Correction

This a correction to my blog Supplementary Notes for a further Article on the True Levellers Part Two. I have already apologised to him for the error.

Christopher Thompson Wrote:

Keith Livesey has given some details of his ideas for working on the Levellers here. I was surprised to see my 1980 Past and Present article cited as the basis for a claim that Petty had supported a restricted franchise in the Putney debates of October, 1647 on the first Agreement of the People. In fact, I argued that Petty's position had changed: he came to it as a supporter of manhood suffrage but, towards the end of the debate, sought consent on a more restricted franchise excluding Royalists, servants and other dependents.

My argument was a criticism of the claims of C.B.Macpherson that the Levellers were consistent supporters of a restricted franchise. But it must be said that the view held then that the First Agreement of the People was a Leveller document no longer seems tenable. Elliot Vernon and Philip Baker have recently argued in The Historical Journal (Volume 53. No.1 (March, 2010), Pp.39-59) that the document was the product of a group of London radicals, including Maximilian Petty, around Henry Marten and not a Leveller tract at all.

This means that the assumption upon which Macpherson, Keith Thomas, Monk, Aylmer and I worked was wrong. I am grateful for their research on this point.

A Marxist Critique of Peter Gaunt’s The English Civil War: The Essential Readings

Peter Gaunt’s The English Civil War: The Essential Readings (Blackwell, 2000) reveals the ideological evolution of academic historiography at the close of the twentieth century. Marketed as an objective collection of key scholarship, the volume actually demonstrates the profession’s retreat from engaging deeply with the English Revolution as a pivotal point in the shift from feudalism to capitalism. Its editorial choices, essay selection, and underlying assumptions mirror the post-revisionist consolidation that dominated universities in the 1990s—a movement closely tied to the broader political reaction of that era.

Gaunt gathers contributions from major schools: Lawrence Stone's social-change thesis, Christopher Hill’s Marxist analysis of radical Puritanism, John Morrill and Conrad Russell’s revisionist views, and eclectic post-revisionist efforts that blend long-term structural change with revisionists’ focus on contingency and religion. While this seems balanced, the actual equilibrium is achieved only after marginalising Marxism. Hill’s essay is included as a relic of a bygone era, and the reader lacks access to any modern Marxist defences of the thesis of the bourgeois revolution. The revisionists are portrayed not as one side of a debate but as the dominant orthodoxy.

This is not just an innocent editorial choice. The revisionist challenge to the idea of the English Revolution was more than just an academic debate. It reflected the ideology of a bourgeoisie that, facing a deep crisis in the 1970s and 1980s, no longer wanted to remember that it had once seized power through revolutionary violence. The end of the post-war economic boom, setbacks for the working class—from Britain’s miners’ strike to PATCO in the US—the decline of Stalinist bureaucracies, and the breakup of the USSR created conditions where the academy moved away from the concept of revolution. Having previously celebrated its revolutionary history, the bourgeoisie now tried to erase it.

This review highlights that this historiographical approach is not purely academic but also political. The revisionist claim that the Civil War was a “war of religion” rather than a class conflict rests on a methodological error: seeking “chemical purity” in revolutionary alliances. Drawing on Marx, Lenin, and Hill, it’s crucial to show that revolutions are not always socially diverse and should be analysed by the class makeup of participants, not just by outcomes. By this standard, the English Revolution was clearly bourgeois: it dismantled feudal structures, expropriated royalist and church land, established parliamentary dominance, and laid the groundwork for capitalist growth and imperialism. The revisionist attempt to disconnect religion from its material foundations is seen as a step back to pre-Marxist idealism, hiding how Puritanism served as the ideological expression of new bourgeois and commoner ambitions.

The rise of revisionism should be seen in the context of the wider political setbacks from the 1970s to the 1990s, including the collapse of the post-war settlement, defeats faced by labour movements, and the dissolution of the USSR. It suggests that the bourgeoisie, which once celebrated its revolutionary history, is now attempting to erase it. Gaunt’s book is thus viewed as part of an intellectual counter-revolution: a historiographical effort that denies capitalism's revolutionary origins precisely as capitalism faces a profound crisis.

