[lbo-talk] Popular support for imperialism? (was Russia's economy)

[James Heartfield]

Carrol says "no one in England or the U.S. or France did anything to stop 
Leopold". Assuming you mean King Leopold of Belgium, though the general 
point (that opposition to imperialism was not widespread) might be right, 
the specific point is not. Indeed it was quite common for radicals to attack 
the imperialist policies pursued by the economic rivals of their own 
nation-state. That is why we know as much as we do about King Leopold's 
brutalisation of the Congo - it was widely popularised by the Liverpool 
Merchants' MP E.D. Morel in a newspaper dedicated to the subject, the West 
African Mail,  the British civil servant (who turned against his masters 
taking up the cause of Fenianism in 1914) Roger Casement, author Joseph 
Conrad and a black American missionary whose name escapes me (all of this in 
Adam Hochschild's rather good book 'King Leopold's Ghost'). Interesting, 
too, that Leopold funded a magazine The Truth About the Congo dedicated to 
listing the crimes of the British Empire, a bit like the Chinese 
government's reply to the US Human Rights directory - sounds like a good 
source, though I haven't checked.

On the other hand there was some popular middle class and working class 
opposition to imperialism. William Morris organised large protests calling 
for Troops Out of Omdurman during the Gordon invasion. Radicals openly 
supported the cause of the Boers in the fight against British imperialism 
(as did Lenin). James Larkin rallied support for the strikers in the Dublin 
lockout among British workers. British socialists organised a Hands of 
Russia campaign blacking ships carrying troops to Archangel, and on Lenin's 
advice re-directed their efforts to a Hands of Ireland campaign. Glasgow 
engineers organised a strike wave undermining the British effort in the 
First World War (and see Ken Weller's Don't Be A Soldier,  for more on North 
London's opposition to the war). East Enders elected the radical Socialist 
supporter of Indian independence Shapurji Saklatvala to parliament. Soldiers 
and Labour party members exposed Britain's war against the Greek resistance 
fighters.

Of course, all of this I am listing here is the parallel history, of the 
opposition that did not win the day. The mainstream of official Labour 
Movement politics has been pro-imperialist. The office holders and MPs 
always identified with Britain against her enemies and recalcitrant subject 
peoples. Still, it would be a mistake to assume that the Labour leaders 
imperial policy had the positive support of their members. Rather it was a 
case of the working class accepting that it had no say on matters of high 
politics, surrendering foreign policy matters to the "experts", while being 
restricted to the 'bread-and-butter' issues of pay, hours and conditions of 
work.

"There are complexities re Africa -- but no one in England or the U.S. or
France did anything to stop Leopold. And France continued his ravishing
of Africa even after the overthrow of N.III and the establishment of
democracy. France even bears some responsibility for Rwanda I believe.
And so forth. One _can_ say that 20th-c bourgeois democracy was better
than 195h-c -- but I don't know if that really helps."