Why Chartist Revolution in United Kingdom is a Great Source of Experience and Lessons for the Coming Proletarian Revolution ?

Why Chartist Revolution in United Kingdom is a Great Source of Experience and Lessons for the Coming Proletarian Revolution ?

Let’s take a very old bourgeois revolution : English Chartism. It is little known and rarely cited by organizations that claim to be working class and left-wing, or even far-left. Well, it nevertheless played a decisive role in the revolutionary workers’ movement and then in the counter-revolutionary workers’ movement (trade unionism and reformist socialism). It is remarkable that in England, the revolutionary current dominated in the working class as long as the Chartist revolution continued and the reformist current (political with the English socialists and trade union with the reformist trade unions) largely took over in the working class.

Dialectically, Chartism is a bourgeois revolution led by the working class, and yes, it’s as surprising as that ! It’s even a revolution led with a view to... reform ! Not practical for non-dialectical activists ! And also for purists because the working class militated alongside the petty bourgeoisie. And the working class practiced revolutionary politics, through direct action ! Even Wikipedia reports it :

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartisme

Today, we ignore this capacity of the working class to lead its own political action through insurrection ! No wonder : it is the political and trade union counter-revolutionaries who dominate...

Leon Trotsky :

"The French bourgeoisie, having falsified the Great Revolution, adopted it, minted it into billon, and put it into circulation. The English bourgeoisie erased even the memory of the 17th-century Revolution, having dissolved its entire past in the idea of "gradation." The advanced workers of England have to discover the British Revolution and, in it, beneath the scales of religiosity, the formidable struggle of social forces. The English proletariat can find, in the drama of the 17th century, great precedents for revolutionary action. A national tradition too, but entirely legitimate, entirely in its place in the arsenal of the working class. Another great national tradition of the English proletarian movement is in Chartism. Knowledge of these two epochs is indispensable to every class-conscious English worker. Elucidating the historical meaning of the 17th-century Revolution and the revolutionary content of Chartism is one of the most important duties of English Marxists."

https://www.marxists.org/francais/trotsky/livres/ouvalang/ouvlan09.htm

The six demands of the “People’s Charter” were all political !

https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-histoire-moderne-et-contemporaine-2007-1-page-7.htm

Engels :

"Chartism is the condensed form of opposition to the bourgeoisie. In unions and strikes, this opposition always remained isolated ; it was workers or sections of workers who, in isolation, fought against isolated bourgeois ; if the fight became general, this was hardly the intention of the workers, and when there was an intention, it was Chartism that was at the basis of this generalization. But in Chartism, it is the entire working class that rises up against the bourgeoisie - and particularly against its political power - and which attacks the legal rampart with which it has surrounded itself. Chartism emerged from the democratic party that developed in the 80s and 90s of the previous century, both with and in the proletariat, strengthened during the French Revolution and manifested itself after the peace as a radical party, having its main stronghold in Birmingham and Manchester, as it had formerly in London ; by allying itself with the liberal bourgeoisie, it succeeded in wresting the Reform Bill from the oligarchy of the old parliament and since then has constantly consolidated its position as a working-class party in the face of the bourgeoisie. In 1838, a committee of the General Association of London Working Men’s Association, headed by William Lovett, defined the People’s Charter, the "six points" of which were as follows : 1. Universal suffrage for every adult male of sound mind and not convicted of an offence ; 2. Annual renewal of Parliament ; 3. Fixing a parliamentary allowance so that candidates without resources can also accept a mandate ; 4. Elections by second ballot, in order to avoid corruption and intimidation of the bourgeoisie ; 5. Equal electoral constituencies to ensure fair representation ; and 6. Abolition of the provision - moreover illusory - which reserves eligibility exclusively for owners of an estate of at least 300 pounds sterling, so that every voter is henceforth eligible. These six points, which are limited to the organization of the House of Commons, however innocuous they may seem - are nevertheless of a nature to tear to pieces the English Constitution, Queen and Upper House included. What is called the monarchical and aristocratic side of the Constitution can only subsist because the bourgeoisie has an interest in its apparent maintenance ; neither one nor the other has any other existence than a fictitious one. But if the whole of public opinion were to rally behind the House of Commons, if it expressed not only the will of the bourgeoisie, but that of the whole nation, it would concentrate in itself the totality of power so perfectly that the last halo which surrounds the head of the monarch and the aristocracy would disappear. The English worker respects neither the lords nor the queen,whereas the bourgeoisie - although they hardly ask their opinion on the substance - surround them with a real adoration. The English Chartist is politically republican although he never or only very rarely uses this term ; he sympathizes with the republican parties of all countries, but prefers to call himself "democrat". However, he is not simply republican ; his democracy is not limited to the political plane.

Chartism was, it is true, from its beginnings in 1835 [aa] essentially a working-class movement, but it was not yet clearly separated from the radical petty bourgeoisie. Working-class radicalism marched hand in hand with bourgeois radicalism ; the Charter was their common shibboleth (sign of recognition), they held their "national conventions" every year together ; they seemed to be one party. The petty bourgeoisie seemed at this time to be endowed with a particular combativeness ; it wanted blood because of the disappointment it had experienced at the results of the Reform Bill, and because of the years of economic crisis from 1837 to 1839 ; the violence of the Chartist agitation was therefore far from displeasing to it. In Germany it is difficult to form an idea of this violence. The people were invited to arm themselves, often also openly called to revolt ; pikes were made as in the past at the time of the French Revolution, and in 1838 the movement included among others a certain Stephens, a Methodist minister, who declared to the assembled people of Manchester :

“You have nothing to fear from the force of the government, the soldiers, the bayonets, and the cannons at the disposal of your oppressors ; you have a means more powerful than all this, a weapon against which bayonets and cannons are powerless ; and a child of 10 years old can handle this weapon—you have only to take a few matches and a handful of straw dipped in pitch, and I would like to see what the government and its hundreds of thousands of soldiers can do against this weapon, if it is used boldly.”

But it was at this same time that the specific, social character of working-class Chartism appeared. The same Stephens declared at a gathering of 200,000 people on Kersal Moor, the Mons Sacer of Manchester that we have already mentioned :

"Chartism, my friends, is not a political question, where it is a question of getting you the vote or anything like that ; no, Chartism is a question of the fork and knife, the charter means good lodging, good food and drink, good wages and a short working day."

