1 00:00:20,600 --> 00:00:25,600 Russia - a country with a special place in the British psyche. 2 00:00:27,880 --> 00:00:31,960 For centuries, Russia has both intrigued and frightened us. 3 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:37,800 There are aspects of Russia that we love, 4 00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:41,200 but we feel somehow uneasy in her company, 5 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:43,240 unsure of how she will react. 6 00:00:46,100 --> 00:00:52,120 And perhaps rather wary of a certain barbarism in her make-up. 7 00:00:52,900 --> 00:00:56,880 For much of my professional life, I have kept a close eye on Russians. 8 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:01,800 Now, I want to turn to the British side of the relationship. 9 00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:05,080 How has our view of Russia developed? 10 00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:08,480 And what have the turning-points been in our perceptions? 11 00:01:34,320 --> 00:01:40,840 My own view of Russia was formed during the Cold War when it was the largest part of the Soviet Union. 12 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:45,040 I remember well the fear of nuclear annihilation when I was young. 13 00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:50,600 A fear made concrete by bunkers like these. 14 00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:55,600 Then, when I started working at MI5, there was the constant need 15 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:59,000 to combat the activities of the Soviet intelligence services. 16 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:02,600 Russia was unscrupulous, expansionist, devious. 17 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:04,240 Russia was the enemy. 18 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:12,480 With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we should have seen the back of all that. 19 00:02:12,480 --> 00:02:17,360 But it only took a milligram of polonium to bring back visions of the Cold War. 20 00:02:20,680 --> 00:02:23,520 I think that to understand our response to Russia, 21 00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:28,080 we have to go back, beyond the Cold War, beyond the Russian Revolution. 22 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:36,800 Russian territorial expansion was a concern for Britain throughout the 19th century. 23 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,920 The British Lion and the Russian Bear were engaged 24 00:02:39,920 --> 00:02:44,040 in a subtle battle of exploration, espionage and diplomacy, 25 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:47,720 which has become known as the Great Game. 26 00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:56,480 My first job in London, before I joined MI5, 27 00:02:56,480 --> 00:03:01,760 was in the India Office Library and Records, which at that time were housed in this building. 28 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:04,760 In the records were the files of the Political Department 29 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:07,320 - the department that ran the real Great Game 30 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:11,320 - the battle for influence in Central Asia between Britain and Russia. 31 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:16,520 As India became an important outpost to the British Empire, 32 00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:21,160 Russia, once a distant and alien country, seemed suddenly closer. 33 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:23,160 And in the early 19th century, 34 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,000 as its frontiers began to move in Central Asia, 35 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:27,960 India seemed to be under threat. 36 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:34,520 Some feared that the Russians might at any moment pour over the Himalayas into India. 37 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:42,800 In the late 1960s, I drove from Delhi to Kabul over the Khyber Pass 38 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:46,720 and saw for myself the ground over which the Great Game was played out. 39 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:50,560 My inspiration for the journey was Rudyard Kipling's Kim 40 00:03:50,560 --> 00:03:53,320 - arguably the first British spy novel 41 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:56,240 - which brought vividly to life this game of espionage. 42 00:03:56,240 --> 00:04:00,400 I got my tap on the shoulder from MI5 not long after I had read it 43 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:05,600 and so I joined the Intelligence Services with my mind full of this conflict with Russia. 44 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:12,800 But the Great Game, for all the grandeur of its name, 45 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:15,680 was territorial rivalry like any other. 46 00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:23,240 It does not explain our unique and sustained disquiet about the Russian Bear. 47 00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:40,600 For this, we need to look to another empire - the Ottoman Empire 48 00:04:40,600 --> 00:04:42,280 and to a single man, 49 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:45,840 a senior British diplomat called David Urquhart. 50 00:04:45,840 --> 00:04:49,160 Serving in Turkey, on the border with Russian power, 51 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:55,920 he became convinced of a vast Russian conspiracy to threaten British interests. 52 00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:58,040 Urquhart's influence was significant. 53 00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:02,920 He persuaded Victorian Britain to adopt the Turkish bath. 54 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:06,120 But he also persuaded us to fear Russia. 55 00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:20,040 I have come with Professor Miles Taylor to the Victorian Turkish baths at Harrogate 56 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:24,840 to learn how Urquhart fermented Britain's first wave of Russophobia. 57 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:35,880 Was Russophobia different from other forms of xenophobia in Britain? 58 00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:37,720 I think it is very specific in time. 59 00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:41,200 It doesn't focus on particular stereotypes or characteristics 60 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:44,520 of the Russian people, about which there is general ignorance. 61 00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:49,040 It is largely tied up with this "conspiracy theory". 62 00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:54,720 Urquhart believed Russia had an exceptional ability to infiltrate and influence foreign ministries. 63 00:05:54,720 --> 00:05:58,360 He felt that Britain's policies were too favourable towards Russia 64 00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:01,080 and this led him to the theory that Lord Palmerston, 65 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:05,080 the British foreign secretary, was in the pay of the Russians, 66 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:08,040 a theory no doubt encouraged by the fact that Palmerston 67 00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:12,840 had sacked Urquhart from his diplomatic position in 1837. 68 00:06:12,840 --> 00:06:17,200 After he'd left the diplomatic service, what happened next? What did he do then? 69 00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:23,400 He comes back to Britain and gets involved in popular politics in 1839, 1840, 70 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:27,800 when he starts the first of his foreign affairs committees. 71 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:30,040 What where they, exactly? 72 00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:34,720 Foreign affairs committees are small groups of largely working men 73 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:38,880 who meet, usually in the Turkish baths that they have helped set up, 74 00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:42,560 to discuss the documents of foreign policy. 75 00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:47,320 Urquhart's view is that the reason Russia gets away with its secret diplomacy 76 00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:52,400 is that people don't read properly, they don't read the treaties and the small print. 77 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:57,440 And on occasion, he will come round and tell them how to read these documents. 78 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:01,360 So a very nineteenth-century form of amusement, really! 79 00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:03,880 'Urquhart was a consummate self-publicist. 80 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:08,440 'He published violently anti-Russian pamphlets and his own newspapers. 81 00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:11,520 'He developed an almost cult-like following.' 82 00:07:11,520 --> 00:07:15,360 He comes with this terrific story - I have been to the East, 83 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:20,400 I have seen the ways of another people and a culture. I have adopted their habits. 84 00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:26,680 And also, this sense in which he is pure and untarnished by the system, the establishment. 85 00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:30,120 He got out, he broke free, 86 00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:32,920 and he knows the truth. 87 00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:37,840 It's no accident that the word Russophobia first appeared in print 88 00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:40,600 at the same time as Urquhart's ideas. 89 00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:44,320 By the 1850s, anti-Russian feeling was at fever pitch. 90 00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:50,960 It was now that another noted Russophobe entered the fray. 91 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:53,080 Karl Marx. 92 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:57,520 In 1853, he came across the theories of David Urquhart and was intrigued. 