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THE BRITISH REVOLUTION

by

P.M. ROXBY

CANADIAN WORKERS PARTY 367 Northwood Drive, Toronto, Ontario

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C O N T E N T S

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... ...... ...... ...... ......3 THE EVOLUTION OF THE BRITISH OLIGARCHY ......4 THE BRITISH REVOLUTION ...... ...... ...... ......8 THE FEDERATION OF WORKERS REPUBLICS ...... ....14 THE ABOLITION OF WAGE SLAVERY ...... ...... ....16 THE ROLE OF THE TRADE UNION ...... ...... ....20 CONCLUSION ...... ...... ...... ...... ....21

The Author P.M Roxby was born in Britain in 1905, and was educated originally

for the church. For many years past he has been associated with the revolutionary Syndicalist movement, both as speaker and writer. Colleague Roxby has spoken in all parts of the Federation and participated in the British revolution in 1938. He currently writes for the Federal Ministry of Information, and is spokesman for the Conglomerated Typesetters’ and Printers’ Union on subcommittee 3 of the Federal Historiographical Revision Committee . His published works include; “At the Crossroads of History”, “The Papacy and Integralism”, “The Jesuits: A Study in Counter-Revolution”, “Angolan Neo-Feudalism in Context” and “Through Syndicalist Eyes”. He has also written extensively on historical questions.

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

THIS pamphlet deals with the evolution of modern British society, and the developing revolutionary situation now in process of completion, as a consequence of the disintegration of the traditional norms of British capitalist-imperialist society.

I wish to state as emphatically as possible that the conception

of English History and the Workers’ State as set forward in the following lines differs widely from the ‘facts’ set forward by the newspapers and bourgeois politicians- ‘facts’ that are, fundamentally, not objective, but rather a skilful compound of ‘wish-fulfilments’ and bourgeois apologetics, in the ultimate interest of Imperialism and the most astute ruling-class in all human history; of that financial oligarchy which, under successive ‘democratic’ disguises, has been the real ruler of the world since before the time of Marx.

I envy the proletarian ‘Gibbon’ upon whom the fascinating

task will devolve of writing “The decline and fall of the British Empire”, a canvass of great sweep and satanic grandeur. The more modest aim of these chapters is to provide workers who are not afraid to indulge in some serious thought with a brief introduction to the British Revolution and the resultant organisation of the Federation of Workers’ Republics.

All who do not intend to have their minds made up for

them by the millionaire press should read and digest this pamphlet.

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T H E E V O L U T I O N O F T H E B R I T I S H O L I G A R C H Y

IT was the outstanding paradox of Modern History, and the underlying cause of the Revolution, that whilst economically Britain was the model country of capitalist development, it was politically in no sense typical of the normal evolution of bourgeois society into democratic society. It was this basic feature of this model land of capitalism- the scene of the Industrial Revolution, and for long its monopolist, yet still ruled by a pre-capitalist caste system- which marked Britain as the lowest-hanging fruit of the coming World Revolution.

The most important feature of pre-revolutionary Britain was

precisely the fact that, with the exception of a single eighteen month period under the ‘Provisional Government’, it has never been a bourgeois democracy. It is the one country in Europe that remained untouched by the great wave of revolutions that began with the French Revolution in 1789-94. For more than three centuries, and despite a skilfully erected facade of democratic camouflage, Britain has been the land, per excellence, of Government by the few- of an oligarchic plutocracy. Britain- for we include with England her ‘occupied’ territories, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, India and so on- was, in fact, the modern counterpart of Carthage or Venice, the thalassocratic oligarchies of classical and medieval times.

It is not the purpose of this pamphlet to detail the rise and

fall of the British Oligarchy, except in the broadest terms. Readers who are curious about these matters will find

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enlightenment in other volumes of this series. Yet it is helpful to provide a brief outline.

THE THREE CHURCHIILS

One curious, but perhaps logical feature of the British

Oligarchy, given its aristocratic nature, is that a single family appears again and again in its historical development, whose representatives on each occasion played a pivotal role in moving British society closer to the Revolution. The British Oligarchy arose in the sixteenth century at the time of the great religious revolution, which also marked the beginning of English Capitalism. It grew and matured in the form of the Whig Party of merchant capital; and it is here that the first of the Three Churchills made himself known.

