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Fourth International, March 1949

 

Letters

 

From Fourth International, Vol.10 No.3, March 1949, p.95.
Transcription & mark-up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

 

Editor, Fourth International:

I have just read Ferdinand Lundberg’s book, Modern Woman. Are you acquainted with it? The theme is that modern woman is neurotic and that is the root of the world’s troubles, war, etc. His solution is a few silly things like baby bonuses, diplomas for housemakers, mass psychoanalysis. The main danger: that a social revolution will come about before the cultural revolution (i.e. before he gets everybody psychoanalyzed). I would like to see a good, thorough, annihilating job done on this gentleman. The subject seeins important enough.

— M.W., Cleveland, Ohio


Editor, Fourth International:

The prime requisite of an historian is that he should come forward with clean hands ... and not color his facts to suit his own purposes, or distort issues which may, or may not happen to fit in with his viewpoint. These definitely are not adhered to by Winston Churchill in his book, The Gathering Storm. While G.F. Eckstein (Winston Churchill – Tory War dog, Fourth International, February 1949) contented himself with exploratory research into the author’s background, and divining his aberrations, and self-admiration, his quotations taken from the book tend only to affirm his portrait of Churchill rather than his appraisal of history.

Churchill’s hatred of Communism shows itself not so much by his diatribes about it, but rather his seeming detachment, such as passing time worn cliches to the effect of Mussolini and Hitler being the legitimate offspring of Communism, and more particularly, Lenin.

His version of the Spanish Civil War is truly an epic. (He devotes all of four paragraphs to it.)

He states: “In this quarrel I was neutral. Naturally, I was not in favour of the Communists. How could I be, when if I had been a Spaniard they would have murdered me and my family and friends?” That he needs not make such a statement pertaining to the Fascists is really significant. That he makes no mention of the thousands of people slaughtered with the blessing of the Catholic Church redounds to the turpitude of this historian.

... His deliberate omission of the facts dealing with London’s interests in Spain, particularly in Madrid where its financiers owned a large share in the street railway systems and real estate, cannot be deemed to be a mere oversight on his part. Besides the Catholic Church, he fails to mention the Spanish grandees, the absentee landlords, many of whom resided in London and had their feudal outlooks championed in the halls of Parliament.

Eckstein made the point of Churchill’s warm admiration both for Hitler and Mussolini. A person with instinctive leanings such as these does not make scurrilous remarks about popular parliamentary procedure accidentally ... On reading the book, one cannot help noticing the two-dimensional aspect of his fellow contemporaries. None of their background is brought into the light, and they, (particularly the successive leaders in France) merely goosestep to Churchill’s pen. There is too much literature extant dealing with the period he covers to take much credence in his self approbation of his role as historical figure. Like Shaw, Churchill is living to see himself become a legend.

— NORMAN JOHNSTONE
              Westville, N.J.

 
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