The prerequisites for the English bourgeois revolution were the economic and political crisis in England in the 17th century.
Economic crisis:
Fencing.
The introduction of new duties by the king without the permission of parliament.
Monopoly of the king on the production and sale of certain goods within the country.
Illegal charges.
Monopoly trade.
Rising prices.
Disorder of trade and industry.
Increasing emigration.
Political crisis:
Change of the ruling dynasty.
Confrontation between king and parliament.
Embezzlement.
shortsighted foreign policy.
Marriage of Charles I to a Catholic.
Dissolution of Parliament by Charles I.
Persecution of the Puritans.
Tightening censorship
Stages:
Civil wars. Change of forms of government (1640-1649)
initial stage (1640-1642). A revolution is taking place. authorities. King out. b. convene parliament in connection with the resurrection. in Scotland. Parl-t declared himself Long (permanently working) - beg. revolutionary The end of the stage is the refusal of the king to accept the “Great. Remonstrance" about free. trade and reform of the church and the king's attempt to commit. counterrevol. coup and arrest of the leader. oppositions);
1642 - 1647 (1st civil war: the beginning of the war between the king and the parliament. The end of the stage - the publication by the Parliament of new plants that did not solve cross. agrarian problems. A new explosion of people. dissatisfaction);
1647 - 1648 (from b-by for the deepening of the rev-ii to the beginning of the 2nd civil war);
1648 - 1649 (2 civil war. The end of the stage - the destruction of the King's power and the House of Lords and the announcement of England as a republic);
Republican government (1650 - 1653)
1649 - 1653 (acceptance of the k-ii and the policy of the republic. End - Crisis of the republic due to its anti-democratic policy, economic crisis);
Military dictatorship - Cromwell protectorate (1653-1658).
1653 - 1659 (establishment of the Cromwell protectorate, which dispersed the Long Parliament and convened the Small Parliament. End of the stage: the death of Cromwell caused a crisis in the protectorate);
Restoration of the monarchy (1659 - 1660).
1659 - 1660 (Restoration of the monarchy. Attempts by the generals to establish a military dictator. Convening the Convention, which again invited the king. The fall of the republic). invitation to the throne of Charles II Stuart (the son of the executed in 1649 by the decision of the Parliament of Charles I) - a return to the old on a higher basis (the establishment of an initially dualistic, and then - to early XVIII in. - constitutional, parliamentary monarchy).
Results: This is bourgeois. roar-iya (hand-in roar-it at the bourgeois-ii). Feature: union bourgeois. and new. yard-va; dem weakness. movement (the population did not unite: radical. The wing defended its interests: restored p / fencing, etc.).
Resolved main. eq. problem: the bourgeoisie received bourgeois agrarian legislation; abolishing the feudal system. own: nobles. landowner turned into the property of a bourgeois-legal content. A stormy district of capital began (weakened state guardianship over the eq-coy; freedom of competition and protection measures) and colonies. empire. Achieve a compromise between the upper bourgeoisie. and landlords (images of the classic variant of the 2-party system: Tories and Whigs). The rapid flowering of science, to-ry. Dangerous example English. rev-ii for the future. the fate of the feud. Europe.
At the end of May 1628, the English Parliament submitted to King Charles I a bill called the Petition of Rights, a document confirming the ancient rights and freedoms of his subjects. It contained a protest against the numerous violations by the monarchical government of the rights and freedoms of citizens protected by British law since the early Middle Ages. Manifestations of monarchical arbitrariness were: forced cash loans from the population, arrests without trial or investigation, the establishment of punitive military courts and illegal camps of the military on the maintenance of the civilian population. Despite the king's threatening speech in Parliament, the House of Commons, representing the interests of medium and small landowners, as well as wealthy citizens, raised the issue of restoring the rights of the nation, violated by the royal will. Parliament did not seek any innovations. He only wanted a royal confirmation of the old rights of the nation, "so that no evil will dare to attack them." The king tried to interfere with the discussion of the petition and threatened to dissolve parliament. He even promised to refrain from violating the ancient ordinances in the future, although he was indignant at the contestation of his right to arrest people without trial. Nevertheless, the Petition was approved: by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, representing the aristocratic elite of the kingdom. Needing funds for the war with France and faced with the refusal of the House of Commons to allocate money to equip the fleet before the approval of the Petition, the king was forced to retreat. On June 7, 1628, he approved the Petition of Rights, which became law. The text of the document was printed in huge circulation for distribution among the people. There was general rejoicing in England. And only then the House of Commons gave the king a subsidy for military needs.
The reason for the emergence of this conflict was the case of five knights who refused to pay the sums of money to the state treasury on a forced loan announced by the Privy Council in the fall of 1626. They motivated their refusal by the fact that the collection was appointed without the consent of parliament. On October 27, 1627, the refusenik knights were imprisoned. Similar measures had previously been taken by the royal authorities against other persons who refused to lend, but they usually accepted their imprisonment with humility or submitted a humble request to the king for release with a confession of their guilt. And the king set them free. However, the above knights decided to achieve release from arrest not by royal grace, but on the basis of the current law of England.
