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SOVIET-BRITISH RELATIONS
SINCE THE 1970s
The Royal Institute of International Affairs is an independent body which
promotes the rigorous study of international questions and does not express
opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are the
responsibility of the authors.
Soviet—British Relations
since the 1970s

Edited by
ALEX PRAVDA and PETER J. S. DUNCAN

The right of the

University of Cambridge
to print and sell
all manner of books
was granted by
Henry VIII in 1534.
The University has printed
and published continuously
since 1584.

PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH

THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE
LONDON NEW YORK PORT CHESTER
MELBOURNE SYDNEY
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY IOOII, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia

© Royal Institute of International Affairs 1990

First published 1990

British Library cataloguing in publication data

Soviet-British relations.
1. Great Britain. Relations history, with Soviet
Union 2. Soviet Union relations, history with Soviet Union
I. Pravda, Alex, 1947- II. Duncan, Peter J. S., 1953-
303.4^241'047

Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data

Soviet-British relations / edited by Alex Pravda and Peter J.S. Duncan
p. cm.
Published in association with the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
ISBN 0-521-37494-4
I. Great Britain - Foreign relations - Soviet Union. 2. Soviet
Union — Foreign relations — Great Britain. I. Pravda, Alex, 1947—
II. Duncan, Peter J.S., 1953- III. Royal Institute of
International Affairs.
DA47.65.s64 1990
327.41047-dc2O 89-36868 CIP

ISBN 0 521 37494 4

Transferred to digital printing 2004

VN
Dedicated to Joseph Frankel
Contents

Contributors page ix
Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: prt-perestroika patterns i

ALEX PRAVDA

The historical perspective 17

CURTIS KEEBLE

Soviet perspectives on Britain and British foreign policy 47

PETER J.S. DUNCAN

British perspectives on the Soviet Union 68

MICHAEL CLARKE

The security dimension 92

CHRISTOPH BLUTH

Anglo-Soviet relations: political and diplomatic 120

MARGOT LIGHT

The Soviet Union and the Left in Britain 147

MIKE BOWKER AND PETER SHEARMAN

Anglo-Soviet cultural contacts since 1975 168

JOHN MORI SON

Trade relations: patterns and prospects 193

MICHAEL KASER

Vll
10 Doing business with the USSR 215
ANNA DYER

11 Conclusions: Soviet-British relations under perestroika 232

ALEX PRAVDA a n d PETER J. S. DUNCAN

Index 257

vin
 Contributors

Christoph Bluth, Research Associate, Department of War Studies, King's

College, London
Michael Bowker, Lecturer, Department of Linguistic and International
Studies, University of Surrey
Michael Clarke, Lecturer in Politics, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Peter J.S. Duncan, Research Associate, Soviet Foreign Policy Programme,
Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1986-8; Lecturer at the School of
Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London
Anna Dyer, Executive Director, Trade Advisory Service, Glasgow, on
secondment from Glasgow College
Michael Kaser, Professorial Fellow in Soviet Economics, St Antony's
College, Oxford
Sir Curtis Keeble, GCMG, HM Ambassador to Moscow (1978-82)

Margot Light, Senior Lecturer, Department of International Relations,

London School of Economics
John D. Morison, Senior Lecturer, Department of Russian Studies,
University of Leeds

Alex Pravda, Director, Soviet Foreign Policy Programme, Royal Institute of

International Affairs, 1986-9; Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, and
Lecturer in Soviet and East European Politics at Oxford University
Peter J. Shearman, Lecturer in Soviet Foreign Policy, Department of
Government, University of Essex
 Acknowledgments

The idea for a volume on Soviet-British relations grew out of the process of
formulating research projects for the new Soviet foreign policy programme at
Chatham House. The establishment of this core programme at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs was made possible by a grant (No. Eoo 22 2011)
from the Economic and Social Research Council. We would like to take this
opportunity to express our gratitude to the ESRC for itsfinancialsupport for the
programme in general and for this project in particular.
Contributors to the volume benefited greatly from their draft chapters being
exposed to vigorous and critical discussions at a series of study groups held at
Chatham House. These proved an invaluable source of correction, fresh
information and new insights. Participants in the study groups included David
Wedgwood Benn, John Berryman, Lord Brimelow, Robin Edmonds, Admiral
Sir James Eberle, Joseph Frankel, Lawrence Freedman, Mike Gapes, Sir John
Killick, Ralph Land, Neil Malcolm, Monty Johnstone, Malcolm Mackintosh,
James McNeish, Edwina Moreton, Sir Frank Roberts, George Robertson, John
Roper, John Harvey Samuel, Sir Howard Smith, Alan Brooke-Turner, Audrey
Wells and William Wallace. The groups were also attended by officials from the
British Council, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence. We are grateful to them all
for giving so generously of their time and helping to make the study groups not
merely useful but stimulating and enjoyable occasions.
Within the RIIA, our particular thanks go to William Wallace who provided
advice and support throughout the project. It would have been impossible to
produce the volume without the help of other members of the team at Chatham
House. The Library and Press Library staff, notably Mary Bone, Jenny
Foreman, Lesley Pitman (now at the School of Slavonic and East European
Studies, University of London) gave generously of their expert knowledge. Our
thanks also go to Pauline Wickham, head of publications, for her encouragement
and patience. Last but not least we should like to take this opportunity to record
xi
 Acknowledgments

our gratitude to Shyama Iyer, the Soviet foreign policy programme secretary,
without whose efficiency and organisational talents the production of this study,
as of other programme publications, would not have been possible.

While credit for the volume thus belongs to a large number of people,
responsibility for its contents rests, of course, with the contributors and editors.

A.P.
P.J.S.D.

XII
i Introduction: pre-perestroika patterns
ALEX PRAVDA

The Soviet Union is central to British defence policy and Moscow considers
London to be a pivotal member of the Western alliance. Yet relations between
the Soviet Union and Britain have attracted little attention and less analysis. The
Soviet literature is smaller than that on relations with France or West Germany
and consists largely of descriptive historical surveys.1 What analysis exists is
confined mostly to studies of Britain and British politics which pay scant
attention to relations with the USSR. On the Western side there is remarkably
little on contemporary relations between the two countries. We have a number of
good historical studies, concentrating mostly on the pre- and immediate post-
war periods.2 The sparseness of the literature on the last twenty years is
highlighted by the fact that two reports of the House of Commons Foreign
Affairs Committee provide perhaps the fullest information and comment on the
recent period.3 Britain hardly figures in the relatively small body of literature on
Soviet relations with Western Europe and what treatment it attracts is typically
couched in security terms.4
The thin coverage of Soviet-British relations in the academic literature is a
product of both scholarly focus and the nature of the subject. British foreign
policy questions, outside the defence and security areas, have until very recently
attracted surprisingly little academic interest. Analysts working in the Soviet
foreign policy field have long neglected relations with the states of Western
Europe by comparison with their extensive concern towards relations with the
US and the Third World. The relative neglect of British-Soviet relations in the
literature reflects not just the vagaries of academic fashion but the nature of the
relations themselves. For thirty and arguably forty years after the revolution of
1917, Moscow's relations with London were critical to Soviet foreign policy and
figured centrally on the international stage. Since then the decline of British
power and the rise of superpower dominance have combined to overshadow
Soviet-UK relations. Even within the superpower shadow Soviet relations with
Britain have had a less discernible profile than those with West Germany or
 Alex Pravda

France. Elusiveness has compounded this decline in salience. Soviet bilateral

relations with Britain have appeared to be less active than those with other major
West European states. Paris, Rome and Bonn have conducted quite vigorous
bilateral relations while London has preferred to deal with Moscow through
multilateral fora, the CSCE and most notably NATO. Similarly, the Soviet
Union has conducted its British policy as part of a wider strategy towards
Western Europe and the Atlantic alliance. Soviet relations with Britain depend
more than do relations with France or West Germany on movements in larger
East-West contexts. Relations between the Soviet Union and Britain are thus
particularly difficult to disentangle from the skein of broader multilateral
interactions.
The fact that the strands of the relationship are woven closely into the larger
pattern of Soviet relations with the United States and Western Europe does not
diminish their significance or interest. Indeed, the very diffusion of
British—Soviet relations makes their study as rewarding as it is difficult. While
West German relations with the Soviet Union constitute the central focus of the
triangular European-Atlantic-Soviet relationship, looking at this through the
prism of Soviet-British relations yields a revealing perspective that sets into
sharp relief the Atlanticist/European problems of managing change in
East-West relations.
Soviet-British relations are significant not simply for the insights they can
provide into these wider sets of relationships. Though very much a part of
East-West relations, the bilateral relationship between the Soviet Union and
Britain does have a life of its own, distinct though not autonomous. A degree of
distinctiveness emerges, for instance, if we compare the patterns of Soviet-
British and more general East-West relations over the years. While the cycles in
bilateral relations have followed the overall East-West pattern, the exact
contours differ significantly. A graph plotting the course of development of the
two sets of relations would show the Soviet—British curve declining earlier and
often more sharply at times of general decline in East-West relations but also
rising earlier from the low points in the broader relationship. As Curtis Keeble
chronicles in chapter 2, active hostility in relations between Britain and the
fledgling Bolshevik regime in the civil war period was followed by the early
establishment of formal contact. Similarly, after the Second World War relations
between Britain and the Soviet Union were among the first to cool and the first to
start showing signs of warming in the mid-1950s. Over twenty years later, events
in Afghanistan and Poland affected Soviet relations with Britain more adversely
than they did with France, Italy and West Germany. Yet it was Soviet-British
relations which were among the first to show some recovery in the post-Brezhnev
period. The historical record thus delineates a relationship between the two
countries that has oscillated with a slightly different rhythm and within a
 Introduction

somewhat narrower band at the lower end of the spectrum of variation in

East-West relations.
Two sets of features of the relationship have helped to account for this
distinctive pattern of oscillation. One is the low intensity, the 'thinness' of
bilateral contacts. Attitudes on both sides have tended towards cool wariness.
Cultural affinities and non-governmental as well as economic ties have been
weaker than those linking the Soviet Union with France, Italy or West
Germany. This has made the relationship vulnerable to its other distinctive
feature: ill-aligned national interests. Not only have British and Soviet interests
intersected at few points; their compatibility has also been complicated by
dependence on the development of broader East-West and West-West
relationships. The first two sections that follow review the nature of mutual
perceptions and the 'thinness' of contacts; the last briefly considers the
configuration of interests that have shaped relations. This introductory chapter
thus seeks to sketch the established features and patterns of the relationship
before perestroika.

I M A G E S AND P E R C E P T I O N S
Notoriously slippery as objects of analysis, national images and perceptions
merit the careful attention they receive in chapters 3 and 4 since they affect the
mutual assessment of behaviour and shape the climate in which Soviet-British
relations are conducted. Through the decades the prevailing climate has been
one of mutual mistrust based on distant wariness. This contrasts with the
mixture of more intense emotions linking the Soviet Union with countries such
as France or Germany, both countries with histories of far greater and more
direct involvement with Russia and the USSR. History also affects, if to a lesser
degree, mutual national images in Britain and the Soviet Union. For the British,
the Soviet system still bears the imprint of imperial Russia, a regime combining
the worst features of continental authoritarianism. The more recent history of
the Soviet Union reinforces such negative images with Marxism-Leninism and
totalitarianism. The image of the Soviet system as totalitarian, as a regime
suppressing individual rights and values has, as Michael Clarke shows in chapter
4, long prevailed among the British public, officials and politicians alike, largely
regardless of party affiliations. Alien in its domestic absolutism and ideology, the
Soviet system also appears objectionable and threatening by virtue of an imperial
expansionism often perceived to be inherent in national ambition and
compounded by Marxist-Leninist messianism. For many British politicians and
officials, then, the Soviet Union has seemed a threat on at least two scores: as an
alien system of government and as an insecure and ambitious international
power. Shaping their image of the Soviet Threat is a mixture of instinctive
 Alex Pravda

antipathy to Marxism-Leninism and pragmatic mistrust of historical Russian

security concerns and imperial ambitions.5
Given the huge disparities in power and influence between the two countries,
it is hardly surprising that Britain figures far less prominently in Soviet public
and elite consciousness. The Soviet picture of the West is dominated by the
United States, and in the European context, France and the Federal Republic of
Germany. Soviet public attitudes towards Britain may be described as ones of
detached respect rather than the admiration for cultural achievement which still
attaches to France or the curious blend of awe and anxiety that surrounds
Germany. Britain is seen as a rather distant, old-fashioned and conservative
society, nostalgic about its historical greatness rather than optimistic about its
future. Among the Soviet elite these general images are amplified by assessments
of Britain found in the specialist literature which here, as in other areas, reflects
as well as refracts opinion within policy circles. As Peter Duncan shows in
chapter 3, Soviet specialists have tended to highlight the economic ills and social
injustices of a divided society ruled by an entrenched elite serving the interests of
'monopoly capital'. British ruling circles have appeared to their Soviet
counterparts as old-fashioned, formal and aloof if polite in manner. Andrei
Gromyko, who once served as Ambassador to London, recalls in his memoirs
how Anthony Eden conformed to his picture of a typical Englishman: 'Tall,
gaunt, slightly phlegmatic and almost always smartly dressed in black.'6 Another
former Ambassador to London, Ivan Maisky, recalls his Minister, Litvinov,
telling him of the existence within the British elite of class-based hostility
towards socialism and realpolitik inclination towards co-operation with the
Soviet Union.7 Soviet commentators and officials still tend to see these two
tendencies as creating a duality, a certain ambivalence in British elite attitudes
towards the Soviet Union that makes them unpredictable and unreliable as a
partner. A mix of instinctive antipathy and pragmatic wariness on the British
side has thus reinforced Soviet uncertainty and detached suspicion.

C O N T A C T S AND T I E S
Distance and wary detachment in mutual images and perceptions correspond to
a pattern of contacts and ties that may be described as low in intensity.
Cultural contacts have run at a relatively low and fluctuating level. The
regular educational, scientific and artistic exchanges which began in earnest
thirty years ago have remained hostage to the vicissitudes of the overall political
relationship. As John Morison points out in chapter 8, cultural relations are a
sensitive barometer of political relations and have usually been the first to reflect
a downturn in the general climate, as happened, for instance, in the aftermath of
the invasion of Afghanistan and the imposition of martial law in Poland. Slow to
build up, cultural relations have failed generally to realise the full potential of
 Introduction

British interest in Russian culture and, more markedly, have fallen short in
capitalising on the popularity in the Soviet Union of English literature and
especially language. In part this reflects the difficulties of working with the
Soviet bureaucratic machine which, until Gorbachev, had regarded with
suspicion attempts to spread Western values. In part, too, the failure to take full
advantage of Soviet public interest in things English stems from the low priority
London has typically accorded cultural diplomacy, an activity promoted far
more vigorously by Italy, West Germany and France. The Continental
intellectual tradition that helps to explain the differences between British and
other West European states' cultural relations with the Soviet Union also partly
accounts for distinctions in non-governmental political contacts.
The presence on the Continental political scene of large Marxist parties and
trade union movements has meant that their contacts with Moscow have
traditionally formed an important element in overall national relations with the
Soviet Union. Differing attitudes to the USSR have often figured significantly in
domestic politics, making relations with the Soviet Union a salient if divisive
issue. In Britain the question of contacts with the Soviet Union has been neither
as prominent nor as controversial. One obvious reason lies in the very different
composition, political orientation and influence of the Left in the United
Kingdom. The most evident disparity in the configuration of the Left in many
Continental countries and the United Kingdom is that between communist
parties. By comparison with France or Italy Britain has scarcely had a serious
communist movement. This has clearly affected Moscow's conduct of relations
with British communists. Coming on top of the usual problems posed by
political disagreements, the derisory electoral performance of the British party
has prompted Moscow, at least over the last thirty years, to keep relations at a low
level.
The Soviet Union has paid far more attention to fostering ties with two
components of the broad Left exercising far greater influence on society and
policy: the peace movements and the trade unions. The Soviet Union has
consistently given declaratory though not material support to the various peace
groups, notably CND, not so much for their leftist political tendencies as for
their influence on public opinion on defence issues. Potential policy utility rather
than political affinity has also shaped Soviet attitudes towards the trade union
movement. As Mike Bowker and Peter Shearman stress in chapter 7, when
choosing partners, whether within the trade union movement or elsewhere in
Britain, Moscow has typically made attitudes and benefit to the Soviet Union
and its foreign policy the most important criteria.
Pragmatism and regard for Soviet foreign policy interests have also shaped
Moscow's relations with the most important organised force within the Left in
Britain, the Labour Party. While evincing public preference, albeit mixed with
critical comment, for Labour's policies over those of the Tories, Soviet
 Alex Pravda

commentators have often found it difficult to distinguish Socialist from

Conservative foreign policies. In Moscow's eyes Labour's international stance
has suffered from two disabilities which have tended to complicate relations.
First, those on the British Left often feel even more strongly about the Soviet
pursuit of coercive policies at home and, particularly in Eastern Europe, than do
their Tory counterparts. Secondly, in order to deflect criticism from strongly
patriotic opinion within the party, the trade unions and the electorate, Labour
pledges on foreign and especially defence policy have often undergone
substantial trimming in their translation into policy once the party is in
government.8 Such pragmatic shifts, as well as the perennial divisions within the
Labour Party, have often created the impression in Moscow of a lack of
trustworthiness and principle. Gromyko, for instance, writes derisively of the
Labour Party's ideological foundation under Gaitskell as that of'the ruling class,
the bourgeoisie, plus some petty bourgeois admixtures'.9 As the Soviet Union
sets great store by predictability and policy consistency, Moscow may well prefer
dealing with Conservative rather than Labour governments.10
The low level of Soviet contacts with the Left in Britain and the adjustment of
these contacts to pragmatic foreign policy utility considerations has meant that
non-governmental political ties have had little direct apparent impact on overall
Soviet-British relations. The same pragmatic factors have shaped a far thicker
relationship with the Left in Germany, particularly with the SPD, and have
significantly affected Soviet relations with the FRG. The absence of a strong
non-governmental strand has had mixed indirect effects on Soviet-British
relations. On the one hand relations have developed in a less politically and
ideologically contentious domestic atmosphere than is the case with France,
Italy or West Germany; on the other, the relationship has not had the important
political constituency and lobby it enjoys where ties with the Left are far
stronger.
The area usually expected to provide non-contentious and stable support for
strengthening bilateral relations is trade. Commercial relations formed the
earliest links between Britain and Soviet Russia and have since proved a resilient
if slender bilateral connection. The 1921 trade agreement marked a pioneering
move to recognise the new Bolshevik regime. Britain was the first Western ally to
try and normalise relations and considered trade the most appropriate
instrument. As Lloyd George told the House of Commons in February 1920:
'We have failed to restore Russia to sanity by force. I believe we can save her by
trade. Commerce has a sobering influence in its operations.'11
The extent to which trade proved able to help relations was conditioned, as
Michael Kaser chronicles in chapter 9, by disruptive changes in Soviet policy.
Commercial contacts did little to cushion these. Still, the United Kingdom
remained the Soviet Union's leading Western trading partner until the mid-
 Introduction

