“Why have oil and political authoritarianism so often gone hand in hand in Middle Eastern states since World War II ?”
The discovery of oil precipitated massively changing times for the Middle East : oil was the resource that transformed the Arabian peninsula from an isolated and impoverished preserve of the British Empire to an area upon which the world economy had come to depend. The oil wealth was used on the one hand to generate huge material and social changes in the producing states of the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia), and on the other hand to prevent changes in the existing political order - thus presenting a seemingly contradictory pattern of modernisation and conservatism, of rapid development coupled with political restrictions and the preservation of monarchical rule. By the latter stages of the 20th Century, as the Cold War drew to its finale and independent democratic states began to spring up - the Middle East, to a large extent, remained a bastion of authoritarianism : based either upon religion, royalty or a compromise of both. Simply put, therefore, oil presented a fantastic opportunity for the leaders of Middle Eastern states to enrich themselves and their nations, whilst also keeping a firm grip on power : popular resistance was often silenced through generous welfare systems and high salaries. However, there remains a further element to the question : that of the political authoritarianism exercised not only by the Middle Eastern states, but by the great powers of Europe, the Soviet Union before its collapse and the United States. To these powers, the interests of oil combined with the pressures and strains of the Cold War to vitally affect foreign policy in the Middle East. Therefore the duality between oil and political authoritarianism is twofold : firstly represented in the entrenched and monarchical regimes within the Middle East, characterised by lack of political opposition and mass enfranchisement, and secondly the actions of other powers in the Middle East to protect their petroleum interests : witness the Suez Crisis in 1956, or the U.S led invasion of Iraq in 1990 and both represent armed intervention to ensure the survival of crucial oil imports.
The period since World War II, with regard to oil and international affairs, can be marked by two general events. Firstly, the Cold War : with its polarising effect upon Europe, spread to the Middle East and involved the producing states of the region in a battle between accepting financial aid, through the Eisenhower Doctrine, from the U.S, going it alone, or even making ties with the Soviets. We can identify instances of all three, Jordan and Kuwait financing their lavish domestic spending from oil revenues and a heavy influx of financial assistance from the U.S, Egypt in the period of Arab-socialism and Nasser defying the great powers by nationalising the Suez Canal and Mossadiq’s failed attempt to nationalise the Iranian oil industry in the 1950’s. Secondly, as important as the geopolitics of the Cold War, was the 1973 oil crisis precipitated by the Arab-Israeli War : which saw the ball shift dramatically to the court of the producer states in setting prices and limitations to the importers. However, the relationship between oil and political authoritarianism can perhaps be traced to the primary discovery of oil in Iran and subsequent development of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). Reza Shah, after surviving Mossadiq’s nationalisation era, consolidated an authoritarian monarchy in which political activity was severely restricted : and fostered generally good relations with the Western powers. The shah was not without social reformist ambitions, but was totally unwilling to tolerate challenges to his power - establishing a system of government that rested on the narrow base of royal authority supported by the army and secret police. This authoritarianism was supported and financed by oil revenues and the backing of the Western importers. The hatred towards this relationship was no more vociferous in the 1950’s than from the National Front’s leader Mossadiq, who called for the nationalisation of the Iranian oil industry and an end to the British stock-dominated AIOC’s financial hegemony. The popular demands resulted in the nationalisation of the oil industry in 1951, followed by a US and Britain sponsored boycott of Iranian oil which plunged the nation into a financial crisis. Here we see the first example of “economic warfare” being waged by the Western importers in the face of a popular nationalisation movement : a method that was later to be used against them in the Arab boycott of 1973. Thus, economic prosperity in Iran was connected with monarchical authoritarianism and a positive relationship with the oil importers. The lengths to which the importers would go to in order to secure their oil interests were clearly highlighted by the assistance of CIA agents in the coup which successfully overthrew Mossadiq. The NF’s leader had attempted to attack the entrenched institutions of the Shah’s Iran : to replace his personal rule with the rule of constitutional law and to redistribute the wealth and land of the elite. The threat posed by this, not only to the leaders of Iran, but also to those benefiting economically from Iran’s oil were thus considerable enough to assist in a military-backed coup against a popular leader. Thus authoritarianism combined from two angles : the Iranian elite and international powers, both connected in political will by their prosperity from oil revenues.
Mossadiq’s overthrow thus marked the triumph of the forces to whom he was opposed, the 1953 coup brought about the return of royal dictatorship and an intensification of US interference in the domestic affairs of Iran. The arrangement after 1953 saw Iran take a 50% share of AIOC profits, providing the Shah with ever-increasing revenues and thus consolidating Iran’s positive relationship with the Western powers and to a program of limited economic development on the Western model resulting in substantial infusions of US aid. However, despite the capital available, authoritarianism increased - the Shahs dealt harshly with the groups that had opposed him during the Mossadiq premiership - the National Front was disbanded and its leaders imprisoned, from 1953-79 political freedom simply did not exist. The two-party system adopted by the Shah to provide the appearance of democracy was so tightly restricted that the Iranians referred to the two organisations as the ‘yes’ and ‘yes sir’ parties. Advancements were made, certainly, the ‘White Revolution’ inaugurated in 1963 ushered in major economic and social changes but no change in the traditional system of authoritarianism. Spending from oil revenue was not directed towards improving the infrastructure of the nation, or improving the lives dramatically of the poor citizens - but mostly on defence and the military. Encouraged by the US, the Shah used Iran’s wealth to acquire advanced weaponry, spending more than $10 billion on arms between 1972-76. Here we see the Cold War context at its most obvious : the US was determined to use Iran as its Western-styled bulwark against communist agitation in the Middle East, and did this by providing arms and financial aid : and making a tidy profit in the meantime. All this does not mean that limited attempts at development were not made : it does, however, suggest that Iran under the Shah crafted its priorities out of the politics of oil and finance. The income from payments made by the AIOC played an important role in the life of the country. Attempts at socio-economic development were made, mostly instigated by US field experts, like the 1947 Morrison-Knudson report stressing greater efficiency and productivity in agriculture. However, despite all the post-war planning and some sincere desire by leading government officials to utilise the oil revenues for positive socio-economic development the developments in conjunction with overseas consultants proved a failure. Many Iranian business leaders became impatient with the foreign experts and in efforts to ‘speed up’ the changes, disregarded crucial advice. The oil revenues helped the government with its budget, many of the officials connected with the industry no doubt enriched themselves - yet the majority of the population remained as impoverished as ever. Basic economic ills were not greatly eased from oil revenues. Iran therefore : due to a mixture of bureaucratic inefficiency, selfish self-interest and US directed arms purchases, was not able to utilise the profits gained from oil for necessary social services or economic development. Therefore oil and political authoritarianism went hand in hand within Iran before 1979 : both internally and externally.
The example of Iraq provides a different angle from which to explain the relationship between oil and authoritarianism. Similarly to the AIOC, the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) had exploited the wealth of Iraq’s oil reserves for the interests of Western business and development. However, after the 1958 revolution : each of the regimes that ruled attempted to acquire control of the nation’s petroleum resources - in 1972 the Ba’th regime, frustrated with the IPC’s unyielding stance over prices, proclaimed the nationalisation of the company. The magnificent profits gained allowed the regime to embark on a program of industrial development and social reform, on a scale far greater than that of Iran. The Iraq case showcases how an unpopular militant and authoritarian regime could entrench itself by using oil revenues to improve certain aspects of society, thus quietening opposition. The government was able to reduce taxes, subsidise basic foodstuffs, establish free health care and abolish university tuition fees. Though the Ba’th regime may not have been popular, the prosperity that accompanied its power led to its ultimate acceptance. Once more we see oil being used to confirm and entrench political authoritarianism : the educational system was used to propagate Ba’th doctrines and to monitor the nation’s political behaviour. Courses in Bath’ist ideology were mandatory for all university students and the regime ensured that only party members received faculty appointments. Similarly to Iraq, Saudi Arabia used its enormous oil wealth for a similar kind of social welfare system to consolidate the position of the tremendously wealthy royal Sa’ud family. King Sa’ud made no distinction between the state treasury and the royal purse, squandering millions of personal indulgences - his financial irresponsibility almost drove the state to bankruptcy and he was duly replaced in 1964 by Prince Faysal. The Kingdom’s first oil concession was granted by Sa’ud in 1933 to the Standard Oil Company of California with terms immensely favourable to the company. However, the creation of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in 1960 and its Arab equivalent (OAPEC) in 1968 helped the producer states have more say in oil production and pricing control. Thus, Saudi Arabia generated huge amounts of wealth from its oil reserves : devoting, similarly to Iran, huge sums to defence, but also to a program of social and economic development designed to keep back political challenges to the monarchical regime. Material developments such as improvements in transportation, communications, stunning universities and secondary industry plants helped create a new indigenous middle class. Yet despite this new classes education and growing responsibility for managing the machinery of government, its members were duly excluded from participation in political life.
Thus, the royal family in Saudi Arabia maintained its control over policy-making and refused to sanction political parties or labour unions, as Sadaam Hussein’s Ba’th party did in Iraq. Both regimes were entrenched by the enormous wealth afforded to them by oil revenues. Both hoped to survive by rewarding the elite with well-paying positions and providing the population with good welfare services. Faysal justified his decision not to issue a charter of rights, proclaiming that, “Saudi Arabia has no need for a constitution because it has the Qu’ran, which is the oldest and most efficient constitution in the world” - as the protector of Islam, the royal family thus justified its power, made possible by the existence of a mutually beneficial relationship between the monarchy and the religious establishment, placing the ulama and imams on the payroll of the state. This pattern can also be seen in the smaller Gulf states : the affluence they have acquired since the 1950s and even more so after the creation of OPEC and the 1973 embargo has helped enable the ruling families to strengthen their political authority - in an age that has largely abandoned the concept of government ruled by hereditary royal families, these Middle Eastern states do stand out as exceptions. Kuwait stands out as the only state to provide a limited forum for political discussion by the creation of an elected national assembly in 1963. However, the franchise was severely restricted, open only to adult males whose ancestors were resident in the country before 1920. However, the national assembly did not restrict the political authority of the ruling royal family. Key governmental posts were held by family members and policy was determined in special family councils. From oil revenues, Kuwait had the ability to provide its citizens with a comprehensive cradle-to-grave welfare system. In the case of Oman, Sultan Qabus ruled as an absolute monarch, the nation had neither a constitution nor a legislature : all power was concentrated in the person of the Sultan and ministries were headed by members of the ruling family. Thus oil developments fuelled a development boom of immense proportions among the Middle Eastern states. Yet amid the material improvements and social changes, political power remained in the hands of hereditary dynasties (with the exception of Iran after 1979). These families attempted to preserve their authority by preventing the emergence of representative assemblies and mass politics, often using oil profits as a buffer against any calls for change.
Thus the link between political authoritarianism and oil has been explicitly shown for the Middle East states themselves. However, this authoritarianism was also compounded by external forces, seeking to either entrench or remove the heads of power in such oil-rich states. The Cold War’s unique geopolitics dictated that neither the US nor the Soviet Union could directly and militarily involve itself in the Middle East for risk of destructive global warfare. Thus, each side carefully manoeuvred and combined economic interests of oil with the political interests of ideology : gaining allies in the region was thus key. Therefore, this helps to explain the US’s support of the Shah’s Iran, Jordan and, of course, Israel. Exacerbating this further was the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, causing the cost of oil to soar as a result of the Arab boycott. After 1973, access to oil, rather than its price, became the driving force behind the West’s policies towards oil-producing states. We may thus witness that, with even more desperation, the oil importing countries sought to shore up ‘friendly’ monarchies that ruled in the oil producing states in order to preserve the political status quo of the Middle East. Iraq’s attempt to alter that status quo by annexing Kuwait in 1990 was thus met with a massive international armed response. Behind the rhetoric about the liberation of Kuwait lay a more practical motive for military action - Kuwait provided the US and Europe with dependable access to reasonably priced oil, thus the stability of the Arab Gulf monarchies and their continued willingness to sell oil to the West were essential to Western economic well-being. Therefore we may explain armed intervention in the post-Cold War climate throughout the Middle East with reference to the crucial need for oil in modern and developed economies. The end of the Cold War thus changed the situation dramatically, primarily by freeing the hand of the US to deploy military power in the Middle East.
Oil thus had a dual effect upon the continuation and expression of two different forms of authoritarianism. Firstly, profits gained in the Middle East ensured the survival of autocratic royal regimes and secondly, the necessity of oil from the importers resulted in intervention, either economically or militarily and a further definition of authoritarianism, only this time imposed from abroad. Whether the first case endures remains to be seen, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 showcased the appeal throughout the Middle East of popular Islamic movements and as revenues declined throughout the 1980’s and 90’s citizens of the Gulf retained the expectations they had adopted during the oil boom. The second, however, appears to be stronger than ever : with US military hegemony in the region undisputed, a heavily armed US-backed Israel present too, demand for oil seems certain to go hand-in-hand with at least some form of political authoritarianism for the foreseeable future.
Wednesday 28 April 2010
Chaing Kai-Shek and the Nationalist Failure in China
Why was the Nationalist government unable to bring stability and prosperity to China?
There is no doubting that the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek faced considerable problems from their 1927 conception all the way to their eventual, and perhaps inevitable, displacement at the hands of Mao’s communists in 1949. There appears to be a divide between historians : those whom conclude that the Nationalist government established a sound system of rule and good foundations for future development and democracy : only to be ruined by the invasion of and subsequent war with imperial Japan. Others contend that the government was corrupt and seriously inefficient, out of step with the vast majority of the Chinese population : most notably those in rural areas. However, ultimately it failed : and therefore the second line of argument must be taken and developed : to investigate the internal and external factors behind the demise of Chiang’s regime. The Nationalists decision to implement an old-school style of bureaucratic control at local government level, often seeing to be allied with the warlords of yesteryear proved ultimately disastrous : as did their neglect of the agricultural sector of the economy. As for stability, we may well question whether this was ever going to be possible under such a fringe regime which did so well in alienating support and distancing itself from the population at large. Ultimately, it would prove the Nationalist’s ignoring of this ‘population’ which would drive a considerable chunk of potential support into the hands of the communists, especially in the countryside - and thus the government was totally unable to bring either stability or prosperity to China.
Supporters of the Nationalist government have argued that economic depression, foreign invasion and civil strife were surely conditions beyond the control of the Nationalists. They point to achievements by the government : most notably, the positive reversal of territorial disintegration of China. Under the Nationalist government, China became more unified and centralised than ever before : albeit achieved through military means. By 1936, Chiang had consolidated political control over the greater part of the nation. However, in expanding the Nationalist’s borders so extensively : he allowed, crucially, for weakness in the provinces : and should instead have contented himself with the nominal allegiance of various provincial leaders and endeavoured to create a modern and efficient model of political, economic and social reform which may well have prevented further civil war. We may thus make a judgement concerning the failure of the Nationalist government to bring prosperity to China through analysing the economic policy and implementation of the government. The overwhelming agricultural nature of the Chinese economy must first be noted, it accounted for 65% alone of net domestic product. However, under the Nationalists - land reform and legislation was not forthcoming, the much vaunted 1930 Land Law was prevented from becoming legislation. The ratio between population and food production was somewhat addressed - the government undertook a broad and vague program to increase the farmers’ productivity through sponsoring research on new seed varieties and pesticides. However, these projects had a minimal impact - less than 4% of governmental expenditure was devoted to economic development during the 30’s. Franklin Ho wrote, rather revealingly, that “nothing went beyond the planning stage at the national level between 1927-37.” The Nationalist government thus did little to reduce rural impoverishment - which was especially acute in the wake of the 1929 World Depression and several dreadful bouts of weather. However, one may question whether the problems were indeed too great to be solved in a decade or so, certainly we must not overlook the considerably negative situation the Nationalist government was faced with.
Despite the problems faced by the government : the bitter decade of the 30’s brought about a sharp reduction in the already low standard of life for millions of Chinese people, economic hardship, in rural China especially, was endemic and worsened after 1937. Considering agriculture and other traditional based non-urbanised sectors accounted for 87.4% of the national income : it is certainly possible to criticise the Nationalist government for not implementing more reform and show real effort to tackle China’s rural problems. Of course, situations did not help : the invasion of North China especially saw a crippling of farm production and breakdown of the commercial links between town and countryside. Natural disasters further prevented the government from tackling its rural demons, such as droughts and floods, the Yangtze flooded in 1931 for example. Throw civil war into the mix, prevalent throughout the 20’s and 40’s and you have altogether a nightmare situation. Critics of the Nationalist government have thus stressed its lack of focus on rural matters resulted in its eventual demise : and point to the agricultural recovery, which by 1952 had returned output to pre-1949 levels being based on the success of a new and effective government ready to deal with agricultural matters. The largest criticism we may perhaps hurl at the Nationalist government may well be its reluctance to deal with the countryside : and focus only on the smaller urban sectors of the economy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Nationalist government reported in 1937 that 3,935 factories had registered : of the factories reported, 590 only were in existence before 1937 and 3,168 had been established during 1938-42. However, even when focussing on industrial matters, the Nationalist government certainly did not produce unparalleled success. After 1942 industrial activity began to slow down due to levels of inflation and industrial output stagnated and decline especially between 1937-40. Therefore the Nationalist government crucially mismanaged the Chinese economy : from 1931 Chinese farmers experienced a sharp fall in income and a striking reversal in terms of trade - brought about dually by economic depression and governmental policies, or lack thereof.
