Class, leadership and the Chartist movement
The June edition of
Socialism Today (No.129) included an article by Ed Doveton, Class
struggle and the early Chartist movement, concentrating in particular on
Chartism as an embryonic movement towards the creation of a mass
political party of the working class. Following a letter in the
subsequent edition on the class character of Chartism, ED DOVETON and
STEVE WOOTTON continue the discussion.
THE LETTER from Geoff Jones (Socialism Today
No.130, July-August 2009), offering to extend my analysis of Chartism,
seemed promising in its first lines. One 5,000 word article is not
enough to deal with all the historical and analytical issues we can
learn from Chartism; further discussion can certainly deepen our
understanding.
Geoff raises the character of the London Working
Men’s Association (LWMA), suggesting that there are layers or sections
within the working class. He says it is important to recognise
"underlying class tensions", and that it is the "relatively prosperous
artisan(s)" composition of the LWMA which is in this respect, of
critical note.
We often use the term ‘the working class’ but in the
concrete reality of society there actually exists the working classes.
That is, different layers and sections within the working class,
influenced in different ways by the pressures of living within
capitalism. The relative position of sectional working class groups is
one of several interacting influences that contributes towards
class-consciousness and the combativity of the working class as a whole.
Trotsky examines this issue in some detail in his article The Class, the
Party and the Leadership. "A people is comprised of hostile classes", he
wrote, "and the classes themselves are comprised of different and in
part antagonistic layers which fall under different leadership;
furthermore every people falls under the influence of other peoples who
are likewise comprised of classes".
My article only makes reference to the reformist
character of the LWMA, and within the word length, did not develop the
potential reasons for this development. However, Geoff’s letter
does not develop this argument to a clear conclusion. He suggests that
"the working class" had different demands from the members of the LWMA.
Yet members of the LWMA were also members of the working class, even
though they were largely reformist. Having different policies does not
propel them into the ranks of another social class; rather, it is their
policies that can be seen as being in the interests of the capitalists.
The two are not the same thing.
Geoff then moves on to what is labelled "the Welsh
working class". However, the class is presented as a unified whole (not
in terms of layered sections within the working class nor any
differences between the North, Border Counties, and South Wales), and
there is also no further discussion on the occupational structure and
the work process within Wales. Rather, it is simply stated that they
were strongly militant, derived from their experience of struggle over
the previous decade.
But if we are discussing the reformism of the LWMA
based upon their occupational position within the workforce, the
"relatively prosperous artisan(s)", then it is necessary to compare the
same criteria when examining the contrasting militancy of the Welsh
working class. What was different about the occupational structure? What
similarities or differences were there in the work process in the
industries in Wales?
Instead, Geoff switches to different criteria that
can influence class-consciousness: the traditions of the working class
and its experience of struggle. But this criteria is not the same as an
evaluation of the relative occupational position of sections of the
working class (the artisans), and indeed, the work process. To directly
contrast one to the other is like comparing apples with oranges.
Moreover, this ‘experience of struggle’ criteria is
inaccurately presented as a unique Welsh experience within the British
working class. Geoff says that "by the 1830s they [the Welsh working
class] had already learned many lessons which still had to be learned in
the rest of Britain". Yet this is patently not the case. Whatever
experience of struggle had developed within Wales, there was no absence
of experience within areas of England, and to a lesser extent Scotland.
In 1830 there was a widespread movement of rural
workers, across the south and east of England, known as the Swing Riots.
Two decades earlier, there had been the extensive Luddite movement of
cloth workers concentrated in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1818
there was a prolonged strike of cotton spinners in Manchester, which
became a localised general strike involving more than 20,000 workers. In
1834 the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union was formed, involving
perhaps half a million workers. Across England, within the different
industrial localities, local historical research has thrown up evidence
of the formation of trade unions and local action committees of militant
workers. There was not an absence of experience of struggle within
England, but a deep well upon which the workers could draw. This is
precisely reflected in the initial reluctance of the working class to
become involved with the Charter, and then the militant preparations for
armed struggle in local areas during 1839.
The method of presenting the centrality of militancy
in Wales leads onto a more substantial error in evaluating the lack of
success of Chartism in the 1838 to 1840 period. The implication is that
Chartism failed due to the lack of militancy within England, compared to
the brave and determined uprising within militant Wales. When referring
to the Newport uprising, Geoff Jones suggests as much: "Disorganisation,
atrocious weather, and zero support from England meant the attempt was
defeated by the military stationed in Newport".
But this is an erroneous position, which arises when
only one factor is considered as determining the outcome of struggle –
the militancy of the working class. It ignores the role of the national
leadership in the failure of Chartism and appears to explain the
weakness of Chartism as stemming from the backwardness of the working
class in England, focusing on the Newport uprising in isolation and
failing to consider the broader political context of the national
Chartist movement.
In reality there is a more complex picture. Within
Chartism there were a number of dominant militant and a number of
dominant moderate areas, and within all areas a mix of militant and
moderate layers of the working class. Within this picture, successful
struggle is the outcome of the interaction of a number of different
processes.
