‘Worlds apart’: The British embassy in Moscow and the search for east‐west understanding

Abstract

For most of the period since 1945, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were ideologically ‘worlds apart’. The British Embassy in Moscow pursued three main goals: to provide information about Soviet domestic and foreign policy; to promote British trade and develop scientific and cultural exchanges; and to seek to influence Soviet foreign policy on wider international issues. The opportunities for doing this were limited by the cold war, as well as by the longer legacy of rivalry dating back to the Bolshevik revolution and, indeed, the Tsarist era. The embassy managed to overcome the confining nature of diplomatic life in the Soviet Union and was able to give the government in London an accurate portrait of the main features of Soviet life ‐ though it failed to predict Soviet collapse. It succeeded in maintaining trading and cultural links. Its exercise of influence, however, was restricted to a brief period in the 1990s. While this phase passed, it did constitute a watershed. Thereafter, despite continuing disagreements, there is no longer a fundamental gulf between Russia and the West.