Yet, we must not lose sight of the economic depression that undoubtedly played a significant role in creating added pressures for the government to deal with : even under communism, with the emphasis firmly on investment and research in agriculture, China’s farm output continued to lag behind. Perhaps it may well be that China had inherent problems with its economy : for instance, few of the 19th/20th Century innovations in seeds, implements, fertilisers and insecticides had found their way into rural China. Indeed, from examining land ownership statistics we may realise fully the extent of the Chinese ‘rural’ problem, which may be considered to be out of the hands of the Nationalist government. From a land survey taken in the late 1930’s of 16 provinces, the average holding of 1,295,001 owners was 15.17 mau. But the 73% of families owning 15 mau or less held 34% of the total land, whilst the 5% of families owning 50 mau or more held 34% of the total land. Therefore, economically speaking, the Nationalist government clearly made severe errors in judgement with regards to government spending, research and implementation. However, there also were existing problems facing the government : ones which had existed in China long before Chiang’s KMT came to power in 1927. Therefore, the analysis concerning the Nationalists failure to bring prosperity to China has been largely examined : however, in dealing with stability we need to delve into the party structure, maintenance and ideology.
Eastman comments, “the Nanking regime was born of factional strife and bloodshed” - indeed, the KMT consolidated its grip on power in 1927 through a mass series of killings directed towards suspected communists. Upon taking national power the regime was faced with considerable problems : all of which should be illuminated when assessing why the Nationalists were unable to bring stability to China. The government had to turn back the tide of national disintegration that had existed for over a century : a central government had ceased to exist, political power devolved into the regional hands of militaristic warlords concerned only with their own wealth and enhancement of military force. Many believed that Nationalist rule marked the beginning of a new and cohesive era of a unified, strong China. However, with regards to stability, it would be the internal power struggles combined with the external war with Japan that would make it impossible for the Nationalists to stabilise China. After 1928, once Chiang had finally consolidated his grip on the party, he proceeded to alter the character the government took. So began radical purges within the party, most notably of those on the Left : the purge of the socialists had a negative effect, leaving those members who rarely worked at grass roots level behind and removing from the revolutionary movement those with passion, vigour, discipline and commitment to the cause. By 1929 the left wing of the party had been more or less fully suppressed : Chiang’s decision to go after this element of the KMT would have important repercussions, driving into the eager hands of the communists many experienced and intelligent revolutionaries. Further to this, Chiang instructed the youth of the party, prone to left-wing idealism, to leave the party : further driving a stake between the Nationalists and the communists. Between 1929-31 the party was stripped of most of its power and ceased to play a role in the formulation of policy. Instead, Chiang relied on old-style bureaucrats and the army to consolidate his power. By 1929, 4 out of 10 ministries were headed by these types : one disillusioned member commented, upon leaving the party, “the party is nearly usurped by the old mandarin influence.” The effects of this ‘mandarin’ influence were far-reaching : lust for power, disregard for the public (especially in the countryside) and values, attitudes and practices of the old warlord regimes had been harnessed by the Nationalists : a crucial error, and one which contributed immensely to the governments inability to provide any stable platform for political and economic growth.
Indeed, even as late as 1946 - reformers surveyed the corruption of their government and attributed it to the political opportunists and bureaucrats favoured by Chiang throughout the period of rule. Furthermore, the pervasive influence of the army proved deeply unpopular : under Nationalist rule, the army became the preponderant element of rule rather than the government or party. Strikingly, of the party leaders (members of the Central Executive Committee) 43% in 1935 were military officers. 25 out of 33 Chairmen of the provinces controlled by the Nationalists between 1927-37 were generals. Connected with the importance of the military to the Nationalist regime was the militarism of the various provinces dealt with by Nanking. Chiang’s crucial mistake was to institutionalise the position of the provincial militarists, thus allowing these warlords to become autonomous organs that legitimised their regional dominance, and inadvertently continuing the ‘rural’ problem that so afflicted rural China. Of course, many were defeated in battle, which served only to further the instability and chaos throughout the nation : such as the victories over the Kwangsi in 1929 and the Northern Coalition in 1930. Perhaps even more significantly however, was the invasion of Japan in 1931 and subsequent war after 1937, which seriously economically destabilised the nation and served to exacerbate China’s internal problems, despite initial attempts to ‘come together’ in the face of the imperialist foe.
However, aside from external factors such as the Sino-Japanese war, institutional factors too played their part in the Nationalists’ inability to bring stability to China. Franklin Ho wrote, “the real authority of the government went wherever the generalissimo [Chiang] went.” As a result of this the government, as a policy-formulating and administrative organisation, languished. Much of the civilian apparatus within the legislative branch of government had neither the finance nor power to implement its proposals. The civil government remained subordinate to the interests of Chiang and the military : which created even more of a chasm between the Nationalists and much of public opinion. Further to this, the Nationalists targeted particularly politicised groups such as trade unions and students for repression. After 1927, the leadership of China’s labour unions was replaced with agents of the regime and independent union activities prohibited. Also during the student revolts of 1931-2 and 35-6 thousands were thrown into prison and students were terrorised by the presence of government informers in their classes. The Nationalists thus alienated them and pushed these groups politically leftward, many allying with the communists. This push leftwards played into the hands of a group long-repressed by the Nationalists : who, in stark contrast to the government, exercised an extremely successful policy of popularising and supporting peasant movements in the Chinese countryside. The communists could not have won power in 1949 without the peasant armies and support of so many villages. Equally so, without the communists, the peasants would never have conceived the idea of revolution : therefore the two are inextricably inter-twined. Disillusioned communists successfully channelled energies into the three major peasant discontents : rent, interest and taxes and they successfully prevented an alternative to the Nationalists whom were seen to identify only with the landlords in the countryside. Bianco draws attention to the marked increase in riots with relation to tax during the Nationalist government’s tenure. There was also a significant number of other anti-fiscal riots : their targets, usually governmental civil servants and tax collectors. The communists clearly realised the military potential of the peasantry : clearly showcased from events such as the Lung-t’ien incident in December 1931 when tens of thousands of peasants attacked a detachment of 2,500 soldiers. Thus, the peasants, without possessing a strong sense of class consciousness were clearly disillusioned with Nationalist rule : the spontaneous orientation of peasant anger suggest they were far more conscious of state oppression than of class exploitation. The sheer scale and variety of disturbances clearly highlights the peasantries alienation from the Nationalist state : the communists’ vital achievement was thus in turning this potential into action. One man crucially responsible for uniting communists with peasant communities was P’eng P’ai whose overall success was remarkable. He discovered that setting up a peasant associated proved difficult at first - but once the step was taken to address the peasants on their level about issues that primarily concerned them, members flocked : the communists won peasants and artisans over to their organisations by adapting to the peasant’s world : something which the Nationalists more than failed to do. No link existed between the Nationalists and the peasants : a vital reason in the reasoning behind the inability of the government to bring stability or prosperity to China.
Throughout the Nationalist reign, the civil bureaucracy remained corrupt and inefficient : the government failed to identify with the people, but rather stood above them. The crucial error on behalf of Chiang’s government lay in not allowing the politically mobilised elements of society to become involved in the processes of government. The communists had begun providing the organisation that could convey peasant discontents into political power : but the Nationalists had the chance to turn the countryside into a powerful ally : instead it allowed it to become economically impoverished and politically hostile. Over-bureaucratisation, economic mismanagement, general inefficiency and too many links with the ‘warlords’ of old created innumerable problems for the Nationalist government. Add to this already long list the extensive external problems faced by Chiang’s government - such as severe economic depression and invasion from imperial Japan and it becomes no great surprise that the Nationalist government was unable to bring both stability and prosperity to China.
There is no doubting that the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek faced considerable problems from their 1927 conception all the way to their eventual, and perhaps inevitable, displacement at the hands of Mao’s communists in 1949. There appears to be a divide between historians : those whom conclude that the Nationalist government established a sound system of rule and good foundations for future development and democracy : only to be ruined by the invasion of and subsequent war with imperial Japan. Others contend that the government was corrupt and seriously inefficient, out of step with the vast majority of the Chinese population : most notably those in rural areas. However, ultimately it failed : and therefore the second line of argument must be taken and developed : to investigate the internal and external factors behind the demise of Chiang’s regime. The Nationalists decision to implement an old-school style of bureaucratic control at local government level, often seeing to be allied with the warlords of yesteryear proved ultimately disastrous : as did their neglect of the agricultural sector of the economy. As for stability, we may well question whether this was ever going to be possible under such a fringe regime which did so well in alienating support and distancing itself from the population at large. Ultimately, it would prove the Nationalist’s ignoring of this ‘population’ which would drive a considerable chunk of potential support into the hands of the communists, especially in the countryside - and thus the government was totally unable to bring either stability or prosperity to China.
Supporters of the Nationalist government have argued that economic depression, foreign invasion and civil strife were surely conditions beyond the control of the Nationalists. They point to achievements by the government : most notably, the positive reversal of territorial disintegration of China. Under the Nationalist government, China became more unified and centralised than ever before : albeit achieved through military means. By 1936, Chiang had consolidated political control over the greater part of the nation. However, in expanding the Nationalist’s borders so extensively : he allowed, crucially, for weakness in the provinces : and should instead have contented himself with the nominal allegiance of various provincial leaders and endeavoured to create a modern and efficient model of political, economic and social reform which may well have prevented further civil war. We may thus make a judgement concerning the failure of the Nationalist government to bring prosperity to China through analysing the economic policy and implementation of the government. The overwhelming agricultural nature of the Chinese economy must first be noted, it accounted for 65% alone of net domestic product. However, under the Nationalists - land reform and legislation was not forthcoming, the much vaunted 1930 Land Law was prevented from becoming legislation. The ratio between population and food production was somewhat addressed - the government undertook a broad and vague program to increase the farmers’ productivity through sponsoring research on new seed varieties and pesticides. However, these projects had a minimal impact - less than 4% of governmental expenditure was devoted to economic development during the 30’s. Franklin Ho wrote, rather revealingly, that “nothing went beyond the planning stage at the national level between 1927-37.” The Nationalist government thus did little to reduce rural impoverishment - which was especially acute in the wake of the 1929 World Depression and several dreadful bouts of weather. However, one may question whether the problems were indeed too great to be solved in a decade or so, certainly we must not overlook the considerably negative situation the Nationalist government was faced with.
Despite the problems faced by the government : the bitter decade of the 30’s brought about a sharp reduction in the already low standard of life for millions of Chinese people, economic hardship, in rural China especially, was endemic and worsened after 1937. Considering agriculture and other traditional based non-urbanised sectors accounted for 87.4% of the national income : it is certainly possible to criticise the Nationalist government for not implementing more reform and show real effort to tackle China’s rural problems. Of course, situations did not help : the invasion of North China especially saw a crippling of farm production and breakdown of the commercial links between town and countryside. Natural disasters further prevented the government from tackling its rural demons, such as droughts and floods, the Yangtze flooded in 1931 for example. Throw civil war into the mix, prevalent throughout the 20’s and 40’s and you have altogether a nightmare situation. Critics of the Nationalist government have thus stressed its lack of focus on rural matters resulted in its eventual demise : and point to the agricultural recovery, which by 1952 had returned output to pre-1949 levels being based on the success of a new and effective government ready to deal with agricultural matters. The largest criticism we may perhaps hurl at the Nationalist government may well be its reluctance to deal with the countryside : and focus only on the smaller urban sectors of the economy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Nationalist government reported in 1937 that 3,935 factories had registered : of the factories reported, 590 only were in existence before 1937 and 3,168 had been established during 1938-42. However, even when focussing on industrial matters, the Nationalist government certainly did not produce unparalleled success. After 1942 industrial activity began to slow down due to levels of inflation and industrial output stagnated and decline especially between 1937-40. Therefore the Nationalist government crucially mismanaged the Chinese economy : from 1931 Chinese farmers experienced a sharp fall in income and a striking reversal in terms of trade - brought about dually by economic depression and governmental policies, or lack thereof.
Yet, we must not lose sight of the economic depression that undoubtedly played a significant role in creating added pressures for the government to deal with : even under communism, with the emphasis firmly on investment and research in agriculture, China’s farm output continued to lag behind. Perhaps it may well be that China had inherent problems with its economy : for instance, few of the 19th/20th Century innovations in seeds, implements, fertilisers and insecticides had found their way into rural China. Indeed, from examining land ownership statistics we may realise fully the extent of the Chinese ‘rural’ problem, which may be considered to be out of the hands of the Nationalist government. From a land survey taken in the late 1930’s of 16 provinces, the average holding of 1,295,001 owners was 15.17 mau. But the 73% of families owning 15 mau or less held 34% of the total land, whilst the 5% of families owning 50 mau or more held 34% of the total land. Therefore, economically speaking, the Nationalist government clearly made severe errors in judgement with regards to government spending, research and implementation. However, there also were existing problems facing the government : ones which had existed in China long before Chiang’s KMT came to power in 1927. Therefore, the analysis concerning the Nationalists failure to bring prosperity to China has been largely examined : however, in dealing with stability we need to delve into the party structure, maintenance and ideology.
Eastman comments, “the Nanking regime was born of factional strife and bloodshed” - indeed, the KMT consolidated its grip on power in 1927 through a mass series of killings directed towards suspected communists. Upon taking national power the regime was faced with considerable problems : all of which should be illuminated when assessing why the Nationalists were unable to bring stability to China. The government had to turn back the tide of national disintegration that had existed for over a century : a central government had ceased to exist, political power devolved into the regional hands of militaristic warlords concerned only with their own wealth and enhancement of military force. Many believed that Nationalist rule marked the beginning of a new and cohesive era of a unified, strong China. However, with regards to stability, it would be the internal power struggles combined with the external war with Japan that would make it impossible for the Nationalists to stabilise China. After 1928, once Chiang had finally consolidated his grip on the party, he proceeded to alter the character the government took. So began radical purges within the party, most notably of those on the Left : the purge of the socialists had a negative effect, leaving those members who rarely worked at grass roots level behind and removing from the revolutionary movement those with passion, vigour, discipline and commitment to the cause. By 1929 the left wing of the party had been more or less fully suppressed : Chiang’s decision to go after this element of the KMT would have important repercussions, driving into the eager hands of the communists many experienced and intelligent revolutionaries. Further to this, Chiang instructed the youth of the party, prone to left-wing idealism, to leave the party : further driving a stake between the Nationalists and the communists. Between 1929-31 the party was stripped of most of its power and ceased to play a role in the formulation of policy. Instead, Chiang relied on old-style bureaucrats and the army to consolidate his power. By 1929, 4 out of 10 ministries were headed by these types : one disillusioned member commented, upon leaving the party, “the party is nearly usurped by the old mandarin influence.” The effects of this ‘mandarin’ influence were far-reaching : lust for power, disregard for the public (especially in the countryside) and values, attitudes and practices of the old warlord regimes had been harnessed by the Nationalists : a crucial error, and one which contributed immensely to the governments inability to provide any stable platform for political and economic growth.
Indeed, even as late as 1946 - reformers surveyed the corruption of their government and attributed it to the political opportunists and bureaucrats favoured by Chiang throughout the period of rule. Furthermore, the pervasive influence of the army proved deeply unpopular : under Nationalist rule, the army became the preponderant element of rule rather than the government or party. Strikingly, of the party leaders (members of the Central Executive Committee) 43% in 1935 were military officers. 25 out of 33 Chairmen of the provinces controlled by the Nationalists between 1927-37 were generals. Connected with the importance of the military to the Nationalist regime was the militarism of the various provinces dealt with by Nanking. Chiang’s crucial mistake was to institutionalise the position of the provincial militarists, thus allowing these warlords to become autonomous organs that legitimised their regional dominance, and inadvertently continuing the ‘rural’ problem that so afflicted rural China. Of course, many were defeated in battle, which served only to further the instability and chaos throughout the nation : such as the victories over the Kwangsi in 1929 and the Northern Coalition in 1930. Perhaps even more significantly however, was the invasion of Japan in 1931 and subsequent war after 1937, which seriously economically destabilised the nation and served to exacerbate China’s internal problems, despite initial attempts to ‘come together’ in the face of the imperialist foe.
However, aside from external factors such as the Sino-Japanese war, institutional factors too played their part in the Nationalists’ inability to bring stability to China. Franklin Ho wrote, “the real authority of the government went wherever the generalissimo [Chiang] went.” As a result of this the government, as a policy-formulating and administrative organisation, languished. Much of the civilian apparatus within the legislative branch of government had neither the finance nor power to implement its proposals. The civil government remained subordinate to the interests of Chiang and the military : which created even more of a chasm between the Nationalists and much of public opinion. Further to this, the Nationalists targeted particularly politicised groups such as trade unions and students for repression. After 1927, the leadership of China’s labour unions was replaced with agents of the regime and independent union activities prohibited. Also during the student revolts of 1931-2 and 35-6 thousands were thrown into prison and students were terrorised by the presence of government informers in their classes. The Nationalists thus alienated them and pushed these groups politically leftward, many allying with the communists. This push leftwards played into the hands of a group long-repressed by the Nationalists : who, in stark contrast to the government, exercised an extremely successful policy of popularising and supporting peasant movements in the Chinese countryside. The communists could not have won power in 1949 without the peasant armies and support of so many villages. Equally so, without the communists, the peasants would never have conceived the idea of revolution : therefore the two are inextricably inter-twined. Disillusioned communists successfully channelled energies into the three major peasant discontents : rent, interest and taxes and they successfully prevented an alternative to the Nationalists whom were seen to identify only with the landlords in the countryside. Bianco draws attention to the marked increase in riots with relation to tax during the Nationalist government’s tenure. There was also a significant number of other anti-fiscal riots : their targets, usually governmental civil servants and tax collectors. The communists clearly realised the military potential of the peasantry : clearly showcased from events such as the Lung-t’ien incident in December 1931 when tens of thousands of peasants attacked a detachment of 2,500 soldiers. Thus, the peasants, without possessing a strong sense of class consciousness were clearly disillusioned with Nationalist rule : the spontaneous orientation of peasant anger suggest they were far more conscious of state oppression than of class exploitation. The sheer scale and variety of disturbances clearly highlights the peasantries alienation from the Nationalist state : the communists’ vital achievement was thus in turning this potential into action. One man crucially responsible for uniting communists with peasant communities was P’eng P’ai whose overall success was remarkable. He discovered that setting up a peasant associated proved difficult at first - but once the step was taken to address the peasants on their level about issues that primarily concerned them, members flocked : the communists won peasants and artisans over to their organisations by adapting to the peasant’s world : something which the Nationalists more than failed to do. No link existed between the Nationalists and the peasants : a vital reason in the reasoning behind the inability of the government to bring stability or prosperity to China.