But how are class-conscious attitudes determined and
developed? There are a number of criteria which, within the dynamics of
the struggle, dialectically interact upon one another. One of these is
indeed the occupational position of different sections of the working
class. In simplistic terms, this relates to workers with specific work
conditions, which may mean they are more conservative and are more
likely to be drawn to the ideology of capitalism. They may be well-paid
workers in secure jobs (we might identify these today as senior
managers) who, while technically working class, identify their interests
with the bosses. During periods of the 19th century, particularly during
the middle decades, sections of skilled workers formed such a
conservative layer – these are the ‘artisans’ referred to above.
However, we should not over-generalise that all skilled workers are
conservative. It was skilled cloth dressers who led the Luddite movement
in the first decades of the 19th century; and the skilled hewers of coal
and engineers who shifted from liberalism to militant socialism in the
first decade of the 20th century. Mere occupational position is
insufficient in explaining militancy, or the lack of it.
A second factor is the traditions and experience of
struggle. During the course of the class struggle, attitudes, tactics
and methods are learnt; and these stay with the working class to be used
in future struggles. Victories or defeats can alter and amend this
consciousness of experience.
This brings us to a third factor, the leadership of
the working class. As Trotsky says in his article The Class, the Party
and the Leadership: "In reality leadership is not at all a mere
‘reflection’ of a class or the product of its own free creativeness. A
leadership is shaped in the process of clashes between the different
classes or the friction between the different layers within a given
class". In my article I sought to explain how the national Chartist
leadership of 1838-1840 arose and how this leadership contrasted with
the militancy of the Chartists in the local areas. The national Chartist
movement was defeated in this early period because the leadership, drawn
from more moderate elements, muted and then beheaded a national united
struggle for change. This precisely left the local areas stranded, and
resulted in a range of isolated outbursts and struggles across the
country, of which the Newport uprising was the most significant.
But Geoff’s letter does not seem to view the Newport
uprising in this way. Rather, we are presented with militancy as the
determining factor. In reality, while the class struggle, of necessity,
requires the militancy of the working class, who draw upon their
traditions of struggle, this is not the only factor that influences the
outcome of events. Instead there is a dialectical interpenetration of
various factors. These include the leadership, the class (which itself
is divided into varying militant layers) and the determination,
weakness, strength and tactics of the ruling class. An analysis that
only sees the militancy of the class directly leading to a militant
leadership, but without taking into consideration the dynamic unfolding
of these other interacting factors, is misguided.
Ed Doveton,
Kirklees
Lessons for the struggle for a new party
ED DOVETON’S article on Chartism is one of those
examples which show that Socialism Today should possibly serialise more
articles. Then maybe it could have discussed the points raised by Geoff
in his letter about the need to analyse the class nature of the
different strands of Chartism.
Chartism was not a homogenous organisation, and how
could it be when the working class and the industrial centres of Britain
at that time were still developing? The development of Moral Force
Chartism (called the New Move) rose out of the defeats of 1839 and the
uneven development of manufacturing centres in Britain at the time.
So, to get a better outlook when we discuss
Chartism, we have to examine the rise of the reform movement leading up
to and beyond the Peterloo massacre of 1819, Robert Owen and his
advocacy of socialist and cooperative ideas and of course, the demands
and ideology that the manufacturing wing of the bourgeois were
campaigning for through their organisations such as the Birmingham
Political Union. It was these Political Unions that, although having the
support of many small artisans and employers, went out of their way not
to let them join. Wanting to appeal only to the ‘respectable classes’
the Political Unions ultimately led to the working classes being
consciously betrayed in the run up to the granting of the 1832 Reform
Act. This was the act that achieved, for the first time, the vote for
the developing industrial middle class (males). It was a lesson that
politically conscious workers were not to forget.
We also need to examine the role played by female
workers who, in the working class areas, supported Chartism through
the Female Radical Association or the Female Chartists Associations.
These at their height involved hundreds of working class women alongside
sincere middle class female activists. But they also started to
challenge male dominance in the National Charter Association and the
local bodies as well. (See Jutta Schwartzkopf’s book, Women in the
Chartist Movement, MacMillan, ISBN 0-333-53915-X)
There were also the ideological battles that saw
Chartists fighting a determined campaign to prevent the unions going
over to the Liberal Party in cities like Bristol. It is not the case, as
Geoff states, that workers went over easily to the Liberal Party. There
was for example in Bristol a heated battle around 1842 to prevent trade
unions giving political support to the Liberals when that party in
office locally wanted to municipalise the city’s docks. It was also
around this time that Chartists were debating with Robert Owen about
socialism after the demise of Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trade
Union.
It was these young workers and campaigners who in
their later years developed socialist ideas from mass campaigns and
being involved in the cooperative movement and trade unions. For some it
would not be a straight line. But some went on to influence the cadres
of the Social Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party
which in turn led to the creation of the Labour Party. A Labour Party
that incidentally grew under a restricted franchise still skewed in the
ruling classes’ favour and an electoral system that was
first-past-the-post. From the start, these activists saw that any new
workers’ party had to be rooted in working class campaigns and not
purely reliant on the electoral plane.
As the demand for a new workers’ party gathers pace
in Britain, the ideas raised in the past to prevent such a party growing
will also be seen again. There will be those who will seek to limit it
to just standing in elections, those who will want a clean break and
those who will want to work with any rump left in or around New Labour’s
remains. Socialism Today should carry a series of articles to analyse
the lessons from the past, draw conclusions and prepare for the growth
of a new workers’ party in the future.
Steve Wootton,
Bristol
|