Jack London - The Star Rover

From the author of White Fang and The Call of the Wild, this is an unusual and fascinating science fiction novel that is now quite dated in some of its language, but is an important milestone, itself was probably influenced by works such as H.G. Well's The Time Machine.

First published in 1915 The Star Rover is an account by Darrell Standing, a professor of agriculture who is imprisoned for killing a rival for the affections of the woman he loved. In prison, a convoluted story ends up with Standing being accused of bringing in a quantity of dynamite which he supposedly plans to use for a mass breakout. The dynamite doesn't exist, but in order to torture him into confessing the dynamite's hiding place, Standing is put into isolation and subjected to increasing time in a strait-jacket. There, he learns, via communications with other inmates (made by tapping the plumbing) how to shut his body down, until he enters a trance like state. In this state he is able to travel in time and space, and experience the lives of countless other men from the stone age through medieval France and Korea to the American West.

These unconnected stories are well written historical accounts. In them, Standing experiences unusual lives - a castaway on a deserted island who survives for eight years collecting rainwater in containers carved from rock, a superb duellist, a military commander in Korea who falls from grace and spends a lifetime seeking revenge, and a young boy at the 1857 Mountain Meadow's massacre of a wagon train by the Mormons. I kept expecting these stories to be making a particular point, but they don't really come together. At the end of the novel, facing execution, Standing seems to suggest that the lesson he has learnt is that history is driven by the love of man for woman. He points to his memories of helping to invent the bow and arrow to impress his partner during stone age times and agriculture appears to have been developed for similar reasons.

The book makes it clear that these are real events. Standing learns things, from his historical and other out of body experiences that he could not have known. But all together he simply takes from his knowledge that "there is no death. Life is spirit and spirit cannot die". It's an unsatisfying end to the novel, but one that perhaps fit the early 20th century better than more modern tales - the reader can find his or her own morality tale. It is dated though. In places the language (I'm thinking particularly of the section on Korea) is quite racist by today's standards and the work is overly philosophical, as Standing meditates on life, love and society.

Towards the end, as Standing faces execution, some of London's socialist politics come through a little as he rails against the death penalty. But other than a fascination with foreign places and distant times, there's little here that gives the reader a sense that London's was a important radical activist. While it's not a great novel, it is very unusual and is undoubtedly one that will have inspired later writers. Worth getting hold of if you are interested in the development of the science-fiction genre.

Asad Haider - Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump

Donald Trump's election made bigotry mainstream. Racists, homophobes and misogynists have been empowered by Trump's right-wing rhetoric. How the left understands and responds to this will be crucial in terms of building a united movement that can beat back the right and win real change for ordinary people, as well as protect and defend the rights of those that are under attack from the bigots. As Asad Haider's important new book shows, these battles are not confined to America and the debates are crucial for left-wingers around the globe.

But Haider begins by showing how, perhaps surprisingly, the main way that progressives have attempted to understand oppression - identity politics - has undermined their ability to build the united movements we need. Haider argues that identity politics has moved away from its original usage, as an attempt to make sure that marginalised voices and experiences were not lost to wider movements, and has become an end in itself, helping to undermine movements. He writes:

In its campus activist usage, however, 'intersectionality' appears to move in the opposite direction, retreating from the coalition-building practises of the CRC and instead generalising the condition of the plaintiff: equating political practice with the demand of restitution for an injury, inviting the construction of baroque and unnavigable intersections consisting of the litany of different identities to which a given person might belong. Those whose identity is inscribed with the most intersecting lines can claim the status of most injured, and are therefore awarded, in the juridical framework to which politics is now reduced, both discursive and institutional protection. This protected status implies neither the political subjectivity that can come from organising autonomously, nor the solidarity that is required for coalitions that can enrage in successful political action.

Here, the CRC referred to by Haider is the Combahee River Collective, a group of "black lesbian militants" in Boston, SA who in 1977 issued a statement responding to the racism and sexism in the movement which they said had "undermined" revolutionary socialism. They believed that raising questions of identity and intersectionaility would allow socialists to build stronger movements and coalitions that could be more effective.

Sadly, argues Haider, the opposite has been the case and he gives a number of examples of the ways that contemporary movements have instead become undermined by such politics. Haider points out, for instance, that the Black Lives Matter movement frequently involved groups and individuals who argued that only "black-led organisations" could organise around these issues, but the problem is that there are frequently "deep political divergences among those organisations-some of which represented the elite interests of a black bourgeoisie and explicitly sought to suppress grassroots militancy".

Against this, Haider tries to show how movements can effectively link class struggle and put anti-racism at their heart (Haider focuses on the question of race in this book, though he does not ignore other questions of oppression) including the US Communist Party in the 1930s. He also attempts to understand the retreat of left-wing politics in the context of the neoliberalism introduced by Thatcher and Reagen and followed up by many other politicians. His analysis of events in the UK draws heavily on the political theorist Stuart Hall, but I found this the least convincing part of his argument. For instance, Haider argues (along Hall's lines) that the Miners' Strike (the most damaging defeat for the British working class in the 20th century) was unwinnable from the start. But what he misses is that the Miner's almost did win on several occasions, because he neglects the role of the trade union bureaucracy and the Labour Party. As a result, I think he almost sees the rise of neoliberalism and identity politics separated from its original class-based politics, as inevitable. That said, Haider is correct to see where it ends up, "as a result, the progressive languages of the new social movements, uprooted from their grassroots base, would be appropriated by a new ruling-class strategy."

Haider finishes his wide-ranging, short book, with an appeal for a return to a new politics of universal liberation. He takes inspiration from movements today that fight for solidarity for other groups - such as the "refugees welcome" movement in the US against Trump's Muslim bans. Despite it's short length there is a lot here, from the novels of Philip Roth to a detailed examination of the origins of racism in the Atlantic slave trade. At time I felt a little bombarded by information, but I think that this is a book that deserves a wide-readership for those of us engaged in trying to rebuild radical left politics in the 21st century.

Related Reviews

Fryer - Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain
Richardson (ed) - Say it Loud! Marxism and the Fight Against RacismDresser - Black and White on the Buses: The 1963 Colour Bar Dispute in Bristol
Slorach - A Very Capitalism Condition
Orr - Marxism and Women's Liberation

Brian W. Lavery - The Headscarf Revolutionaries: Lillian Bilocca & the Hull Triple-Trawler Disaster

2018 is the 50th anniversary of 1968 and among all the mass movements and great upheavals seen in that year, there were countless other events that year that made their mark on history. One of these is the struggle of the women of Hull to improve the safety of the fishing trawlers that their husbands, fathers and sons crewed in the dangerous northern waters around Iceland. The beginning of 1968 saw three trawlers sink in one of the most powerful storms that fishers had ever seen. 58 men lost their lives and there was only one survivor.

The tragedy hit the close-knit working class community hard and in the aftermath of the sinking one woman, Lillian Bilocca, launched a petition that rapidly became a national movement demanding improved safety equipment aboard the ships. Mrs Bilocca's son was one a trawler at the time (though not one that sank) and she knew, as did many other women, that it could easily have been her son. One key demand, and it seems incredible today that it wasn't a legal requirement, was to have a qualified radio operator on board each ship. Another was against the use of "Christmas Cracker" crews - inexperienced crews sent out over the winter when more experienced crew members wanted to remain at home with their families.

Author Brian W. Lavery has a long association with Hull, and describes this book as being the result of a promise that he would "set the record straight" about Mrs Bilocca. The book begins with an account of life for fishers on the trawlers. This was an incredibly hard job;  the work required huge physical effort, long hours and often took place in appalling conditions. The ships themselves were frequently dangerous with safety equipment damaged or missing. Lavery points out that at the time ships from European fleets had better equipment and sailed with a command ship that helped look out for the smaller vessels as well as providing support. Crew members were handsomely rewarded for their dangerous work, though the real profits were made by the owners.

