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Thoughts on Plebs: The Lost Legacy of Independent Working Class Education

It is a rule generally recognized in the tactics of any conflict that any position
which excites the envy and desire of the opposition, is worthy the effort of
preservation. Noah Ablett

1) The current lack of Independent Working Class Education (IWCE) is not the
result of a lack of materials

Reading Plebs, I was inspired by the sheer determination that working class
activists had for educating themselves at the beginning of the 20
th
century.
They were hampered in this by two factors identified in the pamphlet.

Firstly, many of the important socialist and Marxist texts had not been
translated into English at the time. These included Critique of the Gotha
Programme and Economic &Philosophic Manuscripts 1844 by Karl Marx, The
Peasant War In Germany and much of Anti-Duhring (the section called
Socialism Utopian & Scientific had been translated into English by this time). In
addition, there is no evidence that activists at this time were aware of, let
alone read, anything by either Vladimir Lenin or Rosa Luxemburg.

Secondly, due to historical factors there was a lack of academics from working
class backgrounds that were sympathetic to the activists needs and willing to
assist them in their learning. This situation was peculiar to Britain. In many
European countries, as a result of the French Revolution, it was typical for
there to be a subsection of students who had come from poor backgrounds
and had gone to university to become professional people, particularly lawyers.
Some of these would have radical learnings and within this subsection of
radical working class students there would be typically be a small group of
students interested in Marxism. Eventually some of these would become
lecturers within the universities and were directly involved in working class
struggles.

As regards the first point, a quick search of Amazon will reveal that in our time
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there is no shortage of socialist and Marxist texts. All of Marxs important
writings have been translated into English. In addition to this, there are many
books available that have been written with the purpose of making Marxs
ideas more accessible to the general reader. Examples of these include David
Harveys Companion to Capital, Kieran Allens Marx and the Alternative to
Capitalism, Terry Eagletons Why Marx Was Right and Marx For Beginners by
Del Rio. In addition to this, there are books available about trade union
movements, histories of various socialist parties and books about specific
historical events that would be of interest to anyone wishing to learn about the
struggles of working class people throughout history. Apparently there is even
a comic book about Karel Marxs Capital. The shortage of texts that made life
more difficult for activists at the beginning of the 20
th
century is not an issue
that confronts us.

As regards the second point, I am less knowledgeable about where we stand.
The fact that the composition of the working class has changed drastically
since the time of the Ruskin strike in 1909 means that to answer this question
we must first define what we mean when we say that an academic is from a
working class background. Do we mean that that academic had access to the
hardship fund while they were a student because their parents were unable to
support them financially during their studies? Do we mean that they speak
with what we might call a local accent? Do we mean that their parents
worked in manual jobs and were paid an hourly wage rather than a salary? The
figures that I have read, plus my own experience of university, tells me that by
and large students, and by extension I will assume lecturers, are drawn largely
from the middle classes. What does this mean for working class struggles? A
reading of Plebs makes it clear working class people have the capacity to
learn highly complex material on their own if the desire, opportunity and an
enabling environment that takes into account the particular needs of working
class people is there. They do not need the intervention of academics.
However the emphasis on the previous sentence should be on the word need,
as this is not to say that assistance from professional academics is not helpful.
It is merely to say that it is not a necessity.

Taking these points into consideration, it will be of utmost importance to
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understand why IWCE is not more widespread in our time if any educational
project aimed at the working class is to be successful, meaning that it is a) not
rejected by the working class as was the Working Education Association (WEA)
approach, and b) succeeds in producing activists who are knowledgeable and
confident in their knowledge. Is the lack of a IWCE as a living tradition at the
moment due to political apathy resulting from the working class being
hammered for the last 30 odd years and losing confidence in itself as a political
group? Is it the result of anti-intellectualism, or simply a general distaste for
reading resulting from unpleasant experiences of liberal education? Or Is it
simply the result of a combination of overwork and bullshit like The X Factor,
leading working people to conceptualise the little free time they have as being
for relaxation, or activities that require less mental strain than learning about
political economy or labour history? My instinct is that it is a combination of all
of these.

