Churchill and the Soviet Union
From anti-Bolshevik crusader to wartime ally to Cold War prophet -- Churchill's complex and shifting relationship with Russia.
The Anti-Bolshevik Crusader
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.'
