The Iron Curtain Speech March 1946

Winston Churchill was defeated as British Prime minister and replaced by Clement Attlee however this did not stop him travelling to America in 1946 and making a speech which made history. The 'Iron Curtain' speech was made in Fulton on 5th March 1946. He stated ' that from Strettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.
In doing so he was attempting to encourage the USA to make a closer alliance with Great Britain against the communist threat. However, as a result some including Stalin accuse Churchill of stirring up trouble and of being a war monger.

So how accurate was Churchill? Eastern Europe still reflected a great deal of diversity. The Communists were in power in a number of countries however in many countries such as Czechoslovakia and Finland Stalin had pursued a much more moderate policy. It was the Marshall Plan introduced later which really forced Stalin to introduce more uniform policy and control over Eastern Europe. However it is true to say that by 1947 the Cold War was beginning to polarise Western domestic policies with Communists pushed out of governments in France and Italy.