Throughout the Nationalist reign, the civil bureaucracy remained corrupt and inefficient : the government failed to identify with the people, but rather stood above them. The crucial error on behalf of Chiang’s government lay in not allowing the politically mobilised elements of society to become involved in the processes of government. The communists had begun providing the organisation that could convey peasant discontents into political power : but the Nationalists had the chance to turn the countryside into a powerful ally : instead it allowed it to become economically impoverished and politically hostile. Over-bureaucratisation, economic mismanagement, general inefficiency and too many links with the ‘warlords’ of old created innumerable problems for the Nationalist government. Add to this already long list the extensive external problems faced by Chiang’s government - such as severe economic depression and invasion from imperial Japan and it becomes no great surprise that the Nationalist government was unable to bring both stability and prosperity to China.
The Cuban Revolutionary Movement
“Why did Cuba have the most successful revolutionary movement in the Caribbean?”
The second half of the 20th Century witnessed multiple revolutionary attempts at government overhaul in the Caribbean and South America. With the exception of Cuba and Nicaragua, they failed amidst a tide of internal dissent within the revolutionaries ranks and brutal repression. The biggest success story, undoubtedly, is that of Castro’s July 26th Movement in Cuba. Therefore, what made Cuba different from the struggles, say, in Grenada or the Dominican Republic? There are certainly political factors : such as the unpopularity of the Batista regime, geographical factors : such as the mountainous nature of Cuba giving advantage to the guerrillas - but also historical factors : such as Cuba’s tradition of anti-imperialistic rebellion. Castro’s History Will Absolve Me highlights many of these features unique to Cuban political life : and thus attempts to justify the success of the revolution in these terms. The Cuban example has clear advantages when compared to other revolutionary movements of the period. Excellent leadership and loyalty can be cited as one case, as can the weakness of Batista and the reluctance (until 1961!) of US intervention. Added to this was the crucial local support given to Castro’s insurrectionists - where other movements throughout the region failed to convince multiple sectors of society of the validity of the cause, Cuba’s exploited working class (and, indeed, many petty bourgeoisie) became vital supporters of Castro’s movement. The failures of attempted coups after Cuba’s success in 1959 suggests that Cuba was unique in June opponents of dictator Trujillo landed in the Dominican Republic but were killed upon landing - there were no survivors to carry the fight into the mountains, as had occurred in Cuba. The implosion of the New Jewel Movement in Grenada later in the century also highlighted the extent to which internal divisions had hampered revolutionary movements in pan-America - Castro’s grip on power was secure, the Cuban insurrectionists suffered few of these problems, and thus succeeded where others failed.
Castro’s infamous 1953 History Will Absolve Me speech, coupled with Che Guevara’s writings on the art of guerrilla warfare provide an excellent primary blueprint helping to explain the success in Cuba. Castro makes strong reference to Jose Marti, the hero of the Cuban anti-imperialists in the 19th Century, imploring, “I carry on the teachings of the Master [Marti] in my heart, and in my mind the noble ideas of all men who have defended people’s freedom everywhere.” Cuba remained under Spanish rule until the very end of the 19th Century - anti-colonial activity was almost continuous, the very nature of the Cuban poor was rebellion towards foreign rule. Further to this, Castro makes a vicious attack upon the Cuban establishment : questioning the Batista regime’s political legitimacy and its popularity with the soldiers, small businessmen and sugar plantation workers - “the dictatorship that oppresses the nation is not a constitutional power, but an unconstitutional one”. Castro duly highlights the many ills of the regime : from its corporate dealings damaging Cuba’s sugar-dependent economy, to its vicious repression at the hands of the SIM secret police. As early as 1953 Castro seems convinced the people of Cuba are already on the side of the revolutionaries, remarking that “If Moncada had fallen into our hands, even the women of Cuba would have risen in arms.” Castro makes his case to each sector of Cuban society : and in this we may see one of the unique factors within the Cuban revolutionary movement, it was able to appeal to large cross-sectors of society - rather than isolated one group, Castro went for them all. He appeals to the soldiers, claiming they are being used by the Batista regime - to the unemployed, the seasonal sugar plantation workers without “an inch of land” to call their own, exploited industrial workers, small businessmen burdened with debt and young professionals with “all doors closed to them”. The five revolutionary laws to be implemented by July 26th appealed to broad sections of society - and thus strengthened the popularity and extent of support behind the movement. Constitutional power to the people, ownership of land to tenant farmers, workers given a 30% profit in large industries, sugar planters a right to share 55% of production and confiscation of illegally gotten property made for a sweeping and popular program of revolutionary change. Crucially, we may also add to this freedom from the American political and economic straitjacket - “Cuba should be the bulwark of liberty and not a shameful link in the chain of despotism.” This would have received extra support uniquely in Cuba due to their relationship with the US, the existence of the Platt Amendment and the United Fruit Company dominating the Cuban political and economic scene. Anti-Americanism was a recurring theme in mainstream Cuban politics and media : one Havana newspaper proclaimed in 1922 after unwelcome developments in the sugar industry, “hatred of North America will be the religion of Cubans.”
The question that must be asked therefore, is why did the US not intervene sooner to prevent Castro’s victory in 1959? They certainly had the capacity, as they had shown in investing arms and ‘military advisors’ in Vietnam for many years. Cuba’s geography may well have helped - Castro’s insurgents were holed up in rugged and mountainous terrain that few regular forces could penetrate. Maybe it is with the US’ relationship with Batista in which we may identify the inherent weakness of the latter’s regime. The US needed local instruments through with to project power - but it had aligned itself with a flawed, weak, corrupt, ineffective and deeply unpopular regime it ultimately could not control, similarly to Chaing Kai-Shek in China or Diem in South Vietnam. We could also tie in the popularity of Castro with the inaction of US intervention - the US could not control or crush such a strong leader or stem the cascading popular support his movement generated. It also may be seen that US officials over-estimated the ability of the Cuban armed forces. The Cuban military was corrupt, ill-trained and poorly commanded - the will to fight was lacking among Batista’s troops, especially when compared with the dedicated guerrillas. Castro makes reference to this also - “the army suffered three times as many casualties [at Moncada] as we did - because our men were expertly trained.” The lack of US involvement may also have been down to the perceived notion that Castro was not a communist - deeming the situation manageable when compared to events such as Berlin and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, the non-involvement of the US undoubtedly gave Castro’s forces an added advantage. Witness the ease with which the entrance of the US military ended progressive forces in Guatemala in 1954 and Grenada in 1983 and it is clear just how much of an advantage Castro had not facing US wrath before success in 1959.Thus, the uniqueness of the Cuban revolution derives from a set of conditioning factors - socio-economic popularity of the revolutionaries’ program, leadership and the interaction of Cuban history with world (specifically with regards to the US) politics.
The revolutionaries appealed to the sectors of society disenchanted with the Batista regime : such as the large black population - Castro found it highly advantageous for discrediting Batista to propound the ‘instant liberation’ for thousands of previously disadvantaged black Cubans. Furthermore, the key area of conflict and thus future revolutionary policy was undoubtedly the countryside. Illiteracy, poverty, dreadful health and seasonal unemployment were all rife - there were few schools, fewer clinics, bad roads, impure water supplies and little electricity. The country’s substantial resource base was only partially exploited, for the advantages of the few businessmen in control, and under foreign control. The popularity enjoyed by the policies of July 26th can therefore be no surprise when looking at the situation in the countryside under Batista. With regards to leadership, the revolution was incarnate with Fidel Castro. Because of Castro’s dominant personality and political effectiveness, Cuba’s revolutionary progress was not paralysed by inter-elite struggles as befell many other insurrectionary movements in the Caribbean. With regards to Cuban history, Castro skilfully portrayed the struggle as rooted in decades of imperial exploitation and a popular and essential one. Castro’s Cuba was a child both of the contemporary times and the centuries-old Cuban revolutionary tradition - a truly popular indigenous movement sufficiently shaped by Cuban history, geography, economy, culture and personalities. It would therefore be wise to identify the failings of the insurrectionary movements elsewhere and compare conditions with those of Cuba. Take the example of Venezuela - most of the guerrillas were disenchanted members of the military and middle class parties - they could not forge a link with the people and thus ultimately failed. Yet, even when guerrillas attempted to achieve their aims by making common cause with the aspirations of the indigenous peasants they often still failed - as in the cases of Peru and Bolivia. In the latter case, even with the heroic Guevara aiding the guerrilla’s efforts they were betrayed by Monje, the leader of the Bolivian Communist Party and hunted down by the oppressive regime and CIA. Perhaps the most similar example to the Cuban case came from Nicaragua. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) gained power in 1979 after gaining momentum in the 1970’s through garnering peasant support in the north central regions. Similarly to Batista, the Sandinista’s position as viable opposition was given credence by the abuses committed by the dictator Somoza. Despite ideological rifts, the rebels overcame their factional differences and accepted the leadership of the most moderate faction - thus accomplishing its objectives through the creation of a multi-class alliance, similarly to Cuba, that coalesced to overwhelm the resistance of a redundant dictatorship.
Most guerrilla movements have been defeated because of lack of unity, lack of popular support or US intervention paired with guerrilla’s ignorance of local conditions. The overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala by a coalition of forces, including the CIA, highlights that even sometimes popular support and policies were not enough. The revolutionaries in the continent were able to draw important lessons from the Guatemalan experience : a revolution which did not go all the way in dispossessing the wealthy and giving the peasants and poorer classes a solid stake in the revolution. Furthermore, the case of Peru further highlights certain factors present in Cuba yet not elsewhere, that thus contributed to the failure of other insurrectionary movements. Luis de la Puente and members of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) chose to emulate the Cuban rebels and being a guerrilla struggle in the Andean countryside in 1962. However, ignorant of the peculiarities of the terrain and betrayed by one of his closes followers (unlike the loyalty of the Cuban guerrillas) and unable to win the support of the people, de la Puente was killed in 1965 by the army. In three years the guerrilla movement had been totally liquidated - with the urban centres and mountain regions failing to act in support of the guerrillas. Add to this the disagreement which existed within the left - the Peru case showcased the futility of squabbles between Trotskyite and Communist factions within a revolutionary movement, which, as we shall see, ruined the New Jewel Movement’s chances of rule in Grenada. In Peru, the guerrillas lacked the necessary ability to adapt rapidly, not only to the terrain, but also to the daily life, language and customs of the peasants - as has been the priority of the July 26th Movement. Ideas promoted by the Peruvian revolutionaries appeared remote to the peasants, who were interested in local demands whilst the guerrillas advocated intricate and theoretical socialist revolution.
Therefore the factors which propelled Castro’s rebels to power were also the same factors for the failures of other movements across Latin America and the Caribbean. When movements across the region attempted to perform a copy-cat revolution akin to Cuba, they invariably failed. Local dynamics and structures had to be taken into account - as has been highlighted, Cuba was unique in its political culture, geography and economic situation. It certainly appeared as though Grenada would be the first predominantly black state to emulate Cuba and carry through a successful armed socialist revolution in 1979. The Cuban government astutely noted in 1983, of the revolution’s failure, “the division among the Grenadian revolutionaries led to this bloody drama. No doctrine, no principle or proclaimed revolutionary position.” Sympathisers to Bishop have attributed the government’s destruction to the party’s chief Marxist theoretician Bernard Coard, who has been roundly condemned for using ‘Stalinist’ tactics to slander Bishop - NJM leader Louison agreed with this, stating that “the revolution was destroyed from within.” Coard’s relations with the workers were not based on promoting their consciousness and mobilisation but on “administrative dictates and the persuasion of the gun” argued Trotskyite American journalist Steve Clark. Following Bishop’s public execution Castro labelled Coard a “hyena” who had “objectively destroyed the revolution and opened the door to imperialistic aggression.” The revolution in Grenada was thus an excellent example of how devastating internal dissent can be in a revolutionary movement. Castro never suffered too badly from this, and thus consolidated grip on power without the in-fighting witnessed in many other revolutionary movements, Grenada being the prime example. Marable exemplifies the crucial point that there existed two uneven and contradictory strains of socialism within the NJM. After the failure to sweep the despotic Gairy from power in 1973 the movement reassessed its strategy and tactics, adopting a more closely knit formation approximating a Leninist party - with its commitment to socialist goals bound to their beliefs in mass education, participation and popular mobilisation. However, attempts at gaining power legitimately through political means failed : the 1976 election under the ‘People’s Alliance’ banner failed in the face of repression and electoral rigging. Therefore, power would have to be seized. However, complicating the matter was the very nature of Grenadian society, which in stark contrast to Cuba, lacked a militant, leftist tradition inside the working class - if the NJM was to be successful it would not be a genuine social revolution, but a political insurrection. The original uprising was thus successful in 1979 due to the central concern of democratic rights. In order to appeal to all social classes socialism and class struggle were never mentioned. Bishop stated that “Cuba laid the basis for Grenada” - but did it? Certainly there were similarities - both were ruled under unpopular and despotic leaders, and broad sections of the bourgeoisie were anxious for political change. Yet the disconuities were far more profound - the Cuban proletariat had been receptive to the socialist policies of Castro, as originally outlined in the 1953 History Will Absolve Me speech, because of its rich history of class struggle and industrial organisations. The Grenadian working class was small and had no tradition of Marxism - furthermore, Castro could appeal to the revolutionary tradition of Jose Marti - presenting 1959 as a logical culmination of a century-long process, no such tradition could be presented in Grenada. The NJM was also unfortunate in that its existence coincided with some of Washington’s most defensive acts in the region - the Carter administration desperately tried to bolster the Somoza regime in Nicaragua in 1979 and began a media-distorting campaign in an attempt to turn the people of Grenada against its new revolutionary government. The culmination of this turbulent period came with Bloody Wednesday in 1983 and the repression instigated by the Coard faction after the workers struck in solidarity with the arrested (and soon to be shot) Bishop. The theory of socialist orientation had been Coard’s method - yet Grenadian social realities had not conformed to the theory and thus coercion was used to mould society into alignment of a theory non-befitting the local conditions. Under a moderate, liberal and progressive Bishop government - the Grenadian revolution had succeeded - yet internal divisions over ideology tore it apart. We may therefore identify this as the crucial missing factor in Cuba - Castro’s leadership skills and tight control over the movement prevented such a disaster from befalling his insurrectionists.
Thus the differences between Cuba and the rest of the pan-American revolutionary attempts have been widely discussed and showcased. Cuba was an island of magnificent anti-imperialistic and rebellious history, with a people ready and willing to support an insurrection against a hated regime. Castro noted that, “the right to rebellion is at the very root of Cuba’s existence as a nation”. A fitting note of conclusion may be derived from the words of the Cuban National Anthem : “to live in chains is to live in disgrace and to die for one’s homeland is to live forever!”
The second half of the 20th Century witnessed multiple revolutionary attempts at government overhaul in the Caribbean and South America. With the exception of Cuba and Nicaragua, they failed amidst a tide of internal dissent within the revolutionaries ranks and brutal repression. The biggest success story, undoubtedly, is that of Castro’s July 26th Movement in Cuba. Therefore, what made Cuba different from the struggles, say, in Grenada or the Dominican Republic? There are certainly political factors : such as the unpopularity of the Batista regime, geographical factors : such as the mountainous nature of Cuba giving advantage to the guerrillas - but also historical factors : such as Cuba’s tradition of anti-imperialistic rebellion. Castro’s History Will Absolve Me highlights many of these features unique to Cuban political life : and thus attempts to justify the success of the revolution in these terms. The Cuban example has clear advantages when compared to other revolutionary movements of the period. Excellent leadership and loyalty can be cited as one case, as can the weakness of Batista and the reluctance (until 1961!) of US intervention. Added to this was the crucial local support given to Castro’s insurrectionists - where other movements throughout the region failed to convince multiple sectors of society of the validity of the cause, Cuba’s exploited working class (and, indeed, many petty bourgeoisie) became vital supporters of Castro’s movement. The failures of attempted coups after Cuba’s success in 1959 suggests that Cuba was unique in June opponents of dictator Trujillo landed in the Dominican Republic but were killed upon landing - there were no survivors to carry the fight into the mountains, as had occurred in Cuba. The implosion of the New Jewel Movement in Grenada later in the century also highlighted the extent to which internal divisions had hampered revolutionary movements in pan-America - Castro’s grip on power was secure, the Cuban insurrectionists suffered few of these problems, and thus succeeded where others failed.
