Iron Curtain Speech

Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union since essentially 1924, after Lenin’s death. Although his title was General Secretary for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was the supreme leader and dictator of the country and any satellite countries that Russia controlled. Stalin’s word was law. There was a cabinet of sorts, called the Politboro, but Stalin made all the final decisions for the country. There was no option to appeal any decision he implemented. Stalin enacted massive ethnic cleansing programs within the Soviet Union in the years leading up to World War II and again in the decade after the war ended, right up to his death. These ethnic cleansing programs caused the deaths of millions of Russia’s citizens, and the relocation of millions more, but were not generally known to the Western world until later in the 20th century.

Harry Truman assumed the presidency of the United States after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945. President Truman was the man who authorized the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 to expedite the end of World War II. Research, construction, and testing of the atomic bomb, authorized by Roosevelt, was ongoing throughout the war timeframe. President Truman met with Churchill and Stalin near the end of the European hostilities to plan post-war strategies. Truman was in the middle of his first term as president at the time of Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech, and he was re-elected to the presidency for another four-year term in 1948.

The Soviet Union, formally the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), encompassed Russia, but in reality, Russia controlled all aspects of the USSR and its satellite territories. The union was made up of some 15 regions, territories, and formerly independent entities that were either conquered or voluntarily joined with Russia. The area of Georgia, a once and future independent state, was the birthplace of Joseph Stalin (born Joseph Besarionis Jughashvili), leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953.