When a young student of Shirebrook Grammar School in Chesterfield, England, developed a keen interest in the translated classics of Russian literature, he relished, above all, the works of Dostoevsky, albeit without much understanding of the author’s contemporary world. Following the call of life circumstances, the young man enrolled as a university student in history without giving it much thought to a permanent career. Politically, he seemed to lean left, primarily as a reaction to the political environment prevailing at Keele University. He took on intense Russian language classes and spent many hours at the Russian bookstore on Charing Cross Road, immersed in the works of Lenin and Trotsky – an illusion he had yet to dispel.