John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RICHARD GALUSTIAN IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The Mental Condition of Winston Churchill”
Churchill's drinking and depression are one of the most common afflictions of writers, and when I think of Churchill, I think of him first as a writer. He wrote massive memoirs, history, and, of course, memorable speeches.
Great numbers of famous authors suffered from depression and/or drunkenness. It's almost an occupational hazard. It has to be in the genes.
While of course Churchill was a memorable figure in WWII, he was on the whole a poor leader who likely created as many problems as he solved throughout his career. He was also quite prejudiced on many topics, and he was an unapologetic supporter of imperialism. He thought nothing of imperial forces machine-gunning revolting peasants in some part of the empire.
Having read many of his books and several major biographies, I've also always had the impression that his opposition to "Herr Hitler," as he often called him, was not at all based on opposition to tyranny or brutality, as the official propaganda likes to tell us.
One senses a definite respect for Stalin in his memoirs and the immense, virtually absolute power he enjoyed. I think he was actually a bit jealous of Hitler and his early success. His ego would not let him believe Hitler could possibly be his equal.
Churchill was definitely not a democrat deep down. He made a number of disparaging remarks about British voters.
A further aspect of Churchill's brutality, in contrast to his friendly but stalwart, pudgy heroic image of WWII, was his use of civilian bombing on Germany.
Contrary to the widely-held view that Hitler first started bombing civilians in Britain, it was in fact the other way around with Churchill doing raids on Berlin.
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