Chomsky ponders Trump 'False Flag' Op

As you may know, I'm a big advocate of the work of Noam Chomsky. His writing and talks changed my political outlook. I discovered Chomsky when I was 17 and it quickly set me on the course to where I am today. Though I am no longer a left-wing libertarian, I am still a socialist and I think there are important lessons to be drawn from the anarchist tradition. Chomsky is a key figure in contemporary anarchism.

One of the main attractions of Chomsky's work is the level of moral clarity and intellectual honesty. He cuts through the bone to the marrow with precision. Going to the fundamentals of a political question is the cornerstone of radical thought. As an analytical critic Chomsky takes apart US foreign policy and unravels its claims before our eyes. It's a thankless task in many ways. Another side of this has been Chomsky's opposition to 9/11 conspiracism on the left.

Yet in a recent interview Noam Chomsky contradicts his past record on combating conspiracy theories. He suggests that the Trump administration may opt for a 'false flag' operation to save its right-wing agenda. When I first heard about this I didn't believe it until I read the Alter-Net interview. In his own words, Chomsky says: "I think that we shouldn't put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly."

I was very surprised to read these words and I even feared the old man may be losing his touch. If you want the full context, here it is for your judgement:

JF: Do you think there will ever be a moment of awakening, or a disconnect for Trump's supporters of his rhetoric and what he's been doing in Washington, or can this just keep going? 

NC: I think that sooner or later the white working-class constituency will recognize, and in fact, much of the rural population will come to recognize, that the promises are built on sand. There is nothing there.

And then what happens becomes significant. In order to maintain his popularity, the Trump administration will have to try to find some means of rallying the support and changing the discourse from the policies that they are carrying out, which are basically a wrecking ball to something else. Maybe scapegoating, saying, "Well, I'm sorry, I can't bring your jobs back because these bad people are preventing it." And the typical scapegoating goes to vulnerable people: immigrants, terrorists, Muslims and elitists, whoever it may be. And that can turn out to be very ugly. 

I think that we shouldn't put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly.

Now let's break this down. It's certainly true that the Trump administration is increasingly unpopular and isolated. President Trump's approval rating stands 35% - a historically low precedent for a new president. Even George W Bush only reached 25% at his lowest point, just as Nixon reached 36% after Watergate. In these conditions, it is plausible that the administration would want something, anything to shore up support for the government. But this is not the basis for a false flag operation.

I should add I'm not saying the US government has not been guilty of false flags in the past: the Gulf of Tonkin being the obvious example. It's now uncontroversial that the Johnson administration leapt on Tonkin to expand the war against Vietnam. It's also true that there are real conspiracies in history. Look up COINTELPRO or the Iran-Contra affair, if you want to see a real conspiracy in action. There are even questions around Pearl Harbour and the extent to which FDR provoked Japan.

So, what is the problem with Chomsky's points here? Professor Chomsky might be defended on the grounds that this was a throw-away remark - one line in a full interview, with little clarification. There are gradients of what a 'staged' or 'alleged' attack could mean. Many of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists accept the case that the Bush administration had "advance knowledge" and simply allowed the attacks to go ahead. A more plausible theory is that the administration was so incompetent that it failed to act on the information it had about the plot.

This is a long way from the Ickean dimension of reptilian lizards, the whackjob theory that the Twin Towers falling was CGI, or the blatant anti-Semitism behind the idea that it was all staged by Mossad. However, the view that the US government had some role in the 9/11 attacks still belongs to the conspiracists. Chomsky has dealt with these theories well in the past. He would point out that the 9/11 attackers were mostly Saudi citizens. If it was an 'inside job', it would make little sense to frame Saudi Arabia if the aim was to invade Iraq. This is still a major hole in the theories.

I have yet to hear an account of the 9/11 attacks which can account for this hole. Most conspiracy theorists don't even talk about it because it's outside the reach of their assumptions. The politics of conspiracism are uncritical of the surrounding world, in fact, the point of such theories is to reinforce passivity and provide excuses for inaction. Why try to change the world when the Illuminati run everything? They're all powerful. So any attempt to challenge them is doomed to failure. This is why there are no movements or parties based on these theories.

