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

Healey’s irritation with the flip-flopping approach of Britain’s left to international relations is clear from another of Chernyaev’s diary entries.

In a farewell session of speeches and cognac, Healey took the opportunity to tease Dave Priscott, the member of the delegation from the Communist Party of Great Britain, for being disloyal to Moscow. Chernyaev writes:

I had to say goodbye to both of them. We went to a guest room to have some cognac. I made some speeches, trying to joke, to prod. In response Healey spoke, and only at the very end he remembered about Priscott, turned to him and fired off roughly this: ‘I suppose, Comrade [Chernyaev’s emphasis] Priscott does not feel offended that I’ve spoken for both of us and have eaten up all the time remaining before the flight.’ Priscott started nodding, smiling pitifully and obsequiously. ‘But, I beg your pardon! Perhaps, after the recent events in your party and its upcoming emergency congress, I won’t be able to call you Comrade anymore, I’ll have to say “Mister”!’

Everybody laughed. But it was a brilliant move against the CPGB’s shift to anti-Sovietism.

Of course, history does not record what Priscott may have said when ‘comrade Healey’ became ‘Lord Healey’ in 1992. By then Britain’s extreme left were a marginal political force and the Soviet Union itself had disintegrated.

However, until all the Kremlin’s documents are released, the spectre of that crumbled empire will continue to haunt the left in Britain. Labour will be hoping there are precious few diaries among them.