Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leader?

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ljadw
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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#61

Post by ljadw » 09 Oct 2014, 22:15

Attrition wrote:
ljadw wrote:
Attrition wrote:
ljadw wrote:Britain,France,US :military dictatorships :lol: :P
How many Indians or Nigerians or Belizeans or Chinese people could vote in Westminster elections? How many local Indians and Africans could vote in US elections? How many Senegalese or Moroccans or Algerians and Vietnamese could vote in National Assembly elections? There were forms of elected legislatures in the metropoles but the majority of the people under the authority of these legislatures, were ruled by appointed colonial administrators and armies. That's dictatorship that is.
That's no dictatorship :P
'Tis. It can't be anything else. There has never been a democratically-elected government in Britain.
You have a strange idea of democracy . :P

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#62

Post by AJFFM » 09 Oct 2014, 22:19

wm wrote: Before the WW2 the principle of self-determination wasn't accepted as a valid principle of international law (but it was a good and useful propaganda tool). If the Germans in Czechoslovakia or Poland didn't like their new Fatherlands the only option available was Halt Die Fresse.
Actually self determination did exist (Wilson's fourteen points remember) and was the basis for the post WWI dismantling of the old empires. It also applied before WWI to the the Ottoman empire (and the Spaniards but that is a different story) and only by an accident of fate did the majority Muslim Albania got became independent rather than becoming part of the Balkan states in 1912.

As for immigration, well the same thing can be said about the Polish population in Ukraine and Belorussia at the time.
wm wrote: The Sudetenland was gained by the right of conquest, although in that case the losing side was defeated without fight.
"Right of conquest" ended first with Westphalia (establishment of nation states as international legal entities with fixed borders) and Vienna and finally Versailles. Applying it to the inter-war period or even after it is a very dangerous thing.
wm wrote: The problem of USSR was it had a good defense agreement with France and Czechoslovakia, but squandered the good will of its Allies (and entire Europe) by its constant subversive meddling in internal affairs of other countries through the Comintern, Popular Fronts, and the good old NKVD.
This is why at the end of the thirties the Soviet Russia was reduced to the status of an international pariah. Not because the USSR was red (politicians, and the international capitalist plutocracy was color blind as long as business was good) but because it was crazy.

Stalin-Hitler relations wasn't bad because of ideology, but because of the Soviet-France-Czechoslovakia defensive agreements. Only after he had succeeded in weakening them ( the irresponsible behavior of the Soviets helped a lot in that ), it was time for love.
Stalin, like Hitler treated Agreements like toilet paper, to be used once and then discarded. Hitler pulled through because he never went against a country alone, he always had allies. Let us not forget that every single country surrounding Czechoslovakia including Poland (and the Slovak political leadership) ganged up to end Czechoslovakia. That was an additional pressure on France not to intervene.


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Attrition
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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#63