Venturing out in the depths of winter into appalling weather was not done out of greed on the part of the crews, but by the ship-owners knowledge that they could make a fortune from a successful return. The short-cuts, dangerous voyages and lack of equipment helped improve the profit margins, but it was the workers on the boats who paid the price. If one anecdote demonstrates this, it is that in the aftermath of the disaster as fishers who had been rescued from a Grimsby trawler were recovering in Iceland, listening to the news of the women's campaign on the radio, their skipper interrupted them.

'You are not going to believe this, lads... but they are only telling us to go back out fishing.' The men were agog but even further astonished by the skippers' next words. 'If I were you lads I wouldn't go. I'll have to get back to them with an answer. Shall I just tell them you are refusing to go? After all, we can hardly blame you.'

Not surprisingly the men said no, the first time a "company command" was refused. Nor is it a surprise that Mrs Bilocca's petition was instantly supported by thousands of locals. Together with several other outspoken women they proceeded to launch a mass campaign for safety. Brushed off by the ship-owners, and in the midst of a media storm the women took their campaign to parliament and, together with the trade union movement, were able to win promises of significant improvements.

Lillian Bilocca inspects ships for safety equipment

Mrs Bilocca found herself at the centre of a national media storm. The tragedy was just the sort of thing the national presses loved and there was a fine angle involving the grieving families and the women's campaign. Unfortunately the media was then, as now, a fickle friend, and was quite capable of turning on those it had held up a few days previously. Mrs Bilocca's working class accent and plain language was turned on her, and some sections of the media erroneously suggested that she had called for a sex strike until their men joined the campaign. Such slurs undermined the campaign and seriously upset Mrs Bilocca, as did the vicious letters sent to her accusing her of interfering in men's work and hitting the community in the pockets. Her campaign was a challenge not just to the bosses, but to many in the community itself.

Lillian Bilocca's campaign had forced the government to introduce a moratorium on fishing in the dangerous area and grant an official inquest into the disasters. Ship owners were forced to make major improvements to safety and politicians made to act. These gains were won extraordinarily quickly - and there is no doubt that this was the result of Mrs Bilocca's personal bravery and commitment. What is also clear is that while a minority of the community disliked her interference, most were of the opinion that "something had to be done" and despite the vicious threats from a small number, Mrs Bilocca's actions led to victory.

Despite the personal tragedies, and the sadness that clearly dogged Lillian Bilocca after the events (she lost her job as a result of her campaigning and never worked in the fishing industry again, having to take cleaning jobs to make ends met) this is a remarkable book that demonstrates that ordinary people can win. Lavery suggests that Lilian Bilocca and her comrades' "Headscarf Revolution" might have been a "naive" one. There is no doubt that she and the others underestimated the power of the media to make and break heroes. But struggles that explode onto the historical stage are usually led by ordinary people who have never played such a role before. In many ways it is precisely their naivety that means they are free of the chains that hold back many seasoned activists.

It is worth highlighting that this book has relevance to today's world. Lavery highlights the limitations of the official union movement in both building among fishers and winning change. The workers might have been considered impossible to organise - much like the fast food workers or other "precarious" workers of the 21st century. Fishers were home for a few days before disappearing for weeks. Yet Lillian Bilocca's campaign proved that the community and the workers could win change. Fishers were also limited by the Merchant Shipping Acts that prevented strikes (though it didn't stop the refusal mentioned above!) Secondly I was struck by how radical movements can explode out of nowhere and rapidly win real change. As one of the union officials said, it is a shame that such a tragedy had to happen before changes were made. But this book is a fitting tribute to Lillian Bilocca and her comrades who, when the time came, stood up and refused to back down.

I'd like to take this opportunity to also highlight a new album about Hull's Fishing Community by Joe Solo. Due out in January 2019 it's title track is about the disaster and is very moving.

Related Reviews

Harman - The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After

David Williams - The Rebecca Riots

The Rebecca Riots are some of the most famous examples of rebellion in Welsh history. For a brief, intense period, the Welsh countryside was aflame with resistance as large groups of rebels, frequently disguised as women, destroyed toll gates, threatened the forces of law and order and made a mockery of the authorities attempts to catch the rebels. This classic book was first published in 1955 and has been reprinted regularly since. It is easy to understand why - it's a comprehensive account of the Riots that puts events into their economic and historic context, but doesn't fail to neglect the telling of a brave and remarkable story.

The book begins with a detailed look at the Welsh economic situation in the first decades of the 19th century. This was a period of intense poverty, and great transition. Wales from moving from being an agricultural economy to one dominated by industry. As with other parts of the British Isles, the development of industrial capitalism led to a transformation in social relations in the countryside. As the need to move goods and raw materials, messages and people around Wales increased, one aspect of the changing world was the need to maintain an adequate system of roads. The responsibility for this was, as David Williams explains in detail, devolved to private companies of individual investors who would pay for road upkeep through the maintenance of tolls.

These tolls had a dramatic impact upon the local population. Depending on whether a cart or a herd of animals were being moved, farmers, traders and businessmen had to pay to move their materials. These tolls were high, and due to the multiplicity of companies, could be levied multiple times for a single journey. Taking inspiration from the Bible (Genesis 24, 60) "And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them." mass protests threatened the toll companies and then smashed them down.

Williams argues however that the riots against toll gates weren't an isolated example of rage at the owners. Instead, "the Rebecca Riots were the growing pains of a new society, an example of the disturbances which so often accompany any change in the social structure." Thus the riots cannot be separated from earlier struggles against tithes, evictions and poverty. Nor can they be separated from the growing numbers of struggles over pay and conditions in the new industries, however as Williams stresses, Rebecca was led, not by the working classes, but by small farmers - though workers and agricultural labourers certainly took part in the protests. Rebecca's "success" argues Williams, led to a "general breakdown in society". But he continues by arguing that other forces also rose up. His description of these as "scum" is unfortunate and unfair. In a highly poverty stricken society of deep class polarisation it is not surprising that a small number of individuals used the opportunity of chaos to settle some scores. More interestingly the riots were also accompanied by other demands. A journalist at The Times managed to gain entrance to a secret mass meeting of Rebecca's followers and noted (via an interpreter) that

The grievances included the toll-gates, the tithe, church rates, and high rents. But Rebecca also resolved that no Englishman should be employed as a steward in Wales (for the landlords had made a practice of importing English and Scottish stewards who would be out of sympathy with their tenants. Farmers were urged not to get into debt, but, if any man endeavoured treacherously to obtain his neighbour's farm, or took a farm which had been given up because the rent was too high, 'the Lady' must be acquainted and encouraged in her exertions.

Once again, I was struck by parallels with other agrarian rebellions in the British Isles - the threats against those who took over farms vacated by others mirrors struggles in the 1820s in Ireland, and there are multiple examples of anonymous threatening letters from England and Ireland.

Williams finishes by highlighting the very real success of Rebecca. While a few individuals were punished for their involvement, some with great severity, most were not and tolls were dramatically reduced, made uniform and crucially supervised by the County. Williams notes that remarkably, "for the next thirty years, South Wales enjoyed a better general system of roads than any other party of the country". Rebecca went down in local history as an inspirational period - quite rightly. It demonstrated that ordinary people could challenge the military forces of the state through their local knowledge, numbers and experience, and that small farmers, rural and urban labourers could work together. Crucially it proved that ordinary people could change the world for the better.

