Class, Revolution, and the Limits of Bourgeois Democracy: Cromwell, the Levellers, and the English Revolution
A Dissertation by Keith Livesey Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Birkbeck Department of History
Preface
This dissertation is the product of a long engagement with the English Revolution, the first great bourgeois revolution and the foundational rupture of the modern world. Its central concern is not merely to recount events but to understand the class forces that shaped them, the ideological forms through which they became conscious, and the historical limits that determined their outcome.
The Putney Debates of 1647, the suppression of the Levellers, and the brief rise of the Digger communes are more than just historical events. They embody the first clear signs of the core contradictions in capitalist society. The questions posed at that Putney church—about power, property, democracy, and equality— are still unanswered because they can’t be fully resolved within a capitalist system. This work holds that the English Revolution is not merely a past event but a living contradiction in today’s world. Its legacy is still incomplete, its questions remain relevant, and its lessons are still urgent.
Structure of the Dissertation The dissertation proceeds as follows:
Chapter 1 establishes the theoretical and historiographical framework
Chapter 2 analyses the English Revolution as a bourgeois revolution
Chapter 3 examines the Putney Debates as a confrontation between property and democracy
Chapter 4 explores Cromwell’s suppression of the Levellers
Chapter 5 analyses the Diggers as a pre-history of communism
Chapter 6 examines religion as the ideological form of revolutionary consciousness
Chapter 7 synthesises the theoretical implications for bourgeois revolution and permanent revolution
Chapter 8 assesses the contemporary relevance of the revolution and the unresolved questions of 1647
Introduction — Revolution, Class, and the Making of the Modern World The English Revolution and the Problem of Modernity
The English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century marks a pivotal point for the modern era. It was the first successful bourgeois revolution, overthrowing the feudal monarchy by force of arms, asserting parliamentary sovereignty, and challenging the democratic hopes of the lower classes within the confines of capitalist property. This revolution introduced political, economic, and ideological concepts that would shape the subsequent three centuries, including the modern state, rule of law, inviolability of property, rights language, and the idea of the individual as the core unit of political life.
The revolution was also riddled with significant contradictions. It called on the lower classes to overthrow feudalism but suppressed them when their demands threatened bourgeois stability. While it declared the people’s sovereignty, political power remained limited to the wealthy. It inspired radical democratic and communist ideas but used military force to suppress them. The revolution spoke of divine providence while paving the way for capitalist rationality. It was simultaneously emancipatory and repressive, revolutionary and conservative, democratic in appearance but oligarchic in substance.
This dissertation contends that these contradictions are inherent to the English Revolution, not incidental. They highlight the structural constraints of capitalist democracy and the historical factors preventing the complete realisation of democratic ideals in a society founded on private property.
This study’s main argument is that the English Revolution is the earliest and most explicit example of a recurring pattern in bourgeois revolutions: the bourgeoisie cannot fully realise the democratic revolution it initiates. The goals of political equality, social justice, and popular sovereignty consistently clash with the demands of property, hierarchy, and capital accumulation. The Levellers and Diggers are the first historical expressions of this contradiction, and their suppression marks the initial resolution of this conflict in favour of the bourgeoisie.
The Putney Debates as the Theoretical Core of the Revolution
The Putney Debates of October–November 1647 serve as the focal point of this dissertation. They represent the moments when the revolution openly addressed its own contradictions with remarkable clarity. Within the New Model Army — the most politically aware military of its time — vital questions about political legitimacy were openly discussed: Who should govern? On what authority?
Whose interests are prioritised? How are property and political power connected? And what does it mean to consent to government?
The clash between the Leveller-influenced Agitators and the Grandees was more than a constitutional debate; it represented a fierce struggle between opposing class interests. The Levellers championed nearly universal male suffrage, legal equality, and popular sovereignty. In contrast, the Grandees argued that political authority should be limited to those with a “fixed, local interest”—namely, property owners. These conflicting positions reflected two fundamentally different visions of society: one advocating for a democratic republic based on political equality, and the other supporting a bourgeois state that prioritises property rights.
The Putney debates highlight the core contradiction of bourgeois revolution: the bourgeoisie encourages the lower classes to overthrow feudalism, but silences them when their demands endanger property. The Levellers’ loss was not a betrayal but a necessary outcome of the revolution.
The Diggers and the Historical Limits of the Seventeenth Century
If the Levellers embodied the democratic hopes of the lower classes, the Diggers were the first to systematically express a communist critique of property. Led by Gerrard Winstanley, they aimed to create communal land ownership, shared labour, and a society lacking masters and servants. Their short-lived venture at St George’s Hill in 1649 is a notable chapter in early modern history—a revolutionary idea for its time.
However, the Diggers were ahead of their time. The conditions required for communism—such as industrial production, socialised labour, and a proletariat— were not yet in place. Their failure highlights the limitations of the seventeenth century, yet their ideas foreshadowed the challenges of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Diggers show that the democratic revolution creates pressures extending beyond capitalism. Their suppression proves that the bourgeois revolution cannot resolve the contradictions it triggers.
Religion as the Ideological Form of Class Struggle
The English Revolution adopted the language of Puritan theology, not because it was primarily a religious movement, but because religion served as the ideological framework for awareness of class struggle. The Bible offered a common language encompassing equality, tyranny, liberation, and justice. The Levellers employed scripture to express democratic goals; the Diggers used it for communist ideals; and the Grandees invoked it to justify property rights and social order.
Building on Engels’ analysis of the German Peasant War, this dissertation argues that religious ideology is not merely a distraction from material conflicts but a necessary manifestation of them. The theological conflicts of the era reflected underlying struggles over property, labour, and political authority.
Theoretical Framework: Historical Materialism and Permanent Revolution
This dissertation is based on historical materialism. It explores the English Revolution as a key period of class struggle driven by the contradictions of a society evolving from feudalism to capitalism. The analysis incorporates perspectives from Marx, Engels, and Trotsky to examine: the social roots of the revolution, the class forces at play, the ideological expressions of their consciousness, the structural constraints of bourgeois democracy, and the historical prerequisites for socialism.
Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution offers a historical perspective on the seventeenth century. It clarifies why the bourgeoisie alone cannot finish the democratic revolution and why the modern proletariat, a class not linked to property, is capable of fully implementing democratic reforms. The English Revolution serves as the earliest historical example supporting this concept.
Historiographical Context and Intervention
This dissertation engages with a longstanding historiographical debate. It challenges Whig historiography, which depicts the revolution as a progression toward constitutional monarchy; Revisionism, which dismisses the revolution’s social aspects and reduces it to local conflicts and elite factional struggles; and postmodernist perspectives, which see ideology as separate from material conditions. The work builds on the Marxist tradition, including figures like Christopher Hill and Brian Manning, while also incorporating Trotskyist insights into the mechanisms of the bourgeois revolution.
The main historiographical argument is that understanding the English
Revolution requires acknowledging its class nature. The Putney Debates, Leveller mutinies, and Digger communes serve as key evidence against revisionist efforts to depoliticise the revolution.
CHAPTER 2 — THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION AS A BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION
Introduction: The Necessity of a Materialist Interpretation
To comprehend the Putney Debates, Cromwell’s political path, or the suppression of the Levellers, it’s essential to first understand the class nature of the English Revolution itself. The 1647 debates did not stem from abstract constitutional theorising; instead, they expressed a profound social transformation. The revolution was the political result of a lengthy process in which feudal production relations were dismantled and replaced by rising agrarian-capitalist structures.
The conflict—whether between King and Parliament, Court and Country, Grandees and Agitators—was the political expression of deeper material contradictions coming to the fore.
This chapter contends that the English Revolution should be seen as a bourgeois revolution. Not in the simplistic sense of a conspiracy involving merchants and lawyers, but in the accurate Marxist sense of a revolutionary break where the emerging bourgeoisie, supported by parts of the gentry and the “middling sort,” dismantled feudal political and legal systems, paving the way for capitalist social relations. As noted in the uploaded document, the upheavals of the 1640s represented “the violent overthrow of one class system by another.” This perspective is fundamental for any in-depth analysis.
The Crisis of Feudalism and the Rise of Agrarian Capitalism
The Long Decline of Feudal Relations
By the early 1600s, the English feudal system was highly broken down. The manorial structure had weakened over centuries due to economic shifts: labour services were replaced by cash rents, trade increased, and social ties became more monetised. The Tudor rulers sped up this decline by dissolving monasteries, selling crown lands, and expanding state authority. However, the political framework—the monarchy, House of Lords, and church hierarchy—still clung to feudal ideas about authority and property.
Enclosure, Market Relations, and the Transformation of the Countryside
The most significant change took place in rural areas. Enclosure—in which open fields and common lands were consolidated into private property—led to the emergence of a new class of capitalist farmers and a growing number of landless workers. The gentry, shifting toward market-oriented production, invested in drainage systems, better breeds, and commercial farming practices. Meanwhile, the yeomanry, the “middling sort,” and urban artisans became increasingly involved in expanding networks of commodity exchange.
This was not a smooth transition but a period characterised by riots, resistance, and social upheaval. The enclosure of the commons eliminated traditional rights and led to the formation of a rural proletariat. The expansion of wage labour weakened the paternalistic bonds of feudal society. Meanwhile, the market emerged as the primary force regulating social life.
The Bourgeoisie and the Gentry: A Revolutionary Bloc
The English bourgeoisie was not solely an urban group. It was a hybrid class consisting of merchants, financiers, lawyers, and notably, the commercially minded gentry. The alliance among these groups established the social foundation for the parliamentary opposition to the Crown. Their shared interests centred on securing property rights, promoting free trade, limiting arbitrary royal authority, expanding markets, and streamlining law and administration.
In contrast, the monarchy embodied the remnants of feudal absolutism, including prerogative courts, monopolies, arbitrary taxation, and efforts to sustain a political order that grew progressively incompatible with the demands of a capitalist economy.
The Political Crisis of the 1640s
The Fiscal-Military State and the Limits of Absolutism
The English monarchy was going through a structural crisis. Unlike France or Spain, it didn’t have the financial system to support a modern standing army or bureaucracy. Charles I’s efforts to increase revenue using prerogative measures—such as ship money, forced loans, and monopolies—met strong opposition from a class that was becoming more aware of its economic influence and political rights.
Parliament emerged as the institutional voice of bourgeois and gentry interests. Its requests—such as holding regular sessions, controlling taxation, and ending prerogative courts—weren’t just abstract constitutional ideas but the political means of a class struggle over property and state authority. The initial reforms of the Long Parliament, including the abolition of the Star Chamber, the execution of Strafford, and the Triennial Act, marked the first stage of the bourgeois revolution.
The formation of the New Model Army in 1645 reshaped the political scene. It
functioned not just as a military unit but, “in effect, a political party.” Its members mainly came from artisan and yeoman backgrounds, heavily influenced by Puritan radicalism, and grew more aware of their collective strength. The Army emerged as the key revolutionary force, capable of challenging both the monarchy and Parliament.
The Execution of Charles I: Revolutionary Break
The trial and execution of Charles I in January 1649 symbolised a decisive break from feudal monarchy. When the people execute their king after a formal trial and careful deliberation, it reflects a deep revolutionary change rather than a mere misunderstanding.” This event was historic: a monarch was tried, condemned as a “tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy” by his own subjects.
This was more than a symbolic act; it was a revolutionary move that dismantled the ideological basis of feudal power—the divine right of kings—and established the sovereignty of the people, though in a limited, bourgeois manner. It paved the way for the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, regimes that, despite their contradictions, signified the rise of the bourgeoisie in politics.
The Limits of the Bourgeois Revolution
Property as the Boundary of Political Reform
The bourgeoisie aimed to eliminate feudal barriers to advance itself, not to promote societal democratisation. Their idea of liberty was closely tied to property rights. This explains why Ireton, at Putney, argued that only individuals with a “fixed, local interest” should have the right to vote—clearly reflecting bourgeois class interests.