Also, from this time on, the movements directed against the new Poor Law and demanding the Ten Hours’ Bill were closely connected with Chartism. The Tory Oastler could be seen participating in all the meetings of this period, and besides the national petition adopted at Birmingham in favor of the People’s Charter, hundreds of petitions for the social improvement of the working men’s condition were adopted ; in 1839, the agitation continued with the same intensity, and when it began to weaken towards the end of the year, Bussey, Taylor, and Frost hastened to raise a riot at the same time in the north of England, in Yorkshire and Wales. Frost was forced to launch the affair too early, for his enterprise had been exposed, and it was a failure ; those in the north learned of this unfortunate issue in time enough to be able to reverse course ; Two months later, in January 1840, several so-called "police" riots (Spy-outbreaks) broke out in Yorkshire, for example in Sheffield and Bradford, and then the unrest gradually calmed down. In the meantime, the bourgeoisie embarked on more practical projects, more advantageous to it, in particular in the Corn Laws ; the Association Against the Corn Law was created in Manchester and resulted in a loosening of the ties between the radical bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The workers soon understood that the abolition of the Corn Law would not be of great benefit to them, while on the contrary it would greatly benefit the bourgeoisie ; and that is why it was impossible to win them over to this project. The crisis of 1842 broke out. The unrest resumed with as much violence as in 1839. But this time, the rich industrial bourgeoisie, which had suffered greatly from this crisis, participated in it. The Anti-Corn Law League, as the association founded by Manchester manufacturers was now called, showed a tendency toward extremism and violence. Its newspapers and propagandists spoke in openly revolutionary language, partly because the Conservative Party had been in power since 1841. As the Chartists had done in the past, they now openly urged revolt ; as for the workers who suffered most from the crisis, they too were not inactive, as the national petition of that year, with its three and a half million signatures, shows. In short, if the two radical parties had drifted apart somewhat, they were once again allied ; on February 15, 1842, at a meeting of Liberals and Chartists in Manchester, a petition was drawn up demanding both the abolition of the Corn Laws and the enforcement of the Charter, which was adopted the next day by both parties. The spring and summer passed in great agitation, while the misery worsened.The bourgeoisie was determined to impose the repeal of the Corn Laws by taking advantage of the crisis, the ensuing misery [ai] and the general excitement. This time, while the Tories were in power, it even half abolished its own legality ; it wanted to make the revolution but with the workers. It wanted the workers to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for it and burn their fingers for the greater good of the bourgeoisie. The idea launched long ago by the Chartists (in 1839) of a "sacred month," of a general work stoppage of all workers, had already been taken up on various sides ; but this time, it was not the workers who wanted to stop work : it was the manufacturers who wanted to close their factories, send the workers to the rural communes, to the estates of the aristocracy, in order to force the Tory Parliament and the government to repeal the customs duties on grain. Naturally, this would have resulted in a revolt, but the bourgeoisie remained safely in the background and could await its outcome without compromising itself, in case of failure. Towards the end of July, business began to improve ; it was high time, and not to let the opportunity slip, three Stalybridge factories then lowered wages in a period of economic upturn (see the trade reports from Manchester, Leeds, late July and early August) [ak] - acting on their own, or in agreement with other manufacturers and principally with the League - I cannot decide this point. Two of them, however, backed down, the third, the firm of William Bayley and Brothers, stood firm and replied to the protests of the workers that if they were not happy, they might do better to go and play marbles for a while. The workers received these ironic remarks with cheers, left the factory, and marched through the town, calling on all workers to stop work. Within hours, all the factories had stopped, and the workers marched to Mottram Moor to hold a meeting. This was on August 5. On the 8th, a column of 5,000 men moved towards Ashton and Hyde, where they stopped all the factories and mines and held meetings, where the subject was not the abolition of the Corn Law, as the bourgeoisie had hoped, but "a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work." On August 9, they went to Manchester, where the authorities, who were all liberal, let them in, and they stopped the factories ; On the 11th they were at Stockport, and only there did they encounter any resistance when they stormed the poorhouse, that darling of the bourgeoisie ; on the same day Bolton was the scene of a general strike and disturbances to which, there too,The authorities did not oppose it ; soon the revolt spread to all the industrial districts and all activity ceased, except for the harvest and the preparation of foodstuffs. However, the revolting workers did not commit any excesses. They had been pushed into this revolt, without really wanting to ; the industrialists, completely against their habits, had not opposed this work stoppage, with the exception of one : the Tory Birley of Manchester ; the affair had begun without the workers having a specific objective. This is why all were certainly in agreement not to get themselves killed for the greater good of their bosses, supporters of the repeal of the Corn Laws ; but on the other hand, some wanted to impose the People’s Charter, while others, judging this enterprise premature, simply sought to wrest the wage scales of 1840. This is what caused the failure of the whole insurrection. If it had been from the beginning a conscious, desired workers’ insurrection, it would have really succeeded ; but these crowds thrown into the streets by their bosses, without having wanted it, without a precise goal, could do nothing. In the meantime, the bourgeoisie, which had not lifted a finger to implement the alliance of February 15, quickly understood that the workers refused to become its instruments, and that the inconsistency with which it had deviated from its "legal" point of view now put it itself in danger ; It therefore returned to its former legality and sided with the government against the workers whom it had itself incited to rebellion and then driven to revolt. The bourgeoisie and their faithful servants took an oath as special constables - even the German merchants of Manchester took part in this charade and paraded without rhyme or reason through the city, clubs in hand, cigars in their lips - the bourgeoisie had the people fired upon in Preston, and thus this popular revolt, without objectives, suddenly came up against not only the government military forces but also the entire propertied class. The workers, who had no guiding idea, separated and the insurrection gradually died out without serious consequences. Subsequently, the bourgeoisie continued to commit infamy upon infamy, sought to whitewash itself by affecting a horror of the violent popular intervention, which was ill-suited to the revolutionary language it had used in the spring ; it threw the responsibility for the insurrection onto the Chartist "leaders", etc., when it had done much more than they to set up this insurrection, and it resumed its former point of view, the sacrosanct respect for legality, with unparalleled impudence. The Chartists, who had hardly participated in the revolt,and had only done what the bourgeoisie had also intended to do, that is to say, take advantage of the opportunity, were tried and condemned while the bourgeoisie got away with it without damage, selling its stocks profitably during the work stoppage.

The complete separation was consummated between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and this was the fruit of the insurrection. Until this moment, the Chartists had made no secret of their intention to get their charter passed by all means, including revolution ; the bourgeoisie, which now suddenly understood the danger of any violent subversion for its position, would hear no more talk of "physical force" and claimed to carry out its designs solely by "moral force" - as if this were anything other than a direct or indirect threat of resorting to physical force. This was the first point of dispute, however, removed in substance by the later assertion of the Chartists - who are after all as trustworthy as the liberal bourgeoisie - declaring that they also did not wish to resort to physical force. But the second and most important point of dispute, the one which revealed Chartism in all its purity, was the question of the Corn Law. The radical bourgeoisie was interested in this, but not the proletariat. The Chartist party thus split into two parties, whose declared political principles perfectly agreed, but which were nevertheless completely different and irreconcilable. At the National Convention in Birmingham in January 1843, Sturge, the representative of the radical bourgeoisie, proposed to strike the word "Charter" from the statutes of the Chartist Association, on the pretext that this name would be linked, because of the insurrection, with violent revolutionary memories - links which, moreover, dated back many years and to which Mr. Sturge had hitherto had no objection. The workers would not abandon this name and when Sturge was defeated in the vote, this Quaker, suddenly become a loyal subject, left the room with the minority and founded a Complete Suffrage Association composed of radical bourgeois. These memories had become so odious to this Jacobin bourgeois only the day before that he went so far as to transform the expression universal suffrage into the ridiculous phrase "complete suffrage." The workers laughed at him and continued on their way.

From this moment on, Chartism became a purely working-class cause, freed from all bourgeois elements, etc. The "complete" newspapers - Weekly Dispatch, Weekly Chronicle, Examiner, etc. - gradually sank into the soporific style of the other liberal papers, defended the cause of free trade, attacked the Ten Hours’ Bill and all exclusively working-class motions, all in all showing very little of their radicalism. The radical bourgeoisie allied itself in all conflicts with the liberals against the Chartists and, generally speaking, made the Corn Law - which is, for the English, the question of free competition - its chief preoccupation. It thus fell under the yoke of the liberal bourgeoisie and is currently playing a most lamentable role.

The Chartist workers, on the other hand, took their part with redoubled ardor in all the struggles of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Free competition has done enough harm to the workers to be now an object of hatred for them ; its representatives, the bourgeoisie, are their declared enemies. The worker has only disadvantages to hope for from a total liberation from competition. The demands he has formulated so far : the Ten Hours Bill, protection of the worker against the capitalist, good wages, guaranteed position, repeal of the new Poor Law, all things which are elements of Chartism at least as essential as the "Six Points," go directly against free competition and freedom of trade. It is therefore not surprising - and this is what the entire English bourgeoisie cannot understand - that the workers do not want to hear of free competition, free trade, or the repeal of the Corn Laws, and that they feel at most indifference towards the latter, but on the other hand, the most lively animosity towards its advocates. This question is precisely the point at which the proletariat separates from the bourgeoisie, Chartism from Radicalism ; and the reason of a bourgeois cannot understand it because it cannot understand the proletariat.

