Gary De Krey’s Following the Levellers, Volume One is
the latest attempt to dissolve this radical edge. It is a carefully written,
academically respectable, and thoroughly revisionist effort to minimise the
Levellers’ significance, shrink their organisational coherence, and reduce
their political challenge to a sectarian ripple in the religious culture of
London’s out‑parishes. It is a book that must be read critically and, for
readers of A Trumpet of Sedition, polemically.
The Revisionist Project: Erasing the Revolution
De Krey’s work belongs to a historiographical trend that has
dominated the academy for forty years: the revisionist counter‑offensive
against the Marxist interpretation of the English Revolution. Beginning in the
1970s, Conrad Russell, John Morrill, and Mark Kishlansky launched a sustained
attack on the idea that the civil war had social causes, class dynamics, or
revolutionary content. They portrayed it as an accident, a misunderstanding, a
crisis of multiple kingdoms. Ordinary people were reduced to spectators.
Radicalism was dismissed as marginal. The Levellers were downgraded to
pamphleteers with a loose following.
This intellectual change did not happen in isolation. It
aligned with the Thatcher-Reagan campaigns against the working class, the fall
of Stalinism, and the declaration of “the end of history.” The idea that
ordinary people could shape history through collective action became not only
outdated but also embarrassing. Revisionism became the ideological stance of a
bourgeoisie that no longer wanted to acknowledge that it had earned its power
through revolution. De Krey is not an uncritical revisionist; he is meticulous,
nuanced, and detail-oriented. However, his main claims, such as the absence of
a movement, early faction, significant organisation, or a role in 1649, align
with the same perspective. They aim to undermine the Levellers.
De Krey’s Four Minimising Claims
De Krey’s book presents four claims aimed at minimising the Levellers’ historical significance: that they were not a true movement but a mere sectarian "response," that they did not form as a distinct faction before October 1647, that they lacked extensive organisation, and that
the 1649 Army mutinies were not Leveller-influenced. All these claims are
incorrect and, more critically, politically motivated. De Krey
argues that the Levellers were not a political movement but simply a “response"
from churches such as Baptists, Independents, and separatists. This approach
exemplifies the oldest revisionist tactic: reducing political radicalism to
religious culture, thereby stripping it of its social significance.
Positioning ‘sects’ against ‘movement’ implies viewing the
religious form as its core essence. Indeed, sects served as organisational tools for working-class mobilisation. They did not generate Leveller politics;
rather, they enabled artisans, apprentices, and small traders to organise independently of traditional authorities like parishes, bishops, and guilds.
Limiting the Levellers to sectarianism disregards the political awareness of
these common people. It suggests the most vibrant commercial city in Europe
only fostered religious dissent, overlooking its political radicalism. Such a
view fails to recognise that the English Revolution was propelled both from the
grassroots and from the leadership.
De Krey’s assertion that the Levellers only appeared as a
distinct group after October 1647 seems overly precise, aimed at downplaying
their early cohesion. While it’s true that "Leveller” was a hostile term
and alliances shifted, the core ideas of Leveller politics existed well before
the label was used. For instance, Overton and Walwyn’s July 1646 Remonstrance
of Many Thousand Citizens criticised the Lords, championed popular sovereignty,
and called for major reforms. Similarly, the March 1647 Large Petition proposed
law reforms, religious freedom, and the abolition of monopolies. Lilburne’s
pamphlets consistently emphasised that authority stems from the consent of the
governed.
October 1647 was not the birth of the Levellers. It was the
moment when their programme collided openly with the class interests of
Cromwell and Ireton. It was the moment when the grandees could no longer
contain the rank-and-file's radicalism.
De Krey’s claim that the Levellers lacked significant
organisation is clearly contradicted by ample evidence. Subscription-funded
treasurers and weekly meetings at the Whalebone tavern organised petitioning
efforts across London and the provinces. Women's mobilisation campaigns led by
Katherine Chidley and Elizabeth Lilburn, the sea-green ribbon as a political
symbol, and the large funeral procession for Robert Lockyer all attest to this.
None of these actions happened by chance. In reality, the Levellers built a
movement that resembled a modern political organisation, though not a party in
the sense of coordination, discipline, and political awareness. To deny this is
not merely a mistake; it reflects an ideological position.
De Krey’s main controversial assertion is that the Army
mutinies in spring 1649 were not driven by Leveller ideals. This claim is a
clear example of blatant revisionism. The mutineers explicitly referenced the
Agreement of the People, linking their radicalism directly to Leveller activism
from the 1647 Agitator movement. "To separate the soldiers’ material
demands from the political programme… is precisely to repeat the operation the
grandees themselves performed.” Cromwell and Fairfax realised well that the
mutinies had political motives. That awareness led them to respond with harsh
violence, exemplified by the execution of three soldiers in Burford churchyard.
The Commonwealth, having executed the king and abolished the monarchy,
immediately turned its guns on the plebeian forces that had pushed hardest for
the revolution. That is the significance of Burford. It was the moment when the
bourgeois revolution revealed its class limits.
The Levellers and the Class Limits of the Revolution
A critical defence of the Levellers does not mean idealising them. They were not socialists; they supported small property owners and
excluded servants and charity recipients from voting. In their April 1649
Manifesto, they explicitly denied intentions to “level men’s estates."
These boundaries were real, but they do not lessen their importance. Instead,
they highlight the bourgeois revolution's structural limits. The Levellers
were the most progressive democratic force to emerge from 1640s social
conditions. They pushed the revolution to its furthest point and were
suppressed when they threatened to exceed those limits.
The Putney Debates remain astonishing documents. Colonel
Rainsborough declared that “the poorest he that is in England hath a life to
live as the greatest he.” Ireton replied that political power must rest on
those with “a permanent fixed interest” in property. Here the class limits of the
bourgeois revolution were stated openly by its own leaders. The Levellers
mattered because they revealed the contradiction at the heart of the
revolution: the bourgeoisie needed the plebeian masses to defeat the king, but
feared their democratic aspirations. The Levellers were the political
expression of those aspirations.
Why De Krey’s Book Matters and Why It Must Be Opposed
De Krey’s book is not simply an academic monograph. It is
part of a political struggle over historical memory. The Levellers represent a
tradition of plebeian radicalism that the modern bourgeoisie would prefer to
forget. They remind us that democracy was not granted from above but fought for
from below. They remind us that the ruling class has always mobilised the
masses when convenient and repressed them when necessary.
The fight over the Levellers is not an antiquarian quarrel. Indeed.
It is a fight over whether ordinary people can make history. It is a fight over
whether democratic rights can coexist with vast concentrations of wealth. It is
a fight over whether the state serves the few or the many. In Britain today,
where protest is criminalised, inequality is rampant, and democratic rights are
under assault, the Levellers’ questions return with renewed urgency. Their
defeat revealed that democratic aspirations cannot be realised within the
framework of bourgeois society. Their struggle is part of the modern working
class's heritage.
De Krey, But Read Him Against Himself
De Krey’s 'Following the Levellers' offers valuable insights
for those interested in a detailed overview of the London neighbourhoods,
congregations, and petitioning efforts that sparked Leveller activism—however,
anyone aiming to grasp the true meaning of the Levellers and their continuing
relevance should approach it critically. Consult De Krey for his detailed
account and archival reconstruction, but compare his work with Hill, Manning,
and especially the Levellers’ own writings, which remain among the most
inspiring political texts in English.
