161-701: During the Cold War , the Iron Curtain was a political metaphor used to describe the political and later physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West , its allies and neutral states. On
322-595: A European Green Belt nature preserve area along the Iron Curtain's former route. In fact, a long-distance cycling route along the length of the former border called the Iron Curtain Trail (ICT) exists as a project of the European Union and other associated nations. The trail is 6,800 km (4,200 mi) long and spans from Finland to Greece . The term "Iron Curtain" was only used for
483-422: A 12 May 1945 telegram he sent to U.S. President Harry S. Truman regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind". He repeated it in another telegram to Truman on June 4, mentioning "...the descent of an iron curtain between us and everything to the eastward", and in a House of Commons speech on 16 August 1945, stating "it
644-804: A German rebuilding effort set forth by western European countries in 1948, the US, Britain and France spearheaded the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany from the three Western zones of occupation in April 1949. The Soviet Union proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany the German Democratic Republic that October. Media in the Eastern Bloc was an organ of the state , completely reliant on and subservient to
805-518: A barbed wire fence, along with guard towers and a sand strip to track border violations. Regular patrols sought to prevent escape attempts. They included cars and mounted units. Guards and dog patrol units watched the border 24/7 and were authorised to use their weapons to stop escapees. The wire fence nearest the actual border was irregularly displaced from the actual border, which was marked only by stones. Anyone attempting to escape would have to cross up to 400 metres (1,300 ft) before they could cross
966-555: A brake on this ongoing phenomenon, the commanding force of and strong unity between the UK and the US was necessary. Stalin took note of Churchill's speech and responded in Pravda in mid-March 1946. He accused Churchill of warmongering, and defended Soviet "friendship" with eastern-European states as a necessary safeguard against another invasion. Stalin further accused Churchill of hoping to install right-wing governments in eastern Europe with
1127-579: A choking parliamentary collar, adjusting an imaginary monocle, producing imaginary notes from an imaginary Prince Albert coat pocket, clearing her throat and "er-ing" and "aw-ing" prodigiously, Mrs. Snowden proved herself an accomplished mimic and actress. [Adjacent image.] In 1914 Ethel Snowden was speaking at 200 public meetings a year on the subject, and temporarily resigned from the Independent Labour Party in order that her political allegiance did not cause problems with her campaigning on
1288-403: A controversial public speaker, who would fill with enthusiasm for a project and pursue it to the disregard of anything that stood in her way; it was said of her that "tact or discretion were foreign to her nature". Ethel Annakin was the daughter of Richard Annakin, a building contractor. Her father also became involved in politics and later served as an Alderman of Harrogate , becoming Mayor of
1449-591: A country house of ten rooms, Eden Lodge, set in an acre of land at Tilford in Surrey. Above her mantelpiece in the drawing room at Eden Lodge were later placed signed photographs of the King and Queen. They sold their London home at Golders Green and took a flat near Parliament in St Ermine's Court, but Ethel was angry when her husband was not allocated the living quarters at 11 Downing Street on becoming Chancellor of
1610-505: A fence along the entire border towards Norway and Finland . It is located one or a few kilometres from the border, and has automatic alarms detecting if someone climbs over it. Historian Juha Pohjonen stated in a 2005 study that people who escaped the USSR to Finland were sent back, based on a policy that was implemented unilaterally by Urho Kekkonen when he took office in 1956. The Soviets initially attempted to apply mare clausum to
1771-646: A general term, in his essay "You and the Atomic Bomb", published 19 October 1945 in the British newspaper Tribune . Contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat of nuclear warfare , Orwell looked at James Burnham 's predictions of a polarized world, writing: Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery... James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—that is,
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#17327570498171932-609: A higher class area and it was rare for someone of Ethel's background to be a socialist. She took her first lecture on behalf of the Yorkshire Independent Labour Party at Keighley Labour Institute in September 1903, possibly arranged by Snowden. In 1904 she started working as a schoolteacher at Walverden School in Nelson , Lancashire which was only 9 miles from Snowden's home at Cowling , and became
2093-537: A letter of support to Conservative Party candidate Cyril Black , a teetotaller, in Wimbledon at the 1950 general election . Her father died that year at the age of 93, and she outlived him by only a few months, dying aged 69. Her will was worth £23,279, the majority being the money she had earned in her early career. After cremation her ashes were scattered on the same moor as her husband. Her collection of books joined those of her husband at Keighley Library. There
2254-522: A major propaganda effort began in 1949 was Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , dedicated to bringing about the peaceful demise of the communist system in the Eastern Bloc. Radio Free Europe attempted to achieve these goals by serving as a surrogate home radio station, an alternative to the controlled and party-dominated domestic press in the Soviet Bloc. Radio Free Europe was a product of some of
2415-564: A million people in the last year of the war; her main campaign speech was an appeal for men to "love" one another. At the end of the war, Snowden was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in its Women's Section. This position made her a very prominent figure within the left-wing movements and led to a great deal of foreign travel, including to Bern and Vienna (to try to re-establish
2576-642: A neutral Germany to prevent West Germany's incorporation into NATO, but his attempts were cut short after he was executed several months later during a Soviet power struggle. The events led to the establishment of the Bundeswehr , the West German military, in 1955. In 1949, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong 's People's Liberation Army defeated Chiang Kai-shek 's United States-backed Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalist Government in China. The KMT-controlled territory
2737-675: A new war". On 6 September 1946, James F. Byrnes delivered a speech in Germany repudiating the Morgenthau Plan (a proposal to partition and de-industrialize post-war Germany) and warning the Soviets that the US intended to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely. As Byrnes stated a month later, "The nub of our program was to win the German people ... it was a battle between us and Russia over minds ..." In December,
2898-710: A plan envisioning an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already taken by the Soviets. In June 1947, in accordance with the Truman Doctrine , the United States enacted the Marshall Plan , a pledge of economic assistance for all European countries willing to participate, including the Soviet Union. Under the plan, which President Harry S. Truman signed on 3 April 1948,
3059-555: A regular visitor, although Philip Snowden's mother Martha could not abide to meet her, thinking her pretentious and patronising. A story told within the ILP and generally believed was that Ethel had proposed to Philip, which was against the marriage customs of the time. They had a quiet wedding with few guests at the registry office in Otley on 13 March 1905, with Philip Snowden explaining that they had learned that their socialist friends in
3220-629: A secret 1950 document, the National Security Council proposed reinforcing pro-Western alliance systems and quadrupling spending on defense. Truman, under the influence of advisor Paul Nitze , saw containment as implying complete rollback of Soviet influence in all its forms. United States officials moved to expand this version of containment into Asia , Africa , and Latin America , in order to counter revolutionary nationalist movements, often led by communist parties financed by
