Kinnock and the Kremlin

11 November 2009

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In the second part of our investigation into Labour’s dealings with the USSR, Pavel Stroilov reveals the secret Soviet diplomacy behind one leader’s most famous victory

This time, however, the policy Holland discussed was a rather different one. While he assured the Soviets that press speculation about a radical change of Labour’s defence policy was ‘unfounded’, there was to be a change; as Gorbachev himself had told Bahr, a policy of multilateral disarmament seemed more realistic than a unilateral one. According to the transcript, Holland then said:

‘The Labour party is currently preparing a new defence paper, which will be published in eight to nine months. The Labour concept will be perfectly clear from that paper, and that will be a concept of a nuclear-free Europe.’

Sure enough, nine months later, the Labour NEC approved Kinnock’s plans. None of these dealings with Moscow reveals any anxieties within the Labour leadership about how their party’s unilateralists would react, though Lord Kinnock explains that: ‘Until March 1989 only Gerald Kaufman and I, and our most immediate associates, had full knowledge of our approach — disclosure would have enabled opponents of change to organise resistance. In August 1988 Stuart Holland would have gathered that change from “solitary disarmament” was probable but certainly would have not known of the extent of change that I was determined to secure.’

But one thing is clear: by the time of the NEC vote, Moscow was already on side.