The House of Lords decided to bring under the royal prerogative, based on common law and the statutes of England, an additional basis in the form of divine law. Members of the House of Commons rejected the proposals of the Lords. They saw in them a dangerous tendency to confuse the ordinary prerogative of the king with his absolute and divine prerogatives. More acceptable to the House of Commons turned out to be another way to eliminate the revealed uncertainty of common law and statutes - the adoption of a special law that would confirm and clarify the articles of the Magna Carta and six statutes adopted during the reigns of Edward I and Edward III. His Majesty declared that he intended to uphold the personal liberties and property rights of his subjects, that he would govern "in accordance with the Laws and Statutes of this Kingdom". In response to this message, the House of Commons passed on May 3 special treatment to the king it was said that the lower house of parliament fully trusted the words and promise of His Majesty. However, the parliamentarians declared to the king, since illegal actions were often committed by ministers, there is no better way to "inspire the oppressed souls of your devoted subjects to the cheerful support of Majesty" than to pass a law on their rights and freedoms. As a result, on May 6, 1628, the House of Commons decided to put its demands in the form of a petition of right. June 2, 1628 The petition for the right, approved by both houses of the English Parliament, was read to Charles I. The petition entered into force on June 7, 1628 - adopted by Parliament.
The petition documented the demands of the opposition:
Against illegal "without general consent, given by an act of Parliament, taxes and other fees";
Against illegal arbitrary arrests "against the laws and free customs of the kingdom"; -against violations of the Habeas Corpus procedure allowing the detention of subjects without charge;
Great Remonstrance - an act that was a list of abuses royalty, handed over to the King of England Charles I Stuart by the English Parliament on December 1, 1641, but adopted by the House of Commons on November 22 of the same year, during the work of the Long Parliament. It is considered one of the most important documents of the first stage of the English Revolution, which preceded the start of the Civil War.
The document consisted of 204 articles that counted the abuses of royal power. Among the signatories were such well-known political figures as John Pym, George Dyby), John Hampden, and the rising Oliver Cromwell. Expressing the economic interests of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility, the "Great Remonstrance" demanded that private property be protected from the claims of the crown, freedom of trade and entrepreneurship, and an end to financial arbitrariness. It also contained a requirement that the king henceforth appoint only those officials whom parliament had reason to trust.
Further, the signatories put forward hypocritical clauses on the cessation of religious persecution - and themselves demanded that all bishops be expelled from parliament. And also - persistently urged Charles I to start selling land confiscated from the Irish rebels (Catholics). The text of the document did not contain direct accusations against the king, but one of the points demanded that parliament be given the right to veto the decisions of the monarch. The Great Remonstrance was passed by a majority of only 11 votes.
After receiving the document, Charles I paused. Members of Parliament began to circulate the text of the "Great Remonstrance" without waiting for the King's official response. On December 23, the king gave a balanced and wise answer, emphasizing in particular:
that he cannot expel the bishops from parliament, because he sees no fault in any of them,
and that he was not going to start selling Irish lands until the end of the war with the rebellious subjects and the signing of their surrender.
As a result, the reconciliation of Parliament and the king did not come, which led to a further crisis in the English state.
3. independent republic. In February 1649, the royal title was abolished. England was declared a republic. In March 1649, the House of Lords was abolished. The House of Commons was declared the supreme legislative body.
The State Council, which consisted of 40 people, became the supreme executive body of power.
Its tasks are: a) to counteract the restoration of the monarchy; b) exercise control over the armed forces; c) impose taxes; d) take measures to develop trade; d) lead foreign policy states. The Council of State was responsible for its activities to the House of Commons. During this period there is a further struggle for power and influence of Cromwell and his supporters. This was facilitated by the success of the republican army in pacifying measures in Ireland and Scotland, as well as the expansion of trade, industry and navigation.
However, after the establishment of the republic social struggle did not weaken. The position of the new republic was very difficult. It faced difficult tasks that had to be solved in a situation of severe decline and disorder in economic activity, ever-increasing contradictions within them, and a whole series of grave dangers that threatened the young bourgeois state from outside. In order to strengthen the new political system, it was necessary to protect it from encroachments by the old, powerless feudal forces operating within the country and outside it. On the other hand, the new rulers of England, in order to retain power in their hands, had to avert the threat to their domination from the masses of the people, who could not be satisfied with a bourgeois republic, moreover, devoid of even those features of democracy that had already been put forward by representatives of radical political currents in the revolution - levelers and diggers. The Independent army elite and officers, as well as the forces supporting them, who managed to gain power and fortune during the revolution and were satisfied with the transformations carried out in the country, were ardent opponents of continuing the revolution and transferring even a small part of their power to the people. They were just as reactionary as the Presbyterians before them. Thus, the republic “caught itself between two fires”: the royalists who raised their heads and the levellers and diggers who yearned for reforms, capable of leading the masses.
