The Petrov Affair

Evdokia Petrov escorted by armed Soviet guards at Mascot Airport. Image from the National Archives of Australia.

On this day, 13 April 1954, Robert Menzies publicly announces that Soviet Embassy official Vladimir Petrov had defected to Australia and brought with him evidence of a Soviet spy-ring. This was news that would shock the nation; compounded with the dramatic scenes that surrounded the defection of Evdokia Petrov a week later and then the further revelations of a Royal Commission on Espionage, the ‘Petrov Affair’ would have political ramifications for decades to come.

Vladimir Petrov had arrived in Australia with his wife Evdokia in 1951, both to ostensibly work within the Soviet Embassy. However, both were in fact well connected members of the Soviet secret intelligence service with a mission to undermine their host nation. Vladimir was responsible for decoding instructions from Moscow and setting up a network of Soviet spies within Australia, while Evdokia performed code and cypher work.

The impetus behind their defection was not a new-found ideological opposition to the spread of international communism, but a shift in the internal politics of the USSR. Joseph Stalin died in March of 1953, and in the repercussions that followed the dictator’s passing the head of the secret police Lavrentiy Beria was arrested and executed. As associates of Beria, the Petrovs were concerned that they might meet an ill fate should they return home.

It was Vladimir who defected first without informing Evdokia, making the decision after an extended period of courting by ASIO official and Polish émigré Dr Michael Bialoguski. When the Soviet Embassy became aware of what was happening, Evdokia was told that her husband had been kidnapped by the Australians, and she was placed under house arrest as two couriers were sent from Moscow to escort her home.

By the time they arrived, the news of the Petrov Affair had broken, and when Evdokia and her chaperones attempted to fly out of Mascot Airport they were met by an angry crowd composed mainly of recent migrants from Eastern Europe, who broke through police barriers. The presence of these people, who themselves had seen their home countries overtaken by communist regimes, highlights how tangible the threat of communist expansion felt at the time.

The group managed to board the plane with Evdokia losing a shoe in the commotion, but the pilot was in radio communication with ASIO officials who had a plan. When the plane landed in Darwin the next morning Evdokia was physically separated from her escorts, who had committed the offence of carrying weapons over Australian airspace, and she was asked if she wanted to stay in Australia. Evdokia was concerned about retaliation that her family might face in the USSR, but she agreed to defect after speaking to her husband via telephone.

Menzies informed the House of Representatives of Vladimir’s defection on the night before Parliament was due to be prorogued for the 1954 election, setting up a Royal Commission to investigate the revelations post-haste and expressing his regret that the need for urgency meant that this could not be delayed until after the impending poll. Opposition Leader H.V. Evatt was not in attendance that night, as he had left early for an event in Sydney – later leading to false allegations that Menzies had timed the announcement for his political advantage.

That is not to deny that there was a political advantage in the turn of events for Menzies. There was, but it is difficult to accurately gauge its impact, and it was inherent and inevitable rather than being deliberately cultivated by Menzies. The most consequential and lasting advantage would ultimately be that which was produced by the reaction of Evatt himself.

Australia’s spy-ring was far from the first attempt at communist subversion to be uncovered in the Democratic West, a notable precedent being the revelations flowing from the defection to Canada of Igor Gouzenko shortly after the end of World War Two. The public discovery occasioned by Petrov confirmed the suspicions of Menzies who had long been warning of the potential for a Communist ‘fifth column’ that would help to undermine Australia in the event of a global convict. It was this fear, which was also informed by intelligence that had not been made public, which lay behind Menzies’s attempt to ban the Communist Party that had narrowly failed at a referendum held in September 1951.

The Petrov revelations thus helped Menzies recover from that poll defeat in time for the election to be held on 29 May. Although Menzies’s re-election campaign focused primarily on the Government’s positive economic record and the big spending promises of his Labor Opponent, eschewing direct mention of Petrov, Menzies was not above accusing Labor of showing themselves to be ‘soft’ on communism by their opposition to the referendum:

‘But where do the Labor leaders stand? If they say that they are now the enemies of Communism will you accept this repentance, or will you conclude that they are now trimming their sails to the prevailing winds of public opinion?’

Menzies won the election by 7 seats despite Labor narrowly winning the overall two-party-preferred vote. This was largely due to the Coalition’s continued dominance in the State of Queensland, though the Petrov issue likely helped the overall cause.

After the election was over, the Royal Commission would implicate members of Evatt’s staff as having been involved in the spy-ring. Overcome by the disappointment of the narrow loss, this was the tipping point for Evatt who became convinced that the whole defection had been concocted to win the election. He would even go so far as to infamously write to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov in an attempt to disprove the Commission’s findings.

Internally within the ALP, Evatt blamed the election loss on the Victorian branch which had become dominated by members of the ‘Industrial Groups’ or ‘Groupers’. These were organisations that had been trying to combat the influence of the Communist Party of Australia in the trade union movement, and their operations had been sanctioned by Evatt’s predecessor as Labor leader Ben Chifley. The Groupers tended to be members of the Catholic faith who were intensely opposed to communism because it was an explicitly atheistic ideology that had cracked down on religious groups once in power, and they were closely associated with the politically ambitious figure of B.A. Santamaria.

Evatt’s denunciation of the Victorian branch caused his party to irrevocably split. Those opposed to Evatt formed the Labor Party (Anti-Communist), later renamed the Democratic Labor Party, and directed their supporters to preference the Coalition ahead of the ALP when voting. Menzies would capitalise on Labor’s disarray by going to an early election in 1955, which he won by a landslide. On the back of DLP preferences Menzies would go on to hold power until his retirement in 1966 and the Coalition until 1972, a length of time without precedent which fundamentally altered the course of Australian history.

Further Reading:

David Horner, The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO 1949-1963 (Allen & Unwin, 2014).

‘Defining Moments: The Petrov Affair’, National Museum of Australia, https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/petrov-affair

A.W. Martin, Robert Menzies, A Life Volume 2 1944-1978 (Melbourne University Press, 1999).