3381-480: A source of intelligence. During the late 1970s and 1980s, the KGB perfected its use of espionage to sway and distort diplomacy. Active measures were "clandestine operations designed to further Soviet foreign policy goals," consisting of disinformation, forgeries, leaks to foreign media, and the channeling of aid to militant groups. Retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin , former head of Foreign Counter Intelligence for
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#17327570498173542-504: A time. In 1979, the toppling of pro-US governments in Iran and Nicaragua and a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan again raised fears of war. In the 1980s, the US provided support for anti-communist forces in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and the leadership of the USSR changed with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev , who expanded political freedoms in his country and the Eastern Bloc. This led to
3703-542: A unified and neutral Germany was undesirable, with Walter Bedell Smith telling General Eisenhower "in spite of our announced position, we really do not want nor intend to accept German unification on any terms that the Russians might agree to, even though they seem to meet most of our requirements." Shortly thereafter, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade (June 1948 – May 1949), one of the first major crises of
3864-480: A vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same – still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women
4025-794: Is love". She lectured in South Wales on socialism and women's suffrage in autumn 1905, but was ill during the 1906 election campaign and unable to help Philip in his successful election contest in Blackburn . She undertook a successful lecture tour of the United States in 1907, possibly arranged through Dr Aked who was then in New York; the tour was successful as American audiences seemed to like her way of speaking. The Snowdens gave up their Leeds home during this tour and moved to Baron's Court Road in west London. After 1906 Snowden became increasingly active in supporting women's suffrage, being one of
4186-657: Is not Socialism, it is not democracy and it is not Christianity", and likened working conditions to slavery . Snowden's denunciations of the Soviets made her unpopular with the left within the Labour movement and resulted in her being voted off the National Executive Committee in 1922. Her prominence led to invitations to stand for Parliament. Snowden refused to stand in Plymouth Devonport against Lady Astor on grounds that Astor's service
4347-437: Is not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is unfolding itself behind the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain". The antagonism between the Soviet Union and the West that came to be described as the "iron curtain" had various origins. During the summer of 1939, after conducting negotiations both with a British-French group and with Nazi Germany regarding potential military and political agreements,
4508-458: Is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers , though each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars . Aside from the nuclear arms race starting in 1949 and conventional military deployment , the struggle for dominance was expressed indirectly via psychological warfare , propaganda campaigns , espionage , far-reaching embargoes , sports diplomacy , and technological competitions such as
4669-571: The Austrian State Treaty in 1955) – found themselves under the hegemony of the Soviet Union which had annexed Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania as Soviet Socialist Republics . Germany effectively gave Moscow a free hand in much of these territories in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, signed before Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Other Soviet-annexed territories included: Between 1945 and 1949
4830-513: The Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic ". A week later, on 13 March, Stalin responded vigorously to the speech, saying Churchill could be compared to Adolf Hitler insofar as he advocated the racial superiority of English-speaking nations so that they could satisfy their hunger for world domination, and that such a declaration was "a call for war on the USSR." The Soviet leader also dismissed
4991-554: The Berlin Blockade , which cut off all non-Soviet food, water and other supplies for the citizens of the non-Soviet sectors of Berlin. Because Berlin was located within the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, the only available methods of supplying the city were three limited air corridors. A massive aerial supply campaign was initiated by the United States, Britain, France, and other countries, the success of which caused
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5152-776: The Berlin Wall being the most significant of these. The nations to the east of the Iron Curtain were Poland , East Germany , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Romania , Bulgaria , Albania , and the USSR; however, East Germany , Czechoslovakia , and the USSR have since ceased to exist. Countries that made up the USSR were the Russian SFSR , Byelorussian SSR , Latvian SSR , Ukrainian SSR , Estonian SSR , Moldavian SSR , Armenian SSR , Azerbaijan SSR , Georgian SSR , Uzbek SSR , Kirghiz SSR , Tajik SSR , Lithuanian SSR , Turkmen SSR , and Kazakh SSR . The events that demolished
5313-736: The Berlin Wall to prevent the citizens of East Berlin from fleeing to West Berlin , at the time part of United States-allied West Germany . Major crises of this phase included the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949, the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1945–1949, the Korean War of 1950–1953, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Suez Crisis of that same year, the Berlin Crisis of 1961 ,
5474-702: The Cuban Missile Crisis began after deployments of U.S. missiles in Europe and Soviet missiles in Cuba; it is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war . Another major proxy conflict was the Vietnam War of 1955 to 1975; the Soviets solidified their domination of Eastern Europe with operations such as the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Both powers used economic aid in an attempt to win
5635-719: The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the Vietnam War of 1964–1975. Both superpowers competed for influence in Latin America and the Middle East , and the decolonising states of Africa , Asia , and Oceania . Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, this phase of the Cold War saw the Sino-Soviet split . Between China and the Soviet Union's complicated relations within the Communist sphere, leading to
5796-847: The Eastern Bloc . Cominform faced an embarrassing setback the following June, when the Tito–Stalin split obliged its members to expel Yugoslavia, which remained communist but adopted a non-aligned position and began accepting financial aid from the US. Besides Berlin, the status of the city of Trieste was at issue. Until the break between Tito and Stalin, the Western powers and the Eastern bloc faced each other uncompromisingly. In addition to capitalism and communism, Italians and Slovenes, monarchists and republicans as well as war winners and losers often faced each other irreconcilably. The neutral buffer state Free Territory of Trieste , founded in 1947 with
5957-553: The European Community (EC) and the European Free Trade Association represented Western counterparts to COMECON . Most of the nominally neutral states were economically closer to the United States than they were to the Warsaw Pact . In January 1947, Harry Truman appointed General George Marshall as Secretary of State, scrapped Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) directive 1067 (which embodied
6118-687: The Fabian Society and later the Independent Labour Party , earning an income by lecturing in Britain and abroad. Snowden was one of the leading campaigners for women's suffrage before the First World War, then founding The Women's Peace Crusade to oppose the war and call for a negotiated peace. After a visit to the Soviet Union she developed a strong criticism of its system, which made her unpopular when relayed to
6279-558: The Geneva Convention of 1951. Most Soviets allowed to leave during this time period were ethnic Jews permitted to emigrate to Israel after a series of embarrassing defections in 1970 caused the Soviets to open very limited ethnic emigrations. The fall of the Iron Curtain was accompanied by a massive rise in European East-West migration. “Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of
6440-511: The KGB and involved in its intelligence operations, adhered to Moscow's line, although dissent began to appear after 1956. Other critiques of the consensus policy came from anti-Vietnam War activists , the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , and the anti-nuclear movement . In early 1947, France, Britain and the United States unsuccessfully attempted to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for