Related Reviews

Jones - Before Rebecca
Donnelly - Captain Rock

David Jones - Before Rebecca: Popular Protests in Wales 1793-1835

The Rebecca Riots against road tolls are perhaps the best known part of Wales' radical history. But Before Rebecca lays out how the economic development of the principality saw a series of radical challenges to authority and struggles against poverty, hunger and over wages which set the scene for the better known struggle. Historian David Jones' 1973 classic is a readable account of these conflicts which span the period from when Wales was basically an agricultural society to the development of the first major industry around Cardiff and Swansea in the first decades of the 19th century.

Students of British working class history will see many similarities between Wales and England. The mid-1790s saw powerful and sustained food riots which, as EP Thompson, emphasises show more than a simple rebellion against high food prices, but also the development of a moral economy as communities fought against the free-market in food, setting their own prices or forcing traders and shop keepers to sell at a "moral" price.

But the core of the book is the story of the riots, strikes and mass protests that were associated with the development of the coal and iron industries. On several occasions these became major struggles that required local authorities to request military assistance, and as Jones explains, in June 1831 thousands of workers marched under a red flag to protest conditions in the industrial town of Merthyr. One June 2nd, a group of soldiers from the Highland found themselves surrounded and when the crowd tried to seize their weapons, they opened fire killing many and injuring dozens. The rioters proceeded to take control of the town and keep out reinforcements. Jones argues that while unsuccessful, the "rising" was part of shaping a working class radical tradition in South Wales that lasted long into the next century. Despite the scale of the Merthyr massacre it is barely known outside of the region, yet deserves to be remembered alongside Peterloo.

Jones tells excellent history and has an eye for amusing and inspiring anecdotes.

Although there was much discontent in [Carmarthen in 1830], few of the leading inhabitants showed much interest in the problem of maintaining order. Only thirteen permanent constables had been appointed. The London police constable who had been sent to the town on a previous occasion, had not been given support and had died of drink.

Women played a central role in all of the struggles he describes, and he tells us that:

Some authorities complained bitterly that women did little or nothing to restrain the wild activities of their menfolk. The most troublesome rioters were often females, particularly country widows and single women who worked at the pits. Armed with sticks, pans, and expressive language, women in this and later decades [early 19th C] terrified bailiffs, enclosure officials, blacklegs and policemen. They were found in the front ranks of a crowd, taunting males with their lack of manhood. Even when they were not involved in disturbances their support was frequently implicit and appreciated.

But the part I was most struck by was actually in one of the appendices. This was the account of a food riot that took place in April 1801, and in particular the address made by the judge Mr Justice Hardinge when sentencing three men to be executed for their role. These men had, in the words of Hardinge led "unimpeached, and perhaps virtuous lives" and during the riot "no acts of personal cruelty" took place. Yet the judge sentenced the men to death and in his address highlighted that the real reason was their attempt to subvert the free-market. His duty was, during trying times of poverty, war and economic difficulty to oppose the "worst of all tyrants" - the mob. But crucially Hardinge explains:

Nothing is more unjust, than to be inflamed against a market, because the general price of it is dear. One may suppose a particular tradesman dishonest in his avarice. A market is governed by such principles of mutual convenience between the buyer and the seller, that it cannot be fairly accused of artifice, or oppression. 

He follows this with a defence of the market's ability to set a fair price, then continues

Your object was a reform of the market, - the act was plunder; - and the punishment is death. 

Thus Samuel Hill, James Luke and Aaron Williams had their "virtuous lives" ended for daring to challenge the supremacy of the free-market in their desperation to feed their families in the midst of hunger and poverty. I don't think I've ever read a clearer example of the way that the state organises to protect the interests of the ruling class. For this, and countless other examples, I highly recommend David Jones' brilliant history and look forward to finding more of his work.

Related Reviews

Donnelly - Captain Rock: The Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821-1824
Thompson - Customs in Common
Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class

James M. McPherson - Abraham Lincoln

James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom is one of the best works of history that I have ever read, so I was extremely pleased to find this very short biography of Abraham Lincoln in a second hand bookshop recently. It followed on nicely from Walter Johnson's history of slavery and the rise of capitalism River of Dark Dreams that I'd finished the previous day.

Despite it's short length (my edition has less than 80 pages including references and index) McPherson's book does an admirable job of covering the key strands of Lincoln's life and ideas. In the context of Johnson's book it's notable that Lincoln's two trips to New Orlean's carrying farm produce in 1828 and 1831 helped shape his views fundamentally; as Lincoln himself said about another trip to Louisville "there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me".

But McPherson argues that while Lincoln's anti-slavery position was a key issue, it wasn't his only one. Lincoln seems more defined by his belief that a properly run system would allow everyone to better themselves should they chose to. As McPherson explains while reporting a debate that Lincoln took part in 1860 that helped push him towards selection as a Presidential candidate:

"I am not ashamed to confess... that twenty-five years ago I was a hired labourer, mauling rails, at work on a flat-boat-just what might happen to any poor man's son/." But in the free states an ambitious man "can better his condition" because "there is no such thing as a freeman being fatally fixed for life, int eh condition of a hired labourer." The lack of hope, energy, and progress in the slave states, where most labourers were "fatally fixed" in the condition of bondage, had made the United States a house divided. Republicans wanted to keep slavery out of the territories so that white farmers and workers could move there to better their conditions without being "degraded...by forced rivalry with negro slaves." Moreover, said Lincoln, "I want every man to have the change-and I believe a black man s entitled to it - in which he can better his condition."

In other words Lincoln wanted an efficient and benevolent capitalism that would benefit all - black or white - and getting this required the end of slavery.

Central to Lincoln's story, not least because he died quickly after it ended, is the question of the Civil War. Lincoln emerges from McPherson's autobiography (and indeed Battle Cry of Freedom) as an astute leader capable of being flexible to win the war. In 1865, the last year of the war, Lincoln "devoted more attention to his duties as commander in chief than to any other function of the presidency". But the key question is slavery and McPherson argues that the emancipation proclamation "freed [Lincoln] from the the agonising contradiction between his antislavery convictions and his constitutional obligations".

Thus it was decision born of practicality, not principle. In 1861, as McPherson emphasises, Lincoln revoked a military order from one of his generals freeing slaves because it would have driven Missouri into the hands of the Confederacy. But once it looked like the war might be lost, Lincoln declared slaves free to be free (except in slaves states that had remained in the Union) in order to help win the war, and recruited 200,000 black soldiers to fight on the Union side. The nature of the Proclamation meant that the end of the war would not end slavery, so Lincoln also pledges to abolish slavery. McPherson argues that by 1863, Lincoln's Gettysburg address could proclaim "a new birth of freedom" because it was clear that post-war US would end slavery.

So McPherson's Lincoln is a leader who is prepared to use the emancipation card as a tactic, despite his principled position against slavery. Once played though, he refused to reverse the decision, "no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the Emancipation lever as I have done". It is notable, as McPherson emphasises, that Lincoln said this expecting to lose his re-election. Military success changed this, but it does underline the weak position that Lincoln was in in taking his stand. It is also notable that the decision to emancipate the slaves and give them the vote, led directly to his own death by assassination at the hands of the racist John Wilkes Booth.

This is a long review of a short book. But I wanted to draw out the way that McPherson locates Lincoln's actions in the Civil War with his anti-slavery politics and his commitment to the existing system. Lincoln was able to hold an unsteady coalition together to defend the Union in the firm belief that doing so would create a benevolent capitalism that would benefit everyone. Lincoln is thus not a principled revolutionary, but a bourgeois liberal pragmatist who wants to win the Civil War to shape the direction of the US economic system, but whose hand is forced by his need to mobilise the slaves of the South and the free blacks of the North. It's this nuanced analysis by McPherson that makes this short book so worthwhile for understanding the struggle against slavery, the US Civil War and the nature of the state that emerged - one that has yet to fully throw off the racism that slavery required.

