‘Long Cold War’? Intelligence and the precarious Anglo-Soviet wartime alliance
Date
2023-06-01
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Abstract
During the interwar period (1919-1939), British politicians were unwilling to treat the revolutionary Soviet state as a serious factor in European politics. From the British side, the relationship was marked by frustration, mistrust, and animosity. This was an early, ideologically-driven Cold War. As Europe’s clouds darkened in the 1930s and a new war seemed increasingly possible, a British-Soviet partnership was a possibility, but both opted to deal instead with Adolf Hitler in the desperate hopes of avoiding war. Hitler would eventually bring Britain and the USSR together when he launched Barbarossa in June 1941. The Second World War forced the Anglo-Soviet relationship to change. Once the USSR survived the German attack, it became increasingly clear the Red Army would destroy Nazi Germany and dominate the European political picture. Although the wartime Anglo-Soviet partnership, embodied in the ‘Grand Alliance’ that included the United States, was often on shaky ground, Britain, knowing it needed the USSR after the war, sought to determine if it would be a cooperative or hostile power. This process, begun in 1943, used a new source of intelligence: intercepted diplomatic communications from various European capitals. Diplomats closely watched the Grand Alliance both as a war-fighting entity, and that which would determine the peace settlement after victory. These well-positioned and perceptive diplomats understood the European political map faced an upheaval, and they sought to assess the danger presented by the USSR. Their observations offered British politicians valuable insight into Soviet intentions, which, increasingly, portended a confrontational postwar relationship as Moscow, relentlessly pursuing the security of its borders, sought to expand its influence into states like Poland and Turkey. These communications have been little used by historians, and never for the purpose of contextualizing how British leaders grappled with their position as a power in eclipse, their relationship with the ascendant United States, and whether the USSR would support or subvert a postwar settlement.
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Keywords
Communications Intelligence, Diplomacy, Alliances
Citation
Cabel, P. M. B. (2023). ‘Long Cold War’? Intelligence and the precarious Anglo-Soviet wartime alliance (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.