The Iron Lady: Cold Warrior to Commanding Leadership
By: Jonah Goldberg
For: Professor Kalmar
Student Number: 999632946
Course Code: VIC183H1
Due: November 15, 2012.
The Origins of the Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher & Otto von Bismarck
The term The Iron Lady only recently became part of the Western canon, but it quickly
became one of the most prominent quotations in modern times. The actual quote was first coined
by Soviet journalist Captain Yuri Gavrilov in January of 1976. Gavrilov was writing an article
about British Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher’s visit to the Soviet Union in the Red Star. He
wanted to compare Thatcher to former German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who he
immediately thought of when reading the text of Thatcher’s Wake up Britain speech1. Bismarck
was known in his time as the Iron Chancellor for steadfastly defending his views, and never
being afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. Thatcher took much the same approach when she
spoke out so passionately against Communism while in the Soviet Union. Gavrilov therefore
wanted to compare Thatcher’s boldness and rejection of Communism to Bismarck’s forceful
leadership in Germany a century prior. She could not, however, be called the Iron Chancellor,
1
Charles Moore, “What Would the Iron Lady Do?” The Wall Street Journal, 17 Dec. 2011, C1.
1
because she was not from Germany, and did not even occupy 10 Downing Street at that point.
Thus, she became the Iron Lady.
For many years, it was believed that the Kremlin originally coined the phrase as an insult.
However, Gavrilov has recently admitted publically that he was the one who came up with the
title of the article, which was where the Iron Lady first appeared, and that it was in admiration of
Thatcher that he labeled her as the Iron Lady, not as an insult, as many others have speculated2.
At the time, Thatcher was not very well known in the international community, or even at home
in Great Britain, and many who knew of her refused to take her seriously. But when she was
dubbed the Iron Lady by a Soviet newspaper, Thatcher immediately claimed her place in
history3. If the Soviets recognized her strong will and determination, Margaret Thatcher certainly
had the potential to become a great leader, and change the course of history.
It is important to emphasize how prominent the Cold War was at the time. Everything
revolved around the Cold War, and every policy decision that governments made was looked at
through the prism of Cold War politics. For decades, Western leaders, and especially British
Prime Ministers, were not willing to publically criticize the Soviet Union, let alone do so in the
Soviet Union itself. The fact that Margaret Thatcher spoke out so passionately against Soviet
Communism while in the Soviet Union is what made her stand out. She would not have been
noticed by the Soviet press, and certainly would not have earned the Iron Lady label, if she had
not been so openly critical of the Soviet Union. Her strong leadership mattered, but her hardline
stance against Communism mattered even more.
2
William Stewart, “Red Army Colonel Who Dubbed Maggie the Iron Lady Changed the Course of History,” The
Daily Mail, 24 Feb. 2007, A1.
3
“On This Day in 1979,” The Evening Standard, 3 May 2005, 17.
2
Great Britain’s Iron Lady
It is not an understatement to say that the 1976 Iron Lady label was the key to Thatcher’s
political success in 1979. For decades, the Soviet Union had simply disregarded Great Britain,
seeing America as their true adversary. But according to Gavrilov, Soviet leaders recognized
quite early on that Thatcher was the strongest leader on the international stage Britain had
produced since Churchill. The British people would soon come to the same conclusion. When
the 1979 election in Britain was called, Thatcher revealed her party’s platform, and their
campaign slogan soon became “Britain needs the Iron Lady.” The slogan was alluding to the
strong leadership and anti-Communism that Gavrilov had seen in Thatcher three years prior, but
its use within the campaign allowed the Iron Lady to begin to represent more than a woman
strongly opposed to Communism. It came to represent the new face of Great Britain, and with it,
a Tory landslide.
Thatcher continues to be known as the Iron Lady almost four decades after that famous
article was published in the Red Star. While the title was originally meant to emphasize both
Thatcher’s forceful leadership and her adamant rejection of Communism, it was Thatcher’s
forceful leadership that would come to define her political career, and thus, the Iron Lady
increasingly became a symbol of her leadership style rather than her anti-Communism. In the
two decades following her first visit to the Soviet Union in 1976, Thatcher proved time and time
again that Gavrilov had been right to associate her with Bismarck. Whether going to war with
Argentina over the Falkland Islands, cutting government spending by massive amounts, or
fighting with the unions, Margaret Thatcher never gave up, and never compromised4. Just like
4
“On This Day in 1979,” The Evening Standard, 3 May 2005, 17.
