In the world of the lunatic Marxist left (apologies to non-deranged Marxists out there), anything that capitalists and imperialists do must automatically be opposed, regardless of fact or even reality.
We have a fine new example of this. The British Socialist Workers Party has proclaimed that Hitler was not planning to invade Britain and that Churchill’s air war resistance was just a devious ploy to get the US involved. Ouch, that makes my brain hurt. They also darkly hint that Churchill was not a serious anti-fascist. So, does that mean he was a secret fascist? Who knew??? I’m certainly relieved that SWP has beamed in with their alternate view of history from the planet Arcturus informing us that Churchill was in fact not an implacable opponent of Hitler. Goodness, he certainly fooled a bunch of people, didn’t he?
A few years ago a senior member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the US told me in apparent complete seriousness that Mugabe of Zimbabwe must be supported because he stands against imperialism. No, really, he actually said that, apparently forgetting Mugabe is a thug who has ordered the imprisonment, torture, and murder of thousands while looting a country for himself and his cronies.
For members of such Marxist cults, shades of gray never enter into their calculations. Anyone the US or Britain doesn’t like must immediately be supported and anything those countries do must always be opposed.
And such extremists wonder why they have a miniscule amount of followers.
Your mind is so narrow
And it’s no surprise
If you fell on a pin
You’d be blind in both eyes
– Steppenwolf, “Tighten Up Your Wig”
Harry’s Place, on History Lessons from the SWP
Quite regularly when I read something, I learn something new. On occasion I suspect that the author is mistaken in facts or in interpretation of facts. But there are those special times when I wonder what kind of drugs the author took to write such mumbo-jumbo.
Anarchist Ian Bone is even blunter, How long till the SWP denies the Holocaust?
Such deranged fanaticism is one of the worst enemies the left has, especially since it’s internal. Their deep and abiding belief in their inerrancy makes them quite similar to extremist Christianists on the right. It’s the same mindset. One says they and only they have the correct interpretation of the Bible, the other says only their interpretation of Marx and Lenin is valid. They aren’t interested in compromise or in listening to what you say. They preach, you listen. Then they tell you what to believe and how to act. Questioning is not an option.
And that’s not how to build a genuine people’s movement, not at all. Real mass movements are built by organizers who listen to what people’s concerns are, then help them find solutions. Power to the people means letting the people be in charge. It also means not having a preconceived notion of what the answers are.
This is truly pathetic on your part, Bob.
Firstly, the article does not say, as per your post’s title, that “Churchill was the real enemy not Hitler”. This is a complete and malicious fabrication.
As regards Churchill and his position on fascism. We know of Churchill that he was an antisemite, a ferocious anticommunist, and an admirer of Mussolini who once said that (I paraphrase from memory) “if I were Italian, I would be a Fascist”. The evidence suggests that he would have relished nothing more than getting Mussolini on Britain’s side during the war. The primary purpose of the war from Churchill’s perspective was to defend British imperial dominance. Such a person is not necessarily a “secret fascist”, and no one asserts otherwise, but nor is it reasonable to consider him a principled anti-fascist. Which was the point being made.
As regards the issue of an invasion of Britain, there is one simple way to resolve it. Are the empirical claims, and the reasoning that connects them, valid? Have you checked into whether what Bambery is saying, with specific regard to the capacities of the Third Reich’s army, is true? If you do decide to check, you might consult the reasons why the Nazi leadership decided to cancel Operation Sealion in 1940, and why it was never taken up again in the course of the war. The argument that Hitler “knew that Germany was not in a position” to invade follows, you will find, directly from this evidence.
Lastly, as regards the air war. Very importantly, the article you cite does not suggest that it was just “a devious ploy” to get the US involved. It says that it was leveraged by Churchill in appeals to Washington. But not only does it not deny that an actual, factual air war was taking place, it describes some of the dimensions of this air war for the purposes of elaborating on its main argument.
What you have done is caricature a carefully phrase, qualified, evidence-based argument, pouring scorn on the caricature the better to avoid engaging with its substantive (and hardly controversial) claims. If you want to butter up the red-baiting lawyers and stockbrokers on Harry’s Place, who are becoming ever more marginal and lunatic every day in the British blogosphere by virtue of their McCarthyite libels, racism and extreme commitment to the defence of Israel, then by all means continue to belittle and smear those on the Left with whom you have some sort of disagreement. And continue to offer regurgitated ‘evidence’ to the tribunal in your mind of the Left’s craziness and treachery. But do not imagine that your experience of being burned out by the absurdities of some on the American far left, and your determination to repent for its sins, gives you a universal template for diagnosing the far left. As this foolish blog post shows, all it has given you is the cowardly ability to participate in the petty and vindictive scorn of the Left’s avowed opponents.
As you are one of the chief apologists for the British SWP’s increasing extremism, I leave you to your irrelevance. The Leninist vanguard model is a failure. Much of what Marx et al said is now antiquated. The working class is not monolithic or even that easy to classify any more. Nor does it care much about often archaic dogma. Deal with it.
In a time where the right is making inroads and organizing fast, it’s apparent the far left is failing almost completely to respond. A genuinely broad-based attempt to mobilize would start with jobs, taxes, fears of the future – things actual people care about, not ultra-Leftist rants about how Churchill was suspect. The organizers would listen to the concerns, help them start groups, then – big difference here as compared to the vanguard model – let them run it. But SWP or PSL could never allow outside moderates to have positions of power in their front groups. Because the primary purpose of the front group is recruiting for the party, not the ostensible cause. Which of course makes the whole thing essentially dishonest and deceptive.
By contrast, the Alinsky model – starting the group after listening and letting them run it – is genuine people power and of proven effectiveness too.