Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess were prominent figures in the Cambridge
spy ring operating on behalf of the USSR from the 1930s into the 1960s
. The essay describes the complex personalities of Blunt and Burgess,
whose homosexuality and communism were related aspects of a rebellious
, antibourgeois culture in 1930s leftist Britain, The focus is on male
homosexuality, and the question is put whether, and in what sense, Bl
unt and Burgess served the left, and whether they can be role models f
or gays at the end of this century.