Did Churchill say: “When Russia, which fed all Europe with bread, began to buy grain, I realized that I would die of laughter”?

In social networks, network collections of quotes and in articles there is often a phrase on the purchase of the USSR grain, which is attributed to the British Prime Minister. We decided to check whether this statement belongs to Churchill.

Most often, the phrase attributed to Winston Churchill is given in the following form: “I thought that I would die from old age. But when Russia, which fed all Europe with bread, began to buy grain, I realized that I would die of laughter. ” It is quoted by users Instagram, social networks x (ex-Twitter), Livejournal, "VKontakte", Platforms"Zen". This statement is also found on entertainment sites, and c Online citizens, and in a wide variety of media (for example, in the newspaper "Tomorrow", On the sites"Sight" And 7x7, "Express Gazeta".

Soviet Union started buying grain abroad In 1963, after a crisis caused by crop failure. On September 19, 1963, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee approved the decision to acquire grain from other countries, until the end of autumn the Soviet leadership agreed on deliveries from Canada and the USA.

Accordingly, Churchill’s quote could be attributed to a short period - from autumn 1963 to January 1965, when the British politician died. Throughout the first half of 1964, he remained a member of the British parliament, but no longer spoke to the House of Commons. July 27, 1964, he was the last time attended meetingsThe next day the parliamentarians honored his merits. Winston Churchill no longer pronounced any public speeches about foreign and domestic politics during this period.

There are no traces of phrase about the purchase of grain in the archive Museum of Churchillnot on the site Society for the study of his heritage. However, in the latter case, the phrase Mentioned Among the false quotes of unknown origin attributed to the British policy.

The earliest mention of this phrase dates back to 1985, 20 years after the death of Churchill, when the book of Dora Sturman and Sergey Tiktin was published in London.Soviet Union in the mirror of a political joke". Among the numerous political jokes, researchers cite this: “If earlier I thought that I would die of old age, now I know that I will die of laughter: bringing Russia to the import of bread is brilliant!” It is indicated that this joke dates back to 1964, and is told as a quote from Churchill, dedicated to the head of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev, in which a grain crisis occurred.

In blogs, this joke in a slightly changed form began to diverge in March 2010. In the recording on the site budclub.ru The author of the text, Dmitry Yuryevich Kuznetsov, leads several excerpts supposedly from Churchill, indicating that these are not real quotes, but the fruit of his work: “This is just an attempt to recreat the history of Russia as it could look in the last century from London.”

A completely quote invented by the author looks like this: “These Russians are unpredictable. They hung their farmers hunger. They flooded the fertile lands to make power plants. They polluted the yielding areas with waste from the nuclear industry. They have a low population density, but even at the same time they managed to pursue their country so much that they are now forced to buy grain. I thought I would die from old age. But when Russia, which fed all Europe with bread, began to buy grain, I realized that I would die of laughter. Stalin captured the agrarian country and turned it into a raw materials appendage and a nuclear trash. ” Later the same author created and letter, which Churchill allegedly wrote to Nina Andreeva, the Soviet public figure and author of the anti -recent manifesto "I can not make principles". It was after her article that the phrase “Stalin accepted Russia with Sokhi, but left with an atomic bomb” They began to attribute Churchill.

Thus, the phrase about the purchase of grain does not belong to Churchill. Initially, this is a Soviet joke, which was then retold in the 2010s and began to be perceived by users as a real quote from a British politician.

Photo on the cover: Library of Congress

Incorrect attribution of quote

What do our verdicts mean?

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