No other historical perspective has influenced historiographical discourse in such contested terms. Many historians have written in the vein and spirit of Marxist belief; however, conceptual schisms have manifested between self-avowed Marxist historians who stretch the ideas of Marx, that have-fragmented the established bonds and orthodoxy of Marxist methodology. Theoretical Marxism, at-its core, is more ideological than historic; it is nuanced and thus open to interpretation,-allowing varying strands to emerge.
E.P. Thompson is ‘seeking to rescue’ and restore the voices to the voiceless ‘Luddite cropper, the “obsolete” handloom weaver’, those who were previously seen as backwards, emblems of pre-industrial society, ‘from the enormous condescension of posterity’ by not allowing them to be neglected by future historians. Yet, it is debatable whether such a rescue mission is the desire of a Marxist historian. Is their task not to spell out the mechanisms of class formation and class agency? The oft-quoted declaration truly encapsulates the Janus-headed nature of the Thompsonian approach, as he not only departs from conventional Marxism, but also actively engages within its theoretical framework. It should be acknowledged that statement is not that of a structuralist Marxist historian, and thus the theory should be clarified to better understand its provocation. Marx places emphasis on the model of economic determinism, a mathematical and rigid theoretical premise that prioritises modes of production as inexorably leading to a communist society. He viewed history as a ‘Hegelian dialectic’, a dynamic process advanced by opposing forces working against each other to produce results. Marx’s approach, which is devoid of the human agency so prevalent within Thompson’s work, links the beliefs of individuals to the material base. In doing so, Marx fails to mention the historical role of culture and actively denies its importance. Whilst Thompson does embody social and cultural elements in his analysis, but works within a Marxist framework, there this essay will argue the statement is that of a Marxist historian.
British Marxist historiography is embedded in specifically British concerns.
Varying schools have laid claim to different aspects of Marxism, arguably causing it to be diluted and stretched into ambiguity. In order to effectively examine the statement, the Marxist historiographical debate will be magnified inside the British historical context. Marxist historians outside of the contexts possess different priorities to the British, as the latter’s focus is on the industrial revolution and the class struggle that arose as a consequence. The British Marxist Historians set their own tone and in order to for this to be analysed sufficiently, other schools of neo-Marxism, such as the French cultural theorists, will be ignored. To aid this essay, three works will be included. Firstly, Thompson’s magisterial text The Making of the English Working-class, which argues that class difference was not solely the result of economic distinctions that separated individuals, but rather part of the broader human experience of culture. Building upon Thompson’s definition, Anna Clark’s The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working-class, is a definitive study of the impact gender had in the development of working-class during the Industrial Revolution. Lastly, Captain Swing where Hobsbawm works collaboratively with George Rudé, their comparative orthodoxy presents a detailed examination of the Swing Riots in 1830, paying attention to the causes as well as the nature of the movement itself, as distinguished from Thompson focus on culture.
Gramsci by Unknown author – http://eserver.org/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2002037
Marx laid down the foundations of political economy in which following historians were tasked with selectively critiquing it. The Twentieth Century saw scores of neo-Marxist historians furthering and altering Marx’s theory, the first being Gramsci. He contended that revision of the theory was a vital necessity in order to factor in the influence that culture had in shaping society. This new cultural ground of historical materialism was further advanced by the British Marxist Historians from 1940s. The Making, published six years earlier and Captain Swing spearheaded the new history from below and social history. Yet the differences within the approaches of Thompson and Hobsbawm, are so stark that bringing them together only serves to demonstrate the diverse nature of Marxist historiography.
Thompson represents a shift away from traditional Marxist interpretations and represents a historiographical tradition. He argues that class difference was not the result of economic distinctions that separated individuals, rather part of human experience. Rather than focusing on structure as being the key driver of historical change, Thompson believes people themselves can be as well. His approach still possesses Marxian-like tendencies in terms of its analysis but the focus is on the historical process. ‘Class happens,’ Thompson posited, ‘when some men, as a result of common experience (inherited or shared) feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs.’
