The British politician, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in the American city of Fulton, announced the special responsibility of Great Britain and the United States in the matter of containing the USSR and communism. Churchill's Fulton speech is considered one of the key moments in the beginning of the Cold War.

In the winter of 1946, Churchill, who had resigned as prime minister after the defeat of the Tory party in the summer of 1945 elections, came to rest in the United States. Even before leaving London, he received an invitation through US President Harry Truman to speak at the Presbyterian Westminster Men's College in the provincial town of Fulton (Missouri). Local private foundation from 1937 he gave annual lectures there on world problems, given by people "of international reputation" for a fee of five thousand dollars. Having refused the fee, Churchill, nevertheless, considered it important to speak out about post-war device peace.

The performance took place on the afternoon of March 5. Truman, who arrived with Churchill, introduced the guest to the audience as "an outstanding citizen of the world."

Stressing that he was acting as a private individual, Churchill dressed his speech in the form of "honest and faithful advice" to the Americans to fight together against the two "major disasters" - wars and tyranny.

According to Churchill's definition, an "iron curtain" descended on Europe "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic", the states of Central and of Eastern Europe run by "police governments" and subject to Moscow's influence and control. She also leads the communist "fifth columns" around the world, thereby challenging the "Christian civilization." Churchill spoke about the unpredictability of Soviet Russia, its desire to spread its "power and doctrines" without limits, in connection with which he called on Great Britain and the United States "tirelessly and fearlessly" to promote the principles of freedom and human rights as "the common heritage of the English-speaking world." In addition, as Churchill reported, the Russians understand only the language of force and despise military weakness, so the small preponderance of forces on the enemy's side introduces them to "the temptation to engage in a test of strength." Thus, according to the speaker, the Western allies must secure for themselves "a rather striking superiority," including in nuclear weapons as an effective deterrent.

Joseph Stalin, in an interview with the Pravda newspaper on March 14, called Churchill's speech "a dangerous act calculated to sow seeds of discord between the allied states and hinder their cooperation," and Churchill himself was a "warmonger," comparing him with Hitler.

As Stalin noted, Hitler started the war by declaring that only German-speaking people were a "full-fledged nation," and Churchill began by saying that only English-speaking nations were called upon to decide the fate of the world.

Churchill himself, in a letter to Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernst Bevin from the British embassy in Washington, admitted that "some demonstration of the power and strength of resistance" sounded in his speech was important from the point of view of "settlement of relations with Russia." Churchill expressed the hope that this would become "the prevailing opinion" in the United States.

It is known that even before Churchill's speech in Fulton, in February 1946, the American diplomat George Kennan, in the so-called "long telegram" from the embassy in Moscow, outlined the basic principles of the "containment" policy of the USSR. From his point of view, the United States should have reacted harshly and consistently to every attempt by the USSR to expand its sphere of influence.

Events after Fulton developed according to the Churchillian scenario of growing Anglo-American unity in the struggle between the two worlds. Churchill's speech anticipated the main features of the coming era of the Cold War, with its bipolar division of the world, the central role of the Anglo-American "axis" in the Western system, ideological confrontation and the pursuit of military superiority.

American policy towards the USSR took a new direction: a course was taken to limit the spread of communist ideology in the countries of Western Europe and the Soviet Union's support for communist movements.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Ronald Reagan said that not only the modern West, but also the world on our planet was born from Winston Churchill's Fulton speech. It also gave birth to the Cold War. The speech was delivered on March 5, 1946.

Oil factor

One of the main stimuli for writing the Fulton speech was the unresolved issue of Iranian oil by that time. From the end of 1943 - the beginning of 1944, two American oil companies- Standard Vacuum and Sinclair oil, as well as the Dutch-British Royal Dutch Shell, with the support of the US and British embassies and the favorable attitude of the Iranian government, began negotiations in Tehran on granting them oil concessions in southern Iran, in Balochistan. Moscow in 1944 also began to insist on granting the USSR an oil concession in Northern Iran on terms similar to the British concession in Southern Iran, emphasizing that the development of Iranian oil fields by Britain or the United States near the Soviet border would be considered a threat. public interest THE USSR.

Iron curtain

In the Fulton speech, Churchill first used the expression "Iron Curtain". Interestingly, this phrase was absent from the official version of the speech. The technology of that time did not allow to immediately make a high-quality audio recording of the performance, to restore the timbre of the voices of Churchill and Truman and clean the recording from extraneous noise, the Audio-Scriptions campaign from New York was involved. Only then was the text of the speech finalized and the "Iron Curtain" entered the political lexicon forever.

"Anglo-Saxon Nazism"

A simple lexical analysis of the Fulton speech suggests that it was important for Churchill not to focus on the participation of Britain in the redivision of the world. The former British prime minister delivered the speech as a private individual, which gave him a serious free hand and gave his speech an almost academic significance. In his speech, Winston Churchill used the words "Britain" and "Great Britain" only once. But "British Commonwealth" and the Empire "- six times, "English-speaking peoples" - six times, "related" - eight. Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans, as the only full-fledged nation, should dominate other nations. The English racial theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the nations speaking English language, as the only full-fledged ones, should dominate the rest of the nations of the world."

Pair of jacks

On March 4, 1946, Churchill and Truman boarded a special train that was supposed to take them to Fulton. Both were in excellent spirits. Truman was taking the most famous orator in the world to his hometown, Churchill knew that the planned speech would leave him in history. Even then he considered the Fulton speech his masterpiece. On the train, Churchill and Truman played poker. Turning to Truman, Churchill said: "Well, Harry, I'll risk putting a shilling on a pair of jacks," which caused laughter, because the word "knave" means both a jack and a swindler. Churchill also confessed his love for America, which was obviously not just politeness, but a conscious strategic position. But not only in conversations over whiskey and a card game, the time of the trip passed. It was here, on the train, that Churchill once again edited the text of his speech and gave it the title - The Sinews of Peace. This name can be translated into Russian as "Tendons of the World", but the word "Sinews" also has the meaning of physical strength.

