On 24 March 1946 at 19:45 Moscow time, Sonia (Betty) Horsfall hosted the first programme produced by the BBC Russian Service. The newsletter included reports on the negotiations between Iran and the USSR regarding the withdrawal of Soviet troops, with Iran being referred to by its pre-revolutionary name, Persia, and the Soviet withdrawal from the north-eastern provinces of China, being called the “evacuation from Manchuria”.
The BBC has broadcast to the Soviet Union before: on 23 June 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speech in support of the people of the USSR after Hitler's attack, was translated into Russian. The BBC was the platform for the Allies’ propaganda. The newsletter was broadcast from the studios once a week by two TASS representatives with the text was edited by the Soviet Ambassador to London, Ivan Maisky. However, the Kremlin later changed its mind about cooperating with the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The BBC Russian Service began broadcasting regularly in 1946 and followed the principles of BBC founder Lord Reith “to inform, educate and entertain”. However, after Winston Churchill's speech in Fulton on 5 March 1946, the Russian Service could no longer be kept out of the war of words that was developing between Britain and Russia.
In 1949, for example, the former head of the Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, appeared on the BBC. In his speech, he would call for getting rid of the Bolsheviks – which, in Britain, with its long history of freedom of speech, did not seem to be as much of a “disruptive action” as it did within the USSR.
From 1949, the USSR would begin to “jam” the radio station's programmes with strong interference. The BBC would for decades serve as a source of alternative information and opinions on current events, and would even enter folklore with the saying: “There is a custom in Russia – to listen to the BBC at night”.
Source:
BBC News Online – Official website of BBC News
