A still better solution would be to require the people who wanted the construction to pay for it, rather than offloading the cost of your project on to whoever happens to live nearby.
Britain's largest single employer is the NHS, we're not all health workers. With the money they save on license fees though they could pay us all a pension.
>I'm not so sure... They may have labelled him as >one, but since I checked last,
Since you claim to have done research, you can be the subject of my rant.:^)
>the main tenet of >communism is the *violent* overthrow of >capitalist systems, even democratic ones.
The main tenet? You're referring (without realising it) to Bolshevism, the party that would eventually come to power in Russia in October 1917 (Julian calender, for the rest of us it was November).
Lenin, as the primary Marxist theorist of the day, outlined the means by which the revolutionary party should take power and transfer the system of capitalism to one of socialism. He advocated the party itself as the vanguard of the proletariat... where they led, the people would follow. [1]
On the other hand you have the Mensheviks, who effectively split from the Bolsheviks after the first (failed) revolution of 1905.[2] They advocated the same political system as the Bolsheviks but the means by which they intended to get there was radically different. The Mensheviks wanted to create a 'liberal bourgoisie' who, in effect, would be educated to what the party saw as the errors of capitalism and who would then obviously repent en masse.
The Mensheviks effectively had power through Alexander Kerchencky from Feb 1917 (the second revolution - the one that got rid of the Czar) to Oct 1917 (Bolsheviks). The Bolsheviks saw any collaboration with anyone who was not working class as a betrayal, hence the third revolution.
Both agreed that education of a body of people was a main tenet of socialism but they differed on who that body of people was. The Bolsheviks saw the education of the masses as the key to the imposition of the socialism, the Mensheviks wanted to educate the owners of the means of production.
Where this all falls down a little is that Russia was not then, and has not been since, a capitalist nation. Capitalism, as described by Marx, is a system where a commodity[3] is manufactured from raw materials of known value. The labour of the worker adds more value by the very process of turning the materials into the commodity. The capitalist owner of the means of production (the bourgoisie) then sells on the commodity at the new market value whilst the worker, who added the value in the first place, is kept on subsistence wages.
The only countries where you could reasonably say this situation existed in 1917 were America, Britain and Germany. Russia was still effectively a country where most of the population was enslaved by serfdom and property owners rather than by the bourgoisie.
This was recognised by the Bolshevik leaders and what they were *really* after was world revolution. After all, if you want to seize the means of production from the bourgoisie and create Utopia then the *real* pre-requisites are two-fold:
1) You need a means of production 2) You probably ought to have a bourgoisie too.
To support the new Soviet state a capitalist society with a *huge* productive capacity had to fall next. The favourite was Britain, for whom Marx formulated his theories in the first place, because of it's Imperialism[4] but without a strong Bolshevik-equivalent party leadership in Britain revolution simply was not going to happen here.
This is where it *really* goes down hill. Lenin died in 1923 and there was much hassle over who would be the new party boss. I his (fairly) famous Last Testament, Lenin wanted Stalin removed as General Secretary of the party. He saw him as an able organiser but one without much in the way of foresight. He didn't see him as evil as such, and at this stage in his career I'm not sure that I do even with all the hindsight we have today. I suspect that if Stalin knew what road he was going down when he started concentrating power in his own hands then he would never have started down it. As he had accumulated so much power, and done it in his party role rather than his state role (which would have required the signatures of the people he was undermining), he was able to surpress Lenin's Last Testament.
Stalin, who until this point had never proposed a political theory, went on to propose the ideals of Socialism in One Country. His was the more practical approach for it advocated the establishment of a true socialist state in one nation from which the workers of the world could draw inspiration.
Trotsky argued that such a system was madness. It would lead to a massive bureaucratisation as the organisational structure was put in place to create the necessary industry for progress (yes, communists do believe in progress) and was ultimately doomed to failure when there wasn't the productive or agricultural capacity to support a nation of that size. What was needed, he said, was permanant revolution. PR is basically the opposite of Socialism in One Country.
These were questions raised in the mid-1920s and it's still basically where communism is today. The communist countries in the world today are essentially Stalinist in that they see socialism in one country as a viable political theory for similarly agricultural societies. The one irony is China where the state took the role of the bourgoisie, threw itself towards capitalism and now has a *huge* working class exploited for the wealth of others. The difference between now and then of course is merely philosophical - once the people were exploited in the name of the people and for the benefit of the party apparatchiks. Nowadays they're exploited in the name of capitalism for the benefit of party apparatchiks and an ever growing bourgoisie.