For guidance Soviet Union Fulton's speech came as no surprise. Soviet intelligence worked well: Tass ciphers and translation lay on the table to Stalin and Molotov the very next day. Two days later, Izvestiya published an article by Academician Tarle "Churchill saber-rattling." On March 8, 1946, Radio Moscow reported on Churchill's speech, "made in an exceptionally aggressive tone." A week later, the Pravda newspaper published an account of Churchill's speech with several quotations from it and with his own commentary. A few days later, an interview with Stalin appeared in it. American newspapers published from Pravda a reverse translation of Churchill's speech, and then the full text of Stalin's interview.

"Unthinkable" and Totality

Great Britain and the USA did not hide their wariness because of the possible military aggression of the USSR. By the time the Fulton speech was read, the Totality plan had already been developed in the United States, and in England, in the spring of 1945, Operation Unthinkable had been prepared. One of the main goals pursued by the Fulton speech was to instill the idea that the USSR is a dangerous aggressor with ambitions to conquer the world. In his speech, Churchill "burned with a verb": "the iron curtain" and its "shadow that has fallen on the continent", "fifth columns" and "police states", "complete obedience" and "unconditional expansion of power." Previously, such epithets were used by politicians only in relation to Nazi Germany.

Provincial triumph

Churchill's trip to Fulton was an extraordinary event. The decisive factor that led Churchill to agree was the personal involvement of US President Truman. On the one hand, Churchill was a private person, on the other hand, he spoke accompanied by the leader of the state, on which he himself staked in geopolitics. Despite great organizational difficulties, Churchill's trip to Westminster College was a successful PR stunt that attracted thousands of people to Fulton. Shops and cafes could not cope with the influx of visitors, a protective tape was stretched along the entire route of the cortege, 15 minutes before the appearance of the British guest, people in the crowd were forbidden to even move. Churchill's appearance was staged with pomp, he himself sat in the car and showed his famous "V" sign. This day was a "finest hour" for the former and future Prime Minister of Great Britain. Initially, his speech was called "World Peace". Churchill filigree played in the field of propaganda. As he left, he shook hands with the president of the college and said, "I hope I have set off a reflection that will influence the course of history." And so it happened.

Churchill's Fulton speech did not come out of nowhere. The British have a genetic dislike for Russia - a huge, rich country, unfairly, in their opinion, gifted by God. The island state has never been friends with Russia, except for those cases when it was threatened, if not with complete destruction, then with a significant beating. To hurry up in time and cover your precious lives with a mighty Russian army is the only point of contact between England and these "wild Russians". There are plenty of examples - the threat of Napoleonic and Nazi invasions. At the same time, there is no feeling of gratitude or at least recognition of their salvation - they allow themselves to be saved. The boorish superiority in relation to the Russians does not leave them for a minute: the documentary footage of the chronicle from the cult Soviet film "17 Moments of Spring" is an example of this. Like this undersized and very well-fed impudent person literally climbed into the faces of Russian soldiers, considering this alien miracle of his day.

The masks are off

Churchill's Fulton speech was delivered in 1946, and in 1943 this highly praised visionary and orator developed Operation Unthinkable, regarded as the third World War England and the USA with the Soviet Union, the destruction of which has always been the true desire of Great Britain. The maniacal nurturing of plans to discredit Russia, to physically destroy it - all this aggression over the centuries miraculously turned into a struggle for peace with the monstrous Mordor - whether it be the Soviet state or modern Russia.

Spilled hatred

Churchill's Fulton speech is considered the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. That is, it was considered anti-Soviet. In essence, it was anti-Russian, because on the example of the events of today, when there is no trace of the USSR for almost a quarter of a century, the attitude of the West towards our country fully illustrates the famous speech. Documents declassified in Lately, indicate that it was not only a private concern expressed aloud, as it was presented (at the time of the speech in Fulton, Churchill was not Prime Minister). It was the initial act of fighting the hated enemy on all fronts. And dropping an atomic bomb on the Kremlin, about which the Earl of Marlborough begged the Americans, was also part of the plans of the “great” politician, this flabby man with an extremely unpleasant face.

Win-win performance

Churchill's Fulton speech, as the title implies, was delivered in hometown H. Truman Fulton, Missouri, in the gymnasium of the University of Westminster, March 5, 1946. It was prepared as "historical" and "epochal". The people were herded (they are driven from us, they rush at the call of the heart) a lot. W. Churchill thought through everything to the smallest detail and was very pleased with himself: this speech became his most famous speech in historical and political terms. Of course, the moment to throw off the masks and no longer play allies is more than ripe: control over Iranian oil, in which the Soviet Union also claimed participation, the expansion of communist influence - everything required the declaration, if not of a hot, then of a cold war by the USSR.

Main points

Churchill's Fulton speech was aimed at this. Summary it is as follows: the USSR is declared, as it is now customary to say, an “evil empire”, an “iron curtain” (a term first used by Goebbels) is established between it and the “enlightened” West, the US “beacon of democracy” is appointed the dominant country in the fight against barbarians. There was a call to unite all the "progressive" forces of mankind in the fight against evil and the liberation of the groaning under the yoke of the Eastern European countries. Churchill's oratorical skills were perfect. erudite, brilliant educated person in his speeches he resorted to methods of hyperbolization and spectacular comparisons.