1960s when the expanding volume of exchanges quickly dwarfed Britain's

sluggish share. Over the last ten years Britain has ranked between sixth and ninth
in OECD exports to the Soviet Union, coming well below all major competitors.
France and Italy have stayed comfortably in the top half dozen, a group headed
of course by the FRG.12 The reasons for the slow growth in trade that underlies
Britain's slippage in the league table of Soviet Western partners are both political
and commercial. The general climate of political relations has on occasion
affected the development of trade. The series of expulsions of Soviet
representatives from London in 1971 and the freeze in political and diplomatic
relations between 1979 and 1983 may well have impeded the success of British
companies in securing contracts.13 On the British side, political tensions can
foster an impression in business circles that the government disapproves of trade
with the USSR.14 A more specific source of difficulty has been the constraints
that COCOM restrictions place on British sales of high technology, a field which
figures importantly in UK exports to the Soviet Union.15 COCOM therefore
attracts occasional complaints from British businessmen as well as perennial
criticism from Moscow. In general, however, the range of potential exports
covered is relatively small and Michael Kaser suggests that the hampering effect
on British exports has not been particularly great. Nor indeed has the impact of
the overall changes in political relations: the analysis of data in chapter 9 shows
that the historical pattern of Soviet trade with Britain seems to be freer of
fluctuation than that with other major Western partners.
Stability at low levels of trade seems, therefore, largely to be the result of a
range of economic and commercial factors. The 'fit' between the Soviet and
British economies is less good than that between the USSR and other West
European trading partners. Industrial structures are less compatible and
patterns of exchange less conducive to expansion of trade.16 The high
expectations set by agreements reached in 1975 when Mr Wilson extended a
£950 million credit were disappointed when the Soviet Union failed to take
advantage of the facility offered.17 More recently, British exporters have suffered
from the fact that the United Kingdom, unlike its European competitors, does
not import large quantities of energy from the Soviet Union. Since Moscow has
traditionally sought to balance trade where possible with individual hard
currency countries, Britain has been at a disadvantage. West European states
such as West Germany, France and Italy, which import large quantities of
Soviet natural gas, have been better placed to make counter-trade arrangements.
Furthermore, as Mr Gorbachev told Mrs Thatcher in December 1987, British
companies are seen as less competitive than those from other West European
states.18 It does seem that even in some traditionally strong export sectors British
companies perform less well than their West German, French or Italian
counterparts. This may be linked to issues of British business approach and
 Alex Pravda

culture. As Anna Dyer suggests in chapter 10, British companies tend to be less
interested in penetrating the bureaucracy that surrounds the Soviet market, a
tendency noted by the 1986 Foreign Affairs Committee report on UK-Soviet
relations which described British businessmen as often lacking in the 'per-
sistence, tolerance, flexibility and patience required'. 19 While Italian, French
and particularly West German firms are prepared to invest steady effort over a
period of several years and ultimately reap the benefits of a lasting relationship,
the horizons of most British companies are limited to the short term. Only a
handful of the 1,200 that do business with the Soviet Union have the
commitment or the facilities to compete effectively on the Soviet market. Of the
600 members of the Soviet-British Chamber of Commerce, a mere ten large
companies account for approximately one-quarter of all exports to the Soviet
Union.20 This narrow base of British business interests in the Soviet Union has
policy as well as commercial dimensions. The low level of overall Soviet trade -
running at something like 1 per cent of British foreign trade, approximately on a
par with Turkey - means that commercial support for better relations with the
Soviet Union is relatively weak. Soviet commentators tend to exaggerate the
interest of British business circles in Soviet trade as well as their efforts to
influence government.21 Soviet-British relations have typically lacked a power-
ful lobby capable not only of cushioning disruptions in ties but, more
importantly, of promoting a thicker and more stable relationship.

P O L I T I C A L AND S E C U R I T Y R E L A T I O N S AND
INTERESTS
The climate of political, diplomatic and security relations has clearly set the
dominant tone of the overall relationship between the two countries. This
dimension of relations, particularly in the security sphere, presents a pattern of
contact that is stronger and more extensive than in other areas. Nevertheless,
political relations are still low in intensity when compared to Soviet contacts with
other major West European states. Symptomatic of this is the relative
infrequency of high-level political contact between London and Moscow when
compared to substantial periods of near-institutionalised summitry between
Soviet leaders and their American, German and French counterparts. As in
other spheres of the Soviet-British relationship, bilateral relations have been
confined to a narrow band of issues. The low level of bilateral contact reflects the
paucity of direct interests linking the two countries, interests that they can both
best deal with on a bilateral rather than multilateral basis. Neither country has
vital interests of a political rather than security nature that directly involve the
other.22 This contrasts starkly with Soviet relations with the Federal Republic of
Germany insofar as they share direct interests particularly vital for the FRG,
8
 Introduction

including the issue of ethnic Germans resident in the USSR as well as the
obvious question of the development of relations with the GDR and its East
European neighbours, issues over which the Soviet Union has exercised a
dominant sway. Where British and Soviet interests intersect they form part of
wider sets of issues which involve multilateral structures on the British side.
Neither human rights questions nor matters of Third World conflict, let alone
British and European security issues, lend themselves easily to bilateral
negotiations.
While the agenda for bilateral negotiations has remained very restricted, the
spectrum of issues for dialogue between Moscow and London has typically
ranged more broadly than is the case in Moscow's relations with Bonn or Paris.
The Soviet—British pool of issues suitable for useful discussion is wider if less
deep. The 'wide and shallow' nature of the agenda mirrors the breadth and
diffuseness of British international experience, interests and to some extent
influence. Soviet estimates of Britain's international status have tended to
highlight its global as well as Euro-Atlantic standing. While Soviet analysts
stress the international decline of the United Kingdom and the tendency of
London to entertain unrealistic ambitions,23 based on past rather than present
capabilities, they give more credence to British than to French claims to global
interests. Britain is still often described as a major factor in world politics,24 as a
'second-rank leading power', and is valued for its Third World experience.
Permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and the respect
London commands in other international organisations reinforces Britain's
global status in Soviet eyes. Moscow has often found it useful to consult London
on regional issues, particularly in those areas where Soviet involvement exceeds
knowledge and experience.25
Two factors have coloured Soviet-British exchanges on Third World issues as
on other questions: a high degree of friction and the United States connection.
Precisely because Britain retains interests in the Third World and still aspires to
global influence, London is sensitive to signs of Soviet expansion and reacts
more critically than do other major West European states. At the same time, the
British tend to take a somewhat less automatically ideological view than do the
Americans of the Soviet pursuit of regional influence. Exchanges with London,
therefore, provide Moscow with an informed, critical yet less emotionally
charged view of Third World issues than they get from Washington. In
substantive terms, however, Britain's political proximity to the United States
and its very limited global capabilities confine exchanges to consultation rather
than anything approaching negotiation. Britain may adopt a somewhat more
detached stance than the United States, yet, in Soviet eyes, almost invariably
supports American policy.
The United States connection also bears centrally on Britain's relations with
 Alex Pravda

the Soviet Union in the European arena. Soviet assessments have generally
depicted Britain's European affiliation as lacking in the strong commitment
evident among its major European Community partners; Britain has appeared as
a rather reluctant European in Moscow as well as elsewhere.26 Undoubtedly a
major force within the Community, Britain is seen as adopting an Atlanticist
rather than European stance on many critical policy issues. The basis on which
the UK qualifies as a 'medium power of the first rank' in Soviet eyes, remains
predominantly Atlantic rather than European. Its Atlantic approach to Europe
means that London takes a rather broader view of most European issues and
considers that key European questions fall within the ambit of multi- rather than
bilateral political discussion with the Soviet Union. For instance, Britain has
generally displayed less interest than has France, Italy or Germany in Eastern
Europe per $e, except in the wider context of human rights issues. Britain's
concern with Soviet and East European human rights records is inherent in the
emphasis placed on the objectionable moral nature of the Soviet system, the
totalitarian dimension of the Soviet threat. Characteristically, it was on Basket
Three of the Helsinki process that Britain played an active and at times leading
critical CSCE role.27
The broader processes of European political detente associated with Helsinki
have figured less prominently in British-Soviet exchanges on European issues.
Paris, Rome and Bonn have provided more fruitful and important partners for
Moscow on the mainstream agenda of East—West political relations within
Europe because they have a strong commitment to the notion of detente as a
process of change. They have therefore ranked far higher in Soviet estimates as
European interlocutors.28 Britain, by contrast, has shown itself chary of detente
as a process of changing East-West relations in Europe since the shifts involved
have appeared to threaten or at least weaken Atlantic links which are essential to
NATO, European security and, perhaps most important from London's
standpoint, Britain's Euro-Atlantic standing and role.
At the core of post-war anxiety about the Soviet threat lies traditional British
concern about the emergence of a hegemonic power on the European continent
exercising political domination rather than simply military primacy. Actual fears
of the Soviet Union posing a military threat to Western Europe have long
receded; over thirty years ago Anthony Eden minuted to Cabinet that he did not
believe the Russians had any plans for military aggression in the West.29
However, Eden's apprehension about the potential danger and challenge to
Europe represented by Soviet economic and political influence, backed by
military power, has remained at the forefront of British thinking about the Soviet
threat. London has tended to place far more consistent emphasis than Rome,
Paris or Bonn on Soviet determination to drive wedges in the Western Alliance.
Its stress on Moscow's 'splitting' strategy stems not so much from a more
10
 Introduction

percipient or even different understanding of Soviet objectives as from a greater

concern that any loosening of Atlantic ties represents a particular threat to
British interests. After all, it was London which played the key role in initially
inducing the United States to make a firm commitment to Europe on the basis of
a Soviet threat to West European democracy. The American commitment and
its associated NATO-Atlantic linkages clearly remain the keystone of the arch
spanning Britain's Atlantic influence and its standing in Europe. Not unnatu-
rally, Soviet moves to thicken bilateral political relations with Western European
states, especially the FRG, raise a spectre of wedge-driving and decoupling.
London is therefore peculiarly reluctant to engage with the Soviet Union on a
bilateral basis on political issues of a European nature. As Margot Light notes in
chapter 6, Britain has kept bilateral political relations, as distinct from
multilateral relations, to a minimum. Moscow fully appreciates London's
position and has therefore concentrated European diplomatic efforts on France -
which is inherently inclined to assert national independence of the United States
- and in particular on the FRG, which has the greatest national interest in long-
term political rapprochement in Europe.
Soviet analysts see Britain's standing in Europe as determined by its Atlantic
links. They view London as Washington's most loyal European ally and in turn
see Britain's influence in Europe hinging on its special relationship with the US.
As seen by Moscow, the strongest element of that relationship and indeed the
firmest basis for British influence in Europe lies in the military sphere. Britain
qualifies militarily as the most important European member of NATO 30 in as
much as it alone possesses a strategic and nuclear deterrent, deploys considerable
forces on the central front and plays a full role in the integrated military structure
of NATO. British interests and opinion thus bear importantly on all NATO
questions, particularly those involving the nature of transatlantic links. The
security standing of Britain and its key involvement in European and also out-of-
area NATO activity makes London both an important yet difficult interlocutor
for Moscow.
Military issues make up a thicker strand of common concern shared by the two
countries yet they also present the most intractable conflicts of interest as they
are all inherently adversarial. Moreover, security issues overwhelmingly, of
course, form part of a multilateral rather than bilateral agenda. British policy
towards the Soviet Union is shaped in security matters, to an even greater extent
than in other areas, by Alliance considerations. For instance, as Christoph Bluth
notes in chapter 5, British concern to pre-empt unilateral moves to reduce forces
on the central front prompted London to play an active role in promoting MBFR
talks. The fact that Moscow has not been able to deal with London on security
matters as a French-style independent actor does not, however, negate the
considerable importance of the security dimension of the relationship. In some
11
 Alex Pravda

circumstances Britain's very embeddedness in NATO, as well as its own military

capability, have enhanced the salience of London for Moscow and vice versa. On
strategic nuclear issues, Britain's national capability and its integration in
NATO have enlarged areas of common concern and potential interaction. The
fact that Britain's deterrent is targeted against Moscow (the 'Moscow criterion')
increases the importance for the Soviet Union of British nuclear forces beyond
their numbers. As Christoph Bluth notes, Soviet analysts do not rule out the
possibility that in a crisis Britain could assert national targeting priorities.
Possession of a nuclear deterrent force gives Britain an interest in preventing
nuclear proliferation, seeking to limit testing to some extent and halt the spread
of chemical weapons. All these are areas in which London has played an
important part in multilateral negotiations involving Moscow.31
Generally, however, Moscow sees Britain's 'independent' nuclear deterrent as
highly dependent on the United States both in a strategic and technical sense.
Security links with the US in Soviet eyes give London the kind of access to
Washington not shared by other NATO members. Such access, and the special
relationship of which it forms part, have considerably raised the status and value
of Britain in Soviet eyes as an interlocutor on security as well as regional and
other political issues. The value of the special relationship has of course declined
since the 1950s and early 1960s when Britain could still perform some mediating
or at least communication role between the United States and the Soviet Union.
As direct superpower relations developed, the scope for any such role narrowed.
The value of Britain's special relationship has also to some extent been reduced
by the rise of West Germany to prominence as the United States' key European
ally, at least in political regional terms. Still, there is no zero-sum relationship
between West German and British ties and influence with the United States.
London's close links with Washington have continued to provide a basis for
British involvement, albeit increasingly an indirect one, in superpower relations.
Looking not merely at the security strand of Soviet-British relations but at the
relationship as a whole, it is clear that the circumscribed agenda of common
concerns and directly negotiable issues limits both the stake and the leverage on
either side. The highly asymmetrical nature of the relationship means that the
Soviet Union should possess potentially far greater leverage, in the form of
sanctions. Yet moves such as political and military pressure on NATO which
might operate as sanctions have in fact only helped to further objectives to
maintain firm Atlantic links. The incentives that Moscow can offer London are
also few since Britain has remained wary of rapprochement, again for reasons of
Atlantic solidity. On the British side, leverage has been limited to trade, which
has generally run at low levels, and co-operation or opposition in various
multilateral fora on political and security issues. In none of the above areas have
considerations of British policy movement constituted a sufficiently important
12
 Introduction

factor for Moscow to act as effective leverage. The Soviet Union has long
considered relations with London as important but less likely to yield as high a
return on the same investment as relations with Paris or Bonn. For the last thirty
years Britain has figured importantly for the role it plays and the returns it may
yield in larger sets of relations with the West in general and the United States in
particular. For Britain the larger structural dimension of the relationship has
also proved decisive. Relations clearly figure more prominently in calculations in
London than in Moscow. But they figure as part of a more complex equation that
also involves Washington and Bonn. Considerations bearing on the Western
Alliance and British domestic politics, rather than changes in the nature of the
Soviet Union and threat, have tended to shape British policy towards Moscow.
London has tended to view rapid changes in East-West relations as likely to
disturb the stability of the framework which largely defines Britain's established
international position and role. Hence, while remaining wary of Soviet
expansionism, London has tried on occasion to correct destabilising tension as
well as to warn against excessive detente in relations between Moscow and major
Western capitals. British policy, as Margot Light notes, has typically been a dual
one of armed vigilance coupled with a search for agreements.
It is largely British concern to be both vigilant and prudent, to help temper the
extremes of East—West relations, that accounts for the distinctive historical
pattern of relations between the two countries noted earlier. In both the 'first'
and 'second' Cold Wars, it was British policy moves which initiated shifts in the
bilateral relationship. Soon after the end of World War II the United Kingdom
took a key role in alerting the West to the dangers of the Soviet threat; by the
mid-1950s London was trying to play an active part in seeking to engage the
USSR politically and relieve some of the Cold War tension. Similarly, Mrs
Thatcher, after taking a harder stance than most of her allies towards the Soviet
Union in 1979-83 - perhaps uncharacteristically doctrinaire by standards of
traditional British pragmatism - sought to improve dialogue with Moscow at a
time when general East-West tensions remained high. Soviet-British relations
during the first three years of the Gorbachev leadership generally ran ahead of
those between the Soviet Union and other West European states. In line with
traditional British concern to strike a balance and avoid extremes, as East-West
relations have improved apace since 1987, so unease seems to have grown about
the destabilising effects of such a rapid new detente and London has played a
prominent role in cautioning against premature changes in Western security
policy.
To a marked extent, then, the contours of the last decade and indeed of
current British policy and Soviet-British relations seem to conform to the
historical pattern: oscillation between distant coolness, friction and some degree
of warmth. At the same time, the last four or five years have seen the political