Serious political action and theory requires hard work. It requires commitment. Naturally the online 'truthers' have jumped on Chomsky's comments, while the remarks have left many of Chomsky's friends and fans perplexed. I am not alone in this regard. Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook has criticised Chomsky's comments. Here's what Cook posted on his Facebook page:

One doesn't need to be convinced that Bush-Cheney or the US security services were implicated in 9/11 to see that there is a deep problem with Chomsky adopting his new position. He has previously suggested in different places both that a major false-flag operation in the US would be almost impossible to conceal and that it is a waste of the left's energies, and its credibility, to indulge in this kind of speculation. 

That was at least a plausible position for him to adopt. But it is entirely inconsistent with his new position that we should expect Trump to carry out a false-flag operation and even accuse him of intending to do so before it occurs.

I have no doubt that Chomsky was right to argue that conspiracy theories are a dead-end for the left. So it's disappointing to read these comments, even in their full context. This isn't a reason to discard everything Chomsky has ever written. Demanding infallibility is unrealistic and ultimately puerile and rather conservative. Let's be mature about this. Furthermore, it is more in line with Chomsky's free thinking to disagree with him than it is to blindly follow him.

Pax Europa: Obama and the European Dream.

The last time Barack Obama intervened in European politics was during the Brexit referendum campaign. Coming out for the Remain camp, Obama backed the UK’s membership of the EU on the grounds of economic stability. He even appeared to dangle a sharp object over the Leave camp. The outgoing president claimed Britain would be at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal with the US. In other words, the UK is worth more in the EU than outside it.

The British right began circling Obama soon after his speech. Anti-American jibes became fashionable among conservatives again. Suddenly, you could read Boris Johnson rambling on about the president’s Kenyan ancestry and how these roots informed his anti-British prejudices in utero. It was a bizarre few days. Apparently, Obama always hated the British. That’s why he handed back the Churchill bust.

These same quarters began to see Donald Trump’s victory as an opportunity to renew the ‘special relationship’. British politicians were soon climbing over each other to kneel before the next president. It caused some fuss that Nigel Farage beat Theresa May to meeting Trump. All of this is a testament to the servility of the British political class. But they would rather dress it up as a ‘special relationship’.

Yet Obama’s relationship with Europe much broader than this. Obama’s time in office has charted key events. The EU has been shaken to its core by an economic crisis, everywhere right-wing populism seems to be on the march and Brexit poses a break with the status quo. Meanwhile the project seems to be facing new challenges on its doorstep: the refugee crisis, civil war in Ukraine and atrocities in Turkey.

A Greater Europe

The Obama administration has tried to maintain the American-European alliance. This meant support for the EU as the project for a ‘Greater Europe’. At the centre, Germany and France had come together to overcome the competition between their elites. This alliance was expanded to include the UK and other countries. It is now composed of nearly thirty member-states. But EU expansion has always been controversial.

History is full of ironies. Charles de Gaulle opposed British entry into the European Economic Community. He saw ‘perfidious Albion’ was an extension of the United States, the NATO agenda to bound Western Europe to Washington. The French right wanted to lead the European project, using the German economy as a horse for its own chariot. But this was not to be.

The whole point of the EU and NATO has been to wed the European powers to the US under German leadership. Much like in East Asia, where American governments would try to reinstate Japan as the leading economic power – the US wanted Germany as the leading power in Europe. This shows up the absurdity of the so-called ‘special relationship’. The UK is one major European state, it is not necessarily the main player in Europe.

Of course, peace in Europe really meant within the EU. Outside the EU, in places like Ukraine and the Balkans, the story has been quite different. For starters, European powers supported the breakup of Yugoslavia to expand southwards. In Ukraine, the Euromaidan uprising saw a realignment with the EU as necessary to move further away from Russian influence. Faced with this, Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into Crimea and began to destabilise the rest of Ukraine.

