Winston Churchill Was No Saint—really?

“The Roaring Lion” digitized by: BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives Public Domain

Everybody is getting in on the act. History de jour.

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It seems weird, after living through all the years of the Cold War, to find myself cheering for Russians being blown up by American anti-tank weapons, but it’s where we’re at. I never imagined this many years after World War II to be witnessing a European invasion by armor, artillery and bombers. What the hell was Putin thinking?

No one Ever Wants to Recognize It, But It Keeps Coming Back by John Weiss on Medium strikes a melancholy tone, sadly too topical, given Czar Putin’s war on his neighbors. My article may seem off-topic, but I hope it pertains, seeing as Weiss’s story inspired it.

Peter Baker, a writer I respect, tackled the subject in his NY Times Book Review article on CHURCHILL’S SHADOW The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill by Geoffrey Wheatcroft. The review opens:

“During a protest over the killing of George Floyd last year, demonstrators in London targeted the famed statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. Underneath his name someone had spray-painted the words ‘was a racist.’ ”

from The Case Against Winston Churchill by Peter Baker, October 2021

Had I ever believed Winston Churchill was a saint, it may have been last back in grade school.

A hero for being one of Britain’s finest wartime leaders, as a kid I might have been taken aback to learn he held prejudices against other cultures, particularly ones belonging to the British Empire. And that he wasn’t just spouting a Tory line when declaring he had “not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”

So what’s the big deal if he wasn’t a saint? Maybe if all you read was a Cliff Notes biography, you’d be shocked, but otherwise where do people come up with these inanities?

His entire life, even before standing for Parliament, had been at the service of the British Empire—in India and in Africa. The second son of Randolph Churchill, grandson of John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, and descendant of the great British general, John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlborough who crushed the French under Louis XIV, bringing an end to the War of Spanish Succession in Europe. Yes, Winston’s mother, Jennie Jerome was an American society princess, but she chose to become British. So do you suppose he might be of a similar mindset?

We only show an enormous ignorance when we measure the past, albeit with great sincerity, on what we consider a more informed ‘modern’ wisdom.

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So when it comes to judging Zelenskyy’s rise from TV comedian to national hero defending Ukraine from Putin’s fit of resurrecting Russia’s moldy past from centuries before, time will tell. Things about Zelenskyy’s stubborn determination may seem less admirable in time; it’s too early to know. And it doesn’t matter. Give me a comedian over a clown any day.

I wonder how many people remember the Polish hero of the Cold War, Lech Wałęsa, with as much admiration as they did back then when he led union workers against Poland’s communist leaders. His later statements on gays and Middle Eastern refugees didn’t always accord with that of a hero. Still, he was a hero when Poland needed one.

Churchill incessantly smoked cigars, was an alcoholic by any measure, drove his wife and family to distraction, and his stubborn defense of empire saved the British people and by extension Western Europe by refusing to submit to the despot he faced.

If we in America largely disapproved of the British Empire (excepting when there’s a coronation or a princess gets married), even with justification, we were happy to see it stand against Hitler.

“We are left with two great paradoxes. The man who, at one extraordinary moment, heroically defied the vilest racial tyranny in history was himself not only an intransigent imperialist but a racist, by the standards of his own age as well as ours. And although Churchill said he would not preside over the liquidation of the British Empire, he did just that, or at least hastened its demise.”

from Imperial Son, 2014 NY Times essay on Churchill by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Aside from Wheatcroft borrowing Churchill’s own phrase for his own, Peter Baker’s review of Wheatcroft’s book on Churchill makes clear that what Wheatcroft was after was akin to tearing down his statue:

“In his new book, “Churchill’s Shadow,” Geoffrey Wheatcroft takes a literary spray can to the iconic World War II leader, attempting metaphorically at least to recast the many memorials and books devoted to Sir Winston over the years. Churchill, in this telling, was not just a racist but a hypocrite, a dissembler, a narcissist, an opportunist, an imperialist, a drunk, a strategic bungler, a tax dodger, a neglectful father, a credit-hogging author, a terrible judge of character and, most of all, a masterful mythmaker.”

from The Case Against Winston Churchill by Peter Baker, October 2021

It baffles me when someone claiming to write history supplies his opinion instead. And yes, Churchill wrote his opinion in his Second World War, a six-volume tome, though what he says in those several thousand pages dwarfs Wheatcroft’s reworking:

“In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill" from Winston Churchill’s first volume, The Gathering Storm

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Do folks in the U.S. understand we are at war again? Do any think we are not? The people of Poland and the Baltic States know they are at war. Norway and Sweden know, as does Germany. Even wacky Boris says he knows.

I’ve read the commentary: if Obama hadn’t backed down in Syria, if Boris and the Conservatives hadn’t gone and pulled off their Brexit stunt, if—oh, there’s something the pundits will come up with about Macron. The Germans just retired Merkel, so they don’t have her backbone. If Trump hadn’t been a traitor to his country, and even if Biden hadn’t withdrawn from Afghanistan so precipitously.

Considering that last one—were we still in Afghanistan—what benefit would that have served when Putin invaded Ukraine? Having fighters and reconnaissance jets stationed at Bagram Air Force Base would have deterred him?

Try this: if Putin wasn’t a despot, there’d be no war in Ukraine.

But it doesn’t matter how many mistaken wars we have fought, and we have fought a few, facing this one.

In the short term, Germany’s Chancellor Scholtz declaring that country’s rearming must raise alarm bells in the Kremlin. Wasn’t the Kremlin’s entire purpose of keeping Germany divided and disarmed after World War II to keep them at bay? With one stroke, Putin has gambled Russia’s longer term future for whatever short term gain his tank army may achieve—assuming the tank drivers even survive.

You don’t hear too much about Hungary in this crisis, but it’s hard to think they’re thrilled at present. And even Poland has decided to rejoin the rest of Europe in the face of what Putin is doing. Poland is another smaller country standing up to Putin, not what they want to be doing, but survival is a great clarifier.

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If there isn’t satisfaction in seeing another round of ‘great men’ marching their countries to war, maybe there’s relief a few are still around. On the side of the despots, Czar Putin. Standing against him, Zelenskyy, the Europeans and an old Cold War warrior in America who is speaking truth to a despot.

For those who want to move beyond this primitivism, they’ll nevertheless need to wait. First, we have a war to win.