For the Levellers, the proclamation of a republic was initial stage for deepening change. The Levellers were the ideologists of the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie and defended the principles of bourgeois democracy, reflecting in this respect the interests of the broad masses of the English people: the peasantry, artisans, rural and urban "lower classes", and the mass of soldiers. In their numerous pamphlets and program documents, they subjected the Independent Republic to sharp criticism, imbued with democratic radicalism and the spirit of the masses. First of all, the Levellers fought for the adoption of a constitution by England. They called their version "People's Agreement" and submitted it to the officers' meeting, where it was subjected to significant distortions, and the main points of the program were released. The influence of the Levellers on the army, consisting of the peasantry and artisans, continued to grow. Under these conditions, the leaders of the Independents, relying on the army elite, resorted to establishing a dictatorship regime, which led to the proclamation of a “protectorate”.
Cromwell's Protectorate and the "Instrument of Control". English Society of the 17th century. not yet ripe for a republican form of government. Monarchist traditions were too strong. This is the reason for the weakness and imminent death of the Republic.
In December 1653, a constitution was introduced in England, drawn up by a council of army officers. It was called the "Instrument of Control" and secured the military dictatorship of Cromwell. Legislative power was concentrated in the hands of the Lord Protector and a unicameral parliament. The property qualification established for participation in elections was 100 times higher than that which existed before the revolution.
The supreme executive power was vested in the Lord Protector, together with the Council of State, which consisted of not less than 13 and not more than 21 members. The appointment of councillors depended on the Lord Protector. Between sessions of Parliament, the Lord Protector commanded the armed forces, carried out diplomatic relations with other states, and appointed senior officials. He also had the right of suspensive "veto" over laws passed by Parliament. The constitution expressly declared Cromwell to be Lord Protector for life.
Soon Cromwell ceased to convene Parliament, members State Council he appointed at his own discretion. Local administration was entrusted to the major generals of the Cromwellian army who were at the head of the districts.
Consequently, the "Instrument of Control" consolidated the regime of sole power, in terms of the breadth of powers corresponding to the monarchy. Since that time, the reverse movement from the republic to the monarchy begins. After the death of Cromwell (1658), the remnant of the Long Parliament declared itself the founding power and in 1660 elevated Charles II, the son of the executed king, to the throne. Representatives of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility forced Charles II to sign the Breda Declaration. In it, the king promised: a) not to persecute anyone who fought against the king during the years of the revolution; b) preserve freedom of conscience for all subjects; c) to refer all disputes over land to the discretion of parliament (thus, those changes in land use that were carried out during the revolution were placed under the protection of parliament).
However, these promises were broken. The restoration of the monarchy was accompanied by the revival of the old order. The House of Lords, the Privy Council and the Anglican Church were restored in their old form. Revolutionaries were persecuted and Presbyterians were persecuted. It was Lambert and his assistants who made up the so-called. “Instrument of government” - the new constitution of the English state (adopted on December 16, 1653), according to which an elected unicameral parliament was established, convened every three years, members of the Council of State appointed for life and the Lord Protector as head of the legislative and executive power. The supreme executive power was vested in the Lord Protector, together with the Council of State, which consisted of not less than 13 and not more than 21 members. The appointment of councillors depended on the Lord Protector. Between sessions of Parliament, the Lord Protector commanded the armed forces, carried out diplomatic relations with other states, and appointed senior officials. He also had the right of suspensive "veto" over laws passed by Parliament. The constitution expressly declared Cromwell to be Lord Protector for life. Soon Cromwell stopped convening Parliament, he appointed members of the Council of State at his own discretion. Local administration was entrusted to the major generals of the Cromwellian army who were at the head of the districts. Consequently, the "Instrument of Control" consolidated the regime of sole power, in terms of the breadth of powers corresponding to the monarchy. The post of Lord Protector, not a dictator, but the first servant of the Commonwealth (Republic), in which the conquered Scotland and Ireland were included, was, of course, offered to Cromwell.
4. By the end of the 50s of the XVII century. the regime of military dictatorship began to meet opposition, both from the right and from the left. Royalists dreamed of restoring the monarchy. The republicans were also not satisfied with the new form of government, which bears little resemblance to the republican one. In 1659, the remnant of the Long Parliament declared itself the founding power.
On April 25, the newly elected Parliament, in which the Presbyterians and Royalists won the majority, invited Charles to take the throne of the three kingdoms. At the same time, the House of Lords was reinstated in its former composition. On May 29, 1660, on his thirtieth birthday, Charles II triumphantly returned to London and was proclaimed king.
and the old constitutional monarchy, proclaiming Charles II Stuart king of England. The restoration of the monarchy entailed the restoration of the former electoral system, the structure of the parliament, and some state bodies. In order to preserve their own security and the results of the revolution, the new nobility obtained from Charles II the signing of the Breda Declaration, where the king promised a number of political guarantees:
ü amnesty for participants in the revolution;
ü granting freedom of religion (with the exception of the Catholic);
ü Preservation for the new owners of royalist lands confiscated during the revolution, the crown and the church.
Having established himself on the throne, Charles II forgot about these promises. Participants in the revolution began to be persecuted. The corpses of Cromwell and other participants in the revolution were thrown out of the graves and hung up on the gallows. The Anglican Church was declared the state religion, and the Puritans were again persecuted. The Stuarts made an attempt to return to the feudal nobleman and the church the lands confiscated during the revolution. But they met the open resistance of the new owners - the bourgeoisie and the gentry, the attempt was unsuccessful. This testified to the fact that the main social shifts produced by the revolution had not been changed. The country followed the capitalist path of development and the monarchy had to adapt to this. Differences among the ruling classes again made parliament the center of political struggle.
