He served with the Red Army in their occupation of Hungary, but would later return to the Soviet Union to study history at the University of Moscow.
In 1950, he was arrested on espionage charges and spent eighteen months at a lumber camp before being released at the request of Mátyás Rákosi.
He was a close friend of Robert Conquest and Kingsley Amis and was a regular attendee of the lunches at Bertorelli restaurant.
[4] His major study of Soviet history, The Russian Tradition, was edited by Robert Conquest and published posthumously by Secker & Warburg in 1974.
He married Nina Orlova (1923–1974), and was the father of George Szamuely, a journalist who contributes to Russia Today, and of Helen Szamuely, a prominent figure in the founding of the UK Independence Party.