The most important facts about the Cambridge Five (Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, Philby and Cairncross) are that they were caught by American intelligence, not British, they were allowed to go free by the British, without their work the Cold War would not have happened and they killed indirectly thousands of people.
The failure of British Intelligence to catch these spies is astonishing. They were obviously Soviet sympathisers. Philby was treasurer of the University of Cambridge Socialist Society, a society that had been targeted by veterans for espousing treachery. He was also married to an extreme revolutionary leftist, Litzi Friedmann, who recruited him to Soviet Intelligence. Maclean had been a member of the communist party in Cambridge and Kitty Harris, his partner and Soviet handler was still a member of the Communist Party of the USSR when he became an MI6 agent. It appears that much of the Establishment knew that Blunt was a Soviet Spy, he even confessed to friends when he was drunk, but the Establishment did nothing. This leaves us with a huge question. Why did the British Establishment employ and foster these traitors?
The simplest answer is that the Establishment was riddled with Soviet Sympathisers. The "Cambridge Five" is a neat way of cauterising the extent of Soviet penetration. Who were the other spies? There was a large group of intellectuals such as Goronwy Rees, Arthur Wynn, Christopher Hill, Edith Tudor Hart, Peter Floud, Iris Murdoch, Peter Smollett etc. scientists such as Alan Nunn and Klaus Fuchs, politicians such as Labour MPs Bernard Floud, Tom Driberg, John Stonehouse, Bob Edwards, Will Owen, Ray Fletcher etc. and union leaders such as Jack Jones, Hugh Wyper and Alec Kitson and, of course, Roger Hollis, head of MI5. These were all spies who actively spied for the Soviets. The Establishment are incredibly "sniffy" about a list such as I have just given and will say "Hollis? Just unfounded accusations!" but the Establishment conducted a witch hunt against Peter Wright, the MI5 agent who was actually employed to investigate Hollis even before Wright wrote "Spy Catcher" to document his suspicions... We can name a large number of people who are known to have passed intelligence to the Soviets, these were spies, their profession was not to get caught, so there must have been 10 times as many actual spies and a 100 times as many ardent sympathisers. Lets face it, the failure to do anything about Philby etc. until the Americans insisted that something was done was not a cock up. The British Establishment were riddled with Soviet sympathisers. Even today the BBC covers the Cambridge Spies as near heroes when they were despicable traitors.
It cannot be doubted that the Cold War would never have happened without the shear extent of penetration of Western society by the Soviets. The Russians did not develop their own atomic bomb, they got the plans from spies, especially from Klaus Fuchs who was Head of Theoretical Physics at Harwell where British nuclear bombs were made and had worked on the Manhattan Project. When Fuchs was caught he only got fifteen years in jail and was let out in nine years so that he could go to East Germany and help guide the communist nuclear programme, becoming a major figure in East German nuclear research.
How many people died as a result of the activity of the Soviet spies? They routinely gave away the names of Western contacts inside the Communist bloc so probably killed hundreds or even thousands of people as a result. Their leakage of the West's nuclear secrets actually created the Cold War and allowed people like Stalin and Mao to operate nightmare regimes with impunity. It was only after 1948, with Soviet nuclear weapons, that the Cold War began in earnest. The true damage done by these spies can be measured in terms of millions of deaths.
The reason that the Establishment, especially the social sciences and media, are so inclined to simply dismiss any suggestion that Britain had been massively penetrated before and during the Cold War is that communist supporters joined the establishment rather than joining the communist party. The Establishment can see no problem even if there were huge numbers of Soviet agents in the UK. Harry Pollitt, the CPGB leader, instructed any sympathisers to join the Establishment. He said:
"Don't join us. Work hard, get good degrees, join the Establishment and serve our cause from within."
The sympathisers then recruited like minded people wherever they had a chance to do so. It was the left wing version of the "old school tie" and it was hugely successful. The penetration was so successful that New Labour was almost entirely recruited from these subversives and the Social Sciences only recruit sympathisers nowadays. Fortunately the Cold War ended before their mission could be completed. Unfortunately we now have a political system in which the Tories are self interested bankerphiles and Labour are insane extremists. Neither faction is working for Britain or its people. Whilst those influenced by the sympathizers thrive we will always have a chaotically divided society because polarisation is their aim.
The huge mystery is why so many people accept communism when it is an historical fact that all communist regimes were rotten to the core, tyrannical and even genocidal. And it is still happening. Despite everything that should have been learnt from the last century this is the golden age of Postmarxism - the use of "isms" to provoke change to tyrannical socialism. Perhaps the "isms" are the key - if a teenager feels disaffected because of an "ism" they will work to destroy the world. It is probably no coincidence that many of the spies were gay, those who understood the psychology of power exploited their alienation to the maximum effect.
Comments
'they were caught by American intelligence, not British, they were allowed to go free by the British, without their work the Cold War would not have happened and they killed indirectly thousands of people.
It cannot be doubted that the Cold War would never have happened without the shear extent of penetration of Western society by the Soviets.'
- The Americans did not 'catch' the spies as they obviously defected to the USSR. Both American and Britain were aware of the possibility that they were spies but British law prevents apprehending people without evidence which is why they were able to escape. They were being watched in order to gain evidence so that they might be arrested. This is quite obviously an American article as you are so keen to express American intuition in knowing before the British.
Your final statement -
'It is probably no coincidence that many of the spies were gay.' sums up an ignorant opinion. I do hope no one uses this article in any academic sense.
Your point that: "British law prevents apprehending people without evidence which is why they were able to escape" does not apply to spies.
My contention that the Cold War was deeply related to the activities of these traitors, and their American counterparts, is based on the fact that it was only in 1949 that the Cold War truly got under way - after the Soviets had got nuclear weapons.
The point about them being gay is that they were alienated teenagers and hence against their society. You will be calling me racist next!