< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > introduction</h1>
In order to interfere in the British Revolution, the 30-year war was ended early, but it was not realized due to the internal catapult movement. The southern plantation owners of the British North American colonies also hated the British Revolution, resisted the recognition of the republic, and wanted to resist by force. The external difficulties of the Republic are not yet the principal, but the internal difficulties are the greatest threat to the Republic.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > independent republic and Cromwell's military dictatorship</h1>
In 1649, the socio-economic situation in England was extremely poor. Successive civil wars and agricultural failures have caused a very socio-economic depression. Prices are rising, unemployment and bankruptcies are on the rise, and tens of thousands of people are dying of starvation. In this case, the independents did not want to improve the situation of the people, and their policies were no different from those of the Presbyterians. In order to curry favor with the big London merchants and financiers, the government also funded them with money, placing the burden of taxation on the middle and lower classes. Thus, the working people in urban and rural areas constantly rose up to launch new revolutions. At this time, a more radical digger than the egalitarians appeared in the English countryside, and its constituents were mainly the poor in the countryside.
The diggers advocated the abolition of land inequality and the privileges of large landowners, demanding that working people be allowed to cultivate public land without paying any taxes. They occupy wasteland or commons everywhere to reclaim it, so they are called "diggers". The difference between the diggers and the equalists is that they emphasize that the British people should not only have the right to vote, but also the land, so they are also called "true equals". The ideas of the diggers essentially reflect the average psychology of the poorest peasants, which is a primitive peasant communist ideology. Even so, the slogans put forward by the diggers were of anti-feudal historical significance under the historical conditions of the time. Because it demanded the stripping of the landlord's land ownership for the benefit of the peasants, this negated the nature of the distribution of real estate at that time. The greatest thinker of the Diggers was Gerald Weinsteinley.
In his book The Law of Liberty, he described private property as the main scourge of social inequality. He advocated that everyone should enjoy the land and the fruits of its labor. He believed that the revolution in England had not yet ended because the people had not received anything. He also recognized the counter-revolutionary use of religion and opened the view that humanity would in the future unite in a society in which property was commonly owned. But Weinsteinley was a utopian communist who could not see the objective laws of social development, nor the class struggle of society, and delusional that the big landowners would automatically give up their land. In addition, Weinsteinley made a number of practical demands, such as the abolition of tithes and various feudal taxes and obligations on the territory. Weinsteinley's ideas reflected the aspirations of the poorest peasants.
In short, the ideas of the digging school mainly reflect the demands of the rural poor and the expectations of the urban lower classes, but it does not reflect all the specific contents of the spontaneous movement of the urban and rural proletarian masses. Nevertheless, the earth-digging movement objectively had a distinctly revolutionary character. In April 1649, the Diggers began working collectively on St George's Hill in Selly, near London. The same thing is happening in Wellingborough and Kent in Northampton. However, the kulaks and local authorities rose up against the diggers, believing that they were violating property rights. Most of the diggers advocated peaceful means to fulfill their demands, in the delusion that they would be protected by Congress. However, Cromwell ruthlessly suppressed the Diggers. The Diggers finally failed. The Egalitarian faction did not support the diggers, and Lylben also declared that he would draw a clear line with the diggers, so that the egalitarians lost the support of the broad masses of peasants. This kind of petty-bourgeois democrats, which is neither united with the broad peasant populist movement nor with those in power, is bound to lead to the fate of defeat.
After the establishment of the republic, the independence faction not only failed to fulfill its demands on the egalitarian faction in the slightest, but concentrated all its forces to suppress the egalitarian faction and failed it. The Republic's enslavement of Ireland, the suppression of Scotland and the War against the Netherlands Cromwell, although it suppressed the Diggers and Equalizers, did not completely eliminate the resistance of the lower and middle classes. At that time, the dissatisfaction of soldiers with the Republic was the greatest threat to the Republic, because the army was a strong pillar of the Republic. Cromwell prepared an expedition to Ireland and Scotland in order to divert the discontent of the soldiers, for the benefit of the landlords and merchants. Ireland declared its independence in October 1641, taking advantage of the English Revolution.
Cromwell personally landed in Dublin, Ireland, in August 1649, and then captured Duloheda to the north and Wexford to the south. Both cities were brutally looted by the British, killing more than 500,000 people. However, the British army was unable to penetrate deep into the interior of the "Green Island", and only occupied a large area of land off the coast of Ireland and confiscated the land. The republican government used the plundered Irish lands as a settlement of the debts of military suppliers and industrialists, and issued Irish "land bonds" to pay officers and soldiers. However, many soldiers, because they need cash, most of them sell the bonds cheaply to officers and speculators. As a result, many British officers, speculators and suppliers of the army made their fortunes and became large landowners in Ireland.
