From Russia with Love

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This article is about the novel. For the film see From Russia with Love (film). For the video game see From Russia with Love (video game)

Title From Russia with Love

2002 Penguin Books paperback edition.
Author	Ian Fleming
Cover artist	Richard Chopping Devised by Fleming
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	James Bond
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	Glidrose Productions
Released	8 April 1957
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Diamonds Are Forever
Followed by	Dr. No

From Russia with Love, published in 1957, is the fifth James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming and is considered to be one of the best in the series - the film version is also highly regarded by fans and critics alike.^{[citation needed]} Its biggest boost came four years after From Russia with Love was published from an article in Life Magazine on March 17, 1961 in which U.S. President John F. Kennedy included it in a list of his favorite books; the James Bond novel was the only work of fiction in the list of ten.

The title of the book sometimes is printed with a comma, as From Russia, with Love, depending upon the publisher. It is more commonly printed without the punctuation.

Contents 1 Plot summary 1.1 Organizational structure of "Station T" 2 Adaptations 2.1 Film 2.2 Comic strip adaptation 2.3 Video game 3 See also 4 External links

[edit] Plot summary

From Russia with Love differs from Fleming's previous Bond novels in that the first one third of the novel revolves around SMERSH executioner Red Grant, as well as the organization, SMERSH, itself.

The novel is a series of elaborate plots and counterplots, between the British and the Russian intelligence agencies. It begins with SMERSH, the Soviet assassination agency, seeking to redeem itself from a series of failures that have made some within the Soviet government begin to criticize the organization. SMERSH plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, SMERSH has targeted British secret service agent, Commander James Bond. Due in part to Bond's defeat of Le Chiffre detailed in Casino Royale and Mr. Big in Live and Let Die, Bond has been declared as an enemy of the Soviet state and has been issued a "death warrant" for him.

He is to be not just killed, but "killed with ignominy" - his death precipitating a major juicy sex scandal which will run through the world press for months and leave his reputation and that of his entire service in tatters. (In fact, the Soviets seem to be aiming at the kind of scandal which was to materialise in actuality six years after the book's publication, with the 1963 Profumo Affair.)

Mainly through the agency of Kronsteen, the chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, SMERSH lays a trap for Bond, by setting pretty young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to pretend to defect from her post in Istanbul, claiming to have fallen in love with Bond, after a glimpse from his file photograph. As an added incentive, Tatiana will provide the British agent with a Spektor decoder, a prize much coveted by MI6. The ultimate goal is to set up James Bond for assassination and cause a scandal, but SMERSH doesn't count on Tatiana actually falling in love with 007.

After all the actors on the Soviet side are introduced and the hatching of the plot against Bond (but not the details of the plot itself) is described in detail, Bond comes to the center of the stage and sets off to Istanbul where much of the book takes place. There follow many action-packed chapters, where Bond gets a secret peek into the inner sanctum of the Soviet Consulate, followed by bouts of intensive fighting against various Soviet agents and lovemaking with the beautiful Tatiana, takes part in the exotic rituals of a Gypsy tribe interspersed with more fighting, and forms an instant and firm comradeship with the engaging bon vivant Darko Kerim Bey, head of the British Service's agency in Turkey (which would be sadly cut short by an MGB agent killing Darko on board the Orient Express).

The reader (and Bond himself) get the satisfying feeling that Bond is taking the initative and getting back at his enemies. As seen later, this was a complete illusion, and the entire Istanbul section turns out to have been a giant bunch of red herrings: all the Soviet agents which Bond had fought and killed were worthless pawns, completely expendable for their side.

After all the fighting, Bond (as well as his superiors up to M. in London) unwittingly play the precise role predicted and defined in the plan devised by chess-master Kronsteen. Bond boards the Orient Express on the journey from Istanbul to Paris - and heads directly into the Soviet "Killing Bottle". He unhesitatingly accepts Red Grant's bona fides as a fellow MI6 agent (not least, because Grant dresses and talks like a fellow member of the British ruling class) and goes to sleep under Grant's watchful eye, after having obligingly handed to Grant his gun.

