The U.K. is marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. He is regarded by many as the greatest Briton ever, but for some he remains an intensely controversial figure. During Britain's darkest hours in World War Two, Churchill's leadership was vital in maintaining morale and leading the country to eventual victory over Nazi Germany. In 2002, Churchill beat out the likes of Shakespeare, Darwin and Brunel to be voted the greatest ever Briton. But, in a career spanning some 70 years, he had more than a few moments of controversy. There's a danger in Churchill gaining a purely iconic status because that actually takes away from his humanity, said Allen Packwood, the director of the Churchill Archives Centre. He is this incredibly complex, contradictory and larger-than-life human being and he wrestled with these contradictions during his lifetime.
Views on race
In April last year, Labor Party candidate Benjamin Whittingham tweeted that Churchill was "a racist and white supremacist". Sir Nicholas Soames, Churchill's grandson, was outraged. And Whittingham's Conservative opponent Ben Wallace labelled the comments "ignorant" and "incredibly insulting". The tweet was deleted and the Labour Party said: "[It] does not represent the view of the Labor Party. He apologizes unreservedly if it has caused any offence." But, there have previously been suggestions that Churchill held racist beliefs.
In 1937, Churchill told the Palestine Royal Commission: I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.
Churchill certainly believed in racial hierarchies and eugenics, says John Charmley, author of Churchill: The End of Glory. In Churchill's view, white protestant Christians were at the top, above white Catholics, while Indians were higher than Africans, he adds. Churchill saw himself and Britain as being the winners in a social Darwinian hierarchy, he said. The mitigation would be that he wasn't particularly unique in having these views, says Richard Toye, author of Churchill's Empire, even though there were many others who didn't hold them.
Poison Gas
Churchill has been criticized for advocating the use of chemical weapons, primarily against Kurds and Afghans. I cannot understand this squeamishness about the use of gas, he wrote in a memo during his role as minister for war and air in 1919. I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes, he continued. These quotes have been used by critics such as Noam Chomsky to attack Churchill.
But, the controversy is misplaced, says Warren Dokter, author of Winston Churchill and the Islamic World. What he was proposing to use in Mesopotamia was lachrymatory gas, which is essentially tear gas, not mustard gas, he said. Churchill's 1919 memo continued: The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effect on most of those affected.
In another memo about using gas against Afghans, Dokter says, Churchill questioned why a British soldier could be killed lying wounded on the ground while it was supposedly unfair to fire a shell which makes the said native sneeze - it really is too silly. And it's important to note that he was in favor of using mustard gas against Ottoman troops in World War I, says Dokter, although this was at a time when other nations were using it.
Statements about Gandhi
Churchill had strong views on the man now widely respected for his work in advocating self-determination for India whom he once refered to as a dirty little man in a loin cloth. It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir… striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace, Churchill said of his anti-colonialist adversary in 1931. Gandhi should not be released on the account of a mere threat of fasting, Churchill told the cabinet on another occasion. We should be rid of a bad man and an enemy of the Empire if he died.
For most people, it is inappropriate or unfashionable today to question Gandhi's non-violent political tactics. He is venerated in much the same way as Churchill is in the UK. But, for years he was a threat to Churchill's vision for the British Empire. He put himself at the head of a movement of irreconcilable imperialist romantics, wrote Boris Johnson in his recent biography of Churchill. Die-hard defenders of the Raj and of the God-given right of every pink-jowled Englishman to sit on his veranda and… glory in the possession of India.
Churchill was very much on the far right of British politics over India, says Charmley. Even to most Conservatives, let alone Liberals and Labor, Churchill's views on India between 1929 and 1939 were quite abhorrent. And, Churchill was vociferous in his opposition to Gandhi, says Toye, and didn't want India to make any moves towards self-government to the extent of opposing his own party's leaders and being generally quite hostile to Hinduism. Churchill's stance was very much that of a late Victorian imperialist, Charmley said. (Churchill) was terribly alarmed that giving the Indians home rule was going to lead to the downfall of the British Empire and the end of civilization.... People sometimes question why on Earth did people not listen to Churchill's warnings about Hitler in the late 1930s, to which the short answer is that he'd used exactly the same language about Gandhi in the early 1930s, Charmley added.
Attitudes towards Jews
In 2012 there were objections to a proposed Churchill Centre in Jerusalem on the basis that he was no stranger to the latent anti-Semitism of his generation and class. Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill's official biographer, countered that he was familiar with the Zionist ideal and supported the idea of a Jewish state. But, being anti-Semitic and a Zionist are not incompatible, says Charmley. Churchill with no doubt at all was a fervent Zionist, he says, a fervent believer in the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own and that state should be in what we then called Palestine. But, he also shared the low-level casual anti-Semitism of his class and kind, he says. If we judged everyone of that era by the standards of 21st Century political correctness, they'd all be guilty, he notes. It shouldn't blind us to the bigger picture.