Castro’s infamous 1953 History Will Absolve Me speech, coupled with Che Guevara’s writings on the art of guerrilla warfare provide an excellent primary blueprint helping to explain the success in Cuba. Castro makes strong reference to Jose Marti, the hero of the Cuban anti-imperialists in the 19th Century, imploring, “I carry on the teachings of the Master [Marti] in my heart, and in my mind the noble ideas of all men who have defended people’s freedom everywhere.” Cuba remained under Spanish rule until the very end of the 19th Century - anti-colonial activity was almost continuous, the very nature of the Cuban poor was rebellion towards foreign rule. Further to this, Castro makes a vicious attack upon the Cuban establishment : questioning the Batista regime’s political legitimacy and its popularity with the soldiers, small businessmen and sugar plantation workers - “the dictatorship that oppresses the nation is not a constitutional power, but an unconstitutional one”. Castro duly highlights the many ills of the regime : from its corporate dealings damaging Cuba’s sugar-dependent economy, to its vicious repression at the hands of the SIM secret police. As early as 1953 Castro seems convinced the people of Cuba are already on the side of the revolutionaries, remarking that “If Moncada had fallen into our hands, even the women of Cuba would have risen in arms.” Castro makes his case to each sector of Cuban society : and in this we may see one of the unique factors within the Cuban revolutionary movement, it was able to appeal to large cross-sectors of society - rather than isolated one group, Castro went for them all. He appeals to the soldiers, claiming they are being used by the Batista regime - to the unemployed, the seasonal sugar plantation workers without “an inch of land” to call their own, exploited industrial workers, small businessmen burdened with debt and young professionals with “all doors closed to them”. The five revolutionary laws to be implemented by July 26th appealed to broad sections of society - and thus strengthened the popularity and extent of support behind the movement. Constitutional power to the people, ownership of land to tenant farmers, workers given a 30% profit in large industries, sugar planters a right to share 55% of production and confiscation of illegally gotten property made for a sweeping and popular program of revolutionary change. Crucially, we may also add to this freedom from the American political and economic straitjacket - “Cuba should be the bulwark of liberty and not a shameful link in the chain of despotism.” This would have received extra support uniquely in Cuba due to their relationship with the US, the existence of the Platt Amendment and the United Fruit Company dominating the Cuban political and economic scene. Anti-Americanism was a recurring theme in mainstream Cuban politics and media : one Havana newspaper proclaimed in 1922 after unwelcome developments in the sugar industry, “hatred of North America will be the religion of Cubans.”
The question that must be asked therefore, is why did the US not intervene sooner to prevent Castro’s victory in 1959? They certainly had the capacity, as they had shown in investing arms and ‘military advisors’ in Vietnam for many years. Cuba’s geography may well have helped - Castro’s insurgents were holed up in rugged and mountainous terrain that few regular forces could penetrate. Maybe it is with the US’ relationship with Batista in which we may identify the inherent weakness of the latter’s regime. The US needed local instruments through with to project power - but it had aligned itself with a flawed, weak, corrupt, ineffective and deeply unpopular regime it ultimately could not control, similarly to Chaing Kai-Shek in China or Diem in South Vietnam. We could also tie in the popularity of Castro with the inaction of US intervention - the US could not control or crush such a strong leader or stem the cascading popular support his movement generated. It also may be seen that US officials over-estimated the ability of the Cuban armed forces. The Cuban military was corrupt, ill-trained and poorly commanded - the will to fight was lacking among Batista’s troops, especially when compared with the dedicated guerrillas. Castro makes reference to this also - “the army suffered three times as many casualties [at Moncada] as we did - because our men were expertly trained.” The lack of US involvement may also have been down to the perceived notion that Castro was not a communist - deeming the situation manageable when compared to events such as Berlin and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, the non-involvement of the US undoubtedly gave Castro’s forces an added advantage. Witness the ease with which the entrance of the US military ended progressive forces in Guatemala in 1954 and Grenada in 1983 and it is clear just how much of an advantage Castro had not facing US wrath before success in 1959.Thus, the uniqueness of the Cuban revolution derives from a set of conditioning factors - socio-economic popularity of the revolutionaries’ program, leadership and the interaction of Cuban history with world (specifically with regards to the US) politics.
The revolutionaries appealed to the sectors of society disenchanted with the Batista regime : such as the large black population - Castro found it highly advantageous for discrediting Batista to propound the ‘instant liberation’ for thousands of previously disadvantaged black Cubans. Furthermore, the key area of conflict and thus future revolutionary policy was undoubtedly the countryside. Illiteracy, poverty, dreadful health and seasonal unemployment were all rife - there were few schools, fewer clinics, bad roads, impure water supplies and little electricity. The country’s substantial resource base was only partially exploited, for the advantages of the few businessmen in control, and under foreign control. The popularity enjoyed by the policies of July 26th can therefore be no surprise when looking at the situation in the countryside under Batista. With regards to leadership, the revolution was incarnate with Fidel Castro. Because of Castro’s dominant personality and political effectiveness, Cuba’s revolutionary progress was not paralysed by inter-elite struggles as befell many other insurrectionary movements in the Caribbean. With regards to Cuban history, Castro skilfully portrayed the struggle as rooted in decades of imperial exploitation and a popular and essential one. Castro’s Cuba was a child both of the contemporary times and the centuries-old Cuban revolutionary tradition - a truly popular indigenous movement sufficiently shaped by Cuban history, geography, economy, culture and personalities. It would therefore be wise to identify the failings of the insurrectionary movements elsewhere and compare conditions with those of Cuba. Take the example of Venezuela - most of the guerrillas were disenchanted members of the military and middle class parties - they could not forge a link with the people and thus ultimately failed. Yet, even when guerrillas attempted to achieve their aims by making common cause with the aspirations of the indigenous peasants they often still failed - as in the cases of Peru and Bolivia. In the latter case, even with the heroic Guevara aiding the guerrilla’s efforts they were betrayed by Monje, the leader of the Bolivian Communist Party and hunted down by the oppressive regime and CIA. Perhaps the most similar example to the Cuban case came from Nicaragua. The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) gained power in 1979 after gaining momentum in the 1970’s through garnering peasant support in the north central regions. Similarly to Batista, the Sandinista’s position as viable opposition was given credence by the abuses committed by the dictator Somoza. Despite ideological rifts, the rebels overcame their factional differences and accepted the leadership of the most moderate faction - thus accomplishing its objectives through the creation of a multi-class alliance, similarly to Cuba, that coalesced to overwhelm the resistance of a redundant dictatorship.
Most guerrilla movements have been defeated because of lack of unity, lack of popular support or US intervention paired with guerrilla’s ignorance of local conditions. The overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala by a coalition of forces, including the CIA, highlights that even sometimes popular support and policies were not enough. The revolutionaries in the continent were able to draw important lessons from the Guatemalan experience : a revolution which did not go all the way in dispossessing the wealthy and giving the peasants and poorer classes a solid stake in the revolution. Furthermore, the case of Peru further highlights certain factors present in Cuba yet not elsewhere, that thus contributed to the failure of other insurrectionary movements. Luis de la Puente and members of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) chose to emulate the Cuban rebels and being a guerrilla struggle in the Andean countryside in 1962. However, ignorant of the peculiarities of the terrain and betrayed by one of his closes followers (unlike the loyalty of the Cuban guerrillas) and unable to win the support of the people, de la Puente was killed in 1965 by the army. In three years the guerrilla movement had been totally liquidated - with the urban centres and mountain regions failing to act in support of the guerrillas. Add to this the disagreement which existed within the left - the Peru case showcased the futility of squabbles between Trotskyite and Communist factions within a revolutionary movement, which, as we shall see, ruined the New Jewel Movement’s chances of rule in Grenada. In Peru, the guerrillas lacked the necessary ability to adapt rapidly, not only to the terrain, but also to the daily life, language and customs of the peasants - as has been the priority of the July 26th Movement. Ideas promoted by the Peruvian revolutionaries appeared remote to the peasants, who were interested in local demands whilst the guerrillas advocated intricate and theoretical socialist revolution.
Therefore the factors which propelled Castro’s rebels to power were also the same factors for the failures of other movements across Latin America and the Caribbean. When movements across the region attempted to perform a copy-cat revolution akin to Cuba, they invariably failed. Local dynamics and structures had to be taken into account - as has been highlighted, Cuba was unique in its political culture, geography and economic situation. It certainly appeared as though Grenada would be the first predominantly black state to emulate Cuba and carry through a successful armed socialist revolution in 1979. The Cuban government astutely noted in 1983, of the revolution’s failure, “the division among the Grenadian revolutionaries led to this bloody drama. No doctrine, no principle or proclaimed revolutionary position.” Sympathisers to Bishop have attributed the government’s destruction to the party’s chief Marxist theoretician Bernard Coard, who has been roundly condemned for using ‘Stalinist’ tactics to slander Bishop - NJM leader Louison agreed with this, stating that “the revolution was destroyed from within.” Coard’s relations with the workers were not based on promoting their consciousness and mobilisation but on “administrative dictates and the persuasion of the gun” argued Trotskyite American journalist Steve Clark. Following Bishop’s public execution Castro labelled Coard a “hyena” who had “objectively destroyed the revolution and opened the door to imperialistic aggression.” The revolution in Grenada was thus an excellent example of how devastating internal dissent can be in a revolutionary movement. Castro never suffered too badly from this, and thus consolidated grip on power without the in-fighting witnessed in many other revolutionary movements, Grenada being the prime example. Marable exemplifies the crucial point that there existed two uneven and contradictory strains of socialism within the NJM. After the failure to sweep the despotic Gairy from power in 1973 the movement reassessed its strategy and tactics, adopting a more closely knit formation approximating a Leninist party - with its commitment to socialist goals bound to their beliefs in mass education, participation and popular mobilisation. However, attempts at gaining power legitimately through political means failed : the 1976 election under the ‘People’s Alliance’ banner failed in the face of repression and electoral rigging. Therefore, power would have to be seized. However, complicating the matter was the very nature of Grenadian society, which in stark contrast to Cuba, lacked a militant, leftist tradition inside the working class - if the NJM was to be successful it would not be a genuine social revolution, but a political insurrection. The original uprising was thus successful in 1979 due to the central concern of democratic rights. In order to appeal to all social classes socialism and class struggle were never mentioned. Bishop stated that “Cuba laid the basis for Grenada” - but did it? Certainly there were similarities - both were ruled under unpopular and despotic leaders, and broad sections of the bourgeoisie were anxious for political change. Yet the disconuities were far more profound - the Cuban proletariat had been receptive to the socialist policies of Castro, as originally outlined in the 1953 History Will Absolve Me speech, because of its rich history of class struggle and industrial organisations. The Grenadian working class was small and had no tradition of Marxism - furthermore, Castro could appeal to the revolutionary tradition of Jose Marti - presenting 1959 as a logical culmination of a century-long process, no such tradition could be presented in Grenada. The NJM was also unfortunate in that its existence coincided with some of Washington’s most defensive acts in the region - the Carter administration desperately tried to bolster the Somoza regime in Nicaragua in 1979 and began a media-distorting campaign in an attempt to turn the people of Grenada against its new revolutionary government. The culmination of this turbulent period came with Bloody Wednesday in 1983 and the repression instigated by the Coard faction after the workers struck in solidarity with the arrested (and soon to be shot) Bishop. The theory of socialist orientation had been Coard’s method - yet Grenadian social realities had not conformed to the theory and thus coercion was used to mould society into alignment of a theory non-befitting the local conditions. Under a moderate, liberal and progressive Bishop government - the Grenadian revolution had succeeded - yet internal divisions over ideology tore it apart. We may therefore identify this as the crucial missing factor in Cuba - Castro’s leadership skills and tight control over the movement prevented such a disaster from befalling his insurrectionists.
Thus the differences between Cuba and the rest of the pan-American revolutionary attempts have been widely discussed and showcased. Cuba was an island of magnificent anti-imperialistic and rebellious history, with a people ready and willing to support an insurrection against a hated regime. Castro noted that, “the right to rebellion is at the very root of Cuba’s existence as a nation”. A fitting note of conclusion may be derived from the words of the Cuban National Anthem : “to live in chains is to live in disgrace and to die for one’s homeland is to live forever!”
Tuesday 27 April 2010
The Conservative Party and Inter-War Dominance : An Investigation
The inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservatives can be attributed to several key factors that shaped the political period. Firstly, the unique situation presented after the Representation of the People Act in 1918, the rise of Labour, the disintegration of Liberalism and the changed nature of the political machine. These factors, coupled with the decision to restore the party system after the fall of the Lloyd George Coalition in 1922 proved a vitally significant decision for the future of the Conservative party. What was eventually restored in 1924 was a new party system much more favourable to the Conservatives than the old one - with Labour as the natural party of opposition. During the next seventy years, the Conservatives were to be out of power for only eighteen - this is revealing in assessing how generally positive the inter-war years were for the Conservatives. It would be generalising to claim that the Conservatives dominated for the whole period, the two labour regimes in 1924 and 1929 belie this fact, yet they emerged both times as the relatively uncontested majority party. Moreover, an unexpected opening in the party leadership with the death of Bonar Law in 1923 would be crucial in giving the party fresh impetus and ideas during the period. Stanley Baldwin himself must be considered a vital factor in the electoral dominance of the Conservatives. Baldwin was to be the pivotal figure in the government of Britain for the next decade and a half. Though his tenure was sometimes shaky, in the end he established an extraordinary grip on power. Maybe also there is something in the fact that the opposition to the Conservatives in the inter-war years was relatively weak. Labour was in a position to take government, but never did it hold onto power long, and the Liberals never really recovered from 1918 - despite some gains through the mid-twenties.
Therefore we can see two distinct shades of argument : one that the Conservatives (through a combination of leadership skills and electoral appeal) fashioned their own dominance ; one that situations and weakness of other parties aided this dominance. Certainly, the Conservatives showed tactical ineptitude in the 1923 election - Baldwin’s revival of the issue of tariff protection coming at a particularly bad time. But since the chain of events led to, within a year, an impressive consolidation of the Conservative position, Baldwin has largely been forgiven for the year out of office. Significantly, the Conservatives emerged from both Labour’s tenures stronger. The term ‘dominance’ must also be considered - total ‘dominance’ is never really possible within the political spectrum. The Liberal improvement in 1923 was substantial, showing surprising resilience in a party that had barely survived seven awful years. However, the major weakness now with the Liberals was that they had no real position to call their own. Labour had assumed the role of the major party on the Left, Conservatives on the Right. The Liberals fought on the Left in 1923 to oust Baldwin and then on the Right in 1924 to oust MacDonald. Therefore, there was no continuity to their policies - which undoubtedly cost them heavily with the electorate, who would much rather choose between Labour and Conservative. This can evidently be seen by the 1924 general election : what made it so significant to the fortunes of the Conservatives was the disaster which befell the Liberals. Their mere forty seats in Parliament wiped them off the political map in Urban England. Baldwin thus exerted an unprecedented amount of control - with over 400 MP’s, moreover his was a new Conservatism - seeking to establish a moderate consensus in opposition to Labour. This “New Conservatism” was determined to show itself as fit as any Labour government to legislate on social questions. This new, revised effort must be seen as crucial in the inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservative party.
It would certainly take a very different leader than Bonar Law to catapult the Conservative party into the national favour of the new electorate. The competition between Curzon and Baldwin showed a yearning for a new age of democratic politics - headed by the skilled, not the wealthy. Stanley Baldwin has an ability to communicate which made him both a shaper and an interpreter of opinion, a political skill becoming more and more important. Neville Chamberlain conceded that his leader, “provided something vital in retaining the floating vote.” The importance of this “floating” vote must not be brushed aside - Baldwin’s key skill lay in the cultivation of mood, something which would prove most important to ensuring Conservative dominance through the turbulent twenties and thirties. Furthermore, the BBC began broadcasting just five months before Baldwin first became Prime Minister and his career at the top coincided with the rise of radio as a major medium of national communication. He was thus the first British politician ever to become truly familiar to the voting public, a crucial factor in the over-riding dominance of his party. Significantly, he felt he had a vocation - “that is the binding together of all classes of our people in an effort to make life in this country better in every sense of the word.” In the European world of the totalitarian dictators of the 1930’s. this grounding of Baldwin’s appeal in the very ordinariness old English provincial life was in itself a contribution to the cause for democracy, at a time when it was most under threat. Baldwin’s Conservative party geared itself up for (successfully) a more democratic time ushered in by the completion of the extension of the franchise in 1928 - by opening its ranks to a wider participating membership than the party had ever known. Moreover, it is important to emphasise the extremely efficient and proactive members of Baldwin’s Cabinet, most notably Neville Chamberlain on Social Reform and Winston Churchill at the Exchequer. Some accounts suggest that whatever Baldwin’s role in high politics and internal party affairs, he was irrelevant to the party’s electoral fortunes. Yet Baldwin did present a positive appeal which commanded admiration across party divides, this in itself constituted a tremendous electoral asses for the Conservatives. Baldwin’s anxieties were shared by almost all Conservatives in the 1920’s : that the emergence of independent working class politics in the context of a ‘new electorate’ might condemn their party to permanent minority. Baldwin’s response to this must be seen as the crucial factor in accounting for the Conservative dominance in the inter-war period : to adopt an inclusive attitude towards the new voters.
Baldwin’s ‘non-political’ persona also magnified his ability to achieve political objectives. Though merciless to the Labour party electorally he was amicable to Labour politically. He did not speak of workers merely as factors of production nor as an underclass, but as fellow countrymen. He treated them as a legitimate part of the political and industrial systems - perhaps the most example coming from his conciliatory gestures towards the trade unions in 1925, which left a favourable impression in potentially unfavourable circumstances. This readiness to see good in the ‘other’ side, and the over-riding desire to end conflict, gave Baldwin a strong appeal to the people as a whole. Furthermore, the work done under Baldwin gave significant leverage to the Conservative pull to the new voters. Income tax was further reduced by Churchill in 1926 and most of the government’s social programme, initiated by Chamberlain, worked out according to plan. Even when faced with serious agitation, the Conservatives seemed to emerge relatively unscathed. Baldwin’s will to win the dispute of the “General Strike” was absolute and he used his communicative skills to great effect in radio broadcasts. Significantly, the Prime Minister also prevented hawkish ministers like Churchill from stirring up anti-socialist sentiments and further inflaming the situation. Baldwin thus gained much credit for the defeat of the strikers after nine days - a potentially fatal situation had been diffused brilliantly. Yet when seeking re-election in 1929 the party had no unifying theme except “Safety First”, despite Labour moving back to moderation after the failure of the strikes. With hindsight, the 1929 election was a good one to lose, yet the example of 1923 and 1929 had shown that there was enough residual loyalty to Liberalism and enough trust in MacDonald’s Labour despite this so-called Conservative dominance. However, the fate of the second Labour government was largely bound up with the performance of the economy - the Wall Street Crash that same year would severely test Labour to the extremes. The ‘workshop of the world’ had fallen on hard times - it was little surprise therefore that the impetus went away from Free Trade towards protectionism. This may well be considered circumstantial for the Conservatives and to an extent this is true. The Great Depression initiated by the Wall Street Crash created a wave of protectionist sentiment in 1930-31 that would have been unheard of in the previous quarter-century.
