Was Churchill Overrated?

Winston Churchill is not overrated, though I think he's often misunderstood and people do themselves a disservice if they don't read up on his life to try to understand his life and background.

Churchill wasn't always right, but his heart always *tried* to be in the right place. When the Gallipoli campaign went to pieces, he resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty and fought in the trenches. In the 1930s, when he could easily have obtained a ministry by modifying some of his positions and rhetoric, he instead spent more time on his writing and journalism.

In Churchill you can detect a consistent, sincere effort to determine the truth of a matter, to discern the morality of one option or another. His views evolved not out of expediency but as a result of his own intellectual and moral evolution. It's that sincerity, that sense of individuality and the degree to which he was comfortable being an outsider and in the minority, they were his most attractive personality traits.

In 1940, he was the right man for the job and everything he'd done in his life up to that point prepared him for it. He would have been a disastrous PM in 1920, but in 1940 the stars were in alignment to take advantage of his best personality traits, his experience, his background. Without the Anglo-American national background, there's a good chance he would not have been as astute in courting the United States, probably not as successful, nor as perceptive in understanding how critical its involvement would be to winning the war.

Without his linguistic talents, he wouldn't have been able to cut through the artifice of political communication and engage the British people (and the world) in the way that he did. Without his own personal history of setbacks, he wouldn't have been as well equipped to take the setbacks of the war on board and get on with the job.

In respect of the "what he said" aspect, I'm guessing you're referring to the comments about Ghandi, Islam and poison gas. Calling Ghandi a "half-naked fakir riding an elephant", if I recall correctly, was not that bad; that kind of casual racism was common at the time, and you can't remove someone from their historical context. Ghandi himself said far worse (he said that Africans are not the equal of Asians and Caucasians, that they are biologically inferior, and so on). Ghandi also made an enormous contribution to the cause of Indian independence, so I judge him on his achievements and the standards of the time (actually, if anyone is overrated, it's Ghandi; his contribution is exaggerated, and his philosophy is childish). On Islam, Churchill was spot on; I wish he could have been right about other religions too.

All you can do is judge him by the standards of his time, the contribution he made to the country, and his deft touch in holding the UK together in a war it came very close to losing. So I'm curious and slightly confused about your "overrated" comment. By who? In what way?

Hitler's racism was several magnitudes more extreme than most people's of the day.

There's a difference (not an excuse, just an explanation) between casual, passive chauvinistic discrimination on the one hand, and active, paranoid, fanatical, destructive, genocidal hatred on the other.

because he led Britain through the most trying time in her history and we came out victorious?

yes we denounce stalin as a mass murdering tyrant because he was and churchill wasnt? he didnt send millions of people to the Gulags, have a one party state and crap over democracy did he? he helped free europe from fascism...

I think that fact of the matter is that Churchill had every opportunity to take the easy path like his fellow politicians and come to an accommodation with Hitler. He could have argued for staying out of any future war and doing deals with Germany to destroy Communism.

He didn't: he lay the British Empire on the altar of European freedom. He inspired the country to fight on in the face of utter ruin, in spite of the obvious attempts by Hitler to bring about peace.

And you don't think that deserves praise?

Meanwhile, Stalin was the one who deliberately sought out a deal with Hitler. He conspired to break up Poland and devoured the Baltics, and was only stopped from destroying Finland by a miracle. He only ended up fighting Hitler because Hitler attacked first. And then at the end of the war Stalin used his military might to expand the Soviet Empire.

That's exactly opposite to what Churchill did.

Churchill's aims were not fundamentally different from Chamberlain's or most other leading British politicians at the time, regardless of whether they wanted to go to war or not. It was all about imperialism, just as it was with all the other major powers. The 'peace' group believed that if they left Hitler alone or tried to slow his expansionism, he'd leave the British Empire alone. Churchill, on the other hand, thought Hitler was too much of a loose cannon - if he was successful in his original expansionism, he would be tempted to go after the British and French empires. And so Churchill wanted to fight him sooner rather than later.

It's also worth noting that Soviet imperialism, while it undoubtedly existed, was much more conservative and not really on the same level as that of the British, French, Germans or Americans.

That's not necessarily good. It's only an argument if you already assume Britain to be on the side of good ('good' does not simply mean 'better than the people you're fighting')



It helps when you read what I said rather than just answering the question you'd like to answer.

I know Churchill wasn't on the same level as Stalin, but the point is that we don't ignore everything bad about Stalin because he beat the Nazis, but we do with Churchill.

And Churchill wasn't that big a fan of democracy tbh. He opposed female suffrage and universal male suffrage, thought unions should be banned and wanted striking workers shot.

That's only part of the story. Yes, Churchill was an imperialist, as most people were back then; but to assume his opposition was purely down to an impending expectation of a German attack on Britain is mixed. Hitler actually hoped for an alliance with Britain - which Churchill thoroughly scotched.