Most modern communists in western nations are Trotskyists along the lines of the International Trotskyist Tendancy[5]. The irony with them is that they have a bible. In 1938, two years before a Stalinist agent put a pick-axe through his head, Trotsky wrote The Transitional Program. This is his theory on how world revolution might be attained and how the movement might beat the Stalinist burocrats by isolating them and making them irrelevant if only a genuinely capitalist country would fall... The irony comes because the opening line of the document is:
"The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat."
Still is mate, there are probably over 500 Trotskyist organisations claiming to be part of the Internationalist Tendency in the world today.
>Somehow I remember Einstein being somewhat of an >anti-war type of individual. Maybe it's fairer >to say that he was a socialist, or had socialist >tendencies, without any of the violence inherent >in either.
Go read some books that weren't written by Reaganists or Thatcherites. Frankly, I find this kind of blind adherence to and aggressive advocacy of your own political policies just a little scary. You're obviously not a communist, and that's fine - I'm not either, but you use as your main argument against it the practical experiences of countries for which communism could never work. Further, you've redefined communism (without expanding on the theoretical processes you went through, or did you just make it up because you own Internet stocks?) as picking up a gun and charging at something, preferably a democratically elected political institution.
If, say, you wanted to read any of the documents I've mentioned then you'll find both them and more here:
http://www.marxists.org/
I don't say that Marxism is right, I just happen to have an historical interest, but I do say that capitalism is wrong. Any society which can alienate a broad swathe of it's own people so that a small number can pursue untold wealth according to the situation of the day has a damned cheek calling itself a society.
My own view on the Soviet Union is that a number of high minded, intelligent people who devoted their lives to liberating people from the autocracy of the Czars and the exploitation of the property and mill owners managed to lose their way and were beaten by the power hungry and corrupt at the high and middle layes of the regime. With Trotsky and Lenin gone, they were free to establish their own ruling class.
The world has changed though. We don't really have a proletariat in either of Britain or the US anymore, we've passed through that stage of capitalism into the kind of liberal bourgeoisie that the Mensheviks wanted. The means of revolution required have therefore changed but the problems involved in preventing the kind of revolutionary decay away from democratic dictatorship into personalised dictatorship and a cult of personality haven't - and I don't know of any theories for stopping that from happening that I would call workable.
>Somehow I don't think he was into storming >washington with rifles, and setting up a >dictatorship of the proletariat.
You seem to have confused revolution and communism when any intelligent person might realise that one is used to lead to the other.
>Those of you who claim you are communists... >Either you don't know what you are claiming, or >you are very frightening individuals who should >be locked up.
Frightened of what? Please tell us, I'd love to know if no one else does.
Footnotes: ==========
[1] By and large they did too. After the revolution it was very much an uncertainty what would happen next. The existing Russian army, already mobilised for WWI, turned on anyone claiming to be a socialist. In addition, there were 21 foreign interventionist armies involved in the Russian civil war who, again, had been mobilised for WWI.
I for one find it hard to believe that the Bolsheviks could seize power in the middle of a world war, negotiate a peace treaty with the Germans (who could at this point have marched from the Rhine to Vladivostok with not a great deal to stop them), put in place the mechanisms which it deemed necessary to run the country - a task they got down to without delay - and fight a war against an army that by default was already deep inside it's own territory without the revolution being a genuinely populist movement.
[2] Actually, the Bolsheviks split from the Mensheviks. They had been seperate parties for some time but they all fell under the umbrella term of Social Democratic parties.
[3] Marx defines a commodity as a thing of perceived value.
[4] The highest stage of capitalism according to Marxist doctrine.
[5] After Trotsky's exile (all opponents of Stalin, once he had secured power, were either killed or exiled - Trotsky was just too famous and powerful to 'disappear') he set about the task of creating The Fourth International. This was designed to ferment revolution in genuinely capitalist countries.
I work in the Computer Centre of a British university, and we hear phrases like 'free speech' banded about all the time by students whenever we feel we have to lay down the law about what is and is not acceptable use. We're quite strict about somethings now; real audio, chat software of all types and network games are all banned.
These things have always been banned on campus but in the past we have been lenient. The situation changed recently however when universities were required to pay for the amount of data downloaded rather than pay a flat fee. This has pushed costs up to a more realistic level. British universities aren't rich - I don't know what the situation is in the US but we work to tight budgets. We can't simply can't afford it *and* maintain any kind of level of serviuce to the academic community at the same time.