6601-518: The Kingdom of Greece in its civil war against Communist-led insurgents. In the same month, Stalin conducted the rigged 1947 Polish legislative election which constituted an open breach of the Yalta Agreement . The US government responded to this announcement by adopting a policy of containment , with the goal of stopping the spread of communism . Truman delivered a speech calling for
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6762-412: The Morgenthau Plan ), and supplanted it with JCS 1779, which decreed that an orderly and prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." Officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by
6923-569: The Sino-Soviet border conflict , while France, a Western Bloc state, began to demand greater autonomy of action. The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia occurred to suppress the Prague Spring of 1968, while the United States experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War . In the 1960s–1970s, an international peace movement took root among citizens around
7084-553: The Socialist International ), Palestine , Georgia and twice to the United States. Most notably, she was named to a joint TUC-Labour Party delegation to Russia in early 1920 which was sent to be an impartial inquiry into the Bolshevik Revolution. After her return she published a book, Through Bolshevik Russia , which revealed her own findings. Although she liked Lenin ("the merry-eyed fanatic of
7245-491: The Soviet boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking the beginning of the full-blown Cold War and the end of its prelude, as well as ending any hopes at the time for a single German government and leading to formation in 1949 of the Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic . The twin policies of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan led to billions in economic and military aid for Western Europe, Greece, and Turkey. With
7406-446: The Space Race . The US and USSR were both part of the Allies of World War II , the military coalition which had defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. After the war, the USSR installed satellite governments in the territories of Eastern and Central Europe it had occupied, and promoted the spread of communism to North Korea in 1948 and created an alliance with the People's Republic of China in 1949. The US declared
7567-443: The Truman Doctrine of " containment " in 1947, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 to assist Western Europe's economic recovery, and founded the NATO military alliance in 1949 (which was matched by the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact in 1955). Germany's split occupation zones solidified into East and West Germany in 1949. The first major proxy war of the period was the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, which ended in stalemate. In 1962,
7728-438: The Turkish Straits crisis and Black Sea border disputes were also a major factor in increasing tensions. In September, the Soviet side produced the Novikov telegram, sent by the Soviet ambassador to the US but commissioned and "co-authored" by Vyacheslav Molotov ; it portrayed the US as being in the grip of monopoly capitalists who were building up military capability "to prepare the conditions for winning world supremacy in
7889-454: The U.S. State Department also published a collection of documents titled Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of The German Foreign Office , which contained documents recovered from the Foreign Office of Nazi Germany revealing Soviet conversations with Germany regarding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact , including its secret protocol dividing eastern Europe, the 1939 German-Soviet Commercial Agreement , and discussions of
8050-415: The United Nations Security Council Resolution 82 and 83 backed the defense of South Korea, although the Soviets were then boycotting meetings in protest of the fact that Taiwan (Republic of China), not the People's Republic of China , held a permanent seat on the council. A UN force of sixteen countries faced North Korea, although 40 percent of troops were South Korean, and about 50 percent were from
8211-429: The Warsaw Pact . To the west of the Iron Curtain, the countries of Western Europe, Northern Europe, and Southern Europe — along with Austria, West Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland — operated Market Economies . With the exception of a period of Fascism in Spain (until 1975 ) and Portugal (until 1974 ) and a military dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974) , democratic governments ruled these countries. Most of
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#17327570498178372-435: The Western public still regarded the Soviet Union as a close ally in the context of the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany and of Imperial Japan . Although not well received at the time, the phrase iron curtain gained popularity as a shorthand reference to the division of Europe as the Cold War progressed. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in, and information out. People throughout the West eventually came to accept and use
8533-406: The Yalta Conference (February 1945) and the subsequent Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945). People in the West expressed opposition to Soviet domination over the buffer states, and the fear grew that the Soviets were building an empire that might be a threat to them and their interests. Nonetheless, at the Potsdam Conference , the Allies assigned parts of Poland, Finland, Romania, Germany, and
8694-494: The salute and to say that she found Hitler "a simple man of great personal integrity" of whom "I would not hesitate to accept his word". Her other journalism made a strong defence of her husband; it was said that the quickest way to win her favour was to praise Philip. She entertained Queen Mary to tea at Dolphin Square in 1938, and became President of the Band of Hope , the leading Christian temperance organisation, in May 1939. When war did break out, she supported it and expressed
8855-454: The 'Viscount Snowden Memorial Library'. She destroyed his remaining papers. Viscountess Snowden moved to a flat in Dolphin Square , disliking visiting Eden Lodge which was used by an evacuated Government office during the Second World War. She attempted unsuccessfully to get reappointed as a BBC governor and in 1937 visited the Nuremberg Rally , writing for the Sunday Chronicle to criticise other British people present for refusing to give
9016-525: The BBC expired at the end of 1931 and was renewed for only one year, but after Philip Snowden resigned from office over the principle of free trade that was their only regular income. When the appointment came up again, MacDonald did not renew it, a move was ascribed to personal spite. The Snowdens had to fund Eden Lodge, a London flat, and the costs of caring for Philip, who now needed constant medical attention. Philip Snowden turned back to journalism, penning increasingly bitter attacks on MacDonald. By 1936 he
9177-499: The Balkans to Soviet control or influence. In return, Stalin promised the Western Allies that he would allow those territories the right to National Self-Determination . Despite Soviet cooperation during the war, these concessions left many in the West uneasy. In particular, Churchill feared that the United States might return to its pre-war Isolationism , leaving the exhausted European states unable to resist Soviet demands. (President Franklin D. Roosevelt had announced at Yalta that after
9338-424: The Baltic SSRs . Cold War The Cold War was a period of global geopolitical tension and struggle for ideological and economic influence between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc , that started in 1947, two years after the end of World War II , and lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war
9499-412: The Baltic Sea, stopping any ships that were not of countries immediately around the sea. This was never accepted in international law, and was constantly opposed by Western Powers. By 1946, “all islands in the Baltic Sea belonging to the Soviet Union” and 36 village soviets along Estonia’s northern and north-western coast were defined as belonging to the "border belt," a naval boundary surrounding
9660-414: The Cold War was in its essence a war of ideas. The United States, acting through the CIA, funded a long list of projects to counter the communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world. The CIA also covertly sponsored a domestic propaganda campaign called Crusade for Freedom . The rearmament of West Germany was achieved in the early 1950s. Its main promoter was Konrad Adenauer ,
