After World War II, the Soviet Union attempted to annul the Treaty of Kars and regain the lands ceded to Turkey. The Soviet claims were backed by much of the international Armenian diaspora, as well as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.[3] Armenian leaders attempted to gather British and American support for the reclamation of eastern Anatolia from Turkey, but Winston Churchill objected to the Soviet and Armenian territorial claims. Likewise, the United States State Department backed Turkey as well, saying, as it had since 1934, that its previous support for Wilsonian Armenia had since expired.[4] The Soviet Union dropped its claims against Turkey after Stalin's death in 1953.[5]