The phrase of the British prime minister can often be found in literature and the press. In recent decades, it has become widespread in the rhetoric of some patriotic citizens. We checked whether Winston Churchill spoke this actually.

A quote is found in such an authoritative series as “The Life of Wonderful People”. In the afterword to the book "Churchill" of the authorship of Francois Bedarid, historian Yuri Emelyanov writes: “And on December 21, 1959, W. Churchill made a statement in the House of Commons, which again surprised the world. It seemed that Churchill had crossed all his post -war statements made by him in relation to the USSR and its leaders, and returned to his estimates of the time of combat cooperation with the USSR in 1941-1945. His speech on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the birth of I.V. Stalin is very expressive: “Great happiness for Russia, that during the years of difficult trials the country was headed by a genius and an unshakable commander I.V. Stalin. He was the most outstanding person who impresses our varying and cruel time of the period in which his whole life passed. <...> Stalin was the greatest, which had no equal in the world, He accepted Russia with a dictator and left it with an atomic weapon equipped with it.

Many other sources refer to pathos speech in the House of Commons. To begin with, let's try to understand when this quote appeared in print. We will say right away that in English literature in conjunction with Churchill it is extremely unpopular and is found mainly in recent years - for example, in the book "Russia after the Cold War", Published in 2014.

According to the researcher, Konstantin Dushenko, the quote has gained popularity in the USSR thanks to public figure Nina Andreeva and her famous article "I can not make principles" ("Soviet Russia", March 13, 1988). Moreover, after three weeks, a refutation appeared in the newspaper Pravda: “The Panegyrir, who was brought by her [Andreeva], does not belong to Churchill. Something similar was said by the famous English Trotskyist I. Doycher. ” It should be noted that in 1985, in the Moscow magazine, one could also find a slightly different version of the phrase earlier: “It seems that Churchill said about Stalin and at the same time about Russia that Stalin accepted Russia in bast shoes, but left it with an atomic bomb.”

As for the article of Doych, according to Dushenko, on March 6, 1953, the next day after the death of Stalin, a necrologue signed by Isaac Deuter appeared in the left newspaper Manchester Guardian. It said: "The essence of Stalin's historical achievements is that he received Russia, plowing with wooden plows, and leaves it equipped with atomic reactors." The quote later included in the book of Doyrey “Russia after Stalin” (1953) and even to the “British Encyclopedia” (Volume 21, 1964). The article "Stalin" was signed here by the initials of I.D. (ISAAC Deutscher).

The above really took place, but this is not the first appearance of a quote in the press. On December 21, 1949, on the day of the 70th anniversary of Stalin, The Guardian newspaper came out with a congratulatory article by the same doe, in which the latter wrote: “Perhaps the historian of the future, summing up Stalin's reign, will write that he accepted Russia with plowing wooden plows and left equipped with nuclear reactors.”

As you can see, the “historian of the future”, about which the Doycher wrote about, he himself became four years later. And the only words of Churchill, said during a meeting in the House of Commons in 1959, became Gratitude For congratulations on the recent day of birth (November 30, 1959). There are no these words in other transcripts of his speeches, as well as in the memoirs of any of the contemporaries.

Thus, the real author of the quote about Soh and the atomic bomb is the British Marxist, the historian, biographer of Stalin and Trotsky Isaac Doycher. Churchill never pronounced these words.