Winston Churchill Echoes His Famed Iron Curtain Speech, Warning That Britain’s Hard-Fought For Victory for Democracy Might Be Threatened by the Forces of Communism

This is our first letter of Churchill on the path of Britain to a broader democracy as a result of World War II

The Second World War has come to occupy a unique position in modem British folk-lore. The war is widely regarded as perhaps the most remarkable moment in the whole of British history, when the British people came together as an entity that transcended the traditional divisions of class and self-interest. And this coming together led to a transformation of the nation that broadened democracy and altered class distinctions.

The sense of desperate unity forged by common danger, particularly in 1940-1941, engendered among the population at large a widespread and unprecedented ethic of self-sacrifice, social leveling and community spirit. The phrase ‘the Dunkirk spirit’ has entered into the everyday language in Britain as a synonym for cheerful communal endeavor against hopeless odds. People were seen as caring about each other in those days, when it was all for one and one for all. The men and women who fought and sacrificed so much in their “finest hour” had dreams about a new, great society that would emerge from all the horror. In fact, they were tantalized by that very prospect by public relations during the war; it was this promise of a fair society where people were cared for and cared about that helped win the war. After the conflict ended, it seemed impossible, and highly undesirable, to return to a stratified class society. Evacuation, rationing, conscription and aerial bombardment were credited with bringing people of all classes together and with opening the eyes of the upper classes to their less affluent fellow citizens. Politicians and historians writing both during and after the war continually reaffirmed the image of the war as the cradle of the welfare state, as the launching-pad of an epoch of unprecedented social and moral solidarity.

Winston Churchill, whose place as the savior of western civilization rests on defeating the Nazis, found in military victory that he was in the thick of a social revolution, in fact one he played a role in initiating. In the election of 1945, the Labor Party, led by Clement Attlee, in a sense out-promised Churchill about creating a welfare state, and Churchill was defeated as resigned as prime minister. But, just as he had been alive to the threat of Hitler and Naziism, he quickly found himself alive to the danger of Stalin and Communism. On March 5, 1946, speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, he delivered the first clarion warning of that danger, opening condemning the Soviet Union’s policies in Eastern Europe, and momentously naming the divide between East and West the “Iron Curtain”. He said: ”From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

Churchill always had a keen interest in English history, penning many books on the subject. Among the figures that loomed largest in his mind as affecting change in England was John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, Grace Abounding; and the allegory The Holy War. Bunyon’s characters struggle on the path of life inspired Churchill. Moreover, Bunyan’s religious preachings, upon the restoration of the monarchy under King Charles II in 1660, wound up putting him in jail, where he spent years of sacrifice because he refused to give up his right to preach. This form of democratic dissent has been influential in the minds of many charting the progress of English democratic evolution. Churchill had Bunyan’s words read aloud at his funeral in 1965. Churchill also admired Benjamin Disraeli, under whose leadership the Conservative Party was aligned with increasing the voter franchise.

In 1950, a national election was held. Christopher Soames, Churchill’s son-in-law (who had married Mary, Churchill’s youngest daughter), ran for a seat in Parliament. In this illuminating letter written to support his campaign, Churchill takes credit for the social changes that resulted from the war. And indeed that election would help establish the post-war consensus: Churchill’s Conservatives accepted the Atlee’s government nationalization of key industries and the formation of the National Health Service. But a major difference Churchill had with Attlee was his continued condemnation of Stalinist Communism. The Conservatives were only narrowly defeated by Labor. Soon they would beat Labor and return to power, with Soames as Churchill’s Personal Private Secretary in his father-in-law’s second premiership.

This is a remarkable letter showing Churchill’s taking credit for the social changes brought about by “Conservative wisdom” and promising to “increasingly provide for those who fail or fall in the struggle of life”’; manifesting his belief that English historical greats, along with a tradition of compromise and bi-partisanship, had made England a great democracy; and also echoing his Iron Curtain speech, warning of the pernicious influence of Soviet Russia.

Typed letter signed, on his Hyde Park Gate letterhead, two pages, London, 15 February 1950, to Soames. “I send you all my good wishes for your success at Bedford. Your long and hard service in the Desert with the Coldstream Guards and with the Eighth Army and after that with the Italian resistance have given you much knowledge of foreign lands and the right to speak about them to your fellow-countrymen. Now that you are invalided from the Army you are a farmer, and here again you have a tale to tell to our people , who, alas, at present only grow half the food they need.

“I am very glad you are contesting Bedford, and I hope that memories of John Bunyan will make Bedford electors realize how much we all owe to our forbears and to our famous past. In those distant days and for many generations after them, England,’ as Disraeli said, ‘was for the few and the very few.’ But now through Conservative wisdom and Liberal impulse the barriers of class and privilege have been removed, and the road is open to every form of civic virtue and personal endeavour. Moreover, by our social services we have provided and will increasingly provide for those who fail or fall in the struggle of life. Now that we are broad-based on universal suffrage and Parliamentary democracy, the future must be free for all, and every year a more bountiful table should welcome ever more millions of mankind. Beware that this is not narrowed by Socialism or closed by Communistic tyranny.

“I earnestly hope you may succeed, for I believe you have the root of the matter in you. I am sure Mary will be a help in the electoral battle, as she was with her battery in Hyde Park. Yours affectionately, Winston Churchill.“ Soames won the seat.