Professional

The speech was constructed in such a way that it was not at all him, a pathological and ardent hater of Russia, who was the author of a document that few would have dared to publish at that moment - the Earl of Marlborough did not even speak on behalf of Great Britain, he was the envoy of all the forces of goodness and peace, everything western community. The close attention of the public and the press was carefully planned and prepared: the words were caught and they almost missed the fact that the text distributed in advance differs significantly from the spoken one. The most biting expressions were not printed, they burst out spontaneously, such a cry from the heart. Through the joint efforts of journalists from many countries, Churchill's full Fulton speech, the essence of which is the official declaration of the Soviet Union as enemy No. 1, was restored.

Inveterate scammers

This speech, like no other, achieved its task, which is why it is considered a masterpiece, subsequently studied to the smallest detail, among which were very unpleasant things for the speaker. So, the day before on the train, Winston and Harry (as they agreed to address each other, including in public, demonstrating personal friendship and mutual sympathy) played poker. And Churchill uttered an unambiguous phrase about a bet on two jacks (knave), subtly alluding to the second meaning of this word - “swindler”. That is, the two of them went to "turn the business", and they succeeded in full. The cunning, cynicism, unscrupulousness of this politician are not only justified by the fight against world evil - they are elevated to dignity.

Reaction to speech

Winston Churchill's Fulton speech is also highly valued by contemporary politicians in the West, especially in the United States. R. Reagan said that it was from this speech that the modern West and peace on our planet were born.

In a word, the praises are not to be counted - the enemies of Russia were delighted and united in a single impulse. But there was, of course, another reaction, and not only in the Soviet Union. Only a year has passed since the defeat of Nazi Germany, and the neglect of an elementary feeling of gratitude to former ally many people were repelled by the new imposed policy of the West, which was proclaimed by Churchill's Fulton speech. In the USSR, the reaction was quick and unequivocal: Stalin called Churchill a Nazi. And this was true, since the rhetoric of the speech was fully consistent with Goebbels' propaganda.

New realities

Of course, the Kremlin was not in the least surprised by this speech. It was clearly stated what had long hung over the Soviet country. The full text of the speech was read by Stalin and Molotov, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, the next morning. Academician E. V. Tarle wrote an article “Churchill saber-rattling”, published in Izvestia, and a few days later an interview with Stalin appeared, in which he gave a worthy answer.

The most interesting thing is that, without stopping for a minute, constantly attacking, insulting, humiliating our country not only with words, but also with actions, these people are hoarse, spitting saliva, yelling, calling our country an “aggressor”.

Crusade

The policy of the West towards our country is rightly called the long echo of the Fulton speech. The leader of the British opposition not only attacked the USSR, he "defended" the countries of Eastern Europe, groaning under the hated power. After the victory of the revolution in 1917, this chronic hater of Russia managed, under the slogan of fighting evil, to organize a "campaign of 14 countries" against the young republic. The purpose of the Fulton speech is to unite the West against the same country, hated to the teeth gnashing. A detailed analysis of Churchill's Fulton speech has been carried out hundreds of times on both sides of the Iron Curtain, always with back results. And by each anniversary of this speech, disputes will arise again and again, and each of the parties will remain with a deep conviction that they are right. Churchill, and this showed his political instinct, took upon himself the right to kindle this fire in post-war world.

70 years ago, March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his famous speech at Fulton. Ronald Reagan said that not only the modern West, but also peace on the planet was born from the Fulton speech. But it looks like he went too far.

As you know, it was during this speech that Churchill first used the expression "Iron Curtain". According to him, this curtain "was lowered from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, across the entire continent." The British ex-premier accused the Kremlin of the fact that behind this line “all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe ... in one form or another are objects not only of Soviet influence, but also of very high, and in some cases growing control from Moscow".

The only instrument, according to Churchill, capable of providing "resistance to tyranny" is the "fraternal association of English-speaking peoples."

However, one of the permanent experts of the Free Press - candidate historical sciences, Associate Professor, Faculty of World Politics, Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov Alexey Fenenko,- believes that the foundations of the cold war were laid long before Fulton, and the real cold war began 10 years later.

In my opinion, in our country the importance of the Fulton speech is incredibly exaggerated, - says Alexey Fenenko. - This attitude arose back in 1946, after March 14 in the Pravda newspaper Joseph Stalin gave an answer to Churchill (Stalin put Churchill on a par with Hitler, and stated that in his speech he called on the West to go to war with the USSR, and also accused him of racism - “SP”).

You have to understand: Churchill by that time was a retired prime minister. He was neither official representative Great Britain, nor its official. And he delivered his speech not in the UK - not on the territory of his own country. In other words, one former politician visited another country, where he made the corresponding performance - that's all.

But the fact that Stalin is the leader of the Soviet Union, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and General Secretary The Central Committee of the CPSU (b) - officially responded to this speech, immediately raised its status.

"SP": - Is it possible to say that it was Churchill's speech that was the boundary of the transition between partnership during the war and the Cold War?

In my opinion - no. But before talking about the real transition to the Cold War, I note that the term itself was coined by an American observer Walter Lippmann- Churchill's merit was not in this. And that the prerequisites for the transition to the Cold War were ripening throughout the Second World War.

Let me remind you that the USSR's partnership with its allies was far from being as cloudless as it is usually portrayed in our country.

Even when the Germans stood near Kiev and Smolensk, and the battle for Moscow was ahead - August 14, 1941 - Churchill and the US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt meet on the island of Newfoundland, and adopt the Atlantic Charter. In it, they formulate the so-called values ​​of the post-war world order, including the non-recognition of territorial changes made by force, the punishment (that is, forced disarmament) of aggressors, the spread of liberal democratic values, and the provision of free access to energy.

