Oliver Cromwell

[BITW434]

I'm aware that this view may be quite controversial, but I am just keen to see what everyone else thinks about this...

[Stirnerian]

I tend to agree that "any attempts to build agrarian socialism in the 17th century" would have been futile, but be careful: the same logic might be applied to hard socialism in the 21st. The Levellers and Diggers had no reason to suspect how rapidly material conditions were about to change.

As for Cromwell and the Roundheads, I'm an American and unfortunately unread on the matter of the English Civil War. But could an analogy be drawn between Cromwell and the Federalist faction of the American Revolution a century later? They were modernizing centralists who were also profoundly bigoted towards the Irish and Catholics more generally (which is why Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party ended up with the lion's share of the poor immigrant vote). That seems to have been a tendency on both sides of the Atlantic at the time - a socially reactionary, clerical Protestant elite which nevertheless can be seen as 'progressive' through their economic development.

[Alexios]

How do you figure that a conquest which resulted in two centuries of famine, poverty, and genocide was "progressive?" Ireland became little but a stomping ground for the New Model Army and remained an extraction point for British capitalism until independence. You might as well try to claim that British colonialism elsewhere was progressive.

And Engels' point on the Catholic church is completely irrelevant for the 17th century, let alone the 19th century.

[Stirnerian]

How do you figure that a conquest which resulted in two centuries of famine, poverty, and genocide was "progressive?" Ireland became little but a stomping ground for the New Model Army and remained an extraction point for British capitalism until independence. You might as well try to claim that British colonialism elsewhere was progressive.

And Engels' point on the Catholic church is completely irrelevant for the 17th century, let alone the 19th century.

To the extent that things like enclosure led to the development of capitalism proper, then I think we have to acknowledge it as 'progressive'. This doesn't mean 'ethically justifiable', or a model to emulate; it probably does mean it was necessary.

I certainly have a great deal of sympathy for the early victims of capitalist exploitation, and I feel like a shitbag for thinking the rapine perpetrated against them was necessary. But... it likely was.

[Antiochus]

You feel shitty because it is a shitty thing to say (no insult).

Someone mentioned the example of India. India was "closer" to Capitalism in the 16th century than in the 19th century. The country was pillaged and destroyed, millions starved etc...Only a great cynic with hindsight bias would claim these 'acts' were justified and beneficial for the rise of Capitalism. Imperialism pre-dates Capitalism and it (out of many hundreds of examples) it has seldom catalyzed its creation.

Off course this is what all leftists believe. If they didn't, why the fuck are we fighting against Imperialism? Surely if the U.S fucks some more countries and maybe loses a war or two, a revolution would be more likely (as is the case in history). If that is the case, only a morally bankrupt person can say "I oppose it, but I want it to happen".

[Ⓐdh0crat]

But the more I read on him the more my perspective changes. As a member of the minor gentry, who fought against the royalists in the English Revolution, was he not a true class revolutionary?
No. A religious zealot who eventually rose to command more autocratic power than any English king of the 17th Century dared wield.

[The Red Star Rising]

Cromwell was essentially a Theocratic Dictator who had more power than pretty much any King of England ever wielded. An extremely moralizing one who very quickly set about legislating his personal morality into law. If you're wondering why English playwriting tradition has this gap in the 17th century corresponding to his reign, it's because he banned it for being a distraction from what he believed should be a godly life style. You'll notice that when he died the English people were quite glad to be rid of him and his deep social controls.

You could probably find more progressive political strongmen in late republican Rome.

[Ismail]

I know this hasn't had replies in some time, but to answer the question "why was Cromwell historically progressive," here's the 1970s article on him in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia:

Born Apr. 25, 1599, in Huntingdon; died Sept. 3, 1658, in London. Outstanding figure of the English Bourgeois Revolution of the 17th century; leader of the Independents, and lord protector of England (from 1653). According to F. Engels’ estimate, he was the “Robespierre and Napoleon rolled into one” of the English Revolution (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 602).

Cromwell was born into a middle gentry family and began his political activity in 1628, when he was first elected to the House of Commons. Nevertheless, within the ranks of the Parliamentary opposition to Stuart absolutism Cromwell became well known only with the convocation in 1640 of the “Long Parliament,” in which he spoke out as an advocate of the interests of the bourgeoisie and the new gentry.

