Nearly all of the European countries ganging up on Russia today promoted fascism abroad, established it at home or were liberated from it by the Soviet Union.
First into the field was Great Britain which had Mussolini on its payroll since 1917 and made him a Knight of the Bath in 1923. Churchill applauded the Rape of Abyssinia and praised the Fascists for saving Europe from Bolshevism, and, certain that he would be returned to power in 1945, planned to combine with the recently defeated Germans in an attack on the Soviets. That had been Churchills over-riding obsession since Russia’s October Revolution,in 1917. It was not far from the primary aim of British Governments of whatever stripe between the wars.
The Soviets and the French during France’s Popular Front Government became allied with Czechoslovakia to defend that state from the Nazis. But Britain betrayed the Czechs. The Czechs in 1938 were well armed and fighting fit, and the Soviets had Aircraft actually on Czech airfields, with the Czech Government’s enthusiastic agreement. Together with the Czechs they would have defeated the Germans, whose army was relatively weak at the time. But Neville Chamberlain, after meeting Hitler in Munich, ordered the Czech Government to had over the Sudetanland to Hitler,
and that Government knuckled under. A few months later Hitler was in Prague and had the Czech Armaments industry, perhaps the world’s best at the time, at his disposal.
Britain pretended to disallow either Spain’s legitimate Government or its fascist mutineers.access to weapons from British territory. But British Agents flew Franco from the Canaries, where he had been posted so he could do no mischief, to Spanish Morocco from where he launched his foul forty year tyranny. British forces in Gibraltar helped speed Italian equipment to Franco’s thugs.
Ireland, too had her Fascists. The Irish Times, Britain’s mouthpiece in Ireland, in February 1933 warned its readers against voting de Valera back into power. Fianna Fail had been in office for a year, supported by a few Labour TDs. Following the warning by “Ireland’s most trusted paper since 1859) the electorate gave Fianna Fail an overall majority of seats, and elected them back tooffice in successive election until 1948 and most elections
ifor a further 70 plus years. Cumann na nGael which had been a repressive, vengeful anti-Republican regime since 1922, then formally embraced Fascism, organised a Blue Shirted knuckle-duster carrying militia, adopted the Fascist salute, attempted to copy Mussolini’s March on Rome, and
its cohort of academics in UCD wanted to foist a Corporate State modelled on Mussolini’s on the people. The Irish Times readership, the rump of the Old Protestant Ascendancy, had as fellow-travellers, Papish Peasants sporting Jack Boots and speaking with Brogues.
In March 1933, just weeks after predicting the ruination of Ireland should Fianna Fail secure another term of office, the IRISH TIMES hailed/heiled Hitler’s accession to power in Berlin, in an Editorial _”Herr Hitler’s Way.” It said the new regime would be a bulwark against Muscovite Terror, and its methods would be brutal but said that you cannot make an omelette without breaking an egg. I would be surprised if the Blueshirt Egg-Heads protested at that. In London THE TIMES and the British Establishment were equally pro Hitler at the time.
But the Fianna-Fail Government, led by the Doctrinaire Democrat, Eamon de Valera, had no truck with such thuggery at home or abroad. In 1932
Dev, who was his own Minister for External Affairs was elected as President pf the Council of the League of Nations at Geneva, and later in that
Decade was elected President of its Assembly.
De Valera sought in vain for the League’s members to honour its Covenant and impose effective sanctions on Japan (at that time Britain’s ally)
for its seizure of Manchuria, and later to impose effective sanctions on Italy, for the rape of Abyssinia. He was willing to contribute Irish Defence
Force troops, to a collective League campaign to deter the aggressors. He repeatedly warned of a major war if the League members ratted on
their obligations. In 1934 he was instrumental in the admission of the Soviet Union to the League.
In 1938 the Irish electorate enacted a Constitution pledging the nation to the principles of seeking the peaceful settlement of international disputes
and international arbitration or adjudication.
Those principles were honoured by Irish Troops on United Nations Peacekeeping missions, and by the long campaign by Frank Aiken which resulted
in the Nuclear Non – Proliferation Treaty to which most nations have subscribed.
Neutrality is not a cop-out for Wimps. Neither Dev nor Frank Aiken were Wimps. Nor was Charles Haughey when he refused to kiss Thatcher’s
Backside when she sank the Belgrano when it was no threat to her forces.
Ireland has ratted on the international community and defecated on nearly a century of enlightened statesmanship in lining up with Uncle Sam’s
puppets in Ukraine.
Sources include “The Dark Valley -a Panorama of the 1930s” by Piers Brendon. T
“The Devil’s Decade” by Claude Cockburn
“Boothby” by Boothby (an intimate of Churchill, Lloyd George, the Kray Brothers & Lady Dorothy MacMillan)
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