My Life: Oswald Mosley

by Oswald Mosley

During his long life, the British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley knew just about everybody worth knowing. Politicians like Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Lloyd George. Leading society hostesses such as Lady Cunard, Mrs Randolph Hearst and Nancy Astor. He also knew Beaverbook, Northcliffe and Rothermere: the three most powerful press barons of their day. Authors like Compton Mackenzie and Henry Williamson were among his friends. And of course, Mosley had a unique personal insight into the characters of Hitler, Mussolini, Goering and the Goebbels.

On reading this book Michael Foot, Leader of the Labour Party during the 1980s, commented: "He came near to diverting the whole course of British history...What Mosley so valiantly stood for could have saved his country from the Hungry Thirties and the Second World War". 'The outstanding politician of his generation, ... Mosley was spurned by Whitehall, Fleet Street and every party leader at Westminster, simply and solely because he was right.' - R. H. S. Crossman in 'The New Statesman' 'Only Oswald Mosley ... rose to the height of the challenge. His proposals... offered a blueprint for most of the constructive advances in economic policy to the present day ... an astonishing achievement, evidence of a superlative talent.' - A. J. P. Taylor in 'English History, 1914-1945' 'Mosley is the only man I have ever known who could have been a very great Prime Minister ... His diagnosis was right ... an enormously gifted man.' - Lord Boothby in a BBC broadcast 'Great talents and great strength of character.' - Harold Macmillan in 'Winds of Change'

Genres: Politics, Biography, History, Nonfiction, British Literature, Autobiography, European History

506 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

British politician and world war one veteran who founded the British Union of Fascists and the Union Movement.

Mosley seated in the British parlement first for the Conservative Party and later for the Labour Party. Dissapointed in both parties he founded the New Party which later became the BUF.

Mosley was jailed during the second world war. After the war he started propagating an united Europe.

Oswald Mosley is the father of Max Mosley the head of the FIA.

Reviews

[Owlseyes]

In 1975, he was 78 years old and he gave a TV interview. Listening to that piece, one becomes puzzled how a man who had been thought as the “British Hitler” could pronounce those words and vehiculate those ideas, I mean:
(1) he said after WWI he was against another war, as he saw his generation being wiped out in WWI
(2) he blamed the Jews and Hitler for WWII
(3) he was solely against “some Jews” (who were trying to initiate WWII); not really antisemitic, he was against the persecution of Jews, or any other minority
(4) at the age of 78 he was convinced he had “the willpower” and “vigor” as well as “wisdom” (derived from age)
(5) he would venture on saying “my life has been a training …for that crisis that will arrive”.

In that interview he acknowledged that by 1966 he had “severed” himself from all (political) parties. Mind you he had been a member of the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and had been the founder of the BUF( British Fascist Union). He certainly had ideas for Europe (”one Europe, one nation”) and he read books and papers in 4 languages. He still believed he would be called, to sort the "crisis" out. Some deemed him to be a “brilliant economist”. He died in 1980.

I’ve been wondering what would he think about the current mess in British politics; today, as a B-plan (regarding Brexit) is voted in Parliament.



-will article 50 be extended?
-will Britain participate in the European elections of May?
-will general elections take place? Or a “new referendum”?

…it’s really messy, totally puzzling, crisis-like, now.

[Pausonious · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great biography. Mosley, like Mussolini in his dictated ( :^) ) autobiography, doesn't devote much text to his childhood, but in contrast to Mussolini this book was far more personal regarding his mature years and later life, though the latter was intertwined with the politics Mosley wants to get across to the reader.
One of the main impressions I got about Mosley was an ardent desire to be a Great Man in the sense of Caesar, Bonaparte and his two obvious contemporaries. Conventional politics as he said would've opened up avenues to the highest position in his country to him; But what Fascism offered was far greater, far more historically unique than a mere term as Prime Minister for Labour or the Conservatives. His narcissism wasn't stupid or malignant like what I'd term "common narcissism", but more of a "Great Man" narcissism which could possibly be an affectation itself constructed by the sub-conscious to allow an appropriate measure of faux-humility (don't quote me on this though, I'm no psychologist, just conjecturing) - think of Caesar among his former enemies after the civil war, mourning Pompey and Cato, it's that kind of narcissism that lets others breathe for its own self-aggrandizement.
After his grand opportunity slipped him by due to Britain's particular circumstances he admirably rebounds straight in to radical politics again, which I really like about him, especially considering he did it so dynamically by springing over to Europeanism in its inception:
"Fascism does not exist at present, not because it has been answered but because it belongs to the epoch before the Second World War. Since that period science has presented us with a set of new facts, the errors of Fascism have provided their lessons, and nationalism has been extended to a European patriotism. Those of us who were Fascists can learn both from new facts and from our old mistakes; it is easy to learn from the errors for which we were not ourselves responsible, particularly when we are confident that we would have avoided them. At my worst, I have never made any claim to infallibility, which I leave to those responsible for the present state of the world. After the war I faced fresh facts, learnt from past mistakes, and feel free to become a European."
Pretty ironic considering recent developments is Mosley's passionate advocacy of European Unity in the post-WWII 1/2-1/3rd of the book.
Mosley's life was interesting to read in regard to his background also. His aristocratic background and thus his casual relationship with gross wealth is foreign to the vast majority of humanity. He's obviously aware of this and makes statements on his privilege a lot (for example when he was planning to flee Britain post-WWII and his release from prison when his family's passports were being denied and he casually bought a yacht) but still it seems ingrained in the characters of the soaringly upper class to have this relationship with wealth.

