"Iron Curtain" Anti-communism group sees Soviet threat in Putin's Ukraine grab

Churchill was not the first to use the term about the Soviets. The term was used regarding the Bolsheviks as early as 1918:

The first recorded application of the term to Communist Russia is from Vasily Rozanov's 1918 polemic The Apocalypse of Our Times and it is possible that Churchill read it there when the book's English translation was published in 1920.

It was even more famously and ironically used by Goebbels against his former ally turned enemy, Stalin:

A May 1943 article in Signal,
a Nazi illustrated propaganda periodical published in many languages,
was titled "Behind the Iron Curtain." It discussed "the iron curtain
that more than ever before separates the world from the Soviet Union."^[15] The German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wrote in his weekly newspaper Das Reich that if the Nazis should lose the war a Soviet-formed "iron curtain" would arise because of agreements made by Stalin, Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference:
"An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by
the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered."^[16][17] The first oral intentional mention of an Iron Curtain in the Soviet context was in a broadcast by Lutz von Krosigk
to the German people on 2 May 1945: "In the East the iron curtain
behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction
goes on, is moving steadily forward."^[18]

The first recorded occasion on which Churchill used the term "iron
curtain" was in a 12 May 1945 telegram he sent to U.S. President Harry S. Truman regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front.

Anti-communism group sees Soviet threat in Putin's Ukraine grab | WashingtonExaminer.com

March 5, 2014  PAUL BEDARD 


from Churchill's famous "Sinews of Peace" (popularly called the "Iron Curtain" speech)

A foundation established under former President Bill Clinton to honor the 100 million killed under successive Soviet communist regimes is raising concerns about Russia’s military drive in Ukraine, suggesting that Moscow just can’t shuck its Cold War ways.

Marion Smith, the newly appointed executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said, “I consider it a sacred responsibility to keep alive the memory of 100 million people who were killed by Communist regimes since 1917. Unfortunately, recent events in Ukraine — the reprise of Soviet-style rhetoric, and a rise of pro-Communist sentiments among segments of the population — have highlighted the difficulty of overcoming the legacy of Soviet communism. The work of our foundation is needed more than ever.”

Smith was named on Wednesday by Lee Edwards, chairman of the board of the foundation. Smith founded the Common Sense Society, a nonpartisan educational foundation active in the U.S. and Europe, and was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The appointment comes at a critical time for former Soviet satellites like Ukraine that are seeking to strengthen ties to the West over the apparent objections of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

It also comes on a symbolic day: On this day in 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech warning of the dangers of communism.

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