Churchill to Hitler

[Pinkkgaga]

So it’s trending on Twitter that people are comparing Churchill to Hitler and saying he was just as bad.
Absolutely disgusting imo, but I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on it.

I was never a fan of Churchill as he opposed women's suffrage.

I think it's a good thing that we are currently looking back with new eyes at historical figures we have placed on a pedestal (both figuratively and literally).

@dreamingbohemian

I think most Americans also think that we alone won WW2. You really don't learn about everything the Soviets did in school, so unless you look into it more as an adult, it just isn't something you know.

But surely this is lazy thinking? Why not leave out learning about yet another white man and use the space to learn about an inspirational BAME person? And if children can learn about Henry viii beheading his wives, they can learn that Drake was a slave trader!

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

the Soviet Union did everything the UK and the US did x10 insofar as defeating Naziism and Hitler goes.

WTF am I reading? Soviet Russia was hand in glove with the Nazis and agreed a deal to divide Poland and Eastern Europe between them. It only entered the War in 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

I was never a fan of Churchill as he opposed women's suffrage.

Care to cite, as his Wiki entry suggests otherwise ...

Oh I agree sevencontinents I guess it's inertia? There needs to be a certain amount of pressure before anyone makes the effort to change curricula.

Things do change though. When I was a kid they were just starting to say Wellllll Columbus was not that great actually. I think today they are much more like, yeah he was genocidal.

I predict by October they will have renamed Columbus Day. This is still a federal holiday in the US, god knows why.

‘ I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes’ - Churchill

‘ hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.’ - Churchill

And at a war cabinet meeting, he said the famine was Indians’ fault for “breeding like rabbits”

Politicians are crooks

@DGRossetti prison officers would force feed suffragettes who went on hunger strike as the government did not want any suffragette martyrs. The decision to use forced feeding was taken by the Home Secretary at the time who was Winston Churchill.

Oh he also wasn’t happy when working class wanted better Woking conditions, Welsh miners in Tonypandy protesting for better rights, saying, and these were his own words: ‘If the Welsh are striking over hunger, then we must fill their bellies with lead’.

Churchill voted against the 1910 Suffrage bill. He later used the suffrage cause for his political end but was not a supporter.

People should be aware that the concept of racism did not really exist until the late 70s and did not become mainstream until much later. It is utterly meaningless to hold historical figures to standards that they were not even aware of

Actually racism, in one form or another e.g. discrimination towards specific ethnic communities, was under debate for a long time prior to the 70s, it has been written about in a recognisable form since Victorian times, and in the early 20th century in the US. Anti-semitism as a form of racism also discussed widely early on in the 20th century – including in essays by Orwell. More formal recognition of racism and racial discrimination is contained in the 1963 Race Relations Act but this is not evidence that it was not an issue beforehand!

www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/05/260006815/the-ugly-fascinating-history-of-the-word-racism?t=1591818069297

www.researchgate.net/publication/263211523_Victorian_%27Anti-racism%27_and_Feminism_in_Britain

www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-british-empire-s-hidden-history-is-one-of-resistance-not-pride-1.3169778

As for Churchill he was subject to extensive criticism in his own time, before he became Churchill the myth!

And again as quoting from sources like The Guardian seems to bother some people on this thread, here is an external source and a decidedly non-leftwing source!

Leopold Amery, Churchill's own Secretary of State for India, likened his boss's understanding of India's problems to King George III's apathy for the Americas. Amery vented in his private diaries, writing "on the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane" and that he didn't "see much difference between [Churchill's] outlook and Hitler's."

www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/03/the-dark-side-of-winston-churchills-legacy-no-one-should-forget/

Nor was Churchill universally popular with the voters. Here is Harold Nicolson, man of letters and National Labour MP, writing in his diary on 7th February 1944:

“I fear that Winston has become a liability now rather than an asset. This makes me sick with human nature. Once the open sea is reached we forget how we clung to the pilot in the storm. Poor Winston who is so sensitive although so pugnacious will feel all this. In the station lavatory at Blackheath last week I found scrawled up ‘Winston Churchill is a bastard’. I pointed this out to the Wing Commander who was with me. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the tide has turned. We find it everywhere.’ ‘But how foul,’ I said, ‘How bloody foul!’ ‘Well you see, if I may say so, the men hate politicians.’ Winston a politician! Good God!!!”

The Wing Commander was right. The tide had turned against Churchill and in 1945 the people threw him out.