After the plundering of the Irish people, some of the sharecroppers who became British landlords were ruthlessly exploited, some were forced to move to the west of the island, some became slaves and were sent to the Americas, and some moved to Europe as mercenaries. In short, they left their homeland, suffered a lot of torture and suffering, and since then they have deeply planted the national hatred between Britain and Ireland. As for the British independent officers, the new aristocracy and the bourgeoisie who became large Irish landowners, their reactionary and conservative nature was strengthened. In order to consolidate their own interests and political power, they will not hesitate to use any means to eliminate the revolution of the masses and prevent the further deepening of the revolution. Although the soldiers did not retain the land for a long time, they also lost their revolutionary mood because of the temporary "small favors". Thus, the disposition of Irish land corrupted the army and strengthened the momentum of a class hostile to the further democratization of the revolution and attempts to establish a military dictatorship. The British republic was then crumbling.
After the execution of Charles I, the feudal nobles and presbyterians of Scotland supported Charles II as king and launched a rebellion against the Republic. Cromwell led an expedition to Scotland in 1650. On 3 September of the same year, at the Battle of Dunbar, the Scottish army was defeated by Cromwell. The following year, Charles II and the Scottish Army invaded England and advanced south, but in September 1651 at Worcester, the Scottish Army was defeated again, and Charles II fled to France. After the conquest of Scotland, the republican government confiscated the land of the Scottish nobles and the royal party, but some of the nobles saved their land after paying fines and reparations. The confiscated land was also auctioned, with the result that it fell into the hands of the bourgeoisie of England and Scotland, especially the merchants of Edinburgh. Due to the change of land, the traditional land relations in Scotland were broken. Some peasants were dispossessed of their land and became sharecroppers or worked as laborers in manual workshops, while many of the peasants who were deprived of their land traveled far and wide to the Americas to find a way to make a living, where they performed forced labor for plantation owners.
In 1654, the republican government merged Scotland with Ireland into England and abolished the anglo-Soviet border barrier, allowing 30 Scottish MPs to join the English Parliament. It can be seen that in terms of land treatment and political measures, The United Kingdom is different from Ireland and Scotland. While suppressing the Irish Uprising and the Scottish Uprising, the republican government also suppressed the Royal Movement in the American colonies by force. In 1652, under the oppression of British force, the British North American colonies also submitted to the Republic. After suppressing the Irish Uprising and the Scottish Rebellion, Cromwell turned his power to the Netherlands, Britain's main rival overseas. During the British Revolution, the Dutch seized control of the North Sea and the English Channel.
In 1654, the British won the victory, and the Dutch were forced to recognize the Navigation Ordinance and pay money. Since then, the Netherlands has lost its maritime hegemony. Cromwell's external military victories increased the prestige of the Republic. In 1654, The British forced Portugal to conclude a treaty of commerce with it, with which English merchants were granted the right to trade with the Portuguese colonies. In the same year, a treaty was concluded with Denmark, which gave British ships the right to sail through the Strait of Songd into the Baltic Sea. In short, Britain under Cromwell's rule, diplomatically, achieved many successes, defeated the Netherlands, allowed Britain to further control overseas trade, and thus enabled industry to develop rapidly, rapidly exceeding the pre-revolutionary level.
Cromwell's military dictatorship in April 1653, Cromwell forcibly dissolved the "Crippled Parliament". In early July, he convened a conference of delegates, all of whom were circled by Cromwell himself. This is called a "little congress.". Cromwell had wanted to use the "little congress" as his royal tool, but a few of them, against the wishes of the Cromwell clique, instigated cuts in state spending, reductions in the army, lower salaries for officers, and the abolition of tithes. In this way, the "little congress" cannot be completely cromwell's taming tool. Thus, in December 1653, Cromwell dissolved this "little congress" and brought the whole power into one. Cromwell was proclaimed the lifelong protector of England, and the republican politics was transformed into a protectorate. Cromwell thus established a military dictatorship between the bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy with the support of the high independence officers, the bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy.
During the period of patriotic politics, Cromwell did a lot of things for the big bourgeoisie and the big landlords. In 1655, England went to war over negotiations with Spain over trade issues. In the end, Britain won. In the Americas, Britain acquired the Spanish island of Jamaica in the West Indies and plundered the gold and silver shipped by Jamaica by Spanish ships; on the European continent, Britain occupied Spanish Dunkirk, which not only opened the way for British commercial trade, but also gave Britain the key to control the continent. This further accelerated the development of British capitalism and laid the foundation for the expansion of British colonies in the 18th century.
