The Russia Conundrum

For Mikhail Gorbachev, who watched the interview in the Kremlin, there were several important wins. Mrs Thatcher had pointed out the stifling effects of the old-style Soviet command system that he was struggling to transform; she had laid out the benefits that accrue from incentivised work, just as he was about to introduce limited competition in some areas of the economy; and she had praised his liberal reforms, calling on the Soviet people to support his open-society initiatives: if the USSR were to become more open and more democratic, she said, its people would begin to enjoy the ‘Western’ benefits of freedom and prosperity.

‘You [in the USSR] are introducing a much more open society; you can discuss things much more openly than you ever have done before. That is part of our beliefs … I have a much better idea now of Mr Gorbachev’s hopes and this tremendous challenge for the Soviet people under your restructuring [perestroika] and the new open society. We wish you well in this great endeavour and we hope it will be very successful.’

Mrs Thatcher ended the interview by painting a picture of the future that many Russians wanted for themselves; a future in which they would be permitted not only to travel to the West, but to share in the advantages that seemed to flow from liberal free-market democracy.

‘We want you to travel more frequently to us because we think it is more and more important to build up friendship between peoples and to build up trust and confidence between the people of the Soviet Union and the people of Western Europe and in particular the United Kingdom. I have loved my visit here. I have very much enjoyed the warm welcome you have given me. I will not forget it and I hope to see quite a lot of you in the United Kingdom so you may know more of our way of life and how we do things and more of our people will come to see you. Thank you for your good wishes, thank you for your kindness. Let us hope that there is a better future ahead for all of us.’

It was a powerful message and it was greeted with approbation by the majority of those watching. Unused to challenging debate, the three Soviet interviewers felt they had been trounced by a masterly opponent. One of them, Vladimir Simonov, reflected that he and his colleagues had been ‘as ineffective as village chess players taking on Garry Kasparov’. Boris Kalyagin agreed. ‘She was excellent; very quick; and she always found the right words to answer us. We didn’t make any cuts, any changes; so for the first time, everything she said, everything was on air. People could listen to it and make their own conclusions. I think it was the beginning of glasnost in international affairs. Mrs Thatcher was the winner of the discussion.’

An estimated 100 million people tuned in, and the broadcast sparked a lively debate. Many viewers complained about the interviewers’ ‘aggressive’ and ‘impolite’ conduct. Women especially leapt to Mrs Thatcher’s defence. ‘You lost the battle – three men against a single woman,’ Kalyagin recalled people saying. The admiration for Mrs Thatcher as a representative of Western values was evident. In despatches assessing the impact of the prime minister’s appearance, the British ambassador, Bryan Cartledge, wrote about the ‘Maggie-mania’ that had gripped the country, with Russians reportedly referring to her as Nasha Masha – ‘our Maggie’ – and hanging on her words as if they were the promise of a new life. ‘Spectaculars like MT’s visit, and especially the live TV interview, dramatically demonstrated his [Gorbachev’s] commitment to glasnost,’ Cartledge suggested. ‘One might add perhaps the importance to Gorbachev of giving the Soviet public a sense of progress in the direction he sought to go.’

Barely 18 months earlier, Britain and the USSR had been at loggerheads, engaged in a bitter round of diplomatic expulsions following the defection of Oleg Gordievsky, the London KGB chief. And Mrs Thatcher was not slow to confront Gorbachev. On the eve of her visit, a demonstration in Moscow by Jewish families denied permission to emigrate to Israel had been broken up by police. At a meeting in the Kremlin, she brought up the incident and spoke on behalf of persecuted dissidents such as Anatoly Shcharansky, Josef Begun and Andrei Sakharov. Her refusal to go soft on the Kremlin’s human rights record enhanced her moral authority and her reputation; she was seen as close to Ronald Reagan and speaking on behalf of ‘the West.’

Margaret Thatcher hugs a little girl during her Moscow visit in 1987

Margaret Thatcher waves and smiles at the crowds during the same trip