William Tyler
Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill
Summary
William Tyler discusses the complex relationships and dynamics between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin during World War II and the post-war period. He emphasizes the differences in their approaches and the eventual impact on the Cold War. The discussion also touches on the contemporary relevance of these historical alliances and their implications for the present and future.
William Tyler
William Tyler has spent his entire professional life in adult education, beginning at Kingsgate College in 1969. He has lectured widely for many public bodies, including the University of Cambridge and the WEA, in addition to speaking to many clubs and societies. In 2009, William was awarded the MBE for services to adult education, and he has previously been a scholar in residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre.
After the First World War, British prime minister Lloyd George who promised a country fit for heroes to live in. And that never happened. And we went into the horrors of the 1920s and 30s, which wasn’t Lloyd George’s fault, but in 1945, people didn’t want to go back. They also remembered the 1930s when the Conservative Party were in power and did very little for the working class and the, in the army in particular, and the RAF at the end of the war, when the lads had nothing to do, they received lectures. And they told the men who came to the lectures basically to vote Labour if you wanted to make a land fit for heroes a reality. And so there was a lot of people who wanted a change. They loved Churchill as a wartime leader, but they couldn’t risk Conservative government. And so they voted Labour.
Stalin was as anti-German as Hitler was anti-Stalin. It’s the old divide between Slav and Teuton and Russia had suffered under the Napoleonic invasion and they were determined not to give in this time either. And Stalin would have sacrificed the last living Russian to defeat Germany. He would’ve starved the last of his people to defeat Germany. And so Stalin was not in a position of either Roosevelt or Churchill was in. He had Germans, enormous size army on Russian soil. And that to Stalin was a horror.
America had been anti-empire since Woodrow Wilson had spoken at Versailles and talked about the right of self-determination, which got up the nose of Lloyd George and Clemenceau because they saw it as an attack on the French and British empires, which indeed it was. The Americans had this view about British Empire with a lacuna in their own eye or in their own minds about American Empire. And I guess all the Americans know the rather unfortunate comment made about American occupation of the Philippines. There is a problem over America post-war and British payment back.