In September 1658, Cromwell died and his son Richard Cromwell succeeded him as Protector. Richard Cromwell was cowardly and incompetent, and the protector's rule began to disintegrate. During the Bourgeois Revolution in England in the 17th century, Cromwell played the most important role. Initially, he was the leader of the bourgeois revolutionaries, relying on the middle bourgeoisie and the radicals of the new aristocracy, using the strength of the masses of the people, to defeat the royal army, overthrow the old feudal order, and do a lot for the British revolution.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Stuart Restoration and the change in 1688</h1>
In the late 1950s, peasants' hardships reached their extreme, with complaints, protests and riots everywhere. The inhabitants of the eastern swampy lowlands continued to struggle, and peasants in many other areas also launched anti-enclosure movements. In 1659, this mass movement was very intense. The protectorate government, sensing a growing revolutionary mood among the masses, made a compromise with the Presbyterian members who had been expelled in the past and restored parliament in 1659. This means that the British big bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy fear the masses of the people more than they fear the royal party, and in order to consolidate their power, they have formed alliances with their former enemies and even restored the old state mechanisms.
After Cromwell's death, the protector's rule was essentially shaken, and senior officers in the protectorate took advantage of Richard Cromwell's cowardice and incompetence to manipulate real power. This situation of military domination of the country was soon opposed by Congress. The Presbyterians in Congress attempted to restore the old constitution with "kings, nobles, and commoners," and at the same time mixed in parliament with the Royal Party, who were desperate to restore Charles II.
Although the army and the Parliament were in conflict, the army at this time was already non-revolutionary, had no social basis, and had become an instrument of domination of the independent big bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy. Therefore, in the struggle against Congress, the army can no longer win. Thus, the conditions for restoration were ripe for England during this period. In February 1660, Cromwell's subordinate, the Scottish garrison general Munch, returned to London. Munch and his men were mostly proponents of monarchy. When he returned to London, he took control of the government by force and convened a parliament exclusively by the big bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy to promote the restoration.
In 1660, Charles II reached an agreement with Congress and issued the so-called Manifesto of Breda. In this manifesto, Charles II promised: (i) that the lands confiscated by the Royal Party and the Church during the Civil War would not be recovered; (ii) that freedom of religion and belief would be guaranteed; and (iii) that revolutionaries opposed to the monarchy would be pardoned. All these conditions are concessions to the interests of the bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy. In May 1660, Charles II returned to London and ascended to the throne, which history calls "royal retrospection", the restoration of the Stuart dynasty.
After the restoration of Charles II, he was not willing to fully serve the big bourgeoisie and the new nobility, and always wanted to imitate the feudal despotism of France. On the one hand, he did something to satisfy Congress: (i) not to recover the land confiscated during the revolutionary period and to recognize the ownership of the new landlords; (ii) to respect the taxation rights of the House of Commons, to allow freedom of religion and belief, and not to recover confiscated royal lands; (iii) to abolish the feudal obligations previously enjoyed by the king; and (iv) to introduce mercantilist policies, to protect British overseas trade, and to expand the enforcement of navigation regulations. At the same time, in order to facilitate the bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy, in 1660 a policy of imposing high tariffs on grain, livestock and meat imported into England was introduced.
In addition, the so-called Settlement Act was enacted, which prohibited the workers from leaving the areas where they were employed at will, in order to ensure that large farmers had access to adequate labour. All of these policies are flattering to Congress. But, on the other hand, Charles II tore up the Manifesto of Brieda and implemented a number of policies prepared for the restoration of feudal monopoly: (i) the restoration of the upper house; (ii) the persecution of the revolutionaries who opposed the monarchy's feudal regime and the arrest of those who supported the republic against the monarchy's feudal regime; (iii) the restoration of the old electoral system before the revolution in order to increase the power of the feudal nobility in parliament; and (iv) the acquisition of the land lost by the king and the church during the revolutionary period with the expenditure of the state treasury. In 1670, he concluded the Treaty of Deauville with France, which provided for the restoration of Catholicism in England and a joint war with France against the Netherlands. All these policies, which are contrary to the interests of the bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy, are strongly opposed by the Parliament. Charles II's various reactionary measures aroused the disgust of Congress.
The succession to the throne in the 1670s exacerbated the conflict between the king and Parliament. In the struggle between Parliament and the King, two political parties began to form. One was the Tories (later the Conservative Party), which represented the interests of feudal landlords and monks and supported the monarchy. One was the Whigs (later the Liberals), which represented the interests of the large and middle bourgeoisie and the new landlords and aristocrats, opposed the monarchy, supported parliamentary politics, and demanded the abolition of James's succession to the throne.
