Tag: Ivan Maisky

alliance
View from St. Paul’s Cathedral toward the Old Bailey after the Blitz, 3 January 1941. (H. Mason, Daily Mail, public domain)
Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

Grand Alliance: A Way Out of the Second World War?

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Question:

“Pro­fes­sor John Charm­ley says in a pod­cast that Neville Cham­ber­lain believed a pre­war grand alliance against Hitler was not fea­si­ble. He was refer­ring to alliance between the UK and France and the Unit­ed States and USSR. Do you agree?”

Answer:

As Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) tells the Dis­trict Attor­ney (Lane Smith) in “My Cousin Vin­ny” (1992), “that’s a B.S. question.”

(To voir dire Miss Vito on “gen­er­al auto­mo­tive knowl­edge” the D.A. had demand­ed the igni­tion tim­ing of “a 1955 Chevro­let 327 V-8.” (Read­ers less mechan­i­cal­ly inclined than Miss Vito may enjoy her dev­as­tat­ing two-minute rebut­tal to this “trick question.”)…

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Roberts
Admiring but not uncritical, Roberts’ book is a masterpiece. To paraphrase Simon Schama, it is a Churchilliad, and Andrew Roberts is its Bard. (Cartoon by David Low on WSC’s 80th birthday.)
“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’ Superb Churchill Biography

“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’ Superb Churchill Biography

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Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walk­ing with Des­tiny. New York, Viking, 2018, 1152 pages, $40, Ama­zon $25.47, Kin­dle $17.99. Also pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For Hills­dale reviews of Churchill works since 2014, click here. For a list of and notes on books about Churchill from 1905 cur­rent­ly through 1995, vis­it Hillsdale’s anno­tat­ed bibliography.

“No Cutlet Uncooked”

He lies at Bladon in Eng­lish earth, “which in his finest hour he held invi­o­late.” He would enjoy the con­tro­ver­sy he still stirs today, in media he nev­er dreamed of. He would rev­el in the assaults of his detrac­tors, the ripostes of his defend­ers.…

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Baltic
“Here we stir the embers of the past and light the beacons of the future. Old flags are raised anew; the passions of vanished generations awake.” —Churchill, 1929. Riga Castle (1330), today home to the President of Latvia. (Foto.sanne.lv)
Churchill and the Baltic States: From WW2 to Liberation

Churchill and the Baltic States: From WW2 to Liberation

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EXCERPT ONLY: For the com­plete text of “Churchill and the Baltic” with end­notes, please go to this page on the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

“No doubt where the right lay”: 1940-95

Sovi­et Ambas­sador Ivan Maisky was a “Bollinger Bol­she­vik” who mixed sup­port for Com­mu­nism with a love of West­ern lux­u­ry. Friend­ly to Churchill, he knew the Eng­lish­man hoped to sep­a­rate Hitler and Stal­in, even after World War II had started.

But Maisky tend­ed to see what he wished to see. In Decem­ber he record­ed: “The British Gov­ern­ment announces its readi­ness to rec­og­nize ‘de fac­to’ the changes in the Baltics so as to set­tle ‘de jure’ the whole issue lat­er, prob­a­bly after the war.” There…

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Trump, Russia, and Churchill’s Wisdom

Trump, Russia, and Churchill’s Wisdom

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Pub­lished 8 March 2017 on the Dai­ly Caller, under the title “A Les­son on Rus­sia for Trump.” Their title, not mine; I do not pre­sume to offer any­one lessons. 

“I can­not fore­cast to you the action of Rus­sia. It is a rid­dle wrapped in a mys­tery inside an enig­ma: but per­haps there is a key. That key is Russ­ian nation­al inter­est.” —Win­ston Churchill, 1939

“If Putin likes Trump, guess what, folks, that’s called an asset, not a lia­bil­i­ty. Now I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do. But there’s a good chance I won’t.”     —Don­ald Trump, 2017

Russia National Interests

Trump-Churchill com­par­isons are invid­i­ous and sil­ly.…

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Churchill and the Avoidable War: Outline

Churchill and the Avoidable War: Outline

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A read­er who enjoys my book, Churchill and the Avoid­able War, sug­gests that it would appeal more broad­ly if peo­ple knew what was in it (like the Afford­able Care Act). Ever anx­ious to reap the huge mon­e­tary rewards of a Kin­dle Sin­gle, I offer this brief out­line. If this con­vinces you to invest in my lit­tle work of his­to­ry (paper­back $7.95, Kin­dle $2.99) thank-you. Kind­ly click here.

Chapter 1. Germany Arming: Encountering Hitler, 1933-34

“Revi­sion­ists” claim Churchill was “for Hitler before he was against him.” To say he admired Hitler is true in one abstract sense: he admired the Führer’s polit­i­cal skill, his abil­i­ty to dom­i­nate and to lead.…

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Maisky and Churchill: Hard to Put Down

Maisky and Churchill: Hard to Put Down

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Ivan Maisky: “The great­est sin of mod­ern states­man is vac­il­la­tion and ambi­gu­i­ty of thought and action.”

Gabriel Gorodet­sky, ed., The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambas­sador to the Court of St. James’s. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 634 pages, $28.80, Kin­dle $19.99, audio­book $36.32.

Excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read in full, click here.

____________________________

A strik­ing work of schol­ar­ship (actu­al­ly an abridge­ment of a three-vol­ume com­plete work com­ing in 2016), this book will inspire fresh schol­ar­ship on Churchill, Rus­sia and World War II. Ivan Maisky was a pen­e­trat­ing observ­er of 1932-43 Britain, and Gabriel Gorodet­sky con­nects every long gap in his diaries with informed accounts of what was hap­pen­ing.…

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