Reclaiming William Morris

[Richard Bos <Richard.Bos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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.



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