Winston Churchill: Iron Curtain Speech

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Winston Churchill had earlier warned the West about the “Red menace” in the Soviet Union, but no one took him seriously. Why do you think political leaders ignored his warnings in the 1920s and 1930s?
• 2. Historians might argue that Churchill himself was at least partly responsible for the “iron curtain” and the conditions that created it. On what basis could they make that argument?
• 3. Perhaps the most prominent development in geopolitics during the second half of the twentieth century was the cold war. Define the phrase cold war and explain how it developed, particularly in light of the cooperation between the Western democracies and the Soviet Union during World War II.
• 4. Churchill's speech is remembered primarily for his coining of the term iron curtain. Yet Churchill had other purposes in the speech as well. What were those purposes?
• 5. Compare the world situation at the end of World War I (using, for example, the entries on the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Lausanne, and the Covenant of the League of Nations) with that prevailing at the end of World War II. How were they similar? How did they differ? What were the prospects for peace following each war?