Related Reviews

McPherson - Battle Cry of Freedom
Johnson - River of Dark Dreams
Horne - The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism
Blackburn - The American Crucible

Matthew T. Huber - Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom & the Force of Capital

For those of us battling for radical action on climate change the role of the fossil fuel corporations within capitalism is a key issue. How they operate, why they behave like they do, and their role in maintaining fossil fuel capitalism is central to understanding why states have failed to enact the sort of radical action that is required. Matthew T. Huber's book is an attempt to understand, in the words of the publisher, "If our oil addiction is so bad for us, why don't we kick the habit?"

Huber begins by analysing the way that the oil corporations developed in the United States. It's a fascinating history of how the oil industry came to be closely associated with the US state and how it became central to the US economy. It's a story of dodgy dealings, strikes and repressive measures and state intervention. I learnt a great deal from this history and I would suggest that together with Andreas Malm's wonderful Fossil Capital, it is a very useful read for anyone trying to understand oil's centrality to capitalism. In this review I want to focus on Huber's central thesis. He argues, for instance, that while (say) the anti-war movement have traditionally seen oil as central to US Imperialism, radicals have missed its wider centrality to how capitalism (particularly in the US) functions:

Thus political resistance to the geopolitical games of imperial control over oil reserves must cast their critical sights toward not only the US military state but also the geographies of social reproduction that situate oil as a necessary element of 'life'. The cries of 'no blood for oil' assume oil is a trivial 'thing' but a more effective antipetroleum politics must struggle against the more banal forms through which oil-based life gets naturalised as common sense. (*)

Huber continues later:

The forces behind the New Deal attempted to rescue capitalism through the construction of a new way of life based around high wages, home ownership, and auto-centric suburban geographies predicated upon the provision of cheap and abundant oil. 

This new way of life, the American Dream, was based not simply on oil fuelling the system, but also the cheap goods, abundant food and materials that oil provided. What Huber describes as "a particular suburban landscape: a geography of mass consumption". The New Deal and the Second World War allowed the construction of this new "geography" and the export of this around the world through the Marshall Plan. The US, Huber argues, came out of the War as a "perfected petro-capitalist social formation" with a huge fossil fuel infrastructure for "mass production and mass consumption of petroleum". He continues by showing how everything from housing to food became fossil fuel industries.

While US society became dependent on oil, oil also dominated society. There's a fascinating discussion of the "oil shock" that took place as Middle Eastern countries increased their prices. The close links between the perceived "freedom" that oil gave and the American way of life came home to roost for the US government here. In one incident, in 1979, protesters rioted in Levittown, Pennsylvania, against government plans to limit petrol consumption by reducing speed on the roads. The government and the oil industry itself had built up an image of freedom associated with cheap oil (It should be noted that there are some amazing images in this book from oil company advertisements that closely link petrol with cars and a perception of freedom in a very capitalist way). But this comes back to haunt the US when cheap petrol is no longer available, or when there is a threat to the use of oil. Despite the US having vastly cheaper petrol than any other developed country, the price of petrol has become a major political issue for successive Presidents. This, combined with the reality of capitalism and environmental disaster today, means major issues for the US population:

By the 2000s the patterns of life and living in the US demonstrated a wanton disregard for energy efficiency, but overall, life under neoliberalism is characterised not by excess but by eroding wages, mounting debt, longer work hours, and nonexistent job security. Only in this social context can clamouring for cheap gasoline be understood.

Thus, for Huber, any threat to cheap petrol/oil becomes an existential threat to the American way of life, that must be resisted. While politicians and oil executives argue that climate change is a hoax, Huber suggests that "far more disturbing are the more entrenched and everyday forms of living, thinking and feeling that make cheap energy a 'commonsense' necessity of survival." This Huber argues poses a problem for Marxists. The struggle for an "emancipatory future" was he argues based on a vision of the endless energy available from fossil fuels, but using these is a threat to the future of humanity. So, a new strategy must be engaged upon, a "political struggle to produce new spatialities of social life... a struggle to make visible once again the social and collective forces that make any 'life' possible."

I think that Huber is right here, but I am more optimistic that this can, and will happen, because activists are already offering visions of a sustainable world beyond petroleum. What is needed, and I think the harder question, is how to we get the social movements that can challenge both the power of fossil fuel capitalism and through their activity create the basis for those new forms of society. I think there is a slight danger in Huber's approach which might end up with blaming the victims of the system for inaction on climate change. History has shown that workers have frequently rebelled against a system, or aspects of that system, despite it not being in their immediate interest (the struggle by workers in the munitions industry against World War One is one example).

These aren't questions that are discussed by Matthew T. Huber's book, but they do follow on from his arguments. While the work is very focused on the United States, and should be read in conjunction with Anderas Malm's book, it is an important work and environmentalists and socialists will get a lot from reading it.

* I'm not sure that the UK war movement did see oil as a "trivial" thing, but that's a discussion for another day.

Related Reviews

Malm - Fossil Capital
Marriott and Minio-Paluello - The Oil Road
Nikiforuk - Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
Heinberg - Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils our Future
Klare - Blood and Oil

Mike Wendling - Alt Right: From 4chan to the White House

The election of Donald Trump as US President allowed a tidal wave of far-right politics to enter mainstream political discussion. Suddenly the far-right, fascists and Nazis had confidence to openly talk about their ideas. On occasion this led to violence, such as with the Charlottesville protests when Trump fanned the flames by stating that there were "fine" people on both sides of the fascist and anti-fascist protests. A white-supremacist drove a car into a anti-racist protest on that day, killing Heather Heyer, and injuring many more.

But this new "alt-right" did not come from nowhere, rather they had been growing in confidence and numbers for a number of years prior to Trump's candidacy. They represented both a new political force, emboldened and strengthened by Trump (whom they saw as 'their man') as well as an established group that had existed below the radar, usually grouped around a few blogs and websites, that had allowed them to develop their ideas and organisation (such as it is).

Mike Wendling has done us all a favour by doing the dirty work investigating the origins and individuals behind the alt-right. While an accessible work, his book is not an easy read, as the reader has to wade through a quagmire of racist, misogynist and bigoted views that often have little relationship to reality. Wendling deserves an award for this work, if nothing else, because it highlights how a large section of people think and if anti-racists are to challenge these ideas and the individuals that propagate them, then they need to understand.

At the heart of the story is an internet subculture that will be unfamiliar to many. Wendling sees the /pol section of 4chan as key to the development of the alt-right (he calls it their 'home turf'). A relatively free-flowing, un-moderated section of the internet, its style is highly alienating to outsiders, and difficult to engage with from a progressive position. From here individuals were able to build links (both unconsciously and consciously) with a wider world of "men's rights" activists, neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists and so on. These networks are both terrifying and fascinating, and Wendling let's us see inside the mindset of those at the heart of them.

Wendling explains some of the short-hand, codes and in-jokes common to the internet base of the alt-right. Many activists just waking up to the threat from these inviduals, will find them useful for getting an understanding of their environment. But importantly he also shows how they organise and how individuals are carefully trying to shape a movement. This is particularly true of the neo-Nazis, who have learnt how to inject their politics into the wider alt-right movement. No one should see these fascists as stupid - they actually have a cleverly thought out strategy. As Wendling explains:

Hardcore white supremacists aren't joking when they express their thirst for racial confrontation. But the Daily Stormer's online blitzkriegs gave the alt-right a blueprint for trolling projects that would go beyond anti-Semitic hate campaigns....first a prominent alt-righter pinpoints a specific target. They could a politician, a journalist, or a feminist activists, l... Next the ringleaders include some version of plausible deniability. The Daily Stormer, as it dances so close to the law, is forced to routinely make its anti-violence pose explicitly. Alt-rights with big Twitter followings don't have to wage anywhere near the line of violence; simply drumming out a few rude messages will rally the troll army, For people on the receiving end of the storm, the experience ranges from unpleasant to downright frightening.