The cases of Ukraine and the Balkans are not isolated. The periphery is where the EU project reveals itself. Thus, the Greek debt crisis threatens the credibility of the Eurozone. If Greece can default, then Portugal and Spain will soon follow. If Portugal and Spain can do this, Italy and Ireland could follow. As in other foreign policy areas, the Obama administration has sought out stability in the EU.

The Obama administration may have preferred a more restrained austerity in Europe, just for the sake of the economic order. This may be why the IMF was more sceptical of another round of austerity being imposed on Greece. Even still, the IMF found itself outvoted by the European Central Bank and the European Commission. Though the US is still the dominant power in the world today, its power is not absolute.

Old Enemies, New Crises

Much like in East Asia, where the US aimed to reinstate Japan as the leading economy to maintain its own hold on the Pacific. This plan was first threatened by the ‘loss’ of China in 1949, then came the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Both fought to secure the post-war settlement. Likewise, the US rebuilt West Germany to secure its hold on the future of Europe. Here we find Russia is the ‘outlier’ trying to maintain its own sphere of influence.

As the Euromaidan demonstrations forced out Viktor Yanukovych, the activists pushed for closer ties with the EU and the consensus in Ukraine was still very much against joining NATO. Once Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, the support for NATO membership increased dramatically in Ukraine. The tensions with Russia served to validate US policy, and vice versa Putin used NATO as a pretext for aggression. It wasn’t always like this, though.

Many Russian liberals began to look westward in the early 1990s. They saw Russia as part of a ‘Greater West’, fit to join the EU, even suited for NATO membership. Incidentally, Boris Yeltsin tabled this idea in 1991, but the US was totally opposed to Russia joining NATO. The US feared it would lose its allies should Germany and Russia forge closer ties. The North Atlantic alliance may be rendered void in such a scenario.

However, this also shows that the Russian government is not anti-Western by nature. Every US administration has tried to ‘reset’ its relations with Russia. Obama tried to repair ties following the Georgian war. But each time the relationship is ‘soured’. Most recently, the split reopened over Ukraine and Obama sought to contain Russia economically. Now Putin is vying for another ‘reset’ once Trump is in office.

As we look back on the Obama years, we find a cautious president looking to stabilise the system amid turbulent times. And the fundamental problems remain in place: tensions with Russia may be inevitable for if NATO continues to expand, and the EU will face economic crisis as it remains wedded to the neoliberal model. This in turn has reinforced the appeals of nationalism. These flaws may be fatal in the end.

This article was originally published at Souciant.

What buttons does Putin push?

The national psyche of any country may be made up by a complex web of associations in memory and myth running through history, culture and literature. It would be very easy to put down all of Russia's problems to its long history of authoritarian rule and chauvinism. However, we must remain aware that this is itself a construction of how the West would like to see itself - as standing out against the wretched backwardness of the East. This is a projection and we shouldn't fall into the convenience of old ideas in new conflicts. In fact, that's sort of the problem the Russians are having in the recrudescence of nationalism. I've covered this:

One of the first decisions undertaken by Putin after the 2000 election was to restore the Soviet National Anthem by Alexander Alexandrov. It was a symbolic break with the Yeltsin era. The anthem replaced the Patriotic Song of Mikhail Glinka that the Russian Federation had adopted in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR. Many in the West perceived this as an ominous sign of things to come. As the 1996 election was deemed to be the last hope for Russia’s Communists, the alternative to Yeltsin had always been framed as a throwback to the days of Stalin. 

The return of Alexandrov’s anthem seemed to confirm Putin was looking to recreate the old Soviet Union. This perception was widely shared, particularly by free market advocates, fearful that their revolution was coming to and end. Leading liberal Grigory Yavlinsky said, “We see this as a signal of where our society is heading, of what awaits us in the near future”. Yavlinsky was a proponent of the 500 Day Programme, first articulated in the late 1980s. It called for the mass-privatisation of state assets combined, with market reforms and the stripping away of regulations. All in 500 days. The programme was eventually implemented, in diluted form, under Yeltsin. 

