pandemonium of Jubilee Year their loathing is growing in proportion to the row. They appear to confront a nation sucked into helpless crownworship, without a single ounce of decent republicanism in its make-up. While they dream of communism, the country has not advanced out of this old feudal rhapsody. The "serious' bourgeois Sunday papers lead their bloodshot cousins into new levels of hysteria, Everywhere Labour councillors slobber over the Regal fingers and the Dynastic feet. Huge crowds and street fêtes testify to the continuing popularity of monarchy.
Yet the socialist challenge to this vas ewichment is niren noticeable feebl 'Parasites and Scroungers!', to quote a recent anti-jubilee leafles handed round by obe group. "The cost of all this frippery!". as William Hamilton and others from the fading non-conformist traditions of the labour movement tend to say. Marxists sometimes go beyond these homilies, but it is usually ro give a standard, somewbat mechanical dismissal in their own terms: monarchy is a deliberately maintained illusion, a class opiate meant to dull and diver class consciousness.
POPULAR UNREASON Our ruling class has always been strong on idcology, tar superior to coercion as a method of domination when it can he made to work; this is one of is Idoological arms, and certainly one which This is good enough, as far as it goes However, few really feel it is far enough Confronted by the appailing popularity of monarchy, it is not cnough to choke with with rates of the one or too onesel tales of the one honest Queen-haters there were in the pub last Saturday night. Such attinudes lead either to a sort of disgust with popular unreason the masses who let themselves be duned hea meretricious show tions of a people not meally fooled by all, secretly behind the Union-Jack facade.
Both notions are dangerous to socialism. lE is much iDote unponent to ask wast are the historical reasons for the Great-British be reduced to abstract considerations of ideology and class. Furthermore, it is chese same characteristics which help us to grusp the causes of the instrucion's popularity. The British people are not daft because they still adore a Crowned Head; but they are the victims of a political culture which is in cerrain definable aspocts retarded and limited. These peculiar limitations descend from the experience of empire, and are rocced in the nature of the existing state. It is uscless to criticise monarchy in isolation from these things.
BENIGHTED DESPOTS On the death of Queen Anne in 1714, ibe British ruling class invited the monarch of an obscure German princely state to step into her shoes. They did this to ensure the preservation of the social order established by the limited bourgeois revolutions of the previous century — 1640 and 1688. It was essential that the new dynasty sbould be controllable, and Protestant. No other formula would guarantee the 1689 Hill of Richrs and the union with a mainly presbyterian Scotland achieved only seven The dynastic pretext for the change lay in the Hanoverians" distant blood connoction to the old Stuart line. However, this was a secondary (though still quire important) technical question Their distance, their Protestantism, and their foseignness were Manoe were petty absolute rules of the what counted. Al home the Electors kind that srill dominaled the European political landscape, But the British Elite calculated. porrecrly enough, that the culture-shock of transplancation front their Small homeland to a great mercantile seate would keep them quiet.
Much mice was at stake here than tbe desire for a quiet The POSt-1688 uns cas or landeds and merchanc dreaded the retuca of absolure kingship -still the normal foent of government almos: everywhere eise. To gain soime idea of the unverse of mummilied reaction which kingship represented at that time, ane need analysis of the period in his Linenges of the Absolutist Sende. If was will a world of benighted despots, showing few signs of following the Dutch or English path of revolution, The closer Scuart pretenders better blood claim Cieorge 1 — yearned to retuca Die British Istes to that world of sanctified traditionalism. We should remember that the throat was not finally dispelled until thirty-two Vears aller George was broughr in. with the defeat of Charles Edward Stuart's rebellion al Culloden in 1746.
This was the negative installation of the House of Hanover who later retitled bemselves as the House of Windsor). Bur the positive aspect of the operation was more important. preventing the recute or Cathoue Absolurism, the new family was foroed to adapt inself to the character of the post-1688 stale This was — and still remains — the crucial point. From the outser the modern monarchy has been one purt of a distinctive state-system, and it has been from this source wa us come magic derived The •WEE GERMAN LAIRDS - with a far to the throne than carlier This first-born capicalist stare side of the world environment.
