Philby would later frame his decision as one of ideological purity, consistent with the “total commitment to the Soviet Union” he had made at the age of twenty-one. He did what he did, in his own estimation, out of pure political conviction, the guiding principle of his life. He looked with disdain on others who had seen the horrors of Stalinism and abandoned ship. “I stayed the course,” he wrote, “in the confident faith that the principles of the Revolution would outlive the aberration of individuals.” Philby later claimed that he had experienced moments of doubt and that his views had been
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