80 years since Fulton: Churchill’s imperialist manifesto against Socialism

By Nikos Mottas

On 5 March 1946, less than a year after the defeat of Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill stood before an audience at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and delivered the speech that would soon be known as the “Iron Curtain” speech. 

In Western political mythology, the address is often portrayed as a prophetic warning about Soviet expansion. In reality, it was something quite different: a calculated ideological declaration of hostility toward the socialist world and one of the founding political acts of the Cold War.

Joseph Stalin on Winston Churchill’s Speech at Fulton

Towards the middle of March, 1946, a “Pravda” correspondent requested Joseph Stalin to clarify a number of questions connected with Winston Churchill’s famous "Iron Curtain" speech at Fulton, U.S.A. Below are J. V. Stalin’s replies to the correspondent’s questions.

Question: How do you appraise Mr. Churchill’s latest speech in the United States of America?

Answer: I appraise it as a dangerous act, calculated to sow the seeds of dissension among the Allied States and impede their collaboration.