While searching for George Orwell quotes, I ran across this site which if accurate speaks about an incident I’d never heard before. It quotes from a book titled THE LARGER EVIL, NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SATIRE by W. J. West, in which is related an occasion when the communists in Britain were trying to convene enough support for an uprising against the government. Is this accurate, or have I taken the wrong impression from a limited reference?
Good question - it does seem that Orwell was concerned about the British Communist Movement.
Though I do have to wonder at the Brit Communists state of mind, Hitler was definitely anti-communist, and tended to toss the German Communists into camps when they were caught so why the Brit ones thought that interfering with the war effort was a good idea is somewhat baffling.
I do know that one of the Irelands was pro-Hitler [probably seeing Hitler as an antidote to being occupied by Britain.] [And I can’t remember which part of Ireland was pro-Hitler offhand, I just woke up and am somewhat foggy on the book about it I read a few years back.]
The Republic was officially neutral during the War. There were however a number of quiet actions taken that favoured the Allies. Here’s a decent summary:
Communists during the war had no chance of effecting change other than through infiltration of the organs of government ( riding on their popularity both as attractive to the masses [ which they weren’t that much, plus they had the deadly enmity of socialists including Orwell and the Labour Party ] and as as representatives of Our Gallant Ally ); so revolution was out.
However, until Barbarossa, which ironically enough ensured both the destruction of the Germans and of Soviet Communism in the long term, British — and all other communists — were under instruction from the Comintern to support the fascist hyenas against the mutual capitalist enemies under the exigencies of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Didn’t mean they individually liked it, and many of them broke and left the Party, but until the USSR was attacked communists supported Hitler or at least rejected the war as Capitalist provocation.
Ulster, Northern Ireland, and the prots in charge supported the British state as they naturally would; the IRA retained links with Nazi Germany; the Irish Free State was very strictly neutral ( later the Irish Republic ), as was necessary for it’s own independent survival. They impartially imprisoned Allied, German and IRA soldiers if caught; but large numbers of Irishmen ( e.g.: not IRA sympathisers ) volunteered and fought for the British Empire during that ( and every other ) war.
In May '45 Dev sent representatives to the German Embassy to express regret for the death of the German Head of State. He wasn’t the most lovable of men; but in this gallant gesture he was very, very correct. It certainly did not mean he admired AH or had any nazi sympathies; but he didn’t admire Churchill either.
And nor did all the British, from reactionaries to liberals to communists, his stock was right down once the war was won and they decisively rejected him and the feeble pre-war capitalist democracy in the election. "Forward To Soviet Britain ! cried one young Labour future minister in Trafalgar Square.
Probably Denis Healey, back from being Beachmaster at Anzio; and future anti-communist Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Wilson administrations. His birthday yesterday, being born in 1917.
Not to be confused with Gerry Healy, trotskyist nutter.
The web site is conspicuously short of date but there is reference to early 1941. This was the period of the Nazi-Soviet pact and many communists were actively opposed to Britain’s involvement in the war. As to “revolution”, well the Communist Party of Great Britain (or whatever it was called at that moment) was always anticipating THE REVOLUTION.
You’re thinking of Eire, the south of Ireland. Northern Ireland is, and was, part of the UK and actively involved in the war. I’ll leave one of our Irish posters to properly deal with this but I don’t think you could call Eire “pro-Hitler” they were more anti-British and maintained their neutral status in the face of pleading from the UK and later the States.
First of all, the page you link to does not even say that. The most the “quotes” imply is that some people withing the British Communist movement (which was quite large and diverse in that era) were voicing and attempting to organize opposition to the war. This would be in its early stages, when Britain itself had not been attacked, not the “middle”.
Secondly, if you examine the site a bit further it becomes apparent that it is the ravings of a conspiracy nut with an obsession with Orwell’s 1984, which she equates with the imagined evils of “political correctness” in present day Canada.
In a sense, of course, Communists in a capitalist country are always “trying to convene enough support for an uprising against the government”. That is, quite openly, the long term project of Communism. Saying that, however, is very different from saying that British Communists tried to “spark a revolution in the middle of WW2”. I am not familiar with the book by West referred to on that site, although, from the limited information given, it shows all the signs of being cold war propaganda of questionable reliability. Whether or not that is so, the site appears to be spinning its claims into conspiracist nonsense, and you are spinning them several notches further.
Communists in the 1930s were well ahead of the curve in alerting the world to the evils of Naziism, at a time when most establishment politicians saw Hitler as at worst a harmless buffoon and at best a useful ally in their fight against Communism. When war arrived, many members of the British Communist Party (probably most male members in the relevant age range) had no problems whatsoever with fighting in the British armed forces against what they, probably more clearly than their non-Communist brethren, understood to be the menace of Naziism. Many (some personally known to me) served with distinction.