It seems to me your opposition to Churchill is down to his political views, which were fairly usual for the time, rather than down to his deeds. It seems the only good Churchill to you would be a socialist Churchill, which is rather uncharitable.

And it's relevance to this debate is...?

I think the general consensus was that Britain was on the side of good, no? even if it was only reletive to Hitler and his war machine..

That may be but Churchill, despite his feelings, never actually acted on them really did he? he may well have opposed these things but he never set up a dictatorship which rivalled that of the nazis like our dear friend Stalin and killed untold numbers of our population

... Churchill may well have had his faults but i feel he still deserves recognition and a debt of gratitude for services rendered to this country and it is grossly overplaying his faults to compare him to the likes of stalin and hitler..

It's not just back then, most leading politicians of any world power are imperialists. But the leading politicians having of your state having similar views to you doesn't make those views ok.

Churchill opposed an alliance with Hitler partly because he didn't trust Hitler, but also because alliances aren't the be all and end all. It would be letting another empire into the world and then Britain would have to compete for power more.

I've mentioned above about views being 'usual' not making them OK, but frankly his views weren't usual. For example, imperialism was a normal view for leading politicians and rich businessmen, but not particularly for the general population and certainly not the colonial populations. And even in those elite circles, his views were relatively extreme. Churchill was opposing women's suffrage at a time when it had been implemented with almost total support from all major parties, including the vast majority of the Conservatives.

It's not about him not being socialist or anything like that, but I don't see why his views shouldn't be judged simply because the stuff he actually did had a good outcome. Oswald Mosley and Enoch Powell didn't actually do much, but we rightly judge and denounce them for their views. Why shouldn't it be the same with Churchill?

You seemed to be implying that the Soviets were more imperialistic.

That would apply for the Russians too then.



Oswald Mosley didn't act on his views, yet we acknowledge that those views were horrific.



The thread title is 'Was Churchill Overrated?'. I think sweeping his abhorrent views under the carpet because the stuff that he actually did turned out well qualifies as being 'overrated.'

It does for the time. Historical context.

Why can't it be both? It's not beyond the realms of possibility that self-interest and principle coincided.

The fact is he, and nobody else, stood up to the bat. Would you rather Halifax had taken over and come to terms with Hitler?

I think you can still separate opinions on non-critical (at the time) issues and their deeds in the moment of crisis. Someone's already pointed out Ghandhi's obnoxious attitude to other races, but his pacifistic philosophy is still greatly admired.

Churchill was in fact a greater progenitor of the modern welfare state under the Asquith Liberal Government, in tandem with Lloyd George.

Mosley was a fascist, pure and simple. He had little respect for democracy or democratic principles, or freedom of speech. Churchill, on the other hand, was a strong believer in them.

Because unlike Mosley, or Powell, Churchill did something that saved this country from utter defeat. His contribution, however imperfect, made the world ultimately better by leading the charge against Nazism. Yes, the post-war period was a mess, Stalin dominated half of Europe, and there was a great famine in 1947, but without Churchill's leadership, either Europe would be Nazi-run or completely Stalinist.

He was given near dictatorial powers in WW2 by Parliament, but he refrained from using them anywhere near to their full extent.

As for Powell: I confess I don't know much about the man before his rivers of blood speech, but I have heard some people say it was a speech blown out of proportion. I do not make comment on that, but I hope someday to study the man more closely to see what I think of him.

At that point, absolutely they were.

If you mean, 'Churchill was racist, imperialist, and bombed natives', then again, mixed record. He was a product of his times, and to judge him by modern values is incredibly stupid.

This whole standards by of his or her time get out clause is at best, seriously very questionable at worst inexcusable. It would allow people of today to be excused from accepting the right for gay marriage for example. This denies people the responsibility to be self-critical of their norms and values, reevaluate their morality or principles. Because hey ''I'm a product of my time after all!''.

That's only part of the story. Yes, Churchill was an imperialist, as most people were back then; but to assume his opposition was purely down to an impending expectation of a German attack on Britain is mixed. Hitler actually hoped for an alliance with Britain - which Churchill thoroughly scotched.

It seems to me your opposition to Churchill is down to his political views, which were fairly usual for the time, rather than down to his deeds. It seems the only good Churchill to you would be a socialist Churchill, which is rather uncharitable.



And it's relevance to this debate is...?

I think that fact of the matter is that Churchill had every opportunity to take the easy path like his fellow politicians and come to an accommodation with Hitler. He could have argued for staying out of any future war and doing deals with Germany to destroy Communism.

He didn't: he lay the British Empire on the altar of European freedom. He inspired the country to fight on in the face of utter ruin, in spite of the obvious attempts by Hitler to bring about peace.

And you don't think that deserves praise?

Meanwhile, Stalin was the one who deliberately sought out a deal with Hitler. He conspired to break up Poland and devoured the Baltics, and was only stopped from destroying Finland by a miracle. He only ended up fighting Hitler because Hitler attacked first. And then at the end of the war Stalin used his military might to expand the Soviet Empire.

That's exactly opposite to what Churchill did.