Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Guy Burgess (born 1911, Devonport, Devon, Eng.—died Aug. 30, 1963, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) was a British diplomat who spied for the Soviet Union in World War II and early in the Cold War period. At the University of Cambridge in the 1930s, Burgess was part of a group of upper-middle-class students—including Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, and Anthony Blunt—who disagreed with the notion of a capitalist democracy. These men were recruited by Soviet intelligence operatives to...