Editing Winston Churchill (section)

==Legacy and assessments==
{{main|Political positions of Winston Churchill|List of honours of Winston Churchill}}
{{see also|Churchill Archives Centre}}

==="A man of destiny"===
[[File:Winston Churchill, Parliament Square, London (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Statue of Winston Churchill, Parliament Square|statue of Churchill]] (1973) by [[Ivor Roberts-Jones]] in [[Parliament Square]], London]]

Jenkins concludes his biography of Churchill by comparing him favourably with [[William Gladstone]] and summarising:{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=912}}

{{blockquote|I now put Churchill, with all his idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, his occasional childishness, but also his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability, right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, to be larger than life, as the greatest human being ever to occupy 10 Downing Street.}}

Churchill always self-confidently believed himself to be "a man of destiny".{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=3}} Because of this he lacked restraint and could be reckless.{{sfn|Addison|1980|pp=25, 29, 36}}{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|pp=3, 22, 24, 60}} His self-belief manifested in his "affinity with war" of which, according to [[Sebastian Haffner]], he exhibited "a profound and innate understanding".{{sfn|Haffner|2003|p=19}} Churchill considered himself a military genius, but that made him vulnerable to failure and [[Paul Addison]] says the Gallipoli disaster was "the greatest blow his self-image was ever to sustain".{{sfn|Addison|1980|p=36}} Jenkins points out, that although Churchill was exhilarated by war, he was never indifferent to the suffering it causes.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=213}}

===Political ideology===
{{Toryism |expanded=people}}
{{Conservatism UK|Politicians}}

As a politician, Churchill was perceived by some to have been largely motivated by personal ambition rather than political principle.{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=6}}{{sfn|Addison|1980|pp=23, 25}} During his early career, he was often provocative and argumentative to an unusual degree;{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|pp=121, 245}} and his barbed rhetorical style earned him enemies in parliament.{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=20}}{{sfn|Gilbert|1991|p=168}} Others deemed him to be an honest politician who displayed particular loyalty to his family and close friends.{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|pp=4, 19}} [[Robert Rhodes James]] said he "lacked any capacity for intrigue and was refreshingly innocent and straightforward".{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=53}}

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill's approach to politics generated widespread "mistrust and dislike",{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=ix}} largely on account of his two party defections.{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=31}} His biographers have variously categorised him, in terms of political ideology, as "fundamentally conservative",{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|pp=31–33}} "(always) liberal in outlook",{{sfn|Gilbert|1991|p=xx}} and "never circumscribed by party affiliation".{{sfn|Hermiston|2016|p=19}} He was nearly always opposed to socialism because of its propensity for state planning and his belief in free markets. The exception was during his wartime coalition when he was reliant upon the support of his Labour colleagues.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=601}}{{sfn|Ball|2001|pp=311, 330}} Churchill had long been regarded as an enemy of the working class, and his response to the Rhondda Valley unrest and his anti-socialist rhetoric brought condemnation from socialists who saw him as a [[reactionary]].{{sfn|Addison|1980|p=26}} His role in opposing the General Strike earned the enmity of strikers and most members of the Labour movement.{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=174}} Paradoxically, Churchill was supportive of [[trade unionism]], which he saw as the "antithesis of socialism".{{sfn|Addison|1980|pp=42–43, 44}}

On the other hand, his detractors did not take Churchill's domestic reforms into account,{{sfn|Moritz|1958|p=428}} for he was in many respects a radical and reformer,{{sfn|Gilbert|1991|p=xix}} but always with the intention of preserving the existing social structure,{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=34}} displaying what Addison calls the attitude of a "benevolent paternalist".{{sfn|Addison|1980|p=44}} Jenkins, himself a senior Labour minister, remarked that Churchill had "a substantial record as a social reformer" for his work in his ministerial career.{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=152}} Similarly, Rhodes James thought that Churchill's achievements were "considerable".{{sfn|Rhodes James|1970|p=33}}

===Imperialism and racial views===
{{see also|Racial views of Winston Churchill}}

