Winston Churchill had no illusions about Stalin and knew it was just a matter of time before the Soviet Union wielded its inflexible power. He also feared that the U.S. would return to its pre-war policy of isolationism, focusing on its own advancement and leaving a debilitated Europe to fend for itself against Soviet control. On March 5th, 1946, at Westminster College in the U.S., Churchill warned against Soviet domination in Eastern Europe:
The Soviet Union was still considered an ally in the recent victory against Nazi Germany and Japan, and this speech was not very well received at the time, but the phrase “iron curtain” stuck. Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of strong border defenses of the Soviet controlled Central European states, isolating the Soviet Union and its dependent satellite states from the rest of Europe. It was not just a physical boundary but symbolized the starkly different political ideologies dividing Europe.
During the post-war period, the wartime alliance between the Soviets and the Allied nations had begun to fray and tensions built between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The use of the atom bomb in Hiroshima increased the distrust which existed between the 2 countries, now clearly recognized as the world’s superpowers. This period of military and political tension between nations of the Western Bloc, dominated by the U.S. and its NATO allies, and nations of the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union, came to be known as the Cold War.
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“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "Iron Curtain" has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”
The Iron Curtain
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Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain 1874 - 1965
Europe Divided by the Iron Curtain