Claire North - The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Time travel stories tend to be cliched and vapid. The Time Traveler's Wife turned a clever idea into a dull romance. But Claire North's novel is an entirely new spin on an old idea, brilliantly executed. Her titular hero, Harry August, like a tiny minority of other people, is reborn with his memory intact whenever he dies. Doomed to repeat the first few years of his life endlessly, the novel initially explores how one might live differently if you know the future. But then it takes a dark turn as Harry August and others like him, realise someone is using knowledge of the future to fundamentally change it and in the process destroy the others.

The novel works partly because it has such a wonderful basis. But also because of the detail that North has put in, particularly the way that those who relive their lives, learn to identify each other, and pass messages back and forth through time. The "Cronus Club" to which they belong becomes a refuge, but also a way of rescuing children who might appear to be 6 years old, but actually have hundreds of years of experience.

There are some brilliantly sinister parts to the novel. I was struck by section when a government agent tortures Harry August, because they are desperate to find out what the future holds, and in particular, "why they lose in Vietnam". Its a very clever and excellently thought out novel.

Related Reviews

North - Touch
North - The End of the Day

Siobhan Brown - A Rebel's Guide to Eleanor Marx

Eleanor Marx's was one of the great socialist activists. She built unions, fought for women's liberation, was active in building solidarity with international struggles from the Paris Commune and Ireland to the anti-imperialist war in Sudan. A translator, a writer, an orator and an outstanding Marxist she ought to be one of the British left's greatest heroes. Yet all too often she is forgotten. Siobhan Brown's book, the latest in the excellent Rebel's Guides series, is a superb introduction to Eleanor Marx's life.

Brown packs an enormous amount in. From Eleanor's early life in the Marx household, to the years of solidarity work with refugees from the Paris Commune to the "busiest decade". The 1880s when Eleanor Marx helped build socialist organisation, wrote a highly important pamphlet on the "woman question", toured the US to argue for socialism and most importantly put herself at the heart of the mass strike waves that ushered in New Unionism.

We get a sense of Eleanor Marx as a thinker, and not just an activist. While touring the US, Eleanor made clear her absolute solidarity with the anarchists being framed for the Haymarket Bombing, but did not hide from comradely criticism. The pamphlet that she wrote with Edward Aveling, The Woman Question from a Socialist Point of View was more than an argument for equality. It was, says Brown, "a critique of capitalism as a system that places an extra burden on women, and working class women in particular, and that distorts relationships and sexuality."

Brown explains that the pamphlet built on Engels pioneering work which made clear the class roots of women's oppression and argued that ending women's oppression meant ending capitalism.

"She [Eleanor Marx] argued that while bourgeois women were competing with bourgeois men, working class women were not held down by working class men. She asserted that their interests lie together. Eleanor quotes Zetkin: 'And that is why the working woman cannot be like the bourgeois woman who has to fight against the man of her own class... With the proletarian women, on the contrary, it is a struggle of the women with the man of her own class against the capitalist class'."

Perhaps the most powerful part of these books are the sections on Eleanor Marx's involvement with the mass unions and strike waves that shook the country at the end of the 1880s. Brown points out that the workers involved in these, from Jewish tailors, to the Match Girls and the Dockers were often considered unorganisable. The tailors were in small workshops, the Match Girls considered easily replaceable, and the Dockers casualised and atomised. Yet all of these led powerful strikes that won significant victories and built powerful unions.

Brown gives us a flavour of Eleanor Marx's centrality to the new unions.

"As well as jumping on tables at meetings, Eleanor committed herself to the more mundane tasks that were required. Ben Tillett, a New Union leader, described how she did 'the drudgery of clerical work as well as more responsible duties', while Tom Mann said she was someone who, 'possessing a complete mastery of economics... was able, alike in conversation and on a public platform, to hold her own with the best."

The decline of the strike wave and union movement undoubtedly hit Eleanor Marx hard, and she committed suicide in 1898. But her legacy was tremendously important. Siobhan Bown ends her book by making the point that what Eleanor Marx demonstrated was that the best way to fight low pay, racism and women's oppression was through mass working class movements that challenged capitalism. But that ultimately capitalism had to be overthrown. This wonderful little book is a great way for activists, new and old, to learn the lessons of the past and be inspired for the struggles of the future.

Reviews of other books in the Rebel's Guide series, all published by Bookmarks

Campbell - A Rebel's Guide to Rosa Luxemburg
Orr - Sexism and the System; A Rebel's Guide to Women's Liberation
Choonara - A Rebel's Guide to Trotsky
Bambery - A Rebel's Guide to Gramsci
Birchall - A Rebel's Guide to Lenin
Gonzalez - A Rebel's Guide to Marx

David Scott & Alexei Leonov - Two Sides of the Moon

I was reading this book while watching the first launch of NASA's Orion spacecraft, a vehicle that many hope will return humans to the moon, mars and elsewhere. I'm skeptical that the political and economic interests exist in the United States for this to happen. In an era were private companies are expected to lead innovation in their pursuit of profit, I suspect that NASA's funding will dwindle. Orion may well prove to be a last hurrah.

Part of my reasoning lies in this interesting book by two astronauts. David Scott who flew with the one of the US's Gemini missions, and walked on the moon with Apollo 15. Alexei Leonov was the first person to walk in space and took part in the Apollo-Soyuz link up. Had things been different Leonov may well have been the first person to walk on the moon.

The book is structured around the authors' lives. Each taking turns to tell parts of their story. Much of the fascination comes from the great differences between the two experiences, particularly their lives within their respective space programs. The Russian's were bedeviled by bureaucracy and lack of funding, which contrasts enormously with NASA's lavish initial support and a much more happy go lucky approach from the astronauts.

Leonov was a close friend of Yuri Gagarin, and their are some emotional parts to his tale, particularly in the aftermath of his friends death. He is also an accomplished painter and its notable that his accounts are often more concerned with his amazement with what he can see, while Scott's could be over-bearing in technical detail and much more matter-of-fact.

Scott was to go to the moon, and this is perhaps the highlight of the book. Forty years later and despite having seen the footage from the various Apollo missions countless times and read dozens of accounts and reports, the sheer fact that humans walked on the moon still has the capacity to stun me. Scott and James Irwin underwent extensive geological and scientific training for the lunar mission and their accounts are punctuated with genuine excitement at particular finds. Their ability to make decisions about exploration shaped by a wider understanding of geology. Something to bear in mind when discussing whether exploration should continue by robot or manned craft.

But these stories are immersed in the wider context of the space race. The confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Scott is very partisan about the "benefits" of capitalism, over what is labelled communism. As he puts it when describing a discussion with a senator opposed to spending money on NASA, while at a meal with President Nixon,

"The unspoken political undercurrent to our discussion was the importance of the space programme in winning the Cold War. I did not say it directly to the senator grilling us, but underlying my thinking were very fundamental questions: 'Do you want us to win this race? Do you want to live in a free society? Or do you want to live under communism?'"

