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Stalin’s Apostles is a radical, new look at how the spies known as the Cambridge Five – Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross and Anthony Blunt - were instrumental in the building of Stalin’s ‘Red Empire’. It explores how they allowed their obsession with Communist ideology to overshadow any sense of morality and decency as they fed Stalin with secrets for 17 years.

Using recently declassified files, the book focuses particularly on the fate of the people of eastern and central Europe who were subject to Stalin’s ruthless ambition. It opens with the story of the Ukrainian resistance fighting for their homeland in 1951 and betrayed by Kim Philby, and then returns to the 1930s as the spies are recruited by Soviet agents to live double-lives within the British establishment.

Written by Antonia Senior
Read by Jamie Glover
Abridged and produced by Julian Wilkinson
A Â鶹Éç Scotland Audio Production for Radio 4.

Antonia Senior is a journalist, critic and podcaster. She’s a book reviewer for The Times and has worked there as deputy business editor and leader writer. Antonia co-hosts the History Book Buffs. She studied the history of intelligence and the Russian Revolution at Cambridge University leading to a lifelong fascination with the relationship between the West and Russia, the Cold War and espionage. The author of three novels, Stalin's Apostles is her first work of non-fiction.

Jamie Glover has worked extensively in theatre, television, film and radio. Most recently he appeared in Inter Alia in the West End opposite Rosamund Pike and also took the title role in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. He’s best known as Andrew Treneman in Â鶹Éç’s Waterloo Road with additional television credits including The Crown and Holby City.