True Levellers & the emergence of Communism in Britain during the latter part of the English Revolution

[mark at tlio.org.uk]

The True Levellers or Diggers and the emergence of Communism in 
Britain during the latter part of the English Revolution 1648-1651, 
Part 1
By Laurence Humphries
Published in Socialist Fight! Issue 11, Winter 2012
Ref: http://www.scribd.com/doc/112357265/Socialist-Fight-No-11

Class society in Britain during the early 1640s was experiencing a 
severe economic crisis. Britain was largely a landowning and 
agricultural country with small capitalist enterprises and workshops 
with artisans and journeyman. Journeymen were the mere appendages of 
the yeomanry of small masters. This period is noted for the struggle 
between the Monarchy and Parliament and the establishment of the 
Republic from 1649-1660. There were two parties in the House of 
Commons, the Presbyterians (Landowners) and the Independents (squires, 
gentry lawyers and merchants). Oliver Cromwell was a squire and a 
member of the Independents.

There were large divisions between rich and poor exacerbated by 
Enclosure of common land by the landowning class. “There is a 
permanent background of potential unrest, large scale unemployment, 
breakdown of government disorder might occur as it did in 1607) [1]. 
These were the enclosure riots. The continuing battle by parliament to 
check the power of the king and defend its own interests. Land was the 
decisive factor. The gentry were becoming more and more alienated from 
aristocratic rule. “Marx spoke of the poor laws as the means by which 
the agricultural people first forcibly expropriated were driven from 
their homes, turned into vagabonds and then whipped, branded tortured 
by laws grotesquely terrible into the discipline necessary for the 
wages system” [2].

The Presbyterian party in parliament led by Lord Essex and Lord 
Manchester were for more parliamentary control of the King. They 
wanted a constitutional monarch checked by the power of parliament. 
The Independents led by Pym and Hampden and supported by republicans 
like Cromwell, Ireton and Marten wanted the King to surrender to 
parliament. Farm Labourers, artisans and the poor were not represented 
in parliament. The gentry and the squires were the closest to 
representing the democratic interests in parliament. The English 
revolution is a class struggle between the monarchy and parliament 
represented by squires, the yeomanry, lawyers and merchants. The civil 
war started in 1641 at Edge hill when the King and his advisors 
refused to discuss with parliament. The civil war ended at Naseby in 
Northamptonshire in 1645. Charles sought help from the Scots and was 
defeated and arrested at Preston. During the first Civil war Cromwell, 
Fairfax and Ireton broke with Essex and Manchester and created “The 
New Model army”. This was an Army of professional soldiers, composed 
of Artisans, farm labourers “The middling sort of men”. This army was 
a proletarian army who fought against the aristocracy and the 
bourgeois.

In 1646 elements in the army mainly the agitators took control and 
demanded rights and a document called “The agreement of the people” 
was drawn up as well as “a Grand Remonstrance”. Presbyterian leaders 
connived to protect the King and wanted to disband the army. 
Parliament prevaricated and in 1648 Colonel Thomas Pride marched into 
Parliament and arrested Presbyterian leaders and ensured that there 
would be no more negotiations with the King. This was called “Pride’s 
Purge”. Parliament was referred to as “The Rump”.

  The Levellers a movement amongst craftsmen, artisans and small 
craftsmen drew up a charter of rights.
Annual Parliaments
Freedom of conscience
Equality before the Law.

It was the sovereignty of the people and manhood suffrage that 
Leveller leaders like Lilburne, Walwyn and Marten fought for. The 
Levellers were the left wing of the democratic movement in the army 
and were opposed to the Army Grandees of Cromwell, Fairfax and Ireton. 
The Leveller movement emerged in the army and put their demands to the 
Grandees at Burford Church in Putney in 1647. Craftsmen and agitators 
like Thomas Rainsborough, Cornet Joyce and John Wildman debated with 
Cromwell, Fairfax and Ireton the rights of the common people for 
manhood suffrage. “Constitutional levellers were the radical left wing 
of the revolutionary party the Independents” [3]. Ireton Cromwell’s 
son in law challenged the Levellers at Burford “a doctrine of natural 
rights would lead to communism” [4] “The Levellers suggested that 
Parliament should be made representative of the free people. Some 
Levellers excluded paupers and wage labourers from the free people” 
[5]. “The fact that the most radical political party (Levellers) even 
of the revolutionary decades excluded over half the male population 
and all women” [6].