In the 70s of the XVII century. in the English parliament, 2 political parties gradually took shape: Tories and Whigs (originally swearing nicknames: whig - in Scottish - curdled milk; tory - a street thief in Ireland). The Tories were supporters of strengthening royal power and the Anglican Church. The social base of the party was the landowning aristocracy - the old feudal nobility. The Whigs, relying on the new nobility and the bourgeoisie, advocated the preservation of a constitutional monarchy with a strong parliamentary power. During the reign of Charles II, the Tories dominated the English Parliament.
Another law, which later became an important element of bourgeois-democratic law, was adopted in 1679 by the Habeas Corpus Act. Its full name is "The Act for the Better Ensuring of the Freedom of the Subject and for the Prevention of Imprisonment Beyond the Seas" (that is, outside of England). According to this law, judges were obliged, on the complaint of a person who considers his arrest or the arrest of someone else unlawful, to demand the urgent presentation of the arrested person to the court to verify the lawfulness of the arrest or for trial; the conclusion of the accused in prison could be carried out only upon presentation of an order indicating the reason for the arrest. Its adoption was due to the fact that in 1679 King Charles II dissolved the old parliament and announced new elections. By that time, two parties had already been fully formed - the Tories and the Whigs. The Whigs, who received a majority in the new parliament, passed this act, fearing reprisals, since they were in opposition to the king.
The habeas corpus act of 1679 consists of 21 articles.
No free man could be imprisoned without a writ of habeas corpus, whereby the judge ordered that the person (lit. body, corpus) of the accused be delivered to him.
5. "Glorious Revolution" - adopted in historical literature name for the coup d'état of 1688–1689 in England (the removal from the throne of James II Stuart and the proclamation of William III of Orange as king), as a result of which the rights of the crown were limited.
At the end of the 1670s. the parliamentary opposition in England took shape in the Whig party, and the supporters of the king were called the Tories. The former relied on the nobility and the bourgeoisie, while the latter relied on the old feudal nobility, the royal court, and officials.
Under James II (1685-1688), the feudal-absolutist reaction to the opposition assumed the most ferocious character. The general fear for their safety prompted even a significant part of the Tories to recoil from the king. The leaders of the opposition prepared a conspiracy to expel James and invite the Stadtholder of Holland, William of Orange, to the English throne. The organizers of the coup counted on the fact that William of Orange would not claim supremacy over Parliament, and in addition, his invitation to the throne would ensure England's union and alliance with Holland against France. Despite the limited nature of the coup of 1688, it was important for the subsequent development of English capitalism. The establishment of a constitutional monarchy meant real access to power for the big bourgeoisie and the bourgeois nobility. For the propertied classes of England, the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 really did a lot, providing them with the opportunity for unlimited accumulation of capital at the expense of the masses of the people of Great Britain itself and due to the robbery and ruthless exploitation of the population of its many colonies. The main result of the coup - the strengthening of the constitutional monarchy - corresponded to the needs of bourgeois progress in the country, meant the transfer of supreme power to the parliament, in whose hands were concentrated legislative and partially executive functions, curtailed by the king. With the final elimination of absolutism, the coup consolidated in the political sphere the successes of the revolution of the middle of the 17th century.
Basic constitutional acts. After the coup, Parliament adopted a series of legislative acts that formalized a constitutional monarchy in England. The first constitutional law of England of the period under review was the "Bill of Rights" of 1689, which significantly limited royal power in favor of Parliament. Its main points were as follows:
the principle of parliamentary supremacy. The king was forbidden without the consent of parliament to suspend the operation of laws and make exceptions from them (Art. 1-2).
ü a ban on the collection of fees in favor of the crown without the consent of Parliament (Article 3).
ü it was forbidden to recruit and maintain the army in peacetime without the permission of parliament (Article 6).
ü elections of members of parliament were declared free (art. 8), and the convocation of parliament was quite frequent (art. 13).
ü freedom of speech and debate in parliament, persecution for speaking was prohibited (Article 9).
Another important constitutional law was the "Decree of the Organization" of 1701, which marked the beginning of the establishment of new principles of bourgeois state law. First of all it is:
ü The principle of countersignature, according to which an act issued by the king was considered invalid if it was not countersigned by the relevant minister (member of the Privy Council) (Article II). In this regard, the political role of ministers, who could be held accountable by parliament, increased, this marked the beginning of the forming principle of "responsible government".
ü The principle of irremovability of judges. It was established that judges could perform their duties as long as "as long as they behave well". Their removal from office could only take place on the proposal of both houses of parliament (Article II).
In addition, the "Deed of Dispensation" determined the order of succession, according to which the English throne could only be occupied by a person of the Anglican faith.
Thus, in England, as a result of the revolution of 1640-1660 and palace coup 1688, absolutism was finally buried, and a constitutional monarchy was firmly established. The "Bill of Rights" and the "Deed of Dispensation" laid the foundation for important institutions of bourgeois constitutional law:
ü the principle of the supremacy of parliament in the legislative sphere;
the principle of "government responsibility";
ü the principle of "irremovability of judges".
