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Churchill's hostility to Soviet communism was early, deep, and visceral. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917, Churchill was among the most vocal advocates for military intervention to strangle the revolution. As Secretary of State for War in 1919-1921, he pushed hard for British support to the White Russian forces fighting the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. He described Bolshevism as a 'plague bacillus' and compared Lenin to a 'plague-bearing rat.'
His anti-communism was ideological but also strategic. Churchill believed the Soviet state was fundamentally expansionist and would inevitably threaten British interests, particularly in India and the Middle East. Throughout the 1930s, even as he warned about Hitler, Churchill never wavered in his view that communism was a mortal threat to Western civilization.
This background made his wartime alliance with Stalin all the more remarkable. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Churchill immediately pledged British support. Asked how he could ally with communists, he reportedly said: 'If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.'
Churchill's partnership with Stalin was forged by necessity and marked by mutual suspicion. Stalin constantly demanded that Britain and America open a second front in Western Europe to relieve the enormous pressure on the Soviet forces, who bore the overwhelming burden of fighting the German army. Between 1941 and 1944, approximately 80% of German military casualties were inflicted on the Eastern Front.
Churchill resisted a premature cross-Channel invasion but traveled to Moscow in August 1942 to personally tell Stalin that there would be no second front that year. The meeting was brutal. Stalin accused the British of cowardice and questioned whether they were serious about fighting the Germans. Churchill held his ground, deflecting with his plan for Operation Torch in North Africa. The two men eventually reached an understanding, bonding over heavy drinking and mutual displays of toughness.
The most controversial moment of Churchill's dealings with Stalin came in October 1944, when Churchill visited Moscow and proposed the infamous 'percentages agreement.' He scrawled on a half-sheet of paper a division of influence in the Balkans: Romania 90% Russia, Greece 90% Britain, Yugoslavia and Hungary 50-50, Bulgaria 75% Russia. Stalin ticked it with a blue pencil. Churchill later called it a 'naughty document.' Critics call it great-power imperialism at its most naked.
Even before the war ended, Churchill's old anti-Soviet instincts were resurfacing. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, he grew increasingly alarmed at Stalin's intentions for Poland and Eastern Europe. He sent increasingly urgent cables to Roosevelt warning that Soviet behavior in liberated territories showed a pattern of establishing communist puppet governments.
After the war, Churchill's private views hardened further. He instructed his military planners to prepare 'Operation Unthinkable,' a contingency plan for war with the Soviet Union using rearmed German troops alongside Western forces. The plan was deemed militarily unfeasible and never pursued, but its existence reveals how quickly Churchill's mind shifted from alliance to confrontation.
Churchill's evolution from anti-Bolshevik to reluctant ally to Cold War prophet was not inconsistency. He maintained a consistent core belief: Soviet communism was a threat, but when a greater immediate threat (Hitler) existed, temporary alliance was justified. Once Hitler was defeated, the original assessment reasserted itself. His Iron Curtain speech in 1946 was not a change of direction but a return to his default position.