Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes

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As Tariq Ali said, “As he saw it, and said as much, it was to the benefit of mankind that civilisation was being taken to the savages and inferior peoples” (p. 49). 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?

For decades, there has been a cult of personality around Churchill that, at best, sweeps the dark side under the carpet, and at worst, produces a sanitized and whitewashed version of history that is almost obscene. I personally have not watched any movie or documentary, or read any books on Churchill in two decades, because all you get is a groveling hagiography, a form of cult worship. The record of Churchill as war leader needs some careful deconstructing. When war broke out in 1939, Britain was ruled by appeasers, who did not want war with Germany and who were both unwilling and ineffective in preparing for war. Less than a year previously, Chamberlain had allowed Hitler to take over part of Czechoslovakia at the time of Munich. In May 1940, when Britain had been defeated in Norway and defeat in France loomed, Chamberlain was forced out and Churchill replaced him as prime minister. He was not the first choice of the ruling class: the king and many Tories wanted the appeaser Halifax. When Churchill rose in his first speech as prime minister his own side was largely silent, while the Labour benches applauded. He governed in coalition with Labour during the war. 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. So, Churchill was enlisted to promote and propagandize the neoliberal counterrevolution sweeping the UK and US. 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.Ali claims that the Churchill cult began in 1982, with Thatcher invoking Churchill to justify her own war, whose victory won her another term in office: What is not a is a biography of Churchill. It is more a look of his policies/political actions and the effects of them. The cult of personality did not exist in his lifetime, as he was generally hated by the working class—not least for sending in the army to crush striking coal miners in Tonypandy and for using his position as editor of the government newspaper, the British Gazette, to print his anti-union and anti-socialist rants during the 1926 general strike. This explains his loss in the 1945 election, despite being the war leader.

There are, according to Tariq Ali, around 1600 books on Churchill to choose from. It is worth betting that few if any of them will approach their subject from the same angle as this one. You will not find here praise for ‘Winston’ as the Tories love to call him (as if they had only bumped into him in their gentlemen’s club yesterday), nor talk of fighting on the beaches, nor praise for his ‘statesman-like’ qualities, his war heroism or his patriotic fervour. Instead, this is the story of the Winston Churchill the militant defender of empire, the master of domestic political repression and the enthusiast for war. Empire and war were in Churchill’s blood. Born into an aristocratic family at Blenheim Palace, cousin of the Duke of Marlborough, his right-wing politics were never in doubt. His poor academic record at Harrow school was no barrier to his career as a journalist and politician who was attracted to war and conflict wherever it arose.There is a whole Churchill industry in this country, his memory is invoked by almost every politician that has walked through the gates of Parliament and his image is emblazoned across memorabilia from commemorative plates to tea towels and flags. To criticise him is to draw intakes of breath from those around you such is the secular sainthood that has been cast upon him. Historians both from his own lifetime and today have presented us with a one-sided view of the man who saved Britain from the Nazi’s and they have glossed over his own abhorrent actions and words. This book is a counter-balance to those right wing or liberal historians who have attempted to portray Churchill as a mixture of hero, genius and defender of freedom the world over, it is a timely polemic as our island nation drifts further to the right ideologically and becomes more and more cut off from a morality it once allegedly fought for. 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. 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. 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.

ii) there is a cult of Churchill in Britain and his supporters / admiring biographers are tying themselves in knots to ignore or deny the facts and repercussions of WC’s policies and imperialism. iii) the British Labour Party has a rotten history of defending / supporting imperialism. I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas…I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gases against uncivilized tribes”. 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. With the spate of recent movies and books dedicated to the cult of Winston Churchill, Tariq Ali offers a radical reassessment of the man and his inseparable relationship with his beloved British Empire.

There's so much to get your teeth into with Churchill, his aggressive stance against women voting, he changed political allegiances. He repeatedly used the army on his own civilians and had the navy on standby. His admiration for fascist dictators like Franco and Mussolini. His military incompetence which led to the mass slaughter of the ANZACs at Gallipoli. The slaughter of the Greeks after they had chased out the Nazis, which then led to Churchill and his Labour successors endorsing the Greek fascists, as they were anti-communist. The Bengal famine (between 3.5-5 million perished). He despised Indians and described Gandhi as a, “malignant subversive fanatic”. His integral part in helping violently overthrow the democratically elected Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and the war crimes in Kenya. And of course let’s not forget his suggestion for the Tory election slogan for the 1955 general election, “Keep England White.” Note that Scotland, Wales and N Ireland don’t even factor in his thoughts?...Yes it’s safe to say that Winston Churchill has quite the CV. Defenders of WC are often outraged at the racism charge against him but it isn’t a complicated matter ─ If you talk about a “higher grade race'' and are referring to white Europeans, or defend those who do, you are being racist ─ simples. Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes is a 2022 book by British-Pakistani writer, journalist, political activist and historian Tariq Ali. In it, Ali discusses Winston Churchill's racial and imperialist views. 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.