Can the English working-class be pigeonholed by Marxist theory?

 

Marx & Engels

Marx and Engels frequently changed their opinion about the English working-class and its revolutionary potential.  Sometimes they viewed the English working-class as the best organised and most advanced in Europe. At other times, they were driven to despair by the English' workers, narrow-mindedness and sectarianism. They ridiculed their notions of national superiority and their bourgeois ideas and viewpoints.

Marx and Engel's called the Chartist leader, Ernest Jones, "Citizen, Hip, Hip, Hooray." The Irish-born, Chartist leader, Feargus O'Connor, was in favour of peasant proprietors, and wasn't a revolutionary. He was opposed to the Chartist movement building links with European socialists, and thought that in doing so, it would dilute the national character of the Chartist movement.

Other lefties and Marxists, have held similar mixed feelings about the English working-class.  The Trotskyist writer and journalist, Paul Mason, says that Marxism got it all wrong about the English working-class. In his book 'Post-Capitalism', he wrote: "200 years of experience shows it (the working-class), was preoccupied with 'living despite capitalism' and not overthrowing it."

Some years ago, Raphael Samuels, in the New Left Review, wrote: "A dozen vanguard ' parties and as many tendencies and groups, compete for the honour of leading a non-existent revolutionary working-class."

In my personal experience, I've never found the English working-class to be politically savvy, or much interested in politics at all. Many of them might vote Tory, but they have a healthy suspicion of all politicians and their motives. The English will tell you that they vote for the lesser of the two evils.

Yet, I do know from British history, that there have been times when the country seemed to be on the brink of a revolution because of working-class militancy. The strikes and social unrest in the years leading up to WWI are a good example. The year 1926, which saw a General Strike, is another good example. The reformist politicians and trade union leaders, pulled the plug on the 1926 strike fearing that it might lead to a social revolution. The French Communist, who led the CGT, did the same thing in France in 1968.

The Liberal Prime Minister, Lloyd George, always said that the parliamentary socialists were the best policemen for the Syndicalists, who advocated for workers control of the means of production and for a social revolution. Some English workers have always been more class conscious and politically clued up than others.

You can find evidence of early communist or socialist ideas being espoused throughout English history. It's found in the writings of people like Gerrard Winstanley, the 17th century 'Digger', from Wigan. The priest and Lollard, John Ball, who was executed for his part in the Peasants Revolt of 1381, said:

"Things cannot go well in England, nor ever will, until all goods are held in common, and until thee will be neither serfs nor gentlemen, and we shall be equal." It was John Ball who told us, "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"