This formula meant the abolition of the old formula, according to which the judges performed their duties "as long as the king pleased." Changes in the political sphere gave impetus to the development of capitalism, ensuring the freedom of action of the bourgeois class and paving the way for the industrial revolution of the 18th century.
6. Reforms of local government and courts. Until 1835, the old system of local government, which took shape in the Middle Ages, was preserved in the cities of England. In the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie, immediately after the first electoral reform, a reform of urban self-government was also carried out. Under the law of 1835, city administration was transferred to elected city councils. All taxpayers - householders and tenants of apartments of both sexes - could participate in the elections. The city council elected the mayor of the city for one year. The municipal reform, however, did not affect the administration of the counties, which meant another compromise with the landed aristocracy, which retained control of the countryside in their hands.
In the XVIII-XIX centuries. along with the evolution of the form of government and the political regime, there were changes in the state structure of the country. After the formalization of the so-called unions with Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1801), the English Parliament extended its power to the entire territory of the British Isles. These regions received a certain number of seats for their deputies in the British Parliament. In addition, Scotland retained its own legal and judicial systems, as well as the Presbyterian Church. C l801, the state education was called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The local government reform in England in 1835 changed government only in the towns, leaving the counties alone. This task was accomplished by the reform of 1888, laying the foundations for the system of local government which continued in England for the next century. Similar representative bodies - councils - were created for cities and counties. At the same time, the entire previous system of counties was revised, and the largest cities were separated into independent counties. The county councils were given the administrative powers of justices of the peace. The reform did not change the management at the parish level, but in 1894 a law was passed that deprived the parish councils of the right to consider non-church affairs. To solve them, parish meetings were created in the parishes, which could elect in large settlements parish councils. The created system of self-government bodies was distinguished by significant independence and the absence of "administrative tutelage" from the central government, which became a characteristic feature of the English model of local government, which distinguishes it from the continental (French).
At the end of the XIX century. important reform of the judiciary was carried out. A series of acts 1873-1876. and 1880 on the Supreme Court and appellate jurisdiction, the division of the highest courts of England into courts of "common law" and courts of "justice", which had developed in the feudal era, was abolished. The new structure of the higher courts provided for the use of the procedural rules of both of the English "branches" of case law. Created to replace the former central courts, the Supreme Court consisted of two divisions:
The High Court, which in turn was divided into divisions (clerical, royal bench, etc.), and the Court of Appeal for civil cases. At the same time, the courts of assizes continued to exist, formed from judges of the High Court, as well as lower courts - quarter sessions, world courts and county courts established in mid-nineteenth in. only for civil cases. A special place was occupied by the Central Criminal Court in London ("Old Bailey"), which was the court of assizes for Greater London. This court included the Lord Chancellor and the Mayor of the City of London.
Modernization of the political system of Great Britain in the 19th century. ended, thus, with the establishment of the dominant position of parliament in relations with the government and the transformation of parliament into a body that determines the current policy of the state (the second third of the 19th - the end of the 19th century). The system of responsible government became the basis of the "Westminster model", which served as a model for the state system in many countries of the world.
10. The reason for the transition. A confederation with a weak government did not meet the needs of the development of capitalism, which needed a strong central government capable of overcoming the political and economic disunity of individual states, centralized management of foreign trade and trade between the states, pursuing a unified customs policy, etc. The creation of such a government was also dictated by foreign policy considerations - the need to increase the international prestige of the new state.
The resolution of this issue was accelerated by the aggravation class struggle states after the end of the Revolutionary War. The broad masses of the people gained nothing from the victory over England and the internal counter-revolution. A significant part of small farmers found themselves in debt bondage to usurers. Prisons were filled with debtors, farmers' lands were sold for debts, and so on.
Insurrections broke out in several states, the most violent of which was the uprising of the poor led by Daniel Shays in Massachusetts (1786-1787). These uprisings, put down with great difficulty, showed the ruling classes the need for a strong central government capable of keeping the masses in subjection.
Federalists - businessmen, large merchants, defended the idea of a strong federal government, had a clear plan for building a political system. The most famous federalist is the second president of the United States, John Adams. He advocated the financial independence of the federal government, but disagreed with the economic program of Alexander Hamilton, which placed the debts of all states, accumulated during the war, on the federal center. To pay off the emerging national debt, Hamilton proposed the creation of a national bank.
The most prominent public figures of that time turned out to be in the federalist camp. In New York, the ratification campaign was marked by the publication of The Federalist, a series of outstanding essays written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay during the autumn and winter of 1787-88. National newspapers looked up primarily to the new government. Federalist orators reproached their opponents for their limited perspective. The Constitution deserved general support only because it provided future Americans with decent representation - the so-called "natural aristocrats", people with more understanding, skills and training than the average citizen. These gifted leaders, the Federalists insisted, could share and represent the interests of the entire population. They will not be tied to the selfish needs of local communities.