The revolution relied on mobilising the lower classes — the same groups that would later face suppression. The Levellers, Agitators, and radical sects embodied the democratic hopes of those most affected by the war. Their calls for manhood suffrage, legal equality, and religious freedom risked pushing the revolution beyond what the bourgeoisie could tolerate.
Cromwell exemplified the dual nature of the bourgeois revolution: bold in challenging the monarchy, yet brutal in suppressing the Levellers. As the uploaded document states, “Cromwell did not merely argue against the Levellers — he destroyed them.” His crushing of the Burford mutiny in 1649 marked the crucial point at which the bourgeoisie established its authority over the popular forces it had mobilised.
Conclusion: The English Revolution in World-Historical Perspective
The English Revolution was the first major bourgeois uprising. It overthrew the feudal monarchy, established Parliament’s dominance, and set the stage for capitalist growth. However, it also exposed the inherent boundaries of bourgeois democracy. The defeat of the Levellers showed that political equality cannot be achieved in a society rooted in private property. Ultimately, the revolution’s democratic goals were limited by the very class that had initiated it.
Therefore, the Putney Debates are not an anomaly but crucial for understanding the entire revolution. They reveal the tension between the universalist language of rights and the particularist interests of property — a contradiction that would emerge again in every future bourgeois revolution.
CHAPTER 3 — THE PUTNEY DEBATES: DEMOCRACY, PROPERTY, AND CLASS POWER
Introduction: The Revolution Confronts Itself
The Putney Debates of October–November 1647 stand out as a remarkable event in bourgeois revolutionary history. For the first time in England—and possibly in modern Europe—key issues like political legitimacy, sovereignty, and voting rights were openly discussed among armed troops who had recently overthrown the monarchy. The New Model Army, known for its political awareness, became the setting in which the revolution challenged its own fundamental ideas.
The debates were not merely philosophical discussions but a clash between opposing class forces within the revolutionary movement. The Grandees — including Cromwell, Ireton, and senior officers — represented the interests of the propertied classes, such as the gentry, the bourgeoisie, and the wealthier middle strata. In contrast, the Agitators and their Leveller allies expressed the democratic hopes of ordinary soldiers, artisans, smallholders, and the urban poor. The debates clearly revealed the class contradiction central to the bourgeois revolution. This chapter explores that contradiction in detail.
The New Model Army as a Political Organ
A Revolutionary Army
The New Model Army was neither a feudal levy nor a mercenary force. It was a disciplined, ideologically driven, and socially diverse force, primarily recruited from artisans and the yeomanry. Its soldiers were literate, politically active, and deeply influenced by radical Puritanism, which served as the ideological foundation for social unrest. The Army’s political awareness was intentional, stemming from collective struggle, the breaking down of social barriers within ranks, circulation of pamphlets and petitions, the election of soldier-
representatives known as Agitators, and the belief that they had defeated the King and earned a voice in shaping the new order. As the document states, “both a military force and, in effect, a political party.”
By mid-1647, the Army was on the verge of disbandment due to unpaid wages, while Parliament—primarily controlled by Presbyterian conservatives—aimed to reinstate a limited monarchy. The soldiers, who had borne the greatest burden of the conflict, felt their sacrifices were being dismissed. This fuelled their political radicalisation. The Army’s actions in June 1647, when they took the King into custody, and their march on London in August, were acts of revolution. These events demonstrated that the Army, rather than Parliament, had become the key political power.
The Levellers and the Agreement of the People
The Leveller Programme
The Levellers stood out as the most unified democratic movement during the revolution. Their platform, outlined in the Agreement of the People (October 1647), called for: almost universal male suffrage, biennial Parliaments, legal equality, freedom of conscience, abolition of conscription, legal reforms, and Parliament’s subordination to popular sovereignty. The Agreement was considered “a document of breathtaking democratic radicalism for its time.”
Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, the most eloquent Leveller representative at
Putney, expressed the core democratic idea clearly: “The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he.” This was more than just words; it challenged the idea that political legitimacy comes from property. Rainsborough argued that political power should come from the consent of everyone it affects—an idea that, if fully implemented, could have made the revolution a true democratic movement.
The Levellers gained backing from rank-and-file soldiers, London artisans, small traders, independent householders, and radical congregations. These groups were most impacted by enclosure, wage labour, and the upheavals of early capitalism. Their demands reflected the democratic hopes of those who fought in the war but were denied political power.
The Grandees: Property, Order, and the Limits of Revolution
Ireton’s Defence of Property
Henry Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in-law and the leading intellectual among the Grandees, clearly articulated the bourgeois perspective. He argued that political power should be restricted to those with a “fixed, local interest”—usually property owners. Ireton warned that granting universal suffrage could enable the majority, who lacked property, to vote to abolish private property. This was not hypocrisy but a sincere expression of bourgeois class interests. “This was the bourgeoisie speaking with unusual candour.”
Cromwell’s position was more pragmatic but no less class-bound. He feared that Leveller democracy would unleash social forces that would destabilise property and undermine the revolution. His goal was to secure a political settlement that preserved order, protected property, and prevented the revolution from sliding into what he saw as anarchy.
The Debates Themselves: The Clash of Two Revolutions
Sovereignty and the Franchise
The main debate at Putney centred on the franchise. The Levellers called for almost universal male suffrage, while the Grandees maintained that property qualifications were necessary. At the heart of this disagreement were two opposing views of sovereignty: the Levellers believed sovereignty belonged to the people as a whole, whereas the Grandees thought it resided with the propertied classes. This was not simply a matter of technical details, but a fundamental debate over the class nature of the emerging state.
Rainsborough argued that individuals shouldn’t be governed by laws they haven’t consented to. Ireton replied that consent was implicitly given through property representation. The Levellers held that political rights are rooted in personhood, while the Grandees believed they stem from property. The Grandees feared Leveller democracy would threaten property rights, promote social levelling, and dismantle hierarchical order. These concerns were justified, as the Levellers’ demands, if fulfilled, could have paved the way for significant social changes.