What was lost on market liberals like Yavlinsky was that it wasn’t just about economics. The Soviet anthem has an equally significant nationalist side to it. After all it comes from Stalin’s Great Patriotic War, and supplanted the traditional socialist anthem the Internationale with its revolutionary patriotism. It was this side of the Russian campaign that Putin was tapping into, not a retreat back to the state capitalism of the Communist era.

The Russian nationalist narrative has a lot of sway and popular appeal because it holds factual ground. That isn't to say it is accurate of the full story. Pavel Stroilov recently produced an article exploring the popular claim in Russia that the West - principally, manifested in its expansion of NATO eastwards - reneged on its promises at the end of the Cold War. Stroilov put his own right-wing perspective on it and appears to be woefully uncritical of NATO and Western foreign policy. Even still, it is worth a read. You can read the rest of my article on Russian nationalism at Souciant.

Why the Jews?

 

Earlier this year I reproduced Lenin's speech on anti-Jewish pogroms in Tsarist Russia. It has always been my view that the reactionary mind needs racism to bound together the system and externalise its systemic flaws onto an intrusive presence - an infection of sorts - which we are invited to purge. It is no coincidence that the proto-fascists of this world equate anti-racism with leftism, 'political-correctness' with Marxism, and Communism with Jewishness. Of course, there is nothing Jewish about Communism, just as anti-racism is not inherently left-wing. But it is the case that there is nothing progressive in racism. This is understood, at some level, by the majority of Far-Righters. It is their cause to safeguard capitalism by asserting race-consciousness over class-consciousness.

 

In an interview with Worker's Liberty Moishe Postone emphasises what he regards as the unique characteristic of anti-Semitism to other forms of racism. He explains "The way in which anti-Semitism is distinguished, and should be distinguished, from racism, has to do with the sort of imaginary of power, attributed to the Jews, Zionism, and Israel, which is at the heart of anti-Semitism. The Jews are seen as constituting an immensely powerful, abstract, intangible global form of power that dominates the world." We see this underlying a lot of cultural criticism put forward by traditional conservatives. It is surely no surprise that the traditionalists so often verge on and foray into the fields of anti-Semitism harvested in Europe for centuries.

 

Postone is dead clear in his words "Anti-Semitism is a primitive critique of the world, of capitalist modernity. The reason I regard it as being particularly dangerous for the left is precisely because anti-Semitism has a pseudo-emancipatory dimension that other forms of racism rarely have." Everyone should read Postone's article Anti-Semitism and National Socialism for a non-functionalist account of the phenomenon.

The point to be made here, however, is that a careful examination of the modern anti-Semitic worldview reveals that it is a form of thought in which the rapid development of industrial capitalism, with all its social ramifications, is/ /personified and identified as the Jew. It is not merely that the Jews were considered to be the owners of money, as in traditional anti-Semitism, but that they were held responsible for economic crises and identified with the range of social restructuring and dislocation resulting from rapid industrialization: explosive urbanization, the decline of traditional social classes and strata, the emergence of a large, increasingly organized industrial proletariat, and so on. In other words, the abstract domination of capital, which—particularly with rapid industrialization—caught people up in a web of dynamic forces they could not understand, became perceived as the domination of International Jewry.

The relation between the material base of class society and its overarching superstructure becomes lost easily as it would require a detailed analysis. The impetus for such an analysis was never there for the kind of people who tend towards anti-Jewish hatred. This is more like an ideological filter through which reality can be comprehended. All other possibilities are dismissed from the outset.

According to this interpretation, the Jews were identified not merely with money, with the sphere of circulation, but with capitalism itself. However, because of its fetishized form, capitalism did not appear to include industry and technology. Capitalism appeared to be only its manifest abstract dimension which, in turn, was responsible for the whole range of concrete social and cultural changes associated with the rapid development of modern industrial capitalism.