13
 Alex Pravda

relationship reach a level of dialogue and contact higher than at any period since
the war. While many elements of the historical relationship remain in place,
structural factors that have long shaped the cyclical path of the relationship now
themselves appear to be changing. Since Mr Gorbachev came to power Moscow
has radically altered its foreign policy thinking and strategy in an effort to reduce
the salience of the military factor and ideological conflict in Soviet relations with
the outside world and instead emphasise the importance of co-operation.
Gorbachev is clearly seeking to increase Soviet international influence by
working through and with rather than against the international system. His
moves in the military sphere as well as on regional problems suggest that this
strategic shift from conflict towards co-operation is serious rather than
rhetorical.
In the West European context the new Soviet strategy has taken the form of
far greater willingness to upgrade political and economic relations. This, plus
apparent Soviet readiness to eliminate the conventional superiority of Warsaw
Pact forces, may help reduce the basic tensions that have traditionally plagued
relations between Moscow and London. At the same time, renewed detente
between Moscow and Bonn may arouse traditional anxieties in London.
Whatever the eventual effect of these changes on the historical cyclical pattern of
Soviet-British relations, the impact of shifts in the international environment is
readily apparent in all dimensions of the relationship. It is perhaps too soon to
judge whether that impact is moving the relationship away from its historical
pattern. It is a major objective of this study to offer some basis for the
consideration of this question by examining the nature and development of the
relationship, particularly over the last decade. The opening chapter by Curtis
Keeble sets this decade into historical context and those that follow examine the
main facets of recent and current bilateral relations. By covering policy
perspectives, cultural and non-governmental contacts as well as more traditional
areas such as economic, security and diplomatic and political ties, the volume
seeks to provide a fully rounded picture of recent relations between the two
countries.

NOTES
1. V. G. Trukhanovsky and N. K. Kapitonova, Sovetsko-angliiskie otnosheniia
ig45-igj8 (Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1979); and V. A. Ryzhikov,
Sovetsko-angliiskie otnosheniia. Osnovnye etapy istorii (Mezhdunarodnye otnosh-
eniia, 1987).
2. For instance, F. S. Northedge and A. Wells, Britain and Soviet Communism
(Macmillan, 1982); S. White, Britain and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Study in the
Politics of Diplomacy, 1Q20-24 (Macmillan, 1979); G. Gorodetsky, The Precarious
Truce: Anglo-Soviet Relations ig24~2j (Cambridge University Press, 1977); and R.
 Introduction

H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations igij-21, 3 vols. (Princeton University Press

1961-72). An exception is Curtis Keeble's excellent history of Anglo-Soviet
relations (Macmillan forthcoming) which, while concentrating on the first forty
years, does cover more recent developments.
3. House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Second Report, Session 1985-86,
UK-Soviet Relations, 2 vols. (HMSO, 1986); and First Report Session 1988-89,
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (HMSO, 1989).
4. See, for example, E. Young, 'Britain: lowered guard' in G. Ginsburg and A. Z.
Rubinstein, eds., Soviet Foreign Policy towards Western Europe (Praeger, 1978), pp.
I34-5O-
5. See, for instance, Raymond Smith, 'A climate of opinion: British officials and the
development of British—Soviet policy 1945—47', International Affairs, 64: 4 (Autumn
1988), pp. 631-47.
6. Andrei Gromyko, Memories (Hutchinson, 1989), p. 155.
7. I. M. Maisky, Vospominaniia sovetskogo posla (1964), Vol. 2, p. 35 quoted in A.
Lebedev, Ocherki britanskoi vneshnei politiki (Mezhdunarodyne otnosheniia, 1988),
p. 188.
8. Trukhanovsky and Kapitonova, Sovetsko-angliiski otnosheniia, pp. 243—6.
9. Andrei Gromyko, Memories, p. 160.
10. For a clear statement to this effect, see Khrushchev Remembers (Sphere Books, 1971),
P- 375-
11. Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, vol. 125, p. 44.
12. Foreign Affairs Committee, UK-Soviet Relations (1986), vol. 2, p. 342; Foreign
Affairs Committee, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (1989), p. 190.
13. UK-Soviet Relations, vol. 2, pp. 14-15.
14. Ibid., p. 258.
15. Foreign Affairs Committee, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, p. 190.
16. See 'UK trade with the Soviet Union', Memorandum submitted by the Department
of Trade and Industry, Foreign Affairs Committee, Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union, p. 183; Kestor George of the DTI, ibid., p. 194.
17. Financial Times, 20 September 1975.
18. Soviet News, 9 December 1987, p. 437.
19. Foreign Affairs Committee Report, 1986, p. 265.
20. Kestor George in evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union, p. 201.
21. V. A. Ryzhikov, Sovetsko-angliiskie otnosheniia, pp. 222-5.
22. See J. Frankel, British Foreign Policy 1945-73 (Oxford University Press, 1975),
p. 190.
23. Trukhanovsky and Kapitonova, Sovetsko-angliiski otnosheniia, p. 10.
24. S. Volodin, 'Britain in today's world polities', International Affairs (Moscow), 7
(1984), p. 73; Ryzhikov, Sovetsko-angliiskie otnosheniia, p. 258.
25. For instance, see the accounts of David Owen's talks in Moscow, Pravda, 12 October
J
977> P- 4? The Observer, 9 October 1977; Trukhanovsky and Kapitonova,
Sovetsko-angliiskie otnosheniia, p. 236.
26. See V. G. Baranovsky, Evropeiskoe soobshchestvo v sisteme mezhdunarodnykh
otnoshenii (Nauka, 1986); and N. S. Kishilov, ed., Zapadno-Evropeiskaia integratsiia:
politicheskie aspekty (Nauka, 1985).
27. Michael Clarke, 'The implementation of Britain's CSCE policy 1975-85', in S.

15
 Alex Pravda

Smith and M. Clarke, eds., Foreign Policy Implementation (Allen and Unwin, 1985),
p. 145; Golubev, 'Sovetsko-angliiskie otnoshennia na rubezhe 70-80-kh godov',
Voprosy Istorii, 7 (1984), p. 52; and Trukhanovsky and Kapitonova,
Sovetsko—angliiskie otnosheniia, p. 240.
28. See James Callaghan's reference to Britain being lower down in the 'batting order',
Foreign Affairs Committee, UK-Soviet Relations (1986), vol. 2, p. 60.
29. A. Eden, Full Circle. The Memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden (Cassell, i960), p. 363.
30. G. V. Kolosov, Voenno—politicheskii kurs Anglii v Evrope (Nauka, 1984), p. 28.
31. David Owen in evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee,
UK-Soviet Relations (1986), vol. 2, pp. 369-71.

16
 The historical perspective
C U R T I S KEEBLE

In December 1917 the British War Cabinet confronted the problem raised by
the October Revolution in Russia: whether to come out in open opposition to the
Bolsheviks or to make the best deal possible with them. Balfour summed up his
policy in the memorable phrase: 'If this be drifting, then I am a drifter by
deliberate policy'1 - and his colleagues were content to leave the dilemma
unresolved. Over the next seventy years, and frequently in the most critical
international situations, successive British Governments were to be confronted
by the same problem. They did not always drift. From David Lloyd George to
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Ministers placed their personal imprint upon policy.
Trade agreements were made, unmade and remade. Diplomatic relations were
established, broken and re-established. Political dialogue was initiated, inter-
rupted and restarted. Policies were pursued which at one extreme brought
Britain and the Soviet Union into open military conflict and at the other into
formal military alliance. The relationship was rarely symmetrical. By the time
the revolutionaries of 1917 had created the world's second superpower, Britain
had declined from the zenith of imperial power and, within the context of this
evolving power ratio, the problem of achieving a stable and satisfactory
British-Soviet relationship remained unsolved.
Now with a new Soviet leadership pursuing a policy of 'reconstruction' and
exercising a more flexible and sophisticated diplomacy, a new phase in the
relationship may be opening. The purpose of the present chapter is to set that
phase in the context of earlier phases in British-Soviet relations as they have
developed since 1917. It is written from a British standpoint. It is an attempt to
explain how successive British Governments have viewed the Soviet Union, how
they have responded to the evolution of Soviet policy and how, as a result, the
British—Soviet relationship itself has evolved. To condense the diplomatic
history of these seventy years into a single chapter has required a degree of
simplification, compression and omission which, I am conscious, does less than
justice to many facets of a complex relationship and to the personalities who have

17
 Curtis Keeble

done much to shape its evolution. Alongside the direct inter-governmental

relationship lies the whole range of non-governmental and quasi-governmental
relationships. Below it lies the web of covert and semi-covert activity ranging
from the manipulation of public opinion to the classic intelligence and
counter-intelligence operations. Relevant though all this has been to the totality
of the relationship, space does not permit more than the briefest mention in this
chapter. Moreover to present the British—Soviet relationship as a specific
relationship in its own right is to underrate the complexity of the Alliance
relationships and the interaction of the two Governments in the United Nations
and other multilateral negotiating bodies, for instance in the area of arms control,
where the wider East-West relationship has been developed, in the context of
which British policy has had to be formulated and implemented. I hope
nevertheless that some recital of the main events may serve, even for those
familiar with the period, as a convenient reminder of a well-trodden path, an
inducement to re-examine some of the scenery along the way and a guide to what
may lie around the next corner.
The year 1917 makes a convenient starting point, but diplomacy does not start
with a clean sheet. Neither the Soviet Government nor those who had to deal
with it could escape the geo-political realities of Europe or the legacy, part
substantive, part emotional, part instinctive, of the policies of pre-revolutionary
Russia. The year 1917 brought a new ideological confrontation, but problems
such as Russia's frontier with the states of Eastern and South-eastern Europe,
the conflict with Britain over Afghanistan and the whole triangular British-
German-Russian relationship were deep rooted.

REACTION TO REVOLUTION
The prospect that the February Revolution might lead to a more democratic
system of government in Russia had been generally welcomed in Britain, but
Kerensky had proved a disappointment. His overthrow by the Bolsheviks might
not, it seemed, make matters much worse, but there were few people in Britain in
1917 - or, for that matter, in Russia - who expected a Bolshevik Government to
last for long. There was already concern enough about the potentially disruptive
effect of Karl Marx's teachings, but ideology had little to do with the initial
British reaction to the October Revolution and the potential impact of Russian
power harnessed to Communist doctrine was not a factor in British calculations.
At that time Russia mattered to the British Government in one respect only. The
war against Germany was at a critical stage. The dissolution of the Eastern front
and the transfer of German and Austrian forces to the West might suffice to
ensure a German victory. The British Government cared little who ruled Russia,
so long as the Eastern front could be held open. For the Bolshevik leadership,
18
 The historical perspective

however, the ending of hostilities with Germany was a primary requirement if

they were to establish their own control over as much as possible of the territory
of Imperial Russia. In this their interest was directly counter to that of Great
Britain. In a revolutionary situation, it is always tempting for a foreign
government, uncertain of the outcome, to seek to safeguard its position with both
camps. This the British Government did, allowing Litvinov to stay in London
and despatching Robert Bruce Lockhart to try to secure the co-operation of the
Bolsheviks, while giving financial support to those anti-Bolshevik elements of
the Imperial Army which might be prepared to continue the war against
Germany. At some point, however, as the internal conflict is resolved, a dual
policy of this type must become untenable. The failure of British policy was that,
as the Bolsheviks strengthened their grip on Russia, so the British and French
Governments increased their commitment to the anti-Bolshevik forces.
The ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk effectively marked the point at
which the policy of seeking Bolshevik co-operation in the war against Germany
had to end. Ignoring the fact that the anti-Bolshevik forces were concerned only
with the pursuit of the civil war, the British Government saw them as the only
potential allies. Allied supply bases for the Imperial Army still existed in
Archangel and Vladivostok; from the beginning of 1918 Allied strategists had
been tempted by the idea of landing a primarily Japanese force which could link
up with the 70,000 Czech forces stranded in Siberia and form a common front
against the Germans with a much smaller British force driving south from
Archangel. British policy was formulated in the context of Alliance policy for the
war against Germany. With France urging belligerence, the United States
hesitant and Japan pursuing its own interests in the East, the process of Allied
consultation dragged on through 1918. Repugnance at Bolshevik excesses turned
the British mood progressively against the Bolsheviks. In Moscow Lockhart was
arrested on suspicion of plotting against the regime and Litvinov was imprisoned
in London. Eventually, in August 1918, an operation conceived as a means of
pursuing the war against Germany with Bolshevik assistance, or at least
Bolshevik acquiescence, was set in train, almost at the moment of victory over
Germany, as a joint operation by Allied and anti-Bolshevik forces against the
Bolsheviks.
With the defeat of Germany, the cause for the conflict of interest between
Britain and Russia was removed. There was no longer any need for an Eastern
front or for any British involvement in Russia. Opposition to the Bolsheviks had,
however, continued to mount in Britain and, within the Cabinet, Churchill
sought to convert the military operation in Russia into a campaign openly
designed to unseat them. There was never any real possibility that a war-weary
Britain would engage in such an enterprise and it took the Cabinet little time to
decide that the British forces should be withdrawn. At the same time, rather than

19
 Curtis Keeble

abandon their erstwhile friends, they decided to continue theflowof supplies to

the White forces and thus once again to pursue simultaneously two incompatible
policies. The momentum of earlier commitments and the difficulty of extricating
the British forces were such that the two years following the defeat of Germany
brought the only significant involvement of these forces in operations against the
Bolsheviks. They brought also a decision that a state of war existed in practice,
although, since the Bolsheviks had never been recognised, it could not be
declared. A policy which saw Russia only as a factor in the war against Germany
had failed because it ignored the realities of the Russian political scene and, in
failing, it had, in practice, if not in intention, involved the British Government in
an unsuccessful attempt to unseat those who were to determine Russia's future.
It could scarcely fail to be seen as such by the Bolshevik leadership.
Nevertheless, political and economic self-interest required the establishment of
relations with the Allied Governments and, deep though the trauma of the
intervention was, once power had been secured this became a primary objective
of Soviet foreign policy.