Anti-Federalists advocated the idea of a Bill of Rights and minimal intervention by the federal government in state affairs. They saw its purpose only in international activities. Unlike the Federalists, they did not have a plan for organizing a new government. Most of them were farmers and small traders. The anti-federalists opposed the authoritarian national government, fearing that it might take away their rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The number of supporters of the anti-federalists was somewhat higher than that of the federalists. Like the extreme Republicans who drafted the first state constitutions, the Anti-Federalists had a deep distrust of political power. Throughout the ratification debate, they warned that public officials, once elected, would use their position to extend their power rather than work in the public interest.
12. The US Constitution established a republican form of government based on the theory of separation of powers.
Legislative power was entrusted to the Congress, consisting of two chambers: the House of Representatives (elected for a period of two years by direct elections) and the Senate. The Senate was elected by the legislatures of the states and this order was maintained until 1913, when senators began to be elected by the people of the states themselves through direct elections (17th amendment to the constitution) for a period of six years with the renewal of the Senate by 1/3 every two years. A bill passed by one house needs to be approved by the other. The US Congress has the right to legislate on all matters within the jurisdiction of the federation.
The US Constitution provided for the creation of a strong executive power, which was entrusted to the president, elected for four years by indirect elections (through an electoral college, elected directly by the voters in the states). He could be re-elected, but the first US President D. Washington set a precedent: no president should be elected for more than two consecutive terms.
The Federation was in charge of:
establish and levy duties and taxes;
to mint a coin;
make loans;
to regulate domestic (between states) and foreign trade;
establish courts;
declare war and make peace;
recruit and maintain an army and navy;
handle external relations.
13. Legislators understood that most Americans want to see in the constitution, first of all, a guarantee against any encroachment of state authorities on their rights and freedoms.
D. Madison, who made a decisive contribution to the preparation of constitutional amendments to the state assemblies in 1789 and approved by them in 1789 - 1791, which became known as the Bill of Rights, proceeded from this.
* The fundamental idea underlying them was the recognition of the inadmissibility of adopting any laws that violate the freedom of citizens: freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press, peaceful assembly, the right to appeal to the government with a request to stop abuses (Article I).
* The right to own and bear arms was proclaimed (Article 2).
* It was forbidden in peacetime for soldiers to stay in private houses without the consent of their owners (Article 3).
* Detention of persons, search, seizure of things and papers without legally justified permits issued by the relevant official was recognized as inadmissible (Article 4).
* No one could be prosecuted otherwise than by the decision of a jury, with the exception of cases that arose in the army. No one could be subjected to repeated punishment for the same crime, be deprived of life, freedom, property without a legal trial (Article 5).
* Criminal cases must be tried by jury. The accused has the right to a confrontation with witnesses who testify not in his favor, he was allowed to call witnesses from his side and resort to the advice of a lawyer (Article 6).
* Harsh and unusual punishments were forbidden (v. 8).
* As general principle it was established that the rights named in the constitution, including the Bill of 1791, should not detract from all other rights and freedoms "remaining the property of the people" (Article 5) and inextricably linked with it. Another, no less important, "truth not represented by the constitution of the United States, and not taken away from the states by it, belongs to the states or to the people" (Article 10).
Combined with these provisions, the US Constitution became even more progressive. It was created, as subsequent history showed, the most optimal version of the political system for the United States.
The Bill of Rights of 1791 was one of the first amendments to the US Constitution, made a huge shift in the development of democratic institutions of the bourgeois state.
15. Reasons for Roosevelt's New Deal
From 1929 to 1932, there was a severe decline in production, which assumed global proportions: the number of unemployed in industrial countries amounted to from 1/5 to 1/3 of all able-bodied. The all-encompassing crisis was later called the Great Depression.
By the beginning of the 30s. production in the country fell by half, national income by 48%, 40% of banks went bankrupt, unemployment reached an unprecedented scale in the history of this country - every fourth worker and employee was unemployed, ruined depositors and brokers often committed suicide. The unemployed and the homeless filled the wastelands in the city center with barn settlements. The administration of President H. Hoover hoped for a spontaneous overcoming of the crisis and relied on the healthy forces of the social organism - private initiative, free competition and customs barriers. The state was assigned the role of an independent arbiter in the struggle of competing groups.
Essence of the New Deal
The policy aimed at getting the US out of the crisis and which turned out to be the initial stage of a series of socio-political reforms was called the "new course".
The 1932 presidential election campaign was won by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), who had previously been elected governor of New York twice. Roosevelt, with the support of his closest advisers, nicknamed the "think tank", carefully prepared a positive social program that included:
issues of reforming the administrative and partly the judiciary;
questions of economic planning (here his advisers partly took into account the results of Soviet planning experience) and legislative regulation of the economy by industry;
in the last section it was observed big variety- from the design of the construction of a hydroelectric power plant with the simultaneous development of a river valley in Tennessee to the production of canned food.