The Jews were not seen merely as representatives of capital (in which case anti-Semitic attacks would have been much more class-specific). They became the personifications of the intangible, destructive, immensely powerful, and international domination of capital as an alienated social form.

Certain forms of anticapitalist discontent became directed against the manifest abstract dimension of capital personified in the form of the Jews, not because the Jews were consciously identified with the value dimension, but because, given the antinomy of the abstract and concrete dimensions, capitalism appeared that way. The “anticapitalist” revolt was, consequently, also the revolt against the Jews. The overcoming of capitalism and its negative social effects became associated with the overcoming of the Jews.

This is what Postone rightly calls "pseudo-emancipatory". The fascist mission to defeat the Left is twofold: firstly, the working-class social base has to be stolen away and, secondly, the opposing progressive elements must be stamped out by force.

On Moderation.

 

In the midst of the current economic slump it's worth keeping in mind that we've been here before. This recession is not all that different from that of the 1930s, which began with the stock market crash of 1929. The recovery was slow and painful because necessary steps such as financial regulation and government stimuli weren't taken earlier. This time around we bailed out the banks and had a go at stimulus by way of quantitative easing under Brown. Although, we're currently embarking upon a tough austerity, - that has taken us back into a recession from a very brief incursion into a recovery - it's worth noting that we did not enact serious measures to confront the depression head-on in the 30s either. David Lloyd George took the view that we would do better to emulate the model presented by the American government. It wouldn't be until after the war that the Keynesian model of a mixed economy would prevail in Britain and Europe. Today it remains a viable and modest alternative to the international austerity.

In the midst of the recession brought on by the collapse of global financial system in 1929 the Republican President Hoover resorted to the politics of austerity. The Democrats ran Franklin D Roosevelt. The incoming administration was welcomed by a veterans' march on Washington, President Roosevelt arranged to greet the protestors with his aides and coffee. Despite appearances and this gesture Roosevelt shared the same goals as the austerity junkies he had defeated, namely to safeguard American capitalism and prevent further violent outbursts in the street. The best way to do this, in the eyes of FDR, was to reform the system to constrain the destructive tendencies of the market and to address the grievances of people marching on Washington for a decent life. This was nothing radical, it was effectively a means of 'buying-off' socialism in a world where the Soviet Union posed the only standing alternative to a decaying capitalism. Early on Roosevelt sought to craft greater coordination over the economy, to this end he put together planning sessions between government, trade unions and private companies.

 

 

Later a trade union leader would sit down with Roosevelt to discuss the conditions endured by black people and white working-class. The President listened intently and then told the trade unionist "I agree with everything you have said. Now, make me do it." The point Roosevelt made is that the President can't simply enact whatever policy they like. Rather the conditions have to be so that the Congress has to acknowledge a problem and then change can be implemented. In the same way that the Russian Revolution scared the British government into give up the vote to working-class men, and to women a dozen years later. It was the acknowledgement of a hard-nosed realist. He understood that to achieve reform the country had to be shaken up. That might explain why Prohibition was the first act to be thrown out under FDR. But at a deeper level the conditions in the US demanded certain reformist measures be implemented. So in 1934 Roosevelt put together the Wagner act to secure workers' rights, to make way for higher wages and improved working conditions. It's no coincidence that there were huge marches and strikes in 1934.

 

It shouldn't surprise anyone that there was a harsh police repression of strikers supposedly for fear of Communist subversion. Yet Roosevelt took a markedly different approach when the Flint sit-down came around in 1936. That was a strike where hundreds of workers occupied a General Motors factory for 44 days. As the police and hired thugs tried to violently break up the strike Roosevelt supported Governor Murphy and had the National Guard sent in to protect the workers. It was this battle that led to much improved living standards in Flint and ultimately the creation of a now non-existent middle-class. This is a famous instance of the liberal credentials of FDR. However, it wasn't the President who defeated the bosses at a Firestone rubber plant in Akron earlier that year in which the management caved to a sit-down strike in a matter of days. The same can be said of a following strike at Goodyear. These successes were not handed down from above, the pressure came from below and the major achievements were won in this way.

