Editing Wyndham Lewis (section)

=== Political views ===
In 1931, after a visit to Berlin, Lewis published ''Hitler'' (1931), a book presenting [[Adolf Hitler]] as a "man of peace", with members of his party being threatened by communist street violence. His unpopularity among liberals and anti-fascists grew, especially after Hitler came to power in 1933.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}} Following a second visit to Germany in 1937, Lewis changed his views and began to retract his previous political comments. He recognized the reality of Nazi treatment of Jews after a visit to Berlin in 1937. In 1939, he published an attack on anti-semitism titled ''The Jews, Are They Human?'',{{Efn|The title is based on a contemporary best-seller, "The English, Are They Human?".|name=|group=}} which was favourably reviewed in ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]''. He also published ''The Hitler Cult'' (1939), which firmly revoked his earlier support for Hitler.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sydney-morning-herald-insignificant/149977815/ |title='Insignificant Blur' |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |page=12 |date=1940-02-03 |access-date=2024-06-24 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

Politically, Lewis remained an isolated figure through the 1930s. In ''Letter to [[Lord Byron]]'', [[W. H. Auden]] called Lewis "that lonely old volcano of the Right." Lewis thought there was what he called a "left-wing orthodoxy" in Britain in the 1930s. He believed it was against Britain's self-interest to ally with the [[Soviet Union]], "which the newspapers most of us read tell us has slaughtered out-of-hand, only a few years ago, millions of its better fed citizens, as well as its whole imperial family."<ref>''[[Time and Tide (magazine)|Time and Tide]]'', 2 March 1935, p.&nbsp;306.)</ref>

In ''Anglosaxony: A League that Works'' (1941), Lewis reflected on his earlier support for fascism:<blockquote>Fascism – once I understood it – left me colder than communism. The latter at least pretended, at the start, to have something to do with helping the helpless and making the world a more decent and sensible place. It does start from the human being and his suffering. Whereas fascism glorifies bloodshed and preaches that man should model himself upon the wolf.<ref name="Bridson" /></blockquote>His sense that America and Canada lacked a British-type class structure had increased his opinion of liberal democracy, and in the same pamphlet, Lewis defends liberal democracy's respect for individual freedom against its critics on both the left and right.<ref name="Bridson" /> In ''America and Cosmic Man'' (1949), Lewis argued that [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] had successfully managed to reconcile individual rights with the demands of the state.<ref name="Bridson" />