In recent weeks, the high-profile Socialist Unity blog in Britain
(ranked 420,070 by Alexa; by comparison Lenin’s Tomb is number 363,494
in traffic) has featured articles that attempt to salvage the reputation
of Winston Churchill within the context of commemorating the WWII
“people’s antifascist coalition”.
My first reaction to this effort has been disgust but on a deeper level
I have to wonder what would explain this retrograde development. To an
extent, it might be a kind of knee-jerk reaction against the Socialist
Workers Party in Britain. Since Socialist Unity has a deep animus toward
these comrades, one wonders if they are simply putting a plus where
their chief bogeyman puts a minus. If Alex Callinicos vilifies
Churchill, then why not find nice things to say about the British
imperialist warlord?
It should be stressed that the valentines to WWII and Churchill have
been written by Andy Newman, who is responsible for most of the original
content on Socialist Unity—for better or for worse. I have been told
that Newman was a member of the SWP for a brief time (along with
possibly half of the people living in Britain) so maybe we are just
dealing with the case of the embittered ex-member. I for one have
trouble understanding this as a political-psychological reaction. As an
ex-member of the dreadful American SWP and one of its harshest critics,
I am less inclined to take a position 180 degrees opposed to their own
as a matter of principle. For example, if the Militant newspaper
denounces the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, you won’t find me
supporting it. And so on.
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/winston-churchill-nostalgia/
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