There was no agreement between the agitators and the grandees. 
Cromwell terminated the debates at Putney and ordered the agitators 
back to their regiments. The Leveller revolt was over, many Levellers 
were arrested and some were executed. On 30th January 1649 Charles 1st 
was executed and a Republic was declared. The Levellers still 
continued to fight on. They were the democratic wing who advocated 
natural rights and manhood suffrage but rejected communism. They 
embraced private property and looked back to the Norman yoke and Anglo 
Saxon rights against the Normans in the 12th Century. “On the contrary 
they expressed the outlook of small men of property. They sharply 
differentiated themselves from “the diggers” who advocated a communist 
programme and began communal cultivation of land at S Georges Hill in 
1649” [7]. The big distinction between the Levellers and the Diggers 
was on the issue of private property “The Leveller petition of 11th 
September repudiated any idea of abolishing property, levelling 
estates or making all common” [8].

In December 1648 Gerrard Winstanley announced his communism when a 
group of his supporters started digging the common land in Digger 
communities at St Georges, Wellingborough in Northants, Coxhall in 
Kent, Barnet in Herts Enfield in Middlesex Dunstable in Bedfordshire 
and Bosworth in Leicestershire. “Winstanley spoke for those whom the 
constitutional Levellers would have disenfranchised, servants, 
labourers and paupers” [9].

“Constitutional Levellers then were not in fundamental disagreement 
(with the Grandees). The sanctity of property and their desire to 
extend democracy was within the limits of capitalist society” [10]. 
The Digger movement was non-violent and had no support from the army 
or the constitutional Levellers. They had a utopian view of society, 
they hoped that other people would form communities with private 
property or wage labour. “The digger colony of St Georges Hill was 
intended to be the first stage in a sort of General Strike against 
wage labour” [11].

The Diggers were utopian in that they believed by digging or using the 
waste lands, forests and parks that were enclosed that the Grandees 
and Cromwell would not evict them. Cromwell asserted the right of 
private property and the enclosure of common land. The Diggers in 1650 
were defeated and were evicted from their communities or just left. 
They believed that communism, tilling the soil and working together 
would be the solution of Society’s ills. Winstanley had great 
foresight. They failed to appreciate that capitalist society after the 
Cromwellian Revolution would combat communism and treat it as its 
mortal enemy. The working class had not emerged and there were no 
organisations like Friendly societies or Trade Unions to organise the 
poor. This would emerge in the period following the English Revolution 
in the 18th and 19th centuries.

“It would appear unlikely that scattered unorganised and 
undernourished Labourers and artisans would have the capacity or the 
political consciousness to undertake Revolutionary action to establish 
a new economic social and political order” [12]. “The sketch of a 
classless society that follows (Winstanley’s Law of Freedom and other 
writings) is a deeply interesting blend of radical democracy professed 
by the main body of the Levellers with the Communism of More’s Utopia” 
[13].
  “Thus two centuries before Marx Winstanley in the simplest of plain 
English in (The Law of Freedom) dared to say that Religion is the 
opium of the people” [14]

To conclude Winstanley and the diggers were a revolutionary movement 
of proletarians during the 17th century.their communism was based on 
utopian ideals particularly the bible. They believed that this was 
their solution to the poverty surrounding them. There was no 
organisation to support them in their universal campaign to till the 
soil, work together and share. Because of their utopian and 
non-violent beliefs the Diggers were unprepared to deal with emerging 
capitalism. Winstanley and his followers believed that by example 
everyone would allow them to continue practising their communism. 
Communism would need a scientific and materialist basis which was to 
be developed by Marx and Engels in the 19th century. Their tradition 
was not lost. In the 18th century Thomas Spence would advance a theory 
of agrarian communism. As the working class developed from the 
1780s-1830s corresponding societies would emerge. They are the embryo 
of Trade union organisation which would lead in the 1890s to 
revolutionary implications. The ideas of Marx and Engels would be 
crucial in understanding how the emancipation of the working class 
could be put on a scientific basis. In Part 2 I will consider Thomas 
Spence and the radical Milieu of Cobbett, Paine, Hunt and the 
corresponding societies.
Endnotes
[1] Hill C Puritanism and Revolution Studies in the Interpretation of 
the English Revolution p 205
[2] Hill, C, Century of Revolution p26
[3] Hill, C, World Turned upside Down
[4] Hill, C, Century of Revolution p129
[5] Hill, Century of Revolution p175
[6] Hill, C, Century of Revolution p175
[7] Hill, C, Century of Revolution p129
[8] Hill, C, World Turned Upside Down p119
[9] Hill, C, World Turned upside Down p 121
[10] Hill, C, World Turned Upside Down p123
[11] Manning, B, 1649 Crisis of the English Revolution p119
[12] Manning, B, 1649 Crisis of the English Revolution
[13] Brailsford, H, The Levellers and the English Revolution p659
[14] Brailsford, H, The Levellers and the English Revolution p669