But herein also lies the difference between Chartist democracy and all that has hitherto been bourgeois political democracy. The nature of Chartism is essentially social. The "six points" which are in the eyes of the bourgeois the ultimate, and which should at most entail a few more changes in the constitution, are for the proletarian only a means. "Our means : political power, our end : social happiness." Such is the clearly formulated electoral slogan of the Chartists. The "fork and knife question" of the preacher Stephens represented a truth only in the eyes of a fraction of the Chartists of 1838 ; in 1845, all know that it is the truth. Among the Chartists there is no longer a single man who is solely a politician. And, although their socialism is still very little developed, although their principal means in the fight against poverty is so far the division of landed property (allotment system) already surpassed by industry (cf. Introduction), although, after all, most of their practical projects (protection of workers, etc.), are apparently of a reactionary nature, these measures imply, on the one hand, the necessity either of falling back under the yoke of competition and recreating the existing state of affairs - or of carrying out the abolition of competition themselves ; and, on the other hand, the present vagueness of Chartism, the split which has separated it from the purely political party, demands that precisely those destructive characteristics of Chartism, which lie in its social orientation, should continue to be developed. The rapprochement with socialism is inevitable, especially if the next crisis - which will necessarily follow the current prosperity of industry and commerce no later than 1847, but probably as early as next year, a crisis which will far exceed in violence and intensity all the previous ones - directs the workers, as a result of their misery, more and more towards social means instead of political means. The workers will impose their charter : that is normal ; but by then they will clearly realize many things which they can impose with the help of their charter and which they are still largely ignorant of at present.

http://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article173

Leon Trotsky :

"The epoch of Chartism is imperishable because it provides us, over decades, with a kind of schematic summary of the entire scale of the proletarian struggle, from petitions to Parliament to armed insurrection. All the essential questions of the class movement of the proletariat—the relationship between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action, the role of universal suffrage, trade unions and cooperatives, the significance of the general strike and its relationship to armed insurrection, right down to the mutual relations of the proletariat and the peasant—were not only crystallized practically in the course of the mass movement of Chartism, but were also resolved in principle. From the theoretical point of view, these solutions were far from always flawlessly sound ; they were not always successful ; the whole movement and its theoretical counterpart contained many unfinished and insufficiently mature elements. The revolutionary slogans and methods of Chartism nevertheless remain, even now, if criticism is released, infinitely superior to the cloying eclecticism of the Macdonalds and the economic stupidity of the Webbs. One can say, if one may resort to a somewhat risky comparison, that the Chartist movement resembles the prelude which gives without development the musical theme of an entire opera. In this sense, the English working class can and must see in Chartism, besides its past, its future. Just as the Chartists drove out the sentimental preachers of "moral action" and gathered the masses under the banner of the Revolution, the English proletariat will have to drive out from its midst the reformists, the democrats, the pacifists, and unite under the banner of revolutionary transformation. Chartism did not win, because its methods were often erroneous and because it came too early. It was only a historical anticipation. The 1905 Revolution also suffered a defeat. But its traditions were revived after ten years, and its methods won in October 1917. Chartism is not liquidated. History is liquidating liberalism and preparing the liquidation of falsely working-class pacifism, precisely in order to resurrect Chartism on new, infinitely broadened historical bases. The true national tradition of the English workers’ movement is there !

https://www.marxists.org/francais/trotsky/livres/ouvalang/ouvlan09.htm

The Chartist movement developed in England in the 19th century, in the 1930s, amidst the profound upheaval that the increasing use of machinery in the industrial age was causing in the lives of the population. Inhuman working conditions for workers, starvation wages, twelve- and even sixteen-hour days, the employment of small children from the age of five or six in mines and spinning mills, and deplorable housing – veritable slums.

In 1838, a committee of the London Working Men’s Association drew up what was called the "People’s Charter".

The People’s Charter called for the adoption of "six points" which were :

universal suffrage : that every adult, of sound mind and not having incurred a conviction for an offense, may be an elector ;

annual renewal of Parliament ;

parliamentary allowance, allowing candidates to become MPs ;
election by secret ballot, to put an end to the practices of corruption and intimidation that were common ;

Division of the country into equal electoral districts to ensure fair representation ; so that every voter could be eligible, abolition of the provision that reserved the right to be elected as a member of parliament to only those who could prove an income of 300 pounds sterling.
In 1839, a "Convention" of Chartists met, which intended to be a "People’s Parliament." It prepared a petition incorporating these 6 points and which collected more than 1,200,000 signatures. Great hope arose among the population, who believed that this Charter could improve their living conditions, but the petition, presented to Parliament, was overwhelmingly rejected. Very strong agitation ensued. A general strike, initially considered, was abandoned. Various insurrectionary movements broke out ; one of the strongest and most organized took place in Wales. Welsh miners attempted to seize the city of Newport. The repression was very harsh : countless arrests, imprisonments and deportations.

Subsequently, in 1842, the Chartists launched a new petition that gathered three million signatures. But Chartism lost its strength and declined. Nevertheless, at that time, it reflected the workers’ drive toward an ideal of a better life, equality, and justice, which was later taken up by other movements.

Trotsky in Where is England Going :

Here we will only say a few words about the second tradition, authentically proletarian and revolutionary.

The epoch of Chartism is imperishable because it provides us, over decades, with a kind of schematic summary of the entire scale of the proletarian struggle, from petitions to Parliament to armed insurrection. All the essential questions of the class movement of the proletariat—the relationship between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action, the role of universal suffrage, trade unions and cooperatives, the significance of the general strike and its relationship to armed insurrection, right down to the mutual relations of the proletariat and the peasant—were not only crystallized practically in the course of the mass movement of Chartism, but were also resolved in principle. From the theoretical point of view, these solutions were far from always flawlessly sound ; they were not always successful ; the whole movement and its theoretical counterpart contained many unfinished and insufficiently mature elements. The revolutionary slogans and methods of Chartism nevertheless remain, even now, if criticism is released, infinitely superior to the cloying eclecticism of the Macdonalds and the economic stupidity of the Webbs. One can say, if one may resort to a somewhat risky comparison, that the Chartist movement resembles the prelude which gives without development the musical theme of an entire opera. In this sense, the English working class can and must see in Chartism, besides its past, its future. Just as the Chartists drove out the sentimental preachers of "moral action" and gathered the masses under the banner of the Revolution, the English proletariat will have to drive out from its midst the reformists, the democrats, the pacifists, and unite under the banner of revolutionary transformation. Chartism did not win, because its methods were often erroneous and because it came too early. It was only a historical anticipation. The 1905 Revolution also suffered a defeat. But its traditions were revived after ten years, and its methods triumphed in October 1917. Chartism is not liquidated. History is liquidating liberalism and preparing the liquidation of falsely working-class pacifism, precisely in order to resurrect Chartism on new, infinitely broader historical bases. The true national tradition of the English workers’ movement is here !

Edouard Dolléans in “History of the workers’ movement” :

In 1830, the economic structure of Great Britain and that of France were different.

In Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution is complete ; it is beginning in France. While in our country artisans and homeworkers dominate, in Great Britain, especially in the North-West districts, there is an industrial proletariat.

Yet, despite this diversity, both countries are experiencing similar trends and parallel attempts.

In Great Britain, the growth of the working classes resulted in two distinct movements, of different character and duration. The first was a corporative movement. Its peak was marked in 1833 by the formation of the Great Consolidated Trades Union and, at the beginning of 1834, by an attempted general strike in favor of the 8-hour week.
This movement of association of the productive classes had its center in the industrial districts of the North-West, its troops among the workers of the industrial proletariat ; but it should be noted that, in the last months of 1833, it reached the agricultural counties of the South. The sympathies it encountered among the field workers were sanctioned, in March 1834, by the condemnation of the agricultural day laborers of Dorchester.

The other movement originated in London. It was initiated by artisans from the metropolis in November 1831, during the campaign preceding the political reform of 1832. The reform project could not satisfy the working classes ; but some working-class democrats thought that the conquest of political democracy was a first step towards industrial democracy.