[Ravanagh Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A man of breathtaking intellect!

Damning of his colleagues during his time in the British Labour Party! And of the fact that Labour (and to some extent his former Conservatives) is structured in such a way that it cannot produce men capable of the task of administering a great nation, let alone in a time of crisis.

But OM’s work in the mainstream parties takes up half the bloody volume! If you have an interest in fascism, you’d be better to skip the first half of this book.

Mosley is very much the self-appointed Saviour of his people (but then, he’d seen that act work elsewhere, albeit on people who needed saving).

He was always talking up a ‘crisis which must be met by drastic national action;’ which called for a radical reorganisation of government; when all he had at hand by way of a crisis was high unemployment (he is good enough to admit this was not sufficient). Certainly, Hitler had more promising material to work with.

The government of the day was a confederacy of dunces ostracising a man of genius.

‘Better the adventure, better the great attempt for England’s sake, … ‘

Seems, in ‘68, somewhat to have left many core fascist beliefs behind (but then, he probably had to sound that way).

The snuffing out of free speech. Town Halls are denied him due to Leftist violence; TV is denied him due to “lack of interest in him,” while all they ever talk about on it is him and how bad he is!

Unlimited faith in science to help us achieve his Nietschean Higher Man. But this, in part, means psychiatry; and that is incapable of grasping the magnitude of an advanced spirit, so often mislabeling them insane, locking them up, electrocuting them, and if that doesn’t work, severing the two halves of their brains so that they should live without this delusion that they are not run-of-the-mill egos.

He has an unquestioning faith in evolution to achieve the higher form of life on Earth he harbingers, with a passing, necessary allusion to spirituality; but he has it without any understanding that there is a God, who alone will decide when and if a higher life form should arise here, and who I doubt allows a chaotically evolving natural world to create itself without his blessing.

[David Haws · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose Mosely might be seen as the bride, left at the altar of 20th Century fascism—and he became more interesting in this role, than in his pre-War activities. Of course, fascism was so thoroughly discredited by the Nazis, the dregs in Europe have always had to start by disclaiming any allegiance to a racial hierarchy. Mosley (post-War) wanted a European Union to replace the lost markets of the British Empire. He opposed what he called “coloured” immigration to Britain, but felt that economic union required a kind of ethnic direction. For example, if Europeans wanted to life in Africa (or Asia) they should be allowed to do so, but they shouldn’t be given a political say in the economy. Mosley wanted a similar racial hegemony in Europe. Mosley was, first, a nationalist—national borders always seem arbitrary at best—and I suppose European Union was a natural outgrowth of fascism (after Nietzsche).

While Mosley is a little verbose (and requires his readers to get out their foreign language dictionaries in the 19th Century tradition) he also writes reasonably well. He is, of course, unrepentant—and the idea of a need for repentance would seem to have escaped his notice.

[molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

you'd think someone as brilliant and before his time as this dude would be a bit more creative with the title of his autobiography

[Avis Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

He comes across like a colorless bore. I simply can't see what Diana Mitford thought was worth doing a bolt for. Mosley, for all his narcissism and sense of destiny, ended up a loser. He failed to understand that his fellow Englishmen had hundreds of years of experience with kings, only to conclude that no man was worth trusting with absolute power. This is why fascism failed in Great Britain.

Any man who is looking for a mortal God-Emperor to worship, who wants an absolute ruler to tell him what to do, is simply a man incapable of growing up and becoming an adult who decides for himself, thinks for himself, and runs his own life.

[Caesar Warrington · Rating 3 out of 5]

A prolix work. Sir Oswald did love to go on a bit.

[Henrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oswald Mosley is best known for being the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Before that, he had a career as a politician both for the Conservative party, and the Labour party. He managed to become one of the youngest Members of Parliament ever, at the age of 21.

What struck me by reading this autobiography is how different Mosley is from other fascists, in his clear anti-war stance. This is in stark contrast to figures like Marinetti and D'Annunzio who hailed war as art and a beautiful thing, and to Joseph "Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?" Goebbels. In writing style, Mosley seems much more reserved, calm, and, I suppose, English, than the fiery oratory style he had as a speaker.