Since everything turned on confidence, a Labour government that did not inspire confidence on Wall Street was not in a strong position. MacDonald did the right thing : save the country at the cost of Labour’s independence. Conservative hegemony would return under the face of the National Government. Therefore, the economic situation had been favourable to the Conservatives - this much is certainly true, their policies would appear much more favourable in a time of economic depression. Baldwin’s decision to accept the Lord Presidency rather than the Premiership of the National Government would prove to be crucial : the Conservatives would come out of the crisis in a good light. The crisis atmosphere rallied support to a government which promised to take a grip on the situation, the initiatve had passed to the Conservatives. Significantly, the National Government was like the Coalition in 1918 that its majority was largely compose of Conservative MP’s. The election in 1931 pitted Labour against the rest - and outside the industrial coalfields, Labour was destroyed - its reputation tarnished by the events in 1929 as the Liberals during the Great War had been. Everything now pointed towards the tariffs - the Conservatives’ principles and protectionist sentiment could be found all over the country. Furthermore, lowering unemployment and the maintenance of higher average real income provided a serviceable platform for the National Government when it came to fight a general election. Further social reforms included tightening factory legislation, setting up the London Passenger Transport Board and providing the first national slum clearance campaigns. Expectedly Baldwin triumphantly returned in 1935 at the head of 429 MP’s. The government’s success in 1935 certainly owed something to the continuity disarray of Labour, which took a considerable time to recover from the loss of office. If the 1935 results are compared with those of 1929 the net effect of the 1929 crisis becomes apparent - Labour stayed fairly level, while the Conservatives had put 10% on their vote at the expense of the Liberals. The change to a more or less two party system put the Conservatives into a commanding position. Under Baldwin, the Conservative party had made a more effective, broad-based appeal to the public than a opposition which crucially still lacked credibility.
The National Government was therefore also of crucial importance in maintaining Conservative dominance, albeit in different form and under a different name, during the interwar years. Significantly these years were unlike any before them since social and political change caused primarily by war and electoral reform transformed the contours of party debate. MP’s contemplated their new audience, almost acknowledging that politics could never be the same again. Many Conservatives wondered whether their party could ever successfully appeal to the more assertive and militant working class they believed the war to have created. The inter-war period does represent a fundamental disjuncture in the development of Conservative attitudes to class and the wider relationship between themselves and the people. A more pluralistic interpretation of class politics became central to Baldwin’s New Conservatism. This transition crucially underpinned the development of Baldwin’s supremacy. The widespread belief that the Representation of the People Act had ushered in a new political world, dominated by working class potential Labour voters played a critical role in shaping Conservative orientation during the inter-war years. The importance of electoral reform to the Conservatives related to the construction of a central framework of reference in the transformation of a party ideology. Too close a public identification with property ownership rendered the party vulnerable to socialist accusations of defending inequality. Therefore in predominantly working class areas, candidates met Labour’s ‘proletarian’ rhetoric with assurances of their own working class credentials. Critical to this change of Conservative consciousness was the enfranchisement of women in 1918 and 1928. Whatever the intellectual shortcomings of women , female suffrage proved a uniquely effective way of diluting the political power of organised labour. The vast expansion of personal taxation during the war opened up the possibility of the same at national level, the claim that socialism would cost voters money would be an effective propaganda machine. The Conservatives learnt to distinguish the component elements of the working class, and to appeal to specific interest groups - examples including trade unionists undercut by foreign imports, housewives and small savers. The Conservative party prevailed by spreading its defence of vested interests to encompass the whole community. For example, the party committed itself to the defence of working class property from confiscatory socialist taxation. Such working class inclusive policies must be considered a key factor in the Conservatives’ electoral appeal.
The inter-war period represented a critical turning point in the history of Conservative popular politics. Most Conservatives believed that the rules of the political game had been irreversibly changed in 1918. Thus forced to confront their political demons, Conservatives began to take an increasingly critical look at their political message and its intended audience. As they did so, they liberated themselves from the decaying Edwardian Unionism that had played favourably into the hands of the Liberals. The new context of taxation, perceptible evidence of working class vested and the enfranchisement of women convinced the Conservatives that there was no single elusive working class electorate to capture. The heterogeneity and inclusiveness of the post-war electorate opened up many political doors - recognising this, the Conservatives articulated a more sophisticated language of class in their policy making - one that acknowledged the diversity of its new audience.
This perhaps might well be the biggest factor in the dominance of the party in the inter-war years, but we must not forget the contribution of Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister. Churchill remarked in 1935 that Baldwin was, “a statesman who has gathered to himself a greater volume of confidence and goodwill than any public man I recollect in my long career”. It is a combination of the two, coupled with some fortunate circumstances which conspired against Labour (1929 for example) that best account for the inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservative party.
Bibliography
R. Blake : The Conservative Party from Peel to Major
M. Bentley : Public and Private Doctrine : Essays in British History
A. Seldon, S. Ball : Conservative Century
J. Ramsden : An Appetite for Power : The Conservative Party since 1900
P. Williamson : Stanley Baldwin
D. Jarvis : British Conservatism and Class Politics in the 1920’s : English Historical Review, (cxi 1996)
P. Clarke : Hope and Glory : Britain 1900-1990
Therefore we can see two distinct shades of argument : one that the Conservatives (through a combination of leadership skills and electoral appeal) fashioned their own dominance ; one that situations and weakness of other parties aided this dominance. Certainly, the Conservatives showed tactical ineptitude in the 1923 election - Baldwin’s revival of the issue of tariff protection coming at a particularly bad time. But since the chain of events led to, within a year, an impressive consolidation of the Conservative position, Baldwin has largely been forgiven for the year out of office. Significantly, the Conservatives emerged from both Labour’s tenures stronger. The term ‘dominance’ must also be considered - total ‘dominance’ is never really possible within the political spectrum. The Liberal improvement in 1923 was substantial, showing surprising resilience in a party that had barely survived seven awful years. However, the major weakness now with the Liberals was that they had no real position to call their own. Labour had assumed the role of the major party on the Left, Conservatives on the Right. The Liberals fought on the Left in 1923 to oust Baldwin and then on the Right in 1924 to oust MacDonald. Therefore, there was no continuity to their policies - which undoubtedly cost them heavily with the electorate, who would much rather choose between Labour and Conservative. This can evidently be seen by the 1924 general election : what made it so significant to the fortunes of the Conservatives was the disaster which befell the Liberals. Their mere forty seats in Parliament wiped them off the political map in Urban England. Baldwin thus exerted an unprecedented amount of control - with over 400 MP’s, moreover his was a new Conservatism - seeking to establish a moderate consensus in opposition to Labour. This “New Conservatism” was determined to show itself as fit as any Labour government to legislate on social questions. This new, revised effort must be seen as crucial in the inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservative party.
It would certainly take a very different leader than Bonar Law to catapult the Conservative party into the national favour of the new electorate. The competition between Curzon and Baldwin showed a yearning for a new age of democratic politics - headed by the skilled, not the wealthy. Stanley Baldwin has an ability to communicate which made him both a shaper and an interpreter of opinion, a political skill becoming more and more important. Neville Chamberlain conceded that his leader, “provided something vital in retaining the floating vote.” The importance of this “floating” vote must not be brushed aside - Baldwin’s key skill lay in the cultivation of mood, something which would prove most important to ensuring Conservative dominance through the turbulent twenties and thirties. Furthermore, the BBC began broadcasting just five months before Baldwin first became Prime Minister and his career at the top coincided with the rise of radio as a major medium of national communication. He was thus the first British politician ever to become truly familiar to the voting public, a crucial factor in the over-riding dominance of his party. Significantly, he felt he had a vocation - “that is the binding together of all classes of our people in an effort to make life in this country better in every sense of the word.” In the European world of the totalitarian dictators of the 1930’s. this grounding of Baldwin’s appeal in the very ordinariness old English provincial life was in itself a contribution to the cause for democracy, at a time when it was most under threat. Baldwin’s Conservative party geared itself up for (successfully) a more democratic time ushered in by the completion of the extension of the franchise in 1928 - by opening its ranks to a wider participating membership than the party had ever known. Moreover, it is important to emphasise the extremely efficient and proactive members of Baldwin’s Cabinet, most notably Neville Chamberlain on Social Reform and Winston Churchill at the Exchequer. Some accounts suggest that whatever Baldwin’s role in high politics and internal party affairs, he was irrelevant to the party’s electoral fortunes. Yet Baldwin did present a positive appeal which commanded admiration across party divides, this in itself constituted a tremendous electoral asses for the Conservatives. Baldwin’s anxieties were shared by almost all Conservatives in the 1920’s : that the emergence of independent working class politics in the context of a ‘new electorate’ might condemn their party to permanent minority. Baldwin’s response to this must be seen as the crucial factor in accounting for the Conservative dominance in the inter-war period : to adopt an inclusive attitude towards the new voters.
Baldwin’s ‘non-political’ persona also magnified his ability to achieve political objectives. Though merciless to the Labour party electorally he was amicable to Labour politically. He did not speak of workers merely as factors of production nor as an underclass, but as fellow countrymen. He treated them as a legitimate part of the political and industrial systems - perhaps the most example coming from his conciliatory gestures towards the trade unions in 1925, which left a favourable impression in potentially unfavourable circumstances. This readiness to see good in the ‘other’ side, and the over-riding desire to end conflict, gave Baldwin a strong appeal to the people as a whole. Furthermore, the work done under Baldwin gave significant leverage to the Conservative pull to the new voters. Income tax was further reduced by Churchill in 1926 and most of the government’s social programme, initiated by Chamberlain, worked out according to plan. Even when faced with serious agitation, the Conservatives seemed to emerge relatively unscathed. Baldwin’s will to win the dispute of the “General Strike” was absolute and he used his communicative skills to great effect in radio broadcasts. Significantly, the Prime Minister also prevented hawkish ministers like Churchill from stirring up anti-socialist sentiments and further inflaming the situation. Baldwin thus gained much credit for the defeat of the strikers after nine days - a potentially fatal situation had been diffused brilliantly. Yet when seeking re-election in 1929 the party had no unifying theme except “Safety First”, despite Labour moving back to moderation after the failure of the strikes. With hindsight, the 1929 election was a good one to lose, yet the example of 1923 and 1929 had shown that there was enough residual loyalty to Liberalism and enough trust in MacDonald’s Labour despite this so-called Conservative dominance. However, the fate of the second Labour government was largely bound up with the performance of the economy - the Wall Street Crash that same year would severely test Labour to the extremes. The ‘workshop of the world’ had fallen on hard times - it was little surprise therefore that the impetus went away from Free Trade towards protectionism. This may well be considered circumstantial for the Conservatives and to an extent this is true. The Great Depression initiated by the Wall Street Crash created a wave of protectionist sentiment in 1930-31 that would have been unheard of in the previous quarter-century.
Since everything turned on confidence, a Labour government that did not inspire confidence on Wall Street was not in a strong position. MacDonald did the right thing : save the country at the cost of Labour’s independence. Conservative hegemony would return under the face of the National Government. Therefore, the economic situation had been favourable to the Conservatives - this much is certainly true, their policies would appear much more favourable in a time of economic depression. Baldwin’s decision to accept the Lord Presidency rather than the Premiership of the National Government would prove to be crucial : the Conservatives would come out of the crisis in a good light. The crisis atmosphere rallied support to a government which promised to take a grip on the situation, the initiatve had passed to the Conservatives. Significantly, the National Government was like the Coalition in 1918 that its majority was largely compose of Conservative MP’s. The election in 1931 pitted Labour against the rest - and outside the industrial coalfields, Labour was destroyed - its reputation tarnished by the events in 1929 as the Liberals during the Great War had been. Everything now pointed towards the tariffs - the Conservatives’ principles and protectionist sentiment could be found all over the country. Furthermore, lowering unemployment and the maintenance of higher average real income provided a serviceable platform for the National Government when it came to fight a general election. Further social reforms included tightening factory legislation, setting up the London Passenger Transport Board and providing the first national slum clearance campaigns. Expectedly Baldwin triumphantly returned in 1935 at the head of 429 MP’s. The government’s success in 1935 certainly owed something to the continuity disarray of Labour, which took a considerable time to recover from the loss of office. If the 1935 results are compared with those of 1929 the net effect of the 1929 crisis becomes apparent - Labour stayed fairly level, while the Conservatives had put 10% on their vote at the expense of the Liberals. The change to a more or less two party system put the Conservatives into a commanding position. Under Baldwin, the Conservative party had made a more effective, broad-based appeal to the public than a opposition which crucially still lacked credibility.
The National Government was therefore also of crucial importance in maintaining Conservative dominance, albeit in different form and under a different name, during the interwar years. Significantly these years were unlike any before them since social and political change caused primarily by war and electoral reform transformed the contours of party debate. MP’s contemplated their new audience, almost acknowledging that politics could never be the same again. Many Conservatives wondered whether their party could ever successfully appeal to the more assertive and militant working class they believed the war to have created. The inter-war period does represent a fundamental disjuncture in the development of Conservative attitudes to class and the wider relationship between themselves and the people. A more pluralistic interpretation of class politics became central to Baldwin’s New Conservatism. This transition crucially underpinned the development of Baldwin’s supremacy. The widespread belief that the Representation of the People Act had ushered in a new political world, dominated by working class potential Labour voters played a critical role in shaping Conservative orientation during the inter-war years. The importance of electoral reform to the Conservatives related to the construction of a central framework of reference in the transformation of a party ideology. Too close a public identification with property ownership rendered the party vulnerable to socialist accusations of defending inequality. Therefore in predominantly working class areas, candidates met Labour’s ‘proletarian’ rhetoric with assurances of their own working class credentials. Critical to this change of Conservative consciousness was the enfranchisement of women in 1918 and 1928. Whatever the intellectual shortcomings of women , female suffrage proved a uniquely effective way of diluting the political power of organised labour. The vast expansion of personal taxation during the war opened up the possibility of the same at national level, the claim that socialism would cost voters money would be an effective propaganda machine. The Conservatives learnt to distinguish the component elements of the working class, and to appeal to specific interest groups - examples including trade unionists undercut by foreign imports, housewives and small savers. The Conservative party prevailed by spreading its defence of vested interests to encompass the whole community. For example, the party committed itself to the defence of working class property from confiscatory socialist taxation. Such working class inclusive policies must be considered a key factor in the Conservatives’ electoral appeal.
The inter-war period represented a critical turning point in the history of Conservative popular politics. Most Conservatives believed that the rules of the political game had been irreversibly changed in 1918. Thus forced to confront their political demons, Conservatives began to take an increasingly critical look at their political message and its intended audience. As they did so, they liberated themselves from the decaying Edwardian Unionism that had played favourably into the hands of the Liberals. The new context of taxation, perceptible evidence of working class vested and the enfranchisement of women convinced the Conservatives that there was no single elusive working class electorate to capture. The heterogeneity and inclusiveness of the post-war electorate opened up many political doors - recognising this, the Conservatives articulated a more sophisticated language of class in their policy making - one that acknowledged the diversity of its new audience.
This perhaps might well be the biggest factor in the dominance of the party in the inter-war years, but we must not forget the contribution of Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister. Churchill remarked in 1935 that Baldwin was, “a statesman who has gathered to himself a greater volume of confidence and goodwill than any public man I recollect in my long career”. It is a combination of the two, coupled with some fortunate circumstances which conspired against Labour (1929 for example) that best account for the inter-war electoral dominance of the Conservative party.
Bibliography
R. Blake : The Conservative Party from Peel to Major
M. Bentley : Public and Private Doctrine : Essays in British History
A. Seldon, S. Ball : Conservative Century
J. Ramsden : An Appetite for Power : The Conservative Party since 1900
P. Williamson : Stanley Baldwin
D. Jarvis : British Conservatism and Class Politics in the 1920’s : English Historical Review, (cxi 1996)
P. Clarke : Hope and Glory : Britain 1900-1990
Britain's Fertility Decline, 1870-1930 : Causes and Interpretations
There is certainly considerable debate between demographers, economists and historians about the factors and assumptions behind the revolutionary fertility decline c. 1870-1930. Perhaps the two most basic arguments can be reduced to whether one believes that attitudes had changed in the period to accommodate the wishes of both husband and wife in accepting the necessity for some form of birth control ; or whether, as Szreter argues the persistence of a ‘long Victorian era’ in Britain (dissolving only in the permissive 1960’s) had immense repercussions with regards to Britain’s fertility decline. The argument that sexual ignorance and abstinence played important roles must be considered important in the fertility decline and cannot be dismissed - yet analysed alongside other varying economic, social or cultural theories. We must be careful not to speak of the fertility decline as a single unitary process transcending class, regional and cultural barriers. The concept that as the trend was widespread throughout the Western European industrialised nations there must be some form of general causation at work is highly misleading. The role of the British state must not be ignored, neither too the changing perceptions of motherhood and the concept of ‘separate spheres’ for husband and wife merely reinforced by the Great War. Furthermore, different methods of contraception have been promulgated by various sources and their influence needs careful analysis. Therefore the concept of fertility decline is littered with varying, contrasting, sometimes overlapping theories ; what seems most plausible however is that the fertility decline was most likely not due to a single cause, the varying degrees of social class and culture and conjugal ideology behind the different social strata’s in British society suggest there may well be multiple, yet equally acceptable theories.