9821-404: The Cold War, preventing Western food, materials and supplies from arriving in the West Germany's exclave of West Berlin . The United States (primarily), Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several other countries began the massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other provisions despite Soviet threats. The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against
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#17327570498179982-408: The Communist governments militarily. The fall of the Iron Curtain after the Pan-European Picnic and the Revolutions of 1989 , which represented a peaceful revolutionary wave with the exception of the Romanian revolution and the Afghan Civil War (1989–1992) , overthrew almost all of the Marxist–Leninist regimes of the Eastern Bloc. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control in
10143-510: The Exchequer in 1924. The Snowdens did not generally host parties, partly because they were both hard workers, but did like to meet up with old friends. They enjoyed music and Ethel was a good pianist. She started a rivalry with Beatrice Webb for the position of the leader among the Labour ministers' wives. After the fall of the Labour government, Ethel Snowden toured Canada and criticised Ramsay MacDonald 's leadership in public speeches which were widely reported back in Britain and assumed to be
10304-567: The House of Lords. He confirmed his decision to stand down in August, shortly before the collapse of the Labour Government, and was not a candidate in the general election although playing an active part in the campaign. When the award of a Viscountcy was announced in the Dissolution Honours List, Ramsay MacDonald was reported to have said that Snowden's desire for a Peerage came from his wife. Ethel became Viscountess Snowden on 24 November 1931. The Snowdens found their financial position gradually eroding after 1931. Ethel's five-year appointment at
10465-460: The Iron Curtain started with peaceful opposition in Poland , and continued into Hungary , East Germany , Bulgaria , and Czechoslovakia . Romania became the only socialist state in Europe to overthrow its government with violence . The use of the term "Iron Curtain" as a metaphor for strict separation goes back at least as far as the early 19th century. It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters. The author Alexander Campbell used
10626-634: The Iron Curtain, except under limited circumstances, was effectively halted after 1950. Before 1950, over 15 million people (mainly ethnic Germans) emigrated from Soviet-occupied eastern European countries to the west in the five years immediately following World War II . However, restrictions implemented during the Cold War stopped most east–west migration, with only 13.3 million migrations westward between 1950 and 1990. More than 75% of those emigrating from Eastern Bloc countries between 1950 and 1990 did so under bilateral agreements for "ethnic migration." About 10% were refugees permitted to emigrate under
10787-400: The KGB (1973–1979), described active measures as "the heart and soul of Soviet intelligence ." During the Sino-Soviet split , "spy wars" also occurred between the USSR and PRC. In September 1947, the Soviets created Cominform to impose orthodoxy within the international communist movement and tighten political control over Soviet satellites through coordination of communist parties in
10948-452: The Kremlin"), her general reaction was profoundly critical. She upbraided a Bolshevik who told a public meeting that a British revolution would start in three months, insisting that "we want power, but we do not want a revolution", and observed that "Everyone I met in Russia outside the Communist Party goes in terror of his liberty or his life". She had told a reporter for the Evening Standard on her return that "I oppose Bolshevism because it
11109-428: The Marshall Plan, seeing it as an effort by the US to impose its influence on Europe. In response, the Soviet Union established Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) to foster economic cooperation among communist states. The United States and its Western European allies sought to strengthen their bonds and used the policy of containment against Soviet influence; they accomplished this most notably through
11270-446: The Russian Civil War further complicated relations, and although the Soviet Union later allied with Western powers to defeat Nazi Germany , this cooperation was strained by mutual suspicions. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, disagreements about the future of Europe, particularly Eastern Europe , became central. The Soviet Union's establishment of communist regimes in the countries it had liberated from Nazi control—enforced by
11431-450: The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (which provided for the trade of certain German military and civilian equipment in exchange for Soviet raw materials) and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (signed in late August 1939), named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries ( Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop ), which included a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between
11592-481: The Soviet Union and its communist party , which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of authoritarian states. The Soviet Union had a command economy and installed similarly communist regimes its in satellites. United States involvement in regime change during the Cold War included support for anti-communist and right-wing dictatorships , governments, and uprisings across
11753-500: The Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe, called the Marshall Plan. Stalin opposed the Marshall Plan. He had built up the Eastern Bloc protective belt of Soviet-controlled nations on his Western border, and wanted to maintain this buffer zone of states combined with a weakened Germany under Soviet control. Fearing American political, cultural and economic penetration, Stalin eventually forbade Soviet Eastern bloc countries of
11914-511: The Soviet Union potentially becoming the fourth Axis Power . In response, one month later, the Soviet Union published Falsifiers of History , a Stalin-edited and partially rewritten book attacking the West. After the Marshall Plan, the introduction of a new currency to Western Germany to replace the debased Reichsmark and massive electoral losses for communist parties, in June 1948, the Soviet Union cut off surface road access to Berlin , initiating
12075-588: The Soviet Union sent Germany vital oil, rubber, manganese and other materials in exchange for German weapons, manufacturing machinery and technology. Nazi–Soviet trade ended in June 1941 when Germany broke the Pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa . In the course of World War II, Stalin determined to acquire a buffer area against Germany, with pro-Soviet states on its border in an Eastern bloc . Stalin's aims led to strained relations at
12236-467: The Soviet Union was used to monitor dissent from official Soviet politics and morals. Although to an extent disinformation had always existed, the term itself was invented, and the strategy formalized by a black propaganda department of the Soviet KGB. Based on the amount of top-secret Cold War archival information that has been released, historian Raymond L. Garthoff concludes there probably
12397-555: The Soviet Union's opinion on the German problem in the Stuttgart Council , and then followed the announcement by US President Harry S. Truman of a hard line anti-Soviet, anticommunist policy. After that the phrase iron curtain became more widely used as an anti-Soviet term in the West. Additionally, Churchill mentioned in his speech that regions under the Soviet Union's control were expanding their leverage and Power without any restriction. He asserted that in order to put
12558-572: The Soviet Union, which at the time was undergoing the Era of Stagnation . This phase saw the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introducing the liberalizing reforms of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("reorganization") and ending Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in 1989. Pressures for national sovereignty grew stronger in Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev refused to further support
12719-558: The Soviet Union. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist–Leninist governments were formed in the second half of the 1970s in developing countries , including Angola , Mozambique , Ethiopia , Cambodia , Afghanistan , and Nicaragua . Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. Beginning in the 1980s, this phase was another period of elevated tension. The Reagan Doctrine led to increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on