These two forms of the labor movement should not be opposed. While some of the supporters of corporate action were indifferent to political reform, a large number of workers and artisans, while giving preference to one, did not exclude the other method : both were intended to achieve a similar objective.

Certain tendencies were common to all, whether they were industrial proletarian workers from Lancashire and Yorkshire, artisans from London, home workers or agricultural day laborers.

All were convinced of the need to unite the working classes. They felt that the improvement of their material existence and their influence in society depended on the power and independence of their organizations. From this time on, the autonomy of the labor movement was affirmed in the ambitious projects of the Great Consolidated Union of Trades and in the principles of the Working Men’s Association.

Until 1830, there were associations and workers’ clubs. But it was only in the newspapers from 1830 to 1834 that the expression Trades Union appeared ; through it was affirmed the essential difference between the Trade Union, or association of workers in the same trade, and the Trades Union, or association of all trades. The Trades Union is the association of all workers in a single National Union.

The pioneers of the Trades Union were workers in the textile and construction industries in Lancashire and Yorkshire. And it was among the industrial proletariat of the North-West counties that, in 1830-1831, the National Association for the Protection of Labour, and then in 1833-1834 the Great Consolidated Trades Union, would find enthusiastic, but short-lived, support. In the same districts, the industrial proletariat would welcome the idea of a general strike as a means of obtaining, without any intervention from Parliament, the application of the 8-hour week in factories. The Association for the Protection of Labour was able to gather the membership and subscriptions of 80,000 workers, and the Great Consolidated Trades Union was able, for a brief time, to unite 250,000 factory and field workers.

As early as November 1831, during the campaign for the Reform Bill, a National Union of the Working Classes and Others was formed. Its founders, William Lovett and his friends, advocated universal suffrage and political democracy with a view to establishing, through their mechanism, economic democracy.

The founders of the National Union of the Working Classes—disciples of Owen and Hodgskin—were also admirers of Cobbett and Hunt. They opposed the Reform Bill. Thus, one of their newspapers, The Defender of the Poor of July 30, 1831, violently criticized the reform project : “We have not deemed it necessary lately to continue to set forth the innumerable reasons which lead us to condemn this measure (the Reform Bill). Remember, friends and brethren, that you, and you alone, produce all the real wealth of the country ; remember that you enjoy only a very small fraction of what you actually produce.”

In the eyes of those who may be called labor democrats, there is one dominant reason for rejecting the bill : labor is the source of all wealth, the working class produces "all the real wealth of the country," and in present-day society it enjoys only a tiny part of the wealth it produces. Now, the reform bill, proposed by the very people who monopolize all wealth, is designed to give political power and a legislative monopoly to those who already appropriate the product of the workers’ labor. The bill is therefore a deception for the working class ; it cannot hope to see "its masters" divest themselves of their monopoly in order to return to the producers the full product of their labor.

The Defender of the Poor took a stand against the middle classes and recommended that workers always be wary of the bourgeoisie as much as the aristocracy and the Church. In July 1831, in the midst of the struggle for electoral reform, the newspapers of the unstamped press condemned the bill : the reform project only satisfied the interests of the middle classes. Therefore, the new association founded by the working democrats issued a circular inviting "the productive classes" of London to a meeting scheduled for November 7, 1831, in order to have a declaration approved, which was the outline of the future People’s Charter.

The National Union of the Working Classes and Others has only 1,500 members, of whom only 500 regularly pay their dues. Its main activity consists of meetings. At meetings of the NU of W. Classes and Others, Francis Place tells us, hundreds of people crowd the doors of the hall. The Rotundists—as they have been nicknamed—exercise an action and influence that extends far beyond the confines of their small association.

These meetings in the Rotunda were to be the starting point of a movement extending throughout England and intended to win public opinion over to democratic principles in order to exert pressure on the Government and Parliament. The worker democrats hoped to draw Francis Place and the bourgeois radicals into this campaign for universal suffrage. In reality, there was no possible agreement between the bourgeois radicals and the worker democrats. Neither their social ideal nor their tactics were the same. Undoubtedly, both desired the advent of political democracy. But democracy did not represent the same social regime in their eyes. For the bourgeois radicals, it was the definitive expression of a system of balance between the interests of different social classes. The reform project was a step that would allow the working classes to receive their political education before participating in the government of the country. On the contrary, the worker democrats saw democratic institutions as the political framework necessary for a profound transformation of society.

In March 1832, the House of Commons had just adopted the reform bill. On June 16, The Defender of the Poor assessed the new law in these terms :

“The Bill has become law. And now will it give the honest working man his rights ? No, it will not ; it will exclude the poor, and as long as the poor are excluded from their rights, they will remain miserable and strangers to the blessings of civilization and social life. The cause of all our evils is corruption ; and the men who will benefit from the Reform Bill are the instruments of tyranny, corruption, and vice.”

Electoral reform, far from bringing any improvement to the condition of workers, will only increase the oppression exercised over workers by middle-class men.

"What can we expect from these men whose sole aim is to fight by lowering prices and to deceive each other and the rest of humanity, from these men who have been constantly adding house to house and field to field without ever getting their hands on any useful work ?" The 1832 law is not progress, but a step backward. Parliament has fallen into the hands of "the worst enemies of the worker," these men, enriched by work and unconcerned about the misery of the poor. This condemnation of the new law is not the individual opinion of a more or less influential journalist, it is the expression of the attitude adopted by the working masses in the face of electoral reform. The Defender of the Poor is the organ of the demands of the working democrats.

The founders of the National Union of the Working Classes and the Working Men’s Association (16 June 1836) were craftsmen : John Jaffray, bookbinder ; William Savage, day laborer ; Henry Mitchell, turner ; John Skelton, shoemaker ; Daniel Binyon, day laborer ; Richard Cameron, brace-stitcher ; James Lawrance, painter ; William Moore, wood engraver ; Arthur Dyson, compositor ; John Rogers, tailor ; William Isaacs, type-founder ; James Jenkinson, engraver ; Edward Thomas, day laborer. Henry Hetherington, who later became a printer, started as a typesetter ; William Lovett was a cabinet-maker.

The NUWC, founded in April 1831, was composed mainly of workers ; it had exactly the same objective as the future Chartist movement : the conquest of political rights, the right for the worker to the full product of his work, a right whose recognition could only be assured by workers’ representation introduced into Parliament by universal suffrage.

Hetherington and Lovett organized classes in various London neighborhoods where the works of Paine, Godwin, and Robert Owen were discussed. Hetherington traveled throughout Great Britain and managed to organize, particularly in Manchester, associations similar to the National Union of London. These unions frightened both the government and reformers like Francis Place. Place defined the difference between the Unions of Political Democrats and those of Labor Democrats, saying that the former desired the success of the Reform Bill in order to prevent revolution, and the latter desired its defeat as a means of provoking revolution. At no point during the Reform Bill campaign was there any sympathy between the government and the Labor Political Unions. And yet, labor political agitation indirectly served the government in overcoming the resistance of the House of Lords.

The electoral reform of 1832 could satisfy neither the bourgeois radicals nor the working-class democrats. It was merely an extension of the voting privilege, and the right to vote, far from being based on the democratic idea of equal rights for all, remained a franchise.

This reform did not enshrine any of the six demands of radicalism : neither the annual nature of parliaments, nor universal suffrage, nor the equality of electoral districts, nor the secret ballot, nor parliamentary compensation, nor the abolition of the eligibility qualification. These six fundamental demands of the democratic movement since its origins would constitute the six points of the People’s Charter. On May 8, 1838, the Working Men’s Association would send this charter to workers’ associations and radical associations.