New Deal measures
1. Economic:
a ban on the export of gold abroad in order to ensure the stabilization of the monetary system;
consolidation of banks with the provision of loans and subsidies to them;
prohibition of financial transactions with foreign governments that do not fulfill their obligations to the United States;
measures to reduce unemployment and reduce its negative consequences (the unemployed were usually sent to specially created organizations - "labor camps", where they were used in the construction and repair of roads, bridges, airfields and other facilities);
2. Legal:
regulation of the economy by special laws - the so-called codes of fair competition, in which quotas for output were given, sales markets were distributed, credit conditions and prices for products were specified, working hours and wages were established;
a shift in the field of labor (working) and social legislation regulating the relationship of employers and employees (reducing the powers of the courts to issue "court orders" in connection with labor disputes, a ban on forced signing by workers of an employment contract obliging them to join a trade union);
legalization of the activities of trade unions at the federal level, criminal liability for their creation or participation in legal strikes was abolished, and the “closed shop” rule was adopted, according to which the entrepreneur was obliged to conclude a collective agreement with the trade union and hire only those persons who are members of the trade union. The law recognized the right to strike when the provisions of the law were violated;
a law on fair employment of labor, fixing the maximum hours of work for certain groups and the minimum wage;
the law on social insurance (1935), which laid the foundations of modern social legislation in the country.
Results of Roosevelt's New Deal
As a result, the New Deal, which was a direct massive intervention of the state into the sphere of socio-economic relations and included significant elements of regulation, contributed to mitigating the manifestations of the crisis.
As corporations emerge from the crisis, mainly through Supreme Court began to seek the abolition of the New Deal legislation. In order to mitigate future crisis phenomena, new types of state regulation began to be widely introduced, implemented mainly with the help of financial and economic means. After the end of the Second World War, there was a departure from the won positions in the field of labor legislation.
16. Suffrage reforms
In 1961, the voters of the metropolitan District of Columbia received the right to participate in the elections of the President and Vice President of the United States (Amendment XXIII).
In 1962, it was recognized that the electoral districts needed to be changed so that there would be approximately the same number of voters in each of them. Such a change was all the more justified because, under the majoritarian election system in force in the United States, the candidate who receives a relative majority of votes in the district is considered elected.
In 1964, it is prohibited to restrict the electoral rights of citizens due to their non-payment of taxes, including the election tax (Amendment XXIV).
In 1971, voting rights are granted to all citizens who have reached the age of 18 (Amendment XXVI).
suffrage became basically equal and universal. Also, laws were passed at the federal and local levels that protected human rights and were directed against racial, religious and other discrimination.
An important manifestation of centralization was the expansion of the powers of the federal government headed by the president, although there are limitations: in 1951, the ratification of the XXII amendment to the constitution on the election of the president for no more than two terms.
After the Second World War, individual government departments - the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Council, the Department of Defense (Pentagon) - acquired particular importance. Based on them, the presidents have the opportunity to make decisions, exceeding the powers granted to them by the Constitution, including in matters of war and peace.
In 1939, the Hatch Political Activities Act prohibited government employees from participating in "political campaigns." In 1947, President Truman's executive order required the Civil Service Commission to check the political integrity of candidates for public office. This practice was further tightened by the executive order of President D. Eisenhower (1953) "On checking the political reliability and loyalty of civil servants", which provided for the possibility of their early dismissal.
Only the two largest bourgeois parties in the country, the Democratic and the Republican, are represented in the US Congress. In each of the chambers of Congress, party factions of both parties are formed: the majority faction, i.e. the faction of the party with the most seats in that house, and the minority faction.
17. US Anti-Democratic Legislation
After the Second World War, there was a retreat in the field of labor legislation. A wide arsenal of punitive means was used against the labor and democratic movement:
infringement of the rights of workers;
persecution for dissent;
expansion of the reactionary activity of the police apparatus;
persecution of members of leftist organizations.
In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Labor Regulation Act was passed to create a means of suppressing strikes as well as preventing the politicization of trade unions. The law suppressed a number of areas of labor practice of trade unions, prohibited certain types of strikes. Permissible types of strikes were stipulated by a number of conditions:
the introduction of a "cooling period";
obligatory notification of the entrepreneur of the intention to strike;
solidarity strikes were not allowed, participation in strikes of employees was prohibited;
entrepreneurs were given the right to recover in court damages caused by a strike that goes beyond the limits prescribed by law;
established control over trade union funds;
trade unions were prohibited from making contributions to election funds of persons seeking election to federal office;
the legal regulation of the activities of trade unions was strengthened (the law regulated in detail the procedure for concluding collective agreements, required the leaders of trade unions to sign a signature stating that they were not involved in the activities of the Communist Party);
a federal mediation and reconciliation service was created (conducted negotiations between entrepreneurs and representatives of the working class).
The law also created a permanent presidential emergency mechanism to crack down on unauthorized trade union activity. The president could ban a strike for 80 days if, from his point of view, it threatened national interests, he could go to court to issue a court order to ban the strike, appoint an arbitration commission to consider labor conflicts.
The anti-union activity of the Taft-Hartley Act was strengthened by the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959, which placed trade unions under even greater control of state bodies, which received the right to regulate the conduct of elections to trade union bodies, determine the size of membership dues, require reports, copies of charters, trade union regulations, etc.
The central place among anti-communist legal acts belongs to the Internal Security Act of 1950 (McCarran-Wood law), which provided for a wide list of restrictions for members of communist organizations: work in the state apparatus, at military enterprises, travel abroad, etc. Each registered organization was deprived of the right to use the services of the mail to send their publications, radio to publish programs.
