "liberate" the whole of Asia, and their starting point was British India, the richest of all imperial possessions.
The bloody struggle that ensued, the full story of which has never been told, marked a dramatic new twist in the Great Game. Among the players were British Indian intelligence officers and the armed revolutionaries of the Communist International. There were also Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords-as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive.
Pieced together from secret archives, intelligence reports, and the long-forgotten memoirs of the players involved, here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery. Like Hopkirk's bestselling The Great Game, its theme is ominously topical in view of the violent events that still grip this turbulent region-from the Caucasus to Afghanistan-where the Great Game never really ended.
Editorial Reviews
"Peter Hopkirk adopts the literary style of the spy thriller....Reminiscent of Ken Follett or Robert Ludlum...true stories of invisible ink, encoded messages, dirty tricks, and agents in disguise....A tale of adventure and international politics, at once bizarre and exotic, remote and topical." —Max J. Okenfuss, St. Louis Post Dispatch
"A real-life tale of espionage and adventure, Hopkirk's latest concerns Soviet attempts to sponsor communist revolution in Asia and the British secret agent who opposed them." —Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Peter Hopkirk is the widely acclaimed author of several books on great power rivalry in Central Asia, including The Great Game, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire, Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa, all published by Kodansha. He was a staff reporter for the Times of London for nineteen years, and lives in London.
