Winston Churchill: Bulldog or bigot?

You really should take a look at the Yalta Conference and see how weak Britain's position was compared to the Soviet's. At Yalta, Roosevelt failed to acknowledge Churchill’s preoccupation with Poland.  Failing to exercise himself and create an Anglo-American front for a democratic Poland, he conceded to Soviet interests in Eastern Europe.  Whilst determined to ensure Soviet membership to the UN and assistance in the Pacific theatre against Japan, Roosevelt accepted the rather slack assurance of free elections as an appeasement of American public opinion.  Accepting that Poland’s eastern borders would need revision in favour of the Soviet Union, Britain, having gone to war over the unfortunate Poles, wanted to ensure a democratic government in Warsaw.  But Churchill made a serious error in pleading that France should be returned to great-power status (but not given a place amongst the ‘big three’).  Stalin was not inclined to agree, particularly with France having capitulated so readily in 1940.  Churchill bought his support by stating that French ‘friendship’ to Britain was similar to Polish ‘friendship’ to the Soviet Union.  This Stalin seems to have understood and sympathised with.  But what might he have taken from this? It seems likely that the Georgian saw a similar move of realpolitik that the Englishman had brought to Moscow in October 1944.  Churchill’s concern for France was a search for camaraderie in facing the bulk of the Soviet Union.  Roosevelt’s intimation that Congress would not allow the US army to remain in Europe for any period of time once Germany had been defeated worried Churchill.  

So, sure, he gaffed, but he did spend a large part of 1944 and 1945 trying to get the best for the Poles that he possibly could.