So we should refrain from implying that some glorious state of unity existed during the war. Churchill’s critics were able to draw up a long charge sheet against him, dating back to Tonypandy and Gallipoli.

www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2020/03/the-second-world-war-did-not-see-criticism-of-the-pm-suspended-nor-should-this-crisis.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10255153/Winston-Churchills-speeches-were-overrated-and-some-went-down-badly.html

Definitely eye opening, the other sides to Churchill’s politics, attitudes and decisions in office. I understand even at the time of the war he was not popular but was a man for the moment and quickly voted out after the war. It sounds like he made some spectacularly callous decisions at times in office, but did not embark on a life’s mission of systematic, deranged evil like Hitler. Also he was a democratically elected MP, so the government/electorate of the day must be at least partly culpable for decisions made in those times.

I think we have to be wary of time numbing the monster that hitler was (With no redeeming features, not one). The culture of autrocity built in to the regime, the actions of the SS at his direction, the calculated evil of the holocaust. What would Europe/the world be like if Hitler had won?

Who would you would be more ashamed of if they turned out to be your great grandad?

- I was never a fan of Churchill as he opposed women's suffrage.

- Care to cite, as his Wiki entry suggests otherwise ...

There is extensive material on this via the Churchill archives

Churchill, in his younger years, felt that women should not vote, writing in his copy of the 1874 Annual Register that they are “well represented by their fathers, brothers, and husbands”. Even when he voted in March 1904 in favour of a female suffrage bill, he was never more than a lukewarm supporter. (Under the then-current voting system, equal rights would only have enfranchised a minority of women (householders), most of whom were likely to vote Tory, so many Liberals were reluctant to endorse this type of reform.)

The logical solution – universal suffrage for both sexes – was a course to which Churchill was firmly opposed.

www.churchillarchive.com/collection-highlights/churchill-and-women

Love it mockers

Didn't the Spanish wreck their economy after taking the gold out of South America in the 16 century

When you learn about WW2 in the US they are very admiring of Churchill and they completely gloss over him getting booted out right after the war. When I learned about it later it was really surprising! I'm still not sure I totally understand it.

If people back then ended up with a not-great opinion of him, why is he so adored today?

Churchill voted against the 1910 Suffrage bill. He later used the suffrage cause for his political end but was not a supporter.

The vast majority of working class people opposed the Suffragettes. He was in good company.

[quote AlexandPea]@XDownwiththissortofthingX

the Soviet Union did everything the UK and the US did x10 insofar as defeating Naziism and Hitler goes.

WTF am I reading? Soviet Russia was hand in glove with the Nazis and agreed a deal to divide Poland and Eastern Europe between them. It only entered the War in 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.[/quote]
You're reading social media logic.

Scroll back a few pages and you'll learn that Stalin was no less morally questionable than Churchill and Gerry Adams was no worse than Bomber Harris.

There is free universal education in this country. There's no excuse for this stuff.

@dreamingbohemian

When you learn about WW2 in the US they are very admiring of Churchill and they completely gloss over him getting booted out right after the war. When I learned about it later it was really surprising! I'm still not sure I totally understand it.

If people back then ended up with a not-great opinion of him, why is he so adored today?

In broad-brush terms, he was/is venerated for his wartime “backbone”, strategy, oratorical and leadership skills, but he had to go in the 1945 General Election because his rival, Attlee, was offering a Welfare State. That was what the public mood desperately demanded here after the experience of war muddling the classes together and demanding huge sacrifices of everyone. It’s not something Churchill would ever have supported, though. I remember asking people of that generation and being told that there was widespread gratitude to Churchill but the next steps were seen as necessary.

I always thought the brutal bit was that the GE was called to fall just two months after VE Day. That seems like unseemly haste.

Thanks Arrietty, that explains a lot. I think that is the surprising bit, that only a few months after the war opinion had shifted so quickly.

his rival, Attlee, was offering a Welfare State. That was what the public mood desperately demanded here after the experience of war muddling the classes together and demanding huge sacrifices of everyone. It’s not something Churchill would ever have supported, though

But Churchill had supported state funded welfare pensions long before Attlee and when many had opposed it

All parties were supportive of welfare state but Churchill was possibly perceived as more cautious regarding it's implementation, refused to pass legislation during the war, concentrating on militarism. So I wouldn't suppose it was what Labour were offering more HOW they were, less vague ect. It is interesting to consider what impact the wartime coalition govt may have had on this, in terms of perception of leadership.

Churchill did the high profile stuff, meeting world leaders, but back home, Attlee was Deputy PM and effectively running the domestic scene. So he might well have been more in touch with ordinary people than Churchill was.

@DGRossetti was right -- just came across this explanation of how a mob tore down the statue of King George III in New York after the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time

www.teachushistory.org/american-revolution/resources/pulling-down-statue-george-iii

And yes it was melted down to make more than 40,000 bullets to fight the British!

I suppose, according to the arguments of some on here, that statue should still be standing in New York. But that would be ridiculous (saying as a New Yorker!)

...You mean New Amsterdam, conned off the Manhattan Indians by a gang of Dutch con men.