Petrov Affair
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The Petrov Affair refers to an important event in Australian history in 1954, where the Russian diplomat and spy Vladimir Petrov applied for political asylum in Australia, on the grounds that he could provide information regarding a Soviet spy ring operating out of the Russian Embassy in Australia. The Russians demanded that Mrs. Petrova, (Mr. Petrov's wife; in Russian, women's surnames take a feminine ending), be returned to Russia. A massive public outcry resulted as Mrs. Petrova was dragged by force onto a plane at Sydney's Mascot airport. Crowds were furious, thinking that she was being abducted by the Communist guards back to her native Russia. As the rioting crowds attempted to free her, one of her shoes came off, as seen in a famous newspaper photograph. When the plane stopped over in Darwin, it was revealed that the guards were carrying guns. Mrs. Petrova was subsequently released and was soon granted political asylum.
This event happened during the height of the Cold War, and the rampant fear of communism in Australia led to the event being sensationalised by the media, which played Mr. and Mrs. Petrov out to be former Soviet spies "converted" to capitalism by the Australian lifestyle.
Liberal Party Prime Minister Robert Menzies used political spin doctoring to further play out the event as evidence that the threat of Communism was real and unexaggerated. The Petrov Affair essentially won the next election for Menzies, as well as plunging the Australian Labor Party into discord, resulting in the Labor Party split into the Australian Labor Party and the Democratic Labor Party. The DLP was much more anti-communist and pro-Catholic.
Australians fondly remember the Petrov affair as their own exciting Soviet spy story; almost as a reverse of the Rosenbergs affair.pl:Sprawa Petrowa