3
Bismarck, she led with an iron fist, which is why she will forever be remembered as the Iron
Lady.
The Iron Lady in Popular Culture
In 2011, a movie was made about Margaret Thatcher’s political career, and the producers
of the film quickly decided to call it The Iron Lady, as it was the best way to describe her
political career, and her life in general. Several biographies about her life and time in politics
have also used the quotation as part of the title, including John Campbell’s “Grocer’s Daughter
to Iron Lady,” and Hugo Young’s “Iron Lady.” Numerous biographies of Golda Meir also
reference the quote, with one such biography by Elinor Bartlett entitled “the Iron Lady of the
Middle East.”
Anti-Communism to Forceful Leadership
Since the collapse of Communism, the meaning of the Iron Lady has changed
significantly. Gavrilov has stated publically that he coined the Iron Lady term to represent
Thatcher’s Bismarck-like leadership, and her forceful anti-Communism5. Since that time,
however, two factors led to a major change in the interpretation of the term. First, Thatcher
became Prime Minister in 1979, and her controversial policies and stubbornness became
synonymous with the Iron Lady term. Second, and most importantly, the Cold War ended. With
the Communist threat no longer present, the second aspect of Gavrilov’s definition of the term
was no longer relevant. The anti-Communism that had been such a critical element of Thatcher’s
original success, and the original meaning of the Iron Lady, no longer mattered. According to
5
William Stewart, “Red Army Colonel Who Dubbed Maggie the Iron Lady Changed the Course of History,” The
Daily Mail, 24 Feb. 2007, A1.
4
The Economist, Otto von Bismarck was labeled as the Iron Chancellor for his political
dominance in Germany in the late nineteenth century6. As Thatcher’s time in office lengthened,
and the Cold War came to a close, the Iron Lady increasingly began to symbolize the political
dominance that the Iron Chancellor had represented a century prior.
Indira Gandhi7, Golda Meir8, Benazir Bhutto9, and Angela Merkel10 have all been
referred to as Iron Ladies, but they cannot be considered Iron Ladies in the traditional sense.
Leaders like Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, and Angela Merkel were well known as Communist
sympathizers at different points in their lives, and, as History Today’s Steve Moorewood points
out, Golda Meir was recognized as an Iron Lady not because she was an anti-Communist, but
because, in the words of David Ben Gurion, she was “the only man in the Cabinet.”11 While none
of these leaders meet the original criteria Gavrilov laid out in 1976, they all represent the newer
meaning of the Iron Lady. In the present day, the Iron Lady has come to represent a female
leader with leadership qualities similar to those of Otto von Bismarck and Margaret Thatcher.
The Iron Ladies & the Quote’s New Interpretation
The female leaders who have been called Iron Ladies, besides Margaret Thatcher, are
done so under the new definition of an Iron Lady. They do, however, all have a lot in common.
The similarities between the leaders are not represented in the traditional sense of the Iron Lady
quote, but under its new meaning. The Iron Lady has come to symbolize women who, like
Thatcher, were controversial in domestic politics, transformed their nation in a noticeable way,
6
“Inventing the Iron Chancellor” History Today 57, no. 6 (2007), 43.
“Nation Remembers ‘Iron Lady’ Indira Gandhi,” The Hindustan Times, 31 Oct. 2011.
8
Steve Morewood, “Golda Meir: The Iron Lady of the Middle East,” History Today 59, no.4 (2009), 65.
9
“Pakistan People’s Party Leader Calls Bhutto ‘Iron Lady’ After Blast,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, 19 Oct 2007, 1.
10
“The New Iron Chancellor; Angela Merkel and the Euro,” The Economist, (2011), 65.
11
Gerald Butt, “Golda Meir,” BBC News, 21 Apr. 1998.
7
5
and had strong and determined leadership. Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Benazir Bhutto, and
Angela Merkel have all been referred to as Iron Ladies, and all meet the new interpretation of the
quote. While each of these leaders led their respective nations at different times, and had vastly
different ideologies, they were, in fact, all similar when it comes to leadership.