The People’s Charter remained the program of the Chartist movement until 1848 ; it seemed to imprint on Chartism the character of a democratic movement. Are not the principles affirmed in their bill by the men of the Working Men’s Association of an exclusively political nature ? Has not universal suffrage been, since 1780 and 1792, the central demand of the radical party ? This party, since 1815, has grown, and its popularity is due to the growing favor that this demand enjoys in popular circles. The reform of 1832 is, itself, only a concession made to public opinion ; some accepted and advocated it only as a step that would lead to universal suffrage ; others condemned it as a disappointment inflicted on their hopes.

Is the People’s Charter an attempt to draft the principles of political democracy ? But this is only an appearance. The political demands of the worker democrats encompass other demands that will give the movement a distinctly socialist character. For the Chartists, true democracy implies a social revolution. At this time, the expression socialist refers more particularly to the disciples of Robert Owen ; that of democrat is always used in a sense that closely unites, like the two sides of a coin, political democracy and social democracy. In England, as in France, the working classes are becoming aware of their strength. They feel the need to organize themselves autonomously. Autonomy and an innovative will are already the essential traits that give the workers’ movement its own forms. Autonomy and creative will are affirmations of youth and vitality.

The Working Men’s Association is composed exclusively of workers. When it was founded on June 16, 1836, the Working Men’s Association, by the very will of its founders, appealed only to the forces of the working class. "The question arose among us," says Lovett, "whether we could organize and maintain an association composed exclusively of men belonging to the working class." The WM A. is precisely an experiment attempted by Lovett, Cleave, and Hetherington to bring the working class to administer its affairs in a spirit of complete independence. Lovett explains to us that the founders of the WM A. wanted to free the working masses from their enslavement to the "great men" on whom they always had their eyes fixed and from whom they waited for a gesture to think and act. "In the hands of these leaders, who manipulated the strings, the working class allowed itself to be led like a puppet obedient to the whims of its momentary idol. When these popular idols fell from their pedestals, she found herself more helpless than ever." So, distrust of stars.

The working class must learn to manage itself, without the help of those directors of social conscience, to whom it had hitherto entrusted the care of its interests. It must become its own business manager. The founders of the WM A. see in their association a school where workers can educate themselves, discuss freely and give themselves their own political education.

This concept is profoundly original because it seeks to replace the external and unstable direction of popular leaders with conscious and autonomous action. The working class will find its natural leaders in a working-class aristocracy that will be formed by the W. M,. A. Is there any need to compare this concept with that of syndicalism, which considers a working-class minority with a superior social and trade-union education as the active agent of the Revolution ? The W. M,. A. undoubtedly declared itself ready to lend its support to all those who work for the happiness of the people ; but "it must always bear in mind the truth of experience that, in today’s society, the division of interests of the different classes most often opposes the union of hearts and wills."

The association was determined to recruit its members only from the ranks of the working class. But, Article 8 added, "as there is no agreement on the dividing line that separates the working class from other classes, the determination of a candidate’s eligibility is left to the members themselves."

The policy of the WM A. will be a working-class policy. However, the principle of class struggle does not dominate this policy. The WM A. agrees to collaborate with all servants of the popular cause. Without doubt, the community of feelings, "class consciousness," is the indispensable condition for any achievement and any success. The WM A. is essentially based on the personal action of the working class, which must find its leaders among its own. Each class has its distinct interests ; it is therefore incapable of representing other classes. The working class must therefore have representatives taken from its own ranks. However, it must be noted from the outset that, from this idea of class, the WM A. does not deduce, as a necessary corollary, an irreducible antagonism and that it admits alliances with bourgeois democrats.

This class action that the WM A. wants to inaugurate must become an international action. The working classes of all countries are united by common feelings and interests.

In the very year of its formation, in November 1836, the WM A. sent a manifesto to the Belgian working class, and Lovett claimed for his association "the honor of having first introduced the custom of international messages between workers of different countries." "The working class is ignorant of the position it occupies in society... Our emancipation depends on the diffusion of these truths among the workers of all countries."

The working classes are becoming aware of their importance. They understand the eminent dignity of work and they aspire to an organization of society based on work.

In the manifesto that the WM A. addresses to the Belgian working class, it asserts two ideas : that of the "eminent dignity" of the working class and that of its right to the wealth produced. The working class occupies a fundamental place in society : the first, since it is the producing class. This proposition has as a corollary the right of workers, producers of wealth, "to be the first to enjoy it." The WM A. adopts the two theories of the exclusive productivity of labor and the right to the full product of labor.

In January 1832, one of the most active members of the National Union of the Working Classes committee, William Benbow, launched the idea of a general strike. William Benbow ran the Café du Commerce, located at 205 Fleet Street, where the owner’s reputation attracted a large clientele of democratic and socialist workers. Benbow put all the more ardor into his social propaganda because it was also an excellent means of advertising the Café du Commerce ; but was not the cause Benbow served interested in the Café du Commerce being very popular ?

The simultaneous universal suspension of productive power in all trades appeared in 1832 under the name of the Grand National Holiday. The Chartists would sometimes call it Sacred Month, sometimes General Strike. The two expressions "sacred month" and "general strike" were used interchangeably by the movement’s speakers and publicists. Benbow’s pamphlet is entitled Grand National Holiday and Congress of the Producing Classes. The title is followed by these words : "And now, you rich people, weep and howl... You have fraudulently withheld the wages of the workers who have reaped your fields, see, it cries for vengeance, and the cries of those who have reaped have reached the ears of the God of Hosts. You have condemned and put to death the righteous, and they have not resisted you."

The preliminary address also begins with a quotation from Ezekiel : "Their princes are among them like wolves devouring prey ; they shed blood, destroy souls, extort dishonest gain. The masters of the earth have used violence, practiced brigandage and afflicted the poor and the needy."

Benbow advocates a general strike in a form that is both grandiloquent and childish. For one month, the producing classes, meeting in congress, will cease all work ; during this month of National Day, the producers will be able to agree to establish the reign of equality and happiness.

The producing classes will show their power, not by a bloody revolt, by an armed insurrection, but by a simple stoppage of work and production :

"In the face of constant crises, economists speak, some of overproduction, others of overpopulation. Overproduction, the cause of our misery ? Overproduction indeed, when we, the producers, half-starved, cannot with our labor obtain anything resembling a sufficient quantity of production. Never at any other time, in any other country than our own, has abundance been invoked as a cause of misery. Good God, where is this abundance ? Abundance of food ! Ask the farmer or the worker if that is their opinion : their emaciated body is the best answer. Abundance of clothing ! The nudity, shivering, asthma, chills, and rheumatism of the people are proof of their abundance of clothing. Our lords and masters tell us that we produce too much. Very well ! Then we will cease production for a month and thus put into practice the theory of our lords and masters."

By putting into practice the theory of overproduction and ceasing production for a month, the working classes will show that all production and all wealth depend on them, that all social life stops with the very cessation of their work.

Working-class socialism, international union of the working classes, class politics, but not class struggle, the possibility of alliance with bourgeois parties—these are the principles that inspired the formation of the Working Men’s Association, but they are not enough to define Chartism. These general lines of doctrine and tactics were supplemented, as early as January 1832, by the idea of a general strike.

Chartism is, above all, a movement of the masses. It represents one of the first impulses of countless others. But it is not simply an anonymous movement : individualities emerge in relief. The evolution of Chartism, like its rise, cannot be explained without the geniuses gathered around its cradle and who presided over its destiny.

These human faces clarify and embody the doctrines that were mixed with Chartism. But, beyond the dikes of ideology, currents carried this mass movement along, like a river ; its course was so impetuous that, overcoming the obstacles that adverse circumstances or the perversity of men placed in its path, it sometimes swept everything away, even ideologies. Chartism owes its strength to this surge of the working masses, who had their first great historical experience for it.

Chartism was initiated by a group of London artisans, almost all of whom were workers in small industries and small, independent trades, and whom Marx would have called petty-bourgeois socialists. Their fundamental conception can be summed up in this formula : Political democracy carries within it, as its most complete realization and logical development, socialism. Considering the interests of the classes as distinct, the initiators of
Chartism wanted to induce the working classes to organize themselves autonomously and to take personal action.

