Eighty years ago this week the Soviet mask slips visibily

 

News broke publicly in Canada that Igor Gouzenko, a junior officer of the Soviet GRU intelligence service, had defected the previous September. He had been able to brief his handlers on a range of Soviet espionage operations most notably into the programme to develop nuclear weapons. The prime minister Mackenzie King had hoped to brush the affair under the carpet to avoid ructions with what was still officially an ally but the affair became the first full revelation of aggressive Soviet intelligence activities against the West. Gouzenko lived the rest of his life in hiding.

In an acrimonious debate at the UN Security Coucil the Soviet Union demanded that British forces be withdrawn from Greece where they served to block a communist takeover. Ernest Bevin the British foreign secretary firmly rejected the Soviet accusation that the British were in any way endangering peace.

The Soviet Union formally annexed the Kuril Islands chain which it had invaded under the authority of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements. The Japanese ethnic inhabitants were soon expelled. The status of the southern islands is still disputed because of ambiguities in the agreements.