The Collapse of the Debates and the Triumph of the Grandees
The Army Council Intervenes
As debates grew more intense, Cromwell and Ireton moved to suppress them, fearing that ongoing discussions might radicalise the Army further and weaken their authority. The November 1647 escape of Charles I from Hampton Court provided a convenient excuse to halt the debates. The Army unified behind the Grandees, while the Levellers were pushed to the margins. The events of 1649 — including the mutinies at Bishopsgate, Salisbury, and Burford — marked the closure of this chapter. Cromwell decisively crushed the Leveller soldiers and executed their leaders. Cromwell did not merely argue against the Levellers — he destroyed them.” This marked the limit of the bourgeois revolution.
Conclusion: The Historical Significance of Putney
The Putney Debates highlight a key contradiction in bourgeois revolutions: while the bourgeoisie mobilises the lower classes to overthrow feudalism, it suppresses them once their demands threaten property ownership. The defeat of the Levellers shows that political equality is unachievable within a society rooted in private property. These debates remain compelling because they reveal the unresolved tension at the core of capitalist democracy. As the document notes, “Political democracy without economic democracy is a mask for the rule of property.” The Levellers saw this truth; the bourgeoisie silenced it.
The next chapter examines how this suppression was carried out in practice and how Cromwell consolidated the bourgeoisie’s class power.
CHAPTER 4 — CROMWELL, THE GRANDEES, AND THE SUPPRESSION OF RADICAL DEMOCRACY Introduction: The Counter-Revolution Within the Revolution
Every bourgeois revolution contains within it a moment of internal counter-revolution — a point at which the class that has led the struggle against the old order turns against the popular forces it has mobilised. In the English Revolution, this moment occurred between 1647 and 1649, when Oliver Cromwell and the Grandees of the New Model Army crushed the Levellers and extinguished the democratic aspirations that had emerged from the ranks of the Army itself.
The suppression of the Levellers was neither a mistake nor a personal flaw of Cromwell. Instead, it was a necessary outcome reflecting the class interests of the emerging bourgeoisie. Cromwell “did not merely argue against the Levellers — he destroyed them.” This chapter explores how and why this destruction took place.
The Political Logic of the Grandees The Grandees as the Political Expression of Bourgeois Property
The Grandees—Cromwell, Ireton, Fairfax, and their allies—advocated for the interests of the propertied classes, including the gentry involved in commerce, merchants, lawyers, and the wealthier middle strata. Their main political goal was clear: to protect property rights, prevent social equality, stabilise the postfeudal social order, and create a state capable of supporting capitalist growth. They saw themselves as revolutionaries only insofar as the overthrow of feudal absolutism was necessary; beyond that, they acted as counter-revolutionaries.
The Levellers’ demands—such as near-universal male suffrage, legal equality, and Parliament’s subordination to the people—were seen by the Grandees as potentially destabilising forces. They believed these could lead to land redistribution, attacks on large estates, the breakdown of hierarchical order, the politicisation of rural workers, and the rise of a proto-communist movement. Their fear was not irrational. The Diggers’ occupation of common land at St George’s Hill in 1649 demonstrated that radical egalitarianism could take material form.
Cromwell believed that liberty could only thrive within a structured order, which depended on protecting property. He viewed the Levellers as a danger not just to state stability but to society’s very functioning. Therefore, his suppression of the Levellers was not a contradiction of his principles but a consistent extension of them.
The Crisis of 1648: The Second Civil War and the Radicalisation of the Army The Second Civil War as a Turning Point
The outbreak of the Second Civil War in 1648 further radicalised the Army. The rank-and-file soldiers, already politicised by the Putney Debates, now viewed the King’s renewed treachery as evidence that the revolution was incomplete. Many called for the abolition of the monarchy, the trial of the King, and the adoption of the Agreement of the People. However, the Grandees were concerned that the Army was beginning to escape their control.
The Army’s triumph in the Second Civil War reinforced its political independence. Soldiers, who had fought twice against the King, felt they had earned the right to influence the new political system. The Grandees saw the risk: a politicised army, inspired by Leveller ideas, might serve as a tool for a more profound social upheaval.
In December 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride, following orders from the Grandees, removed the Presbyterian majority from Parliament. Pride’s Purge was a military coup—the first in English history—and resulted in the Rump Parliament, which was reliant on the Army leadership. This purge was a necessary step before the King’s trial and execution, as well as the suppression of the Levellers.
The Execution of Charles I and the Limits of Revolutionary Radicalism The Trial as a Bourgeois Revolutionary Act
Charles I’s execution in January 1649 was the most radical act of the revolution, breaking down the ideological foundations of feudal monarchy and asserting the sovereignty of the people, albeit in a limited manner. The document notes that this execution marked a major revolutionary departure from the feudal tradition. The Levellers supported the execution but emphasised the need for further changes, including abolishing the House of Lords, dissolving the Rump
Parliament, enacting the Agreement of the People, and establishing a democratic republic. They believed the revolution had now entered a new phase, where the people, rather than Parliament or military leaders, should shape the nation’s future.
For the Grandees, the execution of the King was the culmination of the revolution, not the beginning of a new stage. They sought to stabilise the political order, not to democratise it. The Levellers’ demands threatened to push the revolution beyond the limits acceptable to the bourgeoisie.
The Leveller Mutinies and the Crushing of Radical Democracy The Bishopsgate Mutiny (April 1649)
The first significant clash happened in April 1649, when soldiers at Bishopsgate refused to leave London until their political demands were fulfilled. Cromwell and Fairfax responded with force, arresting and executing several mutineers. In May 1649, the Salisbury Mutiny broke out, with soldiers supporting the Agreement of the People.
The mutiny quickly expanded as the rebels advanced to Burford. The pivotal battle occurred in Oxfordshire at Burford, where Cromwell launched a nighttime attack, capturing hundreds. In the churchyard, three leaders—Cornet Thompson, Corporal Perkins, and Private Church—were executed. Cromwell “crushed the
Burford mutiny decisively,” effectively ending the Leveller movement. Following Burford, the Levellers lost their organised structure, with their leaders imprisoned, pamphlets banned, and supporters scattered. The Grandees had regained control of the Army and the revolution.
