Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain

In the wake of World War II, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union delivered a largely controversial speech in the Bolshoi theater located near the center of Moscow. In Stalin’s speech, he articulated upon the idea that Communism and Capitalism could not co-exist. He claimed to the people that the Soviet Union was the only key factor in eliminating the Axis powers from the war.

His plan to help maintain Britain’s power and their role in the world was to try to build a relationship during the Summit conferences of world leaders with Moscow. The United States disliked the Soviet Union for crushing Eastern Europe and the Berlin blockade made it complicated, and the Korean War also made it almost impossible to start building a relationship with the Soviet Union. His main ideas for the Cold War and how he was going to build from it were to have a strong military and strong allies, have a good relationship with the Soviet Union, and he wanted to become what they called “United States of Europe” which was all of Europe becoming part of one nation. Even though Winston Churchill didn’t really understand the Cold War, he realized the solutions that were found and that were made to help build and fix the world we lived

Here are two of the most important orations of the cold war period, by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Dwight D Eisenhower’s describing the policies and efforts to contain the Cold War era. Churchill starts with his famous speech “the Iron Curtain” delivered in Fulton Missouri in 1946 after being invited by President Truman. The “Iron Curtain” speech was the initial platform that announced and defined the declarations of the Cold war to come with the urgency to have a tight relationship between the countries of democracy against communism. Then with President Eisenhower’s speech in 1953 a “Chance for Peace” this was an initiative that outlined the clear recognition of the prospects the world faced and the cost in sincere efforts to end the cold war. The “Iron Curtain” and “Chance for Peace” both reveal the conviction and strong efforts that are desired to restrict the fears encompassed with the Cold war.

An “iron curtain” of Communism spread over Eastern Europe as the post-World War II world tried to re-build Germany and Easter Europe. As the dictator Joseph Stalin sealed off the Eastern Bloc, the rest of Europe began to re-build under a democratic rule. This re-building continued and the USSR continued to keep their “totalitarian” hold on the East. As the Cold War continued the battle that was being fought soon became the battle between the two world super powers. This led to many conflicts and continued up until finally in 1989 the Berlin Wall was taken down reuniting Western and Eastern Germany and bringing down the “iron curtain“ that shaded the East from freedom.

In his book The Gathering Storm, the Western democracies “need only to repeat the same well-meaning, short-sighted behavior towards the new problems which in singular resemblance confront us today to bring about a third convulsion from which none may live to tell the tale” (https://www.historyonthenet.com/winston-churchills-iron-curtain-speech-predicting-the-cold-war/). people were unsure if the United States would continue to play the part of the land of the free world or if it would become allies with Britain and other Western European nations against the Soviet Union. After the United States victory over Japan, Churchill knew the U.S. was looking forward to peace. Using this to his advantage, Churchill knew his speech would give the nation a warning. Although some people understood the intentions of the Soviet Union, many Americans still saw the Communist dictator as their ally. This was a difficult transition for the Americans to go from believing the Soviet Union was an ally to a very dangerous

In the Second World War USA and its western allies like Britain, France and so forth needed the help of Soviet Union to combat Nazi Germany. “Indeed, the western democracies could not have defeated Germany except the unlimited support of those Soviet troops which in 1945 occupied all areas in dispute.”(Graebner, 1976) However, after the war, the Soviet-American unity collapsed following the Yalta Conference of February 1945, largely over the issue of Poland. As a result, USSR established what Churchill termed as ‘iron curtain’ from Stettin to Trieste.

Ronald Reagan, in his speech, (“Berlin Wall”, 1987), the former governor and President of the United States and at the time of the Cold War, “ the most magnetic public figure in the nation”(encyclopedia.com) elucidates to his audience the consequences of residing under the influence of the Soviet Union. Reagan supports his assertion through the use of various rhetorical devices to generate logos, ethos, and pathos. His purpose is to incite a feeling of an injustice done to the people of Berlin and Soviet Allies and to bring down the Berlin Wall as “the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War”(History.com) between the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War. Reagan writes in perfervid tone generated toward the people of Berlin and other Soviet allies in hopes of bringing the Cold War to an end and it is reported by CBS News that he successfully “bolstered the morale of the pro-democracy movement in East Germany”(Brinkley).

The artwork that I am criticizing is the “Wall of Oil Barrels - The Iron Curtain” by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The location of this barricade was in Rue Visconti, Paris, between Rue Bonaparte and Rue de Seine. Rue Visconti is a one way street that is 140 meters long and 3 meters wide. They used oil barrels and put them up on June 27, 1962. Christo and Jeanne-Claude worked together on the barricade, taking a total of eight hours to get it all done. The iron/steel oil barrels were stacked on top of each other, forming a wall/barricade of some sort. Christo and Jeanne-Claude left all the barrels exactly they way were, they didn't even change the colors of them. They also kept the brand of the barrel and the rust on them visible. The barricade took up 488.26800 feet (13.7 x 13.2 x 2.7). There was a total of 89 barrels used to create the art.