Was there some opposition to Britain’s involvement in the war, in its early stages, amongst British Communists? Yes, very likely, especially given that a fair proportion of Communists were also pacifists (although, when it came down to it, many of those made an exception for the fight against Hitler). Also, at the very beginning of the war, no doubt the more blind Stalin worshipers amongst them were thrown into confusion by Stalin’s sudden reversal in making a pact with the formerly strongly reviled Hitler, and that may also have encouraged anti-war activism within the party. This is all a very long way, however from Communists (in general) attempting to “spark revolution” “in the middle” of the war.
Thank Heaven for Firefox Showcase… I had a vague idea I had a trotskyist critique of the Pact somewhere in the tabs, and here it is. A Kremlinite defends the Pact and Peter Taaffe, another trotskyite nutter, still young enough to be planning the next Workers’ International, argues it’s wrongness. 2009.
Previously, the world’s Communist parties, dancing to Moscow’s tune, had attempted to distinguish the more ‘progressive’ role of the capitalist ‘democracies’ from the ‘fascist powers’. However, when Stalin sought and achieved a rapprochement with Hitler, they argued the opposite: that there was no fundamental difference between the various capitalist regimes. In reality, the main factor leading to war was the clash between different imperialist interests.
Germany’s war effort was also helped by a trade agreement, under which the Soviet Union would supply the Nazis with vital grain and oil. Thus Stalin acted as Hitler’s quartermaster. Helping Hitler in his war with Britain and France, he thereby criminally strengthened German forces for their attack on the Soviet Union.
Taaffe.
Both sides should be taken with a pinch of salt. Rewriting memories was a communist specialty — including the memories we convince to ourselves. The one thankful constant being that Stalin was in power and not Trotsky.
Should have thought to check Wiki in the first place:
Before I rechecked the dates, I had thought it was a post June '41 movement to co-opt the civilian resistance to a possible Nazi invasion.
What a difference eight months made.
Yes, and gallant enough to do it after the liberation of Ravensbruck. And Dachau. And Bergen-Belsen. And Buchenwald. And Auschwitz.
Not quite gallant to give condolences for FDR, tho’. :dubious:
Doesn’t seem like a lot of point to remaining diplomatically cordial to a state that was shamed, ruined, and already beaten. It does seem like an ideal point to use a veneer of diplomacy to get in a political jab—and safely, by being cordial to an “enemy of my old enemy” but that was already ruined and beaten.
Even had the British communists wished for revolution, there is absolutely no way they could have mounted any serious attempt at rebellion. They had only 60,000 members of the party in 1943 (their alltime high) and never even drew half of one percent in any election. They had no backing from a single political figure of importance, and had zero base in the army or union leadership.
You know wrong. Ireland was neutral.
There were elements within Ireland who naively supported Hitler under the notion that England’s difficulty would once more be Ireland’s opportunity for full freedom but this was a fringe element and nothing to do with official government policy.
I think the French communists, who were probably more numerous than the British communities, played a role in the quick collapse of France in 1940. Nazi Germany had a non aggression treaty with the Soviet Union and Stalin would have probably given word to spread opposition to the capitalist. If he had been real smart, Stalin would have wanted Germany weakened by a strong French army. But Stalin seems to have been genuinely shocked when Hitler attacked in 1941.
Not that the French needed much help..its generals were spectacularly inept. No radios at headquarters and reliance on motorcycles to deliver orders and information?:dubious:
No part of Ireland was occupied by Britain during WW2. The Republic of Ireland was an independent country, as it is now, and Northern Ireland was a part of the UK, as it is now. Many in Northern Ireland may not like that state of affairs, but also, many do. The IRA did support the Nazi war effort, and I don’t find it hard to believe that others in Northern Ireland who particularly hated being part of the UK might have hoped that Hitler would win, but not in numbers that at all justify saying any part of Ireland was “pro-Hitler”.
I should add that above I wrote “Republic of Ireland” to distinguish it from Northern Ireland, but at the time of WW2 the country was not a republic.
Eire was a strange case during the war. Officially, they were neutral, although many Southern Irish enlisted to fight along side the allies.
There were also elements which sympathised with the Nazis. There were strong rumours at the time that German U-boats were allowed to refuel there. Hitler’s regime were actively conspiring with the IRA to invade Northern Ireland with their help.
Eamon De Valera was the only government leader to convey official condolences to Eduard Hempel, director of the German diplomatic corps in Ireland. De Valera’s gesture, unique among leaders of neutral nations in the final weeks of World War II, was criticized worldwide.