WE HAVE GOT TO LICK CHURCHILL TOO
Mayer, Milton
We Have Got To Lick Churchill Too By MILTON MAYER EDITOR'S NOTE: Milton Mayer wrote an article in the Nov. 23, 191(2, issue entitled, "We Have Got to Lick Churchill Too." In it Mr. Mayer...
...We are not so lonely as we were...
...Do we ? Churchill stands with Franco...
...As this war has progressed, it has become less ideological in character...
...AYEAR and a half ago—on Nov...
...The scales have begun to drop from the eyes of those who told themselves, a year and a half ago, that democracy followed victory instead of the other way around...
...Churchill's speech not only confirms The Progressive's fears...
...Above all, Churchill stands against the rights of man...
...He described the EAM—the Greek Freedom Movement—as "subversive...
...HE was—in two words—disarmingly frank...
...Are we fighting for justice...
...the internal political arrangements of Spain are a matter for the Spaniards themselves...
...And he informed the stupid and idealistic Americans, along with the tragic and hopeful Germans, that there would not even be any Fourteen • Points to go back on...
...we have got to drive them from Downing Street, too...
...In his disarming, deceptive frankness, he tells us that his and our criterion for alliance is: "We don't care who you are or what you want—or who we are or what we want...
...The closer we come to the peace table the mcrre nakedly are Mr...
...in one place we support a King, in another a Communist...
...Not at all...
...He intends to 'hold our own.'" A year and a half ago the critical and shocking position of The Progressive disturbed some of our countrymen, in particular those who thought that democracy followed victory instead of the other way around...
...x No...
...His frankness—disarming and deceptive—has the merit of letting us know where we are going unless we beat Churchill too...
...New, too, is a growing public concern about their significance...
...Or—in two other words—deceptively frank...
...Are we fighting for self-government...
...The Progressive was guilty of speaking the truth about Churchill...
...He said: "The internal political arrangements of Spain are a matter for the Spaniards themselves...
...His purposes, he tells us, are two: victory in this war, while the war is on, and the prevention of future war when the war is over...
...We ask you only this: Are you for us or against us...
...He said what he meant...
...Like all of Churchill's speeches, it was a model of unequivocation...
...He does not intend to free the Indians, who contribute two shillings to every English pound of profit, nor the Malayans, nor the Arabs, nor the Africans who contribute only two or three bob...
...The bribe having failed, Churchill now poses the threat: Unless Turkey goes in with us now, she will be left out of the divvy at the peace table...
...Mayer emphasized that Mr...
...And, in several Others, fascists...
...It has challenge...
...Don't be silly...
...Churchill stands with the anti-Semitic Polish government...
...He announced that the Atlantic Charter, which proclaims justice for all, applied to our friends and not to our enemies...
...we are fighting for things as they are—or were...
...we shall have to destroy Hitler, Churchill, and whoever and whatever else stands in our way...
...we are fighting for victory...
...He bragged that he wanted Emmanuel and Badoglio to rule Italy before anyone else did...
...But Churchill's frankness has more than charm and arrogance...
...Churchill challenges us to say what we are fighting for...
...He insisted that military victory was our "single and dominant purpose," that "the prevention of war," not the exercise of justice or the spread of democracy, would be the single and dominant purpose of postwar organization...
...23, 1942—The Progressive ran a front-page article under the title, "We Have Got To Lick Churchill Too...
...we have got to free ourselves from our enemies at home...
...Do we?' Where Do We Stand...
...DISARMINGLY frank, Churchill throws all his sprdidness into the light of day so that even those who cried that we were, to put it mildly, "divisive" a year and a half ago, will know that they have got to choose at last between democracy and empire, between victory with Churchill and justice without him, between the fascist-saturated status quo ante and the hopes of all mankind...
...He proclaimed our determination to "wipe out Nazism utterly," and said nothing about wiping out fascism...
...Do we stand with Churchill against the rights of man ? Or do we stand against Hitler and Churchill and all the enemies of the rights of man anywhere—even in Washington—no matter who is winning or losing and no matter whether it means perpetual war for freedom instead of the perpetual peace of the despot...
...Nix...
...It has the charm of persuading us that the choice between factions in France and Poland is impossible for realists, but the choice of fascism in Spain and Greece is easy...
...Churchill stands with Emmanuel and Badoglio...
