Today, on VE Day, I’ve been reflecting on how we might look at Churchill — and leadership more broadly — through a Confucian perspective that asks not for perfection, but for the fulfilment of one’s role with integrity, courage, and a sense of the moment.
That reflection has grown into a short essay, which I’m sharing here. It’s not about defending or condemning Churchill, but about asking a deeper question: How should we judge the past, and what do we owe to those who carried burdens we can barely imagine?
During the first Covid lockdown in 2020, a group of old college friends and I met weekly on Zoom to talk about books and current affairs. It was a strange, charged moment: the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, the sudden reassessment of national figures, and a new moral vocabulary that seemed to sweep through public life almost overnight.
In one of those conversations, Churchill became a lightning rod. For at least one friend, he was primarily a racist and a colonialist. For me, he remained the man who saw the danger of totalitarianism when others hesitated. We were speaking past each other, each using a different set of moral categories.
Six years later, after spending time with Confucian ideas of virtue and leadership, I can see more clearly what was happening.
Confucius judged leaders not by their conformity to future moral standards, but by whether they fulfilled the obligations of their role with 德 (dé) — moral force — and 仁 (rén) — humane concern for the people. A leader’s legitimacy depended on whether his actions matched the demands of the moment.
Seen this way, Churchill’s significance lies not in personal perfection but in appropriateness. In 1940, he was the right man for a particular crisis. His legitimacy came from clarity, courage, and the ability to act when the situation required it. Confucius would have recognised this immediately.
This Confucian lens also sheds light on the statue‑toppling of 2020. Confucius believed that societies must evaluate their ancestors — but he also insisted that such judgments be deliberate, contextual, and oriented toward harmony rather than catharsis. Public memory, for him, was a matter of ritual and discernment, not impulse. He would have been uneasy with the speed at which complex historical figures were reduced to single adjectives.
Even Churchill’s electoral defeat in 1945 fits a Confucian pattern. In democracy, we say “the people voted him out.” Confucius would say “the Mandate of Heaven shifted.” His role had been fulfilled; a different moment required a different kind of leadership. It is not ingratitude but the natural rhythm of political life.
Looking back, I can see that my 2020 instinct was not simply to defend Churchill, but to defend the idea that public memory requires proportion, context, and a sense of the bigger picture. Confucius gives language to that intuition. He reminds us that leadership is situational, that virtue is complex, and that judging the past is a task that demands care rather than haste.
Perhaps this is a better starting point for our conversations now — not “Was Churchill good or bad?” but “How should we judge leaders, and what do we owe to the past when we reassess it?”