Gaunt’s account accurately documents this retreat. The main argument of revisionists—that the Civil War wasn't purely a bourgeois revolution because people from all classes fought on both sides—is accepted as conclusive. However, this view is based on a flawed misunderstanding of Marxism. No credible Marxist has ever expected revolutions to be perfectly pure. Hill “had read enough Marx and Lenin to know that one could not expect a chemically pure revolution." Neither the French nor the Russian Revolutions were carried out or supported solely by the bourgeoisie or the workers. Revolutions are inherently diverse. The key issue isn't who fought but which class’s interests prevailed.

Based on this perspective, the English Revolution was clearly bourgeois. The end of feudal tenures, the abolition of prerogative courts, expropriation of royalist and church lands, the Navigation Acts, and the rise of parliamentary authority were not about religion—they laid the political and legal groundwork for capitalism. The Restoration and Glorious Revolution did not undo these changes but reinforced them. The revisionist view that the conflict was purely a “war of religion” disconnects ideology from material realities and leans into idealism. Puritanism served as the ideological expression for the rising bourgeoisie and common masses to voice their demands. Viewing religion as an independent causal force reverts to pre-Marxist interpretations of history.

Gaunt’s volume of post-revisionist essays struggles similarly. They try to recognize long-term social and economic changes but reject the revolutionary perspective that links these changes meaningfully. Consequently, the collection becomes a diverse list of phenomena—market growth, gentry mobility, fiscal crises—lacking a dialectical explanation of how these forces triggered a revolutionary upheaval. This balanced approach resembles the “Third Way” politics of the Blair-Clinton period: rhetorically refined, substantively conservative, and ultimately unable to account for significant historical change.

A truly Marxist interpretation of the English Revolution must place it in the context of Europe's widespread feudal crisis during the seventeenth century. It should analyze the dialectical class forces driving the revolution and its boundaries, while also understanding revisionism as a political retreat rather than scholarly progress. Gaunt’s anthology fails to do this. It is only helpful for readers who already have a critical perspective to see beyond its ideological biases.

Twenty years after the book’s publication, the world faces a new capitalist crisis marked by war, pandemic, social division, and the collapse of bourgeois democracy. In these conditions, the focus on revolution reemerges in historical awareness. The English Revolution will be reconsidered not as a mere accident or government failure, but as a significant example of revolutionary overthrow of a decaying social order. When this reevaluation takes place, Gaunt’s revisionist history will be seen for what it truly is: a defensive stance against the Marxist view that history progresses through class struggle.

 

Barry Strauss’s The Spartacus War: A Critical Review

Barry Strauss begins The Spartacus War by suggesting that Spartacus, described as “an astute judge of character,” might have appointed men to command his army even if they lacked military experience. This introduction suits a book that aims to humanize the most renowned slave rebel from antiquity while grappling with the limited evidence available about his life. Strauss’s work is approachable, thoroughly researched, and based on both scholarly analysis and field research. Additionally, it subtly, and sometimes unintentionally, exposes the ideological conflicts that have surrounded Spartacus's legacy for centuries.

Strauss is not just an academic observer; he often travelled across the Italian countryside to better understand the landscape of Spartacus’s campaign, and this hands-on experience enriches his narrative. He holds Spartacus in high regard, portraying him not only as a gladiator but specifically as a murmillo, highlighting that his tactical abilities were learned through experience, particularly during his time as a Thracian auxiliary in the Roman army. This focus on Spartacus’s military expertise stands out as a major strength of the book. Strauss also remains methodologically transparent, openly recognising the limited availability of sources and the biases inherent in Roman writers' accounts of the revolt, written over a century later. As one reviewer pointed out, Strauss “usually picks a version of the events and backs it up, or works from multiple hypotheses.” Given that certainty is elusive in this field, such an approach is justified.

