*TOM PAINE-INTERNATIONALIST REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRAT

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for Tom Paine

BOOK REVIEW

TOM PAINE AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, ERIC FONER, HYPERION, NEW YORK, 2004

If Leon Trotsky was considered by many to be the “prince of pamphleteers” for his efforts on behalf of the Russian Revolution and socialism then Tom Paine can rightly be regarded as the “prince of pamphleteers” for his efforts on behalf of the American and French Revolutions (and its offshoot- the pro-revolutionary English radical movement of the 1790’s) and plebeian democracy. Mr. Foner centers his biography of Tom Paine on the meaning of his key works Common Sense, The Rights of Man and the Age of Reason and the influence they had on the plebeian masses in the Age of Revolution. This, in itself, makes the book worthwhile reading.

These tracts are Paine’s classic arguments for plebeian democracy and the expansion of the capitalist market. Make no mistake, Paine is no socialist but as an agent of the revolutionary plebeian democratic movement- when and where it counted- we can claim him for our own. Mr. Foner also gives a rather detailed picture of Pennsylvania prior to and during Tom Paine’s entrance on the political scene there to help set the impact of his propaganda, especially Common Sense, on the developing American national liberation struggle against England.

Tom Paine, like many important revolutionaries in their time, had an impact on more than one revolutionary movement and therefore justly earned for himself an honored place in plebeian democratic history much to the chagrin of some later historians of these movements. In an age when sales of printed matter were small his tracts sold in the hundreds of thousands and those purchases were not for the coffee table at a time when money was dear. That alone helps defines the impact of his work.

Tom Paine, like other revolutionary leaders, has suffered through the ups and downs of reputation depending on the times. His Age of Reason, the consummate tract in defense of popular deism, led to a steep decline in his reputation for most of the 19th century, an age in America of religious piety. He has fared better lately, in an age that is much more secular and which is not shocked by deist conclusions. Paine also comes in handy as an ally when democratic rights are, like now, under full-scale attack in the name of the ‘war on terrorism’. Let me conclude by saying this, if a closet-Tory like Founding Father John Adams can look pretty damn good in comparison to today’s bourgeois politicians then Tom Paine can rightly take his place in our pantheon of revolutionary heroes.

*Books To While Away The Class Struggle By- At The Dawn Of Bourgeois Society-“Order & Disorder In Early Modern England”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the late Marxist professor, Christopher Hill.

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By and Films To While Away The Class Struggle By-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin

Book Review

Order & Disorder In Early Modern England, edited by Anthony Fletcher & John Stevenson, Cambridge University Press, 1985

Blame on the late British Marxist historian of the 17th century English Revolution, Christopher Hill, who exposed us to every oddball sect from panters to ranters, shakers to quakers, and then some. Blame it on Gerrard Winstanley and his primitive communist experiment up on Saint George’s Hill in the midst of the English revolution in 1649. Hell, blame it on Oliver Cromwell or the historical materialist trend that drove me to an intense interest in all aspects of the 17th century English revolution, and the threads that led up it. And thus to this book that deals, in a group of several essays, with various aspects of the creation of the British bourgeois order in the wake of the English segment of the Protestant Reformation.

It is no mean task to separate out various trends, various customs, various traditions and examine them closely to see where they fall in the scheme of society, any society, as it turned away from an earlier, more traditional and ceremonial (and, frankly, more laid back) way of organizing society, and controlling it so that things do not totally get out of hand as new forces come to the fore. That is the essence of the essays here as subjects as diverse as the role of the emerging Puritan ethic in keeping the social order at the local level, the inertia of the old ways, the changing ethos (and personnel) of the local governing bodies, interesting thing on the women question (scolds, witches, and hen-pecked husband, cuckolds, and various community shaming rituals, of men and women, but mostly women, for example), the struggle for agricultural modernization (the drainers and the fens men, primitive rural capitalists, and other tidbits to round out the picture as far as the records and historical speculation permit). A nice feature, one that could be usefully employed more widely in academic circles, is that the copious footnotes for each essay are on the same page as the notation. Praise be.


My favorite essay of the lot is J.S. Morrill and J.D. Walter’s Order and Disorder in the English Revolution, as could be expected. The authors are well-known to me from previous monograms. Obviously, revolution, almost be definition, is gong to create disorder and order (a new order, if you can keep it, and keep state power long enough to stabilize it). What is interesting in this essay is their analysis of the ebb and flow of “disorder” that reflected the various stages of the unfolding revolution (and its demise by the restoration in 1660 with the return of kingship, lordship, and state church still, disturbingly, with us today). Much of this had to with proximity with military action, but not always. The more interesting point, and one that I tend to agree with, is not how much disorder the revolution brought but how much order remained during the whole period, especially at the local level and outside the "hotbed" cities. Many historians, including revolutionary historians like Leon Trotsky, have noted this phenomenon. Some places are physically left untouched, others have already had their local revolution bringing no overt opposition, or those on the fence have decided to wait and see which way the winds will blow. The point for revolutionaries, in this case those like Oliver Cromwell, John Milton and the Levelers who defended the overthrow of the monarchy, was to avoid rankling local sensibilities. When they couldn’t the cry for a return to monarchy came through. Copious footnotes on this essay also give one plenty of sources to research further on this key aspect of revolution.