The Making is a ‘history of ideas than of experiences,’ focusing on class-consciousness rather than real life experiences of gender for example. It does not rescue all parts of the process. He fails to satisfactorily understand gender as a constituent feature of class formation. Gender blindness is glaringly apparent in Thompson’s work, albeit touched on briefly but it is in a disjointed nature. Overall the structure of the narrative seeks to place emphasis on the role of men. Catherine Hall posits:
The attempt to analyse the sexual division of labour and patterns of reproduction through Marxist categories sent us down many blind alleys.
Clark is part of the broader feminist perspective alongside Joan Scott, Barbara Taylor, Sally Alexander. Clark does not want to force female labourers into the established narrative, she seeks to write privileging gender. She furthers Thompson’s definition of the ‘working-class’ and his historical writings, regarding the emergent of the British working-class-consciousness by honing on the effect gender roles had on the industrial regions. She intersects his approach by analysing the development of the working-class in terms of gender, arguing it played a “profound” role. She posits that the making of the working-class was closely aligned to the political radical movement that sought to unite the class-bound idea of gender. Clark is on a similar mission to rescue gender from the ‘condescension of posterity’ in the Thompsonian process of class formation
Agency and consciousness are so intimately intertwined with class as a historical phenomenon. Thompson puts forward a counterapproach to the economistic notations of Marxism, the defence argued by structuralists, one example being Louis Althusser, who was keen to place an emphasis on scientific aspects of Marxism. ‘The working-class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time,’ Thompson argues that it ‘was present at its own making,’ demonstrating how class was a socio-historical process and relationship. This contrasts greatly to Marx who viewed the peasants as a passive force, equating them to a ‘sackful of potatoes’ thus negating their agency. For conventional economic historians, the economic base is closely credited with human progress, Thompson in contrast goes against the grain, but theoretically he does not offer a viable alternative to the base-superstructure model that Orthodox Marxists posit. From the Critique of Political Economy and other comments made by Marx, conventional Marxist historians take the base-superstructure model at face value, they do not consider the fact that he himself did not explicitly state that the superstructure could not affect the base. A refined focus shows Thompson adhering to a Marxist framework but distinguishes himself from structuralist determinism in favour of incorporating human agency.
Marxist history is largely deterministic; it posits a forward-march view. This is problematic as it suggests that history is always about moving forwards, rather than viewing it as broadly a larger process, which can be cyclical in nature. Thompson in this sense is deviating from the Marxist norm, with his rescue mission putting spotlight on the ‘Luddite croppers,’ the machine breakers who were seen as emblems of pre-industrial society as they were hindering history from progressing. Industrialisation is taking the nation towards the industrial age, towards a future that is perceived as superior. Not only is he restoring voices to groups from subordinate, lowly positions but he is also questioning the very linear trajectory of progress, by considering other elements.
Hobsbawm and Rudé, in their introduction, make it explicitly clear that they intend to rebuild an account, to rescue an ‘anonymous and undocumented’ group, so that they can begin to ‘understand their movements,’ echoing Thompson’s mission. The Swing rioters: ‘nobody except themselves’ knew who they were, only identifiable by their children and gravestones. Thompson, Hobsbawm and Rudé are rewriting history, giving voice to the voiceless; the losers. Marking a departure from the study of study of great events, with a focus on the political and social elites, primarily wealthy, European men However, the way in which they write about the figures evokes different meanings; Thompson views the ‘Luddite cropper’ as heroes, they were the ‘casualties of history,’ the victims of the Industrial Revolution who were so easily replaced by machinery. He seeks to recover their reactionary views from the margins of the history and give them a leading role in their own drama. How Hobsbawm and Rudé’s represent the ‘casualties of history,’ arouses contrasting connotations. They are described as ‘primitive rebels’. Hobsbawm and Rudé view the nature of the disturbances as ‘’improvised, archaic, [and] spontaneous,’ whereas Thompson sees them as ‘curiously indecisive and unbloodthirsty.’ The trajectory of Marxism following Marx’s death has been strongly influenced by a productivist, economistic and evolutionist determinism. Thompson differentiates his approach, he is a romanticist who writes a eulogy, a utopian-revolutionary dialectic on pre-industrial subordinate people. Thus, highlighting the dialectic of Marxism and romanticism.
