An “issue” (in the legitimate meaning of the word) came up at a Churchill Centre scholarly panel when it was argued that the “percentages” agreement (proposing spheres of influences in eastern Europe) between Churchill and Stalin at Moscow—the “Tolstoy” conference in October 1944—proved that Churchill and Britain were no different than Stalin and Russia—that both sides had identical objectives, i.e., their own national interests.
This is a common argument of those who would have us believe that the Western democracies are no better than Nazis, Soviets, or Islamofascists. We heard the line quite recently at Cairo, from an unexpected source, the President of the United States, who suggested that the Holocaust was morally equivalent to the displacement of Palestinians after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Say what?
Leave aside that Churchill saw the Moscow agreement as a temporary expedient which might end up saving Greece from communization (as indeed it did). Did Churchill’s behavior prove that “we” were the same as “them”?
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