R E L A T I O N S E S T A B L I S H E D , BROKEN AND
RE-ESTABLISHED
For the Allied Governments, the consolidation of Bolshevik power in Russia
presented a peculiarly intractable problem. Should they wait for this new Russia
to crumble under the burden of its malign administration and its abhorrent
doctrines and, while waiting, content themselves with walling off Europe - and
above all a potentially Communist Germany - against the danger of infection?
Or was there the possibility that, by the establishment of working relations and
the development of common interests, the new leaders of Russia could be
persuaded to forget their doctrine and act as responsible members of the
international community? While they pondered, Russia, hitherto the object of
others' policies, erupted on to the European scene. When the Red Army
repulsed the Polish invasion in 1919 and took its counter-offensive to the
suburbs of Warsaw, Lloyd George himself proclaimed British policy as being 'to
arrest the flow of lava . . . to prevent the forcible eruption of Bolshevism into
Allied lands'2 and committed the British Government, very much as Chamber-
lain was to do in different circumstances twenty years later, to use 'all the means
at their disposal' in assisting the Polish nation to defend its independence. On
this occasion, however, Poland saved herself largely by her own efforts and, apart
from the supply of some material, the British guarantee was not invoked.
It was Lloyd George who personally drove forward British policy towards the
new Russia and the essence of that policy was less to contain Russia than to draw
her into the international community. In this, he began to establish a community
20
 The historical perspective

of interest, if only temporarily, with the Russian leadership. His first efforts to
bring about a political settlement, made in the margins of the Peace Conference
in Paris, were frustrated in part by the obduracy of the French Government and
in part by the intractable political problem of Russia itself. However, he was able
to secure the concurrence of the Allied Governments in establishing trade
contacts and in consequence it was the British Government which, having led in
the intervention, led the way in the establishment of relations by the negotiation
of the 1921 Trade Agreement,3 the de facto recognition of the Soviet
Government and the setting up of Trade Missions in London and Moscow. The
agreement in fact went well beyond the normal scope of a trade agreement. It was
seen as preliminary to a formal treaty of peace and was accompanied by mutual
commitments to refrain from 'hostile actions or undertakings' and the conduct of
hostile 'official propaganda'. The Soviet Government, for its part, agreed to
refrain from 'any attempt by military or diplomatic or any other form of action or
propaganda to encourage any of the peoples of Asia in any form of hostile action
against British interests or the British Empire, especially in India and in the
Independent State of Afghanistan'. The agreement represented, for both
parties, a remarkable success. For the Soviet Union, it marked the ending not
only of the economic blockade, but, even more important, the breaking of the
political blockade. For Britain, there was not only the prospect of the reopening
of the Russian market, but the securing of guarantees against the disruptive
effects of the dreaded Bolshevik propaganda. However, it was an agreement
which, in a sense, went beyond the underlying political realities and in large
measure its implementation was to be frustrated by both parties.
The setbacks followed quickly. For a time, though, the initiative rested with
Britain. Seeking to broaden out his initiative into a major multilateral settlement
with Russia, Lloyd George initiated the Genoa Conference of 1922. The
invitation itself was seen in Moscow as 'confirming the recognition of Russia as a
power whose participation in European affairs would be indispensable in the
future'. Soviet policy was proclaimed as one of peaceful coexistence, although
the Soviet tactic was 'without concealing our communist views, [to] confine
ourselves to a brief and passing mention of them' and to 'do everything
possible . . . to disunite the bourgeois countries that will be united against us'. 4
Allied claims for a settlement of pre-revolutionary Russian debts were countered
by a Soviet demand for compensation in respect of losses sustained during the
Allied intervention. The resulting deadlock was not broken by the follow-up
meeting at The Hague. Indeed, the main - and for Britain highly unwelcome -
outcome of Genoa came through a Soviet initiative in the form of the signature
by the Soviet Union and Germany of the Treaty of Rapallo, an engagement,
described by Lloyd George as an 'act of base treachery and perfidy'. It raised the
spectre of Soviet-German rapprochement which was to haunt British policy
 Curtis Keeble

makers throughout the subsequent years. As for the British claim in respect of
pre-revolution debts, the effective writing off of claims and counter-claims,
which could have been achieved in 1922, eluded generations of negotiators until
it was eventually accepted in 1986.
With the fall of Lloyd George, the primary impulse for the development of
British-Soviet relations was lost. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, British
policy varied according to the fluctuations of political power in Britain and the
varying perceptions of Soviet policy. For its part, the Soviet Union, having
achieved international recognition, sought with little success to derive economic
and political benefit from it. In 1923, in the 'Curzon ultimatum', the British
Government formally gave notice that they would consider themselves free from
the obligations of the trade agreement unless, within a period of ten days,
satisfactory assurances were received on various issues. These ranged from the
continuation of Soviet propaganda in Persia, Afghanistan and India to the
seizure of British trawlers and crews, proceedings against British subjects
charged with espionage in Russia and, as the 'human rights' strand was woven
into the relationship, the persecution of Russian priests. The crisis was resolved
on the basis of Soviet assurances and, with the formation of Ramsay
MacDonald's Labour Government, Britain proceeded in February 1924 to
formal de jure recognition. From MacDonald's point of view, recognition was in
part a political response to Labour Party opinion, in part a practical move
designed to secure increased trade. For the Soviet Union, it represented a major
diplomatic achievement and there was hope that it might lead to the grant of new
British credit for the re-equipment of Soviet industry. In this expectation,
definitive treaties on trade and financial questions were negotiated and initialled,
but were set aside by the Conservative Government which took office in
November 1924 after the incident of the Zinoviev letter. The letter (widely and
probably correctly believed to be a forgery) allegedly contained instructions
from Zinoviev as President of the Comintern to the British Communist Party
concerning, inter alia, the formation of cells within the armed forces. Policy
towards the Soviet Union was already a major election issue and the letter must
have helped to seal MacDonald's fate. The downward slide in relations gathered
force and in 1927 the Home Secretary authorised a police raid on the London
offices of the Soviet trading company Arcos and the Soviet Trade Delegation.
The raid failed to bring to light any convincing evidence of improper activities,
but, relying largely on the evidence of intercepted Soviet cypher traffic, the
British Government formally terminated the 1921 Trade Agreement and the
Charges d'Affaires in Moscow and London were withdrawn. The first decade
had seen the whole cycle, from active military conflict between the forces of the
two countries to the establishment of commercial and diplomatic relations and
then to their breach.
22
 The historical perspective

In these early years, it was Britain which to the Soviet leaders seemed the
effective bastion of imperialist power and the City of London the key to its
finance. The bilateral relationship was therefore of special importance to them
and they made some efforts to cultivate it. The tone of the relationship was,
however, set largely by Britain and its oscillating pattern stemmed primarily
from the oscillation of political power in Britain. Nevertheless, the evolution of
the Soviet Union was also relevant. In the immediate post-revolution years the
Bolshevik leaders had been concerned to establish their own power within
Russia and then to secure their international recognition. To the extent that this
was contrary to British objectives - first in relation to the pursuit of the war
against Germany and then in relation to the independence of Poland - it had led
to direct conflict. The military or economic power which the Bolsheviks could
subsequently deploy outside their own borders was, however, negligible; it was
the ideological threat to the British imperial structure which was the principal
cause of concern to the British Government and it was against this that Lloyd
George had sought and obtained assurances in the 1921 Trade Agreement. With
the introduction of the New Economic Policy by Lenin, it had begun to seem
that Lloyd George's dream of the evolution of the Soviet Union away from
extreme socialism might be realised. Thus the advent to power of the Labour
Party in Britain came at a moment when, despite the accession of Stalin and the
waning of NEP, the Soviet Union was still showing its less menacing face to the
world. To many in Britain the great socialist experiment, for all its tragedies, was
a source of hope and admiration. In these circumstances, progression from the
intervention of 1918 to the establishment of trade relations in 1921 and
diplomatic relations in 1924 represented not merely the trend of political power
in Britain, but a realistic reaction to the apparent trend of the Soviet Union itself.
The subsequent trend of policy - the rejection of the 1924 Treaties, the Arcos
raid and the breach of relations - reflected the Conservative election victory in
1924 and the ascendant influence of the Diehards. But again the underlying
circumstances were changing. Within the Soviet Union the Stalin years were
beginning to take shape. Few resources were available for the support of external
subversion, but doctrinally it was important. It was barely necessary to forge the
Zinoviev letter: the Comintern was in practice an instrument of the Soviet state
and the contents of the letter were not out of line with Comintern policy. The
provision of Soviet funds to back the miners in the General Strike of 1926, albeit
under the guise of voluntary contributions by the Soviet miners to their fellow
workers, fell into place as part of this policy. The Soviet threat perceived by the
Diehards was not wholly imaginary. What they could not (or would not)
understand was that the ideological and practical gulf between the British trade
union movement and the exponents of Soviet Communism made it a hollow one.
The next cycle in the relationship, from 1927 to 1935, again corresponded in
23
 Curtis Keeble

part to the evolution of political power in Britain. It was the declared policy of
the Labour Party to resume full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and,
despite Ramsay MacDonald's well-established dislike of the Bolsheviks, an
emotion which they fully reciprocated, Ambassadors were exchanged within a
few months of the Labour victory in 1929 and a new Temporary Commercial
Agreement was negotiated. Again, a reversal of political fortune brought a
reversal of the British-Soviet relationship, but again the deterioration was
provoked in part by external circumstances. The international economic crisis
and the introduction of Imperial preference provided a motive for denunciation
of the trade agreement and in 1933 the arrest, trial and sentencing of the British
engineers employed by Metropolitan-Vickers in Moscow precipitated a major
political crisis, with the imposition of trade embargoes by both the British and
Soviet Governments.

T H E SEARCH FOR S E C U R I T Y
The Metropolitan-Vickers trial was the last major crisis in British-Soviet
relations during the pre-war years and the years 1934 and 1935 were marked by a
brief and superficially promising revival. For the early years of the Stalin regime,
the Soviet Union had been turned very much inward. In its external policy it had
opposed the post-Versailles structure and it had done much to create the
political circumstances which destroyed the Weimar Republic and made
possible the rise of the Nazis. Now, as the Nazi threat began to develop, Soviet
policy appeared to change. The Soviet Government seemed ready to accept at
least the possibility of ranging itself alongside the defenders of the status quo in
Europe. The first overtures met with an encouraging, if less than enthusiastic,
British response. In February 1934 a new, temporary Commercial Agreement
was concluded; in July the first serious political discussions were initiated
between Sir Robert (later Lord) Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary at the
Foreign Office and Ivan Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador; and in September the
Soviet Union, with support from Britain and France, took the momentous step
of joining the League of Nations, an organisation which it had, until then,
consistently denounced. In the following year, the visit of Anthony Eden as Lord
Privy Seal to Moscow and Litvinov's visit to London for the funeral of King
George V seemed to demonstrate that the policy of collective security might
indeed provide the framework within which, irrespective of the doctrinal gulf
between the two countries, a new and constructive alignment of British and
Soviet foreign policy might take place. The reversal of Soviet policy which had
opened up this prospect was remarkable, but it is legitimate to question whether,
24
 The historical perspective

had it been put to the test, the policy would have survived. Would the Soviet
Union have been prepared to hazard its own security in order to frustrate
German expansion before a direct attack on its own territory? In 1939 it was
certainly not prepared to do so, but by then Litvinov, the would-be architect of
collective security, had gone and four more years of mistrust had accumulated.
As it was, the British Government saw the route to security in the
consolidation of Western Europe and the appeasement of Germany. In such a
situation, the development of a closer relationship with the Soviet Union seemed
to them more likely to endanger than to promote the security of the United
Kingdom. As Europe moved through the crisis years of the Spanish Civil War,
the Anschluss with Austria and the annexation of Czechoslovakia, relations
between Britain and the Soviet Union became gradually more tenuous. In the
case of Spain, special factors came into play and emotions in Britain were
aroused to an intensity which left its mark upon a generation - the generation to
which Maclean and Burgess belonged - then growing into political awareness. In
the early stages of the Civil War, the Soviet Union joined under British
chairmanship in the work of the Non-intervention Committee and some
alignment of policy seemed possible, but as the inefficacy of the Committee
became increasingly apparent the Soviet Union turned first to a policy of
intervention in support of the Republican forces and then, for its own political
reasons, began to distance itself from them. There was no identity of purpose
between Britain and the Soviet Union at this time, but the Chiefs of Staff Sub-
Committee noted in a Review of Imperial Defence in February 19375 that,
although the Soviet Union would have no objection to a war between the
capitalist powers, for the next few years 'the British Empire and the Soviet
Union are likely to have two common enemies in Germany and Japan as well as a
common desire for peace'. That the logic of this analysis did not carry over into
the formation of policy is scarcely surprising when one remembers that this was a
time when Stalin was largely occupied with the violent disposal of much of the
top political and military leadership of the country. When the Spanish crisis was
overtaken by the threat to Austria's independence, there was no disposition on
the part of the British Government to consult the Soviet Union. The Soviet
Government's proposal of March 1938 for measures of collective security either
within or outside the League of Nations was met with a reply from the British
Government indicating that a conference 'designed less to secure the settlement
of outstanding problems than to organise concerted action against aggression'
would not necessarily have a favourable effect.6 Throughout the Czech crisis the
Soviet Union, despite its interlocking treaty obligations to France and
Czechoslovakia, was held at arm's length and its assertion of readiness to honour
its obligations was never put to the test. After Munich, when the question of
Soviet participation in a guarantee to the rump of the remaining Czech state was

25
 Curtis Keeble

mooted, Chamberlain remarked that it would be 'much easier for everyone' if the
Czechs decided they did not want this.7
Soviet historians allege that the objective of British policy at this time was to
divert the thrust of German aggression away from Western Europe by turning it
against the Soviet Union. Baldwin certainly once remarked that his heart would
not be broken if Hitler turned eastward and that if there were to be any fighting
in Europe he would as soon see it done between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks.8
Yet there was no active policy to this effect and on at least one occasion, far from
conniving in a move against the Soviet Union, the British Government stated
specifically to the German Government that they could not compromise in
respect of the German desire to isolate the Soviet Union and would not refuse
co-operation with the latter solely on account of Soviet political views.9 A more
accurate charge would be that throughout the appeasement years the Soviet
Union was seen as no more than a distasteful, potentially disruptive, but
fortunately peripheral factor in British policy making. For its part, the Soviet
Government doubtless hoped to stand aside and profit from any
inter-imperialist war.

T H E 1939 N E G O T I A T I O N S
It was only after the seizure by Germany of the rump of Czechoslovakia in
March 1939 that the British Government began to consider some co-ordination
of policy with the Soviet Union. Afirstanxious enquiry about possible Soviet aid
to Romania brought a positive, but qualified, response. When the threat to
Poland became more acute, the British Government, having given a unilateral
guarantee, sought to reinsure with the Soviet Union. The British-
French-Soviet negotiations, conducted on the Soviet side by Molotov and on
the British by Sir William Seeds, HM Ambassador in Moscow, and William
(later Lord) Strang, were the first substantial experience which the British
Government had had of negotiating with the Soviet Union on a major politico-
strategic issue. The mutual suspicion was intense. Chamberlain wrote to his
sister on 26 March: 'I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia'.10
Stalin, for his part, had proclaimed on 10 March that the Soviet Union would not
be drawn into conflicts by warmongers who were accustomed to have others pull
their chestnuts out of the fire. After beginning the tripartite negotiation, he gave
practical effect to his new policy by dismissing Litvinov and replacing him with
Molotov. The British objective at the start of negotiations was to secure, at no
cost in terms of new British commitments, a Soviet guarantee to Poland which
could be called in at Polish discretion. The Soviet counter-offer was a formal
tripartite treaty and to this, after much procrastination, the British Government
agreed. The refusal of the Polish Government to accept a Soviet guarantee was a
26
 The historical perspective

major problem, but step by step the British and French negotiators conceded
virtually every Soviet requirement in relation to the main treaty, preserving only
a thin cover against a Soviet right of intervention to prevent 'indirect aggression'
through any of the border states, a right which in effect would have authorised
the Soviet Union to move forces into those states at its own discretion and
regardless of the wishes of their Governments. The Soviet requirement then
turned to the parallel conclusion of a detailed agreement on the military
measures to give effect to the political commitment, but while negotiations were
in train, the Molotov—Ribbentrop Agreement was concluded, the British and
French negotiators were left to pack their bags and the way was clear for the
German-Soviet partition of Poland. The negotiations left a legacy of deepened
mistrust. On the British side, the recollection of Rapallo could scarcely be
avoided, the worst suspicion of Soviet double-dealing seemed confirmed and the
doctrine of collective security exposed as a sham. On the Soviet side it was
alleged that the British and French objective was essentially to divert the
German drive eastward and embroil the Soviet Union in war; that the conduct of
negotiations had never been serious; and that the Soviet Union had no option but
to safeguard its own security. It is idle now to speculate whether, even as late as
March 1939, a swift and positive acceptance of the Soviet proposal for a treaty
might have brought success in the negotiations and what the consequences
might then have been. As it was, there seemed little to choose between the Nazi
and Soviet governments and British policy was formed accordingly.
After the declaration of war on Germany, the British Government had neither
the time nor the inclination to devote much thought to relations with the Soviet
Union. The conduct of Soviet policy confirmed their fears. After the partition of
Poland came the move of Soviet forces into the Baltic States, the seizure of
Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania, the attack on Finland and
finally the formal incorporation of the Baltic States into the Soviet Union. A
Soviet suggestion that Britain might mediate in the conflict with Finland
brought an uneasy recollection of the fate of Czechoslovakia. Complicity in the
dismemberment of yet another small country was rejected and, by the time the
fighting ended, preparations for the despatch of a British force to Finland and an
air attack on the Baku oil fields were well in hand. Had the Finnish-Soviet war
been prolonged, British and Soviet forces might once again have been directly
engaged on opposing sides.
A desultory effort was made to wean the Soviet Union into a neutrality less
favourable to the German cause, but Britain had little to offer by way of
inducement and as the German forces overran Europe there was less and less
reason for the Soviet Government to compromise their relationship with a
victorious Germany for the sake of an apparently defeated Britain. It was
immediately after the fall of Paris that Stafford Cripps was appointed

27
 Curtis Keeble

Ambassador to Moscow and delivered to Stalin a letter in which Churchill

pointed out bluntly: 'Germany became your friend almost at the same moment
as she became our enemy.'11 Nevertheless, Churchill expressed British readiness
to discuss 'any of the vast problems created by Germany's present attempt to
pursue in Europe a methodical process by successive stages of conquest and
absorption'. The attempt to build a closer relationship at this stage of the war was
fruitless. What it produced was the first indication of the coming confrontation
over the political shape of Europe. 'If the Prime Minister wishes to restore the
old equilibrium', replied Stalin, 'we cannot agree with him'. 12 Throughout 1940
and 1941 mutual suspicion grew. Molotov's visit to Berlin was seen in London as
confirmation of the identity of view of Germany and the Soviet Union, while, in
Moscow, Hess's flight to Britain seemed to confirm that a British-German peace
was about to be concluded in preparation for an attack on the Soviet Union.
Stalin was, however, in no mood to heed warnings of the imminence of a German
attack and even less inclined to do so when they emanated from Britain.

