# Churchill was a genocidaire **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 6, 2017, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607 "2017-09-06T02:35:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/63 "2021-03-30T17:47:58Z")
Of a sort, yes. We did grant the Philippines their independence and at least some Americans said we were doing it to protect the territories from becoming Euro colonies. OTOH, some Americans were out and out unabashed imperialists. Our hands may be less dirty than some but by no means clean. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/64 "2021-03-30T18:04:17Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > With respect to Bengal, what did happen there? Here’s my summary of the causes of the Bengal famine: - The population of Bengal increased by over 40% from 1901 - 1941 (due to declining mortality rates mainly - blame the British). - In 1942 there was a major cyclone followed by three storm surges and severe and extensive flooding. There was great loss of life, and large areas of paddy fields were destroyed. - Malaria and cholera flourished in the wake of the flooding. - There was severe rice crop disease (fungal brown spot), throughout the region. One expert said it could be compared to the potato blight in Ireland. The effect was even worse than the cyclone and flooding. - Japan invaded and occupied Burma resulting in - over 500,000 refugees entering Bengal from Burma. - no access to the normal rice imports from Burma. - British attempts to move boats and excess quantities of rice away from the coast to deny them to the Japanese in case of invasion. - There was extensive panic buying of rice, hoarding, and profiteering, resulting in chaos in the market and steep price rises, despite British efforts to impose price controls and bring in rice from other areas (where there not much surplus anyway). It was not easy to bring in food from other countries because: - Much of the world (including Britain) was short of food due to the war. - The military were given priority over civilians. - Though a few countries like Australia had a surplus of food, there was a critical shortage of merchant ships to transport it and warships to escort them. Over 100,000 tons of merchant shipping had been sunk by the Japanese in the Bay of Bengal by 1942. - Churchill asked Roosevelt for American help to ship wheat from Australia to India, but Roosevelt replied he was “unable on military grounds to consent to the diversion of shipping”. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/65 "2021-03-30T18:08:32Z")
Imperialism was out of step with the mainstream in the 1930s? Really? Well at that time many European nations had empires that they were not about to give up. Moreover the Italians were busy trying to create a new one in Libya, Somalia and Eritrea, so were the Japanese in Far East colonising China. The Germans, of course, had African colonies and were keen to carve out an empire in much of central and eastern Europe. It was not until the years after WW2 that the idea of colonial territories started be abandoned politically. The British in Kenya and the French in Algeria fought colonial wars to preserve the status quo. The British really started decolonising in earnest in the 1960s. I agree about Dowding. An odd fellow, with a rather curious belief in the existence of fairies, but his radar and observer based command and control system for the RAF was a brilliant innovation that saved the country from invasion by defeating the Luftwaffe. So too was the pugnatious Canadian Lord Beaverbrook who got aircraft production up to speed and produced in sufficient numbers to win the Battle of Britain. Churchill got all the attention as a political leader who rallied the nation when it needed it, a political maverick. Churchill’s career in the years up to WW2 and the years afterwards were not so impressive. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/66 "2021-03-30T19:50:03Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > Imperialism was out of step with the mainstream in the 1930s? Really? Imperialism is not a monolithic belief system. There is a spectrum between the kind of 20th century “imperialism” that @Dangerosa describes above as in “I think major powers have the right to meddle in affairs of developing nations and depose their rulers if we don’t like them” through to “Non-Europeans are uncivilized primitives completely incapable of ruling themselves, and should be grateful to the British, who are inherently better than everyone else, for ruling over them and bringing the fruits of civilization.” Churchill was at the latter end of the spectrum, while he wasn’t the only senior figure who felt that way, it was a position that had become out of step with both the political consensus (particularly among in the left wingers who were pretty much Churchill’s only supporters against appeasement in the 1930s) and the obvious reality on the ground. . ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/67 "2021-03-30T20:46:49Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > B: I don’t think you can really claim Churchill save Britiain from invasion. It wasn’t like his military innovations won the battle of Britain, it was all (begrudging) Chamberlain-era defense spending and the genius of Dowding (who can I think make that claim, Dowding’s preparations for fighter command were technologically well ahead of their time and a [little known story](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001NLL32O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o03?ie=UTF8&psc=1) ). Though he absolutely saved Europe from Nazi domination. There is no way any other leader would not have made peace with Hitler in 1940, and for the rest of Europe (and Russia in particular) that would have been worse than having the Nazis tied up in an expensive invasion of Britain. This paragraph starts by saying that Churchill didn’t prevent an invasion, and ends by saying how he prevented an invasion. A peace treaty in 1940 would have made eventual invasion inevitable and almost certainly successful. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/68 "2021-03-30T20:58:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This paragraph starts by saying that Churchill didn’t prevent an invasion, and ends by saying how he prevented an invasion. A peace treaty in 1940 would have made eventual invasion inevitable and almost certainly successful. I don’t think we can say that for sure. I mean sure Hitler might have conquered Russia and decided to invade the UK, but I wouldn’t say it was “inevitable”. I am comfortable saying that with anyone else as PM in 1940 there would have been a peace treaty. It was really only Churchill and his personal beliefs that prevented that. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/69 "2021-03-30T21:04:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This paragraph starts by saying that Churchill didn’t prevent an invasion, and ends by saying how he prevented an invasion. No. I said that what Churchill prevented (which was a Germany-Britain treaty that took Britain out of the war and left Hitler in charge of all mainland Europe) was _worse_ for the rest of Europe than a Nazi invasion of Britain. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/70 "2021-03-30T22:02:53Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > It is completely logically and morally consistent to laud him for opposing Nazi Germany and condem him for his racism and colonialism. It seems to me that this statement is not in conflict with the OP. > [@filmstar-en](#): > > There was a genocide in India in 1948. A grim affair, where a couple of million lost their lives during the partition of the country into India and Pakistan, victims the vicious fighting between Hindhus and Muslims. > > Does Churchill get the blame for that as well? I don’t know, maybe. Has someone made that argument? Otherwise, how is it relevant? Either way, it would be a separate point of discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/71 "2021-03-30T22:04:17Z")
never mind … ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/72 "2021-03-30T22:06:17Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > For that, I think he deserves to be cut him a bit of slack Why should anyone get “slack” for this kind of stuff? You can argue that X person did A-type things and B-type things. Why should one create “slack” for the other? > [@filmstar-en](#): > > Placing the weight of responsibility on Churchill is, I am sure, the standard Indian nationalist position. But was this like Stalin and his genocide by starvation of the Ukrainians? Or Hitlers slave labour camps? > > I don’t think so. How is this not strawmanning? ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/73 "2021-03-30T22:07:34Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > It seems to me that this statement is not in conflict with the OP. Not really. If he was in fact a “genocidaire” that would not be a particularly morally consistent statement IMO (he did some genocide but he also helped stop some people who were doing genocide, so all good) ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/74 "2021-03-30T22:23:35Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > How is this not strawmanning? I mean its not a strawman, its the crux of the whole argument in the OP. What Hitler and Stalin did quite clearly makes them genocidaires, they absolutely bear the responsibility for the people who starved to death during the Holodomor and in the Arbeitslager. If Churchill similarly bears responsibility for those that starved to death during the Bengal Famine then he is a genocidaire. And, as shown in the various post above, he does not. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/75 "2021-03-30T22:44:41Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I mean its not a strawman, its the crux of the whole argument in the OP. What Hitler and Stalin did quite clearly makes them genocidaires, they absolutely bear the responsibility for the people who starved to death during the Holodomor and in the Arbeitslager. If Churchill similarly bears responsibility for those that starved to death during the Bengal Famine then he is a genocidaire. And, as shown in the various post above, he does not. Stalin and Hitler don’t define the concept of genocide. The argument is whether Churchill committed genocide. That’s the arguable point. Saying that what he did isn’t as bad as what Stalin or Hitler did is a distraction. Plenty of genocidaires can’t be compared to Stalin or Hitler. Bringing them into the conversation is a suspect tactic. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/76 "2021-03-30T22:46:10Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Not really. If he was in fact a “genocidaire” that would not be a particularly morally consistent statement IMO (he did some genocide but he also helped stop some people who were doing genocide, so all good) Whether he was a genocidaire is a question of fact. Why couldn’t he have been a genocidaire in one situaiton and have opposed another genocidaire in another situation? There’s no logical or factual inconsistency in that. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/77 "2021-03-30T23:21:27Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Stalin and Hitler don’t define the concept of genocide. Well Hitler sort of does. The term was literally coined in a description of Nazi occupied Europe. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/78 "2021-03-30T23:53:42Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Whether he was a genocidaire is a question of fact. No it is not. It is an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/79 "2021-03-31T01:00:15Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > No it is not. It is an opinion. If he did the things that Mukherjee accuses him of, then there’s no room for opinion on the matter. The dispute is solely over whether he did them. That’s a question of fact. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/80 "2021-03-31T01:00:46Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Well Hitler sort of does. The term was literally coined in a description of Nazi occupied Europe. We don’t use “genocide” to mean “exactly what Hitler did.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/81 "2021-03-31T01:14:38Z")
Good points. At best, he could have/should have done more to alleviate the famine. However- there was a war on. But Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot et all, are the ones who ordered their genocides. I dont think there is a comparison at all. Callous bastard who would do anything to win the war- yes. Genocidaire- no. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607/82 "2021-03-31T01:22:50Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > We don’t use “genocide” to mean “exactly what Hitler did.” I mean if you ask 100 people on the street what the definition of genocide is “what Hitler did” will be the most common answer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/churchill-was-a-genocidaire/795607.md?page=5)