Undisputedly however, beginning in the 1870’s, women were starting to stop before the end of their fertile years, signalling not only a fundamental change in patterns of family limitation but also new attitudes towards fertility itself. In the space of just a few decades, longstanding childrearing patterns changed irreparably, moving toward the modern norm of two children born in early marriage. McLaren’s research demonstrates that the method of birth control chosen in Britain was strongly influenced by class culture. Generally speaking, the middle-class preference for mechanical devices owed not only to the face that the more affluent could afford such contraception, but to a class culture that promoted conjugal intimacy and encouraged co-operation between men and women in sexual matters. McLaren argued that a sharper division emerged from the working-class marriages, and that lower class women were more likely to choose abortion as the first line of fertility control. Factors of class therefore weighed heavily ; and yet views on ideal family size are still compounded and mediated by a variety of social, cultural and economic considerations. However, perhaps most importantly, the enormous stress that large families placed on working-class parents in the later 19th and early 20th centuries had significant consequences : the recognition that in a competitive and growing society it would no longer to be possible to raise a horde of children amongst the working class : and the promulgation of the ‘quality over quantity’ childrearing theory amongst the middle classes must be considered crucial to the overall fertility decline. The crucial distinction that therefore emerges is whether fertility transitions result from changes in parents motivation to limit family size or from changes in attitudes and access to birth control.
While Malthus emphasises delayed entry to marriage as the most effective control of fertility, demographers since the late 19th century have looked to neo-Malthusian controls such as contraception and abortion. However, modern economic approaches have suggested a somewhat different approach ; instead of focusing on the successes or failures of the contraceptive techniques themselves, the real problem to be explained is why couples go to the trouble to prevent another birth. They must therefore weigh the costs and benefits of life without another child plus the costs of preventing the birth of the next child. The most important example of this problem is the question of the ‘cost of children’. It is frequently asserted that children have become more expensive. Subjects in surveys and interviews by Knodel and Debavalya overwhelmingly report that children cost more now than they did in the past. However, they are not describing a change in the costs of children as much as a change in their own definition of appropriate childrearing. Historically, children have become expensive not because the prices of commodities consumed by children have risen, but rather because parents have decided to invest more goods and services into providing and caring for their children. In effect, parents have chosen to raise one or two highly cared for, educated children rather than five or six less expensive offspring. This is therefore the result of a cultural change and carries with it considerable weight in validity. Easterlin’s Supply-Demand model applies this cultural factor and adds to it extra economic significance. The model certifies that couples implicitly have in mind a desired family size. They thus compare the costs and benefits of children to the costs and benefits of alternative life-styles available with their income. Parents subjectively evaluate the costs and benefits of the family that they will have if they don’t employ birth control techniques. However, we may criticise this theory for its overt rigidity - applying economic ‘cause and effect’ and ‘planning’ principles to complex patterns of human reproductive behaviour is somewhat deterministic. Simply put, do families make these kinds of decisions? Oral testimony has often revealed that ‘family planning’, especially amongst working-class families, was often non-existent. Perhaps fertility decline would therefore be better explained through emerging and wider patterns of demographic transition.
From the demographic history of Europe we can discern a common sequence of events that were key in predicting future developments. Advances in technology beginning in the 18th century led to a rising standard of living and improved public health care. These forces thus reduced the level of mortality and increased the rate of population growth in the subsequent century. Lower mortality increased the survival, and the supply of children - yet the growth of industrialisation and urbanisation introduced new life-styles reducing the demand for children. However, critics have charged that this is not a theory at all : but only a vague description of empirical correlations. It is not entirely clear whether the changes described are economic or social in origin. Yet all currently developed societies have undergone a fertility transition, despite differences in timing and culture. Thus, a variety of specific incentives for lower fertility rates can be related to the general process of positive economic development : historiography from the 1960’s and 70’s generalised that “economic development is the best birth control pill”. However, this sketches over the degree of personal and individual conscious choice that such a personal subject warranted. We must therefore dig deeper beneath the surface to find what exactly motivated men and women to limit fertility. In 1976 Caldwell offered a restatement of the demographic transition theory that cultural changes - associating the fertility transition with a change in the direction of “intergenerational flows of wealth”. Caldwell argued that in pre-transition families ‘wealth’ tends to flow from children to parents, making large families and unrestricted fertility most desirable. In contrast, “post-transitional” societies are characterised by the heavy investments that parents make in the education and support of their children - the fertility transition thus occurs when the net flow of ‘wealth’ shifts direction. However, there are several problematic features of the wealth-flows theory, Caldwell’s terminology has caused severe confusion about the character of ‘wealth-flows’. Economists are further likely to object to ‘wealth’ being defined beyond a purely economic category as traits such as “deference” and “prestige” are part of the wealth-flow from parents to children. Although economic change is a large part of the historical explanation of fertility decline, Caldwell’s theory is a fundamentally cultural model : his description of the potential for demographic change in Africa and Asia points to the central role of ‘westernisation’, the spread of European concepts of family relationships and life-styles. It’s inherent weakness however, is glossing over the role of personal choice in relation to contraceptive advice and techniques among different sections of society.
The theory of demographic transition implies that family planning programs could do little to create a fertility transition. However, the more modern European Fertility Project has damagingly weakened the link between economic development and fertility decline and strengthened the case for family planning : economic development would not, therefore, necessarily reduce fertility. Gillis furthered the argument that family planning and shifting perceptions of motherhood were principal causes of the fertility decline : “the crucial cultural shift was from an understanding of motherhood as childbearing to an understanding of motherhood as childrearing.” The new understanding of motherhood and fatherhood therefore involved a sharp division of labour between the sexes, the male labelled as ‘breadwinner’ and the mother as the vanguard of the home. Mothering was thus transformed into motherhood, a personal identity integral to woman’s growing femininity : by 1870, it had become the equivalent to the masculine career. Now understood as childrearing, good motherhood thus ceased to be defined in terms of numbers. A woman’s claim to femininity was established by the first birth - additional children did not add to a woman’s status. The ancient middle and upper class tradition of sending children ‘out to nurse’ was terminated by the middle class especially. After 1870, most middle-class women felt fully responsible for the nurturance and training of their infants. The individuality of the mother-child relationship meant an intensification of childrearing, transforming it from a part-time occupation to a lifelong career. Can it therefore be that in this context me may begin to understand the fertility decline that occurred after 1870? The ‘rising costs’ theory fails to take into account the changing meaning of parenthood. We may argue therefore that the significant change was not the changing cost of children but the regendering process that created an everlasting bond between mother and child. However, what of working class families? One might argue that this theory fails to account for the different aspirations and ideology underpinning working-class fertility behaviour. Secombe promulgates the fertility decline “almost entirely to the reduction of marital fertility”, that in most regions the reduction of marital fertility was achieved entirely be means of ‘stopping’ - the cessation of childbirth prior to menopause. ‘Stopping’ was accomplished through either a rise in the incidence of induced abortion, frequent resort to coitus interruptus, decline in coital frequency through sexual abstention and increased use of contraceptive devices. Beginning with abortion : there is considerable attention that its incidence did rise significantly. Studies by hospital gynaecological departments and women’s clinics estimated that roughly 16-20% of pregnancies were deliberately terminated. Therefore, it seems highly reasonable to assume that a rise in the abortion rate contributed considerably to the decline of the birth rate prior to the widespread use of contraception in marriage. However, because a great many working-class women in the 19th century has sought abortions, it is unlikely that rates would have risen sufficiently in the early 20th century to account for the continuing decline at that time. With regards to coitus interruptus, Lewis-Faning’s retrospective study (1949) concluded that nine out of ten limiters before 1920 had relied upon coitus interruptus. However, the famous correspondence received by Marie Stopes in “Mother England” tells a very different story. 40 correspondents propose sexual abstinence as the method they most practised, with “withdrawal” only in 13. Data from maternal clinics in Manchester and Salford revealed that both abstinence and coitus interruptus were widely practiced by working-class couples, although the former far more frequently. Yet all sources do seem to agree that contraceptive devices were infrequently used by working-class couples before 1930. For many working people, fears of physical injury and deep moral reservations meant contraceptives were regarded as repulsive and unnatural. Furthermore, condoms had a deeply unsavoury reputation, being associated with prostitution and the permeation of venereal disease, which was indeed the principal context of their use in this period. However, despite this, there were also problems with sexual abstinence or coitus interruptus. Many husbands would not be coercive : and while wives could put off intercourse for a time, the vast majority of female respondents in the Stopes material could not steadfastly refuse a cohabiting husband his “conjugal rights”. Without the active co-operation of their husbands, celibacy was impossible. Even with husbands’ consent, abstinence and withdrawal wracked marital relations, one woman remarking, “the result is our married life is spoiled and we are gradually drifting apart.” However, in “Mother England” there are a substantial number of examples of willingness on the part of many husbands to restrain their desires. Yet to engender family limitation, both spouses must have a strong desire to cease childbearing and the capacity to take effective action towards that end. The traditional view is that women were strongly motivated to limit fertility yet lacked the “marital power” to avert conception, while men had it in their power to abstain but were, in many cases, not sufficiently motivated to restrain their sexuality. Therefore a vital aspect thus emerges : the underlying shift in the family makeup, moving men’s reproductive interests increasingly into line with that of their spouses.
The realisation by fathers that family limitation was not only necessary but also beneficial to their general standard of living is a fact that cannot be ignored. Research undertaken by Fisher exemplifies this argument through thorough usage of oral testimony. The research draws explicit attention to the vital part played by the husband in contraceptive strategies. The central assumption in the majority of analyses of the gendered dynamics of birth control is that, according to Secombe, “that women were the driving force behind family limitation”, and to Caldwell that, “common to all fertility transitions is women’s increased ability to determine their own fertility.” Thus the role men may have played has often been either understated or ignored. Importantly, the concept that men were extremely affected by the increased costs of childrearing must be considered in the process of fertility decline. Fisher interviewed 107 individuals, both male and female, from two working-class communities of Oxford and South Wales. Oral testimony suggest that men’s knowledge of birth control was far more extensive than women’s and that men’s networks of information about contraception were much more developed and varied. Over half the women interviewed claimed to have known nothing at all about any form of birth control before they were married - only three male interviewees claimed such ignorance. Women’s lack of basic sexual knowledge had profound consequences for their ability to absorb birth control advice : one testimony recorded that, “men knew all about those things long before they got married.” Hall has also referred to forms of information to which young men were far more likely to be exposed, and sexual subcultures from which young girls were vigorously sheltered from. Mass Observation’s ‘Little Kinsey’ survey from 1940 found that at the end of the 1940’s, “women are worse informed than men” about birth control - surely this must have been even greater in decades previous. Men seemingly “took the responsibility of seeing that there were no conceptions…it was the man, it was the man’s job.” Male methods of birth control (coitus interruptus and condoms) were much more frequently used than female methods (caps and abortion). The increased choice of these male methods facilitated male initiative ; taking responsibility for contraceptive choices fitted into a dynamic in which men took the central role in sexual activity.
Fisher’s study shows that fertility decisions were very often mutual, “well he knew I really didn’t want to keep on having children”, shared between husband and wife. Therefore, despite historians understanding that men often controlled sexual activity - male roles in birth control have not been presented as pivotal to the changes in contraceptive behaviour. Fisher’s research reveals that male perspectives were much more helpful than once though, and suggests that changes in male attitudes formed one of the most crucial components of the fertility decline. Furthermore, can this change in male attitudes be attributed to a relative degree of marital abstinence? Szreter argues this certainly may well have been the case. Individuals brought up in British society over many centuries accepted the norm to delay marriage and to therefore submit to coital abstinence as young adults. Sexual self-denial had been the societal norm for young unmarried adults, associated with the British institution of late marriage : average age at first marriage remained above 25 well into the 20th century. This long-term trend may well be relevant to the demographic evidence from 1911 which has show a continuing relationship between delayed marriage and restricted family size and the spacing of births from early on in marriage. These findings do suggest that during the period of declining fertility the practice of abstinence may have provided the populace with a principal means to limit fertility once married. We must not forget that abstinence within marriage may also have been associated with keeping mistresses or using prostitutes, especially amongst the upper classes. So long as the incidence of delayed marriage continues to be positively correlated with limitation of births within marriage, as has found to be the case in the 1911 occupational data analysed by Szreter, there is thus strong primary evidence that the principal method of birth control being deployed by the populace was some form of sexual abstinence within marriage. Probably the most important source of direct testimony came from the National Birth Rate Commission’s ‘voluntary census’ of 1914, distributed to assess differences in fertility and contraceptive practices between different classes of women. Of the 289 birth controllers, 13% practised coitus interruptus, 10% used condoms, 16% douches, 10% ‘artificial’ means and an overwhelming 52% ‘continence’. Abstinence certainly seems entirely plausible given the context of the period : the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act commenced in 1869 and secured, by the mid-1880’s, nit only repeal but also the strictest rules against sex in the world at that time, raising the female age of consent from 13 to 16. By the 1880’s this was part of a wider ‘moral purity’ campaign whose objectives were to engender an increasingly strict formal regulation of various forms of sexuality, both public and private. The legislation and opinion on such matters as venereal disease, homosexuality and prostitution can be taken as signs that many forms of sexual behaviour were cast in an extremely negative light by the late Victorians.
Many individuals therefore may well have come to entertain strongly negative or at best guilty or ambivalent feelings towards sex - associating it with disease and dishonour. Szreter concludes the argument, that “attempted abstinence within marriage was the single most widespread and frequently used method of birth control during the period before 1920.” The argument, in its wider societal context also envelops an understanding of the important role played by the state. The role central or local government played in the fertility decline is conveyed by Johansson, who argued that state policy will always have a vital effect on fertility as “they provide an important set of institutional rules within which childrearing costs and benefits are defined and perceived.” Especially toward the end of the 19th century, the policies of the state on labour and education shifted underlying perceptions of childhood - the transition to them becoming total dependents. With regards to education, the Foster Education Act (1870), Sandon Act (1876) and the Mundella Act (1880) furthered the state’s commitment to provide elementary education for all children. Working-class parents thus found themselves faced with a compulsory set of educational expense and inconvenience in having large numbers of children. Working-class child school attendance at elementary school increased from 68% in 1870 to 82% by 1895. Small families were becoming increasingly favoured by a new set of societal, cultural and economic constraints.
Therefore, the attempt to describe fertility decline has provoked high levels of debate and theorising amongst historians. It appears that socio-economic explanations no longer have significant context with regards to the specific example of Britain. Cultural and specific examples with regards to marital behaviour by both male and female partner have shed new light on the fertility decline. Furthermore, Szreter’s stress on the importance of marital abstinence has opened up new avenues of debate and theory. It would be somewhat foolish to label one direct factor as totally responsible for the fertility decline. The change in national perceptions of childhood towards being a time of learning and financial dependence of parents, particularly mothers proved immeasurably important. Mothers thus invested their time in parenthood : fathers capital. This made having large numbers of children not only undesirable, but in many cases impossible, and led to many of the coital restraint practices that become so prevalent amongst large numbers of British married couples.
Bibliography :-
L. Hall, Sex, gender and social change in Britain since 1880
S. Szreter, Fertility, class and gender in Britain, 1860-1940
H. Cook, The long sexual revolution, English women, sex and contraception
J. Gillis (ed.), The European experience of declining fertility
L. Hall, Hidden Anxieties, male sexuality 1900-1950
M. Stopes, Mother England
K. Fisher, “She was quite satisfied with the arrangements I made” gender and birth control in Britain 1920-50, Past and Present (2000)
L. Davidoff, The family story
A. McLaren, Birth control in 19th century England
Undisputedly however, beginning in the 1870’s, women were starting to stop before the end of their fertile years, signalling not only a fundamental change in patterns of family limitation but also new attitudes towards fertility itself. In the space of just a few decades, longstanding childrearing patterns changed irreparably, moving toward the modern norm of two children born in early marriage. McLaren’s research demonstrates that the method of birth control chosen in Britain was strongly influenced by class culture. Generally speaking, the middle-class preference for mechanical devices owed not only to the face that the more affluent could afford such contraception, but to a class culture that promoted conjugal intimacy and encouraged co-operation between men and women in sexual matters. McLaren argued that a sharper division emerged from the working-class marriages, and that lower class women were more likely to choose abortion as the first line of fertility control. Factors of class therefore weighed heavily ; and yet views on ideal family size are still compounded and mediated by a variety of social, cultural and economic considerations. However, perhaps most importantly, the enormous stress that large families placed on working-class parents in the later 19th and early 20th centuries had significant consequences : the recognition that in a competitive and growing society it would no longer to be possible to raise a horde of children amongst the working class : and the promulgation of the ‘quality over quantity’ childrearing theory amongst the middle classes must be considered crucial to the overall fertility decline. The crucial distinction that therefore emerges is whether fertility transitions result from changes in parents motivation to limit family size or from changes in attitudes and access to birth control.
While Malthus emphasises delayed entry to marriage as the most effective control of fertility, demographers since the late 19th century have looked to neo-Malthusian controls such as contraception and abortion. However, modern economic approaches have suggested a somewhat different approach ; instead of focusing on the successes or failures of the contraceptive techniques themselves, the real problem to be explained is why couples go to the trouble to prevent another birth. They must therefore weigh the costs and benefits of life without another child plus the costs of preventing the birth of the next child. The most important example of this problem is the question of the ‘cost of children’. It is frequently asserted that children have become more expensive. Subjects in surveys and interviews by Knodel and Debavalya overwhelmingly report that children cost more now than they did in the past. However, they are not describing a change in the costs of children as much as a change in their own definition of appropriate childrearing. Historically, children have become expensive not because the prices of commodities consumed by children have risen, but rather because parents have decided to invest more goods and services into providing and caring for their children. In effect, parents have chosen to raise one or two highly cared for, educated children rather than five or six less expensive offspring. This is therefore the result of a cultural change and carries with it considerable weight in validity. Easterlin’s Supply-Demand model applies this cultural factor and adds to it extra economic significance. The model certifies that couples implicitly have in mind a desired family size. They thus compare the costs and benefits of children to the costs and benefits of alternative life-styles available with their income. Parents subjectively evaluate the costs and benefits of the family that they will have if they don’t employ birth control techniques. However, we may criticise this theory for its overt rigidity - applying economic ‘cause and effect’ and ‘planning’ principles to complex patterns of human reproductive behaviour is somewhat deterministic. Simply put, do families make these kinds of decisions? Oral testimony has often revealed that ‘family planning’, especially amongst working-class families, was often non-existent. Perhaps fertility decline would therefore be better explained through emerging and wider patterns of demographic transition.
