To set the stage, many revisionist researchers see Churchill as a "self-interested imperialist" who held the "British Empire sacrosanct". They argue that Churchill's actions hurt liberty, leading to disastrous consequences for Britain, Europe, and the United States. Further, they claim that the popular view of Churchill is based on wartime propaganda and modern controlled media, and a more honest assessment reveals some hard truths about his legacy.

The Churchillian mythology depicts the man as a moral leader who does the "right thing over the easy thing" and stands for "principle over popularity". However, this view is not entirely accurate. Winston Churchill was primarily driven by appetite for power, and such individuals will seek opportunities to advance themselves, often at any cost.

Churchill's exceptional oratory skills gave him power over others. During WWII, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies observed, "His [Churchill's] real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way."

The Spectator newspaper commented on Churchill's appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, saying, "We cannot discern any principles or a consistent outlook on public affairs in his career; he constantly gauged public opinion and was a true demagogue."

A demagogue is a political leader who seeks support by appealing to ordinary people's "desires and prejudices" rather than using "rational arguments".

After working with Churchill, John Morley (1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn), a British Liberal statesman, writer, and newspaper editor, gave a concise appraisal of Churchill: "Winston," he said, "has no principles."

George W Bush (43rd President of the United States) described Churchill as "a man synonymous with war."

Churchill began his political career by joining the Conservative Party in 1900. However, in 1904, he switched to the Liberal Party and, later, in 1925, rejoined the Conservatives when the Liberals fell into decline. During this move, he said, "Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat."

Some researchers believe Churchill's move to the Liberals (1904) was due to the "Free Trade" issue. However, others think he might not have been so interested in "Free Trade" if he had been given a position in the Conservative Party earlier. Additionally, it appears that Churchill was looking for any excuse to leave any party that "didn't recognise his abilities." Consequently, since the Liberals wouldn't accept his protectionist views, he changed his position in "self-interest".

As a member of the Liberal Government, Churchill played a significant role in reshaping liberalism's ideology. He steered it from its traditional foundations in individualism, free trade, and bourgeois morality and advocated a new socialism and a more interventionist state.

Initially, Churchill was against communism, especially Bolshevik communism. However, he admired Italian Fascism and believed Mussolini had a formula to "counter communism's appeal". Churchill thought this formula involved "a sense of national unity combined with social welfare". In his view, "fascism was necessary to counteract communism's influence."

In 1941, Churchill again changed his position, this time supporting communism when he allied with Stalin. This shift was only temporary and was driven by his obsession with defeating German National Socialism. Because of this obsession, Churchill was blind to the danger of bringing Soviet power and communism into Europe when he embraced Stalin.

At the Tehran Conference in Nov 1943, Churchill gave Stalin a "Crusader's Sword" despite Stalin's history of "Christian repression".

When Churchill aligned himself with the Liberal Party in 1904, he criticised the Conservatives for lacking "social reform plans". He introduced a "New Liberalism" to bring about comprehensive social organisation through legislative proposals and administrative acts.

Churchill also supported organised labour and championed labour unions, contributing to the Trades Disputes Act of 1906, which granted unions a privileged position and exempted them from the ordinary law of the land.

In 1908, Churchill voiced his support for increased government involvement in state and local governments, advocating for "new functions" and "innovative experiments". After visiting Germany, he embraced Bismarck's social insurance model and lauded the German Social Welfare System.

Churchill opposed socialism, except during WW1 (1914-1918) when he supported "War Socialism". He declared, "Our whole nation must be organised, must be socialised if you like the word." Despite being critical of socialism, Churchill accepted the Beveridge Report, which paved the way for the post-war welfare state and Keynesian economic policies.

Keynesian economics is a macroeconomic theory developed by British economist John Maynard Keynes during the 1930s. It focuses on managing aggregate demand to stabilise the economy. There are three key points:

In 1911, Churchill became the First Lord of the Admiralty. From the beginning of the crises leading up to 1914 and WWI, he strongly advocated for war despite opposition from his Prime Minister, Asquith.

During WWI (1914-1918), Churchill played a crucial role in implementing the illegal blockade of Germany, which resulted in the deaths of 750,000 German civilians from hunger and malnutrition. The surviving youth from this crisis went on to become fervent Nazis.

There is still heated debate as to whether Churchill was complicit in the sinking of the Lusitania, a civilian passenger liner loaded with munitions, on 07 May 1915. Irrespective, he did everything possible to ensure that innocent Americans would be killed by German attempts to break the hunger blockade.

A week before the Lusitania sinking (07 May 1915), Churchill wrote to Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, that it was "most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hopes, especially, of embroiling the United States with Germany."

Earlier, Churchill had ordered the captains of merchant ships, including liners, to ram German submarines, and the Germans were aware of this. Consequently, the German government placed newspaper ads in New York warning Americans not to board the Lusitania.

