The District of Calamity: Winston Churchill

On March 5, 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri which framed the decades that followed World War II.

In the Sinews of Peace speech, Churchill called out the Soviet Union for forcibly applying an Iron Curtain on lands that it occupied after defeating Nazi Germany along with the Allies (principally the United States and the British Commonwealth).

By chastising the forced communism in Soviet Occupied lands, it further alienated Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (a.k.a. "Uncle Joe"). For all practical purposes, this declared the Cold War, a conflict between the free market democratically elected United States and its allies against a communistic Soviet Union and its vassal states in Eastern Europe.

While Churchill did not utter his bon mot about socialism during the Iron Curtain speech, it does highlight Churchill's political philosophy which made economic and moral distinctions between a forced system of equality with capitalism.

Considering how well socialism is polling at so called institutes of higher learning in the West, it is fitting to remember Churchill's clarion call against Soviet aggression, and seek to find any examples of where communist principles have been peacefully implemented without subjugating most peoples' freedom, not creating an elite ruling class (nomenklatura) and providing a thriving economy