The English Revolution

Some historians prefer the term the English Civil War to the English Revolution. They readily acknowledge the American and French upheavals as revolutions but are reluctant to recall that England was the scene of the first revolution against the power of a monarch. Having falsified the revolution, it  has also erased the very memory of revolution by dissolving England's past into gradualism.The revolution may have begun with an attempt by wealthy land-owners to defend their rights against an autocratic monarchy, but soon more fundamental questions were asked about who had the right to own land and how that right was justified; about the nature of political authority; and about the balance of political and spiritual authority. The English Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, not a socialist revolution. However, Engels pointed out in  Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, "In every great bourgeois movement there were independent outbursts of that class which was the more or less developed forerunner of the modern proletariat".   The English Revolution was capitalist primarily in its outcome, not its originating intention, for a capitalist  revolution does not mean a revolution made by or consciously willed by the bourgeoisie. (similarly the Russian Revolution of 1917 can be viewed as effectively a capitalist revolution without the capitalists).  It should never be forgotten that it was the ordinary people who did the fighting and the sacrificing that won the gains of these revolutions, even if the beneficiaries were in fact a different class (or bureaucracy).

During the revolution it was the poor who formed the backbone of the parliamentary forces and, in 1649, it was the poor, those who had no interest in maintaining the hierarchy and economic inequality of society, who were the basis for any extension of the revolution. In the English Revolution it was also the case that religion expressed class conflict and the overwhelming desire for economic equality. Religion and politics were in fact inseparable. Religious debates often concerned competing political strategies. The god the poor appealed to was  a god of class levelling, described by Digger leader Abiezer Coppe: "For lo I come (says the Lord) with a vengeance, to level also...your honour, pomp, greatness, superfluity, and confound it into parity, equality, community; that the neck of horrid pride, murder, malice, and tyranny, etc may be chopped off at one blow." The Levellers argued that since God had created all men as equals and many had their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the Christian faith.  However some radicals understood the disarming and distracting role religion could play: "For while men are gazing up at heaven, imaging after a happiness, or fearing a hell after they are dead, their eyes are put out, and they see not what is their birthright, and what is to be done by them here on earth while they are living".
Some of the most important revolutionary questions ever raised in England were debated at St. Mary's church in what was then the small village of Putney by members of The New Model Army who had defeated the King's forces and now demanded the right to decide on the new world they would live in. It exposed the divide between the Grandees, the senior officers who were mainly landowners, and the Agitators, the ‘common’ people who felt the victory was theirs and wanted political rights in return. Thomas Rainsborough made his famous statement 'for really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he’ . These radicals  foresaw that without a redistribution of resources political rights would ultimately be eroded. Hence the call for land redistribution so that it could become, in Gerard Winstanely's words 'a common Treasury'. The Putney Debates is held by many to be the first step on the road to universal suffrage and democratic rights.

In the midst of the English Revolution it was the Levellers and not from its commanders that the victorious New Model army derived its political ideas and its democratic drive. The Levellers at the Putney Debates presented the ‘Agreement of the People’. It gave precise details as to how power was to be exercised in the new commonwealth and required: proportional representation; two year parliaments (elected on the first Thursday of every other March); the power of parliament to be inferior only to those who elected it and responsible for: ‘the enacting, altering, and repealing of laws; to the erecting and abolishing of offices and courts; to the appointing, removing, and calling to account magistrates and officers of all degrees; to the making war and peace; to the treating with foreign states; and generally, to whatsoever is not expressly or impliedly reserved by the represented to themselves.’ This is a radical platform that goes beyond what any national democracy has yet achieved. It makes explicit a fact that many who live in contemporary democracies have forgotten: that representative democracy requires the consent but also the vigilance of the electorate: electing representatives to serve on your behalf does not absolve you of the right and responsibility of decision-making. The representatives engaged in these debates were well aware of how these freedoms might be limited: ‘all obstructions to the freedom and equality of the people’s choice of their representers, either by patents, charters, or usurpations by pretended customs, be removed by these present Commons in Parliament, and that such a freedom of choice be provided for, as the people may be equally represented’ (‘The Case of the Army’). Unfortunately, this outbreak of democracy within the ranks of the army was relatively short-lived; the outbreak of the second civil war in 1647 allowed the generals to reassert their authority

The concerns of the poor, as opposed to the farmers and artisans, were articulated by the most radical group, the Diggers. Gerrard Winstanley, wrote how wage labourers had their labour stolen from them and campaigned for the abolition of wage labour. Their alternative was the communal cultivation of the land, which was to be held in common ownership. The Diggers' movement was crushed by the landowners.

Often overlooked by historians is the  Corporal's Revolt of 1649. Corporal William Thompson close to the Leveller John Lilburne agitated among the soldiers. He was court-marshalled for attempting to stir up mutinies in solidarity with the Leveller army revolt of 1647 but he escaped his death sentence. After the regimental revolts which ended at Burford in May 1649, Thompson and around 120 comrades launched an insurrection at Banbury. Thompson went beyond inciting soldiers to mutiny and called for a rebellion against tyranny and oppression. After being routed by troops loyal to the republic, Thompson and his companions eventually overrun by army regiments. Thompson was killed in this encounter. Thompson was called the General of the Levellers. Thompson and his revolt was of far more concern to the authorities than Winstanley and the Diggers. While the Thompson's revolt was based on the army, the later Coopers' Revolt in 1657 was based on the dissident religious sects who hoped to inspire a mass movement.

The 17th century radicals of the English Revolution dreamt of a society of equality and freedom. In today's world revolutionary change is also called for. Modern socialism owes much to the legacies of the past such as the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Chartists. The British working class can find rich precedents for revolutionary action.

"The Levelution has begun, So I'll go home and get my gun, And shoot the Duke of Wellington." A 19th century street song quoted in "The Making of the English Working Class" by E.P. Thompson.