In the past weeks I have discussed Winston Churchill's legacy with class 8. To what extent should we remember him as a great leader and man?

Winston Churchill is widely recognized and praised for his role as British prime minister during WW2. He guided Britain through its 'darkest hours' to victory by delivering inspirational speeches, making tough decisions and forging alliances with the US and USSR.

His WW2 leadership was outstanding, but throughout his career he also made big mistakes. Churchill was responsible for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during WW1 as lord of the admiralty and his actions as chancellor of the exchequer after WW1 partly crashed the British economy.

Apart from these career highs and lows, there are also a couple of controversial issues that are open for debate. This is where the fun starts and things get interesting.

When he was a member of parliament and minister before World War 1, Churchill opposed giving the right to vote to women. With our modern values, this would make Churchill a sexist, but should we judge history with our modern values?

Another example is Churchill's opinion about Gandhi and the Indian independence movement. Churchill viewed Gandhi as a nuisance, a criminal and believed that India should remain a part of the British Empire. Again, with our modern values, this would be a very colonial and nationalistic opinion, but should we judge history with today's values? Churchill's stances on women's suffrage and Indian independence were certainly not unique for the time.

Time, space, historical memory and our values all impact the way we look at historical people and judge them. For example, Hitler and Genghis Khan were both responsible for the death of millions of people, but because Hitler's actions are much more recent, he is way more controversial and judged differently. Another example is that Thomas Jefferson is controversial because he had slaves, but Julius Caesar is not.

In my opinion, we should always judge historical individuals within their own time. In this regard, Churchill was a great wartime leader who also had career lows and strong opinions that should be viewed in its context. 

Originally posted on Instagram on March 4, 2023