Some quotes from the book that I found interesting:

"Apart from games, the dreary waste of public school existence was only relieved by learning and homosexuality; at that time I had no capacity for the former and I enver had any taste for the latter. My attitude to homosexuality was then much less tolerant than now, because I have long taken the view on basic ground of liberty that adults should be free to do what they wished in private, provided they do not interfere with others" - a surprisingly tolerant view for the leader of a fascist party.

"(...) our statesmen had gone to war with Germany and sacrificed many lives to honour a pledge foolishly given to Poland, while later they sat back supinely while Russia permanently subjucated Poland. This tragedy could arise again in our time if we were called upon to fight a world war in support of pledges lightly given in Asia, which I have opposed for the same reasons in recent years"

"(...) I proposed a worker's ownership of industries already nationalised, and, in the event of their success, the extension of the principle to other fully developed industries; measures accompanied both by vigorous encouragement of a completely emancipated private enterprise in all remaining industries and also by a reversion to private enterprise in cases where workers' ownership failed; a pragmatic method implementing the test of practical results"

[on his travel to New York City in the 1920s] "The usual large team of journalists was accompanying me on foot through the slums of New York, where I was examining housing conditions, which at that time were very bad. Suddenly the journalists were missing, and I found myself surrounded by people who were immigrants and could hardly talk our language, but I spent some time among them and entered their houses on their friendly invitation. When eventually I emerged from this quarter into streets which were quite different, the journalists were there again. 'What happened to you?' I enquired, for it was the only time I had lost them on the whole tour. 'We were not going in there at any price¨,' was the reply. It was the first time I had ever encountered a strong anti-semitism, which at that time was to be found more in America than in Europe. As we shall see I had quarrels lears later with certain Jews for political reasons, but have not at any time been an anti-semite."

"It is not the duty of government to condut industry, but rather to create a system which makes possible the free conduct of industry by private enterprise. This means the elimination of unfair competition by sweated labour which can be exploited through modern industrial processes with disastrous consequences to more advanced communities. It is in the sphere of wages and prices that government must intervene, not in management."

There are others I highlighted but I am too lazy to type them out. All in all, an interesting book, but I wish he had focused a bit less on dinners and lunches with now forgotten British politicians.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A more accurate title would be "My Political Life and Ideas".

He does go on at great length about his ideas and things like the "Birmingham Proposals". Proposals never enacted relevant to local conditions at a point in time 100 years ago. I skipped over perhaps 1/3 of the book.
He does give interesting insights in some of the significant personalities of the time.

Much of what he alludes to and references in passing is lost in time. The book badly needs annotations.

Modesty is not his strong suit.
I could not help but picture in my mind a cross between Walter Mitty and Inspector Clouseau.

[Tommy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covers his evolution from conservatism to guild socialism to fascism to finally pro-European integration and general Europhilic outlook and his meetings with various political dilettantes from FDR to Hitler.
He had pretty strong opinons on the treasury view and cultural lag I wasn't expecting and his entire approach to politics and free speech seems very Trumpian in retrospect.

[Da1tonthegreat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and detailed autobiography of one of the greatest Britons of the 20th century. Unlike Hitler or Mussolini, Sir Oswald Mosley had a good deal of experience in government prior to launching a fascist political movement, serving as an MP and later as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Indeed, we're left wondering how the course of history might have gone differently if only he had stayed in Labour and fought for the leadership. Could he have become prime minister and reached an accord with Germany to fight against the real enemy of the West - the Soviet Union? Alas, that's not what happened. Instead, he became an early victim of what is now all too common in our woke modern era - imprisonment for his political views. The globalist Churchill had him thrown in jail rather than allow such a prominent figure to publicly voice dissent about the hallowed, sacrosanct Allied cause. After the war he, along with the rest of the West's right wing, was relegated to the radical fringe, ignored and subjected to cordon sanitaire by the technocrats of the New World Order.

Naturally, the narrative really picks up once he founds the British Union of Fascists. Mosley vehemently denies that they were copied from the Italian Fascists or the German National Socialists. He argues convincingly that the similar aspects (fuhrerprinzip, squadrism, the uniforms) all developed organically in his homegrown British fascism. Indeed, specific national fascist organizations sprung up all over Europe and even further afield during this time period without any formal connections to each other. Mosley is also at pains to deny any blanket anti-Semitism, charging that he only criticized prominent Jews who were acting against the interests of Britain. Despite what modern media such as the BBC series Peaky Blinders would have you believe, "Perish Judah" was never his motto - it belonged to the obscure MP Archibald Maule Ramsay and his Right Club. Leftists never let facts get in the way of a good story.