Churchill was a staunch [[imperialist]] and [[monarchist]], and consistently exhibited a "romanticised view" of the British Empire and reigning monarch, especially during his last term as premier.{{sfn|Addison|1980|p=38}}{{sfn|Ball|2001|p=308}}{{sfn|Jenkins|2001|p=22}} Churchill has been described as a "liberal imperialist"{{sfn|Adams|2011|p=253}} who saw British imperialism as a form of [[altruism]] that benefited its subject peoples.{{sfn|Addison|1980|pp=32, 40–41}} He advocated against black or indigenous self-rule in Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, the Americas and India, believing the British Empire maintained the welfare of those who lived in the colonies.<ref name="CRC"/>

When he was Home Secretary in 1910-1911, Churchill supported the [[Eugenics|forced sterilization of the "feeble minded."]] In a letter to Prime Minister H. H. Asquith in February 1910, he wrote " The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes […] constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate. […] I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rovera |first=Catherine |date=2017-12-01 |title=Unclaimed Bodies, Feeble Minds in The Ballroom (2016): Anna Hope's Visions of Asylum |url=https://journals.openedition.org/ebc/3779?lang=en |journal=Études britanniques contemporaines. Revue de la Société dʼétudes anglaises contemporaines |language=en |issue=53 |doi=10.4000/ebc.3779 |issn=1168-4917|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=pixelstorm |date=2013-04-17 |title=Leading Churchill Myths: "Churchill's campaign against the 'feeble-minded' was deliberately omitted by his biographers" |url=https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-152/leading-churchill-myths-churchills-campaign-against-the-feeble-minded-was-deliberately-omitted-by-his-biographers/ |access-date=2025-03-03 |website=International Churchill Society |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Eugenics in Britain |url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/blue-plaque-stories/eugenics/ |access-date=2025-03-03 |website=English Heritage}}</ref>

According to Addison, Churchill was opposed to immigration from the Commonwealth.{{sfn|Addison|2005|p=233}} Addison makes the point that Churchill opposed [[anti-Semitism]] (as in 1904, when he was critical of the proposed [[Aliens Act 1905|Aliens Bill]]) and argues he would never have tried "to stoke up racial animosity against immigrants, or to persecute minorities".{{sfn|Addison|1980|p=39}} In the 1920s, Churchill supported Zionism but believed that [[communism]] was the product of an [[international Jewish conspiracy]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Churchill |first=Winston |title=Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People |work=The Illustrated Sunday Herald |date=8 February 1920 |page=5}}</ref> Although this belief was not unique among politicians, few had his stature,{{sfn|Brustein|2003|p=309}} and the article he wrote on the subject was criticised by ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]''.{{sfn|Cohen|2013|pp=55–56}}

Churchill made disparaging remarks about non-white ethnicities throughout his life. Philip Murphy partly attributes the strength of this vitriol to an "almost childish desire to shock" his inner circle.<ref name="Conversation_Murphy">{{cite web |url=https://theconversation.com/churchill-and-india-imperial-chauvinism-left-a-bitter-legacy-36452 |last1=Murphy |first1=Philip |title=Churchill and India: imperial chauvinism left a bitter legacy |work=The Conversation |date=22 January 2015 |access-date=17 February 2022 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217172211/https://theconversation.com/churchill-and-india-imperial-chauvinism-left-a-bitter-legacy-36452 |url-status=live}}</ref> Churchill's response to the [[Bengal famine of 1943|Bengal famine]] was criticised by contemporaries as slow, a controversy later increased by the publication of private remarks made to [[Secretary for India]] [[Leo Amery]], in which Churchill allegedly said aid would be inadequate because "Indians [were] breeding like rabbits".<ref name="Conversation_Murphy" /><ref>{{cite news |last=Limaye |first=Yogita |title=Churchill's legacy leaves Indians questioning his hero status |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-53405121 |access-date=17 February 2022 |publisher=BBC News |date=20 July 2020 |archive-date=17 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217185350/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-53405121 |url-status=live}}</ref> Philip Murphy says that, following the independence of India in 1947, Churchill adopted a pragmatic stance towards empire, although he continued to use imperial rhetoric. During his second term as prime minister, he was seen as a moderating influence on Britain's suppression of armed insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya; he argued that ruthless policies contradicted British values and international opinion.<ref name="Conversation_Murphy" />

[[File:British Empire 1921.png|thumb|center|upright=2.0|The [[British Empire]] at its territorial peak in 1921]]