Scott's enthusiasm for science and exploration vanishes here, in the interests of simply winning an undeclared war with the Soviet Union. By contrast the parts of the book, particularly those by Leonov, which detail the interaction between Russian and US spacemen and the way that their shared experiences broke down barriers are illuminating. Leonov, for instance, bemoans how the ill-discipline of American astronauts missing breakfasts in the USSR meant he had to pay for the wasted food from his own pocket.

Leonov's is a victim of the collapse of the USSR. His encounters with senior politicians and figures in the USSR help expose the reality of that system and he undergoes his own political awakening. He never got to walk on the moon, though his spaceflights were important milestones. His tales, for instance of fighting off wolves while landing in Siberia, are a fascinating insight into the less well known side of the space race, as well as the tragedies. Those fascinated simply by space flight will enjoy the insights from both astronauts into the 1960s and 1970s space race.

But the book is damaged by being over-long and in places seems to drown in its own self-importance. Introductions by Neil Armstrong and Tom Hanks add little, and David Scott has added an extremely long list of acknowledgements which seems to include everyone he ever worked with. In part this is because the book is a defense of his actions in a number of run ins he had with NASA. But ultimately it all detracts from what is otherwise a readable book.

Leandro Vergara-Camus - Land and Freedom: The MST, the Zapatistas and Peasant Alternatives to Neoliberalism

Over the last decade the Zapatista movement in Mexico and, to a lesser extent, the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in Brazil have been inspirational examples of rural and peasant movements. The MST's occupations of land, or the Zapatisa's defence of indigenous peoples land and both groups' attempts to develop new economic and social paradigms have inspired and provoked debate for many on the anti-capitalist left.

Thus Leandro Vergara-Camus' new book, which comparatively analyses the two movements, is very important. From my point of view I found it particularly interesting at a time when the question of peasant struggles and rural movements has receded somewhat from discussion among Marxist activists. Both the MST and the Zapatistas are important because they are both contemporary movements and their struggles and strategies may offer insights into wider peasant movements in more revolutionary times.

Much of the authors' work is based on years of research which included extended periods living with, and interviewing both MST and Zapatista activists. The MST is a movement of landless workers that attempts through a process of occupations to win land for those who don't have it. It begins with a preparatory period prior to land occupation, followed by a hopefully successful occupation, then by entrenchment of a new community. The Zapatistas, while aiming to control rural space as well, have tended to protect established communities, expelling Mexican state forces and, where necessary, being prepared to mobilise peasants and their own military forces to protect this control.

"The land struggles of the MST and the EZLN are not struggles demanding that elites live up to their mortal obligations towards their subordinates. On the contrary, both movements seek to fundamentally transform or even transcend that relationship by empowering their membership through the creation of 'autonomous rural communities'.... These... allow their members to secure and protect their access to land and hence resist the full commodification of land and monetarization of relations of production."

Vergara-Camus suggests that for the Zapatistas this has not meant the expansion of commercial agriculture, by which he means an integration into a wider capitalist economy, but instead what can be seen is a

"'retreat movement' towards subsistence agriculture and activities. More and more peasants, particularly in indigenous regions of the jungle, the highlands and the north, are retreating as much as possible, from commercial relations - dedicating only a minimal portion of their activity to this purpose."

While MST communities are often more integrated into the wider economy, he continues,

"the majority of Zapatistas are subsistence peasants and fewer can be found within the ranks of market-dependent indigenous peasants."

While there are similarities between the two movements, Vergara-Camus notes important differences.

"Even though both are facing the historical process of so-called primitive accumulation, they are confronted by different phases of this process. The militants of the MST are responding to the development of fully capitalist social relations in the countryside, while the Zapatista communities are fighting the mere establishment of the conditions for the development of fully capitalist relations."

Zapatista Rally

Elsewhere in my reviews I have mentioned my admiration for the analysis of Henry Bernstein, who argues that "most peasants in the Third World, like their family farmer counterparts in the West, 'are unable to reproduce themselves outside the relations and processes of capitalist commodity production'." [Vergara-Camus quoting Bernstein].

Vergara-Camus explicitly moves away from this position, arguing that the "subsistence focus" of both the Zapitistas and the MST is a consequence of both "socio-economic" positions and (particularly in the case of the Zapitistas) because the indigenous approach to production emphasises the question of subsistence farming. Writing about the MST, Vergara-Camus suggests that once settlement has occurred, "subsistence remains a focus because market conditions do not allow them to compete with more productive farmers. More importantly, MST settlers are not subject to the full imperative of competition because their land is, most of the time, not commodified."

While it is undoubtedly true that both MST settlers and Zapitista communities are physically and economically isolated from wider capitalist relations, I don't think that this necessarily means they are completely cut off from capitalism. This is not simply about whether or not they buy goods such as pesticides or clothing from external companies, though this is important, it is about whether or not the communities are entirely able to break with the realities of capitalism itself.

One example of this is the question of gender roles within both the MST and the Zapatistas. The collective action of the peasants has helped to break down the subordinate role of women. This is precisely because the involvement of women directly in the struggle has challenged traditional roles and "temporarily blurred the boundaries between private and public spaces". However it is notable that neither movement seems to have attempted to fundamentally challenge these gender roles through, for instance, collective arrangements for food production and child care.

Clearly in both examples, while men and women's traditional roles have sometimes changed, they haven't been transformed. Notably, Vergara-Camus points out, that while in the MST preparatory phase, women and men's roles change radically, once land occupation has taken place, they often revert to more traditional positions. This is not always the case, and the author quotes some inspiring examples of how fundamentally things have changed, while noting that this had to be fought for, as one activist remembered

"The participation of women was fought for. It was conquered. It had to confront many stereotypes. Today, it has changed a lot. There are many women who have achieved the division of domestic chores."

But, the author notes

"what seems to be the rule is that during moments of increased mobilisation and tension, women assume the role of protagonists and thus break with their traditional gender role; but they then often retreat to a modified version of that traditional gender role."

One of the truisms of the revolutionary left, is that people change in struggle, and that is clearly the case here. But when the struggle diminishes, or fundamental change fails to occur than things can revert back to how they were. Precisely because neither the MST or the Zapatista movement can break from capitalist relations they risk things reverting back.

A second and more fundamental question is that neither of the MST or the Zapatista strategies challenges the power of the state. While it has been fashionable for some leftist scholars to suggest that it is possible for radical movements to not challenge state power, for peasants in Brazil and Mexico, the existence of a hostile state which remains supportive of large landowners can mean death squads, military intervention or simply barriers to selling produce in the wider market.

The importance of this debates lies in whether it is possible for others to emulate this strategy and
create anti-capitalist islands within a wider capitalist sea. While the creation of communes or co-operatives is often doomed to failure in the face of the logic of the market, because peasant communities can reproduce themselves through subsistence farming it is possible for them to exist in economic relations outside of the capitalist mainstream. But the long term limitations lie precisely because capitalism itself, with its inherent need to expand, will eventually come into conflict with these spaces.