...But while Turkey is berated for being neutral, neutrality is a virtue for Spain: "The main credit is undoubtedly due to the Spanish resolve to keep out of the war...
...Disarmingly frank, he announced (and Mr...
...A year and a half ago the truth was not popular...
...It has the fascinating effect of arrogance in asserting that "restless and ambitious nations," including, of course, India, Burma, and Palestine, will be repressed by the next League of Nations which, however, will guarantee that "nations," including, of course, England, "will be entitled to rejoice in their traditions in all the splendor of their achievements," their achievements to include, of course, India, Burma, and Palestine...
...Are we fighting for the rights of man...
...it confirms them and says, in effect, "And what are you going to do about it...
...We can not win this war by driving the fascists from the Wilhelmstrasse...
...Churchill was fighting to preserve the status quo of the British Empire, not to extend democracy and safeguard the rights of man...
...Are we fighting for human progress...
...He told a member of Parliament who giggled at Russia's new national anthem: "The honorable gentleman had better be careful to keep in step...
...Mayer's outspoken criticism of the Churchill Government's war aims shocked many people...
...The internal political arrangements of Spain— by which he means fascism and slavery—are a matter for the Spaniards themselves...
...Today The Progressive repeats that we have got to lick Churchill too...
...For those who won't see yet, Churchill declared, in effect, "You have got to beat me too...
...Nothing Against Fascism He said: "In one place we support a King, in another a Communist...
...Turkey wanted to stay neutral...
...Where do we stand, and what do we do about it...
...Roosevelt's Government hurried to say, "Me, too,") that we tried to bribe Turkey to enter the war...
...Mayer's theme of a year and a half ago is the same...
...If fascism in Spain is a matter for the Spaniards, why isn't fascism in Germany a matter for the Germans and fascism over the world a matter for the fascists as long as they only leave London with the jewels of the Indies...
...Do we...
...Turkey will be punished for neutrality and Spain rewarded...
...we are fighting for empire...
...A year and a half ago we said, "If we win everything else and lose the rights of man we shall not have what we fought for, and the war will not have been worth fighting, and the image of God will be gone...
...Turkey And Spain Churchill has all his cards on the table...
...Do we...
...I have not become the King's minister in order to preside over the the liquidation of the British Empire...
...Do we...
...The occasion for this critical and shocking declaration was Churchill's statement, "We mean to hold our own...
...In this article the title is the same...
...Churchill's aims exposed...
...We can not win this war by freeing our enemies' victims from our enemies abroad...
...Do we...
...New, however, is the even franker admission from Mr...
...If we are going to win the hardest and best thing that men may fight for, we shall have to be ruthless...
...But for those who won't see yet, Churchill himself has come to their help with his great speech in Commons last week...
...23, 1942, article declared that "Winston Churchill does not intend to free the 390,000,000 people whom he described in 1935 as 'the brightest star in the Emperor's crown.' He does not intend to free the 100,000,000 who comprise the lesser stars in the Emperor's crown...
...we have got to beat Churchill, too...
...He said he was for Tito because Tito was helping us...
...That Nov...
...He reasserted the principle of unconditional surrender, and added the promise that Germany will be stripped of territory...
...thurehill stands with Tito and de Gaulle as long as they are winning, as he stood with their enemies as Ion...
...Do we stand for fascism and slavery anywhere...
...You who hold that victory follows democracy or even that democracy is •»» issue in this war—have got to beat me too...
...for Franco because Franco wasn't hurting us...
...and against Turkey because Turkey wasn't helping us...
...as they were winning...
...Churchill stands with Stalin's promise not to com-rmnize or democratize fascist Rumania...
...Churchill stands with the monarchical fascism of pre-war Greece and brags of his Navy's assassination of the Freedom Movement...
...Do we ? Churchill stands with Stalin—with the Stalin he called a degraded beast in 1938—and proclaims that "the other ideology," "Nazism," is the one we are fighting...
...They had had enough war, and they wished to keep out of it...
...Justice, democracy, self-government, the rights of man, and human progress have nothing whatever to do with either of Churchill's two purposes...
...Are we fighting for democratic government...
...Churchill last week of his war aims...
...The Progressive, which holds empire compatible with fascism and incompatible with democracy, asserted, on that occasion: "We can not win this war by beating Hitler...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 23