Using the Whig Party as the instrument of the British

Oligarchy, the truly infamous John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, overthrew the Stuarts with Dutch aid in the curiously-named ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688-9- actually about as sordid a piece of jobbery as is to be found anywhere even in the annals of Capitalism! The first Churchill established a thinly disguised but extremely effective dictatorship, which lasted unaltered down to the Reform Bill of 1832, which at last transformed the Whig Party of merchant capital into the Liberal Party of industrial capital.

From 1838 to 1848 the Chartist Movement ran its course.

This movement has often been misunderstood. It aimed, not at Socialism, then in its earliest infancy, but at the creation in England of a genuine bourgeois democracy. It intended to be a

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successor of the French Revolution, not a predecessor of our own! Chartism, however, failed. It was killed by the ‘Repeal of the Corn Laws’ in 1846, which ended the ‘Hungry Forties’.

With the advent of Free Trade, bourgeois society in England

arrived at economic maturity. But politically, it still remained an Oligarchy, albeit one that found itself increasingly under threat. About 1850, Karl Marx – a poverty-stricken exile in London since the failure of the European Revolution in 1848- wrote to Engels that Toryism was about to quit the scene, leaving the future to be fought for between the Liberal Party, henceforth the sole party of Capital, and the rising forces of labour, still temporarily dazed by the fiasco of Chartism.

On his own premises Marx was right. But he failed to

anticipate the second Churchill. He did not foresee the arrival, at this particular moment, of that Machiavellian genius, the greatest master of counter-revolution of the nineteenth century, or excepting only the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, probably in modern times.

Lord Randolph Churchill (1849-97) led the Tory Party from

about 1885 until he death in 1897. During this period he was Prime Minister twice (1887-90 and 1891-97), and his enduring interest for permanent history lies in his role as the author of the most successful counter-revolution in modern times- a transformation which bought the British Oligarchy another half-century of life.

Under the original guidance of its man of genius, the Tory

Party, agrarian and therefore moribund, between 1885 and

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1897, subsumed the party of industrial capital and in the form of the Unionist Party became the party of the most advanced kind of capitalism, of finance-capitalism, of Imperialism. The social transformation that began with ‘Tory Democracy’ was concluded in 1893 when the Trades Union Congress was incorporated into the Government. Finally, as a final stroke of genius, Churchill secured a mass basis for the new Imperialism by the brilliant conception of ‘Tory Democracy’- hitherto a contradiction in terms, for prior to Churchill no Tory could be a democrat.

How was the contradiction overcome? The answer is simple;

imperialist expansion and colonial plunder! For the next generation, the counter-revolution of which Churchill was the initial and guiding genius resulted in a unique society, a ‘free’ metropolis based on a slave Empire, in a permanent class-truce at home based on exploitation without parallel abroad in the Empire, in a gigantic corporation with British labour, united as a junior partner with its own ruling class at home, bribed by a share in Imperial plunder.

Cecil Rhodes summed up the essential nature of the new

social formation with an apt phrase: “The Empire is a question of Bread.” Indeed, we can extend the phrase; the purpose of the Unionist movement was to butter the bread of the workers to make them blind to their lack of freedom. And this is where the third Churchill entered the scene.

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T H E B R I T I S H R E V O L U T I O N

WE have seen that by the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain was undoubtedly the most conservative country in the world, with an almost total lack of class-consciousness amongst the vast mass of the British workers, their incorporation into the framework of the Imperialist state achieved not by open repression, but by the far more appetising Imperialist plunder! How then was the work of the Churchillian counter-revolution undone, and a Workers’ State raised in its place?

THE CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM

The strange class-truce between Capital and Labour which

was Unionist Britain could only hold together as long as the Empire, which was its lowest common denominator, also held. Consequently, as British Imperialism passed its zenith and moved to the defensive in the face of German, Russian, and Chinese growth, the Churchillian counter-revolution became progressively more difficult to sustain.