That is, the leaders of the United States and Great Britain already in the summer of 1941 were so confident in their final victory over the Axis powers (Berlin-Rome-Tokyo) that even then, without the participation of the Soviet Union, they began to form a favorable image of the post-war world for themselves. Nobody invited the USSR to discuss the Atlantic Charter.

The Soviet Union then said that it was in solidarity with the Atlantic Charter, but that was the end of it. And in the first year of the war, Moscow's relations with the allies were very tense.

Let me remind you that neither the United States nor Great Britain recognized our territorial acquisitions of 1939-1940: the Baltic states, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, plus the annexation of part of the territories following the results winter war with Finland. In fact, from a diplomatic point of view, the entire first year of the war was spent for the Allies to recognize us within the borders on June 21, 1941.

The results of these negotiations varied. There was, for example, a visit to Moscow on December 15-22, 1941 by the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden- and it turned out scandalous. Stalin then put the question to Eden point-blank: does Great Britain recognize the territorial gains of the Soviet Union in 1939-1940? Eden said that he must ask His Majesty's Government. Then Stalin clearly asked: was not the provision of the Atlantic Charter directed against the Soviet Union? And let me remind you that one of the points of the Charter was the non-recognition of territorial changes made by force. This paragraph could be interpreted, including as directed against the USSR.

Eden left, but the conflict received international attention. The recording of the negotiations ended up in Germany. Goebbels spoke live and sarcastically said that the "Grand Alliance" is a concept that existed from July to December 1941, and that after Eden's visit it became history.

In other words, the Germans then believed that this was a real split in the anti-Hitler coalition.

Roosevelt's mediation saved the situation. The American president first insisted on signing a United Nations declaration, and then said: let's not interpret the provisions of the Atlantic Charter literally. And when in June 1942 the People's Commissar, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav Molotov visited Washington, Roosevelt proposed to him the concept of "three policemen": that three powers - the Soviet Union, the USA and Great Britain - play the leading role in the post-war world.

It was then that we were first told that the Soviet Union would also become one of the leaders of the post-war world order - only in the summer of 1942.

A little earlier, on May 26, 1942, the Soviet-British Union Treaty was signed, and under its terms, Great Britain recognized the USSR within the borders on June 21, 1941. But the United States never recognized us within these borders. Until the end of the Cold War, the United States in any international instrument put an asterisk, and wrote that the United States did not recognize the Baltic republics as part of the Soviet Union.

That's how specific we were allies in the war!

"SP": - When did our relations with the allies begin to deteriorate frankly?

Since the spring of 1945. We are now talking about the meeting on the Elbe as a joyful and beautiful event. In fact, already at the end of 1944, both Washington and London were worried about the moment of the upcoming meeting with the Soviet army: whether it would be peaceful, or whether it would happen in a different format.

The key moment was the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. Let me remind you that the German Army Group "B" under the command of Field Marshal B. Model went on the offensive, broke through the Allied front and moved forward 100 kilometers. In order to assess the degree of shock to the allies, let me remind you that in November 1944, a special commission was created in the United States to evaluate the effectiveness of strategic bombing of Germany - it was believed that it had already been largely finished, it was time to evaluate the effectiveness of strategic air strikes. Now the allies asked Stalin to speed up the offensive on the Eastern Front, which eventually resulted in the Vistula-Oder operation. In those days, the Allies really felt the power of the Wehrmacht. And at the same time - the power of the army that crushed the Wehrmacht. And just as the USSR "tried on" the strategic bombing of the Allies, so the Allies "tried on" what awaits their troops in Europe in the event of a conflict with the USSR. That is why, I think, the Yalta Conference was held on the delimitation of spheres of influence in Europe - because of the expected meeting of the Red Army with the armies of the Western allies.

Yalta conference. British Prime Minister W. Churchill, US President F. D. Roosevelt and Marshal of the Soviet Union I. Stalin before a meeting. Standing: British Foreign Secretary A. Eden, US Secretary of State E. Stettinius and USSR People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. M. Molotov (Photo: TASS)

Let me remind you interesting fact: there were two capitulations of Germany. We celebrate on May 9 the surrender signed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel in Potsdam on the night of May 8-9, 1945. But this was the second capitulation. The first was signed by the Allies with Germany on the night of May 6-7, 1945 in Reims. From the USSR it was endorsed by Major General Ivan Susloparov provided that its text is preliminary. The capitulation was re-signed at the insistence of the USSR. After this story, the Soviet leadership, not without reason, feared that the United States and Great Britain had their own plans for Germany.

And now look from this angle at the contacts of the allies with the German command in the spring of 1945 - we all know one of the episodes from the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" - an episode with the operation "Sunrise" ("Crossword"), which was based on historical facts.

SP: Were there economic reasons conflict between the USSR and its allies?

In the summer of 1944, the famous Bretton Woods agreements were signed on two world reserve currencies - the dollar and the pound sterling. In addition, agreements were signed on the creation of two international financial institutions - World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Soviet Union signed the Bretton Woods agreements, but set two conditions for ratification: to recognize the status of the world reserve currency for the ruble, and to expand the number of votes of the Soviet Union in the IMF.

Roosevelt then put the resolution "I agree", but after his death on April 12, 1945, and the coming to power of the President Harry Truman, the situation has changed dramatically. Truman refused the USSR its demands, and then the Union did not ratify the Bretton Woods agreements.

This means that already from the middle of 1945 the economic split of the post-war world was becoming a reality. It became clear that there would be no unified economic system of the world, as it was conceived in 1943-44.

