The Cold War and Thirty Years of Anglo-Soviet Cultural Exchange

Alice Naisbitt | University of Manchester

‘The whole point of the Cultural Agreement… was that we were trying to undermine the Russians and the Russians were trying to undermine us.’ – Richard Joscelyn, British Council Oral History Interview, 2011.

In March 1959 two important meetings took place in Moscow. The more famous of the two involved the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. This historic, ten-day trip was the first visit of a Western leader to the Soviet Union since Joseph Stalin’s death in March 1953 and represented an attempt to de-escalate Cold War tensions. This meeting, where Khrushchev famously claimed to have toothache to get out of a meeting with the British Prime Minister, was a resounding propaganda success for Macmillan who looked amenable in comparison to Khrushchev’s intransigence. Importantly, Macmillan also walked away with an Anglo-Soviet Communiqué which committed both countries to increasing cultural and commercial contacts.

Macmillan is an old man with a moustache, Krushchev is a hairless old man. — British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev (Wikimedia Commons and Dutch National Archives).

Enter the second British group to visit Moscow in March 1959: the Soviet Relations Committee (SRC) of the British Council. The SRC – whose membership comprised of members of the Council, a handful of MPs and representatives from the Cultural Relations Department of the Foreign Office – were joined by the British Ambassador to Moscow when they met with the Soviet State Committee for Cultural Relations. The British Council was formed in 1934 to promote Britain and the English language abroad and to ‘develop[…] closer cultural relations between [the UK] and other countries.’ Since then, they had organised cultural exchanges across the globe, established dozens of permanent overseas offices, and cemented themselves as ‘the soft power extension of UK foreign policy’. They were ostensibly independent of government but did rely heavily on Foreign Office funding.

Photograph of one of the permanent British Council Offices that were established overseas, this one shows the building in Madrid. Wikimedia Commons.

The SRC formed in 1955 to encourage increased contact with the Soviet Union, which at this time was limited. When searching for potential avenues of communication with their Cold War enemy, the Council posed cultural exchange as the way forward. This rationale rested on the idea that cultural exchanges (in dance, music, literature, art, or science) might persevere despite political differences, and assist in spreading a positive image of Britain. This was a prevailing logic at the time, and many credit the Cold War with the start of formal cultural diplomacy. Nations on either side of the Iron Curtain recognised the value of culture in trying to win over the loyalty of foreign publics and establish cross-border communication, and the US and USSR in particular used cultural exchanges to promote capitalist and communist ideologies respectfully. Famous examples of cultural diplomacy include the Lacy-Zarubin Agreement (1958) between the US and USSR, which committed both superpowers to exchanges of broadcasts, films, students, and artists, and also the world tour of Soviet cosmonaut and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961.

Gagarin is a handsome young man in uniform, and the statue is vaguely modernist. — Yuri Gagarin, 'the first man in space', at a Press Conference in Finland (1961, Wikimedia Commons) and statue of Yuri Gagarin at the Spring Gardens, for an exhibition at the British Council (Wikimedia Commons).

The creation of the Soviet State Committee for Cultural Relations, who signed this Cultural Agreement with the Council, represented the increasing importance placed on cultural exchange by Soviet officials. The Committee, announced in 1957, was designed to improve Soviet cultural exchanges around the globe. The Chairman of the Committee, Yuri ‘Georgy’ Zhukov, compared the work of the new organisation to the British Council. Though the Council had no direct governmental oversight for its day-to-day running, which cannot be said for the Soviet Committee.

It was within this environment that conversations arose about the possibility of setting up a formal agreement between Britain and the Soviet Union, to ensure committed cultural contacts between the two nations. This was the idea that led the SRC to Moscow in March 1959. Capitalising on the relatively friendly political environment that had been engendered by Macmillan’s visit earlier in the month and armed with the knowledge that a Communiqué had already been agreed, MP Christopher Mayhew, Chairman of the SRC, negotiated an Anglo-Soviet Cultural Agreement which set out a programme of exchanges in the fields of science, technology, education, and culture. The initial agreement covered a vast array of exchanges involving everyone from artists to Shakespearean actors, ballet dancers to teachers, youth groups to scientists, who were exchanged for anywhere between a couple weeks to an entire year.

Due to the tense nature of East-West relations at this time, the agreement could not go any further without being ratified by both governments. This ratification took place on 1 December 1959, and formally constituted the ‘Agreement between the Governments of the UK and USSR on Relations in the Scientific, Technological, Educational and Cultural Fields, 1960-1961.’ The official treaty claimed lofty ambitions, as it stated that the exchanges would ‘promote the further improvements of relations between the two countries and thereby assist in reducing international tensions.’