From the demographic history of Europe we can discern a common sequence of events that were key in predicting future developments. Advances in technology beginning in the 18th century led to a rising standard of living and improved public health care. These forces thus reduced the level of mortality and increased the rate of population growth in the subsequent century. Lower mortality increased the survival, and the supply of children - yet the growth of industrialisation and urbanisation introduced new life-styles reducing the demand for children. However, critics have charged that this is not a theory at all : but only a vague description of empirical correlations. It is not entirely clear whether the changes described are economic or social in origin. Yet all currently developed societies have undergone a fertility transition, despite differences in timing and culture. Thus, a variety of specific incentives for lower fertility rates can be related to the general process of positive economic development : historiography from the 1960’s and 70’s generalised that “economic development is the best birth control pill”. However, this sketches over the degree of personal and individual conscious choice that such a personal subject warranted. We must therefore dig deeper beneath the surface to find what exactly motivated men and women to limit fertility. In 1976 Caldwell offered a restatement of the demographic transition theory that cultural changes - associating the fertility transition with a change in the direction of “intergenerational flows of wealth”. Caldwell argued that in pre-transition families ‘wealth’ tends to flow from children to parents, making large families and unrestricted fertility most desirable. In contrast, “post-transitional” societies are characterised by the heavy investments that parents make in the education and support of their children - the fertility transition thus occurs when the net flow of ‘wealth’ shifts direction. However, there are several problematic features of the wealth-flows theory, Caldwell’s terminology has caused severe confusion about the character of ‘wealth-flows’. Economists are further likely to object to ‘wealth’ being defined beyond a purely economic category as traits such as “deference” and “prestige” are part of the wealth-flow from parents to children. Although economic change is a large part of the historical explanation of fertility decline, Caldwell’s theory is a fundamentally cultural model : his description of the potential for demographic change in Africa and Asia points to the central role of ‘westernisation’, the spread of European concepts of family relationships and life-styles. It’s inherent weakness however, is glossing over the role of personal choice in relation to contraceptive advice and techniques among different sections of society.
The theory of demographic transition implies that family planning programs could do little to create a fertility transition. However, the more modern European Fertility Project has damagingly weakened the link between economic development and fertility decline and strengthened the case for family planning : economic development would not, therefore, necessarily reduce fertility. Gillis furthered the argument that family planning and shifting perceptions of motherhood were principal causes of the fertility decline : “the crucial cultural shift was from an understanding of motherhood as childbearing to an understanding of motherhood as childrearing.” The new understanding of motherhood and fatherhood therefore involved a sharp division of labour between the sexes, the male labelled as ‘breadwinner’ and the mother as the vanguard of the home. Mothering was thus transformed into motherhood, a personal identity integral to woman’s growing femininity : by 1870, it had become the equivalent to the masculine career. Now understood as childrearing, good motherhood thus ceased to be defined in terms of numbers. A woman’s claim to femininity was established by the first birth - additional children did not add to a woman’s status. The ancient middle and upper class tradition of sending children ‘out to nurse’ was terminated by the middle class especially. After 1870, most middle-class women felt fully responsible for the nurturance and training of their infants. The individuality of the mother-child relationship meant an intensification of childrearing, transforming it from a part-time occupation to a lifelong career. Can it therefore be that in this context me may begin to understand the fertility decline that occurred after 1870? The ‘rising costs’ theory fails to take into account the changing meaning of parenthood. We may argue therefore that the significant change was not the changing cost of children but the regendering process that created an everlasting bond between mother and child. However, what of working class families? One might argue that this theory fails to account for the different aspirations and ideology underpinning working-class fertility behaviour. Secombe promulgates the fertility decline “almost entirely to the reduction of marital fertility”, that in most regions the reduction of marital fertility was achieved entirely be means of ‘stopping’ - the cessation of childbirth prior to menopause. ‘Stopping’ was accomplished through either a rise in the incidence of induced abortion, frequent resort to coitus interruptus, decline in coital frequency through sexual abstention and increased use of contraceptive devices. Beginning with abortion : there is considerable attention that its incidence did rise significantly. Studies by hospital gynaecological departments and women’s clinics estimated that roughly 16-20% of pregnancies were deliberately terminated. Therefore, it seems highly reasonable to assume that a rise in the abortion rate contributed considerably to the decline of the birth rate prior to the widespread use of contraception in marriage. However, because a great many working-class women in the 19th century has sought abortions, it is unlikely that rates would have risen sufficiently in the early 20th century to account for the continuing decline at that time. With regards to coitus interruptus, Lewis-Faning’s retrospective study (1949) concluded that nine out of ten limiters before 1920 had relied upon coitus interruptus. However, the famous correspondence received by Marie Stopes in “Mother England” tells a very different story. 40 correspondents propose sexual abstinence as the method they most practised, with “withdrawal” only in 13. Data from maternal clinics in Manchester and Salford revealed that both abstinence and coitus interruptus were widely practiced by working-class couples, although the former far more frequently. Yet all sources do seem to agree that contraceptive devices were infrequently used by working-class couples before 1930. For many working people, fears of physical injury and deep moral reservations meant contraceptives were regarded as repulsive and unnatural. Furthermore, condoms had a deeply unsavoury reputation, being associated with prostitution and the permeation of venereal disease, which was indeed the principal context of their use in this period. However, despite this, there were also problems with sexual abstinence or coitus interruptus. Many husbands would not be coercive : and while wives could put off intercourse for a time, the vast majority of female respondents in the Stopes material could not steadfastly refuse a cohabiting husband his “conjugal rights”. Without the active co-operation of their husbands, celibacy was impossible. Even with husbands’ consent, abstinence and withdrawal wracked marital relations, one woman remarking, “the result is our married life is spoiled and we are gradually drifting apart.” However, in “Mother England” there are a substantial number of examples of willingness on the part of many husbands to restrain their desires. Yet to engender family limitation, both spouses must have a strong desire to cease childbearing and the capacity to take effective action towards that end. The traditional view is that women were strongly motivated to limit fertility yet lacked the “marital power” to avert conception, while men had it in their power to abstain but were, in many cases, not sufficiently motivated to restrain their sexuality. Therefore a vital aspect thus emerges : the underlying shift in the family makeup, moving men’s reproductive interests increasingly into line with that of their spouses.
The realisation by fathers that family limitation was not only necessary but also beneficial to their general standard of living is a fact that cannot be ignored. Research undertaken by Fisher exemplifies this argument through thorough usage of oral testimony. The research draws explicit attention to the vital part played by the husband in contraceptive strategies. The central assumption in the majority of analyses of the gendered dynamics of birth control is that, according to Secombe, “that women were the driving force behind family limitation”, and to Caldwell that, “common to all fertility transitions is women’s increased ability to determine their own fertility.” Thus the role men may have played has often been either understated or ignored. Importantly, the concept that men were extremely affected by the increased costs of childrearing must be considered in the process of fertility decline. Fisher interviewed 107 individuals, both male and female, from two working-class communities of Oxford and South Wales. Oral testimony suggest that men’s knowledge of birth control was far more extensive than women’s and that men’s networks of information about contraception were much more developed and varied. Over half the women interviewed claimed to have known nothing at all about any form of birth control before they were married - only three male interviewees claimed such ignorance. Women’s lack of basic sexual knowledge had profound consequences for their ability to absorb birth control advice : one testimony recorded that, “men knew all about those things long before they got married.” Hall has also referred to forms of information to which young men were far more likely to be exposed, and sexual subcultures from which young girls were vigorously sheltered from. Mass Observation’s ‘Little Kinsey’ survey from 1940 found that at the end of the 1940’s, “women are worse informed than men” about birth control - surely this must have been even greater in decades previous. Men seemingly “took the responsibility of seeing that there were no conceptions…it was the man, it was the man’s job.” Male methods of birth control (coitus interruptus and condoms) were much more frequently used than female methods (caps and abortion). The increased choice of these male methods facilitated male initiative ; taking responsibility for contraceptive choices fitted into a dynamic in which men took the central role in sexual activity.
Fisher’s study shows that fertility decisions were very often mutual, “well he knew I really didn’t want to keep on having children”, shared between husband and wife. Therefore, despite historians understanding that men often controlled sexual activity - male roles in birth control have not been presented as pivotal to the changes in contraceptive behaviour. Fisher’s research reveals that male perspectives were much more helpful than once though, and suggests that changes in male attitudes formed one of the most crucial components of the fertility decline. Furthermore, can this change in male attitudes be attributed to a relative degree of marital abstinence? Szreter argues this certainly may well have been the case. Individuals brought up in British society over many centuries accepted the norm to delay marriage and to therefore submit to coital abstinence as young adults. Sexual self-denial had been the societal norm for young unmarried adults, associated with the British institution of late marriage : average age at first marriage remained above 25 well into the 20th century. This long-term trend may well be relevant to the demographic evidence from 1911 which has show a continuing relationship between delayed marriage and restricted family size and the spacing of births from early on in marriage. These findings do suggest that during the period of declining fertility the practice of abstinence may have provided the populace with a principal means to limit fertility once married. We must not forget that abstinence within marriage may also have been associated with keeping mistresses or using prostitutes, especially amongst the upper classes. So long as the incidence of delayed marriage continues to be positively correlated with limitation of births within marriage, as has found to be the case in the 1911 occupational data analysed by Szreter, there is thus strong primary evidence that the principal method of birth control being deployed by the populace was some form of sexual abstinence within marriage. Probably the most important source of direct testimony came from the National Birth Rate Commission’s ‘voluntary census’ of 1914, distributed to assess differences in fertility and contraceptive practices between different classes of women. Of the 289 birth controllers, 13% practised coitus interruptus, 10% used condoms, 16% douches, 10% ‘artificial’ means and an overwhelming 52% ‘continence’. Abstinence certainly seems entirely plausible given the context of the period : the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act commenced in 1869 and secured, by the mid-1880’s, nit only repeal but also the strictest rules against sex in the world at that time, raising the female age of consent from 13 to 16. By the 1880’s this was part of a wider ‘moral purity’ campaign whose objectives were to engender an increasingly strict formal regulation of various forms of sexuality, both public and private. The legislation and opinion on such matters as venereal disease, homosexuality and prostitution can be taken as signs that many forms of sexual behaviour were cast in an extremely negative light by the late Victorians.
Many individuals therefore may well have come to entertain strongly negative or at best guilty or ambivalent feelings towards sex - associating it with disease and dishonour. Szreter concludes the argument, that “attempted abstinence within marriage was the single most widespread and frequently used method of birth control during the period before 1920.” The argument, in its wider societal context also envelops an understanding of the important role played by the state. The role central or local government played in the fertility decline is conveyed by Johansson, who argued that state policy will always have a vital effect on fertility as “they provide an important set of institutional rules within which childrearing costs and benefits are defined and perceived.” Especially toward the end of the 19th century, the policies of the state on labour and education shifted underlying perceptions of childhood - the transition to them becoming total dependents. With regards to education, the Foster Education Act (1870), Sandon Act (1876) and the Mundella Act (1880) furthered the state’s commitment to provide elementary education for all children. Working-class parents thus found themselves faced with a compulsory set of educational expense and inconvenience in having large numbers of children. Working-class child school attendance at elementary school increased from 68% in 1870 to 82% by 1895. Small families were becoming increasingly favoured by a new set of societal, cultural and economic constraints.
Therefore, the attempt to describe fertility decline has provoked high levels of debate and theorising amongst historians. It appears that socio-economic explanations no longer have significant context with regards to the specific example of Britain. Cultural and specific examples with regards to marital behaviour by both male and female partner have shed new light on the fertility decline. Furthermore, Szreter’s stress on the importance of marital abstinence has opened up new avenues of debate and theory. It would be somewhat foolish to label one direct factor as totally responsible for the fertility decline. The change in national perceptions of childhood towards being a time of learning and financial dependence of parents, particularly mothers proved immeasurably important. Mothers thus invested their time in parenthood : fathers capital. This made having large numbers of children not only undesirable, but in many cases impossible, and led to many of the coital restraint practices that become so prevalent amongst large numbers of British married couples.
Bibliography :-
L. Hall, Sex, gender and social change in Britain since 1880
S. Szreter, Fertility, class and gender in Britain, 1860-1940
H. Cook, The long sexual revolution, English women, sex and contraception
J. Gillis (ed.), The European experience of declining fertility
L. Hall, Hidden Anxieties, male sexuality 1900-1950
M. Stopes, Mother England
K. Fisher, “She was quite satisfied with the arrangements I made” gender and birth control in Britain 1920-50, Past and Present (2000)
L. Davidoff, The family story
A. McLaren, Birth control in 19th century England
Britain's Industrial Decline, 1870-1939
“The thesis of Britain’s industrial decline has been much exaggerated. Between 1870 and 1939 the British economy merely went through a necessary transition towards a more services and consumer goods-oriented economy.”
Wherever the truth may lie, the these is Britain’s industrial decline has been greatly debated, some arguing on the one hand that indeed Britain did suffer a very definite decline in its industrial production and output, and others that this decline was only relative in the context of growing worldwide economies and Britain’s changing role. Decline has come to be interpreted in terms of the structure of the economy and in particular of the balance between manufacturing and services and of the presumed costs of such a transition. Such a structural change was taken to mean both the dilution of quality of industry and also a clear reduction in Britain’s international power. Both of these need to be analysed separately to fully gauge the extent, or not, of the exaggeration relating to the thesis of industrial decline. Yet, it must be noted, that “declinist” historians have, perhaps wrongly, assumed that the only direction in which structural change could proceed was ‘down’ - whereas, in reality, the change we see in expanding economies is very much upwards. Between 1870 and 1939 Britain did undergo a transition towards a more sophisticated, technological economy with higher value-added service and consumer goods sectors. This fact therefore implies that Britain’s industrial decline was in no way due to a failure of entrepreneurs or business methods, but part of a wider and longer term transition to modernity.
It is perhaps fitting to start with the most vehement critics of Britain’s industrial performance in the period, the Elbaum-Lazonick thesis. This argument clearly states that since the final quarter of the 19th century, Britain has lagged behind other advanced nations in productivity growth and has consequently suffered continuing decline in industrial competitiveness. They attribute the decline of the British economy to rigidities in the key economic and social institutions that developed during the 19th century, calling it a “matrix of rigid institutional structures” that reinforced conservative values and obstructed individual and collective efforts at renovating the economy. That these entrenched institutional structures, such as finance, industrial relations (most significantly the advanced state of British trade unionism) and international trade constrained the productivity of Britain’s economic system. Elbaum and Lazonick argue that the most significant factor in Britain’s industrial malaise was the inability to adopt modern managerial techniques. They advocate the success of American-styled corporate capitalism characterised by hierarchical managerial bureaucracy and systematic research and development which had by the late 19th century emerged so successfully in other major national economies such as Japan and Germany. Britain supposedly lacked managerial control over job content and production standards which would facilitate the introduction of new, high through-put technology. To meet this international challenge, British industries needed transformation of their structures of industrial organisation and enterprise management. However, so the argument goes, vested interests in the existing structures proved formidable obstacles to such a transition. Lacking corporate management skills, British industrialists clung to family control of their firms and thus lost the competitive edge in the world market. Elbaum and Lazonick argue that at the peak of British economic dominance, these arrangements proved most advantageous. Britain’s international marketing structure meant that British firms could get enough orders of similar specifications to reap the benefits of long production runs. But - the tables were turned by the spread of foreign tariff barriers and indigenous industrialisation leading to worldwide development of competing economies. Foreign rivals, with more modern and capital-intensive technology attained, therefore, higher levels of productivity.
However, there is considerable evidence which directly refutes the thesis proposed by Elbaum and Lazonick : that Britain’s decline was more relative than direct, and that in some instances, the British staple industries were faring just as well (if not better) than their competitors. Revealing study by Leunig revealed that productivity in the Lancashire cotton spinning industry was significantly higher than that in American New England. If we were to wholeheartedly believe the thesis of British decline, then the cotton industries were supposedly guilty of many of the mistakes that British industry as a whole was in decline for, a lack of innovation and refusal to accept technologically advanced techniques. Elbaum and Lazonick label the British cotton industry machinery as “antiquated” compared to foreign models - the fact that they were much slower to adopt advanced weaving technology speaking volumes for the general decline in British industrial output. The American New England cotton companies used in Leunig’s study adopted these modern automatic loom and ring machines - whilst the Lancashire factories continued to use older methods such as mule spinning. Yet, crucially, contrary to the stress from writers such as Elbaum and Lazonick (and the Chandler model of corporate capitalism), Leunig found that the Lancashire industry, “generally had higher rates of capital productivity than did New England.” Therefore, does innovation always go hand in hand with high productivity? Leunig’s key investigation suggests not, which has direct implications for the argument which proposes that the thesis of Britain’s industrial decline has been much exaggerated. The coal industry provides further evidence here : that in the period up to the First World War exports boomed and brought excellent returns. One might counter-argue this however, and claim this was only a comparative advantage based on a heavily localised, labour-intensive industry with an unimpressive productivity record and limited future prospects. Furthermore, the example of steel creates a further ambiguity in the claim that Britain’s industrial decline has been exaggerated. The facts do, to a considerable extent, speak for themselves : in 1870 Britain’s share of world tonnage output was 50% for pig iron, 37% for wrought iron and 43% for steel. By 1913 the US now produced 40% of both pig iron and steel compared to 10% in Britain. Decline was perhaps inevitable as a result of the limits placed on demand by domestic market maturity and the growth of foreign industries behind tariff barriers. Britain’s adherence to free trade up to the reintroduction of tariffs in 1932 left the steel industry exposed to adverse competitive dynamics.