Post by Attrition » 10 Oct 2014, 09:41

~~~~~Stalin, like Hitler treated Agreements like toilet paper, to be used once and then discarded. Hitler pulled through because he never went against a country alone, he always had allies. Let us not forget that every single country surrounding Czechoslovakia including Poland (and the Slovak political leadership) ganged up to end Czechoslovakia. That was an additional pressure on France not to intervene.~~~~~

They all did, it's naive to treat the liberals as fundamentally different, considering their atrocities. Letting Hitler in kept Stalin out, that's all.

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#64

Post by Attrition » 10 Oct 2014, 09:46

ljadw wrote:
Attrition wrote:
ljadw wrote:
Attrition wrote:
ljadw wrote:Britain,France,US :military dictatorships :lol: :P
How many Indians or Nigerians or Belizeans or Chinese people could vote in Westminster elections? How many local Indians and Africans could vote in US elections? How many Senegalese or Moroccans or Algerians and Vietnamese could vote in National Assembly elections? There were forms of elected legislatures in the metropoles but the majority of the people under the authority of these legislatures, were ruled by appointed colonial administrators and armies. That's dictatorship that is.
That's no dictatorship :P
'Tis. It can't be anything else. There has never been a democratically-elected government in Britain.
You have a strange idea of democracy . :P
What's strange about defining democracy as majority rule? There has never been a government in Britain which has had 50% + 1 of the votes of the electorate who voted never mind the electorate. In 2005 the boycotters "won" the election; no need for tanks on the lawn, with an electoral system which does the same thing as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acerbo_Law .

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#65

Post by Attrition » 10 Oct 2014, 09:51

AJFFM wrote:
Attrition wrote: Hasn't everyone overlooked the USSR? Dealing with an aggressive German state which was trying to dismantle the restrictions of the T of V, was only part of the policy of maintaining the status quo, which the British boss class had defended with military force 1914-1918. A slightly stronger Germany was compatible with maintaining Versailles as a counter to the industrialised USSR of the mid-1930s. Selling out a few central European liberals, socialists, communists, Jews and Czechoslovaks, was a bagatelle compared to what was at stake and a typically ruthless liberal manoeuvre.
So to maintain Versailles we help the Nazis end it?

We? The point I'm trying to make is that there's no fundamental difference between liberals, Stalinists and fascists. It's a herring of many hues to study the politics and diplomacy of the 1930s with ideological blinkers on. If you ignore the labels and concentrate on their behaviour, you can't tell one statist brute from another.

????
Attrition wrote: That the Germans couldn't be contained within Europe, while ruled by the regime which had contained the workers and their political institutions inside Germany, was a paradox that no-one could resolve peacefully without capitulation. This was pretty clear by 1934 but not necessarily accepted, so Chamberlain and that weeks' French Prime Minister had to tread carefully along the path to war, same as Roosevelt. They had to create the means for another great European war, while maintaining the pretence of parliamentary government and the fiction of democracy, so exploring all options short of war was inescapable.
The abrogation treaty of Versailles was enough for war to be declared and France of all countries had every incentive to declare war in 35-36 (Reparations in time of a massive economic crisis in France) and no country would shed tears on Hitler nor would a large percentage of the German population.

While the nazis were doing liberalism's dirty work, liberals tolerated them.
Attrition wrote: Chamberlain and his faction benefitted from the repression of British workers since the great Crash and could get rearmament on the cheap but it reduced unemployment and increased inflationalry pressures, just after the state had taken so many risks to subvert workers' bargaining power.
Socialists nonsense.

I'm not a socialist

Attrition wrote: Suez Crime of 1956
If you consider Egyptians retaining sovereignty on their own country a crime than socialists can be colonialists just like the good old USSR.
The invasions were the crime, same as in Hungary that year. How could democratic liberals commit the same crime as Stalin and not be considered to be the same?

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#66

Post by AJFFM » 10 Oct 2014, 10:24

I thought you supported the British stance so my bad :oops: .

In any case there was no liberal government in power before the 60s, indeed one might even argue that "liberals" are a figment of conservative imagination lumping humanists (who came from all backgrounds) who opposed on principle the status quo into one group. Calling socialist dominated governments that committed some of the most horrendous atrocities post WWII in the name of keeping the colonies (which were started by 19th century liberals) liberals is an affront to the word. Indeed in many cases it was conservative governments that actually ended those colonial endeavours (De Gaulle in Algeria and the rest of Africa, Thatcher in Zimbabwe etc.) and not out of compassion mind you.

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#67

Post by ljadw » 10 Oct 2014, 10:50

Attrition wrote:~~~~~Stalin, like Hitler treated Agreements like toilet paper, to be used once and then discarded. Hitler pulled through because he never went against a country alone, he always had allies. Let us not forget that every single country surrounding Czechoslovakia including Poland (and the Slovak political leadership) ganged up to end Czechoslovakia. That was an additional pressure on France not to intervene.~~~~~

They all did, it's naive to treat the liberals as fundamentally different, considering their atrocities. Letting Hitler in kept Stalin out, that's all.
