Between 1945 and 1947, Stalin went back on his pledge to allow free elections in Eastern Europe and to have coalition governments of both communist and non-communist leaders. During these two years, communists seized control of many Eastern European nations. This made the United States nervous because Stalin was defiant and the United States feared the ideological spread of communism, leading to what many historians consider the official start of the Cold War.

On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill gave a speech in Fulton, Missouri now called the “Iron Curtain Speech,” in which he described Stalin’s actions and created a metaphor that was used throughout the Cold War.

An excerpt from Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain Speech:”

I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain -- and I doubt not here also -- toward the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. It is my duty, however, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe. 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 safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast.

Based on the excerpt from the “Iron Curtain Speech,” what was Winston Churchill’s point of view concerning the Soviet Union in 1946?