Bethell, Nicholas

Posledniaia taina [The Last Secret: The Delivery to Stalin of Over Two Million Russians by Britain and the United States]

London: Stenvalley Press, 1974. Item #1499

286 pp.; 20.5 × 14 cm. In publisher’s printed wrappers. A very good copy with light wear.

First Russian edition of Lord Nicholas Bethell’s landmark study of the Allied forced repatriation of Soviet citizens after World War II, known as Operation Keelhaul. Translated into Russian by art historian and dissident Igor Golomstock, this volume includes a powerful epilogue by writer and public intellectual Viktor Nekrasov. The preface is authored by Oxford historian Hugh Trevor-Roper.

The book investigates one of the darkest episodes of postwar diplomacy: the secret agreements and practical implementation of returning anti-Soviet Russians—former POWs, White émigrés, Cossacks, and civilians—to the USSR, where many faced execution or imprisonment in the Gulag. Drawing from newly opened archives and eyewitness testimonies, Bethell details the political pressures and moral dilemmas faced by British and American officials who facilitated this repatriation—often against the will of the repatriates. With stark clarity, Bethell’s account critiques not only the policies of Churchill and Roosevelt but also the broader Western complicity in Stalin’s postwar purges.

Price: $150.00