93 00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:00,320 He set up a meeting with him, but for Marx at least, 94 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:04,680 it was a disappointment and he later described Urquhart as an utter maniac. 95 00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:08,920 But of one Urquhart's theories at least, Marx remained convinced 96 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:13,360 and that was that the British government was completely in thrall to Russia. 97 00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:21,360 So Marx too began to publish articles about what he called 98 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:26,280 the secret and permanent collaboration of the cabinets of London and St Petersburg. 99 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:33,880 But in 1854, Britain joined the Crimean War. 100 00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:39,160 How did the conspiracy theorists explain the fact that Britain was now at war with Russia? 101 00:08:39,160 --> 00:08:41,960 Easy. Marx wrote that the British government 102 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:45,800 had fought Russia to put the conspiracy theorists off the scent, 103 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:50,200 which is why we entered the war late and made so many mistakes. 104 00:08:50,200 --> 00:08:55,600 It's a delicious irony that Karl Marx was stoking anti-Russian feeling. 105 00:08:55,600 --> 00:08:58,760 But as the years went on, other views came to the fore. 106 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:04,920 It's very striking that in the late 19th century, Russia became popular, 107 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:06,360 if I can put it that way, 108 00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:10,520 among a small section of the population because it was seen as different. 109 00:09:10,520 --> 00:09:13,880 At a time when Britain had gone through the Industrial Revolution, 110 00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:17,040 had what was widely seen as a bourgeois, philistine culture, 111 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:22,640 Russia somehow seemed to have a kind of energy, a mystery of its own. 112 00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:30,160 In the 1870s, you begin to see translations of the novels of people like Turgenev. 113 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:36,120 Then in the 1880s and the 1890s, some translations of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. 114 00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:41,800 And suddenly, a small group of people begin to understand that Russia has a culture of its own, 115 00:09:41,800 --> 00:09:46,480 in literature, most obviously, but also in music, one thinks of people like Mussorgsky. 116 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:50,080 Also in art, particularly as the century draws to a close. 117 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:54,840 What I think you see from the 1880s onwards is a much more nuanced 118 00:09:54,840 --> 00:09:58,200 and subtle view of Russia developing in British society. 119 00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:02,800 At the same time as this influx of Russian culture came to Britain, 120 00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:09,000 a tide of Jewish immigrants reached our shores, fleeing heightened persecution in Russia. 121 00:10:11,560 --> 00:10:16,000 For nearly the whole of the 19th century, and into the 20th century, 122 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:20,320 there was no way in which a British government could stop any foreigner 123 00:10:20,320 --> 00:10:23,600 coming in to the country, for any reason at all, 124 00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:26,480 or get rid of them once they were there. 125 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:30,840 There were no extradition laws, no alien laws, and so on and so forth. 126 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:33,920 But that's not to say that they welcomed them. 127 00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,240 Nonetheless, Britain was proud of its tolerance. 128 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:40,120 And there was sympathy for the Russian exiles. 129 00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:45,280 Russia had become, for liberal Victorian Society, the quintessential tyranny. 130 00:10:47,680 --> 00:10:50,840 This is from a school book of 1850. 131 00:10:50,840 --> 00:10:57,120 It's by a woman called Favell Lee Bevan, and it's called Near Home, Or The Countries of Europe Described. 132 00:10:57,120 --> 00:11:00,840 And it's a little geography book for children in schools. 133 00:11:00,840 --> 00:11:06,120 "The Russians are not as happy as the little Laps," whom she has just described, 134 00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:11,480 "for in Russia, there are many rich Lords who are very cruel to the poor people. 135 00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:13,200 "They treat them like slaves. 136 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:18,080 "They beat them when they are angry and take away their things whenever they please. 137 00:11:18,080 --> 00:11:21,880 "The chief Lord of Russia is not called King, but Emperor, 138 00:11:21,880 --> 00:11:23,880 "and he does whatever he likes. 139 00:11:23,880 --> 00:11:27,120 "He can put people in prison whenever he is displeased." 140 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:32,120 And this is true in almost every geography book I have read for this period. 141 00:11:32,120 --> 00:11:38,480 This is the cause or the reason why it is thought that people ought to be hostile to Russia. 142 00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:39,640 The Tsar! 143 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:49,480 Most Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Russia in Britain ended up in the East End of London. 144 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:53,000 By the early 20th century, there were complaints of overcrowding 145 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:56,760 and for the first time, restrictions were placed on immigration, 146 00:11:56,760 --> 00:11:59,560 the 1905 Aliens Act. 147 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:03,880 But the right to asylum for political refugees was retained. 148 00:12:03,880 --> 00:12:08,280 Soon, radicals drawn to Britain by its open-door policy began to have an impact. 149 00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:16,880 In May 1907, the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held 150 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:20,440 to debate strategy for a Communist revolution in Russia. 151 00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:24,400 It had originally been intended to hold it in Denmark and then in Sweden. 152 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:29,240 But under pressure from the Tsarist government in Russia, the delegates were refused entry. 153 00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:32,520 So they ended up here, in Hackney, holding the conference, 154 00:12:32,520 --> 00:12:36,600 symbolically, opposite these factory gates. 155 00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:40,560 There is no sign now of the venue, the Brotherhood Chapel, 156 00:12:40,560 --> 00:12:43,840 the bare hall into which 302 delegates filed. 157 00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:47,520 Perhaps we would prefer to forget the part Britain played 158 00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:50,480 in the making of the Russian Revolution of 1917. 159 00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:09,240 To find out more about the congress, I've come to meet Professor William Fishman, historian of east London, 160 00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:12,800 who can show me the few surviving traces in the fabric of the East End. 161 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:19,960 And this is a very interesting street indeed. 162 00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:21,560 Fulbourne Street here. 163 00:13:23,560 --> 00:13:26,120 And this door, 164 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:28,440 seemingly ordinary door, 165 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:36,280 in May 1907, this door opened and a stream of men and women walked through this door, 166 00:13:36,280 --> 00:13:42,920 led by a balding, little red bearded Russian called Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin. 167 00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:47,080 And a little man called Joseph Djugashvili, 168 00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:51,440 pockmarked, bad arm, walked through that door. 169 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:54,000 Stalin walked through that door. 170 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:55,840 The only time he was in England. 171 00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:58,720 Followed by Alexandra Kollontai, Trotsky, 172 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:04,640 and all the founding fathers and mothers of the Soviet Union came in. 173 00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:06,840 So this is an unholy door! 174 00:14:06,840 --> 00:14:09,720 There should be a plaque! 175 00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:15,960 The Fifth Congress drew crowds eager to catch sight of a real revolutionary. 176 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:19,160 The delegates were even invited to a reception in Chelsea 177 00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:23,560 where they were toasted by future Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. 178 00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:26,760 But their day-to-day existence was not so glamorous. 179 00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:33,280 This is where Stalin and Litvinov slept in a doss house. 180 00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:35,000 At the time of the congress? 181 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:39,000 At the time of the congress. In this doss house, as it was. 182 00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:44,920 But it's an interesting story that I must tell. 183 00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:47,960 Stalin had a weakness. 184 00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:49,600 What was it, Stella? 