Iron Curtain





The Iron Curtain is a term used in the West to refer to the boundary line
which divided Europe into two separate areas of political influence from the
end of World War II until the end of the Cold War. During this period,
Eastern Europe was under the political control and/or influence of the
Soviet Union, while Western Europe enjoyed political freedom (see Free
World). The term comes from a long speech by Winston Churchill on March 5,
1946 in Fulton, Missouri:

"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."

The phrase had been used a year earlier, in an article on "The Year 2000" by
Joseph Goebbels:

"If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the
agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would occupy all of East
and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron
curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet
Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered."

Although the phrase was not well received at the time, as the Cold War
strengthened it gained popularity as a short-hand reference to the division
of Europe. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in and information out,
and the metaphor eventually enjoyed wide acceptance in the West. A variant,
the Bamboo Curtain, was coined in reference to Communist China.

As the standoff between the Free World and the countries of the Iron and
Bamboo curtains eased, with the West's victory in the Cold War, the term
fell out of any but historical usage.