SP: - Since when did the aggravation become inevitable?

I think by the beginning of 1946. The Allies were very worried about three countries: Iran, Greece and Türkiye. Let me remind you that since 1941 there were Soviet and British troops in Iran, by the end of the war the British were withdrawn, while the Soviet ones remained, and did not allow the Iranian government to suppress the uprising in Iranian Azerbaijan. In Iran, they feared that Stalin was preparing the annexation of Iranian Azerbaijan to the USSR. By the way, Churchill's speech in Fulton was, first of all, an insult to the Iranian crisis: the British believed that the Soviet Union outplayed them.

The second problem was Turkey, since the Soviet Union denounced the Soviet-Turkish friendship and cooperation treaty of 1925, as it believed that Turkey, led by the president Ismet İnönü was too pro-German. Therefore, on August 7, 1946, the USSR put forward a note on the straits to Turkey, in which it demanded a partial revision of the regime of the 1936 Montreux Convention.

The Soviet Union proposed the following: firstly, to create a naval base on the Bosphorus, and secondly, to make sure that the USSR, together with Turkey, decide on the right to admit military vessels of third countries to the Black Sea (and not Turkey alone, as provided for by convention). The fact is that in 1936 Turkey was headed by a friendly Mustafa Kemal, and we agreed with the convention, but now the situation has changed. Our note of the allies was frankly frightening.

Finally, Greece. In 1944, Stalin agreed with Churchill that Greece would go into the sphere of influence of Great Britain, Romania and Bulgaria - into the sphere of influence of the USSR. Yugoslavia remains neutral. The fact that a civil war between communists and monarchists began in Greece made the situation in the country extremely uncertain, and the West believed that Stalin had violated the Yalta agreements.

As a result, the actions of the USSR around Iran, Greece and Turkey were regarded by the West as an attempt to go beyond the Yalta Agreement. So by the beginning of 1946 it became clear that a conflict between the allies was inevitable.

And here for the start of the Cold War, much more value it was not Churchill's Fulton speech, but a long telegram from George Kennan, US Chargé d'Affaires in the Soviet Union. On February 22, 1946, he tapped out a dispatch to Washington about the origins of the policy of the Soviet Union, and in it he proclaimed the famous concept of containing communism in those territorial spheres of influence that were acquired during the Yalta Conference. It was Kennan who advised to provide economic assistance Western Europe on US terms, and to provide US security guarantees to allies. In other words, this long telegram laid out the entire logic of the subsequent US actions.

As you can see, Churchill's speech did not change much here.

"SP": - What conclusions should be drawn from this today?

We often confuse two things when talking about the beginning of the Cold War: a general cold snap with bloc confrontation. If we talk about the bloc confrontation as a cold war between the communist and Western camps, it began ten years later - in 1955-56. Then, due to the admission of the FRG to NATO, the Soviet Union denounced all agreements on the anti-Hitler coalition.

This means that rhetoric is rhetoric, but until 1955 we formally remained allies with the United States and Great Britain. Only the admission of the German army - which consisted of the former Nazi Wehrmacht and the SS - to NATO, we considered a pretext for a sharp break in relations, and for the creation of our own Warsaw Pact Organization (OVD). Political facts played an important role here: the FRG's non-recognition of the GDR, the FRG's non-recognition of the Oder-Neisse borders. The USSR considered this to be the Allies' refusal of a single line towards Germany, determined at the Potsdam Conference in 1945. It was then that the final split occurred, and two opposing blocs were formed - NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Potsdam Conference, 1945 (Photo: TASS)

And finally, let's not forget that in Stalin's time it was believed that there were three superpowers - including Great Britain. And sometimes France was also considered the fourth superpower, and under Stalin it was not France that was written in the books, but the French Empire, implying that France had huge colonial possessions.

It was only in 1956, after the Suez Crisis, that the Soviet Union and the United States jointly reduced Britain and France to the level of minor powers. It turns out that the cold war is a cold war, but until the mid-1950s, the Americans and I interacted very well in the defeat of the British and French empires. Only in 1956 did we and the United States find ourselves in a situation of bloc confrontation, when there was no “spacer” between us in the form of other states. This order is precisely the present world order.

In fact, we still continue to live by the rules set by the victorious powers in 1945. We still have the same UN Security Council - five victorious powers that rule simultaneously, on behalf of the results of the Second World War, and have the right of veto that distinguishes them from other states. Plus, it was these five members of the UN Security Council that secured the status of legal nuclear powers. And the economic system of the world, with all the modifications, is currently regulated by the Bretton Woods agreements.

There were two modifications of the world order: the first - in 1956, the second - the collapse of the USSR. Radical progress has not yet taken place: Russia has less resources and influence than the USSR, but has retained the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, nuclear-missile parity with the United States, and the only military-industrial complex in the world that is alternative to the American one. All of this causes ill-concealed irritation in Washington. I strongly suspect that we are very close to the third change in the rules of the game - and this is much more dangerous than what they call the cold war ...

On the morning of March 14, 1946, loudspeakers, which were then available in almost all Soviet city apartments, transmitted answers to I.V. Stalin to questions from a Pravda correspondent regarding a recent speech by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In his replies, Stalin called Churchill a "warmonger" and compared him to Hitler.

But less than ten months ago, Churchill's photograph was published on the front pages of the festive issues of the country's central newspapers on the occasion of the Victory Day over Nazi Germany, along with photographs of US President Truman and Stalin ... What caused such a sharp change in relation to former leader country that was an ally of the USSR during the Second World War?

