MovieChat Forums > Cambridge Spies (2003) Discussion > Is Peter Moffat a Stalinist?

Is Peter Moffat a Stalinist?

posted 10 years ago by pert990
8 replies | jump to latest

Why else would he want to glamourise a bunch of upper class twats who thought gulags, firing squads and show trials were the wave of the future, and sent many western agents to their deaths because of it?

[–] Altho73 10 years ago

Obviously

The same as the idiot Alan Bennett who doesn't see what the Cambridge Spies did that was so wrong.

That is what is so weird about British society - so many unbelievable idiots who were in love with the Soviet Union and some still are!!!!

[–] pmiano100 10 years ago

There were many Americans who were similarly stupid, having witnessed the Depression. Even today some liberal fools claim the old USSR managed to do fairly well during that time. Of course, things were so bad anyway how could they tell?

An American traitor who spied for the Russians but escaped prosecution and now teaches at a British university still claims that while he was sorry to help a tyrant like Stalin, he was glad he helped give the God-accursed Soviets get the A-bomb because it established the "balance of power". The US was the sole owner of the atomic bomb for five years. That it never threatened to use it after WWII when it could have seems to escape his notice.

Western leftists have always feared the USA more than Russia or China.

[–] Altho73 10 years ago

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An American traitor who spied for the Russians but escaped prosecution and now teaches at a British university still claims that while he was sorry to help a tyrant like Stalin, he was glad he helped give the God-accursed Soviets get the A-bomb because it established the "balance of power".
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The guy is an idiot.

[–] linop90 10 years ago

Of course they fear, well not fear but despise and are puzzled by the USA.
Such an out of kilter political spectrum with 2 right wing parties.

For all that freedom bs sprouted by amerikans whilst they live in their insular bubble, America always seems just one goosestep away from becoming a 2 bit far right military dictatorship.

Eat the Neocons.

[–] puirt-a-beul 10 years ago

Why else would he want to glamourise a bunch of upper class twats ...

Sorry to spoil your righteous anger, but he didn't.

There was nothing in the series to glamourise them, and certainly nothing to suggest they approved of Stalin's tactics. They saw Hitler and the rise of fascism as the greater threat, and were angry at their own country's inability to counter him and its lack of concern about the welfare of its own people. By the time they realised they'd made a pact with the devil, it was too late -- they were trapped.

If anything, the series shows how far they were from the progressives and clear-thinkers they believed themselves to be. And also, what idiots there were on all sides of "the game".

You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

[–] hermione47 10 years ago

They fought and risked their lives for what they believed in. They hated Hitler and believed Russia was a better prospect. I don't see much wrong with that.

[–] hamlet-16 10 years ago

They were living in privileged ivory towers and ultimately trapped by their actions BUT in particular Philby and McLean remained dedicated Communists.

No real excuses for them...they were foot soldiers for as evil an regime as we have ever seen.

But the how they could become such is a story worth telling.

[–] Squeeth2 9 years ago

Gulags, firing squads and show trials were the future. Haven't you heard of Guantanamo and Castlereagh? As for Western agents, who sent them? Incompetent MI6 and CIA tossers, who thought that 300 spies would prevail where 300 divisions had failed. Big boys games have big boys rules. Billion Dollar Brain sums it up.

Where the spies (and you) go wrong is in assuming that the Stalinists, fascists and bourgeois liberals were fundamentally different - they're all statist parasites and use the same methods; only anarchists are fundamentally different

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010..