Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes

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There is overwhelming evidence for the above. Churchill suggested “that the Tory election slogan for the 1955 general election should be “Keep Britain White” (p. 401). This seems to be, in essence, a hatchet job much like Shashi Tharoor’s Inglorious Empire - both these books are collections of selected stories (and in a number of instances are not even fact based) which are then invariably taken out of context. Perhaps in this post fact world, salaciousness sells better than reality and is certainly easier to churn out than proper scholarship. Essentially this is History at its worst. So, Churchill was enlisted to promote and propagandize the neoliberal counterrevolution sweeping the UK and US. Of course this exists right up to the present day in England and as we saw in the recent leadership contest it is as bad as ever, with both candidates falling over themselves to compare themselves to Thatcher, who in turn liked to compare herself to Churchill. And yet all of these people are ridiculous, and they are no more like their predecessors than a child is like Superman just because they happen to don a costume at Halloween. Tariq Ali’s book is an essential antidote to the Churchill myth. It is also an extremely useful guide to international politics in the twentieth century, and touches on other aspects of history such as Chartism and the fight for democracy. However, it has a contemporary relevance which has become particularly acute in recent months, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The war there is becoming increasingly a proxy war between NATO and Russia with very serious consequences. Germany is doubling its spending on ‘defence’ and there will be pressure on every country to follow suit. Sweden and Finland look like they are abandoning their traditional neutrality and joining NATO. Weapons are pouring into Ukraine from NATO states. The danger of direct war between nuclear powers is very real.

A view of Churchill from a left perspective, highlighting what others dare not mention, or at best, shove under the carpet, is a most welcome contribution about the so-called “great man” of British history. I have waited decades for this book. Even most of the political class hated his guts, especially because his career was spent opportunistically switching between the conservatives and liberals, whenever it suited his purpose. Leo Amery, his old friend, said of him, “On the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane … I don’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s” (p. 261).What is not a is a biography of Churchill. It is more a look of his policies/political actions and the effects of them.

Churchill’s career is of course extremely nuanced and falls between this book at one end with Boris Johnson’s nonsense at the other (which seems to be a handful of dubious anecdotes with a couple of chapters of GCSE history thrown in to be polite). Reading either of these two books (or Inglorious Empire for that matter) will not make you smarter or even better informed. That’s the sort of talk that will get you called a legend and lead to statues of you getting put up in the UK. This was Churchill talking about how he wished to deal with the men, women and children of Kurdistan. His crimes" are driven by Churchill's attempt to shore up the British Empire against the Bolshevik threat,which is repeated over and over as the spoils of empire are divided up or partitioned.The modern Churchill cult is out of control, closing down debate and encouraging support for twenty-first-century wars. The wartime leader has become a household god for many, preserving an antiquated vision of Britain still shared by all three parties. Yet, was he anything more than a plump carp happy to swim in the foulest of ponds to defend the Empire? The cover-up in Kenya ( UK concentration camps), the collaboration with facist groups in Greece, his support of Franco and Mussolini,the list goes on. Far from being a fierce anti-fascist, as has been presented in popular media. Churchill was an advocate and strong supporter of both Mussolini and Franco. He believed that supporting Fascism during the interwar period was the only way for Britain to maintain its empire, or so Ali argues. One of Ali’s strengths is his ability to distill and explain complicated historical events and ideas in a digestible and comprehensible manner. Namely, that fascism rose as a reaction to the socialist and Communist movements and political parties of the 1910s and 1920s. That and the Soviet army as well as the Greek and former Yugoslav resistance and partisan forces don’t get proper credit and/or attention for defeating the Fascist Nazi army of WWII. It reminds me of that quote from Spike Milligan in his war diaries, about Churchill drinking Napoleon brandy whilst he was getting shot at in the trenches.