Nine days before Stalin's announcement, on March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, outlining a program for radical change in foreign policy Great Britain, the USA and other "English-speaking countries" in relation to their recent ally in the anti-Hitler coalition. Churchill announced: “Twilight has fallen on the international political arena, once illuminated by the rays of a common victory ... From Szczecin on the Baltic Sea to Trieste on the Adriatic, the “Iron Curtain” divided the European continent. On the other side of this barrier were the ancient capitals of Central and Eastern Europe - Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia. The population of all these famous cities went over to the Soviet camp and is not only under the strong influence of Moscow, but also under its strict control.

Subsequently, the concept of the "Iron Curtain", which Churchill introduced into political circulation, began to be used to describe restrictions for citizens of the USSR and other socialist countries to travel to capitalist countries and receive information about life in the West. However, Churchill called the "iron curtain" the difficulties in obtaining information from the West from the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe. By this time, the Western press constantly wrote that the introduced Soviet troops and their allies, restrictions on the activities of Western journalists (as well as intelligence officers) prevent sufficient coverage of events in these countries, and therefore the West does not get a complete picture of what is happening there.

The phrase "Iron Curtain" was taken from an article by Goebbels published in the Reich newspaper on February 24, 1945.

In it, the Nazi Reich Minister of Propaganda assured that as the Red Army advanced to the west, the "Iron Curtain" would fall on the territories occupied by Soviet troops. In fact, Churchill was repeating Goebbels' assertions that a "curtain" of Soviet tanks and other "iron" weapons concealed preparations for an attack on Western countries.

In order to repel the impending threat, Churchill called for the creation of a "fraternal association of peoples who speak the English language." He emphasized that such an association would involve the joint use of air, naval bases and armed forces of the United States, England and other English-speaking countries. So Churchill announced the beginning of the "cold war" of the West against the USSR.

Political turns of Churchill

For my long life Churchill made sharp political turns more than once. In April 1904, he left the ranks of the Conservative Party and became a minister in the cabinet, headed by the leader of the Liberal Party, D. Lloyd George. In 1924 Churchill broke with the Liberals and soon became Chancellor of the Exchequer in Baldwin's conservative cabinet. Churchill more than once was the initiator of cardinal turns in the foreign policy of his country. On the evening of November 11, 1918, when the people of London rejoiced at the victorious end to the war against Germany, Churchill, by his own admission, was in a gloomy mood. Being in the company of members of the government that evening, he said that it was necessary to "help the defeated enemy." The change in attitude towards defeated Germany was explained by Churchill's desire to defeat Soviet Russia. Churchill reasoned as follows: “We can conquer Russia ... we can only with the help of Germany. Germany must be invited to help us in the liberation of Russia.”

Soon Churchill came up with a proposal to organize a "campaign of 14 powers" against Soviet Russia.

At the same time, he advocated the dismemberment of Russia. In 1919, Churchill wrote that a disunited Russia "would pose a lesser threat to the future peace of all countries than a vast centralized tsarist monarchy."

However, on June 22, 1941, the British heard Churchill's speech on the radio, in which the head of the royal government announced: “In the last twenty-five years, no one has been a more consistent opponent of communism than I. I will not take back a single word I have said about communism. However, all this fades into the background against the backdrop of ongoing events ... I see how Russian soldiers stand on the threshold of their native land, which their fathers have cultivated since time immemorial ... I see how the Nazi war machine is moving towards them. Churchill compared German soldiers with Huns and locusts. He stated that “Hitler’s invasion of Russia is only a prelude to an attempted invasion of the British Isles ... Therefore, the danger that threatens us and the United States, just like the business of every Russian fighting for his hearth and home, is the business of free peoples in all corners of the world."

The agreement on cooperation between the USSR and Great Britain on joint actions in the war against Germany, signed in the Kremlin on July 12, 1941, turned on May 26, 1942 into the Anglo-Soviet agreement on alliance in the war and on cooperation and mutual assistance after the war. Then the governments of Churchill and Roosevelt undertook to open a "second front" in Western Europe. However, already in July, both governments refused to fulfill these obligations. Explaining his refusal during a visit to the Kremlin in August 1942, Churchill at the same time asked Stalin for forgiveness for organizing a quarter of a century ago Britain's military intervention against the Soviet country. (Stalin replied: "God will forgive!"). Returning to London in September, Churchill, in his speech in the House of Commons, did not spare bright words to express his admiration for Stalin.

Although Churchill repeatedly congratulated Stalin and the Red Army on their victories, the British and Americans again violated their obligations to open a "second front" in 1943. And yet, despite this, as well as Churchill's attempts at the Tehran Conference to weaken the future "second front" "Operations in the Balkans, which he planned to prevent the entry of the Red Army into Western Europe, by the end of 1944, our troops entered Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

Then Churchill again flew to Moscow in October 1944 and tried to establish "quotas" of influence of the USSR and Western allies in the countries of South-Eastern Europe.

Churchill recalled that during negotiations with Stalin, “I took half a sheet of paper and wrote: Romania. Russia - 90%; Others - 10%. Greece. Great Britain (in agreement with the USA) - 90%; Russia - 10%. Yugoslavia. 50% - 50%. Hungary. 50% - 50%. Bulgaria. Russia - 75%. Others - 25%. Although Stalin did not comment on these figures, and no agreement was reached on the division of spheres of influence in Europe, Churchill's trip to the USSR reaffirmed the strength of the Anglo-Soviet militant alliance. This impression was strengthened after the Yalta Conference (February 4-11, 1945), in which Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill took part.