Though measuring whether the Anglo-Soviet Cultural Agreement did succeed in ‘improving relations’ or ‘reducing international tensions’ is difficult, the Agreement was a resounding success. It lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, meaning that the Council oversaw thirty years’ worth of cultural exchanges and facilitated the movement of hundreds of individuals across the Iron Curtain. The supposed separation of cultural activities from politics meant that the Cultural Agreement could withstand periods of worsening Anglo-Soviet relations, for example, the mounting international tensions during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the world nearly descended into nuclear war, or the period of renewed Cold War hostility in the 1980s, when the Western world was led by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Tanks and military personnel guard the checkpoint. — A Physical East-West Divide, Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point between East and West Berlin, on the Berlin Wall, 1961 (Wikimedia Commons).

Because of the official ratification, the Anglo-Soviet Cultural Agreement was commonly referred to as an ‘intergovernmental’ agreement, in acknowledgement of the fact that both governments were heavily involved in the negotiation process. However, the British Council were responsible for the day-to-day administration and financing of the exchanges. They were the ones who facilitated communication between the different parties involved and who provided advice, travel arrangements, and even entertainment for the visitors. This involvement highlights the importance of non-governmental organisations in cultural diplomacy endeavours. Visits of diplomats and politicians to other countries were, and are, regarded with an elevated level of scrutiny even amongst allied nations. Although all exchanges across the East-West divide were closely monitored, these visits under the Cultural Agreement could occur with such frequency because they did not involve politicians and therefore did not require the same level of screening. Note, however, the nature of the Soviet political system meant that the Soviet side of operations could not claim this degree of separation from government: all decisions regarding the Cultural Agreement in the USSR had to be state-approved.

The British Council’s status as the main organising body allowed the Cultural Agreement to navigate around tricky political issues that impeded official government-to-government talks. For example, at this time the Soviets had been jamming BBC’s Russian language broadcasts and preventing the sale of British newspapers. This issue complicated official government negotiations, however presented no barrier for the Council who did not have to concern themselves with such political issues. Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, when asked to explain in the House of Commons in April 1959 why the Cultural Agreement had been agreed without assurances from the Soviets about the two above issues, merely replied: ‘such issues […] are subjects for inter-governmental discussion and as such were outside the scope [of British Council negotiations].’ The fact that the Council were not directly steered by a Government committee and dealt with non-political cultural exchanges gave them a thin veneer of neutrality, which they exploited to great effect in this highly sensitive political atmosphere.

However, despite this supposed distance from political agendas, the exchanges also represented a significant part of Britain’s attempt to spread a Western influence in the Soviet Union. Richard Joscelyn, a British Council Officer who was posted to Moscow in the early years of the Cultural Agreement, when interviewed in 2011, said that the reason they had spent so much time on the Cultural Agreement is because [the Council] hoped it would ‘undermine the regime’. Tours of Shakespearean troupes and ballet groups were mobilised to show the prestige of British arts and literature. Senior scientists exemplified how Britain was a world leader in scientific research and encouraged Soviet colleagues to engage with the Western scientific world. Undercutting each exchange was an attempt to show just how good Western society was. As such, prestige and propaganda were at the centre of the endeavour, embodying the hope, as one Council official put it, that the Cultural Agreement could help to loosen the Soviets’ ‘ideological shackles’.

Whether or not the Anglo-Soviet Cultural Agreement was successful in loosening these metaphorical shackles is up for debate, but what this episode does highlight is how important culture was to British foreign relations during the Cold War. Cultural exchange was at the heart of Cold War international politics and the British Council were an essential part of the British cultural diplomacy effort. The Anglo-Soviet Cultural Agreement lasted for thirty years, only stopped by the fall of the Soviet Union, and was Britain’s main channel of cultural exchange with their Cold War opposition; an impressive achievement! Though, it would be interesting to see whether the Soviets themselves regarded the Agreement in such a positive light.

This episode also raises questions that linger in today’s politics, namely should cultural exchange and cultural contact continue even in the face of political tension, broken diplomatic relations or even out-and-out military conflict? Such questions were raised in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and are being debated now in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Economic sanctions often form part of a state’s official response to such events, but should cultural sanctions apply? Should for example, Israel have been banned from participating in the Paris Olympic Games in 2024? Or should culture remain separate from politics – a line of connection designed to prevent isolation or extremist retaliation? Culture and cultural diplomacy can be both a weapon and an olive branch, choosing which route to go down is an ongoing and fractured debate, but perhaps one that would benefit from an acknowledgement of historical precedents.

The Cold War and Thirty Years of Anglo-Soviet Cultural Exchange

Alice Naisbitt | University of Manchester

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