Exercising a ‘Cultural Veto’: The Politics of Britain's Cultural Diplomacy with the USSR, 1955-59

Reviewing the Cold War History

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore Britain's clandestine cultural activities in the USSR conducted by the British Council's Soviet Relations Committee (SRC). Established in 1955 in response to Foreign Office requests for a body that would be responsible for ‘the promotion of closer relations between Great Britain and the U. S. S. R.’, it is argued that, in reality, the government wanted the SRC to act as a bulwark against the activities of domestic Communist ‘friendly societies’. The paper seeks to identify and evaluate the attitude adopted by the British Government towards cultural interchange with the USSR by elucidating upon the value given by contemporaries to cultural propaganda in the political forum, and then moves forward to address the question as to what the government hoped to gain from a cultural-intercourse with the USSR, or rather, how abstention from official cultural commitments was the strategic aim of the government. The SRC was well aware of the dangers and benefits associated with cultural penetration, and, from the outset, was anxious to avoid getting involved in protracted negotiations over a binding cultural agreement. Whilst resisting Soviet advances to create a formalised agreement, the SRC acted as a stent, keeping open a channel of communication with the Soviet authorities, and implanting—in Soviet eyes—the corruptive seeds of democracy.
The paper concludes by suggesting that the politics of international cultural, relations being conducted behind the Iron Curtain changed rapidly with events in world affairs during the 1950s, such as the Hungarian Crisis. Whilst the policy of the British Government initially appeared beneficial to British interests, it soon became clear that the Soviets were gaining more from these cultural exchanges in terms of the technical expertise that they acquired, and the propaganda they could attach to them. They endorsed cultural relations, but cultural relations had to be on their terms. The ambivalence of the SRC's status presented an obstacle to the Soviet authorities that initially held them at bay, but in the end, proved to be counterproductive and ultimately ineffective, resulting in its disbandment in 1959. However, the achievement of the SRC was that it helped to increase the volume of western representations of ‘democratic’ ideals both at home and in the USSR, and fostered a relationship with the USSR that was far from being merely ‘passive’-rather, Britain's cultural diplomacy in this period was a raft of unique and subtle strategies, which, though it ultimately failed, attempted to conduct cultural propaganda at arms-length, in order to pursue Britain's own world-view.
It must be emphasised that some of the materials used in this article are, to date, still categorised as being ‘closed files’ in the National Archives, London. For this reason, permission to access and make use of the material contained in these files was granted by the British Council on the signed undertaking that the names of individuals mentioned would not be published.