How did anthony blunt die

Anthony could not have suspected in 1934 that his friend Kim Philby had already. cast his lot with Soviet intelligence, recommending his friend for recruitment. Blunt was committed to the ideals of Marxism, unlike most born into his class. Burgess, who joined up with Soviet intelligence in 1934, also played a role in bringing Blunt into the small circle.

Blunt travelled to Italy and Germany. While a lover of Italian art, Anthony rejected the Mussolini regime, and he abhorred the Hitler regime — the only choice a man deeply versed in the humanist tradition could make.

But there was another compelling reason for Blunt to make common cause with the Soviets. In 1935, Anthony Blunt visited the USSR and was amazed how the young country, only a decade past the devastation of the civil war, had restored museums and made magnificent collections available to the people. For Blunt a country where high art belonged to ordinary people was worth defending.

Meanwhile, the ideas of fascism, which found a receptive audience in some British noble families, including King Edward VIII, were perceived by Blunt as a great threat to the humanist tradition he cherished. He resolved to fight Hitler together with the Soviet Union.

Blunt became an active member of the Cambridge Five, operating under the code names "Tony," "Johnson," "Ian." One of Anthony’s tasks was to seek out suitable recruits for Soviet intelligence, the first of which was his student in French literature John Cairncross.

Not long after, the Second World War started with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Two days later, Britain and France, who had a mutual defence agreement with Poland, declared war on Germany. Men of Blunt’s social status were given draft deferments, but Anthony refused: in the fight against fascism, he was going to use every opportunity.

He participated in a short-term military reconnaissance course in Hampshire, but was expelled, despite his many talents. The authorities had uncovered Blunt’s trip to the Soviet Union and the articles he had written for leftist magazines. But Anthony did not flinch, arguing that he had visited the USSR for academic purposes. A brother with connections at the highest level also pulled some strings, and Blunt was ultimately readmitted.

The army desperately needed patriotic young intellectuals. Armed with his

Cambridge degree, Captain Anthony Blunt was assigned to the military police.

Initially he was sent to the Belgian border but his friends, particularly Burgess, managed to get him transferred.

Then followed an appointment to the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force in Boulogne-sur-Mer in Northern France, where Blunt’s knowledge of French and German was invaluable in the efforts of military police to unmask German spies and prevent infiltration. The French honoured the English aristocrat with La Legion d’Honneur for his contribution.

What does an art historian and Soviet intelligence agent do in the face of the inexorable advance of Nazism on France? In January 1940, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Anthony Blunt finished his book Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450−1600, a political history of the Renaissance and the humanist tradition that inspired the immortal masterpieces of Italian painters and sculptors. In Florence, in the early 15th century, a new attitude towards man and the world was taking shape, based on faith in human knowledge and reason. The values of humanism, scientific and social progress had been built on that foundation. Those values later inspired the Age of Enlightenment

in Europe, the French Revolution, the Soviet Socialist Revolution in October 1917 and the formation of the Soviet Union. Those same values inspired Blunt to fight fascism alongside the Soviet Union.

For Anthony Blunt, the parallels between the humanism of the Renaissance and the Soviet project of social justice were obvious, while the Third Reich appeared to be a monstrous reincarnation of the medieval Inquisition and the ancient forces of violence and mysticism. For Blunt, defending the USSR was the political and moral equivalent of defending Florence and Rome against Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

In the book’s introduction, Blunt expressed his special gratitude to Guy Burgess for "the stimulus of constant discussion and suggestions on all the more basic points at issue." Presumably, the "more basic points" in the conversations of the two British anti-fascists working for the Soviet Union went far beyond artistic theory.

Four months later, on 26 May 1940, British military forces evacuated from Dunkirk, marking the beginning of the fall of France. With characteristic calm and composure, Blunt helped to get his unit back to Britain from the continent with minimal casualties.

British counterintelligence took an active interest in Blunt on the recommendation of his friend Victor Rothschild who always admired Anthony’s phenomenal memory and thorough knowledge of history. Anthony Blunt officially joined MI5 shortly after, following the appointment as London station chief of Anatoly Gorsky codenamed "Henry," who took great care of his agents.