Even a decade before the Great War, the British ruling-class,

who had immense cunning and great experience, unrivalled by any secular ruling class in modern times, saw the writing on the wall. It was clear to Winston Churchill, even then, that in the best case, Britain could only hope to prolong a shadowy Imperialist existence in a manner similar to the survival of the Spanish Empire in the eighteenth century under the protection of the (then) rising French and British Empires.

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Churchill knew very well what he was doing. He knew the

fate of a metropolis without an empire, a rentier without an income, a centre without a circumference! With the British Empire declining, he knew that there was nothing left for the British Oligarchy but to exploit the Metropolis as it had formerly exploited the colonies; to turn the British themselves into Indians!

The first stage to this process was to drop the pretence of

democracy; to reinforce with steel some of the bars of the gilded cage which held the British Worker. This began in 1914, when the General Election of that year saw an unprecedented rejection by the voters of both the Unionists and the sad remnants of the agrarian Whig-Tory combination, which had briefly held power. Hithertofore, the British Socialist Party, itself a largely bourgeois construction but nonetheless the direct descendent of the Chartist movement, had been permitted to operate by the ‘powers that be’, but their sudden popularity caused panic in the financial clique of ‘the City’ that controlled British Capital.

As a result, the Socialist leader Victor Grayson, himself a

Government spy -and a Churchill himself, being no less than the illegitimate child of the Duke of Marlborough! – was compelled to incriminate himself and his Party in a series of revolutionary acts- acts that the cringing Social Democrats of that Party would never have had the courage to actually commit!

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Thus armed with their pretext, the British ruling-class suppressed the Socialist Party, forced all Workers under the auspices of the establishment Trades Union Congress, and imprisoned or exiled all those who resisted. The weaker the British Oligarchy became, both at home and abroad, the more vicious it became in its efforts to turn its Trade Unionists into coolies. For after all, the favourite sport of the English ‘gentleman’ has always been killing- foxes in England, Workers everywhere else. The English bourgeoisie was reared on violence: Calvinism consecrated its bloodstained youth, and there is no historical parallel to the cold, unimaginative ruthlessness with which it has plundered the planet.

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION

This cold fury was turned against the British Workers with a violence proportionate to their strength. But Britain was too industrialised to be ruled with bayonets for long, for it it is true that ‘one can do anything with bayonets except sit on them’. Men and women denied their own Unions, and organisations, increasingly joined the Oligarchy’s approved groups, and subverted them to their own purposes. By then, the State, in a state of advanced senility, hardly even noticed.

At the same time, the exploited colonial peoples of the

Empire began to develop a consciousness of their own. This too was not noticed by anyone but the Party, which by now had spread throughout the vast, groaning apparatus of Oligarchic oppression, waiting only for the moment to strike.

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As time went on, the ruling class was forced to take greater and greater risks in defence of its Imperialist interests; and so it was inevitable that sooner or later, the old order would destroy itself. And this is exactly what happened. In May 1932, the Imperialist rivals China and Japan fell out- like thieves over the spoils- over which Emperor had the right to exploit the workers of Formosa. The complex rivalries of international Finance sprung into action, and before long the Workers of the world were forced into killing each other in their millions at the whims of their masters, in the name of ‘peace’ and ‘freedom’, though peace and freedom for whom was never specified.

For four long years the battle-lines moved back and forth.

Eastern Europe was ‘liberated’ from Tsarist autocracy to the tender mercies of the German industrial conglomerates; Formosa moved from Chinese to Japanese tyranny, while Corea moved in the reverse direction. And in March 1936, with the Empire collapsing around them at the hands of the Germans and Chinese, the British Oligarchy fell out amongst themselves. THE REVOLUTION BEGINS

The General Strike of 1936 should not be seen as a revolutionary act. Rather, it was a fundamentally counter-revolutionary one. Just as the first Churchill used the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ to sweep away the discredited Stuarts and prolong the Oligarchic nature of Britain, so did the bourgeois politicians Austen Chamberlain, F E Smith and David Lloyd George use the working class to topple one,

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discredited segment of the ruling elite for another, less aristocratic but no less oppressive part.

