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Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union during the Second World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Martin Kitchen
Martin Kitchen
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Extract

When thinking of Churchill's attitude towards the Soviet Union one automatically thinks of him as the most outspoken of the advocates of armed intervention during the civil war, or as the author of the speech in Fulton, Missouri, which many people regard as the opening salvo in the Cold War. During the war, however, when the Soviet Union became a great ally without whose help the war in Europe could never have been won, his attitude was bound to be quite different. Even before the Germans launched ‘Operation Barbarossa’ thus forcing the Soviets into the Allied camp, Churchill had been thinking of the Russians as possible partners in the struggle against Nazi Germany, for however much he detested the Soviet regime, his passionate determination to destroy Nazism was a far more powerful emotion, and, as he put it, if Hitler were to invade Hell he would promptly sign a pact with the Devil.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 415 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

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