It seems to be impossible…to write the history of a particular sex separately from the other, just as it’s really impossible to write the history of a particular class separately from the other.
Clark is also rewriting history for the ‘casualities of history’ she is rescuing women who were previously a recognised subaltern part of the patriarchal society during the industrial revolution. She is re-visioning the narrative in The Making with the intention of privileging gender, not to replace the history of manhood with the history of working-class women, but to ‘infuse gender’. Women are marginalised in Thompson’s narrative and presented as a masculine version of working-class history. He delineates that his monograph is a ‘biography of the English working-class from its adolescence until is early manhood’, within the first few pages the tone of a universal male working-class identity has been set. Notwithstanding, Thompson acknowledged that domestic servants made up ‘the largest single group of working people’ in 1830, but despite this he neglected to analyse their position in the class struggle, only mentioning that the trade unionists perceived them to be so entrenched within upper class subservience that their experience did not resonate with the working-class. Overall the structure of Thompson’s narrative seeks to place emphasis on the role of men. Paradoxically, Thompson’s concept that class was a relationship, rather than a thing, is better tailored to fit the domestic service, more so compared to any other profession, as it is an example of the most intimate relation of class. In this sense, The Making provides inspiration for the socialist feminist discourse. Thompson working within a Marxist framework, to create a ‘conscious class,’ means he overlooks certain relationships that do not fit.
Even conventional Marxists such as Hobswbawm began to include the gender dimension Marx had omitted from his theory. Hobsbawm articulated his ‘‘embarrassed astonishment’’ that the survey of the state of social history he carried out in 1971 did not ‘‘reference … women’s history’’. Hobsbawm is perceived to be a conservative in his beliefs, rarely straying from orthodoxy. Yet his deviation and willingness to incorporate gender demonstrates how other historians can also adapt and intersect their ideas with aspects such as gender or even race, as history progresses.
Captain Swing, woven together by historians of different approaches: Hobsbawm, more intertwined in the deep-rooted Marxist interpretation of economic and social history, Rudé, was interested in the revolutionary crowd in terms of agency. Their book is an example of how despite differing ideas, it is possible to synthesis these to produce valuable work. Despite the intersection, there is still continuity between the history that Thompson, Hobsbawm and Rudé analyse in the 60s with Clark in the 90s. Historical analysis for Thompson is not just about the past but rather it is the drive to understand past struggles. In pursuing this, historians can obtain a richer synthesis of the past.
Marx’s influence on historians, is primarily based upon his foremost belief – that the development of society was best understood through a materialist conception of history. As he wrote ‘it is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness.’ In doing so Marx fails to mention the historical role of culture and actively denies its importance. From this, ‘vulgar’ Marxists take the is the position that the structure of economy is the sole catalyst social change. They focus on the means and modes of production. The British Marxist historians’ attention to working-class culture set the scene for social history and the history from below approach.
Not only is Thompson seeking to restore agency and examine the history of these artisanal groups but he also considers their attitudes, culture and mentalities. He contends that the working-class made their own culture against which goes against historical materialism in which production is seen as a prerequisite to mould the workers. Thompson in some respects is a special type of cultural Marxist. Most would equate his emphasis on ‘experience’ for culturalist tendencies. However, he is not entirely a ‘culturalist’ in the sense that he favours cultural over other types of explanations. Sewell compellingly argues that he is an ‘experimentalist,’ as he writes a narrative that seeks to privilege the ‘concrete historical agents over that of the theoretically self-conscious analyst’.