*A Communist Before His Time –Gerrard Winstanley and the Digger Colonies in the English Revolution

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Billy Bragg (Known In This Space As Narrator Of Woody Guthrie And His Guitar: The Machine Kills Fascists)performing The World Turned Upside Down.

DVD REVIEW

Winstanley, starring Miles Harriwell, directed by Kenneth Brownlow, 1975

The time of the English Revolution in the 1640's, Oliver Cromwell's time, as in all revolutionary times saw a profusion of ideas from all kinds of sources- religious, secular, the arcane, the fanciful and the merely misbegotten. A few of those ideas however, as here, bear study by modern militants. As the film under review amplifies, True Leveler Gerrard Winstanley's agrarian socialist utopian tracts from the 1640's, the notion of a socialist solution to the problems of humankind has a long, heroic and storied history. The solutions presented by Winstanley had and, in a limited sense, still do represent rudimentary ways to solve the problem of social and economic distribution of the social surplus produced by society. Without overextending the analogy Winstanley's tract represented for his time, the 1600's, what the Communist Manifesto represented for Marx's time-and ours-the first clarion call for the new more equitable world order. And those with property hated both men, with the same venom, in their respective times.

One of the great advances Marx had over Winstanley was that he did not place his reliance on an agrarian solution to the crisis of society as Winstanley, by the state of economic development of his times, was forced to do. Marx, moreover, unlike Winstanley, did not concentrate on the question of distribution but rather on who controlled the means of production a point that all previous theorists had either failed to account for, dismissed out of hand or did not know about. Thus, all pre-Marxist theory is bound up with a strategy of moral as well as political persuasion as a means of changing human lifestyles. Marx posed the question differently by centering on the creation of social surplus so that under conditions of plenty the struggle for daily survival would be taken off the human agenda and other more lofty goals put in its place. Still, with all the True Levelers' weaknesses of program and their improbabilities of success in the 1640's militants today still doff our hats to Winstanley's vision.

Notwithstanding the utopian nature of the experiment discussed above the filmmaker, Kenneth Brownlow, and his associates here have painstakingly, lovingly and with fidelity to the narrative and detail that are known from the researches of the likes of Christopher Hill and George Sabine, among others, that make for an excellent snapshot of what it might have been like up on Winstanley's St. George's Hill long ago. Two things add to that end.

First, the use of black and white highlights the bleak countryside (after all although the land was "common" it was waste that the landlord did not find it expedient to cultivate) and the pinched appearances of the "comrades" (especially the deeply-farrowed expressions of Miles Harriwell as Winstanley). Secondly, the director has used to the greatest extent possible Winstanley's own pamphlets that dealt with what was going on in Surrey and what his political purposes were (expressed as almost always in those days in religious terms- but taking land in common for use rather than profit is understanding in any language. I might add that the attempts to replicate the costumes of the period, the furnishings and the music round out a job well done.

Note: Part of this DVD contains a section on the hows and whys of the making of the film, including in-depth coverage of its making and commentary by Mr. Brownlow. You are getting this film for the Winstanley reenactment but this section is interesting if you are interested in filmmaking.


THE FOLLOWING IS A SONG BASED ON THE DIGGER EXPERIENCE IN 1650

If John Milton was the literary muse of the English Revolution then the Diggers and their leader, Gerrard Winstanley, were the political muses.

The World Turned Upside Down

We will not worship the God they serve, a God of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve.
In 1649 to St. George's Hill
A ragged band they called the Diggers came to show the people's
will
They defied the landlords, they defied the laws
They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs.
We come in peace, they said, to dig and sow
We come to work the lands in common and make the waste
ground grow

This earth divided we will make whole
So it may be a common treasury for all "**
The sin of property we do disdain
No man has any right to buy or sell the earth for private gain

By theft and murder they took the land
Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command
They make the laws to chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven, or they damn us into hell

We will not worship the God they serve,
a God of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve
We work and eat together, we need no swords
We will not bow to masters, nor pay rent to the lords

Still we are free, though we are poor
Ye Diggers all, stand up for glory, stand up now!
From the men of property the orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers to wipe out the Diggers'
claim

Tear down their cottages, destroy their corn
They were dispersed - only the vision lingers on
Ye poor take courage, ye rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury for everyone to share
All things in common, all people one
They came in peace - the order came to cut them down

WORDS AND MUSIC BY LEON ROSSELSON, 1981