Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 21:03:00 +0100 From: Richard Bos <Richard.Bos-AT-hagcott.meganet.co.uk> Subject: Reclaiming William Morris Dear All, After the exposure of George Orwell this week, I thought you all might like to see an article about the early Socialist, William Morris. As this is the centenary of his death there are quite a few exhibitions and meetings on the subject in Britain. The article from the New Worker (you guessed it!) is quite long, so this is part one. If only one or two people want to read it, I will send the rest to them individually. If more want to read it, I will post the other 3 parts to the list. IN ALL the hype surrounding the William Morris centenary one fact has been conveniently overlooked -- that Morris was a communist who publicly and vigorously campaigned for the overthrow of capitalism. If you go to the magnificent exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, you may be astonished at his creativity and output, but you'll see precious little of his political legacy. In all the halls filled with multi-media presentation there is only a single glass case devoted to Morris the socialist. Newspaper reviews have presented him as a wallpaper designer, poet, Raphaelite painter, mediaevalist, printer, and businessman. But if his politics get mentioned at all, he's referred to as a utopian or a champagne socialist. In other words, quite harmless to the ruling class. In fact, politicians have been queuing up to claim him for themselves. Tony Blair has named him in several interviews as a source of inspiration, claiming that he had read Morris's political writings avidly as a student. As far back as 1934 Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had presented Morris as a Tory paternalist. Environment secretary John Selwyn Gummer is reported to be a Morris admirer, and is speaking at a conference on Morris in September. Other speakers include Roy Hattersley and Barbara Castle. Conference organiser Martin Arnold said: 'They can all claim a bit of him to authenticate their own political agenda. We are thinking of dropping a letter to Paddy Ashdown to see if he wants to put up someone" At the same time, the chairperson of the south Midlands William Morris Society claimed: "It has to be recognised that his ideas about going back to the middle ages and the importance of small guilds were totally impractical ..." Morris needs rescuing from these new admirers. Do they know what he thought about Parliament and parliamentarians? The real Morris speaks His views are most aptly expressed in News From Nowhere. This is a vision of a socialist future -- based on London -- and serialised in Commonwealth, weekly paper of the Socialist League. "Why, there are the Houses of Parliament! Do you still use them?" asks Morris. His companion from the future burst out laughing '...and [it] was sometime before he could control himself; then he clapped me on the back and said: 'I take you, neighbour; you may well wonder at our keeping them standing, and I know something about that, and my old kinsman has given me books to read about the strange game they played there. Use them! Well, yes, they are used for a sort of subsidiary market, and a storage place for manure..." As for Morris's ideas about going back to the middle ages -- which he certainly held as a young man under the influence of the writings of Thomas Carlyle -- this is what he had to say: 'Those with a false idea of the continuity of history are loathe to admit the fatal words, 'It cannot be, it has gone'. They believe that we can do the same sort of work in the same spirit as our forefathers, whereas for good and for evil we are completely changed, and we cannot do the work they did. 'All 'continuity of history' means is, after all, perpetual change, and it is not hard to see that we have changed with a vengeance, and thereby established our claim to be the continuers of history." This is Morris the Marxist speaking, not to the Socialist League or on a Hammersmith street corner, but to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Champagne socialist or democratic centralist? Morris's socialism developed relatively late in life. He was in his forties and at first sight from an unlikely background, which is how the jibes about champagne socialism came about. Born into wealth in 1834 (his father made a fortune share-dealing in copper and tin mining) he grew up in Walthamstow. The death of his father when William was 13 made little difference to the family fortune. William was a boarder at Marlborough College, then a fairly new public school, and went on to Exeter College, Oxford. Here he was able to indulge his taste for medievalism, visiting the cathedrals of northern France with his friend Burne-Jones who later became a well known Victorian artist. Morris began training as an architect, then decided to become a painter and dabbled in poetry before becoming a successful businessman who could then give free reign to his whims and embrace worthy causes. If this was all William Morris was -a wealthy dilettante -- the centenary celebration would be no more than a marketing opportunity for the heritage industry. But while he may have been a dabbler in many things, he also became accomplished at a great many of them. His versatility was remarkable. A brilliant designer, Morris set about with zeal and determination to learn the crafts necessary to create the finished articles. The same enthusiasm is evident in his popular poetry at the time. He translated Icelandic sagas and first read Marx's Capital in French while clearly being completely at home working in handicrafts. He wanted to see an end to the division between brain work and hand work; between craftsmen and operative and designer; between the employee and the employed. His own way of living was an attempt to solve this problem. Eventually, he recognised it as a class issue, committing himself to socialist revolution as fully as he did to every other cause he embraced. Today we'd also call him a workaholic. His drive and enthusiasm quickly led him to understand the need for self sacrifice from individuals coupled with discipline and organisation from the workers' movement. In a lecture on the need for socialist organisation in 1883 be wrote: "I mean sacrifice to the cause of leisure, pleasure and money, each according to his means: I mean sacrifice of individual whims and vanity, of individual misgivings, even though they may be founded on reason, as to the means which the organising body may be forced to use: remember, without organisation the cause is but a vague dream." Those are the words, not of a champagne socialist, but of a democratic centralist. by Martin Brown -- Best wishes, Richard. --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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