THE WARTIME ALLIANCE

In his broadcast on the occasion of the German attack on the Soviet Union on 21
June 1941, Churchill proclaimed the policy of aid to Russia. No one, he said, had
been a more persistent opponent of Communism than he and he would unsay no
word he had spoken. But: 'The past with its crimes, its follies and its tragedies
flashes away . . . We shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian
people."3 In formal terms British—Soviet relations were transformed. But the
past could not be so easily dismissed. Britain and the Soviet Union had indeed a
common interest in bringing about the defeat of Germany. So long as for each
country the pursuit of the war was of supreme importance, that common interest
could override the fundamental divergence in other respects. Once victory was
assured, the bond was too weak to hold.
It was not easy to give immediate effect to the offer of aid. Influenced by the
poor Soviet performance against Finland, the British Chiefs of Staff predicted
that Soviet resistance would be a matter only of weeks. Even in his speech,
Churchill had described the invasion of Russia as 'no more than a prelude to an
attempted invasion of the British Isles'. It was thought to be relevant to the
British war effort only in that, by delaying the invasion, it would allow more time
for the re-equipment of the British forces. There was little incentive to sustain an
apparently forlorn Soviet resistance if the price were to prejudice the defence of
Britain by the diversion of essential American supplies. As Churchill expressed
it: 'In the early days of our alliance there was little we could do, and I tried to fill

28
 The historical perspective

the void by civilities.'14 The wartime relationship was, however, quickly placed
on a formal basis by the Anglo-Soviet Agreement of 12 July 194115 in which the
two governments undertook to render each other 'assistance and support of all
kinds' and not to conclude any armistice or peace treaty except by mutual
agreement. Early in September the British Government agreed to provide, from
British production, half the monthly Soviet requirement of 400 aircraft and 500
tanks and shortly afterwards a formal protocol on supplies was agreed at a
tripartite meeting in Moscow. The visit to Moscow by Eden in December 1941
for discussion of questions relating to the post-war reconstruction of Europe was
marked by a sharp conflict of views over the Soviet demand, as a condition for the
conclusion of a formal Treaty of Alliance, for the recognition of the inclusion of
the Baltic States in the Soviet Union and the restoration of the 1941
Finnish-Soviet frontier. The Soviet demand was refused, and the Treaty 16
concluded in the following year, when Molotov visited Britain, contained no
territorial provisions. Part I provided for co-operation in the war against
Germany and was valid for the duration of the war. Part II, valid for a period of
twenty years, provided for common action to preserve peace and resist
aggression in the post-war period, as well as for collaboration in the organisation
of security and economic prosperity in Europe.
The wartime relationship presented certain clear features:

1 In the militaryfield,the principal Soviet demand was for the opening of

a Second Front in the West in order to relieve the pressure on the
Soviet armies. It wasfirstmade in a message from Stalin to Churchill in
July 1941 and was reiterated throughout the war. The communique
issued on the signature of the Treaty of Alliance in May 1942 recorded
'full understanding' on 'the urgent task of creating a Second Front in
Europe in 1942',17 but the British Government were not prepared to
accept a formal commitment and the communique was qualified both
orally and by a confidential aide-memoire. The definitive agreement on
the launching of 'Overlord' in the summer of 1944 was not reached
until the Teheran Conference in November 1943 and the delay was a
constant source of recrimination. Such has been the depth of mistrust
that, forty years later, Soviet historians have claimed that the delay was
part of a 'policy designed to weaken the USSR to the maximum
extent'.18
2 Although the volume of war material eventually delivered by Britain to
the Soviet Union (including some 5,000 tanks and 7,000 aircraft) was
substantial and the losses sustained in the Arctic convoys were very
heavy, recrimination was constant. Soviet co-operation in the supply

29
 Curtis Keeble

arrangements was minimal and so too was the provision of operational

intelligence.
3 Soviet political objectives had become apparent in the 1939 negoti-
ations and were confirmed in 1940, when Stalin refused to accept the
'old equilibrium' in Europe. Disagreement over the future of Poland
began as early as 30 July 1941, when the Foreign Secretary stated that
the British Government did not recognise any territorial changes
effected in Poland since August 1939. Soviet determination to retain
the territorial gains of 1939-41 was made clear when Eden first
discussed post-war questions in Moscow in December 1941 and on
every subsequent opportunity, but the British Government, although
it had not guaranteed the Polish frontier, was mindful of the Polish
relationship. More significantly, committed by the Atlantic Charter
and dependent upon American support, it would not enter into
bilateral commitments regarding post-war territorial adjustments. The
closer victory came, the more apparent became the threat of Soviet
domination of Eastern Europe and the less the Allied power to prevent
it.
4 Even prior to entry of the United States into the war, American
assistance was of critical importance to the British war effort and prior
consultation was therefore essential in respect of British policy on all
major questions concerning relations with the Soviet Union. The
pattern of American influence was inconsistent. At one extreme, it
hardened British opposition to recognition of the integration of the
Baltic States into the Soviet Union. At the other, Roosevelt was less
squeamish than Churchill about accepting the Soviet Union as an ally
of Britain in 1941 and subsequently less concerned about Soviet control
of Eastern Europe.
5 The bilateral British-Soviet relationship was significant during the war
years. Churchill's visit to Moscow in 1942 was the first East-West
summit and the British record combined with his personality to enable
Britain to play a role disproportionate to the underlying military and
economic resources which it could deploy. The tripartite relationship
developed in the wartime conferences represented a unique attempt at
the co-ordination of policy, in relation not merely to the conduct of the
war, but also to the post-war political reconstruction. The political
agreements reached at these conferences proved valid only in so far as
they first reflected and could later be secured by the military power of
the parties. Militarily unenforceable policy declarations proved
ephemeral.
6 Respect for the Soviet war effort and sympathy with the suffering of the
30
 The historical perspective

Soviet people, symbolised by the presentation by King George VI of a

Sword of Honour to commemorate the defence of Stalingrad and given
practical effect by Mrs Churchill's Aid to Russia campaign, brought a
tendency towards more sympathetic interpretation of the Soviet
political scene. The Soviet Union, for its part, officially regarded the
Alliance as proving the possibility of effective political and military co-
operation between states with differing social systems.19 Yet mutual
suspicion remained the essence of the inter-governmental relationship
and with growing experience it tended to deepen. Churchill sub-
sequently commented: 'We had always hated their wicked regime.' 20

T H E POST-WAR C O N F R O N T A T I O N
The confrontation with Soviet military power in Europe and the threat of its
projection worldwide has become such an accustomed feature of political-
strategic analysis that it is necessary to make the effort to recognise its newness in
1945. Throughout the twenties and thirties the ideological challenge and the
subversive application of Marxist doctrine as espoused by the Soviet leaders had
been a potent factor in British politics - a promise to some and a threat to others.
So too had been Soviet economic policies. As a military force, the Soviet Union
had seemed largely irrelevant and certainly no cause for concern. The
intergovernmental relationship had been characterised on the British side by
bursts of enthusiasm from the Left and somewhat contemptuous hostility from
the Right. On the Soviet side, Britain was seen as the leading imperial power and
potential common interests in trade and security were outweighed by an
instinctive and doctrinally motivated blend of confrontation and suspicion.
Despite substantial diplomatic activity, both positive and negative, the actual
content of relations had remained thin and the points of contact limited. There
had been no common policy on European security and only an insignificant
volume of trade. To describe it as a relationship of mutual irrelevance would be
an exaggeration, but not wholly unmerited. After 1945 there was no question of
irrelevance. The domination of Eastern and Central Europe by the Soviet armed
forces introduced the relationship of armed hostility which was to dominate the
British-Soviet relationship throughout most of four decades and to give the
Soviet Union a substantial, sometimes dominant, place in the formation of
British foreign and defence policy.
It is tempting, but in some respects misleading, to see a consistent evolution of
policy from the end of the war, through the crises of the Cold War years to the
Helsinki agreement in 1975. Within that period, the threat of Soviet expansion
into Western Europe can arguably be regarded as a relatively short and distinct
phase, beginning in 1944 and ending with the defeat of the Berlin blockade,
 Curtis Keeble

while the European crises of subsequent years were caused more by Soviet
determination to hold on to their wartime gains than by attempts to extend them.
Throughout the whole period, Germany (and especially Berlin) remained a focal
point of the confrontation and it was through the German agreements that the
route to Helsinki was opened. Thus the old triangular British-German-Russian
relationship remained valid and the residual quadripartite responsibility for
Germany was of particular relevance to the conduct of British-Soviet affairs.
From a different and wider perspective, however, there is a case for marking the
transition to a new phase with the later years of the Khrushchev era, when the
Cuban crisis and the subsequent concentration on the Soviet-American bilateral
relationship brought a new dimension into the conduct of relations with the
Soviet Union.
The first steps in the contest to determine the post-war political structure of
Europe had been taken with the Soviet annexations of 1939-41 and the political
skirmishing had begun in the wartime conferences. As early as 14 May 1942 Sir
William Strang was minuting: 'I do not think we can counter the establishment
of Russian predominance in Eastern Europe if Germany is crushed and
disarmed and Russia participates in the final victory.'21 By the time of the
Teheran conference of November 1943 the shape of Soviet pressure could be
seen, but Churchill commented: 'It would not have been right at Teheran for the
Western democracies to found their plans upon suspicions of the Russian
attitude in the hour of triumph and when all her dangers were removed.'22 In
April 1944 he was still disposed to 'let matters drift a little longer before
considering a show-down'.23 From mid-1944 the advance of Soviet forces into
Eastern Europe and the destruction of the Polish resistance in Warsaw
demonstrated the reality of Soviet power and the political ambitions of the
Soviet leadership. At the bilateral British-Soviet summit in Moscow in October
1944, percentage figures for the British and Soviet interest in Romania, Greece,
Yugoslavia, Hungary and Bulgaria were discussed, but by the time of the Yalta
Conference in February 1945 Soviet forces were already in occupation of the
greater part of Eastern Europe. It was against this background that the Yalta
decisions, in particular about the future of Poland, were taken. Foreign Office
planning for the post-war years recognised the prospect of a direct clash of
interest with the Soviet Union in Europe and the Middle East and the Chiefs of
Staff were already contemplating the need to organise resistance to the Soviet
armed expansion, but priority was still given to the search for 'full and friendly
co-operation' in a new system for world security.24 On his return from Yalta,
Churchill warned against the risk of'some awful schism' and refused to question
the good faith of the Soviet leadership who 'wished to live in honourable
friendship and equality' with the West.25 On 12 May, four days after the German
surrender, he recognised the fact of the schism in a telegram to President
32
 The historical perspective

Truman about his anxiety over the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe behind
the 'iron curtain': 'This issue of a settlement with Russia before our strength has
gone seems to me to dwarf all others.'26 As seen by Soviet historians, it was at this
point that the Allied policy 'to weaken the position of the USSR at all costs, to
harness German militarism and try once again to use it against the forces of
peace, socialism and democracy' clearly emerged.27
The public mood in Britain did not change overnight and continued for some
time to reflect the wartime alliance, but the negative factors in Soviet policy soon
came into focus. Heir to the imperial ambitions of Tsarist Russia, the Soviet
Union seemed ready to back a doctrine of ideological confrontation with massive
armed force. The thought that a Labour Government in Britain might find
common ground with the Soviet Government, voiced in the 1945 election, was
soon dispelled. Successive British Governments, both Labour and Conserva-
tive, were forced to give priority to the wholly new fact of Soviet military power,
first in the form of conventional forces in Europe and then in the development by
the Soviet Union of the full military capability and global ambitions of a nuclear
superpower within the European continent. In 1945, continental Europe was
close to becoming a power vacuum, in which, with Britain exhausted by the war
and the United States preparing to withdraw, the total dominance of Soviet
power seemed a real prospect. Nevertheless, it was more than two years before
defence policy became the primary factor in British policy towards the Soviet
Union. When it was, it had to be formulated in terms of the consolidation of
Western Europe and alliance with the United States. The scope for an
independent British policy was correspondingly reduced and a line of
development began which can be traced through to the present situation in
which the twin elements of the Soviet-American nuclear balance and the balance
of conventional forces in Europe still dominate a British-Soviet relationship
subsumed in the post-1945 concept of an East-West relationship.
The oscillation of the relationship continued, but it stemmed now more from
the fluctuating manifestations of Soviet policy than from the fluctuation of
political power in Britain, where a degree of bipartisan support gradually
developed in favour of policies designed first to resist the Soviet threat and then,
to the extent permitted by Soviet policy, to work towards a sounder, more
positive, relationship. In practice it fell to the post-war British Labour
Government to initiate policies which reflected the assessment made by Winston
Churchill in his 'iron curtain' speech at Fulton, Missouri in March 1946. They
did not do so lightly. The sterile meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers in
the immediate post-war years gave little ground for optimism and Bevin was
clear from the outset about the need for firmness in resisting Soviet expansion.
In December 1945, he warned Stalin that there was a 'limit beyond which we
could not tolerate continued Soviet infiltration and undermining of our
33
 Curtis Keeble

position'.28 He was, however, conscious of the danger of a total rift between the
major powers and, although less inclined than Attlee to place full reliance upon
the United Nations, he was concerned to avoid what he called an 'anti-attitude'
towards the Soviet Union. In 1946, in an attempt to break down the tension, the
British Government offered a thirty-year extension of the Treaty of Alliance.
The offer was not taken up and the Treaty remained a dead letter, but as late as
the spring of 1947 Bevin was able to derive some reassurance from a talk with
Stalin. The hardening of American policy now began to exercise a certain
influence and the deterioration in relations accelerated after the final failure of
the Council of Foreign Ministers in December 1947. On 3 January 1948, after
the exclusion of Eastern Europe from the Marshall Plan on Soviet dictation and
the suppression of democratic rights supposedly guaranteed by Yalta, Attlee
summed up the new threat in terms which were to become a standard description
of Soviet policy: 'Soviet Communism pursues a policy of imperialism in a new
form - ideological, economic and strategic - which threatens the welfare and the
way of life of the other nations of Europe.'29
Against the background of this assessment, the relationship fell into a pattern
which, throughout the remainder of the Stalin period and also in the fluctuations
of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years, showed a certain consistency in its main
features. Britain no longer had the military or economic capacity to play a
dominant role in the formulation of policy towards the Soviet Union, but the
British role in the formulation of a collective response was important and it was
seen as such in Moscow. Moreover, in a period when the European confron-
tation found its sharpest focus in the division of Germany, the British share in
the post-war quadripartite arrangements, backed by the presence of British
forces in Berlin and in West Germany, gave Britain a major role in the European
component of East—West relations. What was at stake for Britain, as for the
Soviet Union, was the central strategic issue of the control of continental Europe
and there was little room for compromise.
In the immediate post-war years, Soviet policy in Eastern Europe had
aggravated the deterioration in relations, and with the Czechoslovak coup of
February 1948 Attlee's assessment of Soviet imperialism was swiftly confirmed.
Less than ten years had passed since the trauma of Munich and the emotional
effect of this new crisis provided a new impulse to the British initiative to develop
a military and political consolidation of Western Europe. It was the Berlin
blockade of 1948—49, however, which brought the open recognition by Bevin
that the British Government could no longer exclude the use of force against the
Soviet Union. He put the issue bluntly to Cabinet. To yield over Berlin would
lead to further withdrawals and in the end to war. With firmness 'we might
reckon on ten years of peace during which the defence of Western Europe might
be consolidated'.30 For the Conservatives, R. A. Butler, no scaremonger,

34
 The historical perspective

commented in Parliament that war was 'not immediately inevitable'. The crisis
was sufficient to provide the final spur for the formation of NATO in April 1949
and hence to set the parameters of the British-Soviet relationship for the next
four decades. It may be noted that not only were British forces in direct
confrontation with Soviet forces during the crisis, but that British diplomacy in
Moscow played a significant part in its resolution. Indeed, in the combination of
firm resistance and constructive negotiation it served as an object lesson in the
handling of the relationship during this stage. With the defeat of the Berlin
blockade and the formation of NATO the balance had been stabilised, but it was
the stability of opposing tensions. They were tensions stemming not so much
from misunderstanding or uncertainty, though neither had been obviated, but
rather from a clear clash of interest. In the successive crises of the fifties and
sixties, the Soviet Union did not again seek, by direct action, to bring further
areas of Western Europe under its control. For both parties, change could be
dangerous and initiatives were likely to prove unprofitable.
The years between the Berlin blockade and the death of Stalin offered little
opportunity for development of the British-Soviet relationship. The East-West
conflicts were spreading beyond Europe. The Korean War and the movement in
the United States towards more aggressively anti-Soviet policies compelled a
certain reorientation of policy. The consequences of the re-appraisal in Britain
of the European, Commonwealth and American relationships do not belong in
this study, but they could not fail to be reflected in some measure in the
relationship with the Soviet Union. There was in fact little concern with the
Soviet Union in the British general elections of 1950 and 1951. A Churchill
proposal, made in 1950 and repeated in 1951, for a new meeting at Head of
Government level was dismissed by the Soviet Union as an electioneering stunt.
The defection of Burgess and Maclean reintroduced in heightened form the
concern with Soviet subversion and espionage which had been a significant
factor throughout the whole bilateral relationship and was to continue through
all the post-war years.