185 00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:51,840 Women! Right. 186 00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:57,320 And he wanted a girl for - I don't know what reason - I'm quite ignorant! 187 00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:04,880 And the nearest where girls were openly proclaiming their sexuality was by the river. 188 00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:07,880 Mainly they were poor Irish girls. 189 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:10,640 So, together with Litvinov, 190 00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:16,080 there to be his guide and guard, they went down to Wapping. 191 00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:19,920 And coming out of the pub, there was a pretty Irish girl 192 00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:23,080 and Stalin went up to this girl and tried to chat her up. 193 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:27,280 The Irish dockers who saw this, saw this foreigner, 194 00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:31,160 couldn't even speak the lingo, trying to chat up one of their girls. 195 00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:34,920 They came up and started beating Stalin up! But who defended him? 196 00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:36,400 Litvinov. 197 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:43,680 He virtually carried Stalin from the south in Wapping through these side-streets and up there. 198 00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:46,440 He virtually saved his skin. Really? 199 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:49,240 So no lady that night, anyway! 200 00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:51,880 Move forward. 201 00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:57,600 'It's interesting to note that Stalin never spoke about his stay in London.' 202 00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:01,960 Whilst the British sympathised with dissidents fighting Russian tyranny, 203 00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:06,040 a series of scares soon raised the spectre that through our tolerance, 204 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:08,560 we had allowed terrorists into our midst. 205 00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:13,480 The most famous case began with an attempted robbery of a jeweller's shop in Houndsditch 206 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:15,560 and the murder of three policemen. 207 00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:19,960 Then on January 3rd, 1911, Inspector Wensley of the Metropolitan Police 208 00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:25,400 cornered two men on the first floor of 100 Sidney Street in east London. 209 00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:34,440 Well, what I would have done, being an ex-infantryman, 210 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:37,360 bashed open the door and seized them straightaway. 211 00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:44,800 But no! What he did was to get a platoon of police with pistols 212 00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:49,640 pointing at the windows where these two men were asleep. 213 00:16:49,640 --> 00:16:57,760 And at 7 o'clock, they threw bricks up there and said, "Surrender, we've got you surrounded!" 214 00:16:57,760 --> 00:17:02,680 Instead of which, there was a burst of gunfire in return 215 00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:06,680 and thence began a battle between these terrorists 216 00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:08,760 and a local platoon of police. 217 00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:14,520 After about four hours, they were still firing back. 218 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:24,240 They decided to let the Home Secretary know what was happening, rang up, 219 00:17:24,240 --> 00:17:26,560 and who was the Home Secretary? 220 00:17:26,560 --> 00:17:28,640 Winston Spencer Churchill, 221 00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:32,760 who immediately came straight towards the East End of London. 222 00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:37,920 What is interesting is that as he got to the Whitechapel High Street, 223 00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:40,920 he was unanimously booed. 224 00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:45,320 When they saw Churchill, they booed him! 225 00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:46,680 Why? 226 00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:52,560 Because he had voted against the Aliens Bill of 1905. 227 00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:58,480 Ah, yes. Letting these bloody foreigners in to come and kill our policeman! 228 00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:04,800 However, they rang the Tower for a platoon of infantry men to come in and storm the building. 229 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:07,960 Shifted the others aside, 230 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:12,240 and you got this extraordinary scene of people cheering 231 00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:16,200 and these Scotsmen marching to kill these two people. 232 00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:18,120 A lovely scene! 233 00:18:18,120 --> 00:18:21,200 When they got here, they got down and started firing. 234 00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:25,400 And they were still firing back after six hours! 235 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:27,280 Churchill's had enough. 236 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:31,160 Lifts up the phone, "Bring up a cannon!" 237 00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:35,200 A cannon is drawn up and just as they were about to shout, "Fire!", 238 00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:40,320 a massive fire breaks out in that building. 239 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:42,160 And what had set the house on fire? 240 00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:45,960 The shooting had penetrated a gas pipe. Like that - zoomph! 241 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:50,680 Who were the people who were actually in there? 242 00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:55,480 They weren't Russians, they were Latvians. Latvian revolutionaries. 243 00:18:55,480 --> 00:19:01,200 Members of Liesma - "The Flame", dedicated to the overthrow of the Tsar. 244 00:19:01,200 --> 00:19:04,240 But the people outside here thought they were Russians? 245 00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:05,880 But they were Latvians. 246 00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:09,760 So it affected their attitude to all these Russian emigres in the country? 247 00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:14,240 As far as the ordinary people, they said Russians. Russian foreigners. 248 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:21,320 Three years later, the Great War began. 249 00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:23,600 Russia became a vital ally against Germany 250 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:25,920 and a new picture of Russia was born, 251 00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:29,800 one fostered through government policy. 252 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:34,280 During the First World War, there were also significant attempts to, 253 00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:38,360 if you like, mobilise British sentiment in favour of Russia. 254 00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:42,080 There were translations of lots of key Russian texts like Dostoevsky, 255 00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:45,280 reflecting, I think, a growing interest in Russian culture. 256 00:19:45,280 --> 00:19:48,040 There were books written about the Russian church, 257 00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:52,240 trying to persuade people that the Russian church and the Anglican church were similar. 258 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:57,280 Attempts, if you like, to portray Russia in a much more positive light. 259 00:19:57,280 --> 00:20:02,760 What diplomats and military men understood was that Russia was crucial to the war effort 260 00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:06,320 and that attempts had to be made to make this an alliance, 261 00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:11,320 not simply a form of military alliance but, if you like, to give it a deeper texture. 262 00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:14,240 Britain feared that if Russia pulled out of the war, 263 00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:19,320 Germany could focus all its might on the Western Front and our own troops. 264 00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:25,320 So as unrest grew in Russia, 265 00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:30,360 our government tried to induce the Tsar to make democratic reforms. 266 00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:41,440 Then in February 1917, the Tsar was overthrown. 267 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:46,120 Eight months later, the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution. 268 00:20:46,120 --> 00:20:49,680 Russia withdrew from the war. 269 00:20:52,080 --> 00:20:54,000 I think there was a growing concern 270 00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:58,000 in some of the more diehard Conservative establishment circles in Britain 271 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:03,120 that Bolshevism might not only be a problem in Russia, it might be a problem for the British as well. 272 00:21:03,120 --> 00:21:07,560 It was very noticeable that after Nicholas II had abdicated in February 1917, 273 00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:11,400 the British government was reluctant to have him come to Britain. 274 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:15,080 The reasons have been much debated, but one of them was they were afraid 275 00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:17,800 it wouldn't be popular with the British working class. 276 00:21:19,360 --> 00:21:25,240 Bolshevism was described by politicians and generals as a spreading, infectious cancer. 