Cromwell’s Protectorate: The Bourgeois State Consolidated The Rump and the Commonwealth
The Rump Parliament, after removing its conservative members, enacted reforms that favoured the bourgeoisie, including ending the monarchy and the House of Lords, establishing a republic, and promoting trade and commerce.
However, it refused to adopt democratic reforms. Cromwell’s Protectorate (1653–1658) was a contradictory regime: it had an authoritarian structure but bourgeois content. It protected property, fostered commerce, expanded England’s imperial scope, and suppressed radical movements. This regime was the political means by which the bourgeoisie solidified its victory.
The Diggers, under Gerrard Winstanley’s leadership, posed a more radical challenge with a form of pre-proletarian communism rooted in collective land ownership. Local landowners, backed implicitly by the state, destroyed their communities. Their defeat marked the boundaries of the revolutionary effort.
Conclusion: The Bourgeois Revolution Completed — and Contained
The suppression of the Levellers marked the crucial point at which the bourgeoisie solidified its control over the popular forces it had mobilised. While the revolution had dismantled feudalism, it neither succeeded in nor aimed to democratize society. The defeat of the Levellers showed that political equality cannot coexist with a social system rooted in private property.
The English Revolution highlights the core dynamic of bourgeois revolution: it is revolutionary toward feudalism but counter-revolutionary against the lower classes. The following chapter explores the Diggers, whose short-lived communal experiment provided a rare vision of a post-capitalist future—though the material conditions of the seventeenth century were not yet advanced enough to support it.
CHAPTER 5 — THE DIGGERS AND THE PRE-HISTORY OF COMMUNISM Introduction: A Revolutionary Possibility Before Its Time
Among the many transformative movements sparked by the English Revolution, the Diggers, or “True Levellers,” led by Gerrard Winstanley, remain particularly captivating. Their short-lived communal farming experiment at St George’s Hill in 1649 is a notable episode in early modern European history: it marked a moment when revolutionary ideas challenged traditional bourgeois property norms and envisioned a social structure that would only become feasible. The Diggers’ programme embodied a pre-proletarian ideal of communal ownership, which was impossible to achieve within the material constraints of seventeenthcentury England. However, it notably foreshadowed future developments. This chapter investigates that paradox thoroughly.
The Social Origins of the Digger Movement The Dispossessed in a Transforming Countryside
The Diggers originated from the most affected groups by the rise of agrarian capitalism: landless labourers, impoverished smallholders, displaced tenants, and rural artisans — all victims of enclosure. Enclosure, which involved consolidating common land into private property, was the key method used to expand capitalist farming. It abolished traditional rights, forced low-income people off the land, and led to the formation of a rural proletariat. The Diggers symbolised the political response to this dispossession.
The Levellers, although they held democratic radical ideas, did not oppose private land ownership. Their policies mainly attracted artisans, small traders, and independent householders—those invested in property. For the landless poor, Leveller democracy provided political rights, but it did not address economic hardship. The Diggers appeared exactly where the Levellers’ approach could not go further.
Like other radical movements of the time, the Diggers conveyed their ideas through scriptural language. However, their theology was fundamentally materialist. Winstanley’s works are filled with biblical imagery, but they promote a social philosophy grounded in labour, property, and class. His main assertion— that the earth is “a common treasury for all”—serves as both a theological statement and a critique of private property ownership.
Gerrard Winstanley: The First Systematic Communist Thinker in English
Winstanley was neither a scholar nor a cleric. He failed as a cloth merchant due to economic collapse, was forced into manual labour, and was radicalised by poverty. His writings show a strong engagement with scripture, a critique of property grounded in personal experience, an early materialist view of social relations, and a firm belief that labour creates value. His main idea was that land ownership leads to exploitation. He claimed that the Earth is meant for everyone’s benefit, that private property is a human-made concept rather than a divine decree, and that labour, not ownership, justifies a claim to land.
Those who depend on others’ labour are called “taskmasters” and “lords of bondage,” hinting at key themes in Marx’s later ideas. Although Winstanley lacked the full theoretical tools to explain concepts of value or class, his religious language masks a deeply materialistic argument. When he mentions the “Spirit Reason” or the “Law of Righteousness,” he is actually advocating for a society organised around the needs of labour rather than property privileges. His theology serves as the ideological vehicle for a materialist critique of class society.
On April 1, 1649, Winstanley and his small group began digging and planting vegetables on St George’s Hill in Surrey. Their purpose was to farm collectively and demonstrate that a society rooted in common ownership could be both just and sustainable in practice. This act was groundbreaking in three ways: it challenged private property rights, claimed the land for low-income people, and provided a visible example of communal labour.
The Digger community consisted of landless workers, impoverished artisans, unemployed soldiers, women, and children. Led by the dispossessed rather than the middle class, they aimed to abolish private land ownership, cultivate collectively, eliminate wage labour, establish communal decision-making, and create a society free of masters and servants. Their goals were not utopian in a negative sense but were a practical response to the economic realities faced by the rural poor.
The local gentry reacted with violence: destroying crops, attacking Digger members, and initiating legal actions. They also mobilised parish authorities. The state remained formally neutral, neither intervening nor offering protection to the Diggers, effectively tacitly supporting the landowners.
The Suppression of the Diggers: The Limits of the Bourgeois Revolution The Material Impossibility of Communism in 1649
The Diggers’ experiment failed not due to incoherent ideas but because the material conditions for communism were not yet in place. England lacked a developed proletariat, industrial production, large-scale socialised labour, and the economic abundance necessary for communal sharing. The Diggers were ahead of their time. The bourgeoisie had no stake in communal ownership, as their power depended on private property, market relations, wage labour, and the commodification of land. The Diggers challenged the core foundations of bourgeois society.
Cromwell himself did not directly command the suppression of the Diggers, but his regime set the stage for their downfall. Through defeating the Levellers and consolidating the post-feudal structure, the Grandees prevented radical egalitarian ideas from taking hold. By late 1650, the Digger communities were dismantled—members scattered, crops destroyed, and leaders persecuted. This marked the boundaries of the bourgeois revolution.