12880-637: The Soviet border. A May 1943 article in Signal , a German propaganda periodical, discussed "the iron curtain that more than ever before separates the world from the Soviet Union". Joseph Goebbels commented in Das Reich , on 25 February 1945, that if Germany should lose the war, "An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered". English-language Nazi propagandist William Joyce used
13041-643: The Soviets accumulated after broken promises by Stalin and Molotov concerning Europe and Iran. Following the World War II Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran , the country was occupied by the Red Army in the far north and the British in the south. Iran was used by the United States and British to supply the Soviet Union, and the Allies agreed to withdraw from Iran within six months after the cessation of hostilities. However, when this deadline came,
13202-535: The Soviets agreed to withdraw from Iran after persistent US pressure, an early success of containment policy. By 1947, US president Harry S. Truman was outraged by the perceived resistance of the Soviet Union to American demands in Iran, Turkey, and Greece, as well as Soviet rejection of the Baruch Plan on nuclear weapons. In February 1947, the British government announced that it could no longer afford to finance
13363-556: The Soviets converted the following areas into satellite states : Soviet-installed governments ruled the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , which changed its orientation away from the Soviet Union in the late 1940s to a progressively independent worldview . The majority of European states to the east of the Iron Curtain developed their own international economic and military alliances, such as Comecon and
13524-559: The Soviets had permitted to retain democratic structures. The public brutality of the coup shocked Western powers more than any event up to that point, set in motion a brief scare that war would occur, and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Marshall Plan in the United States Congress. In an immediate aftermath of the crisis, the London Six-Power Conference was held, resulting in
13685-545: The Soviets remained in Iran under the guise of the Azerbaijan People's Government and Kurdish Republic of Mahabad . Shortly thereafter, on 5 March, former British prime minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous " Iron Curtain " speech in Fulton, Missouri . The speech called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets, whom he accused of establishing an "iron curtain" dividing Europe from " Stettin in
13846-586: The Soviets to lift their blockade in May 1949. One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the western Allies would return all Soviet citizens who found themselves in their zones to the Soviet Union. This affected the liberated Soviet prisoners of war (branded as traitors), forced laborers, anti-Soviet collaborators with the Germans, and anti-communist refugees. Migration from east to west of
14007-488: The Soviets. After five and a half weeks of negotiations, Molotov refused the demands and the talks were adjourned. Marshall was particularly discouraged after personally meeting with Stalin, who expressed little interest in a solution to German economic problems. The United States concluded that a solution could not wait any longer. In a 5 June 1947 speech, Marshall announced a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including
14168-520: The Truman Doctrine marked the beginning of a US bipartisan defense and foreign policy consensus between Republicans and Democrats focused on containment and deterrence that weakened during and after the Vietnam War , but ultimately persisted thereafter. Moderate and conservative parties in Europe, as well as social democrats, gave virtually unconditional support to the Western alliance, while European and American Communists , financed by
14329-567: The US assistance, the Greek military won its civil war . Under the leadership of Alcide De Gasperi the Italian Christian Democrats defeated the powerful Communist – Socialist alliance in the elections of 1948 . All major powers engaged in espionage, using a great variety of spies, double agents , moles , and new technologies such as the tapping of telephone cables. The Soviet KGB ("Committee for State Security"),
14490-581: The US government gave to Western European countries over $ 13 billion (equivalent to $ 189 billion in 2016) to rebuild the economy of Europe . Later, the program led to the creation of the OECD . The plan's aim was to rebuild the democratic and economic systems of Europe and to counter perceived threats to the European balance of power , such as communist parties seizing control through revolutions or elections. The plan also stated that European prosperity
14651-588: The US was trying to buy a pro-US re-alignment of Europe. Stalin therefore prevented Eastern Bloc nations from receiving Marshall Plan aid. The Soviet Union's alternative to the Marshall Plan, which was purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with central and eastern Europe, became known as the Molotov Plan (later institutionalized in January 1949 as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ). Stalin
14812-483: The USSR. In this way, this US would exercise " preponderant power ," oppose neutrality, and establish global hegemony . In the early 1950s (a period sometimes known as the " Pactomania "), the US formalized a series of alliances with Japan (a former WWII enemy), South Korea , Taiwan , Australia , New Zealand , Thailand and the Philippines (notably ANZUS in 1951 and SEATO in 1954), thereby guaranteeing
14973-476: The United Nations, was split up and dissolved in 1954 and 1975, also because of the détente between the West and Tito. The US and Britain merged their western German occupation zones into " Bizone " (1 January 1947, later "Trizone" with the addition of France's zone, April 1949). As part of the economic rebuilding of Germany, in early 1948, representatives of a number of Western European governments and
15134-518: The United States a number of long-term military bases. One of the more significant examples of the implementation of containment was the United Nations US-led intervention in the Korean War . In June 1950, after years of mutual hostilities, Kim Il Sung 's North Korean People's Army invaded South Korea at the 38th parallel . Stalin had been reluctant to support the invasion but ultimately sent advisers. To Stalin's surprise,
15295-401: The United States announced an agreement for a merger of western German areas into a federal governmental system. In addition, in accordance with the Marshall Plan , they began to re-industrialize and rebuild the West German economy, including the introduction of a new Deutsche Mark currency to replace the old Reichsmark currency that the Soviets had debased. The US had secretly decided that
15456-412: The United States. Ethel Snowden Ethel Snowden, Viscountess Snowden (born Ethel Annakin ; 8 September 1881 – 22 February 1951), was a British socialist, human rights activist, and feminist politician. From a middle-class background, she became a Christian Socialist through a radical preacher and initially promoted temperance and teetotalism in the slums of Liverpool. She aligned to
15617-510: The Warsaw Pact's primary function was to safeguard Soviet hegemony over its Eastern European satellites, with the pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away; in the 1960s, the pact evolved into a multilateral alliance, in which the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members gained significant scope to pursue their own interests. In 1961, Soviet-allied East Germany constructed
15778-529: The West Riding were planning a 'Socialist demonstration' at what they were hoping would be a family celebration. It is also thought that both families were opposed, and Philip Snowden did not tell his mother until he sent a telegram after the marriage had taken place. There was no honeymoon. Snowden subsequently tried to make friends with Martha but never entirely succeeded, with Martha frequently criticising her for concentrating on her own political career to
15939-472: The Western agencies paid special attention to debriefing Eastern Bloc defectors . Edward Jay Epstein describes that the CIA understood that the KGB used "provocations", or fake defections, as a trick to embarrass Western intelligence and establish Soviet double agents. As a result, from 1959 to 1973, the CIA required that East Bloc defectors went through a counterintelligence investigation before being recruited as
