Mystery-Wrapped Riddles

from Winston Churchill's first wartime radio address

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

It cannot be in accordance with the interest or safety of Russia that Germany should plant upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of South-East Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia. But here these interests of Russia fall into the same channel as the interests of Britain and France. None of these powers can afford to see Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and above all Turkey, put under the heel of the Nazi buccaneers.

Through the fog of confusion and uncertainty we may discern quite plainly the community of interests which exists between England, France and Russia, to prevent the Nazis carrying the flames of war into the Balkans and Turkey. Thus (at some risk of being proved wrong by events) I will proclaim to-night my conviction that the second great fact of the first month of the war is that Hitler and all that Hitler stands for have been and are being warned-off the East and the South-east of Europe.

Churchill, in addition to his tactical genius, was apparently also a pastry chef. He liked his mystery-wrapped enigma-riddles with a schmear of the fog of uncertainty.

The strange thing about this overwrought and oft-misquoted speech is how unnecessary the description of Russia is. It's like he's saying, "I'm not sure what Sergei will do. But the key to what Sergei will do is finding out what he ought to do."

"Russian national interest" is said to underlie Russian wartime maneuvers. Which should be self-evident. Churchill was insisting on anti-Nazi solidarity while trying to keep the Russians at arm's length by suggesting that they are treacherous and irrational.

To me the main obfuscation in Churchill's speech is the conflation of a "national interest" with the machinations of a cabal of totalitarians. Even when the prime minister speaks of a democracy like "France," he is still reducing it to a homogeneous monolith. He doesn't even explain why a Nazi push east would hurt the West. Granted, war made us tend to band together, but on the other hand there were limits to that, as Churchill's treatment of Russia indicates.

So don't let anyone tell you your interests, folks. Least of all Winston Churchill.