However, already on April 1, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt: “The Russian armies will undoubtedly capture all of Austria and enter Vienna. If they also take Berlin, will they not have a too exaggerated idea that they have made an overwhelming contribution to our common victory, and might this not lead them to a frame of mind that will cause serious and very significant difficulties in the future? Therefore, I think that from a political point of view, we should move as far east as possible in Germany, and in the event that Berlin is within reach, we must undoubtedly take it.

Churchill did not limit himself to complaining about the successes of the Red Army. In those days, Field Marshal B.L. Montgomery, who commanded British forces in Europe, received a directive from Churchill: "Carefully collect German weapons and fold them so that they can be easily distributed to German soldiers with whom we would have to cooperate if the Soviet offensive continued." However, the covert operation developed by Churchill against the Soviet ally, called the "Unthinkable", was not implemented due to the unwillingness of the United States at that time to fight against the USSR in Europe. The Americans expected the Red Army to help them in the war against Japan.

Yet Churchill's secret directive to Montgomery regarding German soldiers and their weapons was not cancelled. This was evidenced by the exchange of opinions between Stalin and Churchill at the Potsdam Conference. During the discussion of the topic of the shortage of coal and the lack of labor for its extraction in Western Europe, Stalin said that the USSR is now using the labor of prisoners of war to work in the mines, and then remarked: “400 thousand German soldiers are sitting in Norway, they even not disarmed, and it is not known what they are waiting for. Here's your workforce." Realizing the true meaning of Stalin's statement, Churchill immediately began to justify himself: “I did not know that they were not disarmed. In any case, our intention is to disarm them. I do not know exactly what the situation is there, but this issue has been resolved supreme rate Allied Expeditionary Force. Anyway, I'll make inquiries."

However, Stalin did not limit himself to his remark, and at the end of the meeting handed over to Churchill a memorandum regarding the undisarmed German troops in Norway. Churchill began to justify himself again: "But I can give assurance that our intention is to disarm these troops." Stalin's answer: "I have no doubt" was obviously pronounced with an ironic intonation, and therefore caused laughter. Continuing to make excuses, Churchill declared: “We do not keep them in reserve, so that later we can let them out of our sleeves. I will immediately demand a report on this matter.

Only 10 years later, when Churchill again became prime minister, he admitted that he personally gave the order not to disarm part of the German troops, but to keep them ready in case of a possible armed clash with the USSR in Europe in the summer of 1945.

Washington's turn to confrontation

Although in his political activities Churchill constantly demonstrated his loyalty to the traditional perfidy of British politicians, the turn to the Cold War was not only the result of the actions of the "treacherous Albion". The most important factor in this was the position of Britain's main ally.

On April 25, 1945, two weeks after Roosevelt's death, the new US President, Harry Truman, was initiated into the secret of the "Manhattan Project" by Secretary of War Stimson. On the same day, the President and the Minister prepared a memorandum, which, in part, stated: “We currently have sole control over the resources with which the United States can create and use these weapons, and no other country will be able to achieve this for a number of years. … The preservation of peace on Earth at the present level of moral development of society, which is much lower than the level of technical development, will ultimately depend on these weapons… We must not give up a certain moral responsibility that has arisen as a result of our leading role in the war and in the creation of this weapons... If the problem correct use this weapon can be solved, we would be able to ensure world peace, and our civilization would be saved.”

After the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, the US government came to the decision that they no longer needed a Soviet ally. The destruction of two Japanese cities with the help of atomic bombs showed the whole world that the United States has the most powerful weapon that ever existed in the world. The owner and editor of major American magazines, Henry Luce, declared: "The twentieth century is the century of America ... the first century in which America is the dominant world power." These statements echoed official government declarations. On October 27, 1945, Truman declared in his Navy Day speech, "We are the greatest national power on earth."

After the creation and use of atomic bombs, the agreements between the victors in World War II, reached in Yalta and Potsdam, no longer suited the United States.

In the military circles of the country, preparations began for an attack on the USSR using atomic weapons. On October 9, 1945, the US Chiefs of Staff prepared secret directive No. 1518 "Strategic Concept and Plan for the Use of the US Armed Forces", which proceeded from the preparation by America of a preventive atomic strike against the USSR. With the rapid accumulation of atomic weapons in the United States, on December 14, 1945, a new Directive No. 432 / d of the Chiefs of Staff Committee was prepared, in the appendix to which 20 main industrial centers The USSR and the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway as objects of atomic bombing.

And yet, the United States did not dare to immediately go to war against the USSR. The European allies were not ready for such a turn in politics either. Therefore, to "sound" the change in relation to the USSR, they decided to use Winston Churchill, whose party was defeated in the parliamentary elections. The speech of the retired prime minister was preceded by his long stay in the USA in the winter of 1945 - 1946, during which Churchill met with Truman and others statesmen countries. The main provisions of Churchill's speech were agreed during his conversation with Truman on February 10, 1946. During several weeks of his stay in Florida, Churchill worked on the text of the speech.

The final version of the speech was agreed upon with British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who led the Labor Party, and Foreign Minister Ernst Bevin. Truman traveled to Fulton to personally introduce Churchill to those gathered at Westminster College before he began his speech.

Under cover of false accusations

The Western powers covered up their program of attack on our country by accusing the Soviet Union of violating the agreements reached on the post-war peace. Exposing the falsity of Churchill's speech, Stalin in his “answer to a Pravda correspondent” pointed out: “It is completely absurd to talk about the exclusive control of the USSR in Vienna and Berlin, where there are Allied Control Councils of representatives of four states and where the USSR has only ¼ of the votes. It happens that other people cannot but slander, but you still need to know when to stop.

Stalin also drew attention to the fact that an important part of the post-war settlement in Europe was the creation of borders that ensured the security of the USSR.