Often this spills over into actual violence. And while specific sites, tweeters and bloggers may distance themselves from those who act on their suggestions, the racist, sexist and bigotted rhetoric claims many victims.

Wendling's book is excellent at highlighting where the alt-right came from, how it has organised and the links it has made. There's also plenty here about particular obnoxious individuals. I was less convinced though that the book actually helps us understand why people become right-wing, let alone commit racist terror. There are some big questions - similar to those about why people voted for Trump - that deserve an attempt to answer. What is it about modern society that alienates people so much that they accept racist ideas? What makes people sexist, or accept deeply backward and reactionary views about women, gay people or the Jewish community? Indeed, to put it bluntly, what is the social base for fascism and why does it grow in confidence at particular points in history? Wendling doesn't really attempt to answer this, and thus he has no strategy for dealing with the far-right. In fact, he displays a worryingly blasé attitude to the alt-right following Trump's election - suggesting that they are a spent force. Nor does he discuss any of the other far-right and fascist movements operating globally. It would have been interesting and useful to explore the links between some of the people described in Alt Right and say, UKIP or the EDL/FLA in the UK, or the fascists in Hungary, Germany and France.

The problem is that 21st century capitalism fails to deliver for the vast majority of people. A tiny minority live in unparalleled luxury, while the majority are denied decent jobs, homes and education. At the same time governments, even ones that are nowhere near as right-wing as Donald Trump,  are happy to play the race card, or scapegoat Muslim people or migrants, in order to divide and rule. Across the globe far-right organisations and fascist parties are making inroads into government, as well as strengthening their fascist street movements. They need to be opposed by mass anti-racist movements and we need to have struggle for better housing, jobs and education - through challenging the system that uses racism and bigotry to divide and conquer.


Related Reviews

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Charlie Clutterbuck - Bittersweet Brexit: The Future of Food, Farming, Land and Labour

Charlie Clutterbuck's new book is an important intervention into discussions about the future of the British food system. I urge everyone, whichever side of the "Brexit" debate you may find yourself, to read and digest it. Clutterbuck is a scientist and researcher with long experience of UK farming and soil science and has close links to the trade union movement. Deliberately, on the part of the author, Bittersweet Brexit is not a debate about the rights and wrongs of leaving the EU, and nor will this review be. For the record, I voted to leave the European Union (EU) in the Referendum - not because I'm opposed to immigration, or right-wing - but because I see the EU as a capitalist institution that needs to be broken up - Clutterbuck voted the other way, though I can perfectly understand his reasoning.

The argument of his book, is that Brexit offers a unique opportunity to transform British agriculture in order produce healthy, sustainable food that rewards those who work the land, and produce the food. As Clutterbuck explains while dealing with the question of the limitations of our current food system:

The contradiction... that the problem is not overpopulation, but overproduction - has still not been addressed. We need to produce 'better, healthier and greener food'. And we can. Leaving Europe may be our opportunity to do so.

He continues:

But it will be a battle. Consumers will still want cheap food. That won't stop any time soon. Yet cheap food costs the earth... We cannot rely on individual consumers to do this. If ever there was a case for state intervention, this is it... It means we have to have political answers, not individual ones, however well-meaning.

Much of the book is a clear explanation of why the food system is like it is. Clutterbuck highlights the role of the EU in this, but it is not a problem simply of the EU. British agriculture is part of a capitalist food system that is geared, not towards feeding people, but towards making profits for the food corporations, farmers and capitalist companies. Unfortunately this system only benefits the most wealthy - large landowners, big farmers and food multinationals. It does not help the workers, agricultural labourers, small-holding farmers and those who consume the food. Clutterbuck argues:

The biggest opportunity in the Brexit process is to redirect the £3bn EU CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] funding... We need to subsidise labour in the food sector to keep food prices down, which customers demand. This will fund local produce and rural communities.

He argues that the £3bn annually could give 300000 UK national farm-workers and farmers an extra £10,000 each per year. This would stimulate local economies, strengthen the position of small farmers and "attract younger workers into the sector". Clutterbuck also argues that it would "help replace migrant workers with permanent workers".

This last point needs developing. Firstly British agriculture (and other sectors of the economy) are highly dependent on immigrant, or temporary workers from other parts of the world. This is why the CBI has recently raised concerns about immigration targets after Brexit which could damage the economy further. In particular, one of the most problematic areas of British agriculture at the moment is what Clutterbuck calls "plantation farming", this is the monoculture cropping prevalent in the south-east which produces crops like fruit and is highly dependent on immigrant labour. This method of farming is highly unsustainable and relies on low-wages etc. Clutterbuck offers some suggests for the future - obviously he wants higher pay, and suggests (presumably in the case of hard Brexit that stops most immigration) that the country employs"students to pick the harvests as many people used to do."

 Open Borders

I'm not sure I agree entirely here. Firstly I think that if we are going to fight to shape agriculture after Brexit, then the union movement and the left must fight to shape the type of immigration policy that we need, and this could and should be one of open-borders that allows employers to use seasonal workers from wherever they come, and workers to work where they need to. This might even include students. But whoever they are they should be paid a proper wage with proper rights (such as holiday and sick pay). Second, I don't think we should give an inch to the right wing who want to simply argue for "British Jobs for British people". Agriculture (as with much of the British economy) has historically been highly dependent on workers from over-seas. The problem with British agriculture (and for clarity, Clutterbuck does not say this) does not come from immigration. It comes from the way that land and capital ownership is distributed. As Clutterbuck rightly highlights:

The distribution of ownership of land in the UK is more unequal than the distribution of wealth. A mere 7 per cent of the population own 84 per cent of the wealth. Of the 60 million acres in the UK, 69 per cent is owned by 0.6 per cent of the population, giving Britain the most unequal concentration of landownership in the EU, bar Spain. Half of Scotland is owned by just 432 landlords.

Some sections of British (agricultural) capitalism are, as the CBI link above shows, highly concerned about a hard-Brexit. Clutterbuck points out that in 2016 many food companies and representatives of the National Farmers Union wrote to the UK government saying:

'Migrant workers and tariff-free access to the single Market are vital for the industry... For our sector maintain tariff-free access to the EU single market is a vital priority. It is where 75 per cent of our food exports go, so all our farming and food businesses wish to achieve this outcome'.

Clutterbuck highlights the hypocrisy of this: "I heard not a tweet from any of these characters about the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB)... The same NFU and the Fresh Produce Consortium wanted to pay migrant workers only the minimum wage... Apparently it was essential to their business to pay as little as possible."

Throughout this book Clutterbuck highlights exactly how difficult leaving the EU will be in terms of the way rules and laws apply to our food system. Literally thousands of pieces of legislation will need to be re-written, re-considered, or scrapped and redrawn. This includes trade deals, health and safety legislation, rules about pesticides and additives and so on. A crucial theme of his book is which aspects should be protected, which improved and which scrapped. Readers will no doubt disagree on some, but they are all worth serious consideration. The alternative, as the author explains, will be trade deals with other countries that may well have even worse consequences for producers and consumers. One aspect that Clutterbuck does argue for is a more sustainable British food system that does not rely so heavily on imports.