The “Cold War” was a unique time period were paranoia ran high and the world was at a stalemate as it watch the competition between the two world superpowers,(U.S. and the U.S.S.R.).

To put this speech into perspective, the historical context must be observed. Following World War 2, Europe was in the throes of a power struggle between the two prominent ideologies of the time: capitalism and communism. This power struggle saw the Soviet Union (USSR) slowly expanding their territory, as the capitalist nations tried to contain the USSR’s expansion. The United States, though far removed from the situation, were adamantly against the spread of communism and this put a strain on their relationship with the USSR, leading to a nuclear arms race. During this period, Germany was split into four occupied territories: Great Britain, Soviet Union, France and America. This cooperative occupation continued until the 1948 Berlin Blockade. The USSR blocked all of the western allies’ access roads to the eastern half of Berlin. This blockade was dropped in 1949, but it paved

On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill would give the "Sinews of Peace" speech and which would later be regarded by many historians as the official start of the Cold War. One of the most memorable quotes from the speech is "...an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." Winston Churchill's use of the term "iron curtain" was used to criticize the Soviet Union for having closed off Eastern Europe from the rest of the world. Having just come out of a world war, Churchill's intention with this speech was to present to not only to the United States but the entire world, the danger the Soviet Union and communism posed to world peace. At the time that Churchill gave this speech, the US for the most part still had a policy of isolationism, but this speech would help pave the way for the US to take center stage in global affairs. Throughout this speech, Churchill mentions American's love for democracy, freedom, capitalism, and peace. He also goes on to criticize the Soviet Union for spreading communism and tyranny, and he advocates

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” The Cold War placed most of the post-war world into a perpetual state of paranoia and dramatically rose tensions between both world powers and their respective ideologies; the Communist Soviet Union and Capitalist America. Both of these powers were in a race to have the advantage over one another, with accelerations in arms developments and eventually creating a standoff between the the Western and Eastern blocs. Two national leaders were very prevalent in bringing a significant amount of change to the European Region, the first leader being Harry Truman (1945-1953) who introduced the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan with the slogan “It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities and outside pressures” The second significant leader who exacted significant change in the European Region and subsequently culminated the Cold War was Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991) whose policies of Glasnost ‘Openness’ and Economic, Political and Social Perestroika ‘Restructuring’ followed his belief that “It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past. . .” Both leaders exacted changes that were crucial in shaping the European region during the Cold War.

As a general rule, communism brought little to no quality of life to those under its domain nor did it benefit countries outside of its system. “God moves in mysterious ways” (William Cowper). This quote, although not found in the Bible, accurately describes the Berlin Wall and its collapse. However, God was still able to use it to advance moral and humanitarian procedures that were common durning the time. Towards the end of the twentieth century, individuals on either side of the Cold War began to question if the use of nuclear weapons was ever morally acceptable. Out of this mindset came greater consideration to the “Just War Theory”, which is a vague reference to what conditions constitute fighting a war (Nolte). Unfortunately, during the Cold War, no one was willing to have this talk because they knew deep down that the use of nuclear weapons would hardly ever again be justifiable, and this meant that the U.S. would have to be the first to disarm.

“THIS WAS THE WAY the war was suppose to end: with cheers, handshakes, dancing, drinking, and hope” (Gaddis, 5). “The tragedy was this: that victory would require the victors either to cease to be who they were, or to give up much of what they had hoped, by fighting the war, to attain” (Gaddis, 6). As a curious reporter for the State Department, I began to see the destruction that the war caused not only within the aspects of American society, but also within the world as a whole. At the end of WWII, the allies had initially won the war and therefore believed that terms of a world based around “normality” would once again prevail. However, “As a consequence, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was, at the end of World War II, the most authoritarian society anywhere on the face of the earth” (Gaddis, 8). It was during this time that Stalin had begun to make it clear that the days of victory would not endure within his country or any country if all of the power was granted to him. As a reporter, not only did I see the ending of one era of war, but also the beginning of another. The only difference in this war was that it relied upon other countries’ willingness to ultimately give up their power in order for the nations to once again become ruled by a powerful leader. In this case, the ultimate leader was Stalin and through his powerful tactics, he would proclaim his victory by the spreading of communism, in an effort to gain ultimate control not only of the countries

The cold war was a period in the history that was shaped by the decisive attitude of the United States to stop the spread of communism on the west hemisphere after the World War II, by his former ‘ally’ the Soviet Union. US government, under the direction of president Truman, believed the Soviet Union had the intention to spread the idea of a communist government on the countries devastated by the war via the imposition or the support of communist parties raising to the power in those countries. The idea of the dominance of communist governments on the west hemisphere was unconceivable by the United States, and they believed, it certainly threatened the development of democratic forms of governments in this part of the world. Countries like