This makes the wider links between the MST and the Zapatista movements with their respective nation states even more important. The MST has famously developed over years close links with Brazil's ruling party the Workers' Party (PT). The PT was elected with a mandate to bring change, but has ended up introducing neo-liberal politics and certainly hasn't provided the rural reforms that many in the MST would have hoped for. Indeed, some of their changes have strengthened the larger agricultural corporations and landowners that the MST is in conflict with.

In Mexico the Zapatista has bravely stood its ground against extremely aggressive state action. Vergara Camus analyses in some detail the attempts, particularly by the MST to build wider coalitions. These haven't been successful, and it remains to be seen how the MST and the Zapatistas will move forward.

But the key question must be the way that both groups have inspired and encouraged wider social movements. Vergara-Camus points out how, in 1994, in the aftermath of the Zapatista uprising communities throughout Chiapas took the opportunity to occupy private land. The MST too, has through its occupations and its colleges and other institutions given land to those who most needed it, and helped encourage the new settlers to make best use of it. Tens of thousands of people have had their lives transformed as a result. In an era when neo-liberal policies have run rough-shod over wider rural relations this is in itself both inspiring and hopeful.

Vergara-Camus notes that the "principal political advantage" of the MST and Zapatistas is "their capacity to organise and mobilise entire communities around autonomous structures of popular power" and "their maintenance of a subsistence fall back strategy that provides an opportunity to partially delink from the market".

While often using the language of revolution, neither organisation is revolutionary in the sense that they wish to bring fundamental social change through the destruction of the capitalist order. Vergara-Camus notes that "by developing popular structures of power" the MST and the Zapatistas do alter the relationship between rulers and ruled. But he also realizes that "power relations do not dissolve through this process" - as we have seen with the examples of changing gender roles in both the MST and Zapatistas.

Vergara-Camus suggests that the only other option is a "political strategy", but he equates this with engaging in the existing capitalist political structures on the terms of those who already have power. I fear that this is inadequate and will expose the weakest flank of these movements to co-option or destruction. The alternative is a strategy of developing and furthering links with wider social forces, particularly the working class of the Mexican and Brazilian cities that have enormous social power. Here lies the potential to destroy capitalism and allow the rural areas to develop unhindered by the wider capitalist sea.

This has been a somewhat critical review of what is an important book. At times it is not an easy read. The chapters discussing the politics and economics of the peasantry seemed needlessly academic and the authors' use of Gramscian metaphors seemed shoe-horned in. I was also disappointed that more of the author's material from interviews with the activists of the MST and Zapatistas was not included. Nonetheless, despite my disagreements with key issues in Land and Freedom the debates within are ones crucial to both the future of the peasantry and those who seek to fundamentally change society. This book deserves be widely read and to be the focus of extensive debate.

Related Reviews

Sader - The New Mole: Paths of the Latin American Left
Galeano - The Open Veins of Latin America
Sader & Silverstein - Without Fear of Being Happy: Lula, the Workers Party and Brazil

David Quammen - Ebola: The Natural & Human History

The Ebola crisis that raged over the summer produced acres of newsprint. Much of it was sensationalist, inaccurate and confusing. Many people were concerned, not least because of irresponsible reporting. Some were quick to point out that the media only became interested when white people in rich nations started dying and Socialist Worker highlighted the way that "The Rich Could Stop Ebola in a Day".

Ebola is a horrible, virulent disease. But despite it having first identified following a 1976 outbreak, we still know very little about it. One reason for that, as Socialist Worker highlighted, is the lack of resources that have been spent on solving the problem. Another is the particular way that Ebola spreads.

David Quammen's new book concentrates on this second question. His book has its origins in a 2012 book of his, Spillover which examined the way that diseases can arrive from the animal kingdom and enter the human population. The Ebola pathogen is a zoonosis, "an animal infection that is transmissible to humans". Quammen points out that this is not uncommon - diseases like bubonic plague or rabies are zoonosis.

The reason that this is important is that identifying the "reservoir" animal which carries Ebola between outbreaks is a key part in identifying how to deal with the disease. The reservoir is unknown, though recently it has become clear that bats may well have a key role in this. Bats are extremely common in areas where Ebola outbreaks occur.  However at the time of writing, Quammen acknowledges that no bat has ever been found, despite extensive research, containing live Ebola viruses. This might mean that bats are part of a much more complex Ebola ecology (we know for instance that Ebola is particularly virulent in Gorillas) or it may be that some bats are the reservoir. More research is needed.

Ebola usually causes a horrible death. Though when the communities are in Africa we rarely hear about them, which was why I was surprised to find out from Quammen's book that 1976 was the first known case of an outbreak. I was also surprised to learn that several casualties have occurred outside of Africa long before the 2014 outbreak. England had a patient in 1976 who had contracted it due to an injury while studying the disease. A Russian researcher who had been looking at an experimental therapy derived from blood serum of horses died in 1996. Injecting live horses with Ebola must have been a particularly dangerous piece of research activity.

I was fascinated to discover that an African group, the Acholi, had, as part of their cultural knowledge, "a program of special behaviours" some of which seem specifically aimed at coping with diseases like Ebola. Including "quarantining each patient... relying on a survivor of the epidemic (if there were any) to provide care to each patient; limiting movement of people between the affected village.... not eating rotten or smoked meat; and suspending the ordinary burial practices"

Most importantly though, Quammen locates the Ebola question in the wider social context. He points out for instance, that there are other, far more dangerous diseases (malaria, or TB), others that could well evolve and cause extensive destruction (bird flu). There are others that cause localised epidemics, that are ignored in the west. All of these would benefit from proper funding, and are made worse by Africa's general poverty and the legacy of western colonialism. As Quammen points out: 

What we should remember, is that the events in West Africa (so far) tell us not just about the ugly facts of Ebola's transmissibility and lethality; they tell us also about the ugly facts of poverty, inadequate health care, political dysfunction, and desperation in three West African countries, and of neglectful disregard of those circumstances over time by the international community.

Quammen's book is not perfect, its main limitations come from its origin in a book with a slightly different emphasis. But it is an excellent introduction to Ebola. It should also encourage us to demand that our governments spend more of researching diseases like Ebola and caring for their victims.

Related Reviews

Davis - The Monster At Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu
Wallace - Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of Covid-19
Wallace - Big Farms Make Big Flu
Malm - Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the 21st Century
Zinsser - Rats, Lice and History
Ziegler - The Black Death

Juliet Barker - England Arise! The People, the King & the Great Revolt of 1381

Juliet Barkers' book on the 1381 Great Revolt is a meticulously researched, well written and important new contribution to our understanding of the event. While I don't agree with all of her conclusions, and particularly have problems seeing Richard II as a naive ruler, sympathetic to the serfs who has to be persuaded to undo the concessions he made with Wat Tyler and the rebels at Mile End, this isn't a key criticism of the book. A bigger problem is that Barker fails to see the uprising as a more general class struggle which is why she rejects the term "Peasants' Revolt". That said, the wealth of material here, Barkers' excellently clear style, and the background material make this a book that will enormously contribute to discussions about peasant struggles in the medieval era.