This idea of autonomy characterizes the Chartist movement. For the first time in their history, the working classes pursued, for nearly ten years, an autonomous action, undoubtedly interrupted more than once, either by crises of despair or by attempts at alliance with other classes.

The occasion that brought about the Chartist surge was the crisis that continued in Great Britain from 1837 to 1843. In 1837, the two elements of the movement coexisted. A crisis generating more misery and more widespread unemployment. An atmosphere of revolt. A hope crystallized around a few doctrines : those which, between 1831 and 1836, were formulated by the worker democrats and by an intellectual, Bronterre O’Brien, these disciples of Thomas Hodgskin, this admirer of the French Revolution, Robespierre and Babeuf. Their formulas seem to translate the aspirations of the working masses, because the workers and the intellectual were able to extract from the tangle of economic forces systematized tendencies with a view to their design. Thanks to them, the anonymous impulse of the innumerable found a direction ; the light of a few principles guided their march.

But the working masses had even better luck. A number of activists met to organize them, bring together all categories of workers, and instill in them the awareness that their interests were united. Ten years of struggle would make them vibrate with the same hopes and the same suffering.

One cannot praise too highly the courage, generosity, devotion, and often also the heroism of the militants who served as leaders of the movement. But these leaders, diverse in temperament and tendencies, were unequal in character and value. Alongside the trade union workers—the purest of all—alongside the disinterested doctrinaires and sincere revolutionaries, there were, among these leaders, crowd charmers and illusion merchants who were at once astonishing agitators and the worst demagogues.

In these early months of 1837, the London Working Men’s Association, led by legalitarian and reformist workers, drew up the People’s Charter. The working-class democrats had fought together against the electoral reform of 1832, which they deemed insufficient ; they had led a campaign for the cheap press that had just, in 1836, led to the lowering of stamp duty. As socialists, they owed their ideas on the exclusive productivity of labor to Robert Owen and Hodgskin. As democrats, they followed the leadership of Hunt and Cobbett. Political democracy seemed to them the shortest path to socialism ; thus, they placed at the head of their program the six demands that would become the six points of the Charter. Finally, they called for "moral reform," hence the name "Chartists of Moral Force" that would be given to them.

Educating the working class is the essential object of the men of the WM A. This association was formed to "create a moral, thoughtful, energetic public opinion, designed to bring about a gradual improvement in the condition of the working classes without violence or commotion." It was founded by workers "with the intention of uniting the sober, honest, moral, and thoughtful portion of their brethren, with the intention of establishing libraries and debating societies, of obtaining an honest and cheap press, of avoiding meetings in public houses, of educating women and children. For all organization must begin in ourselves and by ourselves." The Owenite influence appears in this belief in the power of reason. The WM A. wants to pursue at the same time the political emancipation of the masses and to continue the democratic tradition by appealing to the moral force of public opinion ; it addresses the People’s Charter to the radical associations and the workers’ associations of the United Kingdom ; and after this, she sends delegates on a mission, Cleave, Hetherington, Vincent. From London, she hopes to direct the movement throughout England.

But Chartism would be neither a popular education movement nor a democratic movement conducted according to legalistic methods of action. It would soon escape the reformers of the WM A. The drafter of the Charter, William Lovett, and his friends would struggle in vain against trends they had not foreseen. Moral force would soon be opposed by physical force as a surer, more effective, and more rapid means of achievement.

The Chartist labor movement underwent a sudden shift as unrest spread among the working-class populations of the North-West industrial districts. The London Chartists represented only a general staff without troops. The proletariat of Lancashire and Yorkshire gave the movement a breadth and power it would not have had otherwise.

But, at the same time, from reformist, the movement becomes revolutionary. Feargus O’Connor opposes the leaders of the Working Men’s Association, these skilled craftsmen, the workers "with unshaven faces, calloused hands and fustian jackets." These compact masses, this proletariat of cities blackened by smoke and quivering with revolt, driven by poverty, are ready for anything. The general strike will become a means of agitation intended to raise the working classes against machinery, capital and the captains of industry.

The evolution of Chartism will show, mixing, uniting, clashing, the ideological and psychological currents from which Chartism emerged : the prudence of reformist and legalitarian methods, the impetuous and intransigent cult of the French revolutionaries, the formulas before the letter of Marxist theses.

This evolution from reformism to violence was rapid. As early as January 1, 1838, the call for violence was the conclusion of a speech by Pastor Stephens published in the Northern Star on the 6th. As early as March 24, George Julian Harney bitterly attacked the WM A. Claiming to demonstrate the lie of social solidarity and peace, the inadequacy of education and moral strength, he asserted the antagonism of the working class and other social classes.

It was on the occasion of the Poor Law that at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, Reverend Stephens advised the workers who were listening to him to resist by force this accursed Poor Law, and not to allow the law of God to be violated by the law of man :

“If those who produce all the wealth do not have the right, according to the word of God, to pluck the sweet fruits of the earth which, according to the word of God, they have harvested with the sweat of their brow, then let them fight with knives against their enemies who are the enemies of God. If the rifle and the pistol, if the sword and the pike are not enough, let the women take up their scissors and the children the pin or the needle. If all else fails, then the burning brand, yes, the burning brand (Thunderous applause), the burning brand, I repeat, set the palaces ablaze !...”

This evolution from reformism to violence is explained first of all by the psychology of the troops, by the atmosphere in which these miserable crowds flock to meetings and listen to the passionate violence of a Christian like Reverend Stephens who translates their feelings.

It can also be explained by the psychology of the leaders. The exasperated suffering of the Lowerys and the Marsdens, like the idealistic absolutism of the Taylors and the MacDoualls, will lead the working classes to revolt. In fact, the theses of Lovett and his friends, as much as those of Bronterre, prepared this atmosphere and, without the worker democrats having wanted or foreseen it, they created a revolutionary state of mind that will lead everything, individuals and events, in the direction of violence.

The man who contributed most to this evolution of Chartism was Feargus O’Connor : a symbolic figure who stood in contrast to the self-taught worker William Lovett. The Chartists of moral force saw him as the evil genius who was to deflect the movement and lead it to failure. They feared his power to seduce the working masses.

Feargus O’Connor is not, like Bronterre, a middle-class man. He even claims the prestige of a royal lineage dating back to the 12th century ; he claims to be the descendant of Rodric O’Connor, King of Ireland. He is the son of Roger and the nephew of Arthur O’Connor, both of whom were imprisoned for the Irish cause.

Feargus O’Connor appeared on the political scene at the age of 37 in 1831, under the patronage of Daniel O’Connell. Nominated as Member of Parliament for Cork in the 1832 general election, he sat for the next few years among the most advanced radicals. At this time, he seemed to share the political views of the socialist democrats ; in March 1833, he attended a meeting of the National Union of the Working Classes and spoke against the Whig government. Re-elected in 1835, he was defeated. At the beginning of 1837, he had just organized the Democratic Association against the Working Men’s Association, which he accused of representing only a labor aristocracy and of betraying the interests of the working classes in favor of the middle classes.

