In a speech in Fulton, Missouri, on March 6, 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned that “From Stettin, in the Baltic, to Trieste, in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” Churchill’s speech is seen as signaling the onset of what later came to be called the “cold war.” The speech came as a shock to Western public opinion, which still saw the Soviet Union as a loyal ally in the recently won war against Fascism.
Churchill felt the need to speak out against Soviet actions in those Eastern European countries that were occupied by the Red Army, especially Poland. Political leaders and parties that were not considered loyal to the Soviet Union were being brutally suppressed. It was clear that Joseph Stalin intended to permanently occupy and control as much territory as he could in central Europe. As of 1946, the borders between East and West were still quite open. It was only later that elaborate border defenses were erected to prevent people from Eastern Europe from fleeing to the West: a more literal iron curtain. (The term iron curtain originally referred to a fire-protection device that could be dropped onto a theater stage.)
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