I wrote a longer review of this excellent book for Socialist Review magazine in December 2014. This can be read here.

Related Reviews

O'Brien - When Adam Delved and Eve Span
Dunn - The Peasant's Revolt: England's Failed Revolution of 1381
Lindsay & Groves - The Peasants' Revolt 1381
Hilton - Bond Men Made Free
Basdeo - The Life and Legend of a Rebel Leader: Wat Tyler

Mal Jones - Can Openers

Those of us who have been campaigning over the last few years to save public services from government cuts and austerity have been known to say, only half jokingly, that when the Tories are done, there will be "nothing left". But this isn't true. Tory austerity measures are a full on ideological assault. Their economic policy masks a concerted attempt to demonise the poorest and encourage people to think that the unemployed, the ill, the disabled, immigrants, asylum seekers and the old aren't "deserving". Thus the future is not one without public services. It is one were minimal services are delivered, by privatised corporations, to those who are deemed worthy.

It is this sort of future that provides the backdrop for Mal Jones' first novel Can Openers. Jones is a social services worker and his vision of the future is clearly informed by what he has experienced in recent years as social services are gutted by funding cuts and staff shortages.

The novel begins with the death of an older woman, whose time in a privatised care home is cut short to save money, and to make sure that the all embracing multinational Dibble Corporation gets the most out of what little money she has left.

But the bulk of the story centres on a group of individuals who are working for, or are under the ever-watchful eye of the Dependency Unit. This body tests, checks and re-tests whether or not the poor are entitled to help. Its teams pry into every aspect of peoples' lives, to see if they are worthy of some support from the government.

Frederick Smyth heads the local department. He has swallowed every right-wing ideological argument, believing the poor to be lazy, feckless and wasteful. As his staff quiz and examine he is rapidly approaching the magical target figure that will ensure he gets a place on the board of Dibble.

If this dystopian future were all there was, this would be a completely bleak future. But even in this future where privatised police forces have enormous powers, there is hope. The hope lies in resistance, and the best parts of this novel are those when ordinary people discuss how they can fight back. Groups of friends, for instance, who study the law and Dibbles' procedures to give each other an edge in the face of a system geared towards entrapment. Workers at a local canning plant also owned by Dibble, begin to organise to get a pay increase. They rapidly expose the weaknesses of the multinational and give confidence to workers across the country.

Frederick Smyth himself finds his life falling apart as an apparent bureaucratic mistake can't be sorted out. As his life unravels, he gets an insight into what his Dependency Unit has been doing to thousands of ordinary people. But there is no easy happy ending here. Jones resists the easy way out and instead puts the solution into the uncertain hands of the struggle by ordinary people to change things. The ending is optimistic rather than settled.

Mal Jones brings these different strands of the plot together in a surprisingly neat way. There is a complex conspiracy and the author handles it well. Readers will want to keep reading though, not just because of the story, but because the world that the author has created is tragically believable. The hope that we can avoid this sort of future and defeat the attacks on our public services lies precisely in the forces that Jones describes finally getting the confidence to confront Dibble Enterprises. It is this that makes this novel worth reading, and I certainly hope the author writes more.

You can buy Can Openers direct from the publishers here.

Mal Jones is part of the Social Work Action Network (SWAN). You can find out about their campaigning work here.

R.H. Tawney - Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

R.H. Tawney was a social historian and christian socialist. He is best known for this book, though his career was wide-ranging and fascinating. I found, while looking into his life, this powerful account of his experiences going "over the top" at the Somme and being wounded in action. An experience that no doubt helped shape his later politics and activism. 

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism is however not an easy read. In part this lies I suspect in its origin as a series of talks. More problematic is the author's extensive and detailed references to religious ideas, people and contemporary academic work. At times it is hard to follow his line of argument or understand, without this knowledge, the point he is making.

That said, there is much of interest in here to the reader trying to understand the development of capitalism in western Europe, particular the British Isles.

Tawney begins by discussing the role of religion in the pre-capitalist, feudal world. As he explains,

"In the earlier Middle Ages it had stood for the protection of peaceful labour, for the care of the poor, the unfortunate and the oppressed - for the ideal, at least, of social solidarity against the naked force of violence and oppression. With the growing complexity of economic civilisation, it was confronted with problems not easily handled by its traditional categories."

But religion in the medieval era was also a justification of the status quo. That everyone had their station in life and was expected to work in that role for the benefit of a whole. Thus religious figures tried to interpret and understand the Bible to both guide people, and back up their world outlook.

In terms of economics, the key question for the church was usury - the idea that interest could be charged on loans, or profits made from lending. Tawney traces the way that the Church's attitude to usury changed through time, banning clerics from profiting like this, then refusing usurers communion or Christian burial. But as capitalist relations developed within Medieval society, as wage labour grew and money came to dominate economic relations the old conservative approaches to economic relations no longer fitted the reality.

"In England... the new economic realities came into sharp collision with the social theory inherited from the Middle Ages. The result was a reassertion of the traditional doctrines with an almost tragic intensity of emotion, their gradual retreat before the advance of new conceptions, both of economic organisation and of the province of religion, and their final decline from a militant creed into a king of pious antiquarianism. They lingered, venerable ghosts, on the lips of churchmen down to the Civil War. Then the storm blew and they flickered out."

The changes that the rise of capitalism brought meant that religion had to adjust. This didn't simply mean changing the approach to questions like the charging of interest on loans. It also mean a complete re-write of the moral code that formed the basis of Christianity.

"In spite of the sincerity with which it was held that the transaction of business must somehow be amenable to the moral law, the code of practical ethics, in which that claim was expressed, had been forged to meet the conditions of a very different environment from that of commercial England in the seventeenth century."

Tawney traces the changes that took place within religion as different interpretations of Christianity struggled to adapt and understand the new world order. In particular he focuses on Puritanism, which "became a potent force in preparing the way for the commercial civilisation which finally triumphed at the Revolution".

For the Puritans, "religion must be active, not merely contemplative..... 'God hath commanded you some way or other to labour for your daily bread'." In other words, this was a religion that justified trade, commercialism and ultimately profit. As Tawney writes,

"a creed which transformed the acquisition of wealth from a drudgery or a temptation into a moral duty was the milk of lions. It was not that religion was expelled from practical life, but that religion itself gave it a foundation of granite... The good Christian was not wholly dissimilar from the economic man."

The transformation was so great, that as Tawney points out, those who held to the old texts were persecuted. The Rev. David Jones was was "so indiscreet as to preach... against usury, on the text, 'The Pharisees who were covetous heard all these things and they derided Christ,' [found] his career in London was brought to an abrupt conclusion."