Therefore, even through using several examples from Britain’s “staple” industries - there is no clear-cut answer to the extent to which British industry declined. However, we must be careful not to generalise, as perhaps Elbaum and Lazonick did, in labelling the management of British industry as inefficient and directly linked to future decline. The presence of other, more external and worldwide, factors surely contributed greatly to this notion of British industrial decline. Herein lies a significant explanative factor in why the case for British industrial decline has been so exaggerated. Central to the concept of decline has been the belief that things are going from bad to worse, yet the evidence suggests that they were going from not so bad to significantly better. British GNP grew at about 2% annually between 1873 and 1913 and at a little over 2% between 1924 and 1939. The seeming paradox of a sense of economic failure thriving in an increasingly affluent society was an important theme discussed by Supple, whose argument strengthens the case that Britain’s decline was relative. An interesting point raised is that Britain’s decline of world power was central to the belief that its industrial decline was acute and real. How might a positive rate of growth be transmuted into actual collapse? Simply, perhaps, because it is lower than the growth rate of other nations. The bedrock of the debate has been the relative ‘failure’ of the British economy and its associated demotion from the leading rank of worldwide industrial powers. Historically, there can be no doubt about Britain’s relative decline - its share of world manufacturing output has fallen from 25-4 % in the last century. And yet in spite of this, as Supple notes with aplomb, “the British are the beneficiaries of developments which in every generation leave them richer than their predecessors.” Historical experience does point far more firmly to a trend of growth, through transition to modernity, rather than to any apocalyptic collapse. Experience has been one of prolonged growth in incomes and living standards, and decline therefore has most often been identified with the loss of relative power and international standing as a leading industrial nation.
The anxiety about Britain’s economy, as early as the 19th century, proved premature as Britain entered and successfully fought the First World War as a major power. What fails to be realised by “declinists” is that a country wish such a small proportion of the world’s resources and population cannot indefinitely deal on equal terms with newly developed countries bigger by anything between 50-400%. ‘Decline’ cannot be taken to mean that if Britain was no longer top, it had failed. Hence, perhaps it helps to explain the thesis of industrial decline that the British do feel keenly the existence of an extent of decline from a remembered position of economic pre-eminence compared to the growth of powers previously considered inferior. Yet there has been a further, over-arching, factor why pessimists appear concerned about such a decline. This has been the long lasting fear of ‘de-industrialisation’ - of the absolute shrinking of the manufacturing sector as a whole. The expansion of services and investment must be considered a vital factor in such a ‘decline’ - we can see it as more of a transition however. Every advanced economy passes through a trajectory of structural change and people have to leave industries where there is insufficient work. Maybe this decline was due to the low level of investment in manufacturing activity - acutely due to the relative and growing attractiveness of the services and consumer-goods sector which did not fail to recruit many new entrepreneurs. The expansion of the services sector during the late Victorian period and into the interwar years possessed highly beneficial consequences for economic growth - much of this expansion was neither directly nor in spatial terms immediately entirely dependent upon manufacturing. Thus, the movement into services provides positive evidence of entrepreneurial activity and vigour in the closing decades of the 19th century and beyond. Using the context of this explanation of entrepreneurship and British economic decline, the movement into the services and consumer-goods sector is of the utmost importance. If the British entrepreneur is to be criticised for failing to confront the organisational constraints, aforementioned, restricting him in the staple labour-intensive industries, and if he is to be further criticised for failing more vigorously to enter new manufacturing industries, then surely the same entrepreneur deserves distinct praise for moving into the service sector, whose comparatively rapid rate of output growth and high productivity, especially between 1870 and 1913, was so much superior to that of the old industries. Therefore this ‘necessary’ transition that the original statements belies is entirely true - to speak of ruinous ‘decline’ of industry would be to grossly exaggerate the reality that the British economy underwent a distinct transition towards the services sector in the period 1870-1913.
Therefore we can acutely criticise those that claim that Britain underwent a distinct industrial decline. Even within the sectors chosen for study by the ‘declinist’ historians, performance at the level of the individual firm was not one of total gloom. The examples of coal and the Lancashire Cotton Corporation detract from such a damning view of British industry in the period. As a generalised hypothesis however, the notion that there are direct links between past economic success and subsequent growth problems is terribly vulnerable. The alleged burden of over commitment in world trade sits uneasily beside Britain’s pursuit of comparative advantage in the staple export trades, certainly not despair and doom. Therefore the past warns against a gloomy conclusion of Britain’s economic future - the transition towards a more services and consumer goods orientated economy has brought with it ever increasing material and social welfare to its participants. ‘Declinist’ historians may be distinguished by the fact that they conflate relative decline with doing badly or failure. The relative decline was the product not only of British failings but of other economies improving their importance. This last statement cannot be emphasised enough : it is crucial towards the understanding that the thesis of Britain’s industrial decline has been somewhat over exaggerated. Once we recognise that the relative decline of Britain is not to be equated with doing badly, we begin to see that the larger picture was really not all that bad. Britain, indeed, was the second richest large industrial economy in the world until the comparatively recent 1960’s.
To conclude, therefore, would be to propose that the arguments for British industrial decline has been somewhat exaggerated by historians. There was something of a relative decline, especially when compared to Britain’s former Imperial dominance - but when we accept that, in the context of growing modernity coupled with worldwide growth of newly developed countries, Britain was never going to stay ‘top’. The transition to consumer goods and the services sector is most evident, by 1913 Britain had 21.3% of expanding industry, whereas only 17% in 1899. Most importantly, however, case studies do show that Britain’s ‘decline’ has often been misjudged and exaggerated by those wishing to proclaim the advantages of different corporate systems.
Bibliography
B. Alford, Britain in the World Economy Since 1880
T. Leunig, “A British Industrial Success : Productivity in the Lancashire and New England Cotton Spinning Industries a Century ago.” Economic History Review 2003
B. Supple, “Fear of Failing” Economic History Review 1994
D. Edgerton, Science, Technology and British Industrial Decline
B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick, The Decline of the British Economy
M. Kirby, “Institutional Rigidities and Economic Decline : Reflection on the British Experience” Economic History Review 1992
M. Daunton, “Britain’s Imperial Economy”, Journal of Economic History 2001
B. Collins and K. Robbins (eds.), British Culture and Economic Decline
Wherever the truth may lie, the these is Britain’s industrial decline has been greatly debated, some arguing on the one hand that indeed Britain did suffer a very definite decline in its industrial production and output, and others that this decline was only relative in the context of growing worldwide economies and Britain’s changing role. Decline has come to be interpreted in terms of the structure of the economy and in particular of the balance between manufacturing and services and of the presumed costs of such a transition. Such a structural change was taken to mean both the dilution of quality of industry and also a clear reduction in Britain’s international power. Both of these need to be analysed separately to fully gauge the extent, or not, of the exaggeration relating to the thesis of industrial decline. Yet, it must be noted, that “declinist” historians have, perhaps wrongly, assumed that the only direction in which structural change could proceed was ‘down’ - whereas, in reality, the change we see in expanding economies is very much upwards. Between 1870 and 1939 Britain did undergo a transition towards a more sophisticated, technological economy with higher value-added service and consumer goods sectors. This fact therefore implies that Britain’s industrial decline was in no way due to a failure of entrepreneurs or business methods, but part of a wider and longer term transition to modernity.
It is perhaps fitting to start with the most vehement critics of Britain’s industrial performance in the period, the Elbaum-Lazonick thesis. This argument clearly states that since the final quarter of the 19th century, Britain has lagged behind other advanced nations in productivity growth and has consequently suffered continuing decline in industrial competitiveness. They attribute the decline of the British economy to rigidities in the key economic and social institutions that developed during the 19th century, calling it a “matrix of rigid institutional structures” that reinforced conservative values and obstructed individual and collective efforts at renovating the economy. That these entrenched institutional structures, such as finance, industrial relations (most significantly the advanced state of British trade unionism) and international trade constrained the productivity of Britain’s economic system. Elbaum and Lazonick argue that the most significant factor in Britain’s industrial malaise was the inability to adopt modern managerial techniques. They advocate the success of American-styled corporate capitalism characterised by hierarchical managerial bureaucracy and systematic research and development which had by the late 19th century emerged so successfully in other major national economies such as Japan and Germany. Britain supposedly lacked managerial control over job content and production standards which would facilitate the introduction of new, high through-put technology. To meet this international challenge, British industries needed transformation of their structures of industrial organisation and enterprise management. However, so the argument goes, vested interests in the existing structures proved formidable obstacles to such a transition. Lacking corporate management skills, British industrialists clung to family control of their firms and thus lost the competitive edge in the world market. Elbaum and Lazonick argue that at the peak of British economic dominance, these arrangements proved most advantageous. Britain’s international marketing structure meant that British firms could get enough orders of similar specifications to reap the benefits of long production runs. But - the tables were turned by the spread of foreign tariff barriers and indigenous industrialisation leading to worldwide development of competing economies. Foreign rivals, with more modern and capital-intensive technology attained, therefore, higher levels of productivity.
However, there is considerable evidence which directly refutes the thesis proposed by Elbaum and Lazonick : that Britain’s decline was more relative than direct, and that in some instances, the British staple industries were faring just as well (if not better) than their competitors. Revealing study by Leunig revealed that productivity in the Lancashire cotton spinning industry was significantly higher than that in American New England. If we were to wholeheartedly believe the thesis of British decline, then the cotton industries were supposedly guilty of many of the mistakes that British industry as a whole was in decline for, a lack of innovation and refusal to accept technologically advanced techniques. Elbaum and Lazonick label the British cotton industry machinery as “antiquated” compared to foreign models - the fact that they were much slower to adopt advanced weaving technology speaking volumes for the general decline in British industrial output. The American New England cotton companies used in Leunig’s study adopted these modern automatic loom and ring machines - whilst the Lancashire factories continued to use older methods such as mule spinning. Yet, crucially, contrary to the stress from writers such as Elbaum and Lazonick (and the Chandler model of corporate capitalism), Leunig found that the Lancashire industry, “generally had higher rates of capital productivity than did New England.” Therefore, does innovation always go hand in hand with high productivity? Leunig’s key investigation suggests not, which has direct implications for the argument which proposes that the thesis of Britain’s industrial decline has been much exaggerated. The coal industry provides further evidence here : that in the period up to the First World War exports boomed and brought excellent returns. One might counter-argue this however, and claim this was only a comparative advantage based on a heavily localised, labour-intensive industry with an unimpressive productivity record and limited future prospects. Furthermore, the example of steel creates a further ambiguity in the claim that Britain’s industrial decline has been exaggerated. The facts do, to a considerable extent, speak for themselves : in 1870 Britain’s share of world tonnage output was 50% for pig iron, 37% for wrought iron and 43% for steel. By 1913 the US now produced 40% of both pig iron and steel compared to 10% in Britain. Decline was perhaps inevitable as a result of the limits placed on demand by domestic market maturity and the growth of foreign industries behind tariff barriers. Britain’s adherence to free trade up to the reintroduction of tariffs in 1932 left the steel industry exposed to adverse competitive dynamics.
Therefore, even through using several examples from Britain’s “staple” industries - there is no clear-cut answer to the extent to which British industry declined. However, we must be careful not to generalise, as perhaps Elbaum and Lazonick did, in labelling the management of British industry as inefficient and directly linked to future decline. The presence of other, more external and worldwide, factors surely contributed greatly to this notion of British industrial decline. Herein lies a significant explanative factor in why the case for British industrial decline has been so exaggerated. Central to the concept of decline has been the belief that things are going from bad to worse, yet the evidence suggests that they were going from not so bad to significantly better. British GNP grew at about 2% annually between 1873 and 1913 and at a little over 2% between 1924 and 1939. The seeming paradox of a sense of economic failure thriving in an increasingly affluent society was an important theme discussed by Supple, whose argument strengthens the case that Britain’s decline was relative. An interesting point raised is that Britain’s decline of world power was central to the belief that its industrial decline was acute and real. How might a positive rate of growth be transmuted into actual collapse? Simply, perhaps, because it is lower than the growth rate of other nations. The bedrock of the debate has been the relative ‘failure’ of the British economy and its associated demotion from the leading rank of worldwide industrial powers. Historically, there can be no doubt about Britain’s relative decline - its share of world manufacturing output has fallen from 25-4 % in the last century. And yet in spite of this, as Supple notes with aplomb, “the British are the beneficiaries of developments which in every generation leave them richer than their predecessors.” Historical experience does point far more firmly to a trend of growth, through transition to modernity, rather than to any apocalyptic collapse. Experience has been one of prolonged growth in incomes and living standards, and decline therefore has most often been identified with the loss of relative power and international standing as a leading industrial nation.
The anxiety about Britain’s economy, as early as the 19th century, proved premature as Britain entered and successfully fought the First World War as a major power. What fails to be realised by “declinists” is that a country wish such a small proportion of the world’s resources and population cannot indefinitely deal on equal terms with newly developed countries bigger by anything between 50-400%. ‘Decline’ cannot be taken to mean that if Britain was no longer top, it had failed. Hence, perhaps it helps to explain the thesis of industrial decline that the British do feel keenly the existence of an extent of decline from a remembered position of economic pre-eminence compared to the growth of powers previously considered inferior. Yet there has been a further, over-arching, factor why pessimists appear concerned about such a decline. This has been the long lasting fear of ‘de-industrialisation’ - of the absolute shrinking of the manufacturing sector as a whole. The expansion of services and investment must be considered a vital factor in such a ‘decline’ - we can see it as more of a transition however. Every advanced economy passes through a trajectory of structural change and people have to leave industries where there is insufficient work. Maybe this decline was due to the low level of investment in manufacturing activity - acutely due to the relative and growing attractiveness of the services and consumer-goods sector which did not fail to recruit many new entrepreneurs. The expansion of the services sector during the late Victorian period and into the interwar years possessed highly beneficial consequences for economic growth - much of this expansion was neither directly nor in spatial terms immediately entirely dependent upon manufacturing. Thus, the movement into services provides positive evidence of entrepreneurial activity and vigour in the closing decades of the 19th century and beyond. Using the context of this explanation of entrepreneurship and British economic decline, the movement into the services and consumer-goods sector is of the utmost importance. If the British entrepreneur is to be criticised for failing to confront the organisational constraints, aforementioned, restricting him in the staple labour-intensive industries, and if he is to be further criticised for failing more vigorously to enter new manufacturing industries, then surely the same entrepreneur deserves distinct praise for moving into the service sector, whose comparatively rapid rate of output growth and high productivity, especially between 1870 and 1913, was so much superior to that of the old industries. Therefore this ‘necessary’ transition that the original statements belies is entirely true - to speak of ruinous ‘decline’ of industry would be to grossly exaggerate the reality that the British economy underwent a distinct transition towards the services sector in the period 1870-1913.
Therefore we can acutely criticise those that claim that Britain underwent a distinct industrial decline. Even within the sectors chosen for study by the ‘declinist’ historians, performance at the level of the individual firm was not one of total gloom. The examples of coal and the Lancashire Cotton Corporation detract from such a damning view of British industry in the period. As a generalised hypothesis however, the notion that there are direct links between past economic success and subsequent growth problems is terribly vulnerable. The alleged burden of over commitment in world trade sits uneasily beside Britain’s pursuit of comparative advantage in the staple export trades, certainly not despair and doom. Therefore the past warns against a gloomy conclusion of Britain’s economic future - the transition towards a more services and consumer goods orientated economy has brought with it ever increasing material and social welfare to its participants. ‘Declinist’ historians may be distinguished by the fact that they conflate relative decline with doing badly or failure. The relative decline was the product not only of British failings but of other economies improving their importance. This last statement cannot be emphasised enough : it is crucial towards the understanding that the thesis of Britain’s industrial decline has been somewhat over exaggerated. Once we recognise that the relative decline of Britain is not to be equated with doing badly, we begin to see that the larger picture was really not all that bad. Britain, indeed, was the second richest large industrial economy in the world until the comparatively recent 1960’s.
To conclude, therefore, would be to propose that the arguments for British industrial decline has been somewhat exaggerated by historians. There was something of a relative decline, especially when compared to Britain’s former Imperial dominance - but when we accept that, in the context of growing modernity coupled with worldwide growth of newly developed countries, Britain was never going to stay ‘top’. The transition to consumer goods and the services sector is most evident, by 1913 Britain had 21.3% of expanding industry, whereas only 17% in 1899. Most importantly, however, case studies do show that Britain’s ‘decline’ has often been misjudged and exaggerated by those wishing to proclaim the advantages of different corporate systems.
Bibliography
B. Alford, Britain in the World Economy Since 1880
T. Leunig, “A British Industrial Success : Productivity in the Lancashire and New England Cotton Spinning Industries a Century ago.” Economic History Review 2003
B. Supple, “Fear of Failing” Economic History Review 1994
D. Edgerton, Science, Technology and British Industrial Decline
B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick, The Decline of the British Economy
M. Kirby, “Institutional Rigidities and Economic Decline : Reflection on the British Experience” Economic History Review 1992
M. Daunton, “Britain’s Imperial Economy”, Journal of Economic History 2001
B. Collins and K. Robbins (eds.), British Culture and Economic Decline
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