By helping engineer the entry of the United States into WW1, Churchill set in motion the transformation of the war into a Democratic "Holy War." Wilsonianism led to the eventual destruction of the Austrian Empire and created a power vacuum on Germany's southeastern border, which later provided fruitful opportunities and allies for Hitler's effort to overturn the Versailles Treaty.

Wilsonianism was the policy of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who emphasised the spread of democracy by any "available" means, believing that self-determination would naturally lead to democratic governance.

The Gallipoli Campaign in 1915 during WWI, the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and the Dieppe Raid in 1942 during WWII were fiascoes marked by Churchill's military planning ineptness. They resulted in significant losses—there was no accountability.

Churchill was appointed Colonial Secretary (Jan 1921 to Oct 1922) and created two "client kingdoms", Transjordan and Iraq, which were artificial and unstable states. Churchill's goal was for Britain to control the Middle East and ensure that the oil reserves of Iraq and the Persian Gulf were under British control rather than to secure freedom for oppressed peoples, as his supporters claimed.

During the 1930s, Churchill's reputation grew, especially among early Neo-conservatives. These Neo-conservatives were assertive in foreign policy and emphasised democracy, intervention, and military strength.

However, Churchill's posture against Hitler did not differ from his warnings about pre-war Imperial Germany and inter-war Weimar Germany. Churchill always saw Germany as a threat to the British Empire and something that needed to be curtailed. He vehemently opposed "Allied Disarmament" even before Hitler came to power.

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin admitted that the Conservatives could not have won the 1936 election if they had told the truth about Germany's Rearmament. Neville Chamberlain started Britain's rearmament and weapon modernisation after the Munich Crisis of Sep 1938.

During the 1930s, Churchill repeatedly warned of various impending threats, from Bolshevik Russia to the General Strike of 1926, the dangers of Indian independence and the abdication crisis in 1936. Because of this, he was often criticised as a "self-seeking scaremonger."

He also emphasised his opposition to Communism rather than Nazism. In addition, Churchill admired Hitler's patriotic achievements despite disliking his system. However, historical accounts have noted that Churchill was often ill-informed and made exaggerated claims about German strength.

Britain declared war on Germany after they invaded Poland in Sep 1939.

Churchill was reinstated as First Lord of the Admiralty. Strangely, U.S. President Roosevelt initiated personal correspondence with Churchill during this time, bypassing the diplomatic channels. Messages were kept secret; some contained allusions to a pre-war alliance agreement between Britain and the U.S.

Before the war, Roosevelt also mentioned to the King of England, George VI, the setting up of a zone in the Atlantic to be patrolled by the U.S. Navy. This conversation was the foundation for future agreements like the "Bases-for-Destroyers" deal and the "Lend-Lease Agreement."

Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940 after the Chamberlain government resigned over the failed Norway Campaign in which Churchill was complicit.

When France's armed forces were defeated and the British army retreated (Dunkirk - 26 May to 04 Jun 1940), Churchill passed emergency laws that gave him considerable autonomous control over the country.

He delivered his famous speech during the Battle of Britain in 1940, and it is suggested that he plagiarised French Premier Georges Clemenceau - a man he greatly admired.

Churchill refused to consider any peace negotiations, even after France fell. However, some historians argue that this approach may have missed opportunities to re-arm and negotiate for a better defence strategy.

Some revisionists believe that Churchill's refusal to consider peace talks in 1940 led to significant losses for the British Empire and even contributed to the devastation of European Jewry.

It's believed that Churchill's primary strategy was to involve America in wars—WWI, WWII, and later the Cold War.

In 1940, Churchill sent a British agent, code-named "Intrepid," to the United States. With the cooperation of President Roosevelt and federal agencies, Intrepid and his 300 agents carried out operations, including intercepting mail, tapping wires, and spreading rumours to discredit the "isolationists" such as Nazis, communists, and fascists.

Intrepid - Sir William Stephenson (1897–1989) was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, and spymaster. During WWII, he served as the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere, and his wartime intelligence code name was "Intrepid".

In June 1941, Churchill, still looking for a reason to bring America into the war, wrote regarding the German warship Prinz Eugen: "It would be better, for instance, that she should be located by a U.S. ship as this might tempt her to fire on that ship, thus providing the incident for which the U.S. government would be so grateful."

Churchill was delighted when the U.S. entered into the war on 07 Dec 1941 - the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

To counter the threat posed by Hitler's regime, Churchill and Roosevelt were willing to ally with the Soviet Union, despite its previous collaboration with Nazi Germany. This decision raises questions about the "moral implications" of aligning with a powerful dictator like Stalin while rejecting the offer of compromise with other dictators.

Churchill focused on defeating Hitler and showed no interest in Europe's future well-being. He aimed to prevent Germany from rearming but did not actively support anti-Nazi resistance groups. Instead, he prolonged the war by insisting on "unconditional surrender" and supported Stalin's land-grabbing sweep westward.