The ‘Provisional Government’ was comprised of students and

protégés of the second Churchill, and, once they had secured peace with Germany, aimed to replicate his achievement. But unlike in Lord Randolph’s time, Britain had no Empire to acquire, and little else, save the exported sweat and life-blood of 500,000,000 colonial slaves, would serve to bribe and control the masses.

One by one, the shibboleths of the British Oligarchy fell, as

the ruling classes tried to delay the inevitable. The Anglican Church, the Oligarchy at prayer, was severed from the state; the Parliamentary voting system was changed and ‘Home Rule’ Governments set up in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to give the semblance of democratic rule. By now though, historical inevitability was taking its course. The Trade Unions were officially freed from Unionism; Workers were invited to Government; the first companies were put into the hands of the workers; and men like Stafford Cripps were sent to free the colonies from the terrible yoke of Imperialism.

The British Oligarchy, however, while dying, still convulsed.

A final attempt was made to prevent the revolution by engineering the collapse of the Popular Front Government and its replacement by a reactionary grouping, in blatant defiance of the will of the people. By then though it was too late. The workers now held power in Edinburgh and Dublin; the genie of popular democracy had been summoned, and could not be stuffed back into the bottle so easily.

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On March 25th, 1938, “Red Friday”, the last toehold of the

British Oligarchy was swept away by the people, and true democratic government by the Workers began. It has flourished ever since, undimmed by the increasingly desperate and futile attempts of the last remaining Oligarchs, of the landowning squires, sectarians, colonial slave-owners, and the local allies to colonial exploitation.

Britain is free, and much of its former Empire has joined us

in revolt against oppression and the cynical pursuit of naked profit on the backs of the ordinary man, whether black or white. Soon the rest of Britain’s little-lamented Empire will follow, and eventually all peoples of the world will see their chains broken.

Only this way can there be achieved that glorious Renaissance

of post-revolutionary world culture which in its intensity will be equal to, and in diffusion far more universal than, the similar Renaissance in the age of dawning Capitalism.

We go forward confidently, for the future is ours. But what

of the present? What is the Federation of Workers’ Republics, and why does it represent such a radical departure in the governance and state of humanity?

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T H E F E D E R A T I O N O F W O R K E R S’ R E P U B L I C S

THE FWR is a democratic Federation of eighteen independent Workers’ Republics, and seven Autonomous Regions. It covers almost 5 million square miles and has around 575 million inhabitants, making it the most populous country in the world, and the second largest by land area, after Russia. A map of the Federation can be found on the inside front cover, and a list of the Federation’s constituent Republics along with their flags can be found on the inside back.

The Federation is the legal and democratically-proclaimed

successor to the old, unlamented United Kingdom. This is mentioned not to claim continuity with the past- far from it- but rather because the despicable remnants of the old regime still claim that they were thrown out of power illegally. This is a barefaced lie, though sadly not the only one told about the Federation. In fact, the ‘revolutionary violence’ much alluded to in the millionaire press was purely counter-revolutionary in nature, caused by the thugs of the British Oligarchy and International Capital desperately trying to strangle the Workers’ State in its cradle.

Despite its origins in Britain, however, the Federation is not a

British State. It is the first genuinely international political unit in the world; the initial stage in the coming world-state that will inevitably encompass all nations and provide humanity with their next stage of social and political development.

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Each Worker’s Republic in the Federation is an independent state of its own that freely and peacefully cooperates with its fellow Republics. Each of these Republics are made up of Autonomous Regions of their own, which allow each distinct area of the Federation to be governed in the manner best suited to its people and culture. Some Autonomous Regions are not suitable for incorporation into one of the Workers’ Republics, either for geographical, cultural or historical reasons. These include places such as the Isle of Man and Gibraltar, and in time, should they wish, they may become full Republics within the Federation themselves.

The Workers’ Republics elect representatives to the Federal

Workers’ Congress, which in turn selects a Federal Committee to oversee the shared functions of the Federation. These functions include industrial production targets, encouraging the spread of Workers’ consciousness beyond the borders of the Federation, defence, and- for centuries of exploitation have left deep inequalities in those Workers’ Republics that used to be colonies- development work. The millionaire press will never tell you, for example, that the Workers’ Army has as many Development Battalions as Infantry Battalions!

