John Miller and the Burial of Revolution

John Miller’s A Brief History of the English Civil Wars is more than just a concise account of the 1640s; it embodies the revisionist orthodoxy that has shaped English Civil War history since the late 20th century. The defining feature of revisionist historiography… is its explicit rejection of the Marxist interpretation that the English Civil War constituted a bourgeois revolution.”

Miller’s work challenges not only Christopher Hill and the Marxist Historians’ Group but also the idea that history progresses through class struggle and revolutionary change.

Miller and the revisionist turn

The revisionist school, including Conrad Russell, John Morrill, Kevin Sharpe, and Miller, emerged specifically to challenge the Marxist claim that the English Civil War was a bourgeois revolution. Hill’s works, The English Revolution 1640 and The Century of Revolution, maintained that the conflict symbolised the political ascendancy of a rising bourgeoisie over a feudal-absolutist regime, paving the way for capitalist growth.

Revisionists challenged this framework by arguing that there is no measurable "rising bourgeoisie," as men from all social classes participated on both sides of the conflict. They claimed that religion and short-term political errors, rather than class struggle, fuelled the events. This perspective views the episode as a largely contingent, preventable tragedy resulting from Charles I’s political mistakes and brief religious divisions. In this view, Charles I’s execution is seen as an unfortunate accident rather than the decisive overthrow of a feudal system.

Miller’s book illustrates this change by providing a vivid narrative and personality-focused explanations instead of a deep analysis of social forces at work. It richly describes court intrigues, religious factionalism, and military campaigns, but it does not explore the core contradictions of a society shifting from feudal to capitalist structures. This approach is typical of the revisionist tendency to shift from structural analysis toward emphasising contingency and “high politics.”

Hill and the concept of bourgeois revolution

The Marxist interpretation by Hill and British Marxist historians never relied on a simple, mechanically deterministic model. Hill recognised that a “chemically pure revolution"—where all members of a class align perfectly—was unrealistic. As Ann Talbot notes, "Hill... had read enough Marx and Lenin to understand that one could not expect a chemically pure revolution." The focus is not on sociological neatness but on the revolution's actual function: it inherently advanced bourgeois interests by dismantling the feudal-absolutist state, executing the king, abolishing feudal tenures, and creating the political environment necessary for capitalist growth. Hill’s works—Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution, Economic Problems of the Church, and The Century of Revolution—connect ideological and religious conflicts to changes in property, commerce, and class dynamics.

What Miller’s approach obscures

Revisionism cannot account for why people at the time viewed the 1640s as a period of unprecedented upheaval. As censorship eased, groups like the Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, and Fifth Monarchists gained visibility in print, advocating demands that went beyond merely restoring an “ancient constitution”: "They called for levelling social classes, ending private property, and establishing the rule of the saints." These groups articulated, using religious language, the social tensions brought about by the collapse of feudal relations and the rise of new forms of property and authority. Hill’s research considered these voices as evidence of profound structural change, whereas revisionism tends to dismiss them as marginal, eccentric, or solely theological.

The political function of revisionism

Miller’s focus on narrative and personality shifts away from exploring why civil war became possible and, eventually, inevitable. This creates a depoliticised history marked by vivid descriptions but lacking causal explanation, contingency without necessity, and tragedy without revolutionary context. The rise of revisionism can be traced to the period after the USSR's dissolution and the ideological campaigns against Marxism: "The revisionist school gained ascendancy in the period following the dissolution of the USSR, when the bourgeoisie internationally sought to bury the concept of revolution itself.”

This is essential. Denying that the English Civil War was a bourgeois revolution is tantamount to denying that capitalism arose through revolutionary violence. If capitalism is seen as the outcome of slow, peaceful development, then viewing it as susceptible to overthrow via revolutionary struggle is dismissed from the start. Ann Talbot’s WSWS review of Hill clearly links this political viewpoint: “The prevailing academic orthodoxy is that there was no bourgeois revolution because there was no rising bourgeoisie and that people from all social classes can be found on either side of the struggle ... The whole unpleasant episode could have been avoided if only Charles II had been a little wiser.”

Contemporary significance

Many modern historians, like Simon Schama, often see themselves as "born-again Whigs,” offering a polished account of constitutional development and national cohesion. This view echoes the tradition that Hill aimed to challenge during his work. Instead of introducing a radically new perspective, revisionism mainly revisits earlier, pre-Marxist Whig interpretations of history, now presented with an air of empirical scepticism.

Today, whether the English Civil War was a bourgeois revolution remains a relevant issue for the working class. “A class that cannot face its own revolutionary origins cannot face the revolutionary future that awaits it." The bourgeoisie once celebrated its revolutionary history; now, its denial of that past shows its evolution into a fully counter-revolutionary class. To see the English Revolution as a true revolution—and to glean lessons for the fight against capitalism—is the role of Marxist history and a politically organised, conscious working class.

Miller’s A Brief History of the English Civil Wars, by aligning with revisionist orthodoxy, engages in the ideological act of masking that revolutionary legacy. In contrast, your critique aligns with the traditions of Hill and Trotsky, emphasising that the English Civil War was a pivotal event marking the shift from feudalism to capitalism, and that its significance can only be understood from the perspective of class struggle.

Bibliography

Primary and historiographical works

• Christopher Hill, The English Revolution 1640 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940).
• Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution 1603–1714 (London: Nelson, 1961).
• Christopher Hill, Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).
• Christopher Hill, Economic Problems of the Church in the Sixteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1956).
• Leon Trotsky, Where Is Britain Going? (London: New Park Publications, 1973; originally 1925).
• John Miller, A Brief History of the English Civil Wars (London.
• Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
• John Morrill, “The Religious Context of the English Civil War,” like the English Revolution, ed. Morrill (London: Longman, 1993).
• Kevin Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

On Marxist and revisionist historiography

• Alastair MacLachlan, The Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England: An Essay in the Fabrication of Seventeenth‑Century History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).
• Harvey J. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984).

WSWS and contemporary commentary

• Ann Talbot, “Christopher Hill and the English Revolution,” World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).
• Simon Schama, various works and interviews describing himself as a “born‑again Whig” in relation to English history.