A 1937 unpublished article by Churchill entitled How the Jews Can Combat Persecution was discovered in 2007. "It may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution - that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer", it said. "There is the feeling that the Jew is an incorrigible alien, that his first loyalty will always be towards his own race." But there was immediately a row over the article, with Churchill historians pointing out it was written by journalist Adam Marshall Diston and that it might not have represented Churchill's views at all accurately. Casual anti-Semitism was rampant, agrees Dokter, (but) it's inconceivable to pitch him as anti-Semitic.
In a 1920 article, Churchill wrote: Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.
Attitudes towards Islam
Snippets of these quotes now accompany Churchill's face in numerous internet memes purporting to show his anti-Islam stance. That was probably the most common view shared by British people of Churchill's era and I've no doubt that he believed exactly that, says Charmley.
However, Churchill had a much more nuanced stance on Islam, Dokter says. The 1899 book was written in specific reference to the Mahdists of Sudan, immediately following the war there in which Churchill fought. It was recently revealed that Churchill was sufficiently fascinated with Islam for his family to be concerned at one point that he might convert. And, in 1940, his cabinet set aside £100,000 for the construction of a mosque in London in recognition of the Indian Muslims who fought for the British Empire. He later told the House of Commons: Many of our friends in Muslim countries all over the East have already expressed great appreciation of this gift.
Dokter suggests, His relationship with Islam is far more complex than most people realize. He noted that Churchill went on holiday to Istanbul and played polo in India with Muslims.
Treatment of strikers
Churchill's reputation as being anti-union primarily stems from an incident in 1910. His handling of the Tonypandy Riots that year was the source of much controversy and invited ill-feeling towards him in south Wales for the rest of his life. His grandson even had to defend Churchill's actions as late as 1978, when Prime Minister James Callaghan referenced the vendetta of your family against the miners of Tonypandy.
The riots had erupted in November 1910 in the south Wales town because of a dispute between workers and the mine owners, culminating in strikes that ultimately lasted almost a year. When the strikers clashed with local police, Churchill who was then home secretary sent in soldiers. Allegations that shots were fired by the soldiers were unfounded, explains Toye. In fact, he had sent a memo expressly denying that the use of violence was a possibility. Yet it made him a "pantomime villain" in the area ever since, Louise Miskell, a historian at Swansea University, told the BBC in March 2014.
But, a year later soldiers were again called in, this time to strike-related riots in Liverpool. On this occasion the soldiers did fire their weapons and two people were killed. And in later years his contempt for unions became more pronounced, says Charmley. And, in 1919, under Churchill, by now Secretary of State for Air and War, tanks and an estimated 10,000 troops were deployed to Glasgow during a period of widespread strikes and civil unrest amid fear of a Bolshevist revolt.
The Tonypandy incident is comparable to Margaret Thatcher's later struggles with miners, Charmley suggests. One could argue that had Churchill not moved in troops the situation could have been much worse and he would have been criticized even more, he says.
Cash for influence
In return for a fee of £5,000 two oil companies, Royal Dutch Shell and Burmah Anglo-Persian Oil Company [later BP], asked him to represent them in their application to the government for a merger, Gilbert's official biography stated.By modern British political standards, the 1923 payment would be considered highly inappropriate.
Churchill, whose "political career was in the doldrums" at the time, according to a history of British Petroleum, agreed to use his parliamentary influence to raise the issue in return for money.
"But I'd be careful about calling it a bribe," Toye says. "He accepted all sorts of gifts, which in today's culture of full disclosure would get you expelled from the Commons. But those rules were not in place at the time."
The Register of Members' Interests was introduced in 1975. "You can argue that it was a conflict of interest, you can even argue that it was wrong, but you can't call it a bribe in the sense that it was actually illegal," Toye says.
"Politicians' links with business and the media weren't under the same level of scrutiny as they were then," says Packwood, "he was operating in a slightly different ethical environment."
Bengal famine
Madhusree Mukerjee, author of Churchill's Secret War, said that despite refusing to meet India's need for wheat, he continued to insist that it exported rice to fuel the war effort. (The War Cabinet) ordered the build-up of a stockpile of wheat for feeding European civilians after they had been liberated. So,170,000 tons of Australian wheat bypassed starving India - destined not for consumption but for storage, she said upon release of the book in 2010. Churchill even appeared to blame the Indians for the famine, claiming they "breed like rabbits".
It's one of the worst blots on his record, says Toye. It clearly is the case that it was difficult for people to get him to take the issue seriously. Churchill viewed it as a distraction, he explains. Preoccupied with battling Germany in Europe, Churchill didn't want to be bothered by it when people raised the issue. We have this image of Churchill being far-sighted and prophetic, says Charmley. But what he does tragically in the case of the Bengal famine is show absolutely zero advance (since) the Irish famine 100 years earlier. It was a failure of prioritization, says Toye. It's true that Britain's resources were stretched, he says, but that's no excuse given the relatively small effort it would have taken to alleviate the problem.