Tawney tells the story well and the book is most useful for the historic account. I didn't find that Tawney got to the bottom of why attitudes began to chance. In part, I think, the answer lies with the fact that the Church was not so benevolent - but itself was enormous wealthy. Religious ideas needed to reflect reality, or risk becoming irrelevant. In addition, as Marx wrote, "being determines consciousness" - reality of working and relating in capitalist ways to other people and nature at large meant that peoples ideas changed. Most people expressed these through religion and so new interpretations of the Bible and religion became common. This is why, during the upheavals of the English Civil War, myriads of religious sects and groups appeared and pamphlets discussing the world, religion and the church were written in their thousands.

Tawney's style is beautiful and poetic which means the reader can be enjoy this book on many levels. While Tawney's thesis may not be one hundred percent accurate for the Marxist trying to understand the rise of capitalism (perhaps it is better described as incomplete) there is plenty of food for thought here that those trying to understand the modern economic system (and the role of the Church within it) can engage with.

Related Reviews

Siegel - The Meek and the Militant
Bolton - The Medieval English Economy

A.L. Morton - A People's History of England

A.L. Morton's A People's History of England is an extraordinarily readable Marxist history. Arthur Leslie Morton was a Communist Party activist and chair of the influential Communist Historians Group. His book became a sort of unofficial history book for the CPGB, though it has none of the dogmatic politics that sometimes mars the later writing of that organisation.

Unlike other popular histories of England, such as GM Trevelyan's English Social History, Morton is concerned with the lives and struggles of ordinary people. This doesn't mean he ignores other factors of history, but he is most concerned with the way that society changes. Morton plays particular attention to the changing economic situation and how this alters wider society. For instance, take how Morton explains the changing role of cavalry  during the Thirty Years War,

This new cavalry was unarmoured and mounted on lighter and swifter horses. It relied on the speed of its impact and on pistol fire to break the formation of the enemy. This is the cavalry of the Thirty Years' War and of Rupert and his cavaliers, a cavalry that, though it was mainly composed of gentlemen and their followers, reflects the structure of society in an age of transition between feudal and bourgeois.

But, he notes that while the changes in military technique arise from social changes, they in turn, react back upon society. "War became industrialised, employing more complicated instruments and involving more complicated financial arrangements." Gunpowder and firearms required money and industry and towns. Thus the new weapons were in the hands of a new class, which meant "Feudal wars, growing into national wars, transcended the organising capacity of the feudal system and hastened its decline."

On occasion, Morton's focus on economics can be misdirected. Discussing the War of the Roses he suggests that

The war was in form a battle between rival gangs of nobles, but underlying the struggle was another real though hardly apparent issue... The Yorkists drew most of their support from the progressive South... The ultimate victory of the Yorkists was therefore a victory of the most economically advanced areas and prepared the ground for the Tudor monarchy of the next century with its bourgeois backing.

Whether this is historically accurate or not, it reads like a statement of historical change being inevitable, driven by economic development, rather than a more complex process.

But this occasionally lapse shouldn't undermine what is actually a very subtle work of history, shot through with humour and insight. Take Morton's comments on the development of the system of political parties in the English Parliament,

The long life - 1661 to 1678 - enjoyed by the Cavalier Parliament gave full opportunity for the professionalising of politics, for the growth of the beginnings of organised political parties acting under recognised leaders and the for the beginning of that undisguised corruption that developed into a system in the Eighteenth century and makes many of the detailed changes of policy and alignment so complicated, and, on the long view, so insignificant.

Morton is at his absolute best when explaining how the gradual and minor changes that take place within the economy, have cumulatively enormous social and political impacts. The way that, between 1688 and the mid-18th century, society was "relatively stable" but

beneath the surface, the streams of gold poured into the City, their level growing higher year by year, till the time when the flood burst out, transformed by some magic into mills and mines and foundries, and covered the face of half of England, burying the old life and wars for ever... the Industrial Revolution.

Such examples of quantitative change bursting through into qualitative change are the thoughts of an author whose Marxism is part and parcel of their thinking, rather than a mechanical device to be applied like an sledge-hammer to crack a nut.

And Morton never fails to acknowledge and celebrate the struggles of the ordinary English man and woman, whether they were the peasants revolting in 1381 or 1450, or the strikes that built the new unions. Morton mentions forgotten movements, one of the few historians to even notice the general strike of 1842 for instance, or the Midlands Revolt of 1607.

Morton describes the writings of William Cobbett, the radical political writer and thinker. Despite the limitations of Cobbet as a thinker, Morton celebrates his writings and his newspaper, the Political Register 

written in an English prose so clear that no one could ever mistake his meaning, was the first to denounce every act of oppression and was felt by thousands all over England to be an amplification of their own voice.... [Cobbett] was not an even-tempered man, and he raged furiously against the landlords, tithe-owners and bankers, and against 'the Thing', the whole conspiracy of the rich against the poor.

They are fine words to write of William Cobbett, but in truth, they are also words that could be applied to A.L. Morton as well. His Peoples' History of England has educated and inspired tens of thousands of workers in the three-quarters of a century since it was first published and it deserves to be read again to inspire a new generations.

Related Reviews

Vallance -  A Radical History of Britain
Gluckstein - A Peoples' History of the Second World War
Linebaugh - The London Hanged
Purkiss - The English Civil War: A Peoples' History

Naomi Klein - This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate

This review was first published in Socialist Worker (UK) issue 2429 (11 Nov 2014)

There’s no denying it—capitalism is damaging the planet. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report proves that humans are fundamentally changing the environment, leading to a more dangerous climate.
 

The impact will be immense, particularly on the world’s poorest. The report says that to avoid dangerous climate change above 2°C, energy generation must be almost entirely low carbon by 2050 and completely so by 2100. 

The report’s authors hope it will influence a global treaty being prepared for December 2015. 

But there are worrying signs. Some countries such as oil supplier Saudi Arabia were concerned about sections that urged reductions of fossil fuel use. 

A previous attempt to get countries to agree to serious action in 2009 was scuppered by a coalition of governments led by US president Barack Obama.

But there is also a growing climate movement demanding action. In September there were big protests worldwide as government representatives met in New York. 

Another indication of the new mood is the popularity of Naomi Klein’s latest book, This Changes Everything. A launch event in London drew some 2,000 attendees.

The book is explicitly anti-capitalist. Klein writes that we need to “protect humanity from the ravages of both a savagely unjust economic system and a destabilised climate system”. 

Reducing emissions gives us the “chance to advance policies that dramatically improve lives, close the gap between rich and poor, create huge numbers of good jobs, and reinvigorate democracy from the ground up”.

Environmental action cannot be left to individuals such as the “lifestyle decisions of earnest urbanites who like going to farmers’ markets on Saturday afternoons”. 

Instead, we need state action such as sustainable transport and energy-efficient housing.

Market mechanisms are supposed to reduce emissions. But Klein points out that the private sector has played only a tiny role in investing in renewable energies. Governments have been responsible for nearly everything.

Klein says we need an “alternative worldview” and mass movements such as those that fought against slavery or for civil rights. We need to “Grow the Caring Economy, Shrinking the Careless One”. 

Klein sometimes looks to local change, such as communities divesting from fossil fuel industries and supporting sustainable alternatives. But she also acknowledges the need for economic planning, tough regulation of businesses and higher taxation for the rich.