He stated: “The Germans invaded the USSR through Finland, Poland, Romania, Hungary ... The question is, what can be surprising in the fact that the Soviet Union, wanting to secure itself for the future, is trying to ensure that governments exist in these countries, loyal to the Soviet Union?

Before the acquisition of atomic weapons, this requirement of the USSR was recognized by our Western allies. In his speech at Fulton, Churchill kept silent about the fact that even in the autumn of 1944 he agreed to the predominant influence of the USSR in Romania and Bulgaria (by 75-90%). By March 1946, the USSR had not exceeded this "quota" proposed by Churchill. In November 1945, in the elections to the National Assembly of Bulgaria, the Fatherland Front, which, along with the Communist Party, included the Agricultural Union, received 88.2% of the vote. The rest of the votes went to pro-Western opposition parties. In Romania, which retained royal power, along with the ruling People's Democratic Front, there were also opposition parties.

In Hungary, which Churchill agreed to divide equally between the USSR and the West according to the degree of influence, in the November 1945 elections the Communist Party received 17%, the Social Democratic Party - 17%, the National Peasant Party - 7%, and the party of small farmers won the elections , which received 57%. The Communists were in a clear minority.

Although Churchill wanted in 1944 to achieve equal influence of the West and the USSR on Yugoslavia, in fact this country was not completely subject to anyone's influence. Only under pressure from Stalin did the Yugoslav communists reluctantly agree to include representatives of the émigré government in his government. Soon, events showed that the USSR could not exert effective influence on the government of Yugoslavia.

There was no complete domination of the USSR in March 1946 in Czechoslovakia either. By that time, in the government and local bodies, the communists shared power with representatives of other parties on an equal footing. The president of the republic, as in 1938, remained E. Benes, who personified the pro-Western orientation in the country.

Although the leading posts in Poland remained in the hands of the communists and left socialists, the former prime minister of the exiled government, Mikołajczyk, who entered the government as deputy chairman, and the Polskie stronitstvo ludowie party led by him played a significant role in political life countries.

It is quite obvious that Churchill's far-fetched accusations and frightening statements were intended to present the USSR as a perfidious aggressor and to create an atmosphere conducive to whipping up international tension.

Churchill blatantly distorted the readiness of the USSR for aggressive actions against the West. By the end of the war, the USSR had lost 30% of its national wealth.

On the territory liberated from the invaders, 1710 cities and towns and 70 thousand villages and villages were destroyed. 182 coal mines were put out of action, the production of ferrous metallurgy and oil production were reduced by a third. Huge damage suffered Agriculture. The human losses were enormous. Addressing Truman and Churchill at the Potsdam Conference, Stalin said: “I am not used to complaining, but I must say that ... we have lost several million killed, we do not have enough people. If I started to complain, I'm afraid that you would shed tears here, before the difficult situation in Russia.

These facts were recognized by all objective observers. Analyzing American plans for an attack on the USSR, researcher M. Sherry later wrote: “The Soviet Union does not pose an immediate threat, the command of the armed forces recognized. Its economy and human resources have been depleted by the war... Consequently, in the next few years, the USSR will focus its efforts on reconstruction.”

The report of the Policy Planning Board of the US State Department on November 7, 1947 admitted: "The Soviet government does not want and does not expect war with us in the foreseeable future."

Summarizing his impressions of his stay in the USSR and meeting with Stalin in early 1947, Field Marshal Montgomery wrote: “In general, I came to the conclusion that Russia is not in a position to take part in a world war against any strong combination of allied countries, and she understands this. Russia needed a long period of peace during which she would have to recover. I came to the conclusion that Russia will closely monitor the situation and refrain from incautious diplomatic steps, trying not to "cross the line" anywhere, so as not to provoke new war which she will not be able to handle ... I reported this in a report to the British government and chiefs of staff.

Cold War in action

However, having learned about the plight of our country, the leaders of Great Britain and the United States did not “shine”, but went over to a confrontation with the Soviet Union, moreover, taking advantage of the presence of atomic weapons in the Americans. In September 1946, Special Assistant to the President of the United States C. Clifford, on the orders of H. Truman, held a meeting with the highest government leaders of the United States and, on the basis of it, on September 24, 1946, presented the report "American Policy towards the Soviet Union", which, in particular, said: “We must indicate to the Soviet government that we have sufficient power not only to repel an attack, but also to quickly crush the USSR in a war ... In order to keep our power at a level that is effective for deterring the Soviet Union, the United States must be ready to conduct atomic and bacteriological war." In mid-1948, the US Chiefs of Staff Committee prepared the Chariotir plan, which provided for the use of 133 atomic bombs against 70 Soviet cities in the first 30 days of the war. 8 bombs were supposed to be dropped on Moscow, and 7 on Leningrad. It was planned to drop another 200 atomic bombs and 250 thousand tons of conventional bombs on the USSR in the next two years of the war.

Threats of atomic attack against the USSR, sounded in the US Congress and the British House of Commons, as well as in the pages of the press of Western countries, were reinforced by hostile actions in the international arena.

In 1947, the US government unilaterally terminated the 1945 Soviet-American agreement on the supply of American goods on credit. In March 1948, export licenses were introduced in the United States, prohibiting the import of most goods into the USSR. Soviet-American trade virtually ceased. But anti-Soviet propaganda began to expand. The report of K. Clifford dated September 24, 1946 emphasized: “In the most on a large scale, which the Soviet government will tolerate, we must deliver books, magazines, newspapers and films to the country, conduct radio broadcasts to the USSR. This is how the Cold War program outlined by Winston Churchill on March 5, 1946, began to be implemented.