How did the British Capitalists Achieve Power?

[p005] HOW DID THE BRITISH CAPITALISTS ACHIEVE POWER ? Mr. Bevan wishes to place the art of working class politics on secure scientific foundations. “Science does not ~ scrap the text books so that each generation can start the 3

[p006] adventure of finding out anew. It piles up a corpus: of reasonably exact knowledge within which it can move with a sure touch on the periphery of the uncharted.” (p. 36). What, then, could be more scientific than to study the experiences of past class struggles so that the workers may learn from them how to conduct their own? Mr. Bevan draws many lessons from British Labour history. But he does not go back far enough. One of the most instructive chapters in British history is how the capitalist possessors of state power gathered it in their hands. It is no secret, however much they try to conceal the facts or obscure their meaning, that the 17th century ancestors of the present capitalist rulers took power and held it by revolutionary means. There was a Parliament in Cromwell’s time too, which by the ruling class standards of King Charles’ day, was considered rather democratic and representative of the nation’s interests. Nevertheless in order to defeat the monarchy, nobility, feudal proprietors and Episcopacy, the Puritan merchants, squires and yeomen could not avoid some extremely drastic extra-parliamentary actions. To arrive at power and consolidate it, they not only had to get command of Parliament. They had to behead a king, arm the Puritan masses, conduct a civil war against the counter-revolution, and set up an iron dictator- ship for an entire period. Parliament itself was subjected to many changes during these events. Shaken and shattered by the clash of con- tending social forces ip the country, Parliament was amputated both from the right and from the left, subordin- ated to Cromwell’s government and the Puritan Army, twice dispersed and twice restored until finally it dissolved itself. Out of these severe struggles at the close of the century there emerged the new capitalist society with the sovereignty of Parliament. Thus the British workers are not only children of the Industrial Revolution; they are equally heirs of the political revolutions of the 17th century which prepared the way . for the economic transformations of the Industrial Revolu- tion at the end of the 18th century. 4

[p007] A student of British history may well conclude that the working class will not meet less resistance from the up- holders of capitalism than the capitalist revolutionists of the 17th century met from the defenders of feudalism. In any event, they would be wise not to count upon benevolence from their class enemy in the decisive period of revolutionary change. Mr. Bevan, however, believes that no historical parallel may be drawn in this respect between the 17th century revolution and the 20th century revolution of the proletariat.