With the introduction of tuition fees - most higher education was funded by taxation until recently - we have to ask what we should allow. There is a case for academic use of chat software I suppose, but it's way open to abuse as well. We're ready to talk to people about possible solutions but anyone disciplined for breaking the rules (a verbal slap on the wrist - nothing serious) has yet to offer any
At the end of the day, fee paying students should not be subsidising the social lives of the minority.
The ISP situation in the UK at the moment is that most of them are free. No setup charges, no cost by time spent on-line. They have a simple flat rate of nothing at all. We don't feel particularly totalitarian because of this. If you want to chat with your mates, download music or whatever then get an ISP account. It's the least selfish option on the part of the user.
I work in the Computer Centre of a British university, and we hear phrases like 'free speech' banded about all the time by students whenever we feel we have to lay down the law about what is and is not acceptable use. We're quite strict about somethings now; real audio, chat software of all types and network games are all banned. These things have always been banned on campus but in the past we have been lenient. The situation changed recently however when universities were required to pay for the amount of data downloaded rather than pay a flat fee. This has pushed costs up to a more realistic level. British universities aren't rich - I don't know what the situation is in the US but we work to tight budgets. We can't simply can't afford it *and* maintain any kind of level of serviuce to the academic community at the same time. With the introduction of tuition fees - most higher education was funded by taxation until recently - we have to ask what we should allow. There is a case for academic use of chat software I suppose, but it's way open to abuse as well. We're ready to talk to people about possible solutions but anyone disciplined for breaking the rules (a verbal slap on the wrist - nothing serious) has yet to offer any At the end of the day, fee paying students should not be subsidising the social lives of the minority. The ISP situation in the UK at the moment is that most of them are free. No setup charges, no cost by time spent on-line. They have a simple flat rate of nothing at all. We don't feel particularly totalitarian because of this. If you want to chat with your mates, download music or whatever then get an ISP account. It's the least selfish option on the part of the user.
Minor point, but the crusades were supposedly to save Byzantium, the capital of which was Constantinople - modern day Istanbul in Turkey. Algebra and the like came to us via the Byzantines.
The trouble with Churchill is he did so many bad things as well as good. The invasion of Norway in 1940 was his idea - a good one too, but the Germans got there first, the French and British forces there were obliged to get out of Dodge and the then Prime Minister was forced to resign. Guess who got the job afterwards?:^)
The Dardanelles operations in WWI were initially also his idea. Ask any New Zealander or Australian what they think of Gallipoli.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, he was also George's Minister of War in 1922 and as a consequence he played a significant role in the partition of Ireland with all the consequences *that* has had for both Ireland, Britain and those affected bits of Ulster.
As for the welfare state, the form it takes today, or rather took in the not so distant past, was largely a result of the government that immediately followed that of Churchill. Rememeber that Churchill was voted out office before the end of the war (against Japan, Germany had surrendered by then) to bring about just such a system.
I tend to agree with this by and large, and generally feel half ashamed for feeling it too. I've never really considered someone with an incureable, debilitating disease to be brave for example - if you don't have any choice you just have to get on with it. It's an oversimplistic view though. and from personal experience of a close friend with such a disease (Crohn's Disease), I can say some handle misfortune better than others. It's a terrible affliction to have, but boy was she bitter and twisted. Personality must certainly play as large a part as a certain combination of events in making a man 'great'. The British Prime Minister at the start of WWII, Neville Chaimberlain, probably had more opportunities to be a great man in the context of today than anyone before or since. Any number of events prior to the invasion of Poland would have justified him leading Britain to war against Germany in tandem with France when the Nazis were much, much weaker - half the tanks used by the Whermacht against France were of Czech origin for example. In the event, war came when it did and people acted the way they did. Following a disastrous campaign (Norway), Chaimberlain resigned and a successor needed to be found. In the event, Churchill got the job but only by virtue of being a compromise candidate. A good job too as things turned out. The favourite, Lord Halifax, argued in favour of appeasement along with much of the rest of the cabinet after the fall of France a few weeks later. Churchill overruled them and we are where we are now. Events count for a lot. Without these events, we'd think of Churchill as one of the last bastions of British colonialism and a particularly distasteful one at that - any potted history of Ireland, the Boer War, India or World War One will give you a clue about what kind of idiot Churchill could be when the mood took him. But at the end of the day, it was a combination of Churchill's personality and the events which surrounded him that makes Europe, if not the world, what it is today.