As he points out, free trade does not provide food security, it only helps the profiteering multinationals and it is certainly right to think about how Britain could produce better, healthier and more varied food (Clutterbuck highlights how the present system reduces some products such as fruit and vegetables to a tiny number of varieties). But I'm wary of a strategy that calls for "a new branding of Britishness", as this approach can feed a nationalistic direction with all the dangerous potential that means in the era of Trump and the alt-right. "Buying British" won't on its own give us a sustainable food system - that will come through challenging the multinationals, the landowners, supermarket domination and the capitalist system itself.

Clutterbuck finishes the book with a series of demands that we should be fighting for, and the need for a "coalition of red and green, of unions, NGOs, to local initiatives, businesses and interested political parties, to build a new red-green food economy to challenge power bases."

For all I may have criticised some small aspects of Charlie Clutterbuck's book here, I do embrace the sense of democracy and regaining of control of agriculture that is in his conclusion. He writes that:

As both a socialist and a soil zoologist, I believe that we should get right of the magic money trees that benefit the already well off, and plant many more real trees so that everybody can benefit from their fruits., We should be growing all sorts of plants throughout the land, in ways that are not demeaning to workers but promote the pleasures of working the land and save our inheritance. This may sound idealistic, but it is also very practical. We can show what and who we want to be through food. We can do that by cutting out food speculators and investing in our land - once we have 'control over our land'.

Taking control of the land should be a key vision for the labour and trade union movement post-Brexit. But doing that in a way that fosters internationalism, not puts up borders and keeps out migrants like the EU does is crucial. "Control over our land" should be about mass democracy - there are too many fences and barriers already to ordinary enjoying the land and working it, and longer term we need to take the land off the massive landowners so it can be used for everyone's benefit. Charlie Clutterbuck's book is an important look at the challenges we face, but one that can inspire real change as long as workers and their organisations are prepared to fight for it. I encourage people to read it.

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Greg Grandin - Fordlandia

In the 1920s Henry Ford decided to build a city in the Amazon. He was not the sort of person who was shy of self-promotion so he named it after himself. The purpose was to ensure a safe, cheap supply of rubber for Ford's car factories in North America, but Ford's real dream was the transformation of a section of the Amazon into a recreation of a highly stylised small town America. Doing this required a few things. Firstly it needed an enormous amount of money, something that the Ford corporation had in vast quantities. Secondly it needed land that could be transformed into rubber plantations and urban areas and, most importantly, it needed a large number of people who would work for Ford.

Ford famously built his empire by paying workers much more than the competitors. In theory they were paid enough to be able to purchase the cars they made. But Ford also made sure that his workforce conformed to a very strict set of standards. Alcohol was frowned upon, and often forbidden. Trade unions were strictly banned and Ford's hired thugs were prepared to use the utmost violence to prevent any hint of workers organising. Inspectors were sent to workers' homes to quiz the family on propreity and behaviour, even their sex life came under examination. While Ford liked to argue that he was the epitome of the good capitalist, at home and in the workplace he strictly controlled his workers' labour.

Ford has gone down in history for a number of things. He is credited with the transformation of factory work. Everything that could be done to improve efficiency was done. Today workers in call centres have their toilet breaks timed. In Ford's factory's workers had every movement calculated and analysed. The pay might have been good, but the relentless hard work meant turnover was high. Ford took his beliefs to all the logical, and illogical, extremes. According to Grandin he once sacked 700 orthodox Christians for taking a day off to celebrate a holiday. He believed that cow's milk was unhealthy and forced soy milk and food made from soy substitutes on his guests. Gardin writes, and  quotes one contemporary journalist, Walter Lippmann:

The industrialist's conviction that he could make the world conform to his will was founded on a faith that success in economic matters should, by extension allow capitalists to try their hands "with equal success" at "every other occupation." "Mr. Ord is neither a crank nor a freak," Lippmann insisted, but "merely the logical exponent of American prejudices about wealth and success." 

Importing this to the Amazon was fraught with peril. The rubber trade had brought capitalism to the rain-forest. But Ford brought it on an enormous scale. The heart of this book is the story of the consequent clash. Nature and people had to be shaped in Ford's image, and both resisted!

Firstly the people. Many of those that Ford's employees wanted to work for them in the Amazon had little or no experience of working to the regimes that Ford wanted. Some had no experience (or need) for money and wanted goods in kind - Ford refused to allow this, and so the workers refused to work for him. Others didn't want to work continuously, just enough to earn some money before returning to their own land. Still others wanted to bring their whole families with them. A year or so into the project, when Fordlandia was beginning to work, a huge riot destroyed nearly the whole complex. The trigger was management's insistence that workers had to queue in a canteen for food, rather than being served by waiters, behind this though was intense anger at the regime, the strict clocking in and out, and so on. One of the notable pictures in the book is of a clocking machine destroyed by the rioters.

Secondly nature. Like so many capitalists before and after Ford believed that he could simply force nature to do what he wanted. There's a famous quote from Fredrich Engels where he warns, "Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us..." This was very much true in the Amazon. The stripping of the land required far more work and money than Ford expected and, because he ignored local advice and refused to hire experts, his operations were repeatedly beset by problems. In particular, he and his managers, did not understand that rubber plantations cannot work in South America because of the native pests and diseases. This is why Henry Wickham had to steak Brazilian rubber seeds for plantations in Asia which were free from these threats. Ford's plantations repeatedly failed, costing millions. As Grandin explains, "The Ford Motor Company, with the endorsement of a well respected pathologist with experience on three continents, had in effect created an incubator" for disease.

Today Ford's plans seem unbelievable. He wanted to strip bare a massive area of the rain-forest and build a huge plantation, serviced by a town modelled on his vision of small-town America. Building an electric plant and a dock is one thing, but cinemas, bandstands and an 18 hole golf course seem utterly bizarre. But behind this, as Grandin explains, was Ford's own vision of society. He believed that men like him could transform the world into a system that would provide peace and prosperity through the control of workers and nature. Ford's pride and arrogance failed. Fordlandia was a disaster and as it declined, the aged Ford retreated further and further into his own artificial world populated with antiques and fake town life.

Ford, it should be emphasised, was not some benevolent eccentric. He was a ruthless capitalist, who drove his workers hard and held some extremely offensive views - particularly his Antisemitism, though his racism also affected his (and his company's) attitudes to the Brazilians. His attempts to shape people and nature where of course celebrated by Hitler's Nazis, a group that Ford famously courted.

In the Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Engels wrote about capitalism's globalising vision:

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

With Fordlandia, Henry Ford literally wanted to create the Amazonian world into the very image of an imagined America. At the same time he wanted to entrap the people into his factories and transform nature into something that could readily guarantee his profits. The story of his failure is brilliantly told by Greg Grandin, and I highly recommend this well-written, gripping history.

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Chris Harman - The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After

Rather like 2017, 2018 is proving to be a year of reading books associated with various anniversaries. But most importantly it is fifty years since 1968, a year of global rebellion, and Chris Harman's Fire Last Time is an excellent introduction to the period. I first read this as a student when I was a new recruit to the socialist movement and the accounts of massive student rebellion linking together with workers rising was extremely inspiring. Re-reading it today I was struck by Harman's ability to contextualise these struggles and highlight the dynamic of student and workers' revolt.

1968 saw the May events in France when the outbreak of student protest against de Gualle's government led to massive street fighting in Paris and, until then, the biggest General Strike in history. It also saw the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia to stop the Prague Spring, huge radicalism in the United States against the Vietnam War and an escalation in the Civil Rights movement. 1968 was the year Martin Luther King was assassinated and the Black Panther's became mainstream. It was also the year of student revolt (and massacre) in Mexico, and in Britain (where Harman was himself active) student radicalism, leading within a few years to workers struggle.

