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Unit SEVEN
TEXT
From THE TIME OF MY LIFE
By Denis Healey
DRAWING BACK THE CURTAIN
Denis Healey was born in 1917 and brought up in Yorkshire. After gaining a
double first at Balliol College, Oxford, for six years he was a soldier learning about
real life.
Another six years as International Secretary of the Labour Party taught him
much about politics, both at home and abroad. From 1952 to 1992 he was a Labour
Member of Parliament for Leeds.
He is a prolific journalist and broadcaster. He has published
Healey’s Eye
, a book
on his life as a photographer, and has contributed essays to many publications for the
Fabian Society
1
including New Fabian essays and Fabian International Essays.
When Shrimps Learn to Whistle, Signposts for the Nineties
, also published by
Penguin, include a selection of his earlier writings which are relevant to the world
after the Cold War.
In the early years after the war, when we first heard the truth of
what Russia was doing in Eastern Europe, and began to look more
objectively at the Soviet Union itself, my generation was powerfully
influenced by George Orwell’s
1984
, and by a flood of books which
purported to analyse the nature of totalitarianism.
My visits to Eastern Europe cured me of any erratic illusions. No
power could destroy national traditions which were rooted in centu-
ries of history. Moreover, these peoples yearned to return to the Eu-
rope in which Chopin and Bartok were part of a common civilisation
with Bach and Verdi. Once Stalin died, it was clear that Soviet Com-
munism already carried the seeds of its own destruction. The Russia
of Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Herzen was still there beneath the surface.
Stalin could no more expunge it from the consciousness of its people
than Hitler could liquidate the Germany of Beethoven, Goethe, and
Kant.
137
I had been fascinated by Russia since I read its great novelists as
a schoolboy. My years in the Communist Party at Oxford had given
me sufficient understanding of Stalinism to reject it even while I still
saw Russia as a socialist state and a necessary ally against Hitler.
I was also impressed by much of pre-war Soviet culture.
The great Soviet film-makers of those days — Eisenstein, Pudovkin,
and Dovzhenko — seemed superior to their Western rivals. Though
I loathed “Socialist Realism”, I admired the paintings of Deineka.
They were in a book given me by a friend; she also introduced me to
Shostakovich’s opera,
The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
After the war I found that my friend had disappeared during the
great purges, and that
Lady Macbeth
had been banned.
This helped to reinforce the bitter hostility I had developed for
Soviet policies both at home and abroad.
When Stalin died, I was at first deeply suspicious of the changes
introduced by his successors.
There were ample grounds for my distrust. The new men, all prod-
ucts of the old system, claimed loyalty to its principles.
At the beginning of 1956 Malenkov came to Britain as Deputy
Premier, shortly after losing the leadership to Krushchev. His visit
was such a propaganda success that people wondered how the Polit-
buro could ever have replaced him.
Bulganin and Krushchev followed Malenkov to Britain a few
months later. Their visit was less successful.
Yet in fact Krushchev continued and extended the liberal pro-
grammes which Malenkov had introduced. The Foreign Office
rightly saw him during that visit as a shrewd and cunning political
leader, by comparison with the better educated and more courteous
Bulganin. By 1958 I myself had come to the conclusion that Krush-
chev was ‘one of the half-dozen greatest political leaders of this cen-
tury. It is doubtful whether any other known figure could operate the
Soviet system on a basis of persuasion and incentive as successfully
as he. His outstanding personal characteristics are pragmatism and
self-confidence... Compared with Stalin he seems little interested in
the theory of communism — his faith is all the more formidable because
it is not overdogmatic. Both at home and abroad, he insists on seeing
things for himself — no modern Prime Minister has travelled so
widely. To this extent summit conferences may have a special value
in dealing with the Russians today, providing the West can produce
leaders of comparable ability.’ I still maintain these views; they apply
even more to Gorbachev.
138
It was now clear that the picture which the West had painted of
the Soviet Union in the early post-war years needed drastic revision.
I made my first visit to Russia the following year as part of a Labour
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