As well as lo the late-feudal world the British state was of course a revalutionary force, It was the first great achievement of bourgeois revolution, transcending the city-state limits fords of middle-class power. The enormous imperus i gained fear the break through would carry it, in a short space of time, to the defeat of France and R bend one career an colonial expansion.
And yet, this astonishing creation still unavoidably bore the marks of its epoch.
like the first-horn socialist scates of the 20th century - suffered profound deformations which reflected its struggle against the bostile Until 1746 in ver existence was in doubt. The Bourbons and Mise ture From the praise bad false move from the upstan. They powerful internal allies still eager to undo the Revalution Settlement, not all of chen in Ireland or the Scottish Highlands.
Part of the pattern of berrayal and compromise imposed upon the new sale the raling clique had to feel is way into permanent hegemony, through a long process of shifts aid strategems. Judged in the light of the radical republicanism that selves, Liese were shamefiel concessions The gilded empiricism of the 18th oentury stale could casily be depicted - nod was -so done someace to tae croch. Just 82 Soviet Russia can be caricatured as re-born Tsarism, so the Old Corruption of Walpole and Pilt could be son as no better than the other anciems régimes of the continent.
Fi effect, che post-1688 political saste suld not help heing a bascard form. cleared a path cowards hourgeois opalitar lanism, the more rational constitutional order of the 19th centurs yet never itself, quite arcived in thar novel world. The original great capitalise state never became a typical one. The ruling class fell foul of sts ome prostity and pose docked in 1ae bizarre illogic of its transitional polity. To Degin WIlD, the Hanoverian kings won: merely a par of that odd compromise position.
COMIC VENGEANCE Afraid of a return to Divine Right, the governing class did not feei able to dispense with kingship altogether. Quite righdy, they thought that a show-crown would help them to keep authority, both internally and in foreign affairs. Such a STAgO "constitutional" monanchy could help overauc 8 still unpoliticised people ar home, and Keep their end up in transactions with the continental despots. To this purpose, oligarchy embarked upoo a mighty pro aramme of showmonship whose truels an with us scill. They were helped by the 1745 relief which followed its defear However, this primitive version of le société du speciacle registered quite limited success 11 Was not mn lac transfigure the "wee German lairds" into an accepcable simulncrum Great-Power Manarchy; and - as carly 19th centur radical history showed - popular scepti cism abour the institurion remained faith strong. The personal limitations of earl the campaign; George Ill's dotage and the dehauchery of the Prince Regent threatenes cripple it altogether. In the Roya Pavilion at Brighton, absolute kingship wreaked comic vengeance upon its phoney sucpessons.
The usual myth chat Queen Victorie cured all that, through the persona charisma of a genuinely bourgenes mon arch: prudish, sober, penny-pinching and deferential to the norms. of n middle-class La veil of decency over beding decades, with suspect insouciance cidcotally, this is one reason why the egoney has qualified so notably as enod for romantic historical fictio One recognises bere a typical idealise inversion of the lústorical process: personality is made responsible for th change, rather than a material change fo the personality.
MORAL RETRENCHMENT In realicy it was military and colonial suocess that transfigured the stodgy British monarchy into the Disneyish charade of over the more radical bourgeois revolution in France had been the key, lt is as It pursuing the analony with socialist stale mentioned before — tbe Brezhner regime were to conduct a successful conquest of China and carve up che whole Asian continent afterwards. Even the most dottish and reprilian of Escablishments could hardly fat to acquite a new lease of life.
In the contest of the times, tie Windsor regimes successes were it anythine greater Lhan that. For a period it wartuall "occupied" ibe world. The advances of its industrial revolution delivered continents into its paws, ill a way that no subsequent state would over be able to emulate The rich life-blood of a world's wealth rushed to its head, lending a new magnificense and meaning to its mediocre dynasty. It is true that caly a discinctly more petir-bourgeois Life-style in the Royal Household made it quite acceptable to the newly-rich middle classes; howerer, this was only the neces sary condition of the apohesis, not its Moral retrenchement was a petty price for external glory; and the glory was reflected from the state's position of primacy and imperial dominance. • To be continued next week.
TOMORROW leave this 14 SOCIALISTCH 9 June 1973 Socialist Challenge