277 00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:30,640 Britain helped the anti-Bolshevik forces in the civil war that followed the revolution, 278 00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:34,960 but the move was unpopular so soon after World War I 279 00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:38,960 and many in Britain welcomed the revolution as a release from oppression. 280 00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:51,520 In the wake of World War I, there were strikes across Britain 281 00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,600 and in 1920, the Communist Party of Great Britain was founded. 282 00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:12,200 I'm travelling to Chopwell, a village near Newcastle which still shows signs 283 00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:16,160 of the popular sympathy for Russia in the wake of the revolution. 284 00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:32,160 In the 1920s, the press dubbed it Little Moscow and "the reddest village in England". 285 00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:43,360 One particular relic of the period appears to bear out this reputation. 286 00:22:43,360 --> 00:22:49,920 All the pit villages, or many of them, had these banners, didn't they? That's right, yes. 287 00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:53,440 Do you know if there were any others who have Marx and Lenin on them? 288 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:58,480 I think this combination is somewhat unique. 289 00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:02,720 This, in fact, is the fourth banner that's been produced for Chopwell. 290 00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:06,800 The first one was in 1907 and cost £26 291 00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:12,040 and it had none of the icons of Marx, Lenin and Keir Hardie that you see now. 292 00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:17,520 That didn't come about until the 1924 banner was produced. 293 00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:21,800 Obviously, if you look at the front of this banner, you have socialism, 294 00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:23,520 that runs right through it 295 00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:25,880 and the icons at the time 296 00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,280 who represented strong working movements and working people. 297 00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:32,760 So we've got Marx and Lenin surrounding Keir Hardie? 298 00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:34,480 That's right. 299 00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:38,840 You said that you'd revived the tradition of parading this through the village 300 00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:41,320 and that the schoolchildren were interested. 301 00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:44,640 That's right. What do they make of Marx and Lenin and Keir Hardie? 302 00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:48,600 Do they know anything about them or presumably they're taught, are they? 303 00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:56,480 I think they probably haven't gone into a lot of detail for the history or the background. 304 00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:00,200 To them, they are three old men. "That one looks like my granddad. 305 00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:02,480 "That one looks like uncle so-and-so..." 306 00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,600 And he's got a big beard. That's right. 307 00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:10,400 The reverse, to me, is actually more important than the front. 308 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:15,480 I know the front tells the history but, to me, when you're walking through the streets of Chopwell, 309 00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:20,120 the streets of Durham, this is what you look at when you're walking behind it. 310 00:24:20,120 --> 00:24:24,120 You're not looking at the front. You're not looking at Karl Marx, Lenin. 311 00:24:24,120 --> 00:24:29,880 You have the grandfathers, the miners in the dark area with the pit in the background. Yes. 312 00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:31,800 And they're being shown the future. 313 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:35,320 This could be optimism, hope or aspiration. 314 00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,920 He's pointing towards a brighter future. 315 00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,120 They've got decent housing. 316 00:24:40,120 --> 00:24:43,120 They've got nice clothes. They're playing games 317 00:24:43,120 --> 00:24:46,280 and the flag for liberty, the freedom of hard work... 318 00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:48,800 ..brings a good life. 319 00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:01,600 One resident of Chopwell, Jack Fletcher, has a direct connection to these street names. 320 00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,800 My grandfather was Harry Bolton. He was a miner. 321 00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:14,040 He lived at 6 Owen Terrace and I remember going into the living room 322 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,720 and on the shelf, there was a big bust of Lenin. 323 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,160 Next to him, 324 00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:26,480 there was a big colour picture of the Red Star over the Kremlin. 325 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:32,360 Like most people in Chopwell, Harry Bolton didn't regard himself as a Communist. 326 00:25:32,360 --> 00:25:35,440 In 1924, he became a Labour councillor 327 00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:40,240 and was responsible for naming Marx and Lenin Terraces. 328 00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:49,560 Russia, after the revolution, was the new Jerusalem. 329 00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,960 If it could happen in a country like Russia, 330 00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:55,840 which was looked upon as particularly backward, 331 00:25:55,840 --> 00:26:00,160 it could happen in a country like Britain that had the vote. 332 00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,600 Privilege would disappear 333 00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:08,320 and ordinary, everyday people would be able to create their own happiness 334 00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:12,360 and bring up their children in dignity. 335 00:26:12,360 --> 00:26:13,840 It would be a meritocracy. 336 00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:21,160 Admiration for the worker's paradise in Russia went hand-in-hand with political activism 337 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,720 and the fight for better working conditions. 338 00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:27,720 In 1925, Chopwell miners went on strike. 339 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:34,320 They stayed out for 18 months, compared to the mere nine days of the general strike of 1926. 340 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,320 There were a large number of strikes in Britain in 1921 341 00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,840 and then, of course, the general strike in 1926. 342 00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:48,600 A Communist flag was hoisted over Glasgow town hall 343 00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:53,080 and the Government had to send tanks in to disperse the great Communist meeting there 344 00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:54,960 and so on and so forth. 345 00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:58,000 The response, of course, of the British government 346 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,680 was much more hostile and much more worried 347 00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:02,760 because it was anti-socialist, 348 00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:08,360 not only anti-Communist and couldn't really distinguish between the different grades of it. 349 00:27:08,360 --> 00:27:14,240 Consequently, I think, they tended to assume that these strikes and so on 350 00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:20,520 that were happening in Britain were being fermented by Russian Communists. 351 00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:24,520 It was this that led to Chopwell earning its Little Moscow title. 352 00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:28,680 There were claims that the strikers were receiving money from the Soviet Union, 353 00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,080 rumours disputed by the residents of Chopwell. 354 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:36,560 Miners' attempts to maintain the strike led to arrests, imprisonments 355 00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:40,240 and the billeting of police officers in the village. 356 00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:45,720 The government had planned to station warships, 357 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:51,200 ships of the line, off the north-east coast with their guns trained on Chopwell 358 00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,920 and, if necessary, wipe the place off the face of the earth. 359 00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:00,960 Of course, such extreme measures were not necessary 360 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,000 but after the strike, radical politics in Chopwell continued. 361 00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,640 It was inevitable that my grandfather would go to Russia. 362 00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,400 He tried in 1924. 363 00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:19,120 Unfortunately, he couldn't get for the simple reason the man he wanted to see, Lenin, died. 364 00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:22,400 He did, however, go in 1928. 365 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:28,440 I remember my grandmother telling me that she decked him up in all his long johns. 366 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:33,120 He went to a lot of receptions hosted by Stalin. 367 00:28:33,120 --> 00:28:40,160 He was there about a fortnight and he was taken around the prize spots. 