However, there was one flaw - which turns out to be fatal - in Kronsteen's fiendishly clever design: having very accurately predicted the responses of Bond and his fellow Brits to the carefully selected stimuli, the chess master did not take into account that the SMERSH ace executioner Grant was not only a homicidal psychopath who enjoyed killing for its own sake, but also an Irish Catholic from Northern Ireland - in no sense religious or a coherent holder of any nationalist ideology, but evidently sharing the anti-British attitudes prevalent in the society where he grew up. (In Grant's biography in the early part of the book, it is mentioned that he had been marginally involved with the IRA.)

Instead of killing Bond without further ado, as Kronsteen's plan called for, Grant cannot resist the temptation to crow at the top British agent, humiliate him and engage in a long boastful conversation. Growing careless and overconfident, Grant gives Bond the chance to improvise a desperate small ploy which works against all odds - with the result that Grant loses his life and the entire careful Soviet scheme falls into ruin.

Later, after successfully delivering Tatiana to his superiors, Bond has a final encounter with Rosa Klebb - which leaves her captured but 007 poisoned and nearly dead from the final kick of her poisoned toe, though he would recover in time for his next adventure. Tatiana, who has no further place in the Bond saga, has successfully defected to the West, entirely at the initiative and instigation of SMERSH (since for herself, she had been quite content to live out her life in Moscow).

[edit] Organizational structure of "Station T"

Ian Fleming's tasks in his own WWII clandestine career included writing a memorandum describing the structure and functions of a secret service organisation, with which General William Donovan was satisfied and parts of which were later used in the official charter for the OSS. Notwithtanding this, Fleming's depiction of the British Service's Turkish setup seems to ignore some basic rules.

To be sure, Darko Kerim - the aforementioned head of "Station T" - is a highly energetic and capable man, and being half-British he has a warm feeling for Britain. Still, he clearly also has his own agenda which is not necessarily in accord with Britain's diplomatic interests, finances his activities through his own (legal and apparently also illegal) business activities, engages in all kinds of private alliances and vendettas, and relies mainly on a large clan of sons and other relatives whose loyalty is purely to himself.

Such a network can be extremely valuable, but doctrine (and common sense) would dictate the stationing of a regular British agent, with some diplomatic cover at the embassy, to keep an eye and make sure Darko Kerim and his band do not get out of line. In Fleming's depiction, there is no such agent and no supervision short of London itself - with the result that when Darko is killed by the Soviets, his furious sons and relatives take a very drastic retaliatory action and blow up the Soviet Consulate, presumably without any authorisation from London or even bothering to let anybody know they were going to do it.

In the book, this is just told in passing and there are no further consequences. However, in reality such an unauthorised major provocation by British agents might have created a scandal at least as big as the one carefully planned by Kronsteen, and the Soviets might have recouped the loss from their fiasco on the train and made use of the affair to drive a wedge between Britain and its NATO ally Turkey.

[edit] Adaptations

[edit] Film

Main article: From Russia with Love (film)

The cinematic From Russia with Love was released in 1963, produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young. It was the second James Bond film in the official EON Productions series, and the second to star Sean Connery as the suave and sophisticated British Secret Service agent James Bond.

[edit] Comic strip adaptation

Main article: James Bond comic strips

Fleming's novel was adapted as a daily comic strip published in the British Daily Express newspaper, and syndicated worldwide. The adaptation ran from February 3 to May 21, 1960, and was written by Henry Gammidge, and illustrated by John McLusky. The James Bond 007 Fan Club published a reprinting of the strip in 1981. From Russia with Love was reprinted again in 2005 by Titan Books in the Dr. No collection, which in addition to Dr. No, also included Diamonds Are Forever.

[edit] Video game

Main article: James Bond 007: From Russia with Love

In 2005 it was adapted into a video game by Electronic Arts and featured all new voice work by Sean Connery as well as his likeness and the likeness of a number of the supporting cast from the film.

[edit] See also

• Orient Express

[edit] External links

• Ian Fleming Bibliography of James Bond 1st Editions
• From Russia with Love overview on the Ultimate James Bond Community