The Historical Significance of the Diggers A Glimpse of a Future Beyond Capitalism
The Diggers mark the initial systematic effort to define and implement communist principles in the English-speaking world. Their ideas foresaw the abolition of private property, emphasised the importance of labour, critiqued exploitation, and promoted the communal organisation of production.
Marx and Engels identified the Diggers as early influences on modern communism. Engels, in The Peasant War in Germany, stated that revolutionary movements tend to articulate themselves through the dominant ideological language of their era. The Diggers serve as a prime example: their religious beliefs are essentially the outward expression of a material critique of class.
The Diggers demonstrate that the democratic tasks of the bourgeois revolution generate pressures that point beyond capitalism. Their defeat confirms Trotsky’s insight that only the working class can complete the democratic revolution by carrying it forward to socialist tasks. The Diggers remain a symbol of the aspirations of the dispossessed, the possibility of a society beyond property, and the unfinished character of democratic revolution. Their defeat is a reminder that the bourgeois revolution, while historically progressive, is structurally incapable of realising the principle of human equality.
Conclusion: The Diggers and the Dialectic of Revolution
The Diggers were both a product of their era and a movement that went beyond it. They arose amid the social upheaval of early capitalism, offered a critique of property that foreshadowed modern communism, and sought to establish a society rooted in collective ownership. Their defeat highlights the boundaries of the bourgeois revolution and the conditions needed for socialism. The following chapter explores the ideological framework that shaped these struggles: religion, which served as the language of revolution in the seventeenth century.
CHAPTER 6 — RELIGION, IDEOLOGY, AND THE LANGUAGE OF REVOLUTION Introduction: Why the English Revolution Spoke in the Language of God
Every revolutionary era uses the ideological language accessible at that time. In the seventeenth century, this language was primarily theological. Although the English Revolution was not solely focused on religion, religion served as the framework that made underlying material conflicts visible. The Bible provided a conceptual framework for addressing issues related to power, property, labour, and justice.
Puritanism served as the ideological framework for class conflict, offering various symbolic languages: equality (“the priesthood of all believers”), tyranny (the Antichrist, Babylon), liberation (Exodus), and moral autonomy (the inner light, conscience). This chapter explores how religious ideology influenced the political struggles of the English Revolution and explains why theology became the arena in which class interests clashed.
Puritanism gained backing from a wide coalition, including the commercially driven gentry, urban bourgeoisie, artisans, small traders, literate yeomen, radical congregations, and parts of the rural poor. Its ideological variety mirrored the social diversity of its supporters. Nonetheless, Puritanism served a unifying role by providing a moral and intellectual foundation that enabled emerging social groups to voice their grievances against the monarchy, the episcopacy, and the feudal system.
The Church of England was a fundamental part of the feudal system, with its hierarchy mirroring the authoritarian, hierarchical, and ceremonial qualities of the traditional order. Puritan opposition to episcopacy was more than a theological disagreement; it posed a political challenge to feudal authority. The Reformation’s widespread distribution of the English Bible transformed it into a political educational tool, offering a common language, moral frameworks, stories of liberation, and critiques of tyranny. For the lower classes, scripture became a way to interpret their suffering and claims to agency.
Ideology as the Form of Class Struggle Engels and the German Peasant War
Engels’ analysis of the German Peasant War offers essential insights into the ideological aspects of the English Revolution. He believed that revolutionary movements communicate their ideas through the language of their time — Lutheran theology in sixteenth-century Germany and Puritanism in seventeenthcentury England. While the struggle’s content is rooted in material issues, its expression is fundamentally ideological.
During the English Revolution, theological disputes rarely centred solely on doctrinal matters. Instead, they dealt with issues like property, authority, labour, social hierarchy, and political power. These concerns were expressed through religious frameworks. For instance, predestination was used as a metaphor for moral equality, the priesthood of all believers signified political equality, and the sovereignty of God was equated with popular sovereignty. Additionally, the Antichrist symbolised tyranny.
As the revolution intensified, Puritan ideas became more radical. Texts that once supported obedience to authority were now used to justify rebellion. The Bible turned into a battleground for conflicting interpretations. The Levellers based their democratic principles on biblical themes: the equal worth of all souls before God, the right of individuals to judge for themselves, opposition to tyranny, and personal moral independence. Their political goals—such as nearly universal male suffrage, legal equality, and religious freedom—were articulated through the language of Christian liberty.
Rainsborough’s declaration — “the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he” — was presented not only as a political principle but also as a theological one. If all men are equal before God, no man can be excluded from political power. The Levellers attacked tithes, compulsory worship, stateenforced religion, and the authority of ministers. Their critique of ecclesiastical power was inseparable from their critique of political power.
The Diggers: Communism in the Language of Scripture 1. Winstanley’s Materialist Theology
Winstanley’s writings are rich with biblical imagery, yet their message is fundamentally materialist. He claimed that the earth was a “common treasury,” and that private property equates to theft. He believed labour justified rightful ownership, and exploitation broke divine law. His theology reflects a communist critique of property, drawing on early Christian communal practices as a model for collective ownership. This was not mere nostalgia; it served as a moral foundation for a radical social agenda.
The Diggers viewed the Kingdom of God as a social change rather than a supernatural event. Their eschatology was rooted in politics: ending oppression, abolishing property, and restoring the earth to its true owners.
The Fifth Monarchists: Millenarianism and Class Anxiety The Social Base of Millenarianism
The Fifth Monarchists gained backing from small traders, artisans, lower-middleclass Puritans, and disillusioned soldiers. They saw Charles I’s execution as a sign that Christ’s kingdom on earth was soon to come. Their millenarian beliefs reflected concerns about social chaos, fears of economic instability, resentment at elite corruption, and hope for divine justice. This ideology was a form of political awareness born from insecurity.
The Fifth Monarchists held politically radical views but remained socially conservative. They called for the abolition of tyranny, the rule of the saints, and societal purification. However, they did not oppose property rights. Their radical stance was rooted in morality rather than economics.