The liberals did not let Hitler in and did not keep Stalin out .

ljadw
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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#68

Post by ljadw » 10 Oct 2014, 10:56

Attrition wrote:
'Tis. It can't be anything else. There has never been a democratically-elected government in Britain.
You have a strange idea of democracy . :P[/quote]

What's strange about defining democracy as majority rule? There has never been a government in Britain which has had 50% + 1 of the votes of the electorate who voted never mind the electorate. In 2005 the boycotters "won" the election; no need for tanks on the lawn, with an electoral system which does the same thing as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acerbo_Law .[/quote]

There is nothing anti-democratic in the British electoral system ,besides most countries have something as the British electoral system .

If there was no government in Britain who had 50 % +1 of the votes,the responsability is that of the voters : they only have to give a party 50 % +1 of the votes .The sustem has been created by the voters .

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#69

Post by durb » 10 Oct 2014, 13:09

One should not claim that Chamberlain was a liberal. He was a conservative - this is one of the reasons why he found it easy to sympathize Franco in Spain because the latter also represented conservativism (although in very militant and authoritarian way). Perhaps the problem of conservatives was that they found also Mussolini and Hitler as useful deterrents of bolshevism and thus defenders of conservative values against communism and other extreme leftism.

The problem was that many conservatives did not understand the "dynamic" nature of national socialism/fascism and how big threat extreme right wing movements actually represented to the very society and world which British conservatives wanted to defend. British conservatives were not advocating for totalitarian one-party British state which was dependent on Führer, Duce, Caudillo etc. That kind of state meant the end of civil liberties and legalism, which British conservatives wanted to preserve in Britain. British conservatives could back Franco at Spain but they did not support something similar in their own country.

Some conservatives saw how dangerous the extreme nationalism of national socialism/fascism in Germany and Italy was if it was not contained in time by foreign policy measures, but their voices were not not heard until it was too late. Appeasement was shown to be a wrong policy because Hitler did interpret it as a sign of weakness and he became all too arrogant. Thus the appeasement did lead ultimately to a war which devastated most of Europe. Going even further the appeasement policy toward Hitler did help to cause a war, which allowed totalitarian Soviet communism to gain more ground in Europe (Baltic countries, East Germany etc.).

I think that Chamberlain should be studied in the framework of British Conservative party. In every way he was a product of British conservativism of early 20th Century and should be compared with other conservative politicians like Stanley Baldwin.

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#70

Post by Gooner1 » 10 Oct 2014, 14:51

Attrition wrote:[
What's strange about defining democracy as majority rule? There has never been a government in Britain which has had 50% + 1 of the votes of the electorate who voted never mind the electorate.

Uh, that is nonsense. In the 1931 UK general election National Government parties won a whopping 67.2% of the votes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kin ... tion,_1931

slipping to a 53.3% of the votes in the 1935 general election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kin ... tion,_1935

:P

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#71

Post by wm » 10 Oct 2014, 20:05

AJFFM wrote:Actually self determination did exist (Wilson's fourteen points remember) and was the basis for the post WWI dismantling of the old empires.
Dismantling and re-drawing of borders is not self determination. Accepting the principle of self-determination would end the colonialism immediately for example. So it wasn't accepted then, and it's not accepted now.
AJFFM wrote: "Right of conquest" ended first with Westphalia (establishment of nation states as international legal entities with fixed borders) and Vienna and finally Versailles. Applying it to the inter-war period or even after it is a very dangerous thing.
So what term do you propose for the annexation of Korea by Japan (1910), Soviet invasion of Xinjiang (1934), Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1936), the Anschluss, Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, Baltic States, Eastern parts of Poland?
In the end the international community accepted and acknowledged the status quo of those conquests.
AJFFM wrote:Stalin, like Hitler treated Agreements like toilet paper, to be used once and then discarded. Hitler pulled through because he never went against a country alone, he always had allies. Let us not forget that every single country surrounding Czechoslovakia including Poland (and the Slovak political leadership) ganged up to end Czechoslovakia. That was an additional pressure on France not to intervene.
Pressure? By who?
Poland and Hungary had nothing to do with that. It ceased to exist because Slovakia seceded from Czechoslovakia, and simultaneously the Czech State accepted the German occupation.

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#72

Post by AJFFM » 10 Oct 2014, 20:26

wm wrote:
AJFFM wrote:Actually self determination did exist (Wilson's fourteen points remember) and was the basis for the post WWI dismantling of the old empires.
Dismantling and re-drawing of borders is not self determination. Accepting the principle of self-determination would end the colonialism immediately for example. So it wasn't accepted then, and it's not accepted now.
You seem to forget the numerous plebiscites mandated after Versailles which alleviated some of the Versailles effects when all German provinces that had the chance voted overwhelmingly to join the new German republic.

