Kemper Lectures
THE ORIGINS OF THE 'IRON CURTAIN' SPEECH - continued
Martin Gilbert, April 26, 1981
Here at Westminster College – at the age of 71 – with 50 years of public life behind him, Churchill spoke with foreboding of the behaviour and intentions of Soviet Russia, and outlined a course of common democratic unity led by Britain and the United States. Churchill's knowledge of Russia stretched back more than 20 years before the Communist revolution of November 1917. Indeed, the actual occasion on which his parents first met was at a ball on board the yacht of the Tsarevich, later Tsar Nicholas II.
Churchill's own memories of the Russian Empire centered on three facets of tsarist imperial rule, each of which was greatly to influence his attitude to the Soviets:
First, his hatred of the official Government sponsored anti-Semitism of Tsarist Russia, as shown in the anti-Jewish violence, or pogroms in the first decade of this century. In 1906, Churchill had been the main speaker at a mass rally in Manchester, to protest against official Tsarist connivance in these anti-Jewish attacks.
Second, his dislike of the Tsarist treatment of the Poles, and his belief that the twentieth century must eventually see what Churchill himself was to call (in 1918) ‘the harmonious disposition’ of Europe among its inhabitants – his belief and sympathy for an independent Poland, freed from Russian tutelage, was instinct in Churchill’s early thought: he admired enormously the Polish courage, hopeless though it had proved, in the uprisings against Tsarist Russian in the 1830s and 1860s.
And, third – and we come now to the most complex, and ultimately most vexed questions in Soviet relations with the outside world – the right of Russia, if she were to join in the defeat of Germany, (whether in 1914 or 1941) to territorial recompense and reward, to the return of ‘lost’ territories, and to secure defensible borders.
In 1914, Churchill accepted that if Russia were to remain in the war and to contribute to the Allied victory over Germany, then she would be able to expand her territorial control to Constantinople, the Straits, and the warm waters of the Mediterranean. It was to enable Russia to remain at war, in 1915, that Churchill and Kitchener had launched the Gallipoli expedition when Russia looked on the verge of surrender, pressed back by German forces in the west, and Turkish forces in the east.
Martin Gilbert, April 26, 1981
Here at Westminster College – at the age of 71 – with 50 years of public life behind him, Churchill spoke with foreboding of the behaviour and intentions of Soviet Russia, and outlined a course of common democratic unity led by Britain and the United States. Churchill's knowledge of Russia stretched back more than 20 years before the Communist revolution of November 1917. Indeed, the actual occasion on which his parents first met was at a ball on board the yacht of the Tsarevich, later Tsar Nicholas II.
Churchill's own memories of the Russian Empire centered on three facets of tsarist imperial rule, each of which was greatly to influence his attitude to the Soviets:
First, his hatred of the official Government sponsored anti-Semitism of Tsarist Russia, as shown in the anti-Jewish violence, or pogroms in the first decade of this century. In 1906, Churchill had been the main speaker at a mass rally in Manchester, to protest against official Tsarist connivance in these anti-Jewish attacks.
Second, his dislike of the Tsarist treatment of the Poles, and his belief that the twentieth century must eventually see what Churchill himself was to call (in 1918) ‘the harmonious disposition’ of Europe among its inhabitants – his belief and sympathy for an independent Poland, freed from Russian tutelage, was instinct in Churchill’s early thought: he admired enormously the Polish courage, hopeless though it had proved, in the uprisings against Tsarist Russian in the 1830s and 1860s.
And, third – and we come now to the most complex, and ultimately most vexed questions in Soviet relations with the outside world – the right of Russia, if she were to join in the defeat of Germany, (whether in 1914 or 1941) to territorial recompense and reward, to the return of ‘lost’ territories, and to secure defensible borders.
In 1914, Churchill accepted that if Russia were to remain in the war and to contribute to the Allied victory over Germany, then she would be able to expand her territorial control to Constantinople, the Straits, and the warm waters of the Mediterranean. It was to enable Russia to remain at war, in 1915, that Churchill and Kitchener had launched the Gallipoli expedition when Russia looked on the verge of surrender, pressed back by German forces in the west, and Turkish forces in the east.