T H E K H R U S H C H E V YEARS
Only with the death of Stalin did there seem to be the opportunity for a new
impulse to the bilateral relationship. Because the Khrushchev years were ones of
activity, albeit of a highly erratic kind, in Soviet foreign policy, they offered the
potential for a more meaningful British—Soviet relationship, in the context of
which British diplomacy might have its effect on matters which were not, of
themselves, susceptible to bilateral resolution. Even in the perspective of seventy
chequered years of British-Soviet relations, this was a tumultuous period, with

35
 Curtis Keeble

swift and repeated alternations between the prospect of understanding and the
threat of nuclear war.
The British response to the change of leadership on the death of Stalin was
quick and positive. In the attitude if not yet in the actions of the Soviet Union, a
change was apparent. In power again, Churchill saw it as a 'supreme event'.
Citing the telegram of 29 April 1945 in which he had warned Stalin not to
underrate the divergences which were opening up, he recalled Locarno and
sought to assure the Soviet Union that 'so far as human arrangements can run,
the terrible events of the Hitler invasion will never be repeated and that Poland
will remain a friendly power and a buffer, though not a puppet state'. 31
Against this background, the British reaction to the Soviet suppression of the
East German disturbances of 17 June 1953 was restrained and government
policy was directed towards resolution of the major issues of tension in the
East West relationship. Substantive progress was slight. After the 1954
quadripartite Conference of Foreign Ministers in Berlin the Foreign Secretary
noted the 'extreme rigidity' of the Soviet attitude on European questions.32
Shortly afterwards, Churchill provoked a substantial tiff in Cabinet by
telegraphing to propose a bilateral meeting with Malenkov. His colleagues, who
had not been consulted, thought it a poor idea and the Soviet proposal for an all-
European security conference provided the opportunity to drop it.33 No
progress was made towards quadripartite agreement on the German problem as
a whole and in May 1955 the Soviet Union annulled the 1942 Treaty of Alliance
with Britain on the ground that the British Government had inspired the
restoration of German militarism by promoting German membership of
NATO. Yet, a week later, the conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty seemed to
indicate the prospect of a relaxation of the Soviet grip on central Europe, and
July saw British participation for the last time in a quadripartite conference of
Heads of Government. In February 1956 the Twentieth Party Congress marked
the formal breach with the Stalin era and offered the establishment of 'firm,
friendly relations' with Western powers. The dissolution of Cominform seemed
to symbolise the potential new relationship and in May 1956, accepting the
Charlemagne prize, Winston Churchill spoke of 'a new Russia' which, if the
repudiation of Stalin were sincere, must have its part in a true unity of Europe.
The symbolic culmination of the bilateral relationship was the visit to Britain
by Khrushchev and Bulganin in April 1956. This was the first and, until 1987,
the only visit to Britain by the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union while in office. Ministers seriously considered withdrawing the invitation
in response to hostile Soviet statements about Britain, but the visit went ahead
and the joint British-Soviet declaration of 26 April34 seemed to inaugurate a new
tone and content to the relationship, in which increased technical, scientific and
cultural exchanges would be accompanied by both a substantial increase in
36
 The historical perspective

bilateral trade and increased co-operation on the major current international

problems, in particular the Middle East and disarmament. In the United States,
there were even murmurings about the risk of British 'neutralism' and The Times
commented that the task of handling the relationship was far more complex than
it had been when the Soviet Union presented 'a simple military threat or simple
subversion'. Prime Minister Eden, commenting that 'in the long history of
diplomacy, suspicion has done more harm than confidence', saw in it the
'beginning of the beginning'.
In fact, if anything was beginning, it was the era in which superpower nuclear
rivalry, symbolised by the launch of Sputnik in October 1957, was to dominate
the structure of East-West relations. The Suez fiasco revealed the scraggy
nakedness of British imperial power and prompted a graphic illustration of the
changing power ratio when, in November 1956, Bulganin warned Eden of the
threat that 'stronger states' might use rocket weapons against Britain. At the
same time, the use of the Soviet army to crush Hungary dispelled any thought
that the Austrian Treaty might presage an easing of the Soviet grip on Central
Europe. The Soviet leaders, six months after their reception by Queen Elizabeth
II, were described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as 'instruments and slaves
of the devil'. The Labour Party denounced this reversion to the worst practices
of the Stalinist period and a number of people resigned from the British
Communist Party. In 1958 the Khrushchev ultimatum on Berlin brought the
European tension back almost to the level of the immediate post-war years.
British bilateral diplomacy played its part in the resolution of that crisis and the
opening of the tripartite test ban treaty negotiations. Prime Minister
Macmillan's visit to the Soviet Union in 1959 set the scene for a further revival of
bilateral relations in the form of new trade and cultural agreements, the
formation of an Anglo-Soviet Parliamentary Group and a visit to Britain by a
Supreme Soviet delegation.
The limitations upon British bilateral diplomacy became apparent as the early
1960s saw the transition to a new stage in the British-Soviet relationship. It was
almost by chance, but was symbolic nonetheless, that the collapse of the 1963
Paris summit, for which Macmillan had worked so hard, should have been
brought about by the shooting down of the American U2 aircraft over the Soviet
Union. The events of these years demonstrated above all the problems of a
relationship which had to be conducted at two quite different levels. At the one
level was the routine bilateral exchange of delegations and the development of
political, cultural and commercial contacts which had been a feature of the late
fifties and was continued with the exchange of major industrial exhibitions in
London and Moscow in 1961. The building of the Berlin Wall had little effect on
this process. At the other level, the Cuban crisis in the autumn of 1962
demonstrated the unique potential of the American-Soviet relationship both for

37
 Curtis Keeble

good and for ill and inaugurated a period in which the agenda of East-West
relations was to be dominated by the military security requirements of the two
nuclear superpowers. The principal problem for British diplomacy was to bring
the two levels of activity together, using the network of bilateral contacts not
merely for its own value, but also as a means of generating an influence which
might be effective in terms of the wider issues of East-West relations. In itself,
even the Cuban crisis had remarkably little effect on the course of Soviet-British
relations. Soviet action was condemned by Macmillan as a 'deliberate
adventure', but within months the normal bilateral activities were resumed.
That they were not wholly irrelevant to the superpower relationship was
indicated by the successful culmination of Macmillan's efforts in the conclusion
of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in August 1963. The co-chairmanship of the
Geneva Conferences on Indo-China and on Laos had also left Britain with some
basis for continuing the bilateral dialogue with the Soviet Union on the problems
of this area. Nevertheless, the British role was now significantly reduced. The
Sino-Soviet rupture introduced a new element into the pattern of East-West
relations and in the succeeding years it was the Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy
centred on the strategic defence relationship which inevitably occupied the
centre of the stage.

D E T E N T E AND I T S F A I L U R E
Against the background of the gradual evolution of the broader East-West
relationship, the movement of power between the Conservative and Labour
parties did not, of itself, substantially change the pattern of British-Soviet
bilateral relations in the sixties. The failure of the first attempt to join the
European Community left a major hole in British policy, but the search for a
more constructive relationship with the Soviet Union continued to be balanced
by policies designed to promote the political, economic and strategic consoli-
dation of Western Europe within the Atlantic Alliance. As President of the
Board of Trade and later as Prime Minister, Harold Wilson consistently sought
to maximise the relationship, but when he visited Moscow in 1966, he was
treading a path not dissimilar to that taken by Macmillan and the subsequent
development of scientific, technological and cultural contacts was built on an
already established basis. On a return visit to London in 1967, Kosygin proposed
a Treaty of Friendship. There was no indication of any reduction in Soviet
ideological hostility, subversive activity or pressure on the Third World, but at
least the fall of Khrushchev might, it seemed, lead to a more sober and
predictable Soviet foreign policy, offering a possible basis for a more productive
relationship.
The reality of Soviet power and Soviet policy in Eastern and Central Europe
38
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
which he was longing. In order to keep out as far as possible the
gloom which subsequent events have cast over our memory of
Chalmers, I will continue my narrative in the form in which it was
written prior to the tragedies to which I refer.
Like other mission stations, the instruction of the young plays a
prominent, one might fairly say the prominent, part in the work of
the missionaries. Here it is especially needed, as these semi-
migratory natives are ruder in culture than those we had met with in
the east, and even the energy, enthusiasm, and sympathy of Mr.
Chalmers can make relatively little impression on the adult
population; but, indeed, this is pretty much the case with adults
everywhere.
There are two schools in Saguane. A lower school for the village
children, who reside with their parents. These are taught in the
Kiwai language by the South Sea teacher and his wife. The
attendance leaves much to be desired, as the children have to follow
their parents in their annual migration to Iasa, and thus they lose
two or three months in the year; and even during the time they
reside at Saguane, neither the parents nor the children sufficiently
appreciate the advantages of the instruction so freely offered to
them.
The students of the upper school are all resident, and both sexes
attend; I believe there are about a score in all. The English language
is exclusively used. They learn reading, writing, easy arithmetic,
geography, and Scripture. It is usual with Papuan children for their
writing to be very good, and they have quite a remarkable
knowledge of geography. The highest class can read English fairly
well at sight. As in Murray Island, the change from one subject to
another in school-time is made the occasion of marching and
singing, which affords a welcome opportunity for blowing off steam.
The children are neatly clothed, but wisely they are not overclothed.
It is to be hoped that many of the students will volunteer as
teachers to the various stations that Tamate is anxious to establish.
Some will, doubtless, become Government servants; and there can
be no question that they will render the Government great
assistance in the future. Sir William Macgregor has often referred to
the efficiency of the Mission schools.
Shortly after our visit Mr. de Lange was sailing with a native crew
from Kiwai to Daru, when he was overtaken by a squall and his boat
capsized. The boatmen were very plucky, and did all they could to
save Mr. de Lange; but this promising officer was unfortunately
drowned. The natives proved themselves in this emergency to be
brave and faithful followers.
In addition to the instruction given in the school, the students are
introduced to a more civilised mode of life; and the raising of the
standard of cleanliness and comfort will of itself tend to improve the
condition of the people. Perhaps the home life of the South Sea
teachers is in this respect of more value than that of the white
missionaries, for the latter are so obviously above the natives, and
have access to what must appear to them to be limitless resources,
that a real comparison can scarcely be made.
That this was the case was proved to me in an amusing, but at
the same time pathetic, manner a day or two later. When I was at
Iasa my opinion was confidentially asked by the chief about the
missionaries, as Mr. Chalmers had persuaded them to accept a South
Sea teacher, who was then at Saguane learning the language. My
friends had been describing to me certain ceremonies they employ
for the purpose of making the crops grow, and they were really
anxious about the wisdom of adopting the new religion, which they
fully realised would require them to give up these practices; for if
they did not do as their fathers had done, how could the yams and
sago grow? “It’s all very fine,” they urged, “for Tamate, as everything
he eats comes out of tins which he gets from the store at Thursday
Island; but how about us?”
The native teachers, on the other hand, live largely on “native
food,” and cultivate their own gardens. The students are trained to
do the same, and the girls are taught to sew and make simple
garments, and to be clean and orderly.
 Mr. Hely, in his last Annual Report, states that “there has been a
great demand for teachers; in fact, what amounts to a religious
revival has taken place at Mawatta, Tureture, Parama, and
elsewhere. It is to be hoped that it will continue. Mr. Chalmers has
been hampered by the seeming difficulty of procuring teachers for
this portion of the possession. Men of good culture are required at
such places as Mawatta and Tureture.
“At Parama the Darnley Islander, Edagi, has worked hard. He has
built a very creditable church, with the aid of the people, with whom
he is very popular, and has a large school attendance. At Giavi there
is a Murray Islander, but I think that the results of his ministrations
are small.”
We spent a quiet Sunday; the rest and comfort of the Mission
station was most refreshing. I showed photographs and rubbings of
patterns to some natives in the afternoon, and obtained a little
information from them.
 PLATE X

IASA, KIWAI ISLAND

SIDE VIEW OF THE SOKO-KOROBE CLAN HOUSE AT IASA

 These mission stations are oases of kindness and comfort in
savage lands. When one has been knocking about for days in a boat,
with uncomfortable, and often unpalatable meals, and being always
wet, and having broken nights, the rest in a haven of a clean
mission-house is delightful.
Ray, Wilkin, and I started next morning in the Nieue for Iasa, the
chief village and virtually the native capital of Kiwai Island, some
twelves miles away. The whole district is very flat, and the shore
fringed with a monotonous row of mangroves, a line only broken at
Iasa by a grove of coconut palms. As at Saguane, the river is eating
away the land which it had previously deposited, and we noticed
large numbers of prostrate coco palms which had been uprooted by
the encroaching water. Also as at Saguane, an extensive flat bank
runs out a long way into the river, and thus the Nieue had to anchor
a considerable distance from the shore.
The village consists of sixteen houses, all of large size. Five of the
houses belong to local natives; the others are owned by natives from
other districts. Each house is occupied solely by members of one
clan, but there were two instances of one clan owning a couple of
houses.
We took up our quarters at the west end-room of the longest
house. This house was 285 feet in length, and was built on piles
about seven feet from the ground; there was a broad ladder at each
end leading up to the main entrances. Along the side facing the river
were five small doors, each provided with a slight ladder, and it is
only by these that the women and children may enter or leave the
house. There were two doorways on the opposite side of the house,
which at the time of our visit were not in use, as there were no
ladders to them.
There is a separate room at each end of a house, which is
evidently merely the deep verandah of the typical house of the
Papuan Gulf walled in close to the gable. These end-rooms are the
men’s quarters, and correspond to the club-houses and tabooed
erections of other parts of New Guinea.
 Over a considerable portion of New Guinea the men have a social
life which is distinct from the family life, and is hedged round with
observances and taboos. In a given community there are usually
several societies or fraternities into which entrance can only be
gained by undergoing certain initiation ceremonies. These are
jealously guarded, and the mysteries are performed in sacred spots
in the bush, which are tabooed to all women, children, and non-
initiates, or they may take place in houses set apart for the purpose,
such as the large erabo (elamo or eramo) of the Gulf District
described by Mr. Chalmers. In these the sacred emblems are kept,
and although I prefer to speak of them as “club-houses,” Mr.
Chalmers was perhaps justified in originally calling them “temples.”
The end-rooms of the Kiwai houses are to be regarded rather as
club-houses than temples, as are also the marea of the Mekeo
District, and the dubu of the Central District.
The long central portion of the house constitutes the dwelling of
all the members of the clan, each family having its own
compartment with a separate fireplace. Owing to the absence of
windows, it was difficult to see any details when looking down the
tunnel-like house; for the doorways let in but very little light. At
night, when the family fires were burning and there was plenty of
smoke reflecting and dispersing the lights, one could more readily
gather an impression of the weird scene. Into, and out from, the
sombre shadows there passed lank women and jolly children, whose
bronze skins were picturesquely lit up by the flickering yellow flames.
We traded a little with natives, and Ray gave some tunes on the
phonograph. At night-time we found much difficulty in getting back
to the Nieue, as it was low water and a strong tide was running. We
waded out a long way on the mud-flats, till the water was nearly up
to our waists, and the breakers completely drenched us. After
getting into water deep enough to float our boat we had a long
wearisome pull to the Nieue, but we feared we should have to put
back for land after all, as the current was strongly against us.
However, the captain of the Nieue noticed our difficulties and,
weighing anchor, sailed to meet us, but for this we should not have
been able to get aboard. Dry clothes and a meal soon restored us to
comfort.
Next morning we returned to Iasa. Wilkin made a careful study of
the long house. I measured ten men and did some trading. We were
allowed to appropriate the eastern end-room of the long house, and
towards evening lighted a fire, sitting by which we had our dinner, a
crowd of natives watching our every action with great interest. We
afterwards bought some specimens, whilst Ray gave a phonographic
exhibition, and secured two good records. The pungent wood smoke
was very trying to the eyes, but this was preferable to returning to
the boat; later we wrapped ourselves in blankets and passed the
night on a native mat.
The following morning we took some photographs, and I sketched
the interior of the long house. Whilst the others were embarking I
sent the small boys away, and had a confidential chat with the men
about several of their customs, and obtained some most interesting
information from them. We became very friendly, and the men
expressed sorrow when it was time for us to leave. One man said to
me, “You master good master; you master no same other master.”
By which he meant to express his gratitude for the sympathy I had
given them and the interest I had taken in their affairs. I must
confess that I was much touched by this unconsciously pathetic
revelation of the apartness of the two races. Altogether they were
very nice to me, and one or two of us walked to the boat with arms
round one another.
The Kiwai people are somewhat different from the Torres Straits
islanders in appearance and customs; their skin is very slightly
lighter, and the nose is more arched; they do not use ceremonial
masks except for the final stage of initiation, and they build long
houses. There are other differences which need not now be
mentioned. I think it is very probable that they came down the Fly
River and drove some at least of the pre-existing population before
them.
 A very interesting feature about the Kiwai natives is that they are
still in a totemistic stage of culture; in other words, their social life is
bound up with a reverence for certain natural objects. A community
is composed of certain clans, each of which is associated with a
particular class of object; it may be a crocodile, a croton, or a
pandanus tree. The animal or bird, or even an inanimate object, is
the nurumara, as they call it, of every member of that clan, and a
representation of that nurumara or totem is often worn on the
person or carved on objects or otherwise employed as a kind of
armorial bearings.
The following is a list of all the totems I have been able to record
from Kiwai Island:—

