Winston Churchill's Racist, Anti-Communist Speech in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946
On March 5, 1946, former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill delivered what has become known as his "Iron Curtain" speech (officially titled "The Sinews of Peace") at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in the presence of U.S. President Harry Truman and an estimated audience of about 40,000. After some preliminary remarks, the speech revealed its main purpose which was to attack the Soviet Union. Churchill declared, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent." The phrase "iron curtain" became part of the popular lexicon and in subsequent years was used over and over by the British and U.S. to demonize the Soviet Union and attack its revolutionary leadership.
Churchill's speech is often said to have signalled the official beginning of the Cold War. However, both Britain and the U.S. had been conspiring and manoeuvring against the Soviet Union long before the end of the war, such as the refusal to open a second front, in the hopes that Nazi Germany would overwhelm the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. British aristocrats supported Hitler, while U.S. corporations funded domestic fascist groups while other monopolies secretly aided the Hitlerites throughout the entire war. However, the Anglo-American imperialists were faced with the reality that due to the heroism of the Red Army, Soviet Union and partisan forces in defeating Nazism, communism enjoyed great prestige after World War II. Thus, the Anglo-Americans needed a justification to smash the anti-fascist alliance. Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech was an important rationalization of the Anglo-American imperialists for attacking the anti-fascist united front, claiming that there now existed two worlds, one called "free" and centred around the U.S., the other called "enslaved," centred around the Soviet Union. Churchill, along with others, called for a grand Anglo-American strategy (including geo-political considerations and war aims) linked to notions of laws and values to combat this development. After the death of Stalin and rise of revisionism, the Soviet Union subsequently conciliated with the notion of two worlds and on this basis a bipolar world order was created.
In his speech at Fulton, Churchill called for Britain to form an even closer "special relationship" with the United States against the Soviet Union, the former wartime ally of the two countries. Britain was in decline with its former empire slipping away and its position as "leader of the Western world" being taken over by the United States, which had emerged from the war virtually unscathed and more powerful than ever before. In that vein, at several points in the speech, Churchill referred to "English-speaking" nations, saying that these were the most valuable, and therefore should decide and rule over the destiny of the world.
Churchill's speech proposed that opposing the Nazis, old and new, should no longer be the issue for Britain and the U.S. but that henceforth their united political and military opposition should be solely directed against Soviet Union, the very country which had contributed the most to defeating the Nazis and at by far the greatest cost. In fact, both countries were already welcoming with open arms former Nazis who they thought could prove useful in executing their post-war plans.
In addition to ranting about the "iron curtain," Churchill also spoke wildly of "communist parties or fifth columns" which he claimed constituted a "growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization." Drawing false parallels with the appeasement of Hitler prior to World War II, Churchill openly advocated for a military buildup against the Soviet Union by suggesting that in dealing with the Soviets there was "nothing which they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for military weakness."
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 40 - July 8, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54409.HTM
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