Cromwell and the Grandees: Religion as the Ideology of Order
Cromwell held that history was directed by God through “providence,” which justified actions like overthrowing the King, suppressing the Levellers, conquering Ireland, and establishing the Protectorate. Providentialism served as the ideological backbone of bourgeois statecraft, with the Grandees using religious language to legitimise authority, condemn radical movements, justify social hierarchy, and stabilise the social order. Their theology reflected the ideological expression of property.
Puritanism could rationalise rebellion against the King, but not against property.
Its ideological support was depleted once the bourgeois revolution hit its limits.
Conclusion: Religion as the Ideological Form of Bourgeois Revolution
During the English Revolution, religion was not merely a distraction from class struggle; it actually served as the means through which class conflicts were expressed. The theological debates of that time reflected deeper ideological conflicts over property, labour, and political authority.
The Levellers employed scripture to express democratic demands, while the Diggers used it to advocate communist ideals. Conversely, the Grandees invoked scripture to justify property rights and social order.
The next chapter synthesises these insights into a theoretical analysis of the bourgeois revolution and its limits.
CHAPTER 7 — THEORETICAL SYNTHESIS: BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION AND ITS LIMITS Introduction: The English Revolution in the Architecture of World History
The English Revolution occupies a foundational place in the history of modernity. It was the first successful bourgeois revolution, the first destruction of a feudal monarchy by armed force, the first assertion of parliamentary sovereignty, and the first moment when the democratic aspirations of the lower classes confronted the structural limits of capitalist property. It is therefore the earliest historical laboratory in which the dynamics of bourgeois revolution can be studied in their purest form.
The previous chapters explored the social origins of the revolution, its political development, the Putney confrontation, the suppression of the Levellers, and the radical communism of the Diggers. This chapter consolidates those analyses into a theoretical framework of the bourgeois revolution as a historical phenomenon — including its driving forces, contradictions, limits, and legacy.
The Bourgeois Revolution as a Historical Form The Destruction of Feudalism
The bourgeois revolution emerges from the conflict between the increasingly capitalist forces of production and the still feudal relations of production. In seventeenth-century England, this tension was evident in the rise of agrarian capitalism, expanding market relations, growing wage labour, land commercialisation, and the increasing political assertiveness of the gentry and bourgeoisie.
The monarchy, episcopacy, and feudal legal system hindered the development of capitalism. The revolution was the political expression of this struggle. The bourgeoisie is revolutionary mainly against feudalism. It aims for free trade, guaranteed property rights, rational laws, and a state that facilitates capitalist growth. However, it does not pursue political equality, social levelling, the abolition of property, or the empowerment of the lower classes. These contradictions characterise the bourgeois revolution.
The bourgeoisie cannot overthrow feudalism without mobilising the lower classes. In England, these included: artisans, smallholders, journeymen, landless labourers, radical soldiers, and the urban poor. These groups brought to the revolution demands that went beyond the bourgeois programme: political equality, economic justice, communal ownership, democratic accountability. The bourgeois revolution thus contains within it a dual revolution: • the bourgeois revolution against feudalism, • the popular revolution against inequality. The second must be suppressed for the first to succeed.
The Putney Debates as the Theoretical Core of the Revolution Property vs. Democracy
At Putney, the revolution faced a fundamental contradiction. The Levellers called for nearly universal male suffrage, legal equality, and popular sovereignty. In contrast, the Grandees insisted on property requirements, limited voting rights, and the sovereignty of the wealthy. This debate was not about constitutional structure but centred on which class held power.
Ireton’s claim—that only those with a “fixed, local interest” should have voting rights—embodied pure bourgeois ideology. It exposed worries about the propertyless majority, the idea that political power should defend property, and the belief that democracy could threaten capitalism. The Levellers’ agenda was at odds with bourgeois class interests. Suppressing the Levellers wasn’t a betrayal but was instead seen as completing the revolution. The bourgeoisie had secured its goals; the lower classes needed to be controlled.
The Diggers and the Historical Limits of the Seventeenth Century 1. Communism Before Capitalism
The Diggers expressed a communist critique of property two centuries before the rise of the modern proletariat. Their vision—communal ownership, collective work, and the end of wage labour—was ahead of its time. Communism, as a system, depends on industrial production, socialised labour, a proletariat class, and abundance—all of which 17th-century England lacked. In this sense, the Diggers served more as a prophecy than a feasible movement.
The Diggers were suppressed not due to a lack of coherence in their ideas, but because they challenged the core principles of bourgeois society. Their defeat highlights the inherent constraints of the bourgeois revolution.
The Bourgeois Revolution and the Theory of Permanent Revolution The Bourgeoisie Cannot Complete the Democratic Revolution
The defeat of the Levellers shows that the bourgeoisie cannot achieve certain goals such as establishing universal suffrage, eliminating economic inequality, democratising the state, or empowering the lower classes. These objectives are incompatible with capitalist property relations. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution describes the pattern seen between 1647 and 1649: the bourgeoisie begins the democratic revolution, the lower classes push it further, then the bourgeoisie turns against them, leaving the revolution incomplete. Trotsky contends that only the working class can complete the democratic revolution by advancing it toward socialist objectives.
The English Revolution is the earliest historical confirmation of permanent revolution. It reveals: the revolutionary role of the lower classes, the counterrevolutionary role of the bourgeoisie, the structural limits of capitalist democracy. It is the prototype of 1789, 1848, and 1917.
The Bourgeois State: Consolidation and Contradiction The Protectorate as a Bourgeois Dictatorship
Cromwell’s Protectorate was authoritarian in form, bourgeois in content, hostile to radical democracy, committed to property, expansionist and imperial. It was the political form through which the bourgeoisie consolidated its victory. The Restoration of 1660 did not restore feudalism. It stabilised the bourgeois order under monarchical form. The monarchy returned, but on bourgeois terms.
The period 1688–89 finalised what 1649 had initiated: parliamentary supremacy, secure property rights, the financial revolution, the establishment of the Bank of England, the growth of the national debt, and the development of the fiscalmilitary state. During this time, the bourgeoisie rose to become the ruling class. The English Revolution resulted in the creation of the modern state, capitalist property relations, parliamentary sovereignty, and the ideological underpinnings of liberalism. 2. The Unfinished Democratic Revolution.