Rudé, in Captain Swing, analysed how traditional values and ideas issue in provoking popular responses such as machine breaking. This is a theme adopted and adapted from E.P. Thompson’s exposition of a ‘moral economy’ for the English crowd. Thompson utilises archival research in order recover the experiences of the working-class. He digresses from high culture, focus on popular culture, by looking at the Luddites, he also includes an economic alongside the focus on popular culture. Language and mentalités evolve and acquire different meanings as history progresses. He empirically embellishes productive relations in The Making, which can be seen in chapters six and ten, with his focus of Luddism and chapter 14 contains details of the economic life and productive relations of the labourers. Similarly, Captain Swing, takes a quantitative approach, page 358 includes a ‘table of incidents,’ with an arrangement of the Swing events that occurred from February 1830 to October 1831. Oodles of data is consigned to the last 60 pages of appendices showing the spread of the chaos which ensued
As Thompson’s primary focus regarding the new culture of the period, gender blindness does not come as a complete shock, given that women were largely omitted from the political culture lain during industrialisation. But accepting and reproducing the sexual inequalities, ties in with the Marxist inclinations. Clark emphasises how the working-class formation must to understood as a process of gender formation. When analysing gender relations prevalent in ‘pre-industrial’ work places, Clark provides a valuable insight into the differing cultures between the artisan trades of the ‘Luddite cropper’ and the textile working ‘handloom weavers’, who Thompson in contrast lumps together. Clark posits that were two primary forms of gender relationships where women were inferior to men. Firstly, in London and the artisan trades, there was a strong fraternal culture, where women were excluded, which fostered misogyny and domestic violence. Strongly contrasts to the second group in Lancashire and the textile areas where there was more of a familial culture as they drew upon female support, given that entire households would work in unison.
Since its genesis, Marxism has had many digressions. The Making regularly reifies inclinations of mainstream historical analysis. Thompson overcomes the base-superstructure model, shifting from class-analysis to class-struggle analysis. There is the reintroduction of the subject into history, with emphasis on agency and experience. Thomspon, Hobsbawm and Clark unite in that they do not represent a radical separation from Marx’s outlooks (economic interpretation of history) but rather seek to expand upon his understandings, incorporating aspects of their own scholarship to broaden the school of Marxism. Therefore, this represents a continuing evolution of Marxist historiography rather than a fundamental break. In revealing the relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor, Marx sought a revolutionary response. Similarly, the British Marxist historians desired that by paying homage to the exploitation of the working-class in Britain, their histories would also embolden a revolution. Arguably, many historians inside the Marxist framework, put forward approaches that are dialectical. They contradict each other and in doing so align together in a peculiar sort of harmony which forces them all to sharpen their historical tools. Consequently, it progresses beyond a narrow reductionist frame that projects and develops the debate within Marxist historiography. Non-Marxist historians adhere to the status quo by not being critical and perhaps in doing stagnate their historiography. Historians who place themselves within the Marxist narrative, follow a trajectory put forward by Marx. He believed that history must be ‘treated as a corrective to theory’ and that ‘theory must be continually revised’. Just as Clark re-envisions Thompson’s narrative to include gender, future historians can expand the writings that emerged in the 90s and in doing so can allow history to progress, in line with Marx’s primary belief and provide us with richer synthesis of historical understanding. Thompson, seeking to restore agency to the peasantry and artisanal classes, is working within Marx’s aim. We need a fruitful combination of historical thought in order to truly progress forward. By reanalysing past events and perhaps even re-evaluating our own methodologies and sharpening our tools, advancements and innovations to the field can occur. Thompson did not constrain himself to the distinct Marxist categories, he carefully avoided the deterministic tendencies produced by previous conventional historians, demonstrating a flicker of innovation. His insistence upon the centrality of working-class agency to the historical process prevailed. Ultimately, the theoretical premise of Thompson’s magnum opus warrants its secure placement on the bookshelf of Marxist historiography.
References
- E.P Thompson The Making of the English Working-class
- Anna Clark The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working-class
- Eric Hobsbawm, George Rudé Captain Swing
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