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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. III No. 67, 9 September 1939, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Winston Churchill is the newly-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty – the head of the British Navy.
Winston Churchill is one of the new members of the Chamberlain cabinet.
Winston Churchill is the man scheduled to be the next Prime Minister of England, replacing the decrepit Chamberlain.
But there is much more in the record of this man. We list below four of the highlights of his career:
(1) He was the man who organized the notorious Dardanelles or Gallipoli campaign conducted by the British Army in the First World War.
In this campaign – which military authorities recognize as the most bloody, inefficient and treacherous campaign in military history – over 1,000,000 were slaughtered by the Turkish Troops. Practically all of these men were Hindu and Moslem troops recruited in India. The peninsula of Gallipoli was drenched in the blood of British colonial slaves, who died in a futile attempt to take Constantinople (Istanbul).
(2) Winston Churchill was later Lloyd George’s Secretary of War. He was the man who sent a military expedition into Russia to help the White Guard armies in the struggle against the newly-born Soviet Union. He was in the vanguard of the imperialist invasion of workers’ Russia.
(3) Winston Churchill was the man who led the fight against the New Constitution for India. This “Slave” Constitution aimed at centralizing all of India under military control, but granted certain limited concessions in the parliamentary field to the native people. Churchill opposed the slightest concession to the Indian people. He wanted full military dictatorship over India, with absolutely no concessions.
(4) Winston Churchill was the man who led England’s most extreme war mongers against the Chamberlain “Appeasement” (remember that?) policy. He wanted war, immediate war, brutal and final war.
Winston Churchill is a super-imperialist, a super-militarist, a super-labor hater, a super-reactionary.
The fact that this man is conducting the war for the British is proof in itself what the war is all about.
It is an imperialist war for colonies, for the right to exploit colonial peoples.
It is not a war in the interests of workers or of the colonial people.
We can rest assured that every Indian worker and peasant, every colonial slave in the British Empire knows what lies behind this war. The appointment of Winston Churchill helps strip away all illusions. Winston Churchill is the most hated imperialist in the entire British Empire. This war is hated by 500,000,000 people in the British Empire. They will use it as an opportunity to strike heavy blows against British imperialism and for freedom.
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