All kinds of commentators have now indelibly linked Volodymr Zelensky's powerful oration last night to a Joint Session of Congress with the one delivered by Winston Churchill on December 26, 1941. In this case, IMHO, the usually suspect conventional wisdom about both men being symbols of freedom defying and overcoming dictatorship is largely spot on.
As listening to the two speeches makes evidently clear, these are two utterly unlike--and unlikely--avatars improbably linked across the decades. Churchill, then in his late 60's, was an aristocratic Englishman raised in great wealth in Blenheim Palace, whereas Zelensky, a generation younger at 44 when he addressed Congress, is a salt of the earth Ukrainian Jew raised in near poverty in hardscrabble Kryvyi Rih (Broken Horn), in the last chaotic years of the Soviet Union, who went on to become comic actor of renown in newly indepedent Ukraine. Churchill, a native English speaker dazzled American audiences with his Shakespearian elocution; Zelensky, a native Russian (not Ukrainian) speaker made a magnificent effort to address the Congress in English; which limited his ability to be as eloquent and witty as he would have been in either Ukrainian or Russian; though he won many hearts as he struggled but largely succeeded to powerfully distill his message in a foreign tongue.
Yet the essence of their commonality is certainly that these two men, 80 years apart, became the incarnation of the struggle of their respective countries--and ultimately of the larger world--to resist authoritarian-fascist invasion and brutality. Both stood up in the face of cynicism and defeatism to fight back against enormous odds and stun the world by inspiring their respective peoples to fight like hell and hold back the aggressors. Both speakers also resisted the temptation to sugarcoat the dire situations their countries found themselves in at the time of their speeches. Battered London at the end of 1941 was still enduring the Nazi blitz after 18 months of bombardment, and the British Army had been pushed out of western and southern Europe by the German Wehrmacht and out of Malaya and Singapore only days earlier by the Japanese. For its part, Kyiv--and all of Ukraine--remains under relentless and remorseless Russian bombardment to knock out critical electricity, heat and water supplies amidst sub-zero temperatures, even as the Russians launch wave after meat-griding wave of forces against Bakhmut and threaten to launch another military assault on Kyiv through Belarus.
To their immense credit, both Chruchill and Zelensky have consistently told their people the bitter truth and both populations rose resolutely to the occasion because their leaders helped them to grasp that the alternative to steely resistance; namely defeat and subjugation to totalitarian evil, was both unbexarable and unthinkable..
The difference between the two situations is that we know what happened after Churchill's speech and we don't yet know what will happen after Zelensky's. On December 26, 1941, the US was already in the war three weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor--an event that totally discredited the America First isolationist-proto-fascist movement of that time.
Much to Churchill's relief, Roosevelt and Marshall had already made clear to him during White House meetings the previous days that they would not prioritize fighting the Japanese in the Pacific to the exclusioin of the war in Europe; but were all in on preparing to bring the American industrial and military colossus against the Nazis as well. As Churchill memorably says in the speech; the combination of the UK, US and Soviet Union were bound to overwhelm Nazi Germany and Japan; the question was whether deliverance would come in 1942, 1943 or 1944.
In the case of Zelensky and Ukraine, we don't know the answer yet. Clearly, Zelensky chose this moment to give this speech to Congress because the Republicans are about to take over the House, with an empowered band of modern-day Trump-inspired America First isolationists and proto-fascists determined to sharply limit US aid to Ukraine. It is critical that the Biden Administration do whatever is necessary to push through the Omnibus bill in the next few days to ensure Ukraine the promised and desperately needed $45 billion, but even assuming that happens, Mc Carthy, Greene, Jordan and the rest of that noxious crowd, pushed forward by the sneering likes of Tucker Carlson, will pose great challenges ahead.
In our own time, unfortuately, the second coming of America First remains very much alive and active in the political arena, and as long as that is the case, Putin retains hope of ultimately realizing his evil designs. One prays that Zelensky's brilliant speech makes that form of treason against democracy and humanity too repulsive even for the likes of Kevin McCarthy to speak out loud in the Halls of Congress; or for the likes of Trump and DeSantis to whip up anti-democratic sentiment on the hustings in Red America, but we don't know yet if that will be the case.
I love Volodymr Zelensky and devoutly pray he will inspire his own generation and generations to come around the world to stand up, flight back and ultimately prevail against hatred, bigotry and totalitarianism; and to take on the existential climate crisis with similar clear-eyed sense of purpose. If anyone can inspire us to fight for and secure a livable, democratic and humane world for our children and grandchildren, it is Volodymyr Zelensky. But nothing is preordained. How the history of the 21st Century gets written literally depends on all of us.
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