7 Sir Winston Churchill 7strategy. Although Churchill held that international
communism was a threat to peace, he worked with Soviet
Premier Joseph Stalin for the defeat of the common
enemy—Nazi Germany.
Ultimately, the Allies turned the war in their favour.
Churchill’s focus on military matters did not mean indif-
ference to its political implications. In 1944 he flew to
Moscow to try to conciliate the Russians and the Poles
and to get an agreed division of spheres of influence in
the Balkans, which would protect as much of them as pos-
sible from communism. In Greece Churchill used British
forces to thwart a communist takeover, and at Christmas,
he flew to Athens to effect a settlement. Much of what
passed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, includ-
ing the Far East settlement, concerned only Roosevelt
and Stalin, and Churchill did not interfere. He fought to
save the Poles but saw clearly enough that there was no
way to force the Soviets to keep their promises. Realizing
this, he urged the United States to allow the Allied forces
to thrust as far into eastern Europe as possible before the
Russian armies should fill the vacuum left by German
power, but he could not win over the Americans. He went
to Potsdam in July 1945 in a worried mood. But in the final
decisions of the conference he had no part. Halfway
through, news came of his government’s defeat in parlia-
mentary elections, and he returned to England to tender
his resignation.
Postwar Political Career
Churchill then entered the House of Commons as “leader
of His Majesty’s loyal opposition.” His flair for colourful
speech endured. During a visit to the United States, at
Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, he declared: “From