On November 18, 1837, Feargus O’Connor launched a newspaper, the Northern Star, whose origins, recounted by Robert Lowery, shed light on the character of the Irish demagogue. J. Hobson, M. Hill, and a few other Yorkshire democrats, understanding that a newspaper was needed to serve as an organ for the nascent movement, had managed to raise a few hundred pounds in the form of a joint-stock company. Feargus O’Connor persuaded them that they would not be able to raise the necessary sum and that the authority of a board would hinder the publisher and annihilate the influence of the newspaper. He proposed that the shareholders lend him the money they had raised ; he would guarantee them the interest, and, completing the capital, he would immediately begin publication. Hobson would be a director and Hill would be editor. This was done. But, according to Robert Lowery, at that time Feargus had no capital, and the shareholders’ money was the only money ever spent on the newspaper. Moreover, since the skilled illusionist did not have the money in his pocket to pay the first week’s wages, he would have had to borrow it, according to the Whistler, from Joshua Hobson, or, according to Hobson himself, from John Ardill. In his speech of October 26, 1847, Feargus protested against these assertions and declared that, when he entered Parliament, he had an annual income of 400 pounds, earned 800 pounds from his estate and 2,000 pounds from his profession ; he added that in 1837 he had 5,000 pounds at his disposal. Fortune smiled on the new paper, whose circulation quickly rose to sixty thousand copies. This, at least, is the figure given by Lowery in his articles in the Temperance Weekly Record. Feargus O’Connor, on October 26, 1847, admitted that when the newspaper had a circulation of 43,700 copies per week, it made a profit of 325,000 francs.

The working masses who acclaim Feargus O’Connor first admire the athlete in him. Before he has said a word, his stature imposes itself on a crowd enamored of physical strength. Feargus is over six feet tall, he possesses solid fists that make him a feared boxer in elections. His muscles are not the only arguments with which nature has endowed him : he also possesses an organ that always ensures he has the last word ; he has "a voice of thunder that bites the mind and pierces the ears of his most distracted listeners, at the same time as it silences the noisiest."

Feargus does not make great efforts of imagination to seduce the crowds that listen to him ; thanks to the power of his throat and an inexhaustible eloquence, the demagogue can content himself with developing themes sympathetic to the people or ideas borrowed from others. He is the type of charmer of the crowds that he amuses, thanks to unexpected words, piquant anecdotes, his jokes, his humor.

In November 1837, Feargus consolidated his power : he became owner of the Northern Star, which would henceforth be the official newspaper of Chartism.

Feargus has the art of surrounding himself with men whose sincerity serves as his guarantee. For example, this Richard Marsden, a very poor handloom weaver, a victim of the progress of machinery, who has struggled for years to feed his family on a wage of a few shillings a week. How many times Richard Marsden will remind his listeners that one day, penniless, he saw his wife faint from exhaustion while she was feeding her little child. Richard Marsden has tender blue eyes, a face full of kindness and great gentleness, but his suffering and the spectacle of the misery of others has put hatred of society in his heart. He hopes to cure the ills of his fellow sufferers "by shedding a little impure blood to ensure the salvation of society as a whole."

From January 1, 1838, each meeting shows the progress of physical strength and the decline of the methods of the WM A. Each meeting illuminates one of the stages of evolution.

On January 1st, the social conservative Stephens declared himself a "revolutionary by fire, a revolutionary by blood, to the knife and to death" ; he advised every man to have his pistols or pike, every woman to have her pair of scissors, and every child a bundle of needles. It was on New Year’s Day in Newcastle-upon-Tyne that the necessity of violence was first expressed. The same month, in Glasgow, regarding the Factory System, in the name of the right of every man "to procure by his work the means to feed and clothe himself, his wife and his children comfortably", the same Stephens summons the ruling classes to act "as the law prescribes and as God commands", otherwise : "We swear, by the love we have for our brothers, by God who made us all to be happy, by the Earth he gave us to feed us, by the Heaven he destines for those who love one another here below... We will envelop in a devouring flame, which no arm will be able to resist, the factories of the cotton tyrants and the monuments of their plunder and murder, built on the misery of millions of beings whom God, our God, the God of Scotland made to be happy."

On March 31, 1838, in the Northern Star, Bronterre noted "that the working population has had enough of words, they want action."

On May 8, the People’s Charter was published by the Working Men’s Association, and on May 28, it was presented at a public meeting in Glasgow, sponsored by the middle-class organization Birmingham Political Union, whose president was Member of Parliament Thomas Atwood. Two hundred thousand workers were gathered on the banks of the Clyde, the air resounded from forty bands, and two hundred banners fluttered in the breeze. Thomas Atwood spoke. The WM A. and the Birmingham Political Union (BPU) agreed to advise the Chartist Democrats to present petition after petition to Parliament ; If the House of Commons does not bow to the will expressed by the three million signatures that can be expected, after giving legislators time to reflect, workers and middle-class men, willing to support the rights of the working classes, must proclaim in all trades a "sacred and solemn" strike : not a hand must be put to work, all hearts, all heads, all arms must unite to work for the success of the people’s cause until the day when victory smiles on their efforts.

The idea of a general strike, launched in 1832 by the socialist innkeeper William Benbow, was taken up in the spring of 1838 by the moderate Thomas Atwood. In the articles of the Northern Star, two ideas became dominant : insurrection and the general strike. These two modes of revolutionary action, the old mode and the new mode, seem to be able to be used indifferently in combination or separately ; the general strike appears to be the "peaceful" method of revolution. Both are applications of the class struggle.

At the Hyde meeting on November 14, 1838, Stephens advised his listeners to equip themselves with a large knife "which would do very well to cut a rasher of bacon or to stab the man who resisted them." He asked them if they were ready and if they were armed ; two or three shots answered : "Is that all ?" Stephens demanded, and then there was a volley of shots. He then asked those who wanted to buy weapons to raise their hands : all hands were raised and more shots were fired. He told them to procure rifles, pistols, swords, pikes, and all instruments "that will utter sharper words than the mouth" ; whereupon Stephens added : "I see all is well and bid you good night."

The government posts a proclamation declaring torchlight meetings illegal. And by this, the government itself contributes to the evolution of Chartism. It gives the leaders of physical force an argument to put forward to the masses to persuade them that in the face of persecution, in the face of this denial of the right of assembly, the policy of moral force would be a deception.

The call to arms and the insurrection appeared to be the logical outcome of the government’s actions, which were preparing to crack down. Less cautious than Feargus O’Connor, who had advised temporarily abandoning torchlight meetings, Stephens had denounced the proclamation as "an insult to the oppressed people." On December 28, he was arrested.

Stephens’s arrest aroused the indignation of the workers who loved him and regarded him as the first martyr of the Chartist cause. In Manchester, on the day of his interrogation, as soon as he appeared, he was the subject of an ovation that soon degenerated into an uproar and threatened to become a full-blown riot. During the interrogation, the uproar was such that the magistrates were obliged to ask Feargus O’Connor to use his influence to calm the crowd. Then the demagogue calmed the furious crowd by promising that "justice will be done to the object of his adoration." That evening, Feargus O’Connor, in a public meeting, declared that the people would win a swift victory over their enemies : if the tyrants abused their authority, he would never allow Stephens’s body to be transported to the ship until his own lifeless body had been trampled underfoot. It is with such words that the "Irish braggart" uses Stephens to increase his own popularity.

Feargus O’Connor was tireless. From December 18, 1838, to January 15, 1839, he took part in twenty-two major meetings in London, Bristol, Manchester, Greenfield, Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle, Carlisle, Glasgow, Paisley, and Edinburgh.

Feargus O’Connor, without ever compromising himself or revealing himself completely, precipitates the evolution of Chartism. Thanks to his tireless activity, he extends his influence everywhere ; his multiplied presence neutralizes the opposing efforts of the WM A. and the BPU. By his promises, by his boasting, by his fanciful or slanderous accusations, he acts and even absent, by his newspaper, the Northern Star which, under the cover of anonymity, discredits all the leaders who have some independence or who have the audacity to contradict him. He denigrates and accuses without having to worry about the truth of what he advances ; he does not take into account what his adversaries can answer to justify himself, and it is by a new accusation of treason that he is content to prove the validity of his first attacks.

On July 3, 1839, the Convention, meeting in Birmingham, began discussing further measures. All the delegates declared that the people were ready to act and were only waiting for a sign from the Convention. The general strike attracted attention. Almost all the members of the Convention declared themselves in favor of it. Some, more eager, requested that the earliest date be set in the holy month. Others approved the principle, but, for reasons of expediency, demanded its eventual implementation. Lovett tried, through a delaying measure, to avoid the immediate implementation of the general strike, which he considered unfeasible ; and for his part, Feargus, not wanting to commit himself fully to a decisive circumstance, avoided recommending the general strike he had advocated and sought to retain the Convention by flattering it : "We have achieved great importance in the country and we should not risk a general defeat for a partial triumph."