Churchill indeed committed war crimes and played a significant role in undermining the "Rules of Engagement" in the West. At the Quebec Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill approved the Morgenthau Plan, which, if executed, would have caused the deaths of tens of millions of Germans. This plan gave the Germans a frightening picture of what "unconditional surrender" would entail.

Churchill advocated the dropping of tens of thousands of Anthrax "super bombs" on the civilian population of Germany. He ordered detailed planning for a chemical attack on six major cities, estimating that millions would die immediately "by inhalation," with millions more succumbing later. Fortunately, this never happened.

Churchill's most serious war crimes involved the carpet bombing/burning of German cities, which resulted in the deaths of 600,000 civilians and injuries to 800,000 more. Arthur "Bomber" Harris, who led Bomber Command, said, "In Bomber Command, we have always worked on the assumption that bombing anything in Germany is better than bombing nothing.

The "Official History" of the RAF confirms the scale of destruction in Germany, which is enough to support war crime charges/proceedings.

Dresden was bombarded for three days by British forces, resulting in the deaths of as many as 135,000 people. However, Churchill tried to distance himself from responsibility, suggesting the Americans were behind the attack. The bombings occurred as masses of refugees fled from the advancing Red Army - this was known.

The terror bombing and killing of German civilians continued until the middle of Apr 1945. Bomber Harris noted that it only stopped because "There were no more targets left to be bombed in Germany."

Churchill once stated that the goal of killing the maximum number of Germans "outweighed any political or policy considerations." He publicly declared that there were "No lengths of violence to which we would not go to achieve this objective." Churchill's defenders characterise this statement as the "resoluteness of a great statesman" rather than acknowledging it as an "endorsement of mass murder."

Who could have predicted the extent of civilian casualties resulting from Churchill's pursuit to "establish and revive the stature of man "?

Other crimes and atrocities for which Churchill is culpable occurred before and following WWII:

The massacres carried out by Churchill's protégé, Tito - tens of thousands of Croats, Slovenes and other "class-enemies" and "anti-Communists" were killed.

In the wake of Stalin's armies, mass deportations began. In Jan 1945, Churchill said: "Why are we making a fuss about the Russian deportations in Rumania of Saxons [Germans] and others?... I cannot see the Russians being wrong in making 100 or 150 thousand people work their passage. I cannot myself consider that it is wrong of the Russians to take Rumanians of any origin they like to work in the Russian coal fields."

Here, Churchill approves of slave labour. Consequently, about 500,000 German civilians were enslaved to work in Soviet Russia by the Yalta agreement, where Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that such slave labour constituted a "proper form of reparations."

There was also the great atrocity of the expulsion of 15,000,000 Germans from their homelands in East and West Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, and the Sudetenland under Churchill's plan to move Poland Westward.

He also accepted the Czech leader Eduard Benes's plan for the ethnic cleansing of Bohemia and Moravia. Around 2,000,000 German civilians died in this process.

A significant factor in Churchill's war crimes was his racism.

He was an English chauvinist and a British racist, and he loathed the so-called "dirty whites," the French, Italians, other Latins, and Slavs like the Serbs, Poles, Russians, etc.

Churchill professed Darwinism and particularly disliked the Catholic Church and "Christian Missions". He became, in his own words, "a materialist to the tips of my fingers," and he fervently upheld the worldview that human life is a struggle for existence, with the outcome being the "survival of the fittest".

An example of Churchill's racial views are his comments in 1937: "I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race, has come in and taken their place."

In his single-minded obsession with preventing a hegemonic power from arising on the European continent (i.e. Germany) that would threaten the British Empire, Churchill failed to see that his alliance with Stalin produced precisely that.

As the heat of war cooled, Churchill began to perceive the magnitude of his mistake. He is alleged to have blurted out after finally realising the full scale of his blunder: "We have slaughtered the wrong pig!"

“Hegemonic” refers to strong entities that can control others or exert dominance - i.e. Germany.

For decades, Churchill worked to destroy Germany. Yet only after Stalin had devoured half of Europe did Churchill realise that destroying Germany's ability to counter Russia left Europe open to invasion and conquest by a resurgent Russia.

By 1946, Churchill was complaining about the "Iron Curtain of Tyranny" that had descended the irony was that he had helped to weave the fabric.

With the balance of power in Europe destabilised, Churchill believed the only solution was to bind America to Europe permanently. As a result, he returned to his tried-and-tested strategy of entangling the U.S. in another war. This time, it was a "Cold War," without end, which entrenched the military-industrial complex and forever changed America.

With his lack of principles, Churchill was involved in nearly every "disaster" of the 20th century:

From the preceding, revisionists suggest that Churchill should be regarded as one of the "destroyers" of the values and greatness of Western Civilisation and should be called to account for war crimes posthumously...

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