368 00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:47,040 Now what he didn't realise was he was taken to the best of everything. 369 00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:51,840 The best schools, the best universities, the best clinics... 370 00:28:51,840 --> 00:29:01,240 These were projected as typical of the USSR and, of course, being a believer, he accepted it. 371 00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:06,360 It wasn't only the people of Chopwell who looked to the Soviet Union. 372 00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:10,200 Leading British intellectuals also liked what they saw. 373 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,040 Perhaps the most famous of these was George Bernard Shaw. 374 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:17,600 Hello, all you dear boobs 375 00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:23,400 who have been saying for a month past that I have gone dotty about Russia. 376 00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:42,320 Propaganda like the magazine USSR In Construction drew on the latest 377 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:47,360 graphic techniques to cement the seductive image of the Soviet Union. 378 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,760 Subscriptions in Britain were high. 379 00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,400 The fellow travellers appreciated the Soviet Union for its ideals, 380 00:29:54,400 --> 00:30:00,520 or, increasingly, saw Communism as a bulwark against Fascism. 381 00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:06,720 Of course, those not on the Left in Britain saw more to fear than to praise in Bolshevism. 382 00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:08,560 Why don't you sit down? 383 00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:10,840 Well, I can't very well sit on the floor. 384 00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:14,360 Why not? Nearly everybody I know sits on the floor. 385 00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:16,800 Oh, they must be funny people. 386 00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,280 Funny, are Russians funny? 387 00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,280 Yes, I suppose they are, very funny. 388 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,520 Russians? Are you a Bolshie? 389 00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,600 Bolshie? Oh, Bolshevik! 390 00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:30,240 No, I am not a Bolshevik. 391 00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:33,120 Oh. Well, in that case I'll sit down. 392 00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:34,640 Do. 393 00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,840 In 1931 Special Branch, who'd kept an eye on Bolshevism in the civilian population 394 00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:54,160 since the Russian Revolution, handed over the responsibility to MI5, retitled The Security Service. 395 00:30:56,560 --> 00:31:01,120 New threats were appearing - no longer the danger of revolution, 396 00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:05,080 but the possibility of Russia acquiring secrets from the fellow-travellers. 397 00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:15,280 In the late 1920s and early '30s, a mood of cynicism with capitalism 398 00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,960 began to spread among British universities. 399 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:23,360 To them, I suppose, the system of Communism as practised in the Soviet Union seemed preferable. 400 00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:28,520 The Russian intelligence service was keeping a sharp eye on this and used the opportunity to recruit 401 00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,800 some of them to become spies for the Soviet Union. 402 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:36,120 The most famous group of these was the so-called Ring Of Five, Burgess, 403 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:42,560 Philby, Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, who were centred here at Trinity College, Cambridge. 404 00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:49,000 These men went on to take posts in the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6 405 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,960 and were able to supply the Russians with a stream of information. 406 00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:59,800 Eventually MI5 got onto two of them, Burgess and McLean, and they fled to the Soviet Union in 1951. 407 00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:03,480 They were followed some years later by Philby. 408 00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:09,840 When I joined MI5 in 1969, the shadow of the Cambridge spies still hung over us. 409 00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:15,280 Had others recruited in the 1930s reached positions of power and might they still be there? 410 00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:21,000 One of my first jobs was to go to Trinity College in search of clues as to who had recruited these men. 411 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,280 We didn't find the answer until much later. 412 00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:35,000 In 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet pact. 413 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,960 The alliance with Fascism lost Russia many of its supporters in Britain 414 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:44,280 and for the first years of World War II, the Soviet Union was vilified. 415 00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:46,400 British newsreels set the tone. 416 00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,920 Now look at the remnants of a shattered army - the 44th Division 417 00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:53,120 of the once-great Soviet land force is broken and destroyed. 418 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:58,640 Supplies valued at £1 million have fallen into the hands of the gallant free soldiers of Finland. 419 00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:03,960 The Soviet hordes were driven across their neighbour's boundary as an army of slaves 420 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,840 and the defenders of liberty cut them to pieces. 421 00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:13,720 Many illusions... 422 00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:15,720 about Soviet Russia 423 00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:17,720 have been dispelled 424 00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:23,800 in these few, fierce weeks of fighting in the Arctic Circle. 425 00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:30,840 Everyone can see how Communism rots the soul of a nation. 426 00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:39,280 How it makes it abject and hungry in peace and proves it base and abominable in war. 427 00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:48,480 Then, in 1941, as the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, we found the Red Army fighting on our side. 428 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,680 Almost overnight, the alliance brought a change of message. 429 00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:59,240 Previously banned Russian propaganda films were taken out of the archives and put straight into newsreels. 430 00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,000 The battle on land. 431 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,960 Nobody outside the inner councils of the supreme Soviet knows the strength 432 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,840 of the Red Army, either in men or in machines, 433 00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:12,880 but we do know while Germany was building up for war on a gargantuan scale, Russia was not asleep. 434 00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:16,400 We have read of the millions of men and the thousands of tanks locked in 435 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:19,640 a death grip on the line of the Eastern Front and 100 miles in depth. 436 00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,640 This is the first instalment of the film story of a titanic battle 437 00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:29,280 that shook the very earth and rocked the Gods above. A battle, 1941. 438 00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,360 Stalin became Uncle Joe. 439 00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:36,240 Mrs Churchill encouraged us to knit socks for Russian soldiers 440 00:34:36,240 --> 00:34:40,280 and pro-Russian events were held across Britain, although the government took care 441 00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,920 not to involve members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. 442 00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:47,080 The people of this country have saluted an ally and a friend. 443 00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,800 Here in Bristol, the great procession marched through scenes of devastation. 444 00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:54,240 These could be matched in many cities of the Soviet Union 445 00:34:54,240 --> 00:34:57,920 but this evidence of enemy fury is a true bond between our two great peoples. 446 00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,240 The British government made a deliberate attempt 447 00:35:00,240 --> 00:35:02,720 to portray Stalin's Russia in a more positive light. 448 00:35:02,720 --> 00:35:05,360 It was quite a difficult exercise because for 20 years or more 449 00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:07,880 the Soviets had, in a sense, been the enemy, 450 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,040 at least for large sections of the British population 451 00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:14,920 and now try to present them as a friend and ally was quite a difficult exercise. 452 00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:19,120 I say, Kingsley, what about a Soviet flag? I mean, it's their party. 453 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:23,440 I'm afraid we were in a bit of a fix about that until McDougall came to the rescue. 