British Visitors to Russia

Abstract

This chapter deals with the writings of some of the British visitors to Russia, including John Cournos, the modernist writer, who produced an early anti-Bolshevik pamphlet; Robert Wilton, the anti-Semitic correspondent for the Times, and Michael Farbman, correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, who offered highly contrasting early accounts; Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells, whose accounts were distinguished by the cultural status of their authors, the latter much noted for an interview with Lenin; and Francis McCullagh, the former journalist, now British officer and agent taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks, who offered quite contrasting perspectives to those of the official visitors.