Spartacus is more than just a historical figure; he serves as a political symbol. Strauss’s book reveals how Spartacus has been appropriated by various ideological groups. Ronald Reagan cited him in 1982 as a symbol of Western resilience against Soviet oppression. Marx described him as “a great general, a noble character, a genuine representative of the ancient proletariat,” a view shared by Lenin. Voltaire labelled his rebellion “the only just war in history.” Even the 1960 Hollywood film Spartacus—with Kirk Douglas challenging McCarthyism and Kubrick exploring studio filmmaking—turned the slave revolt into an allegory for American political repression. Strauss notes that the film is “not complete fiction,” though he emphasizes key differences: the actual Spartacus was born free in Thrace, served Rome as an allied soldier, and was unjustly enslaved.

Strauss's treatment of ancient sources is somewhat less effective. While he selectively quotes Plutarch, he overlooks the more detailed and vivid account in Plutarch’s Life of Crassus regarding the revolt’s origins. Plutarch recounts how seventy-eight gladiators escaped with “chopping-knives and spits” taken from a cook’s shop, arming themselves with weapons from wagons they encountered on the road. He depicts Spartacus as “a man not only of high spirit and valiant, but in understanding, also, and in gentleness superior to his condition," presenting a more nuanced and multi-dimensional image of Spartacus than Strauss’s version.

Strauss's analysis of Roman political reactions to the revolt is more solid. As Mary Beard noted, later Roman historians focused on two questions: why it took two years to defeat the rebels and which commander—Crassus or Pompey—deserved credit. Strauss contends that neither benefited in the end. Crassus died in a disastrous campaign against the Parthians; Pompey was murdered in Egypt amid the civil war with Caesar. The political future did not belong to either, but to Augustus, whose father, Octavius, eventually eradicated Spartacus’s remaining supporters a decade later. Ironically, Spartacus—the war's loser—is the only figure whose name still endures.

The book’s limitations arise from unavoidable gaps in the evidence and Strauss’s interpretive decisions. His explanation of Spartacus’s motives is speculative and sometimes inconsistent. Tony Williams correctly observes that Strauss is more explicit about how the revolt happened than why it occurred. The strategic question remains open: why did Spartacus lead his forces north to the Alps then turn back? Strauss proposes that his followers lost confidence upon seeing the mountains, but this explanation seems optimistic. Ultimately, the truth is uncertain, and Strauss’s attempts to explain gaps—like giving significant influence to Spartacus’s anonymous wife—are based on weak evidence.

Strauss tends to impose modern analogies on ancient events, which can be misleading. He likens the revolt to modern insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by charismatic leaders using “liberation theology like jihad.” This comparison stretches the truth too far. While there are some parallels between Roman imperial overstretch and American military overreach, equating a slave army fighting for survival with clerical-fascist movements like the Taliban oversimplifies and distorts history. This analogy ignores the specific historical context and the class dynamics of the Roman slave system.

Strauss minimizes the revolutionary aspect of the revolt. Spartacus was not a Marxist revolutionary aiming to end slavery, but that misses the point. The historical importance of the revolt lies in its challenge to the Roman economic system, exposing the conflicts of a slave-based economy, and illustrating the potential power of the oppressed. While Spartacus did not develop revolutionary theory, his actions highlighted the structural tensions within Roman society. This is why Marx, Lenin, and subsequent socialist historians regarded him as a proto-revolutionary figure.

Overall, The Spartacus War is a compelling, accessible, and often perceptive narrative history. Strauss writes with clarity and vigor, and he openly acknowledges the limitations of the available evidence. However, he cannot avoid the fundamental challenge of writing about Spartacus: the sources are limited, his motives are unclear, and the political implications are debated. The book works well as an introduction but struggles when attempting to draw modern parallels or delve into speculative psychology. Spartacus remains a figure whose historical importance surpasses any one historian’s interpretation, including Strauss’s.