This is important stuff and has incurred the wrath of many right wingers. 

But while Klein’s book looks to challenging capitalism, it is less clear about who has the power to do this. The fossil fuel companies have already demonstrated how they will fight to protect their interests.

Klein quotes Karl Marx, noting capitalism’s irreparable rift with “the natural laws of life itself”. This is why we need to overthrow the system. 

The force to do this is the working class. Through its unique role in capitalist production, it has the power to stop the system and build a new world. 

As Klein says, in the face of climate change, “only mass social movements can save us now”.

Related Reviews

Foster - Marx's Ecology
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Thomas - Man and the Natural World
Monbiot - Heat
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Heinberg - SnakeOil

Terry Pratchett - Raising Steam

Terry Pratchett has written so many good novels over the years that it is easy to hold him to incredible high standards. Unfortunately his latest novel, while entertaining, is not on a par with earlier works. In places it felt like Pratchett was simply writing by numbers, and filling in the blanks with his earlier creations and characters.

For me to Raising Steam just didn't have the underlying air of magic and mystery that other Discworld novels have. It really just felt like an amusing book about the invention of the railways, rather than an extension of other story lines and character arcs.

The jokes felt tired (the Hygienic Railway!) and the characters seemed cardboard cut outs rather than their normally rounded wholes. Unusually with a new Pratchett, I found myself uninterested and bored.

Rather unfairly I feel, some reviewers want to blame this on Pratchett's illness. But I've felt that the Discworld books of the last five or ten years have failed to match the brilliance of earlier ones in the series. Perhaps Discworld has just reached its natural end. I'll be honest though. I'll still keep buying them. Even when Pratchett's not very good, he still has moments of absolute brilliance.

John Gurney - Gerrard Winstanley: The Digger's Life and Legacy

Today, most people who know of Gerrard Winstanley, remember him for the Digger's movement that he initiated - celebrated for their vision of a communal society, with everyone working for the collective interest. But there is much more to both Winstanley's life and ideas and John Gurney's book is an excellent introduction.

Winstanley's ideas were shaped by the ideological and religious ferment that accompanied the English Civil War and the aftermath of the defeat of Charles I. But the revolutionary changes taking place also brought with them difficulties. Winstanley's ideas constantly developed and grew, shaped by the turmoil around him. As Gurney points out about one of Winstanley's writings completed just days before the execution of the king,

"The New Law of Righteousnes reflected the tremendous optimism felt in radical circles and captured well the millenarian excitement of the movement. Crucially, however, it also reflected the impact of some very different developments, as a combination of grain shortages, widespread sickness and the effects of an economy still weakened by civil war threatened large numbers of people with impoverishment."

It is from this concrete situation that Winstanley's radical idea to take control of land and work it in a common interest arose. Though he wasn't the only one to think like this,

"the return of commons and wastes to their proper use by the poor became a central concern. The Leveller Richard Overton had in 1647 called enclosed or impropriated commons to be 'laid open againe to the free and common use and benefit of the poore', and this became a standard radical demand over the following four yours."

But what Winstanley was able to do was to take these ideas and "develop a coherent programme". John Gurney also shows that Winstanley's desire for change was also rooted in his own experiences. Having suffered poverty and the failure of his own business Winstanley ended up living in Cobham, where he was also party to the local class struggle. The parish had been marked by conflict between landlords and tenants for many years, as the lords of the manor, tried to undermine historic rights of the tenants. Winstanley himself was one of six Cobham inhabitants fined in April 1646 for digging peat on the common. The local priest was also lord of the manor, and all this must have left a significant impression on Winstanley, as Gurney points out,

"In his writings Winstanley would target both the clergy and lords of the manors, and it is no doubt significant that in two important periods of his life the roles of minister and lord of the manor were merged into one."

Winstanley's religious ideas clearly evolved during this period. Gurney says that we can't know the particular path Winstanley took, but we can "see him as moving from orthodox Protestant to Baptist, Seeker and finally Digger."

Winstanley's ideas developed quickly and radically. In 1648 he was already challenging the "very name of God", talking of Reason, "the great creator" who "governs the whole Creation". Some of Winstanley's writings seem an extremely radical interpretation of the Christian religion,

"For the Spirit Reason doth not preserve one creature and destroy another... but it hath a regard to the whole creation; and knits every creature together into onenesse; making every creature to be an upholder of his fellow; and so every one is an assistant to preserve the whole."

Which seems to me quite a modern, dialectical and ecological interpretation of "creation". This points to how Winstanley was emphasising "the central importance of conduct towards other, and relation of the individual to the whole, as the essence of true religion". Here lies the theoretical roots of the Diggers' attempts to run society in a more equal and just way. Winstanley's writings explore how a future society could work, considering what would happen to those who refused to work, or broke laws. Again, these ideas develop over time, and after the defeat of the Diggers' attempts to build on St. George's Hill, they become more limited and restricted. But he still had a vision of a Communistic world,

"Every Tradesman shall fetch Materials, as Leather, Wool, Flax, Corn and the life, from the publike Store-houses to work upon without buying and selling; and when particular works are made, as Cloth, Shooes, Hats and the like, the Tradesmen shall bring these particular works to particular shops, as it is now in practise, without buying and selling. And every family as they want such things as they cannot make, they shall go to these shops, and fetch without money, even as now they fetch with money."

Such writings inspired many later socialists, and helped writers like Eduard Bernstein to see in Winstanley a proto-Marxism. Which is why Winstanley's name joins a list of great revolutionary thinkers on a plinth in Moscow erected with the support of Lenin after the Russian Revolution. It is unfair to assign Winstanley to a later political movement. After-all, the history of radical ideas is of different strands developing, arguing and challenging previous assumptions and beliefs. Gurney traces the way that different movements have rediscovered Winstanley and the Diggers, how they have been inspired and used his ideas.

The defeat of the English Revolution wasn't the end of Winstanley, though his later life was far from the radical one which had brought him into contact with key figures of the English Civil War and made his pamphlets sought after reads. Gurney points out that Winstanley, for most of history, has remained an obscure figure that has only relatively recently been rediscovered. Gurney hopes that others will develop our understanding further, but his own book is in itself an important read, developing and challenging the ideas we have already got about Winstanley and helping a new generation of radicals discover them for themselves.

Related Reviews

Hill - The World Turned Upside Down
Manning - Aristocrats, Plebeians & Revolution in England 1640-1660
Vallance - A Radical History of Britain

Alex Callinicos - Imperialism and Global Political Economy

Reading Alex Callinicos' Imperialism as the West once again began to bomb Iraq for the third time and in the aftermath of a summer of Israeli assault on Palestine, I was struck by the clarity and importance of the Marxist analysis of Imperialism. In this book Callinicos traces the history of Imperialism, both as a political concept, and as a force that shaped, and continues to shape, the world we live in. Imperialism has had many meanings, frequently depending on the different historical societies that it is being used to describe. In the first chapter, Callinicos examines the particular imperialism of Empire - Ancient Rome for example - followed by the nature of military and economic competition in Feudal Europe. But this is very much a backdrop to a description of whole Imperialism under capitalism has become a qualitative and quantitatively difference force.