Each of these women came to represent controversy, transformation, and strong
leadership. As John Campbell notes in Grocer’s Daughter to Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher was
at times the most unpopular Prime Minister in Great Britain in the twentieth century, and
continuously imposed very controversial policies to restore her nation’s fiscal health. After
leading the Tories to three successive majorities, her party abandoned her, and Thatcher was
forced to resign in 199012. Both Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto were assassinated for their
controversial policies, including their development of nuclear weapons, and broad populist
appeal. Both had already served as Prime Minister in their respective countries, and both were
killed while trying to make a political comeback13. As Elinor Burkett so eloquently notes in her
highly acclaimed biography, Golda, Golda Meir was forced to resign in disgrace after members
of her own government began to blame her for the country’s slow response to the Yom Kippur
War14. With Angela Merkel’s popularity plummeting with the current state of Europe’s
economy15, she may be saddled with a similar fate. Looking at the remarkable careers of all of
these women, it becomes clear that they were all quite similar, and therefore all Iron Ladies.
They all dominated their country’s political scene, they all had broad populist support, and they
were all among the most controversial leaders in their nation’s history. Moreover, in the end,
they all left office in tragic circumstances.
12
John Campbell, Grocer’s Daughter to Iron Lady (London: Random House, 2008), 457.
Shakeel Ahmed, “The Legacy of Benazir Bhutto,” Pakistan Observer 21, no.412 (2010).
14
Elinor Burkett, Golda (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 483.
15
Quentin Peel, “Merkel Faces Revolt over Eurozone Deal,” Financial Times, 9 Aug. 2011.
13
6
The Modern Day Iron Lady
When Margaret Thatcher left Europe’s political scene in 1990, the role she had played as
the Iron Lady of Europe was largely vacant. Europe would not have such dominant leadership
for more than a decade, until Germany’s Angela Merkel began to dominate European politics in
a way that only Margaret Thatcher had done before. John Campbell makes it quite evident in his
best-selling biography of Margaret Thatcher that in her era, Thatcher was the most prominent
and important leader in all of Europe16. Her opinions mattered, and when it came to European
policy, she was the one in control. Angela Merkel is now beginning to fill that same role.
On the surface, Thatcher and Merkel are quite similar. Both were trained as scientists,
both are conservative politically, and both dominated the European political scene in their
respective eras. Thatcher and Merkel are the only two female leaders to have chaired the G8, and
they both dealt with major economic troubles in their time in office. They also both fought their
country’s unions, and attempted to restrict their power and control over their nations’ economies.
Furthermore, both Thatcher and Merkel were labeled as Iron Ladies while leading the
opposition; Thatcher in 1976, and Merkel in 2005.
Because of their similar personalities, Thatcher and Merkel were quickly associated with
one another. It was in the Independent, a British newspaper, where Merkel was first proposed as
an Iron Lady. The February 2005 article was entitled “Angela Merkel: The Iron Lady of German
16
John Campbell, Grocer’s Daughter to Iron Lady (London: Random House, 2008), 143-150.
7
Politics Hoping to Emulate Thatcher’s Unlikely Rise to Power”17. Even before she became
Germany’s Chancellor, Merkel was already being compared to Thatcher.
Angela Merkel, like most of the other women who have been called Iron Ladies,
represents the new interpretation of the infamous Gavrilov quote. Merkel cannot be considered
an Iron Lady in the same way Thatcher was, because Merkel is not an anti-Communist, and in
fact seemed to display Communist sympathies in her youth while growing up in Soviet East
Germany. She can, however, be compared to Thatcher in the quote’s new meaning. Angela
Merkel and Margaret Thatcher both had similar leadership styles and stubbornness, and both
women dominated the European political scene in their respective eras.
The parallels between Thatcher in 1976 and Merkel in 2005 are striking. Thatcher in
1976 and Merkel in 2005 were both the first women to lead a major party in their respective
countries, both were members of the conservative leaning party, both were in their fifties, and
both were the leader of the Official Opposition. They both had similar leadership styles, they
both believed in reigning in the power of national unions, and they both would both go on to
dominate politics within Europe.
