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The Cold War: Soviet and American Views

The first excerpt is t'rom a speech titled "The Sinews of Peace," delivered by Winston Churchill at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in early 1946. Warning of the rising power of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, he coinedthe phrase "iron curtain."

The next excerpt is t'rom an address by Nihita Khrushchev, who became first secretary of the Communist party in 1953. Three years later, his power secure, he began publicly to repudiate the crimes of loseph Stalin. Khrushchiv presided over a short'lived thaw in Soviet-American relations. Yet, as can be seen in his address, Khrushchev shared Churchill's conception of the world as divided into two mutually antagonistic camps.

Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" Speech

ffl shadow has fallen uoon the tfl scenes so iately iighted by the 7fI Alred vrctory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intend to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and pros- elytizing tendencies. I have a strong admi- ration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, lrzlarshal [sic] Stalin. There is deep sympa-

thy and goodwill in Britain . . . towards the people of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friend- ships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her

rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome con- stant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however . . . to place before you certain facts about the present posi- tion in Europe.

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, Buda- pest, 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 ence but to a very high and, in

friends and allies during the war, I convinced that there is nothing admire so much as strength, and nothing for which they have less than for weakness, especially mil weakness. For that reason the old trine of a balance of power is We cannot afford, if we can help to work on narrow margins, temptations to a triad of strength. lf Western Democracies stand in strict adherence to the princi the Uniied Nations Charter, their ences for furthering those

much broader anticommunist struggle. He announced that he would dismantle Hungary's political police and withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. Khrushchev might contemplate looser ties between Eastern Europe and Moscow, but he would not tolerate an end to the pact. On November 4, 1956, Soviet troops occupied Budapest, arresting and executing leaders o[ the Hungarian rebellion. The Hungarians took up arms, and street frghting continued for several weeks. They had

hoped for Western aid, but Presidenr Dwight D. Eisenhower, newiy elected to a second term, steered clear of giving them support. Soviet forces installed a new government under the staunchly communist Janos Kadar, and the repression con- tinued, forcing tens of thousands o[ Hungarian refugees to flee for the West. Khrushchev's efforts at presenring a gen- tler, more conciliatory Soviet Union to the West had been shattered by revolt and repression.

946 | cHnerrn zz The Cold.War World: Global Politics, Economic Recovery, and Cultural Change

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will be immense and no one is likely to molest them. lf however they become divided or falter in their duty and .if

these all-important years are allowed to slip away then indeed catastrophe may

overwhelm us all.

Source: Winston Churchill, Winston 5. Churchill: His Com plete S peeches, 1 897 - 1 9 63, vol. 7, 1 9 43 - 19 49,

ed. Robert Rhodes James (New York: 1983),

pp.7290-91.

NihitaKhrushchev, Report to the Communist Party Congress (1961)

Cl i#'1r:.H:itiiir:i ist, has been the chief content of the period since the 20th party Congress. It has become the pivot, the foundation

of world development at the present historical stage. Two lines, two histori- cal trends, have manifested themselves

more and more clearly in social develop-

ment. One is the line of social Progress, peace and constructive activity. The other is the line of reaction, oppression

and war.

ln the course of the peaceful com- petition of the two systems capitalism has suffered a profound moral defeat in the eyes of all peoples. The common

people are daily convinced that capital-

ism is incapable of solving a single one of

the urgent problems confronting man- kind. lt becomes more and more obvi- ous that only on the paths to socialism

can a solution to these problems be found. Faith in the capitalist system and the capitalist path of development is dwindling. lr4onopoly capital, losing its influence, resorts more and more to

intimidating and suppressing the masses

of the people, to methods of open dicta-

torship in carrying out its domestic pol-

icy and to aggressive acts against other countries. But the masses of the people offer increasing resistance to reaction's acts.

It is no secret to anyone that the methods of intimidation and threat are not a sign of strength but evidence of the weakening of capitalism, the (eep-

ening of its general crisis. As the saying goes, if you can't hang on by the mane,

you won't hang on by the tail! Reaction is still capable of dissolving parliaments in .some countries in violation of their coristitutions, of casting the best repre-

sentatives of the people into prison, of

sending cruisers and marines to subdue the "unruly." All this can put off for a time the approach of the fatal hour for the rule of capitalism. The imperialists are sawing away at the branch on which

they sit. There is no force in the world

capable of stopping man's advance along

the road of progress.

Source: Current Soviet Policies /V, ed, Charlotte

Saikowski and Leo Gruliow, from the translations of Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Joint Committee

on Slavic Studies (New York: 1962), pp. 42-45.

Questions for Analysis

1. Whom didChurchill blameforbuilding

the lron Curtain between the Soviet sphere and the Western sphere?

2. How was the Soviet Union actively trying to create international commu-

nism? How was the United States try-

ing to spread its way of life globally?

Khrushchev's policy of "peacefui coexistence" with the West did not reduce his determination to stave off any military threat to Eastern Europe. By the mid-1950s, NATO's policy of putting battlefield nuclear weapons in West Germany seemed evidence of just such a threat. What was more, East Germans continued to flee the coun-

try via West Berlin. Between 1949 and 1961,2.7 million East Germans left-stark evidence of the unpopularity

of the regime. Attempting to stem the tide, Khrushchev demanded that the West recognize the permanent division

of Germany with an undivided Berlin. When that demand was refused, the East German government built a ten-foot wall separating the two sectors of the city in 1961. The wall brought a dangerous show of force on both sides, as the Soviets and Americans mobilized reservists for war. The newly elected American presidentJohn F. Kennedy marked

The Cold War and a Divided Continent 947

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