Economic competition we have already encountered as one of the two interconnected relations constitutive of capital. Geopolitical competition comprises the rivalries among states over security, territory, influence and the like.... The historical moment of capitalist imperialism is when the interstate rivalries become integrated into the larger processes of capital accumulation.

This understanding underpins much of Callinicos' argument. Imperialism is, as the classical Marxist analysis explains, a product of capitalism's economic development. It has, over time, taken different forms within capitalism that relate to the different political, social and economic circumstances. It is not enough to explain imperialism by "reducing the motivations behind public policy to direct economic interests" even though they are often crucial. Nor is it enough to see imperialism simply as the powerful states exploiting the weak. Callinicos quotes an excellent summary of this by Anthony Brewer,

It is easy to misunderstand the classical Marxist theories of imperialism since the very word has expanded and altered its meaning. Today the word 'imperialism' generally refers to the dominance of more developed over less developed countries. For classical Marxists it meant, primarily, rivalry between major capitalist countries, rivalry expressed in conflict over territory,m taking political and military as well as economic forms, and leading ultimately to inter-imperialist war. The dominance of stronger countries over weaker is certainly implicit in this conception, but the focus is one the struggle for dominance, a struggle between the strongest in which less developed countries figure primarily as passive battlegrounds, not as active participants.

Understanding how Imperialism has arisen under capitalism requires Callinicos to examine the historic development of capitalism, in particular the origins of the nation state. It was this part of the book that was perhaps the most challenging as it seemed the least directly relevant to the matter at hand. Callinicos discusses extensively the work of Marxists like Ellen Meskin Wood and Robert Brenner as well as other authors who have written about world history in various ways. But this section of the book turns out to be particularly important as it gives us the context for the modern nation state - the unevenness of historical development giving rise to uneven concentrations of capital. This is mirrored within capitalism itself. Capitalism itself requiring and causing further concentrations of capital while leaving under-development elsewhere. Lenin's five-fold definition of imperialism reflecting this reality,

(1). The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital and the creation, on the basis of this 'finance capital', of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as opposed to the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.

Locating imperialism as arising out of the very life of capitalism in this way, Callinicos is able, like Lenin and others historically, to comprehensibly demolish those who argue that there is a potential for a "ultra imperialism" which makes war impossible. As another great classical Marxist, Nikolai Bukharin pointed out "war is the central problem of the present day."

The mid-part of the book looks at the Marxist idea of the state in the context of Imperialism and the growth of capitalism, discussing the evolution of the state and the various rival analyses of its importance. I don't have time and space to review all of the extensive discussions here, but I was particularly struck by Callinicos' description of the state, not as a conspiracy of capitalists to exploit and oppress, but rather "to think in terms of state managers whose specific rules of reproduction endow them with certain interests - in particular, maintain and, if possible, expanding the internal and external power of the state."

Callinicos points to three key periods of imperialism, Classical Imperialism, from 1870 to 1945; Superpower Imperialism, 1954 - 1991 and Imperialism after the Cold War. In the contemporary era-the dominant imperialism of the United States continues to try to shape the world in its own interests. For instance, writing about Central and Eastern Europe, Callinicos notes

the historic achievement of the Clinton administration was to preserve the position of the US as the hegemonic power in Europe, in particular by linking the enlargement of the EU to that of NATO as an integrated process of extending the 'Euro-Atlantic' world deep into Eurasia.

This doesn't mean, as Callinicos goes on to point out, that there is no conflict of interest between the US and say, France or Germany, but it does mean that events in this crucial part of the world are very much linked to the interests of US capitalism. As an aside, it is this that is a key driving factor behind the ongoing crisis in Ukraine as sections of capital in that country see either the EU (and NATO) or Russia as being their best bet for advancement.

Callinicos concludes,

The combined impact of continuing slow growth in the core of the system and of a shifting global distribution of economic power is likely to create significant centrifugal pressures on the major blocs of capital that, it should never be forgotten, are in competition with each other. Maintaining both the political cohesion of the advanced capitalist world and US hegemony over it is not an automatic effect of a self-equilibrating system It requires a continue creative political effort on the part of the US, and ion particular the successful pursuit of divide and rule strategies at the western and eastern ends of the Eurasian landmass where the two zones of advanced capitalism outside North America are to be found.

The problem is that the world doesn't remain still. The US is aware that potential rivals exist and will grow, Russia, India or China for instance. This doesn't mean that war between these countries is inevitable. But the very nature of capitalism means that conflict and clashes are likely. Events in Ukraine are one example, as a proxy wars or economic clashes elsewhere. It also means that control over crucial economic and strategic regions, such as Iraq gain renewed importance as the US struggles to maintain its hegemony. A world that remains economical unstable can only make it harder for the US to control.

The World Wars of the 20th century had their roots in the capitalist system. The 21st century is a different place, but as Callinicos has ably shown in this book, the underlying faults and contradictions of the international capitalist system still mean that competition and crisis can easily become military confrontation. As we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq this will mean suffering on an enormous scale for millions of people. The point is, as Alex Callinicos concludes, that understanding the system makes it easier for us to struggle for a different world. While this book doesn't discuss the mass movements that have historical arisen in response to war and imperialism, it should be read as a tool to develop those movements further. This book is a very important contribution to that understanding and should be read by radicals, socialists and anti-war activists everywhere.

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Callinicos - Making History
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McGarr & Callinicos - Marxism and the Great French Revolution

Jamie H. Cockfield - With Snow On Their Boots

The disintegration, mutiny and rebellion of Russia's troops on the Eastern Front was a central part of both the Russian Revolution and the ending of World War One. The soldiers, sick of the harsh conditions, the pointless battles, the lack of ammunition and supplies as well as the vicious discipline of the Imperial Army, refused to fight en-masse. Their rebellion helped drive the Revolution as the government that followed the fall of the Tsar refused to end the war.

But a less well known story, which follows a similar path, is the tale of the Russian Expeditionary Force that fought in France on the Western Front. Jamie Cockfield's book is the first recent book that I have found on this topic, though there are frequent references to the rebellion in accounts of 1917, such as Leon Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution.

The presence of thousands of Russian troops in France from 1916 has its origins in the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two nations. France lacked manpower to fight in the trenches, particularly after the mincing machine of Verdun. Russia on the other hand had an enormous population but lacked the material resources to fight the Germans in the East. One Russian soldier who eventually made it back to Russia in the 1920s called his memoirs of his regiment's time in France as "Sold for Shells", an apt description of the transfer of men for munitions that took place. Of course, there was more to it than a simple economic transaction. Cockfield's book details the complex diplomatic discussions that preceded the embarkation of nearly 20,000 troops. Russia wanted to demonstrate its commitment to the war effort, and France hoped that the presence of Russian soldiers would demonstrate the broad coalition that was committed to fighting Germany. 400,000 troops were promised by the Russians though only two groups embarked. The differences in these two brigades' origins had a fundamental impact upon what took place on French soil.