Slashdot Mirror
A still better solution would be to require the people who wanted the construction to pay for it, rather than offloading the cost of your project on to whoever happens to live nearby.
Britain's largest single employer is the NHS, we're not all health workers. With the money they save on license fees though they could pay us all a pension.
;)
Write to your MP kids.
>I'm not so sure... They may have labelled him as
:^)
... where they led, the people would follow. [1]
>one, but since I checked last,
Since you claim to have done research, you can be the subject of my rant.
>the main tenet of
>communism is the *violent* overthrow of
>capitalist systems, even democratic ones.
The main tenet? You're referring (without realising it) to Bolshevism, the party that would eventually come to power in Russia in October 1917 (Julian calender, for the rest of us it was November).
Lenin, as the primary Marxist theorist of the day, outlined the means by which the revolutionary party should take power and transfer the system of capitalism to one of socialism. He advocated the party itself as the vanguard of the proletariat
On the other hand you have the Mensheviks, who effectively split from the Bolsheviks after the first (failed) revolution of 1905.[2] They advocated the same political system as the Bolsheviks but the means by which they intended to get there was radically different. The Mensheviks wanted to create a 'liberal bourgoisie' who, in effect, would be educated to what the party saw as the errors of capitalism and who would then obviously repent en masse.
The Mensheviks effectively had power through Alexander Kerchencky from Feb 1917 (the second revolution - the one that got rid of the Czar) to Oct 1917 (Bolsheviks). The Bolsheviks saw any collaboration with anyone who was not working class as a betrayal, hence the third revolution.
Both agreed that education of a body of people was a main tenet of socialism but they differed on who that body of people was. The Bolsheviks saw the education of the masses as the key to the imposition of the socialism, the Mensheviks wanted to educate the owners of the means of production.
Where this all falls down a little is that Russia was not then, and has not been since, a capitalist nation. Capitalism, as described by Marx, is a system where a commodity[3] is manufactured from raw materials of known value. The labour of the worker adds more value by the very process of turning the materials into the commodity. The capitalist owner of the means of production (the bourgoisie) then sells on the commodity at the new market value whilst the worker, who added the value in the first place, is kept on subsistence wages.
The only countries where you could reasonably say this situation existed in 1917 were America, Britain and Germany. Russia was still effectively a country where most of the population was enslaved by serfdom and property owners rather than by the bourgoisie.
This was recognised by the Bolshevik leaders and what they were *really* after was world revolution. After all, if you want to seize the means of production from the bourgoisie and create Utopia then the *real* pre-requisites are two-fold:
1) You need a means of production
2) You probably ought to have a bourgoisie too.
To support the new Soviet state a capitalist society with a *huge* productive capacity had to fall next. The favourite was Britain, for whom Marx formulated his theories in the first place, because of it's Imperialism[4] but without a strong Bolshevik-equivalent party leadership in Britain revolution simply was not going to happen here.
This is where it *really* goes down hill. Lenin died in 1923 and there was much hassle over who would be the new party boss. I his (fairly) famous Last Testament, Lenin wanted Stalin removed as General Secretary of the party. He saw him as an able organiser but one without much in the way of foresight. He didn't see him as evil as such, and at this stage in his career I'm not sure that I do even with all the hindsight we have today. I suspect that if Stalin knew what road he was going down when he started concentrating power in his own hands then he would never have started down it. As he had accumulated so much power, and done it in his party role rather than his state role (which would have required the signatures of the people he was undermining), he was able to surpress Lenin's Last Testament.
Stalin, who until this point had never proposed a political theory, went on to propose the ideals of Socialism in One Country. His was the more practical approach for it advocated the establishment of a true socialist state in one nation from which the workers of the world could draw inspiration.
Trotsky argued that such a system was madness. It would lead to a massive bureaucratisation as the organisational structure was put in place to create the necessary industry for progress (yes, communists do believe in progress) and was ultimately doomed to failure when there wasn't the productive or agricultural capacity to support a nation of that size. What was needed, he said, was permanant revolution. PR is basically the opposite of Socialism in One Country.
These were questions raised in the mid-1920s and it's still basically where communism is today. The communist countries in the world today are essentially Stalinist in that they see socialism in one country as a viable political theory for similarly agricultural societies. The one irony is China where the state took the role of the bourgoisie, threw itself towards capitalism and now has a *huge* working class exploited for the wealth of others. The difference between now and then of course is merely philosophical - once the people were exploited in the name of the people and for the benefit of the party apparatchiks. Nowadays they're exploited in the name of capitalism for the benefit of party apparatchiks and an ever growing bourgoisie.
