Skip to main content

Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech acknowledges "Russia's need to be secure on her western borders," but at the same time it raises concerns about...

In my view, Churchill is not being inconsistent in his “Iron Curtain” speech. There are two reasons for this.  First, there is the fact that the Soviet Union was dominating many countries other than Germany whereas Churchill only argued that it should be secure from German aggression.  Second, I would argue that Churchill does present some arguments that can be seen as “concrete justifications” for his concerns about Soviet aggression.


In his speech, Churchill does not say that the Soviets have an absolute right to secure their borders against any possible threat.  Instead, he says that he understands


the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression.


Even if the Soviets have the right to be secure from German aggression, this does not mean that they have the right to dominate all the other countries of the region.  The parts of Germany that the West controlled were separated from the Soviet Union by the Soviet Zone of Germany as well as by other countries like Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.  The Soviets did not need all of Eastern Europe as a protection against a dismembered Germany.


Secondly, Churchill does provide concrete justifications for being suspicious of the Soviets.  He points out that the countries of Eastern Europe are not being allowed to determine their own destinies.  He says that the communist parties of these countries are being


raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.


There is a difference between wanting to be insulated from your enemies, on the one hand, and forcing totalitarian governments on all sorts of countries on the other hand.  If the Soviets were imposing communist totalitarianism on Eastern European countries (and putting pressure on countries like Turkey and Iran as well), this would be a concrete justification for worrying about Soviet expansion.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more