Thus the arrival of the Russian troops was met with parades, flag waving and speeches that extolled the brotherhood of the allies. Yet even early on in their arrival in France, the Russian troops were typically neglected. During their involvement in one of the most brutal and vicious of the battles of the Western Front, the Nivelle Offensive, the Russian soldiers proved brave and tenacious combatants, officers and men winning medals for bravery and sacrifice. But the military disaster of this offensive led to an enormous mutiny in the French army, which was infected by a collective desire to stop fighting.

The Russian units too rebelled. Isolated from both the French army and events in Russia they had little idea what was taking place. But lack of supplies, conditions at the front and the horror of the war fed the propaganda they were beginning to receive from leftist Russian exiles in France. The (mistaken) belief that they were accorded second rate rations and medical care by the French also helped feed rebellion. Another important factor was that the Russians were still under the discipline that they would have experienced in the East. Their officers were rude and occasionally violent. In the early days of their arrival in France, angry soldiers had actually killed a Russian officer and control had only been reasserted by the imprisonment of several and the shooting of other ringleaders.

In a theme that was to become a key part of the French authorities concerns, the mutiny in the French Army was blamed on the negative influence of the Russians. As Cockfield stresses, "the blame for it fell, however, not on the real causes but on the innocent Russian bridages that had fought so well in Champagne.... It became convenient, therefore, to blame the Russians."

Yet there was clearly something taking place in the Russian units. The soldiers were organising, and their methods of organizing bore striking similarities to what was taking place in Russia. "On May 10 [1917] the radicals ordered new elections for a series of committees, one deputy for every fifty men and a separate Soviet of Officers' Deputies." Cockfield points out that an observer of the Russian army was "stupefied" that the "revolutionary methods adopted by the soldiers in Russia had been accepted so quickly". The troops went further than elections, with the Third Brigade acquiring its own printing press and publishing a newspaper.

The actions of agitators clearly had an effect. A newspaper influenced by Trotsky in exile had poured in revolutionary propaganda. But Cockfield notes that in the most radical of the two brigades, the First, most of the men were from Moscow factories and would have had experience, or at least knowledge, of the Bolsheviks' arguments during the 1905 revolution. The other brigade was mostly men from peasant areas who were more isolated from such rebellious ideas.

For their mutiny, the Russians were isolated and dispersed, as the rebellion grew and the refusal to fight continued the soldiers grew more confident. As the Kerensky government continued the war, and then the Bolshevik uprising began the presence of the troops went from being an embarrassment to the French to a major problem. For the revolutionaries in Russia it was a superb opportunity to make propaganda. Cockfield suggests that the Bolsheviks exaggerated stories of hardship, hunger and deprivation among the troops, though he also acknowledges they experienced real difficulties.

Eventually the refusal of the Russian troops to disarm led to military confrontation. Though cleverly, the French used the most loyal Russian troops in the Third Brigade against those in the First. After several days of shelling, and a handful of casualties (Cockfield says that later claims by the Bolsheviks that 100s died have no evidence) the soldiers gave in, to face more imprisonment while the authorities debated what to do. Cockfield notes though, that "notes of the ministry of foreign affairs, rather details before and very detailed afterward are nonexistent for the three days of the battle."

With the armistice on the Eastern Front, the troops had further arguments to refuse to fight. After all, why should they take up arms while no other Russian was still in the war. Some soldiers were given work in France, others remained in camps or were shipped to the Middle East. Those troops were were loyal and wanted to fight, did so, and eventually went on to form a small (but ineffective) core to the French intervention against the Russian Revolution in Russia. The shelling of Russians by Russians forming, for Cockfield, "a dress rehearsal for the Russian Civil War."

Eventually most of the Russians made it home, though many did not, and many were trapped in France. Cockfield meticulous history of this strange military and revolutionary episode details much of the rebellion and the lives of the soldiers. Those interested in the Russian Revolution will find much of interest here, not least the parallels in rebellion. The book is marred, in my opinion, by Cockfield's tirades against the Bolsheviks and their Revolution. While being scrupulously fair to those soldiers who are his subject, his accounts of the situation in Russia drifts, on occasion, into anti-Bolshevik propaganda. Writing of those who infiltrated France to ferment rebellion, Cockfield suggests that "many were by now Russian Leftists of some sort who were prostituting themselves for German gold, as Lenin did, and held little if any real allegiance to specific Bolshevik ideology."

Such statements ill-become a work of serious history and will certainly annoy readers who are more sympathetic to the Revolution and have knowledge of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Nonetheless, even with this personal bias, Cockfield captures the mood of those who hated the Revolution. At the surrender of the rebel First Brigade, an American General told another commander, "I did not believe, general, that you would get rid of this bunch of lice so elegantly."

While I also disagree with Jamie Cockfield's analysis of the Russian Revolution, I do recommend this book to those people who are trying to understand the Russian Revolution and find out the real history of World War One. The story of mass, armed rebellion on the Western Front among Russian (and French) troops is unlikely to appear in many commemorative books and programs. But it is a story that should be told, if only to remember those 1000s of Russian men, trapped in France, who only wanted to return home.

Related Reviews

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Jack Vance - The Blue World

Jack Vance's 1966 classic The Blue World seems to be mostly remembered for its portrayal of a human society on a rather unique planet. The titular planet is home to the descendants of a spaceship that crashed 12 generations before the story begins. On the Blue world there is no land, only water. The population lives on floats, which seem akin to giant lily pads anchored to some distant ground, and surrounded by an enormous ocean full of dangerous creatures.

But society isn't precarious. The seas and the floats provide materials for food and manufacturing. Society itself has lost some of the stratification it had before the crash landing. Though different social castes still have very specific roles - fishing, building, communication - but retain their pre-crash names, advertisers, hooligans and bezzlers. We learn though, that the "Anarchists and Procurers" have long since disappeared since the crash.

But while many remember the book for its unique and cleverly painted alien society, what the reader should also spot is the subtle and clever tale of revolution. The priests of The Blue World have created a religion around a giant, violent sea animal that lives in the nearby ocean. These squid like kragen's live on food that grows on the floats, but can easily kill humans and wreck destruction. The priests have encouraged one of these kragen, the largest and meanest to protect them, while providing it with easy food. In doing so, they have created the reason for their own existence. Without the priests, the giant kragen would destroy the human settlement. But without its protection, the humans would be at risk from the more numerous, but lesser animals.

As a result society has stagnated. No change takes place. The priests block intellectual curiosity and prevent study of the texts that survive from the crash that marooned their ancestors. They also violently silence those who question their rule. Eventually though, a section of the population begin to think about what life might be like if they were to destroy the kragen and study some of the books properly.

Vance's novel is an adventure story, and good eventually triumphs. Or at least the new order defeats the old. The star of the book is the planet itself, though the tale is an old one.