Most modern communists in western nations are Trotskyists along the lines of the International Trotskyist Tendancy[5]. The irony with them is that they have a bible. In 1938, two years before a Stalinist agent put a pick-axe through his head, Trotsky wrote The Transitional Program. This is his theory on how world revolution might be attained and how the movement might beat the Stalinist burocrats by isolating them and making them irrelevant if only a genuinely capitalist country would fall... The irony comes because the opening line of the document is:
"The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat."
Still is mate, there are probably over 500 Trotskyist organisations claiming to be part of the Internationalist Tendency in the world today.
>Somehow I remember Einstein being somewhat of an
>anti-war type of individual. Maybe it's fairer
>to say that he was a socialist, or had socialist
>tendencies, without any of the violence inherent
>in either.
Go read some books that weren't written by Reaganists or Thatcherites. Frankly, I find this kind of blind adherence to and aggressive advocacy of your own political policies just a little scary. You're obviously not a communist, and that's fine - I'm not either, but you use as your main argument against it the practical experiences of countries for which communism could never work. Further, you've redefined communism (without expanding on the theoretical processes you went through, or did you just make it up because you own Internet stocks?) as picking up a gun and charging at something, preferably a democratically elected political institution.
If, say, you wanted to read any of the documents I've mentioned then you'll find both them and more here:
http://www.marxists.org/
I don't say that Marxism is right, I just happen to have an historical interest, but I do say that capitalism is wrong. Any society which can alienate a broad swathe of it's own people so that a small number can pursue untold wealth according to the situation of the day has a damned cheek calling itself a society.
My own view on the Soviet Union is that a number of high minded, intelligent people who devoted their lives to liberating people from the autocracy of the Czars and the exploitation of the property and mill owners managed to lose their way and were beaten by the power hungry and corrupt at the high and middle layes of the regime. With Trotsky and Lenin gone, they were free to establish their own ruling class.
The world has changed though. We don't really have a proletariat in either of Britain or the US anymore, we've passed through that stage of capitalism into the kind of liberal bourgeoisie that the Mensheviks wanted. The means of revolution required have therefore changed but the problems involved in preventing the kind of revolutionary decay away from democratic dictatorship into personalised dictatorship and a cult of personality haven't - and I don't know of any theories for stopping that from happening that I would call workable.
>Somehow I don't think he was into storming
>washington with rifles, and setting up a
>dictatorship of the proletariat.
You seem to have confused revolution and communism when any intelligent person might realise that one is used to lead to the other.
>Those of you who claim you are communists...
>Either you don't know what you are claiming, or >you are very frightening individuals who should >be locked up.
Frightened of what? Please tell us, I'd love to know if no one else does.
Footnotes:
==========
[1] By and large they did too. After the revolution it was very much an uncertainty what would happen next. The existing Russian army, already mobilised for WWI, turned on anyone claiming to be a socialist. In addition, there were 21 foreign interventionist armies involved in the Russian civil war who, again, had been mobilised for WWI.
I for one find it hard to believe that the Bolsheviks could seize power in the middle of a world war, negotiate a peace treaty with the Germans (who could at this point have marched from the Rhine to Vladivostok with not a great deal to stop them), put in place the mechanisms which it deemed necessary to run the country - a task they got down to without delay - and fight a war against an army that by default was already deep inside it's own territory without the revolution being a genuinely populist movement.
[2] Actually, the Bolsheviks split from the Mensheviks. They had been seperate parties for some time but they all fell under the umbrella term of Social Democratic parties.
[3] Marx defines a commodity as a thing of perceived value.
[4] The highest stage of capitalism according to Marxist doctrine.
[5] After Trotsky's exile (all opponents of Stalin, once he had secured power, were either killed or exiled - Trotsky was just too famous and powerful to 'disappear') he set about the task of creating The Fourth International. This was designed to ferment revolution in genuinely capitalist countries.
The Nazi's were socialist? The communists in Germany weren't the first to end up in concentration camps then, eh?
These things have always been banned on campus but in the past we have been lenient. The situation changed recently however when universities were required to pay for the amount of data downloaded rather than pay a flat fee. This has pushed costs up to a more realistic level. British universities aren't rich - I don't know what the situation is in the US but we work to tight budgets. We can't simply can't afford it *and* maintain any kind of level of serviuce to the academic community at the same time.