454 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,800 We borrowed the two Red Ensigns from the Town Hall. 455 00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:28,440 We're going to fold them in half and use them red side outwards. 456 00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,720 And I'm going to cut a hammer and sickle out of one of these yellow pennants. Jolly good show! 457 00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:38,400 The film, The Tawny Pipit, gently satirised our romance with the Soviet Union. 458 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:47,440 I bring greetings from the Red Army to the heroic comrades in the British fields, factories and workshops. 459 00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,800 We are proud to be allied to the free people of Britain. 460 00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:57,120 We mean to smash the Fascist invaders. 461 00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:01,040 I myself have shot over 100 Hitlerites 462 00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:04,040 and I am looking forward to shooting many more. 463 00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:19,600 In the firmly socialist London Borough of Finsbury, the council commissioned a memorial to Lenin. 464 00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:25,920 The monument, complete with the symbolic broken chains of the workers, 465 00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:31,160 was designed by Russian emigre architect, Berthold Lubetkin. 466 00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:43,360 On April the 22nd, 1942, the anniversary of Lenin's birth, Lubetkin's memorial was 467 00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:50,320 unveiled here in Holford Square, outside the house that Lenin had briefly occupied in 1902. 468 00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,560 The regimental band of the Home Guard played the Internationale as 469 00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:57,640 the monument appeared behind the hammer and sickle and the Union Jack. 470 00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:03,400 The fate of the monument was to mirror the course of Anglo-Russian relations over the years to come. 471 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,720 BAND PLAYS "THE INTERNATIONALE" 472 00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,880 The Foreign office approved this gesture and its unveiling was 473 00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:15,240 attended by the Soviet ambassador as well as enthusiastic crowds. 474 00:37:24,720 --> 00:37:28,160 But less than a year after the Lenin memorial was unveiled, 475 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:31,360 it was the subject of an attack by Fascist vandals. 476 00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:38,880 Terrified that this might sour relations with the Soviet Union, Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, 477 00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,840 was forced to apologise for the desecration. 478 00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:50,800 And at the height of the war, the monument was given 24-hour police protection. 479 00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:57,880 Pragmatically, Lubetkin stockpiled two dozen busts of Lenin in case of further attack. 480 00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:03,400 By 1946, all this was becoming a bit of an embarrassment. 481 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,480 The wartime love of Russia was on the wane. 482 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,960 Churchill famously described the influence of the Soviet Union as an 483 00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,200 Iron Curtain descending across the continent. 484 00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:19,200 I think throughout the period 1945-49, you see the emergence of 485 00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,920 what you might call Cold War attitudes in Britain. 486 00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,200 A sense that Stalin and Soviet Russia pose a very real threat 487 00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,440 to British security and British interests worldwide. 488 00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:33,920 I think it's fair to say, of course, these images build on much older images, going back 489 00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:37,960 tens, even hundreds of years, that Russia is alien and an enemy. 490 00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:43,640 It's during this time that you do sometimes see talk of Stalin being a Red Tsar. 491 00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,920 For the Lenin memorial, the future did not look bright. 492 00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:53,200 There were complaints in parliament about the waste of police time. 493 00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:59,440 Soon Finsbury Council, under pressure from government, suggested it be removed to storage. 494 00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,880 But Lubetkin had other ideas. 495 00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,360 In 1951 he buried it. 496 00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:09,600 Somewhere in the foundations of this building, designed by Lubetkin, 497 00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:14,400 and built on the bomb-damaged remains of Holford Square, the Lenin memorial still lies. 498 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:18,440 The building was supposed to be called Lenin Court, but in the last irony, 499 00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,720 by the time it was finished in the early 1950s, 500 00:39:20,720 --> 00:39:24,240 that name would no longer have been acceptable to the British public. 501 00:39:24,240 --> 00:39:28,200 So instead it was called after the post-war Foreign Secretary, 502 00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:32,440 Ernest Bevin, who was himself a staunch anti-Communist. 503 00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:55,520 It is said that Lubetkin denied any recognition of Lenin, designed the soaring modernist staircase 504 00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:59,920 at the heart of Bevin Court to be his own private tribute to Lenin. 505 00:40:20,720 --> 00:40:23,520 The new situation with Russia after World War Two 506 00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,440 had one rather surprising consequence - 507 00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,120 if Britain was to know what was going on behind the Iron Curtain, 508 00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:33,360 we would need speakers of Russian, to listen to radio transmissions 509 00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:37,800 and interpreters to interrogate Soviet prisoners in case of war, 510 00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:43,120 so 5,000 studious young men discovered that instead of the usual gruelling physical regime 511 00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:46,920 of National Service, they would instead be learning Russian 512 00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,720 at the Joint Services School for Linguists. 513 00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:57,200 I'm off to meet Dr Harold Shukman, who was on the course. 514 00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:02,560 The recruiting officers had to be sure that they weren't taking 515 00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:08,800 too many people from the natural officer class, and turning them into 516 00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:14,680 Russian linguists, when they could do that perfectly well with mostly grammar school boys, which they did. 517 00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:16,640 It was mostly a grammar school boy... 518 00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:18,680 catchment, I would say. 519 00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:27,560 Very bright people, very interesting, lots of them became writers, people interested in music, classical music. 520 00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:34,480 Writers Michael Frayn, Alan Bennett, D M Thomas and Dennis Potter are among those who were on the course, 521 00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:39,960 taking with them an appreciation of classic Russian literature, as well as the language. 522 00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,840 What kind of people were teaching you on the course? 523 00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,520 They were a very interesting bunch of emigres of different kinds. 524 00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:51,080 There was the old emigres, who had left Russia after the 1917 revolution, 525 00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:57,200 many of them aristocrats, princesses, princes, who spoke beautiful Russian. 526 00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:01,440 It was a very different kind of Russian from subsequent generations, 527 00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,760 and then Soviet defectors and refugees from the Second World War. 528 00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:10,000 They spoke a different kind of Russian, it was much coarser. 529 00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:15,760 One of the most striking people among the instructors was a man called Dmitri Makarov, 530 00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:24,040 who used to take poetry classes and also put on plays in Russian. 531 00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:28,920 Grouped around me is the all-male cast of the service production of Hamlet in Russian. 532 00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:33,960 As you can see, these people are dressed in mid-18th century costumes. 533 00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:37,240 This is in fact Hamlet set in 18th-century Russia. 534 00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,160 HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN 535 00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,720 And for a long time I just thought, this was a kind of idea that it would 536 00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:08,600 be good to put on plays to help us learn Russian and to create an atmosphere, 537 00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,480 but I discovered later that this was actually a policy. 