In 1679, in order to oppose the arbitrary arrest and persecution of the king, the Whigs introduced the Habeas Corpus Act in Parliament. Although this act was repeatedly opposed by the House of Lords, it was finally passed in 1679 under pressure from the Whigs. Like his brother, he secretly accepted French subsidies and actively restored the Catholic Church and feudal monarchy in England. James II openly appointed Catholic monks to important official positions in the state, giving power to Catholics as much as possible. In this way, not only did the bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy oppose it, but the feudal monks and aristocrats were also dissatisfied. For the restoration of Catholicism is undoubtedly the restoration of the Catholic estate confiscated during the eighth period of Henry. This caused fear among the feudal nobility and the state monks, and the Tories and the Whigs united against James II.
A coup d'état of 1688 overthrew James II of the Stuart dynasty and replaced him with another king belonging to the Stuart family. This is only to better secure the rule of the big landlords and the big bourgeoisie and to consolidate the position they have gained in the revolution. The development of bourgeois thought in the period of the British Revolution In the revolutionary period, in addition to the armed struggle, a sharp ideological struggle was also launched. He denies the existence of any immaterial entity, arguing that all spiritual or "immaterial entities" are the product of human imagination. As a result, he opposed the medieval scholastic and idealistic views. But Hobbes's materialism is incomplete. He denies that time and space are universal forms of material existence, and that motion is a universal form of material existence. His materialism is therefore a kind of mechanical materialism.
Hobbes's theory of political philosophy was established during the English Revolution. In 1651, he published Leviathan. In this work, he fully expounded his theory of political philosophy and proposed the contract theory of the origin of the state. Hobbes believed that before there was no state, human beings were in a "state of nature." At that time, there was no private property, and human beings had a natural right to acquire everything in nature. The anti-feudal significance of Hobbes's assertion lies in his denial of the divine right of kings and the attack on the theology of the church, which he considers to be the product of ignorance and fear. But there is also an anti-democratic side to Hobbes's argument. For example, he strongly advocated an absolute monarchy, hated revolution, opposed public ownership of property and the maintenance of private property. Hobbes's view of private property did not go beyond medieval bourgeois property. Hobbes's anti-feudal argument, therefore, was very incomplete and represented only the demands of the new British aristocracy and the bourgeois elite at that time. Because of the criticism of the revolution, Hobbes left England at the beginning of the revolution.
In 1649, when the independent republics were growing counter-revolutionary sentiment and attempting to establish a military dictatorship, he returned to England. The anti-democratic features of his doctrine were particularly popular in the patriotic era. However, his theories were not accepted by the new middle nobility and bourgeoisie. John Locke (1632-1704), who studied at Oxford University, abandoned the scholastic doctrine at an early age and studied the philosophy of Bacon and Descartes, and later became the successor to the philosophical ideas of Bacon and Hobbes. During the Restoration era, he was persecuted for propagating liberal ideas and exiled to the Netherlands, returning to England after a coup d'état of 1688.
Locke is epistemologically dualistic in philosophy, both materialistic and idealistic. He acknowledges that things exist objectively and that ideas and appearances are the result of these things acting on our senses. Therefore, he insisted on the experiential and perceptual nature of human knowledge, which was materialistic. However, he divided experience into two kinds: external and internal. With regard to external experience, he acknowledges the effect of material things on man's sensory organs, which is materialistic, but he describes internal experience as "the self-activity of the mind," which is the idealistic view of his philosophy. Thus, Locke's philosophy is dualistic. He saw spirit and matter as two entities. The idealism of Locke's philosophy was later exploited by Berkeley and Hume, while his materialist component was developed by Diderot in 18th-century France and Feuerbach in 19th-century Germany.
In terms of political thought, Locke elaborated sufficiently in his book Two Treatises on Government. He also developed the contractual doctrine of the origin of the state, but he was different from Hobbes. He believes that in the era of the "state of nature", it is not the era of plundering and killing each other, but the era when people are happiest. Locke's theory consisted primarily of maintaining bourgeois private property. Thus, unlike Hobbes, he strongly advocated a constitutional monarchy in the form of political power. His political philosophy provided a theoretical basis for the British constitutional monarchy, reflecting the interests of the British liberal bourgeoisie. Both hobbes and Locke's philosophy have their class roots. This class root corresponds to the peculiarities of the English Revolution and to the class contradictions of the revolutionary period.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
In short, in the course of the English Revolution in the 17th century, not only did it defeat feudal autocracy politically, but it also struck down ideologically on theology and feudal ideological systems, thus producing the British bourgeois ideological system. This ideology became a precursor to french and American bourgeois thought in the 18th century. The bourgeois revolutions of the 17th century in England had progressive significance, but also had their limitations. In its progressive sense, this revolution destroyed the feudal rule of England and established a regime in which the bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy compromised, thus clearing the way for the development of capitalism in England.