 

Typically the Democratic administration adjusted its policies to subdue the labour movement in areas where it was most active. Repression wasn't the best tactic to be undertaken in a situation of dire economic stagnancy. So it was logical for the US government to concede ground to particularly strong strikes. The strikers in Flint were privileged by comparison to other workers across the country. A fine demonsrtation of this came later, when the US government established the minimum wage, along with the forty-hour week, and a ban on child labour. The minimum wage was set at twenty-five cents an hour and excluded a great number of the workforce. Even still, it was enough to cool the tensions between workers and bosses. Similarly the housing programmes only provided abodes for a small percentage of the population. But the gesture of federally subsidising housing projects, playgrounds and the construction of clean apartments was not insignificant to the beneficiaries.

Then came the establishment of social security and unemployment insurance, state-funds were matched for mothers and dependent children. The reform excluded farmers, domestic workers and old people, it also offered no health insurance. Comparatively the social security system offered much more security to Big Business in terms of pacifying a portion of the workforce. Though it should be noted that the wealthiest Americans barely get anything out of social security, the benefits are insignificant to them and so they don't see why they should support it. It would be more valuable if it were privatised and handed over to the rapacious forces of financial capital. The social security system also undermines the individualist tenets of American ideology, in that the system potentially fosters a social consciousness that might seek justice and solidarity. Like the NHS in Britain the establishment of social security in the US has been extremely difficult for the wealthy to erode and destroy. Thus, it remains one of the few pillars of the New Deal left standing.

 

 

During the Second World War the Roosevelt administration centralised the economy and created millions of new jobs at higher wages, in doing so, the militancy of the labour movement was undermined significantly. The New Deal had only managed to cut unemployment from 13 million to 9 million, while the war economy had almost achieved full employment. At the same time, the country was overtaken by a patriotic fervour that instilled national unity over the apparent sectarianism of classes. The combination of the New Deal reforms and the war effort effectively saved American capitalism. There is an important lesson for social democrats to take from this. The liberals of Rooseveltian ilk acknowledge that the dream of a mixed economy complete with a far-reaching welfare state cannot be achieved without tremendous struggle. Furthermore, this is not a struggle fought by liberals, to the contrary, it is the radicals who fight against capitalism who provide the impetus for the system to be reformed.

 

In his vision of the post-war world Roosevelt articulated four essential kinds of freedom to underpin the new world order: freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship, freedom from want and fear. The principles FDR articulated would influence the foundation of the United Nations after the war had ended. Later, Roosevelt would propose a second Bill of Rights to the US Constitution, it was a set of economic rights which would guarantee not only universal health-care and education, but a liveable income, a job and a home. Roosevelt argued these measures would guarantee security, well-being and prosperity for all, as well as lasting peace abroad. President Roosevelt was dead before the war was over and the Bill of Rights would not be implemented. The Marshall Plan would later help to rescuscitate European capitalism, which ultimately eventuated in a social democratic mode of economy, that would safeguard many of the economic rights Roosevelt wanted to implement. It was these post-war achievements that have been eroded in recent times.

 

See also:

Howard Zinn on the New Deal - http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnselhel15.html

The Untold History of the US -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5-veAiYgAY

Shame, Pride & Virtue.

We forget that Churchill was a maverick despised by many in Britain in his day and that he came to power by chance. Once Churchill took over from Chamberlain he had to contend with the faction that had sought to secure the British Empire through 'appeasement', a shallow euphemism for selling Europe to Hitler in a most cowardly manner. The Nazi plans to cleanse Europe of Jews and Slavs did not enter the imperial mind. The crowd aligned with Churchill were looking to preserve British hegemony over the East, especially the Suez Canal and India. The suggestion of a German dominated Europe posed a threat to this in the long-term. These fears later came to fruition with the Fascist invasion of Egypt, where the Italians sought to seize the Suez Canal. By then Mussolini had already seized Malta and Somaliland, the North African campaign was underway. If Mussolini had taken over Egypt then the oil trade through the Suez Canal could have been taken out of British hands entirely. That would have been a huge blow to the British empire.

