Did Churchill really say "We slaughtered the wrong pig?"

[OpanaPointer]

You know who coined the term "Iron curtain", right?

Churchill certainly popularized it, but the term was first coined in 1918, just after the October Russian Revolution, by philosopher Vasiliy Rozanov, in his book Apocalypse of Our Time (Apokalipsis nashego vremeni):

"Rattling, creaking and screeching, an iron curtain descends over the Russian history..." (page 148)

I stand corrected. Anyway, he was an ardent anti-communists by most accounts, so I can see a tipsy Winnie saying something like this. I'm just pointing out that it's not completely outside the realm of possibility, not that he absolutely, positively, cross my heart and hope to die, said it.

[SebastianShaw]

You know who coined the term "Iron curtain", right?

Churchill certainly popularized it, but the term was first coined in 1918, just after the October Russian Revolution, by philosopher Vasiliy Rozanov, in his book Apocalypse of Our Time (Apokalipsis nashego vremeni):

"Rattling, creaking and screeching, an iron curtain descends over the Russian history..." (page 148)

I stand corrected. Anyway, he was an ardent anti-communists by most accounts, so I can see a tipsy Winnie saying something like this. I'm just pointing out that it's not completely outside the realm of possibility, not that he absolutely, positively, cross my heart and hope to die, said it.

and it also might be due to the fact that Hitler was far more aggressive than the SU..

[Sid Guttridge]

Let's try again for the third time.....

Leaving aside the questionable provenance of this quote, where is the evidence that it had anything to do with the USSR?

So far on this thread, the only obvious connection is with area bombing.

Where is this USSR connection everyone is presuming?

[OpanaPointer]

Let's try again for the third time.....

Leaving aside the questionable provenance of this quote, where is the evidence that it had anything to do with the USSR?

So far on this thread, the only obvious connection is with area bombing.

Where is this USSR connection everyone is presuming?

The pre-WWII world is often pictured as being trilateral, "Democracy" vs. "Fascism" vs. "Communism" (if I might go a bit media-minded there by "lumping" to a very great extent.) This resulted in things like the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact (including the secret codicil) and people arguing that the Democracies should join with the Fascists to destroy the Communist, or at least keep them in check.

Given that situation, which devolved to Democracy vs. Communism after the third party was defeated, it's a good bet that the target of the purported remark was Communism.

Unless you have a good case for another party?

[Sid Guttridge]

"A good bet"? Is that the standard of evidence prevailing here?

Yes, I do have another candidate, as I have already said several times: the targetting of Area Bombing.

There is no mention of the USSR in the original quote, but a later poster mentions it as allegedly said when Churchill was touring bombed-out German cities. If said, it therefore seems possible that Churchill was referring to the use of bombing against urban areas rather than other targets.

I have no particular preference for which is right, but I fail, on the evidence so far presented on this thread, to see any connection with the USSR at all. As things stand, it is a secondary presumption based on a quote, the source of which has not been solidly established in the first place.

[nobodyofnote]

I have seen by Googling, a number of websites claim the source of the quote was a speech given by Churchill in parliament on 2nd November 1946. I have been unable to confirm the contents of that speech and those sites aren't very scholarly. It's known though that the purported quote is alleged to have originated around this time, from news sources at least as early as 1948 (see my previous post). IMO it wasn't created by Neo-Nazi revisionists as some have suggested, but it could have been created by those fearful of communism at the time. The bottom line is, more research is required. I'll be in the library tomorrow to see what I can find.

[Velho]

Well if it's true he talked about the two countries, he certainly wasn't alone. I've read (don't quote me on this) that general Patton took quite a liking to the German people, and when visiting the bombed-to-ground Berlin talked about how they "destroyed what could have been a good race" only to turn them back to "mongols" and leave Europe to communism. He even found some French officer who agreed that the Anglos bombing the only surviving country in Europe (Germany) to the ground paved way for the spread of communism. So it seems it was quite widespread that once the evil Nazis had been destroyed the fear of communism took over and the Germans didn't seem so bad after all.

[Hop]

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com has a record of parliamentary proceedings from 1803 to 2005. The only 2 records for the words slaughtered wrong pig in 1946 were to do with pigs being placed in a mosque in India and a debate on farming in the UK.

A search for the phrase "slaughtered the wrong pig" turns up no references.

Searching for use of the word "pig" by Churchill turns up only 3 post war references, all to "pig iron".

[OpanaPointer]

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com has a record of parliamentary proceedings from 1803 to 2005. The only 2 records for the words slaughtered wrong pig in 1946 were to do with pigs being placed in a mosque in India and a debate on farming in the UK.

A search for the phrase "slaughtered the wrong pig" turns up no references.

Searching for use of the word "pig" by Churchill turns up only 3 post war references, all to "pig iron".

Did you try "swine"? Not required, of course, just the Google ninja in me coming out.

[Attrition]

Let's try again for the third time.....

Leaving aside the questionable provenance of this quote, where is the evidence that it had anything to do with the USSR?

So far on this thread, the only obvious connection is with area bombing.

Where is this USSR connection everyone is presuming?

The pre-WWII world is often pictured as being trilateral, "Democracy" vs. "Fascism" vs. "Communism" (if I might go a bit media-minded there by "lumping" to a very great extent.) This resulted in things like the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact (including the secret codicil) and people arguing that the Democracies should join with the Fascists to destroy the Communist, or at least keep them in check.

Given that situation, which devolved to Democracy vs. Communism after the third party was defeated, it's a good bet that the target of the purported remark was Communism.

Unless you have a good case for another party?

What democracy?

[Sid Guttridge]

Presumably Liberal Democracy, as opposed to Totalitarianism, which was defeated in WWII and the Cold War.

[Attrition]

Women didn't have the vote in France, colonials didn't have the vote in the French, British and US empires; poor people and black people (often the same people of course) etc didn't have the vote in the USA, Australia etc. With its control of India, Britain was one of the biggest dictatorships in history.

Let's not be misled about the constitutional superiority of the winning side.

[nobodyofnote]

Women didn't have the vote in France, colonials didn't have the vote in the French, British and US empires; poor people and black people (often the same people of course) etc didn't have the vote in the USA, Australia etc. With its control of India, Britain was one of the biggest dictatorships in history.

Let's not be misled about the constitutional superiority of the winning side.

Not just the vote. Many Allied countries like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, restricted immigration based on racial or ethnic background. Indigenous Australians weren't even regarded as citizens. Dictatorships? I'm not so sure on that but certainly the many countries that fought against the Axis were hardly ideal representative democracies when certain enshrined practices excluded people from participating.

[Attrition]

Britain was due an election in 1940 but didn't have it so the government had no electoral mandate for the next five years, ten years since the previous election and 14 since a government got more than 50% of the vote. No British government has had a democratic mandate defined like this since 1931. I'm not aware of Indian or Nigerian people (say) having a vote in Westmenster elections. Apparently slavery wasn't abolished in northern Nigeria until 1936 (can people in a colony be considered free people?). I'm not aware of the Bveridge Report mentioning the colonies either. Proper Australians didn't get democracy until 1962.

[murx]

There is something which points into the direction that he came to this conclusion: Operation Unthinkable. There he wanted to slaughter the better pig. BTW: Did he ever in one word mention the "final solution"?

http://american_almanac.tripod.com/church.htm