On the point regarding anti-intellectualism, there is an interesting observation
by T.A. Jackson quoted in section 7 of the pamphlet called The Students
Concept of Education. The quote goes as follows:
I have noted a difference between Scottish and English practice I the manner
of economics classes. This difference turned upon the fact that the traditional
mistrust of theory which Engels notes in England, was nothing like so evident
in Scotland the level of education in the public elementary schools was
definitely higher in Scotland than in England: and ion addition for historical
reasons, there was in Scotland a popular respect for learning that had no
counterpart in England. (page 15)

Reading this brought to mind Rosa Luxemburgss comment about the English in
Theory & Practice:
As a political factor, the English workers today stand even lower than the
workers of the economically most backward and politically least free of
European states: Russia. It is their living revolutionary Reason that gives the
Russians their great practical strength; and it was their renunciation of
revolution and self-limitation to immediate interests, their so-called political
realism, that made the English a zero in real politics.

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That this observation of the English was made by several activists makes me
think that it most likely had some basis in reality, at least at that time. A similar
comment about the English was made by George Orwell in an essay called The
Lion & the Unicorn Socialism & the English Genius. It would be interesting to
find out whether this characterisation of the English as being pragmatists and
having distaste for theory holds true for our time, and it would be a very
important factor to take into account in developing any kind of educational
project that is intended to appeal to the working class. I am more and more
coming to the conclusion that any social movement that does not take into
account what might be called the national character is doomed to failure,
failure here meaning not that it doesnt have what we might call the correct
politics but that it has no influence beyond a small group. If it was the case that
we were a Christian group it would not matter how we approach people. We
could stand outside the Bullring, handing out our leaflets, telling anyone that
disagreed with us that they are going to burn in hell and it essentially wouldnt
make an iota of difference because we would not be looking to build a mass
movement of people that believe as we do. My understanding is that
ultimately this is what we are trying to do and as such we cant just do the
political equivalent of telling people that theyre going to burn in hell. If we are
to be successful then we must take two steps to them for every one step they
take to us and this means taking them for who they are and what their
concerns are.

I realise that as socialists, and therefore internationalists, this places us in a
difficult position but I really feel it is something that must be resolved at some
point if we are to more forward successfully.









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2) IWCE had a specific aim and a method that was successful in achieving this
aim

The aim of IWCE was to produce workers who were not only knowledgeable
about the three core areas that were identified as being most useful (Marxist
political economy, industrial history and philosophy) but who would also be
confident in both teaching other workers and debating with anyone who
disagreed with them, including middle class academics. The method appears to
have been developed by the Socialist Labour Party (several key texts used in
classes were translations of socialist/Marxist texts written by the American
academic and prominent SLP member Daniel De Leon) and was intensive. Tom
Bells description of the method is quoted in section 7 of the pamphlet, The
students concept of education:
Our method in the classes was to open with an inaugural survey of the whole
field we proposed to transverse, and to make the workers familiar with the
subject as a whole; the textbooks etc, which included Wage Labour and Capital;
Price, Value and Profit; Capital Each student was given a series of definitions
of terms used by Marx. These had to be studied, memorised and discussed
thoroughly, for perhaps the first four weeks. The Student would study Wage
Labour and Capital at home . At the class we would read it over paragraph by
paragraph, round the class. This practice aimed at helping students to speak
fluently and grammatically. At the following class meetings questions would be
put and answered, and the points raised thoroughly understood by everyone,
the results of each lesson being summarised by the leader. This same method
was applied to the study of industrial history. Later on, simple lessons in
historical materialism and formal logic were added. So that, after six months of
this, every worker who went through the entire session came out a potential
tutor for other classes. (page 15)

From reading Plebs, it appears that this approach grew out of a dissatisfaction
amongst workers with the official approach taken at Ruskin towards working
class education. The official approach was the educational model proposed by
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the Workers Educational Association (WEA) in the report Oxford and Working
Class Education. As such IWCE was an organic product that represents working
class self-organisation, essentially socialism from below in practice, and it was
a kind of underground phenomenon within the college. Interestingly, the
pamphlet also outlines the official approach taken at Ruskin college, and this
model used the tutorial class as opposed to the lecture or reading group as its
basic approach to teaching. This approach was developed by Albert
Mansbridge, who is described in section 4 of the pamphlet, entitled The WEA
to 1907, as:
a working class person who believed in harmony between the employers and
the workers, and who thought adult education could bring this about. (page 7)