With the beginning of the first civil war against the king (1642–46), Cromwell with the rank of captain became head (in September 1642) of a volunteer cavalry detachment. Cromwell strongly advocated the democratization of the Parliamentary army, and he wanted to attract to it those who would fight against the king out of conviction rather than as mercenaries. In seeking out such “soldiers of God,” Cromwell turned to the yeomanry of eastern England, who were devout Puritans and hostile to outmoded feudal orders. Cromwell’s peasant cavalry (he commanded a cavalry regiment from the beginning of 1643) soon merited its nickname of “Ironsides” because of its tenacity and discipline. It became the nucleus of the Parliamentary army, which was reorganized upon Cromwell’s initiative at the beginning of 1645 (the “New Model Army”) and in which Cromwell was deputy commander in chief with the rank of lieutenant general. Cromwell’s skill as a general was most clearly manifested in the decisive battles of the first civil war—at Marston Moor (July 2, 1644) and at Naseby (June 14, 1645), where it was Cromwell’s cavalry that decided the success of these battles.

Although during the first civil war Cromwell reflected to a considerable degree the mood of the revolutionary democracy in the Parliamentary camp, after the victory over the king and the latter’s imprisonment, he retarded and restrained the movement of the popular masses. This led to a fierce struggle between Cromwell and the Levelers (1647). Caught between three political forces in 1647—the Presbyterian majority in Parliament, the army, and the imprisoned king—Cromwell showed himself to be a resourceful and evasive politician. Utilizing the army as his principal support, he carried on secret negotiations with the king at the same time, and he dealt harshly with disturbances among the soldiers.

When at the beginning of the second civil war (1648) Cromwell again needed the support of the masses, he made a temporary alliance with the Levelers. In 1648 he captured London, and with the aid of his soldiers he purged the House of Commons of the openly outspoken royalists (”Pride’s Purge” of Dec. 6, 1648). Under pressure from the lower classes, Cromwell was compelled to agree to the trial and execution of the king, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, and the proclamation of England as a republic. However, the republic that was declared in May 1649 was in fact a dictatorship by the so-called Meek Independents, headed by Cromwell.

The smashing of the Levelers’ uprising and the Diggers’ movement in England itself, the extremely harsh military expedition against rebellious Ireland (1649–50), Cromwell’s Scottish campaign (1650–51), and the plundering of Irish lands all testified to Cromwell’s transformation into the Napoleon of the English Revolution. By his growing conservatism and his hostility to the democratic aspirations of the masses Cromwell merited the trust of the bourgeoisie and the new gentry.

Officially appointed by Parliament in May 1650 as lord general and commander in chief of all the republic’s armed forces, Cromwell proceeded to establish his own personal dictatorship. On Apr. 20, 1653, he dissolved “the Rump” of the Long Parliament; in December 1653 he was proclaimed lord protector of England, Ireland, and Scotland. This protectorate regime transformed Cromwell into the de facto sovereign ruler of the country, the military might of which, forged during the course of the Revolution, was now placed at the service of the bourgeoisie’s trade and colonial expansion.

Cromwell’s outward grandeur, which reached its apex during these years, could not, however, conceal the weakness of the protectorate system. The class allies who had come to power strove to erect a more tenable barrier against the claims of the popular masses. Famed for his reputation as a regicide, Cromwell was in their eyes an insufficient guarantee against the common people. Cromwell’s right-wing enemies prepared secretly for a restoration of the Stuarts. By his own open anti-democratism Cromwell himself facilitated and expedited this restoration, which was carried out in 1660, shortly after Cromwell’s death.

[Invader Zim]

How do you figure that a conquest which resulted in two centuries of famine, poverty, and genocide was "progressive?" Ireland became little but a stomping ground for the New Model Army and remained an extraction point for British capitalism until independence. You might as well try to claim that British colonialism elsewhere was progressive.

And Engels' point on the Catholic church is completely irrelevant for the 17th century, let alone the 19th century.

Progress =/= ethical

Capitalism was undeniably progress over its precursor, but it is not an ethical model for society.

[Illegalitarian]

Cromwell was essentially a Theocratic Dictator who had more power than pretty much any King of England ever wielded. An extremely moralizing one who very quickly set about legislating his personal morality into law. If you're wondering why English playwriting tradition has this gap in the 17th century corresponding to his reign, it's because he banned it for being a distraction from what he believed should be a godly life style. You'll notice that when he died the English people were quite glad to be rid of him and his deep social controls.

You could probably find more progressive political strongmen in late republican Rome.


Yeah, no, that's 100% false.


Cromwell explicitly denied any attempts by others to crown him and left most governing to those below him. He did try and legislate his morality, but once he saw first hand how extreme and heavy handed such legislation was in practice (such as the banning of dancing), he had most of these laws removed and came to the realization that you can't force people to follow your own vision of morality.


What happened in Ireland was, for the most part, in spite of Cromwell, not because of him. There are many accounts of him ordering the execution of soldiers who partook in theft, rape, attacking civilians, etc. He eventually left for England, though, and that's when the military really did most of its damage to the country.


He was far from the perfect leader (a religious fanatic in the 17th century), but he was a progressive leader, and certainly did not have any where near the power of the monarchy.