Sibara, crocodile.
Diwari, cassowary.
Demauru-uru, a catfish.
Soko, nipa palm.
Abiomabio, mangrove.
Oso, croton or dracæna.
Oi, coconut palm.
Dudu-mabu, a reed.
Korobe, a crab that lives in the nipa palm.
Mabere-uru, a tree.
Bud-uru, a kind of fig tree.
Gagari-mabu, a small variety of bamboo.
Duboro-mabu, pandanus.
Nowai-dua, Polynesian chestnut.
Noora, a stone.
 There is a remarkably disproportionate number of plant to animal
totems, which is very unusual, and even one of these, korobe, is
associated with soko, the nipa palm being the main totem, while the
crab that inhabits it appears to be subsidiary.
I have previously drawn attention to the large number of
decorative designs on objects from the Fly River and neighbouring
coast of New Guinea that are derived from plants. As we had then
no information on the subject, I did not venture to offer an
explanation, though I did suggest that the decorative employment of
animals in Torres Straits and in the Louisiades and neighbouring
islands was due to totemism. The distinctive character of the
decorative art of this region can now be similarly explained.
Totemism has a restricted distribution in British New Guinea. We
could find no trace of it in the Central District either among the Motu
stock or among the hill-tribes that we visited. Sir William Macgregor
has recently stated that it is prevalent all over the east end of the
Possession, but it disappears at Mairu or Table Bay. There is no true
totemism in the eastern tribe of Torres Straits. It is true that there
were dog and pigeon men in Murray Islands, but the dog and pigeon
dances during one of the Malu ceremonies were admitted to have
been introduced by ancient culture heros from the western tribe,
where I discovered totemism twelve years ago.
There do not appear now to be any ordinary totem restrictions on
Murray Island, as there certainly were till very recently in Tut,
Mabuiag, and other of the western islands of Torres Straits, and as
certainly there are still in Kiwai.
In Kiwai a man may not kill or eat his nurumara. The children
inherit the father’s nurumara, and the wife assumes that of her
husband, as she has to go and live with him in the clan house. This
custom accounts for the exchange of women when a man marries;
thus it is usual for a man’s family to give a suitable girl in exchange
for his bride, and so the balance of the sexes is approximately
maintained.
 Dedeamo, my interpreter, was a
croton; his wife was originally a
coconut, their little boy was a croton.
When I asked Dedeamo what was his
wife’s name he refused to tell me.
One frequently finds that people in a
low stage of culture decline to tell you
their own names, lest you should
obtain power over them, but one can
generally get from them the names of
other people; this good man evidently
thought it was wiser to be on the safe
side.

Fig. 7. Native Drawings of some of The Hon. B. A. Hely, the Resident

the Nurumara (Totems) of Kiwai Magistrate of the Western Division,
has recently published a
Oi (coconut palm), oso (croton memorandum (Annual Report B. N.
or dracæna), soka (nipa palm),
korobe (the crab that lives in the G., July, 1897, to June, 1878, C. A.,
latter), sibara (crocodile), diwari 119-1898) on totemism in Kiwai and
(cassowary). The crocodile is elsewhere in the neighbourhood, in
represented by a leg only, and which he says that when a tree is the
the cassowary by its footprint. nurumara of a clan, the members of
that clan do not eat the fruit of that
tree or use it for building or other
purposes. For instance, the soko people roof their houses with sago
leaves instead of the customary nipa palm. He adds: this custom is
broken through in Kiwai villages, but it is maintained on the
mainland. The duboro-mabu people make their mats of banana
leaves instead of employing the leaves of the pandanus. The gagari-
mabu people do not use bamboo. It is believed that the killing,
eating, or using for any purpose of a nurumara would result in
severe eruptions on the body.
Mr. Hely also informs us that in fighting or dancing the
representation of the man’s nurumara is painted on his chest or back
with clay or coloured earth, and it is a fixed law in battle that no
man should attack or slay another who bore the same cognisance as
himself. A stranger from hostile tribes can visit in safety villages
where the clan of his nurumara is strong, and visitors from other
tribes are fed and lodged by the members of the nurumara to which
they severally belong.
At Iasa we bought an oval board about three feet in length that
has a face carved on one side. It is called gope, and is hung up in
houses to bring good luck; it is sometimes placed in the bow of a
canoe for the same purpose. During the evening we spent there a
similar but much smaller one (seventeen and a half inches in length)
was pointed out to me by a native in the east end-room, and I
managed to secure it also; but in the course of my confidential talk
the following day I discovered that this was not a gope, but a
madubu, or bull-roarer; they had previously spoken of it as a gope
as some boys were near, and these were not permitted to know
about the madubu. In my memoir on The Decorative Art of British
New Guinea I had hazarded the suggestion that the gope is derived
from the bull-roarer, and the evidence now appears fairly conclusive
on this point.
One function of the madubu is to ensure good crops of yams,
sweet potatoes, and bananas. I was not able to find out the whole
ceremony, but gathered that a fence is made in the bush—one man
goes first and makes a hole, and others come later with the
madubus. When the natives were telling me about this I asked to be
allowed to see a madubu, and one was brought. It was a thin ovoid
slat of wood, very roughly made. I offered a round metal looking-
glass for it, which was accepted. Two others were brought me on
the same terms, one being a smaller specimen. I was particularly
requested not to let women or children see them, and not to show
them to the Saguane people, as “they no savvy that thing.” Of
course, I carefully kept my promise to this effect.
A few years ago Chalmers sent a bull-roarer to England from the
mouth of the Fly River, which was labelled “Buruma-maramu, a bull-
roarer: when used, all women and children leave the village and go
into the bush. The old men swing it and show it to the young men
when the yams are ready for digging (May and June).” The name
evidently signifies “the mother of the yams,” buruma being a variety
of yam, and maramu is “mother.”
The bull-roarer is also employed in the initiation of boys into
manhood. I gather that there are two initiation ceremonies; at the
first the madubu is shown to the initiates in a tabooed and fenced-in
portion of the bush. The second moguru ceremony takes place in
the rainy season or north-west monsoon. The boys to be initiated,
koiameri, are taken to the bush, and the orara is shown to them.
This is a wooden image of a nude woman, which was described to
me as “god belong moguru”; a smaller form of it is known as
umuruburo, this is a thin flat board cut into the shape of a human
being. During the ceremony the men are decorated, and wear a
head-dress made of cuscus skin; or some wear on their heads long,
doubled-up strips of the skin, decorated with feathers. The skin
head-dresses, marari, like the images, must not be seen by women.
I managed to secure both forms of headgear.
Women and uninitiated boys may not see an orara, nor an
umuruburo. These, together with the madubu and marari, are
carried at night-time from the house to the bush, and returned to
their hidden receptacles in the end-rooms of the long houses.
Between the moguru ceremony and the yam harvest the men make
pandean pipes, and every young man carries and plays one.
 Fig. 8. Agricultural Charms of Kiwai

(One-sixth natural size)

Three madubu (bull-roarers) for yams, and two umuruburo (female effigies) for
sago

I was informed of one fact which may throw some light on

initiation ceremonies. The human effigies “look after” sago in the
same way as the bull-roarers “look after” yams, sweet potatoes, and
bananas. According to some notes made by Ray, the orara is shown
to the initiates during the north-west monsoon, at the time when the
sago is planted; but the madubu is swung and shown to the initiates
when yams are planted in the south-east monsoon.
When food is scarce or of bad quality, if, for instance, a sago palm
is split and found to be “no good,” the natives make moguru and put
“medicine along moguru for kaikai” that is, perform moguru magic
for food. Unfortunately there was not time for me to follow up this
line of inquiry, but probably it will be found that the moguru
ceremony is primarily a fertility ceremony, perhaps originally
agricultural, and later social. The younger members of the
community had to be initiated, some time or other, into the
processes necessary for producing a good harvest. The time when
the lad was growing into a man would suggest itself as being a
suitable time for this, and for being instructed about his nurumara,
and being recognised as a member of the clan.
In several parts of the world certain rites connected with
agriculture were, or are, performed by nude women, and it is
possible that these nude female effigies may have an analogous
significance. Later I shall allude to the association of girls with the
annual agricultural ceremonies in the Hood Peninsula. Probably a
secondary sexual element has crept into the significance of these
effigies in Kiwai. Similar effigies were said to have been employed as
love charms in Murray Island, and I did not find out that there they
had any agricultural significance; but this may merely have been due
to the fact that a specialisation had taken place, owing to insular
conditions.
It is, however, significant that the name of the Murray Island love
charm was neur madub, that is “girl madub.” When I was in Erub in
1888 I obtained a neur madub (Fig. 9), which originally came from
the island of Masig; it is a wooden image of a girl with scarification
markings; the length is eight inches. I was informed when a young
man wanted to marry a girl who would have nothing to say to him,
he would go to a magician, and the latter would apply “poison
medicine” to this figure and the girl would become insane. The
sugob madub was a slat of wood, roughly shaped into a male figure,
which was used to make tobacco (sugob) grow. In Mabuiag wooden
human effigies, called madub, were kept in a small hut along with
bull-roarers (bigu). The Madub used to “turn devil” (tartaian markai)
at night-time, and go round the gardens and swing the bull-roarers
to make the yams grow. They also danced and repeatedly sang—
 “O ari ina, ina dauaiia mule.”
(“Oh! the rain is here, here by the
bananas it passes along.”)

In the daytime the madub turn into wood.