Plebiscites were also popular in the second half of the 19th century during the long term dismantling of the Ottoman empire (usually excluding the muslim population from the plebiscite).

I think that qualifies as self determination.
wm wrote:
AJFFM wrote: "Right of conquest" ended first with Westphalia (establishment of nation states as international legal entities with fixed borders) and Vienna and finally Versailles. Applying it to the inter-war period or even after it is a very dangerous thing.
So what term do you propose for the annexation of Korea by Japan (1910), Soviet invasion of Xinjiang (1934), Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1936), the Anschluss, Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, Baltic States, Eastern parts of Poland?
In the end the international community accepted and acknowledged the status quo of those conquests.
All these "states" have one thing in common, they are not white christian nations. Back then you only have rights if you were a white christian nation (or person). If not then you can be colonised which is the description of the events above.

The USSR is a special case (somewhat like the Ottoman empire when it was strong) since you have to go to war to force it to abide by international law. The recent events in Ukraine prove the helplessness of the world against big countries when they go rogue.
wm wrote:
AJFFM wrote:Stalin, like Hitler treated Agreements like toilet paper, to be used once and then discarded. Hitler pulled through because he never went against a country alone, he always had allies. Let us not forget that every single country surrounding Czechoslovakia including Poland (and the Slovak political leadership) ganged up to end Czechoslovakia. That was an additional pressure on France not to intervene.
Pressure? By who?
Poland and Hungary had nothing to do with that. It ceased to exist because Slovakia seceded from Czechoslovakia, and simultaneously the Czech State accepted the German occupation.
Poland took Teschen and Hungary took parts of Moravia. That is the definition of ganging up.

France was in a July crisis type pickle. Poland was an official ally while Czechoslovakia wasn't (I think), either join the war against Czechoslovakia or declare war on itself in case France actually had a deal with the Czechs.

In any case it would have not mattered. France was without a government during the Czech invasion and thus could do nothing without major constitutional headaches of its own.

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#73

Post by Attrition » 10 Oct 2014, 20:46

Gooner1 wrote:
Attrition wrote:[
What's strange about defining democracy as majority rule? There has never been a government in Britain which has had 50% + 1 of the votes of the electorate who voted never mind the electorate.

Uh, that is nonsense. In the 1931 UK general election National Government parties won a whopping 67.2% of the votes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kin ... tion,_1931

slipping to a 53.3% of the votes in the 1935 general election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kin ... tion,_1935

:P
"It was the last election where one party (the Conservatives) received an absolute majority of the votes cast" i.e. not a majority of the electorate (76.4% turnout) and the electoral law of the time allowed plural voting and university constituencies, which isn't democratic. None of the other 400 million people in the empire got a vote.

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#74

Post by wm » 10 Oct 2014, 22:55

AJFFM wrote: You seem to forget the numerous plebiscites mandated after Versailles which alleviated some of the Versailles effects when all German provinces that had the chance voted overwhelmingly to join the new German republic.

Plebiscites were also popular in the second half of the 19th century during the long term dismantling of the Ottoman empire (usually excluding the muslim population from the plebiscite).

I think that qualifies as self determination.
Well, I would say a principle is valid if universally accepted, those were just privileges granted by the victors of the Great War (or earlier wars). And not everyone got a plebiscite, especially those who lost war (for example Turks, Hungarians, Ukrainians).
AJFFM wrote:Poland took Teschen and Hungary took parts of Moravia. That is the definition of ganging up.
That happened after the fate of the Sudetenland was sealed (and the Munich Agreement certain). Poland didn't cooperate with Germany, Germany didn't need any little helpers to achieve its goals, and without the Polish move that area would be at least partially annexed by Germany. The Poles knew that as a fact.
AJFFM wrote:France was in a July crisis type pickle. Poland was an official ally while Czechoslovakia wasn't (I think), either join the war against Czechoslovakia or declare war on itself in case France actually had a deal with the Czechs.
The Franco-Polish alliance was a defensive alliance, it couldn't be activated in defense of a third party.
AJFFM wrote:In any case it would have not mattered. France was without a government during the Czech invasion and thus could do nothing without major constitutional headaches of its own.
The Czechoslovak crisis was a rather long one, it was a half a year between the first Hitler's demands and the Munich Agreement.
Anyway as far as I know, France promised support but not war (the Poles were promised only support, too).

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Re: Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leade

#75

Post by ljadw » 11 Oct 2014, 07:13

:P[/quote]

"It was the last election where one party (the Conservatives) received an absolute majority of the votes cast" i.e. not a majority of the electorate (76.4% turnout) and the electoral law of the time allowed plural voting and university constituencies, which isn't democratic. .[/quote]

Not correct: the Commons represent the British people,if the Commons accepted plural voting and university constituencies,this mean that the British people accepted these things,thus they were democratic .

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