The tutorial class was first adopted or developed by Mansbridge during his
time in the extension movement which focussed on making liberal education
accessible to working class people. This was part of a wider strategy by the
ruling class to sandpaper working class activists, bringing them into the
bourgeoise fold by exposing them to bourgeoise ideas. However it would
appear that many working class people rejected this. The story of Ruskin can
therefore be understood as about a battle for the soul of the working class in
the arena of education.

Despite the characterisation of the WEA as essentially class traitors, a reading
of Plebs leads me to believe that we should not throw out the baby with the
bathwater. Though it is clear that the WEAs focus on citizenship classes means
that it was essentially a tool with which the ruling class hoped to better
integrate the working class into bourgeoise society, thereby blunting the edge
of working class activism, there is a reference in section 3, entitled Ruskin to
1902, to correspondence courses. Though it doesnt describe the nature of
these correspondence courses a description elsewhere in the pamphlet of the
WEAs aforementioned tutorial classes suggests that the correspondence
courses were somewhat similar to the modern Open University distance
learning beginner courses, designed to prepare students for the more difficult
courses taught at Ruskin.

The attraction of a distance learning class struggle course for activists is
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obvious in these days of unpredictable working hours and mass internet access.
The multi-media nature of the internet could also mean that such a course
could cater to different learning styles, making learning accessible and
enjoyable for people who learn best from reading and for those who prefer
alternative ways of learning. Internet forums would also mean that learners
could shape the curriculum, sharing their insights from struggles in their own
workplace with other activists on the course. This would mean that the course
curriculum would be dynamic and ever evolving, enabling learners to ground
the course in reality and take control of it themselves. It would also mean that
activists could learn at their own pace and at times to suit themselves. It would
enable activists to come into contact with each other. Internet based long
distance learning for activists could be a very exciting development if done well.


3) The dichotomy between thinking and doing, between the talking shop and
the activist treadmill, is to an extent a false one

It is clear from Plebs that the learning environment is a facilitator of action,
particularly if that learning environment is understood to embody a set of
values that are under attack. As I wrote earlier, the story of the Ruskin strike
can be understood as that of a battle, between the ruling class and a relatively
small group of working class activists, over what knowledge is useful to the
working class and serves its interests. Put simply, are the working class better
served by being granted greater access to a conventional, liberal education, or
are they better served by being granted access to an education in Marxist
political economy and the history of their own struggles? The Plebs League
would have unequivacollay answered with the latter.

The education project can serve as a powerful organising tool. For one thing it
can provide a space for workers to come into contact with each other in an
environment where they are, if not exact equals, in an environment where
they can regognise themselves and others as human beings with potentialities,
potentialitites that they are rarely made aware of in their work. This is highly
important because, as I have written elsewhere, a cursory glance at the history
of regimes that called themselves communist finds everywhere an attempt by
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the regime to create the new socialist man, a project designed to shape
human nature and inculcate the attitudes and values that the regime believed
people would require to live in the new socialist worlds that they had created.
If we perceive ourselves to be autonomists and we believe that socialism is
best brought about from below, then we must acknowledge that working class
people often lack an area in their lives in which they can be autonomous. They
certainly cant practice autonomy in work, and considering the relative rarity of
the working classes entering university and having to be self-directed learners,
they often dont experience this in education. For those who have children,
raising a child does provide an arena for working class people to practice
autonomy but even this is limited and fraught with difficulties (I remember my
psychology lecturer on my social work course being very, very, VERY clear
about how what we generally consider to be healthy for the development of
children is essentially a middle class style of parenting.) In short, If we think
that socialism from below is the future of the left, then we must provide
spaces in which people can practice autonomy and build confidence in their
ability to be autonomous whilst also being safe in doing this. People must feel
that they can make mistakes.

A fear of failure is as damaging to a social movement as any amount of police
repression.