The Federation of Workers’ Republics is different to other

nations because it is the only country in the world that is governed along Democratic Syndicalist lines. This means that unlike other nations, where even in the best case the Workers are bribed using their own money to allow the continued tyranny of the Plutocracy, the Federation has organised society for the sole benefit of the Worker. The next chapter will explore how.

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T H E A B O L I T I O N O F W A G E S L A V E R Y

WHAT is the single most pernicious invention of the capitalist age? What is the thing that does most to keep the Working Man downtrodden, weak, unable to fight back?

The answer is the wage. The wage makes the Worker

dependent on his master, the employer. If he wishes to improve his lot, he must either keep his head down and avoid trouble, or strike. And if he strikes, then he stands to lose the money by which he feeds his family. In advanced ‘reformed’ capitalist countries such as the old United Kingdom, he may even lose his home and possessions, as they are provided by his employer as well.

Marx noted that the difference between wage slavery and

chattel slavery, such as is still practiced in parts of Africa to this day, is that the wage slave may refuse to work and not be subjected to punishment beyond the loss of his job. But is that really the case? Would the miners of Colorado in 1917, or of the Welsh Valleys in 1924, or the lumberjacks of British Columbia in 1935, agree that the only penalty for refusing to work was the loss of their job? Of course not! They were shot in their hundreds by an Oligarchy determined to keep the working man down!

The Capitalist would tell you that wage slavery is a fraud, and

that it is simply the way in which working man is rewarded for his work. But is he rewarded fairly? Of course not! As I write,

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the price of coal is near enough $155 per ton. Does the miner get paid $155 for every ton of coal he digs from the ground? No! The new model 1939 Cadillac will cost the wealthy businessman $1479 from the showroom- a small price for him, though a fortune for the Worker- but do each of the hundred-or-so workers on the assembly line receive $14.79 for each car they complete? The thought is laughable!

Where then does all this money go? Obviously some must be

required for the running of the company, the purchase of equipment, and so on, but even this leaves a great proportion of the working man’s proper reward left unaccounted for. Of course, you know the answer to this question. The money goes to the boss, to pay for his fancy car, his big house, his fur coat and his servants. The fruits of the Worker’s backbreaking labour is siphoned off to pay for the Plutocrats, and the Worker is expected to be grateful, for at least he doesn’t starve!

DEMOCRATIC SYNDICALISM

The Federation of Workers Republics has abolished the

wage and emancipated the Worker from wage slavery. This has been achieved by giving the Worker a direct stake in the production of goods.

Who, in the factory, or mine, or corporation, never strikes?

The answer is the Boss, for he owns the company, and needs it to succeed and prosper. He will only cut his wages if everyone else’s have been cut first. How then do we ensure that the

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Workers have the same privilege? By making the Workers the Boss.

Under Democratic Syndicalism, corporations have been

expropriated from the Plutocrat and given directly to the Worker, to be run cooperatively, for the benefit of all. Each Worker is an equal Stakeholder in the enterprise, and collectively own their own industry; as such, each is entitled to a Stakeholder’s Dividend, which is collectively agreed based upon the needs of the Workforce and the broader state of the Industry. This, at a stroke, shatters the chains of capitalist exploitation; the manager is remunerated the same as the shop-floor worker or the cleaner, and the Worker receives a fair price for what they produce.

Thus, in Syndicalist society all are equal stakeholders in their

chosen profession. All are explicitly united in a common purpose, and respect each other's unique skills and abilities to work collectively toward that purpose; this is why we refer to fellow Workers as “Colleague”.

Some ‘Social Democratic’ countries have given the impression

of this process, without the substance. The German Reich and French Republic have loudly announced the nationalisation of some industries, putting them, or so they claim in ‘public ownership’. But as we know, ownership by the Oligarchic Government is not ownership by the People! The Workers in these industries merely exchange one set of exploitative Plutocrats for another, and often not even that.

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Instead, the system of collective ownership finally ends the exploitation of the worker, either in the metropolis or the former colony. Let us look at an example.

