RussiaAT the time when Margaret and Helena were preparing for their last year at Oxford, Andrei graduated at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
By now he knew much more about the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. From his school he had won his place at the Institute against fierce competition from school leavers all over the Soviet Union. Most of the students at the Institute were children of the elite in the Communist Party, the Nomenklatura, those with access to special privileges. A tiny number of places each year were reserved for open competition. Andrei’s father had never been more than a nominal Party member, the bottom rung which enabled him to keep his academic job, but Andrei’s brilliance and his almost perfect English and German won him his place.
Some of