With the introduction of tuition fees - most higher education was funded by taxation until recently - we have to ask what we should allow. There is a case for academic use of chat software I suppose, but it's way open to abuse as well. We're ready to talk to people about possible solutions but anyone disciplined for breaking the rules (a verbal slap on the wrist - nothing serious) has yet to offer any
At the end of the day, fee paying students should not be subsidising the social lives of the minority.
The ISP situation in the UK at the moment is that most of them are free. No setup charges, no cost by time spent on-line. They have a simple flat rate of nothing at all. We don't feel particularly totalitarian because of this. If you want to chat with your mates, download music or whatever then get an ISP account. It's the least selfish option on the part of the user.
I work in the Computer Centre of a British university, and we hear phrases like 'free speech' banded about all the time by students whenever we feel we have to lay down the law about what is and is not acceptable use. We're quite strict about somethings now; real audio, chat software of all types and network games are all banned. These things have always been banned on campus but in the past we have been lenient. The situation changed recently however when universities were required to pay for the amount of data downloaded rather than pay a flat fee. This has pushed costs up to a more realistic level. British universities aren't rich - I don't know what the situation is in the US but we work to tight budgets. We can't simply can't afford it *and* maintain any kind of level of serviuce to the academic community at the same time. With the introduction of tuition fees - most higher education was funded by taxation until recently - we have to ask what we should allow. There is a case for academic use of chat software I suppose, but it's way open to abuse as well. We're ready to talk to people about possible solutions but anyone disciplined for breaking the rules (a verbal slap on the wrist - nothing serious) has yet to offer any At the end of the day, fee paying students should not be subsidising the social lives of the minority. The ISP situation in the UK at the moment is that most of them are free. No setup charges, no cost by time spent on-line. They have a simple flat rate of nothing at all. We don't feel particularly totalitarian because of this. If you want to chat with your mates, download music or whatever then get an ISP account. It's the least selfish option on the part of the user.
Minor point, but the crusades were supposedly to save Byzantium, the capital of which was Constantinople - modern day Istanbul in Turkey. Algebra and the like came to us via the Byzantines.
The trouble with Churchill is he did so many bad things as well as good. The invasion of Norway in 1940 was his idea - a good one too, but the Germans got there first, the French and British forces there were obliged to get out of Dodge and the then Prime Minister was forced to resign. Guess who got the job afterwards? :^)
The Dardanelles operations in WWI were initially also his idea. Ask any New Zealander or Australian what they think of Gallipoli.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, he was also George's Minister of War in 1922 and as a consequence he played a significant role in the partition of Ireland with all the consequences *that* has had for both Ireland, Britain and those affected bits of Ulster.
As for the welfare state, the form it takes today, or rather took in the not so distant past, was largely a result of the government that immediately followed that of Churchill. Rememeber that Churchill was voted out office before the end of the war (against Japan, Germany had surrendered by then) to bring about just such a system.
I tend to agree with this by and large, and generally feel half ashamed for feeling it too. I've never really considered someone with an incureable, debilitating disease to be brave for example - if you don't have any choice you just have to get on with it. It's an oversimplistic view though. and from personal experience of a close friend with such a disease (Crohn's Disease), I can say some handle misfortune better than others. It's a terrible affliction to have, but boy was she bitter and twisted. Personality must certainly play as large a part as a certain combination of events in making a man 'great'. The British Prime Minister at the start of WWII, Neville Chaimberlain, probably had more opportunities to be a great man in the context of today than anyone before or since. Any number of events prior to the invasion of Poland would have justified him leading Britain to war against Germany in tandem with France when the Nazis were much, much weaker - half the tanks used by the Whermacht against France were of Czech origin for example. In the event, war came when it did and people acted the way they did. Following a disastrous campaign (Norway), Chaimberlain resigned and a successor needed to be found. In the event, Churchill got the job but only by virtue of being a compromise candidate. A good job too as things turned out. The favourite, Lord Halifax, argued in favour of appeasement along with much of the rest of the cabinet after the fall of France a few weeks later. Churchill overruled them and we are where we are now. Events count for a lot. Without these events, we'd think of Churchill as one of the last bastions of British colonialism and a particularly distasteful one at that - any potted history of Ireland, the Boer War, India or World War One will give you a clue about what kind of idiot Churchill could be when the mood took him. But at the end of the day, it was a combination of Churchill's personality and the events which surrounded him that makes Europe, if not the world, what it is today.