Thatcher and Merkel were labeled as Iron Ladies, however, for vastly different reasons.
While both received the title for their strong and forceful leadership, Thatcher was also labeled
as an Iron Lady because of her vocal opposition to Communism18. Thatcher and Merkel certainly
have a lot in common, but Margaret Thatcher was not labeled as an Iron Lady in 1976 because of
her conservatism, strong opinions, or scientific background. It was because of her vocal
17
Mary Dejevsky, “Angela Merkel: The Iron Lady of German Politics Hoping to Emulate Thatcher’s Unlikely Rise to
Power,” The Independent, 14 Feb. 2005.
18
William Stewart, “Red Army Colonel Who Dubbed Maggie the Iron Lady Changed the Course of History,” The
Daily Mail, 24 Feb. 2007, A1.
8
opposition to Communism, and Bismarck-like leadership. Merkel’s personality and policies may
be similar to those espoused by Margaret Thatcher a few decades ago, but they were labeled as
Iron Ladies for different reasons. As Bruce Stokes referenced in his National Journal article,
Merkel was called an Iron Lady in 2005 because, like Thatcher, she managed to rise to the top of
her nation’s political scene against all odds19, meaning that she was called an Iron Lady under
the term’s new definition. On the other hand, it was not until after she was already known as the
Iron Lady that Thatcher became known as a tough fiscal conservative who was willing to take on
any foreign or domestic challenge. Merkel has been labeled as an Iron Lady for some of the
qualities that she shares with Thatcher. The major distinction, however, is that Thatcher did not
earn the Iron Lady moniker for her personality traits.
Conclusions
The Iron Lady only entered the Western canon in 1976, but its meaning has since evolved
significantly. In 1976, it was coined to represent Margaret Thatcher’s strong political leadership,
and her adamant rejection of Communism. However, it has since evolved to represent Thatcher’s
commanding leadership style. When the Iron Lady term is used today, it is used to describe
forceful female leaders, such as Indira Gandhi or Angela Merkel. The quote no longer represents
anti-Communism, and is even used today in describing former Communist sympathizers. While
she would not qualify as an Iron Lady under the traditional definition of the quote, Angela
Merkel fits the new definition of the Iron Lady perfectly. The situation in Europe has changed
dramatically since Thatcher’s era, and any modern-day Iron Lady cannot represent what
Thatcher came to represent during the height of the Cold War. The Iron Lady, therefore, has
19
Bruce Stokes, “Angela Merkel: Berlin’s Iron Lady?” National Journal 37, (2005), 33-35.
9
come to represent Margaret Thatcher’s leadership rather than her anti-Communism, because it
was her leadership that defined Margaret Thatcher’s career. Thus, while Margaret Thatcher and
Angela Merkel are both known as Iron Ladies, only one of them adheres to the true meaning of
the quotation in its original context.
I like a good argument, and your paper makes one quite consistently. While you may be
right, though, your sources need to be more reliable and your assumptions more solidly
referenced. I do not believe that because Thatcher’s strength and stubbornness were noted
in the context of her opposition to communism, a “traditional meaning” of “Iron Lady” can
be identified as necessarily anti-communist. Surely, the term simply means a strong female,
and the comparison with Bismarck also refers to shrewd determination in politics. Thus it
would apply as much to Merkel as to Thatcher, in addition to the fact that both are
conservative economically.
Still, it’s a fine essay.
Your mark is on Blackboard.
10
Works Cited
Burkett, Elinor. "Prime Minister." In Golda. New York: Harper, 2008. 458.
Campbell, John. "The Defenestration of Downing Street." In Margaret Thatcher: Grocer's
Daughter to Iron Lady. Rev ed. London: Vintage Books, 2009. 457.
Gerwath, Robert . "Inventing the Iron Chancellor." History Today 57, no. 6 (2007): 43.
www.library.utoronto.ca (accessed November 7, 2012).
Moorewood, Steve. "The Iron Lady of the Middle East." History Today 59, no. 4 (2009): 65.
www.library.utoronto.ca (accessed November 4, 2012).
"The New Iron Chancellor; Angela Merkel and the Euro." The Economist 401.8761 (2011): 65.
www.library.utoronto.ca (accessed November 10, 2012).
11