Within a few years, military juntas and fascist dictators in Greece, Portugal and Spain had also fallen, with movements that shared many similarities to those of 1968. Italy saw an explosion of workers struggle and in Portugal the spectre of revolution in Europe was raised for the first time since the 1920s.

Harman is brilliant at showing the dynamics of these movements, how they arose out of changes within the system but where also limited by existing organisations. In particular the role of the Communist Party in Western Europe was to limit struggle, redirect it and often to conciously protect the system in exchange for a seat at the Capitalist table. Take, for example, Harman's comments on the end of the French revolt. de Gaulle had described the situation as a choice between elections and civil war. But Harman points out that there was another way forward,

This would have meant encouraging forms of strike organisation that involved all workers, the most 'backward' as well as the most advanced, in shaping their own destinies - strike committees, regular mass meetings in the occupied plants, picketing and occupation rotas involving the widest numbers of people, delegations to other plants and to other sections of society involved int eh struggle. Everyone would then have had an opportunity to take part directly i the struggle and to discuss its political lessons. It would also have meant generalising the demands of the struggle, so that no section of workers would return to work before a settlement of the vital questions worrying other sections.

In other words, what was needed was a deepening of the struggle. No organisation existed that was willing to do this, and it wasn't certain that it would have been successful. But the Communist Party didn't try - it was to concerned with events getting out of control and threatening its own position. Instead they did the opposite - preventing student protesters meeting workers on strike for instance. The result was the defeat of the movement and de Gaulle winning the election.

1968 saw rebellion grow on a mass scale, and we get a real sense of the way that this transforms ordinary people. For example, this account, quoted by Harman, by a worker who was also a part time student, of a meeting in their factory in the midst of the Yugoslavian student movement.

I proposed the workers first familiarise themselves with the demands and problems presented by the students... The leaders of the meeting did not allow me to continue speaking. But with the loud support of the workers I climbed on a chair and read an 'appeal' to all workers written by the students... I would have to be a poet to describe the excited reaction of the workers as they learned of the students's demands.

There are countless other examples in this book, and while Harman apologises for focusing on key movements (particularly Western Europe) he does highlight many struggles that are not usually associated with 1968.

But his analysis stands out also for his ability to locate 1968 in wider contexts.

1968 was itself a product... of the way the pattern of capital accumulation on a world scale had caused a crisis of US hegemony, of the fragmentation of the Stalinist bloc, and of the fusing together of formerly submissive rural populations into powerful new groups of workers. Likewise objective economic changes had led to the creation of the vast new student populations, forced to try to learn sets of ideas which no longer made sense of a world that seemed to be cracking up.

He continues that without these changes, the

student movement along would have ended as it began, as a pressure group committed to university reform. The anti-war movement... would have been trapped in the politics of pacifist protest and moral indignation. Revulsion at the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia would merely have strengthened liberal ideas in East Europe and built Eurocommunist reformism in Western Europe. Even the strikes in France might have been experienced just as economic protests, without any great ideological significance.

This is important because it illustrates that 1968 was not a unique event but arose out of the internal contradictions of capitalism. While events will not repeat themselves, the contradictions have not gone away, and so 1968s lessons remain important. Crucial to this is the experience of the newly formed revolutionary, anti-Stalinist, socialist organisations. Harman devotes space to showing why many of these failed to grow and why others were successful. But he points out how, at key points, particularly in the aftermath of 1968 some of these groups were able to play important roles in the struggles that took place. Chris Harman devoted his life to building revolutionary socialist organisation. The First Last Time was an important contribution that helped a new generation understand that vital need. In 2018, as capitalism once again offers us war, racism, poverty and now environmental disaster, the book deserves to be read by a new generation of anti-capitalists.

The Fire Last Time has just been republished by Bookmarks Publications, with a new introduction by Joseph Choonara.

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Marek Edelman - The Ghetto Fights

This month saw the 75th anniversary of the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis. This prompted me to re-read this extraordinary account of the rising by Marek Edelman. Edelman was a socialist, a member of the Bund, an organisation of Jewish socialists, who, along with other groups, including radical left-wing Zionist organisations decided to resist Nazi attempts to deport Jews from the Ghetto to the concentration camps.

Hindsight makes it very difficult to read. We know what was to happen to those who were sent to Treblinka and other camps, but those in the Ghettos did not. Edelman's organisations began to get news from brave individuals about what was taking place, and they produced news sheets to explain to the thousands in the Ghettos what was happening. But it seemed to fantastic - as Edelman writes, "people who clung to their lives with superhuman determination were unable to believe that they could be killed in such a manner". When the decision to "liquidate" the Ghetto was made, the Nazis made the Jewish Council announce that all "non productive" Jews were to be deported, and ensured that the "Jewish police was designated as the agency to execute the deportation order". As Edelman explains this mean that the Germans "made the Jewish Council itself condemn over 300,000 Ghetto inhabitants to death".

It is hard to comprehend the callousness of the Nazis. But this deportation order came on the back of their systematic violence against Jews in the Ghetto - arbitrary killing and torture. The sections of the book that describe life in the Ghetto, with the constant threat from the Nazis, as well as the desperation of hunger and poverty of the inhabitants, are terrible to read. As are the accounts of the conditions in the areas were the Jews were gathered to face deportation:

The sick, adults as well as children, previously brought here from the hospital lie deserted in the cold halls. They relieve themselves right where they lie, and remain in the stinking slime of excrement and urine. Nurses search the crowd for their fathers and mothers and, having found them, inject longed for deathly morphine into their veins, their own eyes gleaming wildly. One doctor compassionately pours a cyanide solution into the feverish mouths of strange, sick children. To offer one's cyanide to somebody else is now the most precious, the most irreplaceable thing. It brings a quiet, peaceful death, it saves from the horror of the cars.

When the decision to liquidate all the Jews in the Ghetto is finally made, the groups of organisations that have come together to form fighting units eventually resist. With a handful of weapons, including a single semi-automatic machine gun, and homemade grenades they stop the Germans dead, killing dozens. Edelman rights that once the Nazis plan is clear, every house "becomes a fortress". In the midst of the horror, the resistance is inspirational, despite the fact that most of those fighting back are doomed by the German's overwhelming firepower.

At the same time heavy fighting raged at Muranowski Square. Here the Germans attacked from all directions. The cornered partisans defended themselves bitterly and succeeded, by truly superhuman efforts, in repulsing the attacks. Two German machine guns as well as a quantity of other weapons were captured. A German tank was burned, the second tank of the day. At 2pm, not a single live German remained int he Ghetto area.

Some of the fighters did eventually escape, some joining Polish resistance fighters, and their story did reach the world. After the war Marek Edelman wrote this book and it was published in Warsaw in 1945, then in English in 1946. It is an inspiration story, and demonstrates that contrary to many myths, Jewish people did not walk passively into the Concentration camps, but many fought back. Today we see the growth of the far-right across Europe, with a rise in racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. In Eastern Europe we see fascists and the far-right beginning to gain real traction. The Ghetto Fights is an inspirational story to help us build resistance today.

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Christopher Hill - A Nation of Change and Novelty

This book is a collection of essays proving how great a historian Christopher Hill was. They demonstrate exactly how detailed Hill's knowledge of the English Revolutionary period was, and his ability to make links between subjects and contemporary politics. They are also incredibly polemical, one, for instance Abolishing the Ranters is a strident defence of the very existence of that religious grouping which had been denied at length in 1986 book by professor Colin Davis. Hill shows his mastery of the contemporary literature, the source material as well as an understanding of his opponents writing.

