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Comments

Emerson

Yes, as Hitler once said, Churchill was a warmonger.

Chris Knowles

No, Churchill was a great wartime Prime Minister, not a warmonger. Planning an attack (on the Soviet Union) was not the same as carrying it out. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union (and various other countries including Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland). Churchill didn't.

The point of this post was not to criticise Churchill, but to show that Soviet suspicions of British intentions at the end of the war were understandable and at least partly, justified.

Alex

"Planning an attack was not the same as carrying it out".

Not the same indeed. But the reason it wasn't carried out, as documents show, is that there were no chances of success. What most likely would happen in this case - Dunkirk #2 in couple months, procommunist France, united Germany under new management.

So, its pretty much warmongering. And backstubbing. I thought much better about Churchill before I seen the documents.

The reasoning "democracy in Poland worths the price" makes no sense - at this time UK still had British Empire, 25% of the world and there wasn't much democracy there.

It indeed was warmongering. Churchill wanted to use war to "protect" UK interests. He just didn't have enough force.

Matthew Wright

Churchill was thinking as a strategist. Marxism in Russia had (un-)"Holy Writ" which required world communism via world revolution, via Soviet conquest if feasable. He simply considered a way of resisting this, given that half of Europe was already Soviet. To give a little context, the American 'high command' scoffed at this, but a year later considered almost identical plans themselves, such was their alarm at Stalin's progress. Still, it must have stoked Stalin's paranoia. I suppose that on all sides, one is inclined to judge your opponent by your own worst behaviour.

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