16100-462: The accusation that the USSR was exerting increasing control over the countries lying in its sphere. He argued that there was nothing surprising in "the fact that the Soviet Union, anxious for its future safety, [was] trying to see to it that governments loyal in their attitude to the Soviet Union should exist in these countries." Soviet territorial demands to Turkey regarding the Dardanelles in
16261-400: The actual border. Several escape attempts failed when the escapees were stopped after crossing the outer fence. The creation of these highly militarised no-man's lands led to de facto nature reserves and created a wildlife corridor across Europe; this helped the spread of several species to new territories. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, several initiatives are pursuing the creation of
16422-561: The allocation of $ 400 million to intervene in the war and unveiled the Truman Doctrine , which framed the conflict as a contest between free peoples and totalitarian regimes. American policymakers accused the Soviet Union of conspiring against the Greek royalists in an effort to expand Soviet influence even though Stalin had told the Communist Party to cooperate with the British-backed government. Enunciation of
16583-406: The area within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) of the border. The area was very difficult to approach and heavily fortified. In the 1950s and 1960s, a double barbed-wire fence was installed 50 metres (160 ft) from the border. The space between the two fences was laden with land mines . The minefield was later replaced with an electric signal fence (about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) from the border) and
16744-520: The border between West and East, the defence works resembled those on the intra-German border. During the Cold War, the border zone in Hungary started 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the border. Citizens could only enter the area if they lived in the zone or had a passport valid for traveling out. Traffic control points and patrols enforced this regulation. Those who lived within the 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) border-zone needed special permission to enter
16905-482: The bureau responsible for foreign espionage and internal surveillance, was famous for its effectiveness. The most famous Soviet operation involved its atomic spies that delivered crucial information from the United States' Manhattan Project , leading the USSR to detonate its first nuclear weapon in 1949, four years after the American detonation and much sooner than expected. A massive network of informants throughout
17066-402: 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. Much of
17227-665: The chancellor of West Germany, with France the main opponent. Washington had the decisive voice. It was strongly supported by the Pentagon (the US military leadership), and weakly opposed by President Truman; the State Department was ambivalent. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 changed the calculations and Washington now gave full support. That also involved naming Dwight D. Eisenhower in charge of NATO forces and sending more American troops to West Germany. There
17388-515: The communist party. Radio and television organizations were state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the local communist party. Soviet radio broadcasts used Marxist rhetoric to attack capitalism, emphasizing themes of labor exploitation, imperialism and war-mongering. Along with the broadcasts of the BBC and the Voice of America to Central and Eastern Europe,
17549-497: The country and was banned following the 1991 Soviet coup attempt that August. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and the collapse of Communist governments across much of Africa and Asia. The Russian Federation became the Soviet Union's successor state, while many of the other republics emerged from the Soviet Union's collapse as fully independent post-Soviet states . The United States
17710-485: The defeat of Germany, U.S. forces would withdraw from Europe within two years.) Winston Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri , publicly used the term "iron curtain" in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe: From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic , an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all
17871-589: The detriment of looking after her husband (who had long-term mobility difficulties). Ethel and Philip Snowden set up home at Spencer Place in Leeds, and Ethel began to earn an income from lecture fees. She was interviewed for the woman's page of the Blackburn Weekly Telegraph where her husband was Prospective Parliamentary Candidate , telling the paper that "Our great motto .. is liberty, equality of opportunity and fraternity. Our great principle
18032-505: The east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members, or connected to or influenced by the United States; or nominally neutral . Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain. It later became a term for the physical barriers of fences, walls, minefields, and watchtowers that were built up along some of its sections, with
18193-408: The fall of the communist governments of Europe from 1989, which concluded with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Western Bloc included the US and a number of First World nations that were generally capitalist and liberal democratic but tied to a network of often authoritarian Third World states, most of which were the European powers' former colonies . The Eastern Bloc was led by
18354-401: The formation of NATO , which was essentially a defensive agreement in 1949. The Soviet Union countered with the Warsaw Pact in 1955, which had similar results with the Eastern Bloc. As by that time the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states, the pact has been long considered superfluous. Although nominally a defensive alliance,
18515-533: The fortified borders in Europe; it was not used for similar borders in Asia between socialist and capitalist states (these were, for a time, dubbed the Bamboo Curtain ). The border between North Korea and South Korea is very comparable to the former inner German border, particularly in its degree of militarisation, but it has never conventionally been considered part of any Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union built
18676-399: The genuine growth and scope of Soviet culture, all their efforts are foredoomed to failure. While the Iron Curtain remained in place, much of Eastern Europe and many parts of Central Europe – except West Germany , Liechtenstein , Switzerland , and most of Austria (all of Austria after the withdrawal of occupying Allied forces and the declaration of Austria's neutrality that resulted from
18837-451: The goal of agitating those states against the Soviet Union. Andrei Zhdanov , Stalin's chief propagandist, used the term against the West in an August 1946 speech: Hard as bourgeois politicians and writers may strive to conceal the truth of the achievements of the Soviet order and Soviet culture, hard as they may strive to erect an iron curtain to keep the truth about the Soviet Union from penetrating abroad, hard as they may strive to belittle
18998-629: The issue. The Snowdens left Britain for a long, world-wide, lecture tour in July 1914; while they were in Canada, news came of the outbreak of war. Philip Snowden asked whether he should return but was told not to, possibly because of his known pacifism which Ethel shared. While in Portland, Oregon Ethel gave an interview which produced a headline reading "Briton M.P. advises British Soldiers to Shoot Their Officers" which her husband considered damaging. She
19159-529: The kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of "cold war" with its neighbours. In The Observer of 10 March 1946, Orwell wrote, "...after the Moscow conference last December, Russia began to make a 'cold war' on Britain and the British Empire." The first use of the term to describe
19320-636: The left-wing in Britain. Snowden married the prominent Labour Party politician and future Chancellor of the Exchequer , Philip Snowden . She rose up the social scale in the 1920s, much to her pleasure, and she welcomed appointment as a Governor of the BBC and as a Director of the Royal Opera House . Although her husband received a Viscountcy, money became tight and she led the way in caring for him; after his death in 1937, she resumed temperance campaigning as well as journalism. She tended to be
19481-402: The loyalty of non-aligned countries , such as India . By the 1970s, Japan and Western Europe rebuilt their economies, allowing them more diplomatic independence. After the Sino-Soviet split between the USSR and China in 1961, the U.S. initiated contacts with China in 1972 . In the same year, the US and USSR signed a series of treaties limiting their nuclear arsenals, which eased tensions for