The Levellers’ demands—such as universal political equality, democratic accountability, and economic justice—remain unfulfilled. The bourgeois revolution left these issues unfinished. The relevance of 1647 persists because the fundamental question from Putney remains unanswered: Who should govern? On what grounds? For whose benefit? The conflict between political equality and economic inequality continues.
Conclusion: The Dialectic of Revolution and Counter-Revolution
The English Revolution reveals the essential dialectic of bourgeois revolution: It destroys feudalism. It mobilises the lower classes. It unleashes democratic aspirations. It suppresses those aspirations. It establishes the capitalist order. The revolution is both progressive and limited, emancipatory and repressive, democratic in form and oligarchic in content.
The next and final chapter assesses the contemporary significance of the English Revolution and the enduring relevance of the questions raised at Putney.
CHAPTER 8 — CONCLUSION: THE LEGACY OF 1647 I. Introduction: The Revolution That Never Ended
The English Revolution did not end in 1649, nor in 1653, nor in 1660, nor even in 1688. Its unresolved contradictions — between property and democracy, between labour and capital, between the aspirations of the many and the power of the few — continue to structure the political life of capitalist society. The Putney Debates remain electrifying not because they belong to a distant past, but because they articulate questions that bourgeois society has never been able to answer.
The central argument of this dissertation has been that the English Revolution is the earliest and clearest demonstration of a dynamic that would recur in every subsequent bourgeois revolution: the bourgeoisie cannot complete the democratic revolution it initiates.
The Levellers and Diggers are the earliest historical expressions of this contradiction; their suppression marks the initial resolution in favour of the bourgeoisie. The English Revolution was the first successful bourgeois revolution in history. It led to the destruction of the feudal monarchy, the establishment of parliamentary sovereignty, the securing of property rights, the creation of conditions conducive to capitalist development, and the beginning of the modern state.
It was the first instance in which the bourgeoisie, in alliance with sections of the gentry and the middling sort, seized political power and reshaped the state in its own image.
The revolution unveiled the core principle of bourgeois revolution: overthrowing feudalism by mobilising the lower classes, who, once organised, became terrified, leading to a crackdown on democratic aspirations. It was stabilised by establishing a new state structure compatible with capitalism. This pattern recurred in 1789, 1848, and 1917. The revolution also laid the ideological groundwork for capitalist modernity, emphasising the rule of law, property rights, parliamentary sovereignty, rights language, moral labour, and the individual as the fundamental political unit. These ideas continue to dominate bourgeois ideology.
The Levellers outlined a democratic agenda that still hasn’t been achieved: nearly universal suffrage, equality before the law, accountability of leaders, subordination of Parliament to the people, and freedom of conscience. Their defeat revealed that the bourgeoisie cannot fully carry out the democratic revolution. The contradiction seen at Putney—the clash between political equality and economic inequality—persists. While capitalist society claims to uphold equal worth among individuals, it continues to institutionalise property-based inequality. Although the right to vote has expanded, political power remains concentrated among those who control capital.
The Diggers articulated a communist critique of property centuries before the emergence of the modern proletariat. Their programme — communal ownership, collective labour, abolition of wage labour — was historically premature but conceptually prophetic.
The Diggers reveal the social costs of early capitalism, the aspirations of the dispossessed, and the potential for a society beyond property. They highlight the historical conditions needed for socialism. Their defeat shows the limitations of the seventeenth century, while their ideas foreshadow later struggles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Diggers demonstrate that communism stems from capitalism’s contradictions, that the critique of property is rooted in experiences of exploitation, and that the early seeds of future social arrangements already existed in past epochs. They serve as the prehistory of the modern socialist movement.
The English Revolution illustrates how ideology transforms class struggle into conscious action. In the seventeenth century, this form was rooted in theology, with the Bible offering a language of equality, a critique of tyranny, a story of liberation, and a moral basis for rebellion. As history progresses, the ideological shape of revolution shifts: from theology in the seventeenth century to natural rights in the eighteenth, nationalism in the nineteenth, and socialism in the twentieth. Despite these changing forms, the core material conflicts persist.
Puritanism could justify rebellion against the King, but not rebellion against property. Its ideological resources were exhausted once the bourgeois revolution reached its limit.
The English Revolution confirms Trotsky’s insight that the bourgeoisie cannot complete the democratic revolution. It cannot: abolish economic inequality, democratise the state, empower the lower classes, or resolve the contradiction between labour and capital. The Levellers and Diggers demonstrate that the lower classes push the revolution beyond the limits acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Their suppression reveals the counter-revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie once its own aims have been achieved.
The Contemporary Relevance of 1647 The Persistence of the Property Question
The main issue debated in the Putney Debates—the link between property and political power—still hasn’t been settled. Today’s capitalism continues to concentrate wealth, distort democratic processes, subordinate politics to capital, and reproduce inequality. The contradictions within bourgeois democracy are becoming more apparent: decreasing trust in institutions, rising inequality, political polarisation, shrinking social rights, and the resurgence of authoritarianism. These crises mirror the unresolved tensions from the seventeenth century.
The questions raised in 1647 persist today in different forms: Who should govern? On what grounds? Whose interests are served? How are property and power connected? What does democracy signify in a society marked by inequality? These questions remain the core political issues of the modern era.
Conclusion: The Revolution Continues
The English Revolution was the earliest major bourgeois revolution. It toppled feudalism, laid the groundwork for capitalist society, and sparked democratic hopes that it could not fully realise. The Levellers and Diggers symbolise two directions that emerged from the revolution: the pursuit of bourgeois order and the quest for democratic and social equality. The former prevailed, while the latter was suppressed. However, the ideals of the latter did not vanish; they resurfaced in struggles throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries and continue to influence today’s political conflicts.
The legacy of 1647 is not just a historical milestone; it remains a living contradiction within capitalist society. The questions raised at Putney still lack answers because they lie beyond the limits of capitalism itself. They point toward something beyond their framework. The English Revolution is not only the start of bourgeois modernity but also the beginning of the effort to go beyond it.
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A Trumpet of Sedition 