The Convention adopts a resolution requiring it to vote on a general strike on July 13 if the petition is rejected by the House of Commons. This resolution allows the House of Commons to declare that it will not give in to the threat of a general strike.

On July 4, the first riot broke out in Birmingham. Dr. Taylor was arrested ; and on the 6th, for signing a protest from the Convention, William Lovett was also arrested.

On July 10, the Convention members met again in London ; and they gave in to the anger provoked in them by the eighty arrests that followed the Birmingham riot. On July 13, the Northern Star exclaimed : "the battle has begun," and at a meeting, Bronterre asked his listeners if, in the event of the Convention members being arrested en masse, they would be prepared to proclaim a general strike.

The day before, on July 12, the House of Commons met to hear Thomas Atwood’s speech in support of the Chartist petition. Lord John Russell replied that universal suffrage would not be a remedy for the economic fluctuations that were the consequence of England’s manufacturing and commercial situation ; universal suffrage would be powerless to ensure the stability of the economic balance. The petition was rejected by 247 votes to 48.

This rejection resulted in riots and the vote for a general strike. The Lowery resolution, which set the date for August 12, was adopted by 13 votes, a majority of one. This small majority was analyzed by Feargus as follows : "The seven members of the Convention, who formed the majority of the 13, represented electoral districts in which, I can assure you, with the exception of Bristol and Hyde, there would not have been more than 500 strikers" ; and the other four members of the Convention had voted for the resolution, declaring "that they had no hope of seeing their districts obey the order of the Convention." In fact, among the workers, only a small minority was willing to strike. But the majority voted for the strike, which Feargus opposed, saying that the industrial reserve army would enable employers to overcome attempts at worker resistance.

Moreover, on July 22 and 24, following an intervention by Bronterre, the Convention reversed its vote and replaced it with an address that would leave it to the people to decide. After much procrastination, on September 6, the Convention decided to dissolve itself.

The dissolution was to affect the psychology of the leaders and the troops. It deprives the masses of their point of support. It had been hoped that the Convention would be a center of direction and coordination for revolutionary efforts ; but the Convention had constantly oscillated between opposing tendencies. The reversals of several leaders, of Bronterre O’Brien, of Dr. Fletcher, the conversion of Robert Lowery, the dissolution proposed by the enthusiastic Dr. Taylor himself and the reasons given for it by Bronterre, all prove that this first surge of the movement was in decline.

The apparent calm of September and October was a lie. The evolution of Chartism was about to end in a tragedy that would cost the lives or freedom of a handful of heroically simple Chartist soldiers.

The greatness of these militants is highlighted by the comedy given by two of the leaders in rejecting a glory that they seemed to have so often called for.

On November 4, 2,000 Welsh miners, some armed with rifles and pistols, others with pikes and picks, most with large clubs, advanced toward Newport in the darkness of a November night. They marched through the storm, with rain beating against their faces, stopping occasionally at public houses. Around 9 a.m., they arrived in front of the Westgate Hotel, where the mayor and magistrates had taken refuge under the guard of a company of the 458th Regiment. The Chartists began the attack by breaking windows and shooting at the soldiers. The mayor immediately read the Riot Act and ordered the soldiers to fire : "Death takes its toll, 14 Chartists are killed and several others wounded." They were led by John Frost. They were armed with rifles, muskets, sabers, and even had a small cannon. Some of the special constables were wounded : Mr. Morgan, draper, Mr. Williams, ironmonger, and the mayor. The main body of the rioters retreated to the fields. It seems their intention was to occupy Newport and march on Monmouth to rescue Vincent and his companions. They had sworn that Vincent would not remain in prison beyond November 5. The greatest agitation reigns in Wales. Two other troops commanded by Jones, watchmaker, and Williams, publican, were to join Frost’s ; but they arrived too late. Such is the account given in the Northern Star, on November 9, 1839, of the riot of the Welsh miners, led by the good and peaceable John Frost and ready to pay with their lives for their love for Henry Vincent.

The Chartists had considered supporting the Welsh miners’ project with an uprising in the North ; they had sent a delegate to Feargus to ask him to be their leader, "as he had so often proposed." Could he be relied upon ? Feargus was indignant : "Well, sir, since when have you heard that I or any of my family have ever betrayed the cause of the people ? Have we not always been at our posts in the hour of danger ?" Feargus persuaded the poor devil that he was ready for anything. The man returned and confidently asserted that Feargus could be relied upon ; but later the overly credulous individual was judged a liar, for Feargus did not hesitate to swear solemnly that he had made him no promises.

Frightened by having almost committed himself by the ambiguous words he felt obliged to pronounce, Feargus took steps to thwart the enterprise. After having informed himself about the reality of the projected movement, he set off, his only thought being to cancel the effect of his own advice as quickly as possible ; but, in order not to compromise himself, he sent George White to travel throughout Yorkshire and Lancashire to affirm everywhere that no uprising would take place in Wales ; he sent Charles Jones to assure the Welsh that there would be no uprising in Yorkshire either, and that behind this project, there was nothing but a police plot, a government maneuver. Unfortunately, when Charles Jones arrived at Frost’s house, Frost was absent, having been at a crucial conference where the other leaders of the region were gathered. Charles Jones, however, managed to reach Frost, but too late, because the miners were determined to free Vincent : "It would be better," said Frost, "to blow my brains out than to try to oppose this determination or to retreat." So the peaceful trader from Newport begged Charles Jones to return immediately to Yorkshire and Lancashire, to try to rouse the workers of these districts through the Welsh example ; and, since Feargus had not given Charles Jones enough money for the return, Frost gave him three sovereigns. Before anything could be done in the North, the Welsh Chartists were massacred in front of the Westgate Hotel.

When the news reached Yorkshire, the Chartists, revolted at seeing that they had been deceived about the Welsh resolutions, decided to carry out their abandoned project. In the absence of Feargus O’Connor, Peter Bussey was chosen as leader, whose usual speeches designated him for this combat post. But Peter Bussey, who did not relish this honor, suddenly fell ill. The Chartists had doubts about this unexpected illness ; wanting to see for themselves the seriousness of the illness, they looked for their leader in his house and did not find him. They were told that the doctor had ordered him to go to the countryside for his health. A few days later, while chatting with the customers of his father’s café, Peter Bussey’s little boy let slip the secret ; Peter Bussey ran both a brewery and a dealer’s shop : "Ah ! Ah !" said the little boy, "you couldn’t have found Papa the other day ; but I knew perfectly well where he was ; he was in the attic, hidden behind the sacks of flour." » An imprudent statement that cost the demagogue his reputation and his clientele, forced him to liquidate his business and embark for America.

Feargus O’Connor got off more lightly. Fearing that someone would come looking for him and force him into heroism, Feargus thought that the time was right to travel ; he saw it as an excellent opportunity to visit his "unhappy homeland" and proclaim in safety that he was ready to march to glory or death. When he returned from Ireland, Frost and a few hundred Chartists were in prison, calm had returned, there was nothing more to fear. However, to avoid attracting attention, Feargus kept quiet ; he only thought it proper to open his mouth when his followers came to ask him to act on behalf of Frost and the other prisoners. He was only too happy to offer a week’s takings from the Northern Star and to advance, he said, "a thousand guineas from his own pocket" to pay the expenses of the trial and no doubt also the price of his courage.

The Newport riot had closed the first evolution of Chartism. The winter and spring of 1840 were a period of contemplation for Chartism during which the only events were trials and imprisonments : Frost, Williams and Jones were sentenced, on 16 January 1840, to be hanged and quartered ; Bronterre was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment ; William Benbow to 16 months, etc.

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