A wooden image, called Uvio Moguru, is
used, according to Mr. Chalmers, at the
initiation of the young men, and it must not
be seen by women or children. He says it is
also called Oraoradubu (which is usually
translated as “God.”) I suppose this is the
same sort of image as that which was given
to me as orara, but of the male sex (dubu
means “male” or “man”). “Oraoradubu makes
everything grow, and they bring him presents
of food when the planting season comes.
They place food alongside of him, and then
return and carry it away and eat it. He is
always consulted before fighting, and
presents are given to him, and he is Fig. 9. Neur Madub, or
Love Charm
appealed to for help to enable them to
secure heads. If anyone is sick, food is given
to Uvio, who is placed on the top of a big house (darimo), and he is
addressed, ‘Oh, Uvio, finish the sickness of our dear one, and give
life.’ The food is left there. Uvio is also taken and placed on the sick
one when asleep, and he or she will get better. Uvio is always
brought at night, because he is then a living being; during the day
he is only a piece of wood. He cannot cause the dead to live.”
Until very recently these people were head-hunters; when an
enemy was killed, the head was cut off with a bamboo knife and
carried home on a rattan sling, which was inserted under the
jawbone. The head was hung over a fire and all the hair singed off.
During this process all the young girls of the village assembled and
danced in a ring near—but not round the fire—singing all the while.
The head was then taken away and all the flesh removed; after the
skull was washed a carved peg was stuck in the skull, by means of
which it was hung up on the main post of the house. This
information was obtained from Mr. Chalmers, who also states that a
young man could not marry if he had not a skull trophy, as no young
woman would have him. Sometimes a young man would go to his
friends at a distance—say to Mawatta or Tureture—and would
remain there some months. On his return home he would bring with
him several skulls which he had bought from, or through, his friends,
but whatever his relatives might have been told in confidence, they
gave out that he was a great brave, and the lady he loved would
soon be his. A canoe has often been given in exchange for a skull.
In this island a number of very large, well-shaped, polished stone
implements are found in the bush; the largest I have seen was in Mr.
Chalmers’ house—it measured 18¾ inches in length. These stones
are now placed at the head and foot, or all round the graves, and
the natives do not appear to know anything about their former use.
A small stone adze-head (tapi) was bought at Iasa, and when I
asked who made it, I was gravely informed, “He make himself, he
stop along ground all time.” The large implements are so
cumbersome and heavy that it is difficult to understand how some of
them could ever have been used, and I suspect the largest ones
were in reality symbols of wealth or possibly of authority. As no
stone occurs in situ for a distance of many miles, and none of this
kind is known in the district, the implements have in all probability
come down the Fly River. It is quite possible that stone implements
have been out of use in this district for perhaps a century, owing to
natives getting iron from wrecks and passing ships, and then
bartering it to their neighbours; thus in two or three generations the
knowledge of the use of stone implements would easily die out.
The natives say that Kiwai was first a small sandbank, but grew
large; eventually trees and other vegetation sprang up on it. The
first man came from a bird’s egg. The bird left the egg in the nest,
and a maggot came out of it, which developed into a man.
 Mr. Chalmers also tells the following legend concerning the origin
of fire. At first it was not known how to make fire, and all the
animals, and then the birds tried in turn to bring it across from the
mainland. Eventually the black cockatoo succeeded, but dropped it
at Iasa, as he burnt himself with it; and he bears the mark of his
accident to this day in the red scar round his bill.
Fire is usually produced by the groove method, as is commonly
done in Eastern New Guinea and Polynesia, but it is also got by
friction of a strip of cane, as among the Koiari of the Central District.
In the islands of Torres Straits it is produced by the drill method.
Although the Kiwaians cultivate the soil, they do not always live in
the same spot. During the “nor’-west” most of the islanders live at
Iasa, which appears to be regarded as the original home of the
natives of the southern portion of the island. The temporary
migrations are due to the collection and preparation of sago, the
people having to go periodically to the places where the sago palm
grows, and elsewhere they have gardens of yams and sweet
potatoes. This fact renders it difficult for the missionaries to make
much headway among the natives here.
On our return to Saguane we found that Seligmann had arrived.
He had made several interesting trips in the Rigo and Mekeo
districts, and had acquired a good deal of valuable information; he
had fortunately escaped fever or other illness. Rivers had employed
his time mainly in psychologising the Kiwaians. As Ray wanted to
gain some information about the Kiwaian language, he decided to
remain at Saguane for a fortnight, and to join us at Mabuiag,
accompanying Mr. Chalmers when he paid his promised visit to that
island.
We left Saguane shortly before midday on September 15th, had a
roughish spin across the mouth of the Fly River, and early in the
afternoon we glided through the narrow mangrove-bordered channel
between Parama and the mainland of New Guinea. We ran on a
mudbank at the western entrance, and as we had to wait till the tide
rose we all went ashore at Old Mawatta. Here we found a temporary
village of simple huts built on the ground. The people had come over
from Parama to make gardens, and among them was the only
Murray Island teacher in New Guinea. We soon purchased a
decorated bamboo pipe, and by dumbshow and pidgin English I
asked for a shell hoe. D’Albertis obtained some of these very
primitive implements at Katau, or New Mawatta, and I bought one
from the same village ten years before; but Mr. Hely told me that
they had since then gone out of use. But to my joy one was brought
to us, for which I gave a fish-hook; and in a very short time we had
half a dozen on the same terms. Hardly anything pleased me more
during this trip than to secure some specimens of this very rude and
primitive agricultural implement, especially as there seemed
previously no chance of obtaining it. The blade is made from part of
a bailer-shell (Melo diadema), which is jammed into the perforation
in the handle and wedged tight with pieces of wood.
We bought several petticoats and some
bows and arrows. A living cuscus was also
offered for sale in a basket, and was bought
for two fish-hooks and a stick of tobacco; so
now for the first time we had a pet. The
cuscus is the New Guinea representative of
the Australian phalangers, or “opossums,” as
they are popularly called, and is a gentle
nocturnal creature that feeds mainly on fruit.
It has a face something like a lemur’s, and a
very long prehensile tail, the terminal third of
which is pink and destitute of fur. The dense
fur is of a creamy yellow colour mottled with
dark brown.
Formerly most of the men of Torres Straits
Fig. 10. Shell Hoe
produced scars in elaborate patterns on their
shoulders, and the practice is still maintained
Used by the natives of by certain tribes on the neighbouring coast of
Parama. About one- New Guinea. I had paid some attention to
seventh natural size.
this kind of form of scarification, and was
always on the look-out for fresh examples. On inquiry I found that
the custom had quite died out, but there was one old man left who
had this mark, and he was much amused when I sketched it.
These Western Papuans have such very dark skins that ordinary
tattooing would not show on them. Like the Negroes, Australians,
and other very dark peoples, they produce large and often
prominent scars which, being lighter in colour than the skin, are
fairly conspicuous. It is evident from the appearance of many of
these scars that the process of producing them must have been very
painful.
Wilkin made notes of and photographed a number of the huts,
which were very simple in construction, and which I at once saw
were very like the former dwellings of the Western Torres Straits
islanders. The islanders have all adopted the kind of house
introduced by South Sea men, so the evidently very primitive
character of these huts and the diversity they exhibited was of
especial interest to us, as they gave us an idea of what had
elsewhere passed away. The leaf petticoats also of the women of
these primitive people were quite the same as were the petticoats of
the Torres Straits women before they adopted the hideous calico
gowns they all wear now.
We parted on the best of terms with our new friends, and a
number came off in canoes and swarmed aboard the Nieue, peering
into the cabin whilst we ate our dinner.
This place is called Old Mawatta, as it was the home of the original
inhabitants of Katau, or Mawatta, as it is more generally called.
These people were driven from their home by the hostility and
constant raids made on them by more powerful tribes from Kiwai
and Parama, so they established themselves some thirty miles to the
west, as they found the proprietors of the district to be friendly
disposed.
When I visited Mawatta ten years previously, I accompanied Mr. H.
Milman, who was Acting Resident Magistrate of Torres Straits. On
landing we were met by Mr. E. Beardmore, who employed natives in
fishing for pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer, and by a host of natives, all
of whom came up and shook hands with us. Amongst these was the
chief, or Mamoose, as he is termed. The title was engraved on a
crescentic brass plate, and hung on the old man’s chest like the label
of a bottle of wine. This strange outward and visible sign was given
to the man by Beardmore as a symbol of chieftainship. There was at
the time a dispute as to the office of chief, the candidates being Billy,
the son of the late chief, Gamea, a young man, who did not appear
to be very popular, and Gabia, whom the majority wanted. I believe
that Gabia’s chief distinction was that he was the most successful
hunter of wild pigs in the neighbourhood.
We adjourned to Beardmore’s house, shaking hands en route with
men, women, and children. Everybody was “decently” clothed, the
women wearing long calico gowns, a disappointing sight, as the
previous year when Mr. Milman was here the women wore only their
characteristic small fore-and-aft leaf petticoat.
On coming out of the house all the people were marshalled. Those
of the upper portion of this double village were on one side, those of
the lower village on the other, while a few totally unclothed
Masingara, “bushmen,” who happened to be there, formed a group
by themselves. These latter were absolute savages who lived a few
miles inland, whereas the natives of Mawatta have been in contact
with Europeans for twenty-five years or more.
Then Mr. Milman made a speech to the assembled people. I did
not write it down, but this is part of what he said: “No good you
fellow have two Mamooses. Good thing you have one Mamoose, one
man, Gabia; him Mamoose of two villages.” Then Mr. Milman
formally presented him with a staff of office, which was a carved
Japanese cane walking-stick, in the handle of which a shilling was
inserted with the Queen’s head uppermost, and the Union Jack,
which Billy had hitherto flown, was given to Gabia. The ejaculations
and remarks of the crowd were expressive, but quite unintelligible to
me.
 The new chief was then told to build a court-house in the middle
of the village, and a quantity of tobacco was given him to help pay
for labour and materials. When it was built the staff of office was to
be kept inside, and the flag was to fly on official occasions from a
pole on the roof, and when there were any disputes the people
would have to go to the court-house, and it would be the chief’s
business to settle the quarrels, aided by the advice of the old men of
the village.
The people in New Guinea usually bury their dead in very shallow
graves, close to, or even underneath, the dwelling-houses. The
Government puts a stop to this unhealthy arrangement, and so
Gabia was told to prevent this in future, and to fix on a spot for a
cemetery some distance off.
Next a social matter demanded attention, which strangely
resembled a situation that is common enough at home. There was a
young man named Kasawi, a fine industrious young fellow, who
wanted to marry a certain young girl, and she wanted to marry him;
but Kasawi was poor, and the parents of the girl tried to force her to
marry a richer man.
Here also it is the custom for the man to give his own sister as a
wife to the brother of the girl whom he wants to marry, but Kasawi
had no sister. The old people were firm, but the girl would not do as
they wished and marry an elderly Malay man who lived there, and
who could afford to give good presents to her parents.
For a long time there had been considerable excitement in the
village about this little love affair, as no one would give way. Mr.
Milman told Gabia to decide in this matter, and there was a great
palaver. Then the chief proclaimed that Kasawi might marry the girl,
but when he was paid off by Mr. Beardmore, for whom he was then
working, he would have to give the parents of his bride certain
presents from his wages. A murmur of applause went round the
crowd, who appeared to highly approve of this decision, and so the
young people were made happy.
 After the meeting broke up I took several photographs. The first
business was to get the women to exuviate, and to appear in their
native dress, for, as I explained to them, if I wanted to photograph
calico I could do that at home. After a little time they retired to their
houses with much laughing and giggling, and reappeared dressed
solely in the national costume. Many of the women had a raised scar
which extended from breast to breast—this is said to be made when
a brother spears his first turtle or dugong; some had cicatrices on
their upper arms and shoulders; most had scars on various parts of
their bodies, but these were the result of cuts made for the purpose
of removing pain by bleeding.
A native dance was got up for our benefit; owing to the shortness
of time at the disposal of the dancers their costume was not so
elaborate as is usually the case. On this occasion only the men
danced, and of these there were about twenty or thirty. The usual
dress consisted only of a pair of short pants; in the belt a tail was
fastened behind, either of leaves or a flap of red or gaily coloured
calico. The head was ornamented with a head-dress of white or
black feathers or a band of bright-coloured calico; sometimes leaves
or flowers only were inserted in the hair. Some put flowers in the
large holes they make in the lobes of their ears. On their arms they
wore woven cane armlets or bands, generally decorated with tassels
or the gaily coloured leaves of the croton; on the left fore-arm they
wore a long cane arm-band, which is used to protect the arm from
the bow string when they shoot with bow and arrow, a long bunch
of cassowary feathers was usually stuck in this arm-guard. Finally,
there were bands of pale yellow leaves on their legs.
It is very difficult to describe the dancing, which was always
accompanied with the beating of drums. Sometimes the men danced
in a circle in single file, going either from right to left or the reverse,
there was a pause after each turn. One figure was somewhat more
complicated: the men advanced in a line up each side of the
dancing-ground, the first pair who met retreated a little in the
middle line, still facing the spectators; when the next two arrived,
the first pair separated to allow them to pass between, and the new-
comers took up their position behind the former, and so on, until the
last pair passed between the gradually lengthened avenue of
standing men. Several of the dances imitated actions in real life,
such as planting yams or picking up pearl-shell from the bottom of
the sea, or animals were represented, and a man would mimic the
movements of a crab, a lizard, or a pelican.
The Pelican dance was the last; a couple of men came forward,
jumped up into the air, and alighted on the tips of their toes. As the
drum-beats became more rapid, so was their jumping quicker; so
active were they, that we could hardly follow their movements.
When they were tired other pairs came up, until all had danced. It
was really a fine sight, and, of course, we duly clapped each set of
dancers, and well they deserved it.
Mr. Beardmore said that his men often broke off in the middle of
their work to practise a favourite step, and work might be knocked
off for an afternoon in order to have a dance; sometimes one was
carried on right through the night. Where missionary influence is
strong enough, the native dances are discouraged or altogether
stopped. I once saw an illustration of the change that has taken
place in Warrior Island. Some of the younger performers were rather
ashamed to dance, others were imperfectly acquainted with the
steps, but the old women danced splendidly, and thoroughly enjoyed
it. The natives were beginning to care less for their old customs and
more for trade, as the men can earn quite a lot of money by fishing.
After the dancing we gave scrambles for tobacco, first to the
children only, then to the women only. It was amusing for all of us,
and there was great screeching and laughing. Then the barter
commenced, and I was fortunate enough to obtain a number of
interesting objects.
For a scrub-knife, that is, a knife with a very long blade that is
used for cutting down the underwood when they make their
gardens, I obtained a mask in the shape of a crocodile’s head made
of tortoise-shell. This mask was worn during certain religious dances,
and when I asked the man from whom I bought it to put it on in
order that I might see how it was used, he refused, as he said if he
did so he would die by a slow and painful illness, and he did not
want to run the risk of this to please me, nor even for a stick of
tobacco. Evidently it would be regarded as sacrilege to wear a mask
of this kind on any other occasion than the sacred ceremony to
which it belonged.
Below one of the large houses there were clusters of human skulls
hanging like bunches of grapes or strings of onions; these were the
skulls of enemies killed in battle, and they were hung up as trophies.
The possession of skulls is a sign of bravery, and so the men like
to have them, and the women are very proud of their husbands if
they have several. In fighting they use the bow and arrow and stone
clubs. The most common kind of stone club is that which has a
perforated disc of hard stone, finely polished and brought to a sharp
edge, which is mounted usually on a short length of rattan, but there
are others which have knobbed or star-shaped heads. Some of the
skulls I obtained had holes in them that clearly showed with which
kind of club the men had been killed.
After a man is killed his head is cut off with a bamboo knife; the
blade is made of a split piece of bamboo, the handle being bound
round with plaited string. When the knife is to be used a nick is
made on the edge, close to the handle, with a small shell; then a
strip is peeled off from the other end, the nick preventing the handle
from splitting.
 Fig. 11. Bamboo Beheading-knife and Head-carrier,
Mawatta

One-fifth natural size

The rind of bamboo is full of minute flinty particles, so much so

that a freshly-cut edge is very sharp, and will cut off a man’s head;
but it will suffice for only one occasion, and a fresh edge has to be
made for each head that is cut off. One knife I bought had five nicks,
which means it had been used for the purpose of cutting off the
heads of five people, and another had nine notches.
Along with the knife I bought a cane loop, or sling; this is used for
carrying home the heads after they have been cut off.
 CHAPTER VIII
MABUIAG

The day after we left Parama we had a long, disagreeable run

against the tide to Dauan, only reaching a comparatively sheltered
anchorage near this island late at night. In the morning we made an
early start, and arrived at Mabuiag in the afternoon. It was rough till
we got in the lee of the extensive Orman’s reef. When the shelter of
that was passed we had to do a lot of beating up against a strong
tide, for in the narrow channels between the reefs, or between the
reefs and the islands, there is often a tidal race.
I was very pleased to visit Mabuiag once more. During my former
expedition I spent five weeks in this island, and its inhabitants
happened to be the first natives I had studied and made friends
with. After interviewing Mr. Cowling, the local trader, we went on to
the Mission Station, and the rest of the day was spent in landing our
stuff and putting up the camp beds, and otherwise establishing
ourselves in the mission-house. Cowling invited us to dinner, for
which we were grateful, as our domestic arrangements were all sixes
and sevens. After a yarn we returned to the Mission camp; it felt
quite chilly at night, as a strong south-east wind was blowing.
Fortunately there were no mosquitoes nor sandflies, so there was no
need to be cooped up in mosquito nets.
The Mission Station on Murray Island is on the leeward or western
side of the island; but when we went across the island—to Las, for
example—we found the continuous wind very refreshing. In Mabuiag
the Mission Station is on the windward or south-east side of the
island, and we at once felt braced by the change of air. There is no
doubt that, owing to this, we could work better, and there was less
temptation to slackness than was the case in Murray Island.
 Mabuiag is a larger island than Murray, and consists of several hills
three or four hundred feet in height, some are about five hundred
feet high. It is, roughly speaking, triangular in outline, each side
measuring about a couple of miles. Owing to the character of
ancient igneous rocks the island is only moderately fertile, and the
vegetation has more of an Australian character than has that of
Murray Island. There are also small grassy plains with scattered
pandanus trees, and here and there a cycad. The somewhat conical
rocky hills are mostly covered with trees, with grassy patches on
their summits. Water is rather scarce.
The little harbour, with its jetty, is situated at the most easterly
point of the island. It is here Cowling has his store. The Mission
Station is on the beach on the south-eastern side of the island, at
one end of the only village in the island. Formerly the houses were
more or less scattered over the island, but the missionaries have
induced the natives to congregate in one spot.
Compared with the Murray Islanders, the people of Mabuiag are
much better off so far as clothes and European commodities are
concerned; but, as already stated, the island is much less fertile—
indeed, little native food is now grown, barely enough for daily use.
Mabuiag has been for a longer time, and also far more thoroughly,
under the influence of the white man than has Murray Island.
Consequently the social and economic conditions have been more
modified, and one immediately perceives that the people are more
civilised, and it does not take long to find out that they are more
intelligent as a whole. The men do more fishing, and are altogether
more industrious than are the Murray Islanders.
At first sight one would be inclined to put all this down to the
credit of the influence of the white men, but I am by no means sure
that this is entirely the case. When the results of our investigations
are completed and published it will, we suspect, be evident that the
Mabuiag people are naturally more intelligent than the Murray
Islanders.
 Mabuiag is situated half-way between New Guinea and Australia,
and it was the intermediate trading station between the natives of
the Prince of Wales group and those of Saibai, who, on the other
hand, had trading relations with the coastal people of Daudai, as the
neighbouring part of New Guinea is locally termed.
The Mabuiag men were skilful sailors and fishermen, and they
combined with this a little head-hunting and a fair amount of
trading, all of which occupations tend to develop the intelligence.
They also had the advantage of not having a very fertile soil. It was
therefore necessary for them to till the ground fairly assiduously if
they were to have enough garden produce to sustain life in comfort;
this probably assisted towards making them industrious.
Muralug, the largest island in Torres Straits, and one of the
nearest to Australia, has very similar physical conditions, but the
people were at a much lower social grade. My impression is that
they were not so enterprising on the sea as the Mabuiag men, and
certainly they were greatly inferior to them so far as general culture
and tilling of the soil were concerned. Indeed, most of their time was
spent wandering about in the bush and living on what fruit
happened to be in season. Macgillivray states that none of the land
“by cultivation has been rendered fit for the permanent support of
man.” It is possible that the Muralug people, although of the same
stock as the Mabuiag folk, were influenced for bad by their
neighbours on the Cape York peninsula, while the Mabuiag men
were braced by contact with the Papuans of the mainland of New
Guinea.
Murray Island, as we have seen, was so fertile that very little
labour was necessary for supplying garden produce; and though the
men were good sailors, and often visited Erub, and even occasionally
Parama or Kiwai, yet their isolation prevented much intercourse, and
they remained less intelligent than the Mabuiag people, but more so
than the Muralug folk.
There is another circumstance that must not be overlooked,
although we do not yet know its full bearing. From the
measurements we made of the living natives, and from those I have
made on the skulls, it appears that the Torres Straits Islands were
inhabited by a branch of the Western Papuans, who had the very
dark skin, black woolly hair, and long, narrow heads that
characterise that group of peoples. This stock alone occurs in Murray
Island, whereas in the western tribe, from Saibai to Muralug, there is
superimposed on this ground-stock another stem with a similar skin
and hair, but with broader heads. This broader-headed population
can also be traced along the Daudai coast to Kiwai Island, and for at
least seventy miles up the Fly River.
It is generally admitted that a broadening of the head is
advantageous, especially if associated with an increase in total
capacity. However this may be, human progress is usually directly
connected with a mixture of peoples, and apparently the mixture of
even a very slightly different people has somewhat improved the
mental activity of the western islanders.
There is a large collection of skulls in the British Museum (Natural
History Museum) which came from the island of Pulu, about which I
shall have more to say immediately. They are consequently the
skulls of enemies of the Mabuiag folk, probably mainly natives of
Moa. These skulls, which have been described by Mr. Oldfield
Thomas, are very narrow. Of one exceptionally narrow skull, with a
very protruding muzzle, Mr. Thomas writes: “This skull may be taken
as a type of the lowest and most simian human cranium likely to
occur at the present day.”
The skulls I obtained at Mabuiag during my two visits to that
island belonged to natives of that island, and they are markedly
broader than those collected by Dr. Macfarlane.
In 1888 I was very anxious to obtain some skulls, but for some
time could not get any. One morning my boy Dick said to me,
“Doctor, I savvy where head belong dead man he stop; he stop in
hole.” I promised the boy a jew’s-harp to show me the spot, and on
going there I took from a crevice in a rock a beautifully perfect skull
that had been painted red. I told Dick to inform his friends that I
would give a jew’s-harp for a skull or for some bones.
That afternoon a crowd of small boys marched up, holding in their
hands a number of human bones. I suspected I was being
somewhat imposed upon, as probably one boy had collected the lot
and distributed them among his friends; but I had learned the lesson
that if you want to start a trade you must not mind paying
extravagantly, if needs be, at first. Once the trade has started it is
quite a different matter. I paid each boy a jew’s-harp for the
worthless broken bones he brought. The boys were hugely
delighted, and strutted up and down the village strumming their
jew’s-harps.
The young men of the village then began to yearn for jew’s-harps,
and that same evening they came to me, and said, “Doctor, I want
jewsarp.” I replied, “I want head belong dead man.” “I no got head
belong dead man,” they urged. “You savvy where he stop. You get
him,” was my reply.
The following evening the skulls began to arrive, and I duly gave a
jew’s-harp for each one. Unfortunately by this time my small stock of
jew’s-harps was exhausted, save for two. Then one young man said,
“Doctor, I want jewsarp.” “I want head belong dead man.” “I no got
head belong dead man.” “You savvy where he stop; good thing you
catch him.” To my surprise the man replied, “I no got wife.”
At first I could not make it out. In those days I had not paid any
attention to craniology, but I knew enough to satisfy myself that the
skulls were those of people who had been dead a long time, and
many were obviously the skulls of men. Consequently the young
men had not been killing their wives for the sake of a jew’s-harp. No
savage I ever came across would make such a bad bargain as that.
Then I discovered that the young men had sent their wives to
procure the skulls; and, as not unfrequently happens elsewhere, the
women did the work, and the men got the reward.