"Stalin came to Russia with a wooden plough and left it in possession of nuclear weapons," Winston ChurchillA phrase attributed to Churchill that he never uttered. Indeed, Winston Churchill regarded the Soviet leader with apprehension and respect, as reflected even in the Fulton speech that began the Cold War: "
I deeply admire and honor the valiant Russian people and my wartime comrade Marshal Stalin.”
But Churchill said nothing about the plough and the atomic bomb. It was first quoted by the Stalinist Nina Andreeva in her article "I can't compromise my principles" in March 1988.
The source of inspiration for Andreeva might have been an article about Stalin from the 1956 Encyclopedia Britannica. The author of the article, the Sovietologist Isaac Deutscher, wrote: "
The essence of Stalin's truly historic achievements is that he took Russia with a plough and left it with nuclear reactors. He raised Russia to the level of the second industrially developed country in the world.”