538 00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:18,040 The Air Ministry, which was responsible overall for the courses, decided that this would be 539 00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:23,360 the best way to energise students, to get them involved in all kinds of Russian cultural activities, 540 00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,960 to promote a kind of fluency. 541 00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,560 Did you go on to use any of your Russian in earnest? 542 00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,640 Yes, I spent my life as a teacher of Russian history. 543 00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:47,720 There was an explosion in the Russian departments at the British universities. 544 00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:54,120 A lot of the teachers and academics of my generation 545 00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:58,200 in the British system, both in schools and universities, had done the Russian course. 546 00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:04,560 Most of these linguists never put their Russian to military use, 547 00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:08,320 and later on, took it with them into civilian life. 548 00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:12,720 Some of them went into the intelligence services or the Foreign Office. 549 00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:21,080 For most of the British population, there was no such encounter with the Soviet Union. 550 00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:28,920 In 1956, the first visit of a Soviet leader to Britain produced a decidedly mixed response. 551 00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:38,240 This crowd is watching the arrival of Marshal Bulganin and Mr Khrushchev at the Clarendon Building in Oxford. 552 00:44:38,240 --> 00:44:42,120 They're just about to start a tour of the university. 553 00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:47,200 I don't know what impression our Russian visitors are getting of Oxford as they whizz by. 554 00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,040 What I'm really interested in is finding out... 555 00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:58,080 BOOING ..what impression... they are making on Oxford. 556 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:01,280 I doubt whether many of those who turned up to boo on that day 557 00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:05,320 in April 1956 really knew what they were protesting about. 558 00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:09,960 It was certainly true of me when later on, Bulganin and Khrushchev turned up in Edinburgh, 559 00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:13,800 and there I was as a student with my home-made poster, 560 00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:17,640 declaring in the immortal words "Bulge and Krush go home!" 561 00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:28,400 In fact, amazingly enough, my own protest was filmed. 562 00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,760 That's me there in the scarf. 563 00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:35,800 For the most part, crowds that turned out to stare at Khrushchev and Bulganin 564 00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:41,640 seemed uncertain whether to welcome them as peacemakers or condemn them as oppressors - 565 00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:43,840 so they just stood quiet. 566 00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:52,280 Then in October of the same year, a rather more effective student protest in Hungary 567 00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:56,920 precipitated a revolt, and the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. 568 00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,400 This brutal response tipped the balance. 569 00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:03,120 Now even faithful supporters of the Soviet Union deserted it. 570 00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:09,080 Russia had become what in the 19th century we had always 571 00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:14,120 feared her to be - a powerful, ruthless, expansionist nation. 572 00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:40,560 As the Cold War progressed, our fear of the Soviet Union became tied up with another fear - nuclear war. 573 00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,960 When this bunker was built, it was a regional war room. 574 00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:09,920 Its designers predicted that war with the Soviet Union would mean a few hundred Hiroshima-sized bombs. 575 00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:16,280 The people holed up in here would co-ordinate the response, planning military strategy and civil defence. 576 00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:34,720 Government issue scouring powder with bleach. 577 00:47:34,720 --> 00:47:37,680 Goodness, this place is a real time capsule. 578 00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:42,120 It looks as though they just got up one day and left, which I suppose is what they did. 579 00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:45,520 It really does give that sort of atmosphere that I can remember 580 00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:51,360 of the '60s, where really we never knew when the bomb was going to drop. 581 00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:04,880 When the Soviet Union acquired the hydrogen bomb, our predictions for war changed radically. 582 00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:09,360 In 1963, this bunker was converted to a regional seat of government. 583 00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:13,520 The war would last a matter of minutes and Britain would be destroyed. 584 00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:20,960 Ministry of Health! 'The bunker would be about survival. 585 00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:25,240 '450 men and women inside this vault, keeping the country going.' 586 00:48:25,240 --> 00:48:31,280 Here's the scientist, I should think he was very important because they were expecting nuclear fall-out. 587 00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,600 Goodness me, here's the Home Office. 588 00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:35,840 Let's see what size room they've got. 589 00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:43,720 It's minute! Heaven knows what the Home Office were going to do in a room this size. 590 00:48:43,720 --> 00:48:48,120 Still, they've got a large filing cabinet to do it with and one chair. 591 00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:52,280 Poor old Home Office. 592 00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:05,440 Nothing left. 593 00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:11,520 Gosh, I wouldn't have liked to have worked here for very long. 594 00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,720 Presumably they were expecting to be here for months. 595 00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:36,640 The 1960s cemented another enduring image of the Soviet Union - as a nation of spies. 596 00:49:46,240 --> 00:49:51,560 And reality fed the fiction, with a series of Soviet spy cases hitting the news... 597 00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:05,120 culminating in 1971 with the expulsion of 105 Soviet embassy staff from Britain for spying. 598 00:50:06,720 --> 00:50:11,600 Meanwhile, Soviet defectors and dissidents brought news from behind the Iron Curtain. 599 00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:15,120 One who caught our attention was Vladimir Bukovsky. 600 00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:23,520 He became a cause celebre when he exposed the Soviet regime's 601 00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:27,360 use of psychiatric institutions for political prisoners. 602 00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:33,760 Then in 1976, while in prison, Bukovsky was exchanged for a Chilean Communist leader. 603 00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:35,600 Can you tell us? 604 00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:38,640 Everything I will tell you tomorrow, excuse me very much. 605 00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,360 How do you feel? I'm very tired, you know. 606 00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:45,560 They came along and put your handcuffs on and took you out? 607 00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,360 Exactly, and they didn't tell me where. 608 00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:51,240 Only when I was 609 00:50:51,240 --> 00:50:57,040 put on board of a plane, I suddenly realised that I must have been expelled. 610 00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:03,000 In 1977, Bukovsky was invited to study in Britain. 611 00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:06,960 I wanted to know what he thought of Britain's view of Russia at that time. 612 00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,920 So when you came to Britain, what sort of attitude, apart from these 613 00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,720 people who were supporting you, did you find? 614 00:51:14,720 --> 00:51:20,160 When I came, it was still the government of Jim Callaghan, it was a Labour government - 615 00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:26,560 Old Labour, I must say, who were more ideologically attuned to the regime in Moscow. 616 00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,640 Although occasionally critical of it, they would be kind of 617 00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:35,960 inclined to understand it and forgive it and go along with it. 618 00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:39,000 It was not possible to change their minds at all. 619 00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:42,000 The general public was much better at that time. 620 00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:48,760 In the Soviet time, it was a closed society, so people knew that something is going on behind 621 00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:53,880 the Iron Curtain which they're not allowed to know, and only occasionally have a glimpse of it. 622 00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:55,880 I was one of these glimpses. 