The Congolese Worker tends the rubber plantation that he

jointly owns with the rest of his village; the Federal Rubber Growers’ Union negotiates a fair price for his produce so it can be sold to the factories of the English Rubber Workers Union, which in turn negotiates a haulage deal with the Amalgamated Federal Transport Workers’ Union. The rubber is shipped from the plantation to Birmingham, where it is vulcanised by the English Workers, and sold to the British Motor Corporation, where it is used for the tyres of the Worker’s Car and other agricultural equipment.

No Bosses, or expensive Managers, are needed for this

process, which operates just as quickly as the Capitalist ‘supply chain’. The Worker’s Car that rolls off the assembly line is just as sturdy and well-crafted as any Studebaker or Cadillac- in fact more so, for it has been manufactured by a free workforce who take pride and joy in their work.

Where are the whips and dogs for the Congolese to make

him meet his quota? Where are the dockers who are close to starvation for lack of pay? Where are the assembly line workers who know that to fall behind will mean the loss of their house, even as they make another expensive toy for their masters?

This is Democratic Syndicalism in operation; Government of

the Workers, by the Workers, for the Workers. It is the future. And we in the Federation are living it today.

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T H E R O L E O F T H E T R A D E U N I O N

Under a Democratic Syndicalist system, the Union plays a

vital role, if a different one to under Capitalism. For although the Worker no longer needs defence in the face of Plutocratic exploitation, he does need coordination, training and expertise.

The Trade Unions provide the over-arching democratic

structure of the Federation. Every Citizen is a member of a Union; and, as well as providing the overall democratic oversight for their Industry, the Unions collectively form the Federation’s Government. Just as in the Capitalist workplace, a Worker will vote for a representative on their Union branch; this representative will in turn vote for the Union delegate on their Municipal, or Regional Committee, and so on.

Each Municipal Committee democratically nominates a

member for the Workers’ Congress, which sits in the capital and acts as the forum for debate and discussion in that Workers’ Republic. The Regional Committees nominate members to the National Committee, who temporarily set aside their normal employment to make broader decisions on behalf of the Republic. The Workers’ Congress and the National Committee for each Republic then nominate their most outstanding delegates to the Federal Congress and Executive Committee.

These men and women, such as Colleagues Mosley, Bose and

Alowolo, are entrusted with the Revolution. But they are paid no more than the normal worker. That too is Syndicalism.

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C O N C L U S I O N In this pamphlet, we have broadly passed over the vital

themes of the British Revolution; of the historical context in which the British Oligarchy rose; how it tenaciously and violently clung to power in a variety of different guises, and of how it reached its final form by adopting the precepts of Imperialism and Tory Democracy.

We then explored how this ideology was fundamentally

unsustainable; how the British Oligarchy struck out with increasing desperation and violence as it tried to cheat its inevitable historical demise, and how it finally fell in the face of the Workers.

Most importantly of all, we have examined, in a most cursory

fashion, the organisation of the Federation of Workers’ Republics, that unique beacon of hope for the oppressed masses of humanity, and seen why only through the adoption of Democratic Syndicalism can humanity escape the endless cycle of exploitation at the hands of Finance Capital, the Plutocrat, and the Oligarch.

The British Revolution may have concluded. But the World

Revolution is just beginning. Already around a fifth of the globe’s population have been freed from their shackles. Now we must ensure the liberation of the remaining part.

Hope is at hand. We march forward confidently, for the

future is ours.

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SYNDICALIST PAMPHLETS Democratic Syndicalism in Theory and Practice

By Earnald Mosley 8c The Way Out

By Bob Edwards 5c Constitution of the Federation of Workers Republics

6c Syndicalism in Peace and War

By P.M Roxby 5c War On the People

By Peter Godwin 6c Through Syndicalist Eyes

By P.M Roxby 5c

THE TRUTH THE ORGAN OF THE SYNDICALIST PARTY.

Edited by RAJANI DUTT Can be had for twelve weeks, post free, $5

TO JOIN THE MOVEMENT Write for particulars of Membership to EDWIN DUNN, General

Secretary, 367 Northwood Drive, Toronto, Ontario AND WORK FOR PEACE BY SYNDICALSIM

SYN 2NDICALISM 3

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