Before this there was still a significant chunk of the British ruling-class that hoped to secure the Empire through a deal with Hitler. The Halifax faction of 'appeasement' junkies were pushing the government for a deal when the Germans pushed the British back towards Dunkirk. The terms of such a deal would've been a humiliation for Churchill and he was determined to fight on. So Churchill called a meeting at which he faced down his opponents with a speech in which he stated "I am convinced that every man of you would rise up and tear me down from my place if I were for one moment to contemplate parley or surrender. If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground." Notions of 'virtue' and 'honour' can barely encapsulate the moral weight of the stand Churchill took. The emotive language Churchill used had some members of the cabinet looking away in embarrassment. These same mesmeric tones of heroic rhetoric would inspire the masses during the Battle of Britain.

By the time we invaded Italy in 1943 it was part of the same aim of trying to reinstate British hegemony in the Mediterranean. The Italian resistance had effectively liberated the country, then the Allies came in to destroy hit two birds with one stone: namely destroy what was left of Fascism and to destroy the Italian resistance because it was left-wing. The Partisans in Greece and Yugoslavia experienced the same attitude from the Allies. Churchill had refused to open up a second front in France and left the real fighting for the Russians. It wasn't until 1944 that Churchill pledged with Roosevelt and Stalin to open a second front on the Continent. This wasn't the only instance that Churchill had allowed imperial interests to take priority over the war effort. Around 3 million Indians fought on the side of the Allies, but Churchill refused to grant India independence and was determined to hold onto India. As Russians and Germans were slaughtering each other in Stalingrad there were British troops killing demonstrators in India.

In the 1930s the popular desire for peace converged with the imperial interests of the British ruling-class, the outcome was 'appeasement' for a long time. The British ruling-class were looking for a way to preserve the empire, specifically the power held over the Middle East and India. There was the view that the British empire could be maintained with a Nazi dominated Europe. Hitler called our bluff when he invaded Poland and foresaw an easy victory against the French, with a settlement drawn up with the British promising not to touch the empire. The important pre-condition of this was the decision to sell Czechoslovakia to Hitler and allow Poland to become a German satellite, which had been made by 1938. The British and the French reluctantly struck at Germany after the invasion of Poland and only went as far as to evacuate Polish soldiers. By then the section of the elite aligned with Churchill came to the view that the Third Reich would inevitably threaten the empire as it would expand into the Balkans.

At that time Churchill was not easily budged when it came to matters of anti-Communist pragmatism and had gone as far as to express sympathies with Fascism along those lines. As late as 1937 Churchill said in the House of Commons "I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between Communism and Nazism, I would choose Communism." He was not alone in his view in 1935 that "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations." Of course, this isn't to situate Churchill amongst the Germanophilic prime-mover of 'appeasement' known as the Cliveden Set. He was an opponent of 'appeasement' when the rot of Hitlerian sympathies had spread to the Royal Family. But it does demonstrate just how compromised the British ruling-class were. It isn't a pleasant thought just how easy it would have been to set up a Nazi puppet government in Whitehall after a successful German invasion.

This is partly what made Churchill so impressive when he came to view Hitler as a monster with an insatiable "lust for blood and plunder". Perhaps this was best demonstrated when he reacted to Operation Barbarossa with the words "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." In retrospect we can see that Churchill was right about the need to destroy Fascism and wrong that the British Empire could be maintained in this way. But it was probable by then that the Empire would collapse given the inevitability of war with Hitler. There could be no peace with National Socialism as the gang of psychopaths who took power in 1933 were met with enthusiasm from German industrialists. Expansion offered the prospect of new resources to be extracted, such as the goal of Poland and the oil of Romania. It was a last-ditch attempt at a time of enormous crisis to reinvigorate German capitalism.