19642-536: The metaphor. Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address strongly criticized the Soviet Union's exclusive and secretive tension policies along with the Eastern Europe's state form, the Police Government ( German : Polizeistaat ). He expressed the western Allied nations' distrust of the Soviet Union after the World War II. In September 1946, US-Soviet cooperation would collapse due to the US disavowal of
19803-414: The most prominent architects of America's early Cold War strategy, especially those who believed that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means, such as George F. Kennan. Soviet and Eastern Bloc authorities used various methods to suppress Western broadcasts, including radio jamming . American policymakers, including Kennan and John Foster Dulles , acknowledged that
19964-626: The national speakers for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies ; she decried the concentration on such things as dresses, jewels and cake recipes and wrote a book called "The Woman Socialist" in 1907 which advocated state control of marriage, joint title by women to the housekeeping money, and a state salary for mothers; she also wanted housekeeping organised collectively in each street and declared that under socialism women would have "no need to paint face and tint hair". Her strong views seemed to influence her husband, although Snowden
20125-430: The newly formed Cominform from accepting Marshall Plan aid. In Czechoslovakia , that required a Soviet-backed Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, the brutality of which shocked Western powers more than any event so far and set in a motion a brief scare that war would occur and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Marshall Plan in the United States Congress. Relations further deteriorated when, in January 1948,
20286-671: The policy change. Once again, the East Berlin communists attempted to disrupt the Berlin municipal elections , which were held on 5 December 1948 and produced a turnout of 86% and an overwhelming victory for the non-communist parties. The results effectively divided the city into East and West, the latter comprising US, British and French sectors. 300,000 Berliners demonstrated and urged the international airlift to continue, and US Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen created " Operation Vittles ", which supplied candy to German children. The Airlift
20447-441: The political decision-making level on either side. Similarly, there is no evidence, on either side, of any major political or military decision that was prematurely discovered through espionage and thwarted by the other side. There also is no evidence of any major political or military decision that was crucially influenced (much less generated) by an agent of the other side. According to historian Robert L. Benson, "Washington's forte
20608-568: The power blocs and, on the other hand, natural biotopes were formed here, as the European Green Belt shows today. In the 19th century, iron safety curtains were installed on theater stages to slow the spread of fire. Perhaps the first recorded application of the term "iron curtain" to Soviet Russia was in Vasily Rozanov 's 1918 polemic The Apocalypse of Our Time . It is possible that Churchill read it there following
20769-479: The presence of the Red Army —alarmed the US and UK. Western leaders saw this as a clear instance of Soviet expansionism, clashing with their vision of a democratic Europe. Economically, the divide was sharpened with the introduction of the Marshall Plan in 1947, a US initiative to provide financial aid to rebuild Europe and prevent the spread of communism by stabilizing capitalist economies. The Soviet Union rejected
20930-418: The publication of the book's English translation in 1920. The passage runs: With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, an iron curtain is lowering over Russian History. "The performance is over." The audience got up. "Time to put on your fur coats and go home." We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing. In 1920, Ethel Snowden , in her book Through Bolshevik Russia , used the term in reference to
21091-464: The slums of Liverpool promoting teetotalism . She also joined the Fabian Society . According to her future husband, the Labour politician Philip Snowden , they had met at a Fabian meeting in Leeds probably in about 1903, although Mary Agnes Hamilton thought they met at the Bradford house of William and Martha Leach . Harrogate, a spa town not dependent on the milling industry, was regarded as
21252-469: The source of the term, Lippmann traced it to a French term from the 1930s, la guerre froide . The roots of the Cold War can be traced back to diplomatic and military tensions preceding World War II. The 1917 Russian Revolution and the subsequent Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , where Soviet Russia ceded vast territories to Germany, deepened distrust among the Western Allies. Allied intervention in
21413-463: The specific post-war geopolitical confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States came in a speech by Bernard Baruch , an influential advisor to Democratic presidents, on 16 April 1947. The speech, written by journalist Herbert Bayard Swope , proclaimed, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war." Newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann gave the term wide currency with his book The Cold War . When asked in 1947 about
21574-585: The states of Europe to the west of the Iron Curtain — with the exception of neutral Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Sweden , Finland , Malta and Ireland — allied themselves with Canada , the United Kingdom and the United States within NATO . Spain was a unique anomaly in that it stayed neutral and non-aligned until 1982, when, following democracy's return, it joined NATO. Economically,
21735-464: The term in his last propaganda broadcast on 30 April 1945, declaring that "the Iron Curtain of Bolshevism has come down across Europe." German leading minister Lutz von Krosigk broadcast 2 May 1945: "In the East the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward". Churchill's first recorded use of the term "iron curtain" came in
21896-478: The term metaphorically in his 1945 book It's Your Empire , describing "an iron curtain of silence and censorship [which] has descended since the Japanese conquests of 1942". Its popularity as a Cold War symbol is attributed to its use in a speech Winston Churchill gave on 5 March 1946, in Fulton , Missouri , soon after the end of World War II . On the one hand, the Iron Curtain was a separating barrier between
22057-541: The town in 1930–31. She is described by Philip Snowden's biographer Colin Cross as a "woman of strong will and striking good looks". She trained as a teacher at Edge Hill College in Liverpool, and while there joined the congregation of radical preacher Rev. Charles Frederic Aked (1864–1941); after listening to his sermon on "Can a Man be a Christian on £1 a week?" she became a socialist and joined with Aked's social work in
22218-432: The two states. The Soviets thereafter occupied Eastern Poland (September 1939), Latvia (June 1940), Lithuania (1940), northern Romania ( Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina , late June 1940), Estonia (1940) and eastern Finland (March 1940). From August 1939, relations between the West and the Soviets deteriorated further when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany engaged in an extensive economic relationship by which
22379-583: The view that Nazis were utterly evil, but she had reservations about area bombing. In August 1943 she denounced the BBC for poor moral standards in regard to drinking, swearing, and marital fidelity; she was nevertheless invited to appear as a panellist on The Brains Trust . Snowden suffered a severe stroke in 1947 which left her disabled and permanently resident in the Warleigh Nursing Home in Wimbledon , although her mind remained active. She sent
22540-530: The views of her husband. Although later moderating her language, she stood by her words when questioned by reporters on her return. Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin appointed Ethel Snowden a governor of the newly established British Broadcasting Corporation in 1926, as a representative of women and of Labour; the appointment carried an annual salary of £750. She quarrelled with Sir John Reith at her first meeting and they continued to feud throughout her term, with Reith trying to get rid of her. Snowden
22701-528: The will of a totalitarian state.” – Ronald Reagan at the Tear down this wall! speech in 1987, which was written by Peter Robinson The Iron Curtain took physical shape in the form of border defences between the countries of western and eastern Europe. There were some of the most heavily militarised areas in the world, particularly the so-called " inner German border " – commonly known as die Grenze in German – between East and West Germany. Elsewhere along
