In each case the masses were defeated. The revolutionary wave subsided, and society slid back into reaction. There was nothing inevitable about this. What was missing in all four upheavals was a strong organisation of socialists linked to the fighting spirit of the working class. ibid. ch6
The very earliest groups of working people in Britain who met together to oppose emerging capitalism called themselves Corresponding Societies, combinations, associations, all words which highlighted the joining together of people in common cause against their oppressors.
Nothing could be more obvious than that the strength and power of class society requires an equivalent strength and power to change it, and that on our side that strength and power depends upon socialists joining together and acting in common purpose. Paul Foot, article July 1989, ‘The Question Lingers On’
Socialism, in other words is an extension of what democracy we have, not the removal of it. Paul Foot, article January 1982 ‘3 Letters to a Bennite’
In the end, it comes to this. You still see the main hope for change in an elected Labour government, backed by supporters in the rank and file, passing and enforcing laws to establish a socialist order. I see the only real prospect for change in a growing movement from below, culminating in a revolutionary process, where so many working people are confident of their own ability to run society that they seize hold of economic and industrial power, and use it. ibid.
Central to the idea of socialism is understanding that things will change – one day the people at the top who are now doing the bashing will be bashed by people at the bottom. I am greatly helped by the fact that I lived through the 1970s when we believed revolution was imminent.
When I joined Socialist Worker in October 1972 I was confident that a revolution was coming. Events seemed to confirm it, and even right wingers said the same. If you have lived through that, it is easier to see it happening again. Everything in our history points to the fact that things will swing around, and all kinds of hopes and optimisms flourish again. Although the 1990s were depressing in some respects, not a single thing has happened to make me doubt that things will change in our direction. It will happen very unexpectedly and catch us by surprise, so we must be prepared, be bigger and win more influence inside the working class. Paul Foot, Tribune of the People
There was one painter who believed that the true spirit of England resided in the working class: his name was William Coldstream. James Fox, British Masters II: In Search of England, BBC 2011
The working man is the tough guy. A Bronx Tale 1993 starring Lillo Brancato junior & Robert De Niro & Chazz Palminteri & Taral Hicks & Francis Capra & Joe Pesci & Clem Caserta & Kathrine Narducci et al, director Robert De Niro, dad to Calogero
I will venture to say, that upon the one great class of subjects, the largest and most weighty of them all, where the leading and determining considerations that ought to lead to a conclusion are truth, justice, and humanity – upon these, gentlemen, all the world over, I will back the masses against the classes. W E Gladstone, speech 29th June 1886
The peasantry had had enough: they rose up in the largest mass rebellion in English history and marched on London. This was a class war. Janina Ramirez, Chivalry and Betrayal: The Hundred Years War II: Breaking the Bonds 1360-1415, BBC 2013
The ringleaders of the uprising were hunted down and hanged. ibid.
Working people across Britain who started using music as an escape from the toil of daily life. Suzy Klein, Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in the 18th Century III, BBC 2014
When I first came here [Cambridge] I used to walk out past these gates and wall, out of historic Cambridge and into another and very different Cambridge. You can feel almost at once the change in the atmosphere. A different feel, a different sound in the air. This again is crossing a border. Raymond Williams, Border Country BBC 1970
And that is the wavering commons; for their love
Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them.
By so much fills their heart with deadly hate. William Shakespeare, Richard II II ii 129-130, Bagot to Bushy and Green
In a suicide note left in an envelope for police a forty-five-year-old man wrote that he killed his mother-in-law, wife and three sons ages nineteen, twelve and seven over finances. Andrew Materi, Inconvenient Death of the Working Class
They want the average family in debt because at some point they are going to own the average family. ibid.
How much can the middle class afford before it dies bleeding money? ibid.
If things are tough for the working class now, how do we provide for the next generation? ibid.
There are over three hundred people who die – who are killed – at work each year. 300 people killed at work each year and we haven’t got a proper law to deal with that. And this is a class issue. Because if it was three hundred chief executives or three hundred directors dying in industrial accidents each year ... you can guarantee the law would change like that. Mark Thomas Comedy Product s6e3, Industrial Killing, Channel 4 2002
There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. Warren Buffett
You cannot under the capitalist structure avoid unemployment. Do not have alliances with the enemy. That is breaking a vital principle and is going to bind us with shackles to capitalism. A J Cook, address TUC September 1928
The miners are not broken – they continue to fight; their destiny is in your hands. An embargo on blackleg coal and a levy on all workers must be adopted to save the miners from defeat.
And to the miners who are fighting I say: Every honest worker in the world admires your courage and loyalty in the fight which was forced upon you by the rapacious mine-owners, who have at their service the banks, the press and the resources of the press. A J Cook, foreword to The Miners Struggle and the Big Five Banks
You know as well as I do the terrible conditions in the coalfields, and the suffering of the women and children. I have been compelled to do the most unpleasant tasks of begging for food, money, boots, and cast-off clothing. Practically every day young men, stranded, call for food, clothing and shelter at my office. I have done my best for them. Every day the post brings letters to me and Mrs Cook begging for help, especially from expectant mothers, terrible epistles of agony and despair.
I have heard their cry for help, and have done all I can to give assistance. I have helped all I can, begged all I can, till I have been almost demented and in despair, because I hate charity and reliefs which make us all beggars ...
I now want remedies instead of relief. The more poverty increases, the more our people sink into despair and become the hopeless prey of all the most reactionary influences and movements. A J Cook, open letter to Arthur Horner
The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands – the ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. Helen Keller
It will encourage the working classes to move about. Duke of Wellington, re railway
‘It was a matter of principle. You had to stand up and do what was right otherwise you wouldn’t be able to look yourself in the mirror ... When did we in this country decide to stop fighting? ... We are the working classes, the men and the women ... Equal pay for women is right.’ Made in Dagenham 2010 starring Bob Hoskins & Miranda Richardson & Sally Hawkins & Geraldine James & Rosamund Pike & Andrea Riseborough & Jaime Winstone & Daniel Mays & Richard Schiff & Phil Cornwell et al, director Nigel Cole, Rita at conference
I was telling you I went down a coalmine the other day. We sank into a pit half a mile deep. We then walked underneath the mountain, and we did about three-quarters of a mile with rock and shale above us. The earth seemed to be straining around us and above us to crush us in.
You could see the pit-props bent and twisted and sundered until you saw their fibres split in resisting the pressure. Sometimes they give way, and then there is mutilation and death. Often a spark ignites: the whole pit is deluged in fire, and the breath of life is scorched out of hundreds of breasts by the consuming flame. In the very next colliery to the one I descended just a few years ago three hundred people lost their lives in that way. And yet when the Prime Minister and I knock at the door of these great landlords, and say to them: Here, you know, these poor fellows who have been digging up royalties at the risk of their lives, some of them are old, they have survived the perils of their trade, they are broken, they can earn no more. Won’t you give them something towards keeping them out of the workhouse? They scowl at us, and we say: Only a ha’penny, just a copper. They say: You thieves! And they turn their dogs on to us, and you can hear their bark every morning. If this is an indication of the view taken by these great landlords of their responsibility to the people who at the risk of life create their wealth, then I say their day of reckoning is at hand. Lloyd George, Edinburgh Castle, Limehouse, London
The idea that businesses will be driven to bankruptcy if strict environmental standards are adopted is the same tired line that has been brought up again and again since workers first organized to improve working conditions. It was brought up when child labor was eliminated, when the minimum wage was introduced, when Social Security and Unemployment Insurance were developed. Leonard Woodcock