623 00:51:55,880 --> 00:52:00,320 And in '77-'78, it was the year when the... 624 00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:03,440 campaign for human rights became very fashionable. 625 00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:08,720 The repressive nature of the Soviet regime was pretty much obvious to people at that time, and they were 626 00:52:08,720 --> 00:52:13,400 sympathetic to anyone who tried to stand up to it. 627 00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:17,960 Bukovsky developed a friendship with Margaret Thatcher shortly after he arrived. 628 00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:21,440 But during perestroika, as the popular mood in Britain 629 00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:27,640 became pro-Russian, Bukovsky didn't agree with her support of Gorbachev. 630 00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:33,200 She took him seriously, she took him at face value, and I had to argue with her for seven years, 631 00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:36,040 trying to prove to her that he's not what she thinks. 632 00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:40,120 She would argue, she would say, "He's pragmatic." 633 00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:45,040 And I would say, "Give me definition of pragmatic communist, that's very strange creature." 634 00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:49,840 She wouldn't, and I would say, "I can give you a definition of pragmatic communist. 635 00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,400 "A pragmatic communist is a communist who run out of money, it's very simple." 636 00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:55,160 But she still would argue. 637 00:52:55,160 --> 00:53:02,040 But I think she saw the beginning of change, quite frankly, and that Gorbachev, whatever his intentions 638 00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:10,320 had been, was in fact instrumental, ultimately, in bringing about the fall of the Soviet Union. 639 00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,040 I would say God chooses very strange instruments. 640 00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:21,760 Initial reaction when the Soviet Union collapsed was kind of a great relief, and it's all over, and now 641 00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:25,720 Russia is instantly democratic, and no matter how much I tried to 642 00:53:25,720 --> 00:53:32,480 explain that it's not, and it's a big question would it ever be, no, that wouldn't be perceived. 643 00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:34,960 It's now democratic, finished. 644 00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:41,200 I can remember we, in my service, thought that this is a moment of greater openness, and maybe we'd 645 00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:45,040 be able to start having good relationships with our colleagues in Russia. 646 00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:48,680 But that's not really how it worked out. They're not really your colleagues, believe me. 647 00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:53,840 They're more like the Gestapo. Don't ever call them your colleagues. No. 648 00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:15,960 In December 1991, just a month before my 649 00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:21,640 appointment as Director-General of MI5 was announced, I made a journey that I never thought to make. 650 00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:23,280 I went to Moscow. 651 00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:30,880 We received a message from the man whom Yeltsin had put in charge of the KGB - Vadim Bakatin. 652 00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:33,240 He asked if we would come out and talk to the KGB 653 00:54:33,240 --> 00:54:39,880 about the regulations and laws necessary to govern intelligence services in a democracy. 654 00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:47,320 If that visit seems to mark a warmer phase in Anglo-Russian relations, things soon changed again. 655 00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:50,880 While in Moscow, I stayed with the British ambassador, Sir Rodric Braithwaite, 656 00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:55,800 and I've come to talk to him about that moment in 1991. 657 00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,520 We all really thought that maybe we were at the brink of a change, 658 00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:06,440 actually, and there I was, with a couple of colleagues, lecturing a long line of KGB officers. 659 00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:08,200 It was absolutely incredible. 660 00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:13,520 Meanwhile, of course, as we did a bit of sightseeing in our off moments, 661 00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:18,440 there they were following us around in a very Cold War-ish sort of way. 662 00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,240 The Cold War was still going on as far as we were concerned, 663 00:55:21,240 --> 00:55:23,960 at the same time as we were paying them a formal visit. 664 00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,760 The problem was that the KGB, like the Tsarist secret police before them, 665 00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:32,680 thought that they were the guardians of the state, not the Tsar, 666 00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:34,440 they were the best and brightest. 667 00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:38,480 They were the people. And therefore they could allow themselves, 668 00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:41,120 with the best motives in the world, to do all sorts of things. 669 00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:47,160 I can remember having meals in the embassy, and being conscious that there were microphones 670 00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:55,040 everywhere, and that we were openly discussing these things to the large listening ears of the KGB. 671 00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:59,240 What they heard us saying in the embassy, it provided employment for 672 00:55:59,240 --> 00:56:04,240 lots of nice people, but I don't believe it was all that valuable, particularly at that point. 673 00:56:04,240 --> 00:56:07,600 Your visit made me think, when you came out, of the 674 00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:14,840 Christmas truce in 1914, when on both sides of No Man's Land, these muddy figures emerged from the trenches 675 00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:19,840 and stumbled forward to shake hands and sing Christmas carols. 676 00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:23,360 And then the firing started, within hours. 677 00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,400 And people went back to the trenches and started shooting at one another. 678 00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:28,800 And actually that's what happened with you. 679 00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:37,480 In 1991, they lost, in a matter of months, an empire, a political system, an economic system, 680 00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:44,600 an ideology, a place as the other superpower, and by the end of that year, they were starving. 681 00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:47,120 Their enemies were sending them food aid. 682 00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:50,520 And lecturing them about democracy, and one thing and another. 683 00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:53,080 As we did, coming out to the KGB. 684 00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:54,920 And of course they resented it. 685 00:56:54,920 --> 00:57:00,080 It was a huge humiliation. Now, with oil and one thing and another, 686 00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:04,000 they feel, "You thought we were off the map, and now you see we're not." 687 00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:10,480 It goes back also a very long way - Peter the Great said, "Countries that didn't know we exist now see 688 00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:13,320 "that we've come into the light and they've got to take account of us." 689 00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:15,640 Russians have always felt that they're not 690 00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:17,520 taken at their full value. 691 00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:25,880 Over the years, we've created many different images of Russia. 692 00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:32,000 It seems clear to me now that these images reflect 693 00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:37,720 our own hopes and desires as much as the reality of Anglo-Russian relations. 694 00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:42,280 We've been influenced, sometimes by Russia herself, more often by 695 00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:45,560 individuals, emigres, vested interests, or our own government. 696 00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:50,120 Our strange dance with the great Russian bear has all too often 697 00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:55,560 just wheeled us round in circles, condemning us endlessly to repeat history. 698 00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:02,840 Somewhere, in this cemetery, lies the grave of Alexander Litvinenko, 699 00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,960 whose sinister murder in the heart of London 700 00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:11,800 raised again in people's minds the sense that Russia is a country that behaves unpredictably, 701 00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:16,360 unscrupulously, and in ways that we find alien. 702 00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:19,360 But Russia is the largest country in Europe. 703 00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:22,120 It's a country with whom we have to do business. 704 00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:27,440 Somehow, there seems to me to be a question unanswered, that still remains, 705 00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:31,880 and that is, will we ever truly understand and trust each other?