My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyoccupation of France. This meant in turn the intervention, as soon as Britishgovernment or war development could secure it, of the outside powers of Americaand Russia. This in turn meant the ultimate division and occupation of Europe bythese external powers. The sequence of fatality began with the decision to oppose theeastern expansion of Germany by powers which had neglected their own defences tothe point where they were not in a proper position even to defend themselves. It isalways an error when confronted by a strong opponent just to enquire where he wantsto move and then to run around the world to stop him doing it. If this dangerousfantasy is accompanied by the belief that you can do it without arms adequate todefend even yourself, it approaches certifiable insanity. Yet in a series of passionatespasms rather than in considered policy, British government approached this positionin the years before 1939 and rendered their hysteria contagious to others.The extraordinary series of internal political intrigues and external manoeuvres inforeign affairs by which British government shuffled and stumbled to this untenableposition, under every emotional impulse except the clear interest of Britain, have nowbeen described with clarity by authoritative history. I had no part in these things, for Ihad long ago come to the clear decision that we must be ready to defend the West butnot to intervene in the East. I am convinced now, as I was then, that this policy couldhave maintained the peace of Britain and of France, and have secured inviolate thewhole territory of the British Empire. Britain could have been armed to resist aGermany weakened by the long eastern struggle, if it had been mad enoughsubsequently to attack in the west, and we should have had ample time to warn alliesactual and potential, like France and America, and to persuade them to enter intomutual arrangements of well-prepared defence. At the worst, this policy affirmed theclear principle of plain sense, that it is better to fight tomorrow with arms than to fighttoday without arms.The policy which made inevitable the entry into Europe of external powers not onlydivided Europe but liquidated the British Empire. Churchill certainly did not desirethe break-up of the Empire, but Roosevelt undoubtedly did. We might reasonablyhave anticipated that our western ally would join us in resistance to communism, buthe was more interested in some vague pursuit of hazy liberal principles to see the endof our Empire; and Roosevelt towards the end of the war was in a stronger position toimplement his desires than was Churchill. This phenomenon might have been asurprise to a reasonable man who did not know Roosevelt well, or was unfamiliarwith the confusion of the American liberal mind, but that anyone should have beenunder any delusion concerning Stalin is truly astonishing. Was it assumed that menwould abandon every principle to which they had held fast on the long, hard marchfrom Siberia to the Kremlin just because they had accepted some help from Britain toavoid defeat in the Second World War and had enjoyed a few banquets in thecompany of Winston Churchill?Yet these illusions were described in Churchill's own books and speeches; also thebitter aftermath: 'It is no exaggeration or compliment of a florid kind when I say weregard Marshal Stalin's life as most precious to the lives and hopes of us all. . . . Wefeel that we have a friend whom we can trust.. ..' 'So I filled a small size claret glass ofbrandy for him and another for myself. I looked at him significantly. We both drainedour glasses at a stroke and gazed approvingly at one another.' The morning-after cameat Sir Winston's speech at the Blackpool Conference of October 1954: 'Stalin was for328 of 424