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Abstract
This article examines the visit of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nicholas Bulganin to Britain in April 1956. It concludes that the closer acquaintance of the leaders of the USSR and Britain, the establishment of personal ties between them, and the clarification of mutual positions at the uneasy talks in London played a positive role in Soviet-British relations.
Notes
Natalia Kapitonova, Doctor of Science (History), is professor in modern British history at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University), Russia. Her publications include British Foreign Policy, 1979–1990; The Priorities of British Foreign Policy, 1990–1997; Britain at the End of the 20th and the Beginning of the 21st Centuries; as well as biographies of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. She is working on two projects: on a history of British foreign policy in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and on the collection of documents on Soviet-British relations during cold war period. Email: [email protected]
1 First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers respectively.
2 The collection will be the first ever publication of documents on Soviet-British relations during the Cold War period, made up of archival documents from both countries. They cover the period from 1944 to 1964. Most of the documents will be published for the first time. The co-directors of the project are Professor O. Westad, director of LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and academician A. Chubaryan, director of the Institute of General History within the Russian Academy of Sciences.
3 For these see M.B. Smith, ‘Peaceful Coexistence at all Costs: Cold War Exchanges between Britain and the Soviet Union in 1956’, Cold War History 12, no. 3 (August 2012): 537–558.
4 Arkhiv Prezidenta RF, fond 3, opis 64, delo 386, list 38. (Archive of the Russian President. Fund 3, Inventory 64, File 386, p. 38.)
5 Ibidem, I. 69, file 386, p. 39.
6 Arkhiv vneshney politiki RF, fond 69, opis 43, papka 181, delo 25, list 107. (Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation (hereinafter FPA). F. 69, I. 43, Volume 181, f. 25, p. 107).
7 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 386, p. 99.
8 Ibidem, pp. 43–44.
9 Ibidem. F.3, I.64, f.389, p. 58.
10 Ibidem, f.386, p. 45.
11 Ibidem, pp. 46–48.
12 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, v. 181, f. 25, p. 8.
13 Archive of the Russian President, F. 3, I. 64, f. 388, pp. 150, 151.
14 Bagdad Pact – Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) – political-military alliance created on the basis of a treaty between Turkey, Iraq, UK, Pakistan and Iran, signed on 24 November 24 1955.
15 Archive of the Russian President. F.3, I.64, f.388, pp. 146–148.
16 Anthony Eden, Full Circle. The Times Publishing Co. Ltd. 1960, 355.
17 Trukhanovsky is the author of biographies of Churchill, Eden, Disraeli and Nelson, as well as of numerous monographs on the history and foreign policy of Britain.
18 Vladimir G. Trukhanovski. Antoni Iden. Stranitsi angliyskoy diplomatii, 30–50 godi. Moskva, 1974, s.374.
19 FPA. F.69, I.43. V.181, f. 25, p. 32.
20 Archive of the Russian President, F. 3, I. 64, f. 389, p. 37.
21 Ibidem, f. 386, p. 99.
22 Martin Gilbert. Never Despair. Winston Churchill, 1945–1965. Heinemann: 1988, 1169.
23 Archive of the Russian President, F.3, I.64, f.349, pp. 84–85.
24 Ibidem, f.386, p. 105.
25 Ibidem, p. 109.
26 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, p. 65.
27 Oleg Troyanovski. Cherez godi i rasstoyaniya. Istoriya odnoy sem'i. Moskwa, 1997, s.195.
28 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, p. 19.
29 Archive of the Russian President, F. 3, I. 64, f. 386, p. 100.
30 FPA. F. 69, I. 48, V. 162, f. 18, p. 95.
31 Ibidem, V. 181, f. 25, p. 61.
32 Ibidem, p. 62.
33 Eden, Full Circle, 355.
34 Harold Macmillan, Riding The Storm, 1956–1959. Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971, 95.
35 Curtis Keeble, Britain, the Soviet Union and Russia. Macmillan Press Ltd. 2000, 251.
36The Times, 2 January 1987.
37 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, pp. 45–46.
38 Troyanovsky, Through Years and Distance, 195–196.
39 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, p. 26.
