The "Fulton Speech" (also known as the "Iron Curtain" speech or by its title "The Sinews of Peace") was a 46-minute lecture delivered by Winston Churchill on March 5, 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, United States, to an audience of 1,500 listeners. It has been considered by some as signalling the beginning of the Cold War. Contrary to popular misconceptions, Churchill was not the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time; after the defeat of the Conservative Party in the July 5, 1945, election, he was the Leader of the Opposition and was in the U.S. not on an official visit but as a private citizen on vacation.
Contents
Historical context
The international situation after World War II and the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt was uncertain. Formally, the Grand Alliance still existed. In practice, however, ever-deepening contradictions between the USSR and its Western partners were becoming apparent. Joseph Stalin claimed a leading role, constantly emphasizing that as the main victor over fascism and the main sufferer from it, the USSR had more rights in deciding post-war arrangements, especially in Europe and Asia. There was active expansion of communist influence in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, as well as growing influence of communists in Western Europe. In Greece, a civil war was underway between communists and anti-communist forces. The USSR presented territorial claims to Turkey and delayed the withdrawal of troops from Iran. When Churchill delivered his speech, the crisis had reached its peak, and President Truman even threatened to use nuclear weapons. General Eisenhower's headquarters had even prepared the "Totality" plan – the first of the American war plans against the USSR (in England, such planning began on Churchill's initiative as early as spring 1945 – see Operation Unthinkable).
At the same time, in the West, among the broad masses as well as in liberal and socialist circles, there remained a belief that the friendly and allied relations with the USSR, established during the war, could be maintained. The claims of the USSR were viewed in these circles as a legitimate concern for its own security and the need for compensation for the suffering and sacrifices borne by the Soviet people during the war.
Churchill, originally a staunch anti-communist, viewed these tendencies with great dissatisfaction. He understood that Great Britain, which had been the leading European power before the war, no longer was. The countries of Western Europe, devastated by war and themselves under strong communist influence, would not be able to effectively resist the expansion of the USSR. Only the United States, the least affected by the war and possessing a monopoly on nuclear weapons at the time, could stop the Soviet Union. It is no coincidence that his first foreign policy speech as Leader of the Opposition in November 1945 was devoted to "important problems in our relations with the United States".
Background
Churchill had been developing the main theses outlined in the speech since 1943. As N. A. Narochnitskaya writes in her book Yalta-1945. Blueprints for a New World, even before the Crimean Conference, the main outlines of Churchill's post-war plans were placed on Stalin's desk. On his doctors' advice, Churchill spent the winter of 1945–1946 in the U.S. As early as December, he had in principle accepted an invitation from Westminster College to deliver a lecture on "international relations." Fulton was the hometown of President Truman and an object of his patriotic feelings. Churchill set the condition that Truman must accompany him to Fulton and be present for the speech.
On March 4, Churchill and Truman boarded a special train and arrived in Fulton on March 5, where Churchill was given a triumphal welcome. On the train, Churchill finalized and edited the text of his speech, which occupied 50 small-format pages. He gave the text to Truman, who called the speech "splendid": in his words, "although it will cause a stir, it can only do good." However, Truman officially expressed no relation to Churchill's thoughts and appeals: Churchill, as a private citizen, had greater freedom of action, while Truman left himself the possibility, if necessary, to distance himself from the speech's content, attributing it to Churchill's private opinion. In this sense, the Fulton speech had a distinctly provocative character, designed to probe and stir public opinion.
Title
The title of Churchill's speech plays on the English phrase "sinews of war," meaning the resources for waging war (literally "the tendons of war"), in which the word "war" is replaced by "peace." The original working title was "World Peace." Thus, on February 14, Churchill wrote to McCluer:
I am afraid I have not yet come to a final conclusion about the title of the address, but I think it may be "World Peace."
Content
At the beginning of the Fulton speech, Churchill stated that from now on "the United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power." "This is a solemn moment for the American democracy," but also an extremely responsible position. Opposing it are two main enemies – "war and tyranny." The United Nations had failed to keep the peace, and therefore it would be "criminal madness" to share the secret of the atomic bomb, which the US, Britain, and Canada alone then possessed, with them. To become a real guarantor of peace, the United Nations must have its own armed forces – primarily air forces – formed on an international basis. "I wished," said Churchill, "to see this done after the first world war, and I devoutly trust it may be done forthwith."
Churchill then said:
We cannot afford to draw from the freedoms enjoyed in the United States, in the British Empire, the conclusion that these freedoms do not exist in a considerable number of countries, some of which are very powerful. In these countries control over the ordinary people is enforced from above by pervasive police governments to a degree which is contradictory to every principle of democracy. The only instrument capable at this historical moment of preventing war and resisting tyranny is the "fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples." This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States of America.
In the second part of the speech, Churchill turned to an analysis of the situation in Europe and Asia:
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade Marshal Stalin… 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. Above all, we welcome, or should welcome, constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty, however, and I am sure you would not wish me not to state the facts as I see them to you.
Consequences and contemporary assessments
Joseph Stalin was informed about the speech almost immediately. TASS ciphers and translations were on the desks of Stalin and Molotov the next day. For a couple of days, with characteristic caution, Stalin awaited the reaction abroad. Then followed an article by academician, three-time Stalin Prize first-degree laureate Yevgeny Tarle with a historical overview of British foreign policy and an article in Izvestia titled "Churchill Rattles His Saber." All the intricacies surrounding Churchill's speech are described in detail by MGIMO history professor V. Pechatnov in the journal Istochnik No. 1 (32) for 1998. In the USSR, the text of the speech was not translated in full but was described in detail in a TASS report of March 11, 1946.
On March 13, in an interview with Pravda, Stalin carefully balanced warnings about the threat of a possible war with calls for restraint, but unequivocally placed Churchill alongside Hitler, stating that in his speech Churchill had called the West to war with the USSR and also accused him of racism:
Mr. Churchill and his friends bear a striking resemblance in this respect to Hitler and his friends. Hitler began the business of unleashing war by proclaiming a racial theory, declaring that only German-speaking people constituted a superior nation. Mr. Churchill begins the business of unleashing war also with a racial theory, asserting that only English-speaking nations are superior nations, called upon to decide the destinies of the entire world. The German racial theory led Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans, as the only superior nation, should dominate over other nations. The English racial theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the English-speaking nations, as the only superior ones, should dominate over the rest of the nations of the world.
Accusations of "Anglo-Saxon" racism against Churchill became commonplace in Soviet propaganda of the late 1940s and early 1950s; they were even used by Marr-ist linguists during the late 1940s campaign against Soviet linguists specializing in the English language.
For many, the week would become the beginning of the "Cold War." The writer Mikhail Prishvin assessed Churchill's speech and Stalin's response to it in his diary entries as follows:
Historians' assessments
Russian researcher Nikolai Zlobin notes the "foresight and political instinct of Churchill" expressed in this speech. In his opinion, "his [Churchill's] foresight for the next 40 years of the structure and character of international relations in general and Soviet-American relations in particular was fully confirmed".