Ultimately this is a forceful defence of the idea that there was an English Revolution. The book is was written ten years into Thatcher's government and at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall - events that get passing mention in several essays. Hill is defending the idea of Revolution at a time when mass risings were taking place but the political framework of Communism was disappearing. Hill was too good a left-winger to believe that the regimes that were falling apart in Eastern Europe were actually socialist, but he understood that left wing politics were on the defensive. Colin Davies, for instance, "clearly regards [Gerrard Winstanley] as a pre-incarnation of Josef Stalin".

In this context, his essay The Word 'Revolution' is a wonderful piece of writing. It traces the development of the word Revolution through the Early Modern Period. At the beginning of the seventeenth century he argues, the word meant not the overturning of something, but a rotation of something. So when Gerrard Winstanley uses it, says Hill, he means that the "Diggers' object was not just to remove the Norman Yoke but to get back behind the Fall of Man, to a period outside history - the future millennium as well as Adam;s Paradise." There then follows a detailed summary of dozens of different uses of the word Revolution, each demonstrating an evolving use of the word through a period that saw Parliament challenge the King then defeat and behead him, followed by the return of the monarchy. But, in Hill's words:

1688 was a smudged compromise, and helped to prevent England ever having a revolutionary tradition in the sense that the USA, France and the USSR have revolutionary traditions. 1688 was 'glorious', bloodless, because fixed by an agreement between party leaders without involving 'the people' at all. If 1688 was a revolution, had there been a revolution in the 1640s? Voltaire in 1733 took for granted that the 1640s had seen 'une révolution en Angleterre', and this usage continued through the French Revolution to Guizot, to Karl Marx, and to European historical writing generally. But in England, although the shift in the meaning of 'revolution' had taken place well before 1688, the events of that year created new ambiguities. So we cannot think about the evolution of the word without thinking about the evolution of the society.

We also cannot think about it without the context of the times that Hill was writing in, and this is what gives his book a real edge. Hill also demonstrates a nuanced view of what Revolution was and is. In an earlier essay on Political Discourse he writes:

Historians who have failed to find long-term causes of the English Revolution, as well as those who have failed to notice that there was a revolution at all, have perhaps been looking for the wrong things in the wrong places. There were no revolutionaries who willed what happened, no Lenin: there were virtually no republicans in the Long Parliament. But there were tensions in the society, slowly building up in the decades before 1640: and there was an ideology, popularised by Fox and Beard, which in appropriate circumstances could become revolution, as it did in Cromwell.

Collections of essays are always hard to review even when, as in this book, they are discussing a common theme, albeit from many different directions. Some of the chapters here are heavily reliant on a detailed knowledge of a particular subject. I found Hill's article on Archbishop Laud nearly impenetrable mostly because I have very little knowledge of the specifics Hill writes about.

On the other hand, I thought the chapter on Gerrard Winstanley on Freedom was superb and I wish I had come across it earlier. Among many things Hill makes an important point that Winstanley writes about "mankind" rather than "man", meaning that he is including women in his vision of freedom, something that few (if any) of Winstanley's contemporaries considered. I also should highlight the chapter on radicals and Ireland in the period - which explains why they did not oppose the oppression of Ireland by Cromwell and others.

There is much in this collection for anyone studying the English Civil War and Revolutionary Period. Hill brings a freshness to these debates, even today, and his writing is full of humour as well as polemic. Surprisingly he also seems full of hope that thing will get better. He finishes his article on Winstanley with a comment and quote from The Diggers' leader which might well be written about Hill himself:

Winstanley failed; but his writings justify the words he prefixed to one of his Digger pamphlets: 'When these clay bodies are in a grave, and children stand in place, This shows we stood for truth and peace and freedom in our days.

Related Reviews

Hill - The World Turned Upside Down
Hill - God's Englishman
Hill - Liberty Against the Law
Hill - The Century of Revolution

Mark Lause - The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots & Class Conflicts in the American West

Countless western films, novels and artworks have portrayed the "cowboy" as a lonesome figure, surviving through his wits and ability to quick draw a six shooter. The reality, as this unique book shows, is that the cowboy was a worker. Badly paid, living a life of intense physical hardship, with seasonal and often highly skilled work. They were never loners. Looking after a herd of hundreds of cows was a collective effort and cattle drives required the support of lots of men.

These conditions led to a series of strikes. Cowboys didn't wait to form unions, if they acted at the right time of the season they had enormous power to force the large cattle companies to give them massive pay rises. These strikes were strong, numerous and spread as the cowboys moved along the trail. But they had an inherent weakness - being seasonal work the workers found themselves at the mercy of the employer the next year, and many blacklisted strikers found it near impossible to work again.

This is of course a story that is never told. In an of itself it would be interesting just as the story of an unusual and forgotten episode of working class history. But Mark Lause puts the strikes in the context of the transformation of the American West and, crucially, the development of US captialism and I would argue, the modern US state. One thing that is very apparent about these strikes is how violent they were. Gunfights were common, the assasination of strikers and their leaders was frequent, and many of the classic episodes of gunfights that occur in films are often repeated here in the context of strikers, or former strikers, being hunted down by posse's that were little more than lynch mobs.

Take this example of a "militia" setup by cattle owners in Montana, after a series of strikes. The vigilantes, called "Stuart's Stranglers" after their leader hunted down former strikers who they described as "like many a rebel and anarchist westerner" and perhaps killed up to 75.

The conduct of the Stranglers proved to be notoriously brutal. At one point, they captured a mixed race boy who could fiddle and forced him to entertain them for the evening. The next day they killed him. 'His being a fiddler hadn't nothing to do with his being a horse thief," one said. [Former strikers were often labelled rustlers so they could be executed without trial].... The perpetrators included the founders of the state of Montana. Their '3-7-77' warning - said to notify targets to buy the $3 ticket to the 7am stage to take the 77-mile trip from the area-remains part of the insignia of the state's highway patrol.

Picture via Wikipedia article for 3-7-77

There is a thus a direct link between the anti-working class, racist violence unleashed on the cowboy strikes and the modern police system.

Lause however highlights another aspect to this, which is that this takes place in the context of the larger cattle firms, and their associated industries like the railroads, carving up the American West into huge, enclosed, fenced off lands. The battle between the open-range and the fence builders is the background to many a western. But as Lause points out, in those stories, the small-holders often win. In reality, big capital carved up the west and those who resisted were turfed out, or killed.

There is much more to Lause's book. But I actually found it remarkably difficult to follow in places. In part this is because much of the book dwells on aspects of US history and particularly Labour history which is completely unknown to me. His descriptions of the way that various left organisations tried to develop working class parties was at times difficult to follow. While Lause carefully deconstructs the classic image of the US west, I found the alternative a little difficult to work out, at times Lause seems to focus on events which are difficult to place in the wider narrative.

That said there is a lot in this book for people trying to understand the development of US capitalism, and those who fought against it. I loved this account about Eleanor Marx Aveling's visit to Cincinnati in 1886, "as cowboy strieks swept the West":

The local socialists took her, her husband and another European visitor to see a ground of cowboys on tour there. The comrades lingered behind after the costumed performance and introduced themselves to one of the performers. "To our great astonishment," she recalled, the cowboy "plunged at once into a denunciation of capitalists in general and of the ranch-owners in particular." "Broncho John" Sullivan assured them that many of the cowboys had "awakened to the necessity of having a league of their own" - and that a Cowboy Union or affiliates of the Knights of Labor seemed likely.

Resistance to capitalist domination is a forgotten part of the American west, and many of the famous and infamous figures beloved of books and films played a part in that story. When trying to understand 21st century America, we cannot forget the racist violence that helped entrench the state in the first place - violence against the indigenous peoples, the slaves and the working class. Lause's book is an interesting, if challenging introduction to that.

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Cronon - Nature's Metropolis
Tully - Crooked Deals and Broken Treaties
Parkman - The Oregon Trail
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