40 Nikita S. Khrushchev. Vremya. Ludi. Vlast. Kniga 2. Moskwa, 1999, s.277.
41 Archive of the Russian President, F. 3, I. 69, f. 390, p. 93
42 Ibidem, p. 95.
43 Eden, Full Circle, 360.
44 Khrushchev, Time. People. Power, 270.
45 Archive of the Russian President. F.3, I.64, f.389, pp. 57, 58.
46 Ibidem, f. 390, p. 57.
47 Ibidem. I. 69, f. 390, p. 97.
48 Ibidem. I. 64, f. 390, pp. 58–59.
49 Ibidem, p. 8.
50 Ibidem, pp. 63, 64.
51 Ibidem, p. 88.
52 Ibidem, f. 389, pp. 74, 75.
53 Ibidem, f. 390, pp. 62, 86.
54 Ibidem, f. 389, p. 75.
55 Ibidem, pp. 139–143.
56 Ibidem, pp. 98, 99, 26.
57 Ibidem, p. 105.
58 Ibidem, pp. 109, 110–111.
59 Ibidem, pp. 178, 179.
60 Archive of the Russian President. F.3, I. 69, f. 390, p. 96.
61 Ibidem, I. 64, f. 389, pp. 28, 66.
62 Ibidem, I. 69, f. 390, p. 100.
63 Ibidem, f. 389, p. 13.
64 Ibidem. I. 64, f.389, pp. 18, 17.
65 Ibidem. I. 69, f. 390.
66 Ibidem, I. 64, f. 389, p. 63.
67 It is worth mentioning in this connection how Churchill, a staunch supporter of the British-American alliance, commented on the problem. When on 28 June 1954 Pierson Dixon, Britain's representative at the UN, expressed indignation over US interference in the affairs of Guatemala, Churchill put him down. He said: ‘A great principle carries weight, when it is associated with the movement of the great forces … It is important to keep a sense of proportion,’ and added, raising his voice: ‘I'd never heard of this bloody place Guatemala until I was in my seventy-ninth year. We ought not to allow Guatemala to jeopardise our relations with the United States, for on them the safety of the world might depend’. Gilbert, ‘Never Despair’, 1009.
68 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 389, p. 66
69 Ibidem, pp. 144, 80.
70 Ibidem, pp. 89, 152, 112, 79.
71Nezavisimaya gazeta [Independent newspaper] 25 August 2000.
72 Archive of the Russian President. F.3. I. 64, f. 389, p. 173.
73 Ibidem, pp. 169–170.
74 Queen Elizabeth and the Prince Consort visited Russia only in 1994.
75 Troyanovsky, Through Years and Distance, 198.
76 Archive of the Russian President, F. 3, I. 64, f. 389, p. 145.
77 Ibidem, pp. 155, 156.
78 Ibidem, pp. 158, 159.
79 Khrushchev, Time. People. Power, 288.
80 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 389, pp. 161–165.
81 Troyanovsky, Through Years and Distance, 199.
82 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 390, p. 37.
83 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, p. 146.
84 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 390, pp. 25, 26.
85 Ibidem, pp. 30, 34.
86 Eden, Full Cirle, 365.
87 Keeble., Britain, the Soviet Union and Russia, 252.
88 Khrushchev, Time. People. Power, 286.
89The Independent, 2 January 1987.
90 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 349, p. 88.
91 FPA. F. 06, I.15a, V. 27, f. 79, pp. 10–12.
92 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 387, pp. 27–35.
93 ibid
94 Troyanovsky, Through Years and Distance, 197.
95 See notably Gilbert, ‘Never Despair’, 1122.
96 Khrushchev, Time. People. Power, 290.
97 Eden, Full Circle, 361.
98The Times, 27 April 1956.
99 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 390, p. 36.
100 Eden, Full Circle, 363.
101 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, pp. 125, 126.
102 Eden, Full Circle, 362.
103 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, pp. 109, 110.
104 Archive of the Russian President. F. 3, I. 64, f. 390, p. 49.
105 Ibidem, I. 69, f. 390, p. 95.
106 FPA. F. 69, I. 43, V. 181, f. 25, p. 105.