“The Making of the English Working Class”by E.P. Thompson, 1963 Part 1 Sketch: (pgs. 1 to 205)
This long, classic book by E.P. Thompson is 939 pages, with
a 1968 postscript. I’m going to review the book in bits. The book is so long and most leftists,
including myself, have never had the time to read such a tome. It holds lessons for today, so this is not
just some excavation of musty information. There are many parallels to present society. Thompson was a member of the British
CP until he left after the USSR ordered the invasion of Hungary, along with Khrushchev’s
revelations about Stalin.
Thompson’s main point is that workers create themselves as
a self-conscious class - it is not just the automatic activity and influence of history, society
or economics. His book covers both the creation of the working class in England and its rise to class consciousness - two distinct processes. This book is how it
happened in Britain, from the early beginnings of ‘reformism’ in the 1700s,
which began a struggle against the landed gentry, the monarchy, the state
church and the police state. This is how
a class ‘in itself’ slowly became a class ‘for itself.’
Thompson employs a vast amount of original research, a
wealth of personal names, a credenza of cities, a mass of organizations, a
large quantity of quotes, a plethora of literary references, to write this
history. He names the leaders of the
various factions, especially the most leftward and consistent – Hardy, Thelwall,
Binns, Spence or writers like Blake and Shelley.
But perhaps we now need a supplement – “The Unmaking of the British Working Class”?
In the
1700s conservative institutions like the Methodist Church trained
working-class people in reading, speaking, organization, planning, raising
funds, travel, publication, communication and rules. This was very unlike the
official Anglican Church of England. The Methodists provided a training ground for future
groups, though the Methodist’s official theology and leadership was loyalist
and reactionary. In the later 1700s artisanal
and proletarian inspiration came from Tom Paine’s omnipresent and cheap publication
“The Rights of Man.” Paine at the time was living in England. Later
it was the Jacobins and the example of the French Revolution. Associations in
England formed bonds with the French revolutionaries and defended France. Later some even hoped that French
revolutionary troops would invade England and overthrow its ruling class!
Apocalyptic and millenarian thinking was also common in
this period, accompanying the high social turmoil. The “Book
of Revelation” from the Bible was
especially quoted. Thompson also mentions
cultural forces – the tavern, the church, social and town life. Many radicals met in
taverns, as they were free. These were
even christened ‘tavern societies.’ While the more proper reformers had staid and
organized meetings, the more proletarian ones drank, ate and had loud, combative
discussions.
Reverence for the English ‘Constitution” of 1688 kept many
English radicals from going beyond it.
While allowing a certain amount of freedom to the ‘free-born Englishman”
it propped up the state church, property rights, the monarchy and the
land-owning aristocracy, as well as opposing universal suffrage. Paine was the
first to undermine this Constitution, saying Constitutions were moldy parchments
based on the dead hand of the past. This
should sound familiar to present day left radicals in the U.S., who face
liberals and mild reformists who cherish every bit of our own moldy and
anti-democratic parchment … adopted in 1788, 244 years ago.
Food and price riots were frequent, organized by the poverty-stricken ‘lower
orders of society.’ But the Right also
organized attacks of thugs against reformers – organized by the church,
businessmen and fearful Tories. ‘Mobs’
and riots occurred on a frequent basis in England towards the end of the
century, especially as the economy tanked due to the newly-declared war against
France. The Rightists figured that a huge percentage of the population were
criminals, calling them thieves, traitors and terrorists, and applied those
names to the radicals too.
Paine denounced appeals to the British Parliament as
pernicious and a waste of time. What
about the U.S.’s own modern Congress? Liberals
and even some ‘radicals’ never cease in expecting Congress to deliver
significant reforms. Paine made the demand
for a people’s Convention of citizens, not continuing appeals to the sclerotic British
Parliament. He was essentially calling
for a rudimentary dual power. Except for
actual socialists and communists you won’t hear anyone calling for something like
that today. Our own 'gentlemen' reformers do not know how to go
beyond a terminal and corrupt bourgeois democracy.
Thompson points out that agitation in Britain among the
poor artisans and workers between 1792-1796 was near insurrectionary… not a mere
reflection of the French Revolution, but caused by British conditions. Paine’s agitation and propaganda had combined
political suffrage and economic demands, which did the deed, as laborers for
the first time saw their economic issues and solutions highlighted. His
writings were sold cheaply everywhere.
A patriotic war fever against France accompanied war preparations. Paine was banned, burnt in effigy and
attacked from the royalist Right and conservative ‘reformers’ still aligned
with the 1688 Constitution. He fled the
country to France. Prominent radicals
were jailed or attacked by royalist mobs, yet there was much opposition to the
war and impressment. Later, thousands of
sailors revolted and blocked the Thames in 1797 with their ships. There was an armed Irish revolt in 1799
against Whitehall, so the national question was at all times present, though
Thompson doesn’t frame it as such. Many
plebeian Irish were part of the subversive organizations in England.
 |
The above-ground groups had minutes, meetings, membership
lists, dues, communications and publications. They were a mixture of artisans,
laborers, small shopkeepers and a few professionals – who had the beginnings of
class understanding. A
proposal for a national Convention joining all reformers, including Scots and
Irish, was the last straw for the ‘Church and King” set, for the ruling class
politicians Pitt and Burke. Prosecutions, jailings and executions followed,
which broke the back of the legal reform societies. Though it did not amount to
a ‘White’ terror, as the British jury system prevented every prominent and not
so prominent activist from being jailed or killed, but Thompson still styles it
a ‘counter-revolution.’ During this period there were also underground
insurrectionary groups like the “United Englishmen.”
Thompson dates this period as the beginning of the
formation of the British working class in both fact and theory, being proletarianized while being imbued with a class understanding. Landlords, the aristocracy, merchants and capitalists in their
majority had all united against the plebeian masses in repressing their
nation-wide organizing. This was unlike what happened in France. The beginnings
of class and socialist ideas began to percolate – about nationalization of the
land to oppose the landowners; ‘class versus class’ views; economic, not just ‘rights’
demands; and notions about relieving the special burdens imposed on
working-class women.
In the
1800s, after the
Napoleonic wars ended in 1815 at Waterloo, nearly all ‘mobs’ were from the left,
reflecting the ‘turn’.
End of Part 1 – Stay Tuned!
Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box,
upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms: “Citizen Tom
Paine” (Fast); “Class – the New Critical Idiom,” “The Permanent Guillotine,” “Chavs
– the Demonization of the Working Class,” “Class Against Class – the Miner’s
Strike” (Matgamna); “Left Confusion on Brexit,” “The City” (Norfield); “Pride,”
“Mr. Turner” (Leigh); “Coming Up For Air”(Orwell); “Monsters of the Market” (McNally);
“1916 Rebellion Walking Tour,” “A Full Life: James Connolly,” “The Immortal
Irishman,” “The Football Factory” (King); "The North Water."
And I got it at the UGA Library!
Red Frog
January 25, 2022
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