December 2019 - Richard M. Langworth

Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

8 December 2019

Extracted from “Churchill: A Million Allied Soldiers to Fight for the White Russians?” for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, November 2019. For the original text click here.

A reader refers us to The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America’s Forgotten Invasion of Russia 1918-1919 (2019). It repeats a misunderstanding about Churchill’s role in aiding the White Russians against the Bolsheviks. By the spring of 1919 in Russia, we read:

…the cat was out of the bag: whether its allies—English, French, White Russians—liked it nor not, the U.S. was pulling out. On March 4, the British War Cabinet decided to follow suit, ignoring the arguments of the virulently anti-Bolshevik Winston Churchill, who as secretary of war had proposed increasing the Allied commitment in Russia to one million men.…

McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee: A Vanished Age of Political Respect

4 December 2019

Churchill and Attlee: Allies in War, Adversaries in Peace, by Leo McKinstry. New York: London, Atlantic Books, 736 pages, £25, Amazon $25.66. Excerpted from a book review for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the original text, click here.

The McKinstry Epic

Leo McKinstry’s book 738 pages—twice the size of the previous Attlee-Churchill book and is riveting from cover to cover. Scrupulously fair, McKinstry tells the story, backed by a voluminous bibliography, extensive research and private correspondence. Thus he captures Churchill’s generosity of spirit, and Attlee’s greatness of soul.

“Sometimes turbulent, often fruitful, theirs was a relationship unprecedented in the annals of British politics,” McKinstry concludes.…