22862-411: The world, while Soviet involvement in regime change included the funding of left-wing parties , wars of independence , revolutions and dictatorships. As nearly all the colonial states underwent decolonization and achieved independence in the period from 1945 to 1960, many became Third World battlefields in the Cold War. At the end of World War II, English writer George Orwell used cold war , as
23023-486: The world. Movements against nuclear weapons testing and for nuclear disarmament took place, with large anti-war protests . By the 1970s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the 1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China that opened relations with China as a strategic counterweight to
23184-505: Was 'signals' intelligence - the procurement and analysis of coded foreign messages." leading to the Venona project or Venona intercepts, which monitored the communications of Soviet intelligence agents. Moynihan wrote that the Venona project contained "overwhelming proof of the activities of Soviet spy networks in America, complete with names, dates, places, and deeds." The Venona project
23345-412: Was a strong promise that West Germany would not develop nuclear weapons. Widespread fears of another rise of German militarism necessitated the new military to operate within an alliance framework under NATO command. In 1955, Washington secured full German membership of NATO. In May 1953, Lavrentiy Beria , by then in a government post, had made an unsuccessful proposal to allow the reunification of
23506-567: Was also fearful of a reconstituted Germany; his vision of a post-war Germany did not include the ability to rearm or pose any kind of threat to the Soviet Union. In early 1948, following reports of strengthening "reactionary elements", Czech Communists executed a coup d'état in Czechoslovakia (resulting in the formation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (9 May 1948)), the only Eastern Bloc state that
23667-470: Was always a 'suffragist' and never endorsed the violent tactics of the suffragettes . During a 1910 trip to the United States, Ethel Snowden was interviewed and sketched by Marguerite Martyn of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. During the interview, Snowden mocked anti-suffrage parliamentarian Rowland Baring, 2nd Earl of Cromer , by affecting an accent and, as Martyn put it: Standing stiffly as if suffering from
23828-433: Was as much a logistical as a political and psychological success for the West; it firmly linked West Berlin to the United States. In May 1949, Stalin backed down and lifted the blockade. In 1952, Stalin repeatedly proposed a plan to unify East and West Germany under a single government chosen in elections supervised by the United Nations, if the new Germany were to stay out of Western military alliances, but this proposal
23989-679: Was contingent upon German economic recovery. One month later, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 , creating a unified Department of Defense , the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council (NSC). These would become the main bureaucracies for US defense policy in the Cold War. Stalin believed economic integration with the West would allow Eastern Bloc countries to escape Soviet control, and that
24150-489: Was given the credit for the fact that no alcoholic drinks could be found in the newly built Broadcasting House , and she appeared to confirm her responsibility for this state of affairs. When the Labour government was formed in 1929, the Snowdens finally moved to 11 Downing Street, where they found that the cost of employing eight servants and official entertaining required dipping into their savings. While no alcoholic drink
24311-469: Was immobile and being cared for by Ethel and some nurses whom she supervised at Eden Lodge; he continued to keep up with politics. Ethel attended the Coronation ceremonies of 12 May 1937 without him; Philip died three days later. She had him cremated at Woking , and the ashes scattered on the open moor at Ickornshaw above his birthplace; his books were given to Keighley Public Libraries where they formed
24472-711: Was invaluable. She was selected at one point as Labour Party candidate for Leicester East , but gave up the candidature when a by-election was called there in Spring 1922 (the Labour candidate won). With Philip Snowden back in Parliament for Colne Valley in 1922 and Labour as the official opposition, Lord and Lady Astor arranged a dinner party where King George V and Queen Mary could meet Labour leaders Snowden, J. R. Clynes , James Henry Thomas and their wives. Snowden became firm friends with Queen Mary. The couple put together all their earnings and savings in 1923 to buy
24633-472: Was kept highly secret even from policymakers until the Moynihan Commission in 1995. Despite this, the decryption project had already been betrayed and dispatched to the USSR by Kim Philby and Bill Weisband in 1946, as was discovered by the US by 1950. Nonetheless, the Soviets had to keep their discovery of the program secret, too, and continued leaking their own information, some of which
24794-506: Was left as the world's sole superpower. In February 1946, George F. Kennan 's " Long Telegram " from Moscow to Washington helped to articulate the US government's increasingly hard line against the Soviets, which would become the basis for US strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War. The telegram galvanized a policy debate that would eventually shape the Truman administration 's Soviet policy. Washington's opposition to
24955-474: Was near to being a complete pacifist, and joined her husband in campaigning for a negotiated peace in 1916. Since 1915, along with other women such as Agnes Harben , after the 1915 International Alliance of Women , Snowden felt a desire to develop a British campaigning organisation, and in 1917 she became the organiser and principal speaker for the Women's Peace Crusade , and estimated that she had addressed half
25116-488: Was now restricted to the island of Taiwan , the nationalist government of which exists to this day. The Kremlin promptly created an alliance with the newly formed People's Republic of China. According to Norwegian historian Odd Arne Westad , the communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-Shek made, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Moreover, his party
25277-403: Was parity in the quantity and quality of secret information obtained by each side. However, the Soviets probably had an advantage in terms of HUMINT (human intelligence or interpersonal espionage) and "sometimes in its reach into high policy circles." In terms of decisive impact, however, he concludes: We also can now have high confidence in the judgment that there were no successful "moles" at
25438-489: Was served, Ethel hosted many tea parties and evening receptions with musical and artistic guests (some in the Labour Party noted that few MPs or even other Ministers had been invited). She seems to have persuaded her husband to give an Exchequer grant to support the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and became a director of the new company formed to manage it. Philip Snowden was seriously ill in early 1931, and apparently decided not to stand again for Parliament but to go to
25599-427: Was still useful to the American program. According to Moynihan, even President Truman may not have been fully informed of Venona, which may have left him unaware of the extent of Soviet espionage. Clandestine atomic spies from the Soviet Union, who infiltrated the Manhattan Project at various points during WWII, played a major role in increasing tensions that led to the Cold War. In addition to usual espionage,
25760-431: Was turned down by the Western powers. Some sources dispute the sincerity of the proposal. Britain, France, the United States, Canada and eight other western European countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty of April 1949, establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That August, the first Soviet atomic device was detonated in Semipalatinsk , Kazakh SSR . Following Soviet refusals to participate in
25921-434: Was weakened during the war against Japan . Meanwhile, the communists told different groups, such as the peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and they cloaked themselves under the cover of Chinese nationalism . Confronted with the communist revolution in China and the end of the American atomic monopoly in 1949, the Truman administration quickly moved to escalate and expand its containment doctrine. In NSC 68 ,
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