In 1954, the Humphrey-Butler Control of Communist Activities Act was passed, which explicitly declared Communist Party The US is a conspiracy tool and an outlaw. Thus, the process of creating a legal basis for a broad offensive by reactionary forces against the democratic rights of American citizens was completed, which was called McCarthyism (after Senator D. McCarthy).
In September 1959, the Landrum-Griffin anti-labor law was passed, which finally eliminated the right of trade unions to function freely, placing them completely under the control of the government.
United States antitrust law
Producer monopolies also strive for a monopoly in the sale of goods and the provision of services. In this regard, a number of countries have adopted specialized legislation aimed at ensuring fair competition in the field of trade and suppressing all kinds of violations or outright fraudulent tricks.
The Sherman Act of 1894 and the Clayton Act of 1914 were devoted to this task. They are usually combined under the name of antitrust legislation and are aimed against the creation of such trust (trust) associations with trusted property and beneficiaries that derive profit and income through the creation of monopolies and other constraints. in interstate commerce or in dealings with foreign countries. Sanctions were imposed in the form of monetary fines and imprisonment, but these measures proved ineffective.
Among other things, such laws began to apply, in addition to trusts, to those unions that tried to coordinate efforts with unions in other states.
The antitrust nature of the current legislation should be understood in a more narrow sense- in the sense of prohibiting certain types of contracts that lead to unlawful discrimination and the weakening of free trade: when contracts "bind" or "restrict" competition.
In 1936, the United States introduced a ban on contracts providing for the support of a single price scheme for goods and on the sale of goods at dumping (unreasonably low) prices. The antimonopoly legislation is directly adjacent to the legislation on consumer protection, in particular, on the protection of measures to maintain the "quality" of competition or against the "dishonest methods" of competition (false advertising, the sale of goods without proper labeling, the sale of low-quality goods, and many other ways). In the United States, this legislation dates back to 1914.
After the Second World War, the most significant change in antitrust law came with the passage of the Celler-Kefauver Act in 1950, which was an amendment to Section 7 of the Clayton Act. The greatest changes were made to the antitrust laws, which, without affecting the substantive law, formally provided for measures for their more effective implementation. Thus, in 1955, Congress increased the fine under the Sherman Act to $50,000 by a special act.
In 1952, the “McGuire Act” (amendments to the “Federal Trade Commission Act”) was passed, in which the parties to the agreements received the express right to demand compliance with the prices fixed by them not only from firms that directly acceded to the agreement, but also from those companies and individual persons who are not participants in such collusions. This law was passed under the pretext of protecting the interests of small industrial and commercial firms. He actually legalized the practice of setting monopoly prices, which is also willingly used by the largest corporations.
In 1962, Congress passed the "Civil Antitrust Litigation Act," which essentially aims to reduce criminal antitrust cases at the expense of some increase in civil cases.
The characteristic methods used by Congress to weaken antitrust laws have been prominently shown in recent acts on bank mergers.
The main principles of antitrust regulation (restrictions on market monopolization, mergers, price fixing and vertical competition restrictions):
antitrust regulation should not affect companies that are growing intensively at the expense of internal resources;
mergers should be regulated only if they can result in a significant limitation of production (in terms of volume, assortment, etc.) due to an increase in the market share of newly created companies;
cartel practices should be pursued most intensively, i.e. price collusion horizontally between the leading companies of the same industry, as well as the division of the market, etc.;
restrictions on vertical competition (i.e. agreements between producers and dealers on the division of territories, setting prices and terms of delivery) are quite legal and should not be regulated, as they ensure the efficiency of the distribution network.
.Introduction
In the last centuries of the Middle Ages in the bowels feudal society new productive forces and new economic relations, capitalist relations, corresponding to them, developed. The old feudal relations of production and the political dominance of the nobility retarded the development of the new social order. The political system of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages in most European countries had a feudal-absolutist character. A strong centralized state was a tool of the feudal nobility to protect the feudal order, to curb and suppress the working masses of the countryside and the city, who fought against feudal oppression. The elimination of the old feudal economic relations and the old feudal-absolutist political forms, which hindered the further growth of capitalism, could only be done by revolutionary means. The transition of European society from feudalism to capitalism was carried out mainly as a result of the English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century.
English Revolution in the 17th century first proclaimed the principles bourgeois society and the state and established the bourgeois system in one of the largest countries in Europe. It was prepared by the entire previous development of Europe and took place simultaneously with serious socio-political upheavals in France, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Russia. The English Revolution evoked numerous ideological responses in Europe as early as the 17th century.
Thus, the English revolution of the XVII century. can be seen as the boundary between the Middle Ages and modern times. It became the beginning of a new era and made irreversible the process of formation of bourgeois socio-political orders not only in England, but also in Europe as a whole.
Features of the economic development of England on the eve of the revolution. Economic background.
On the eve of the revolution, England was an agrarian country. Of its 4.5 million population, about 75% were rural residents. But this did not mean that there was no industry in England. The metallurgical, coal and textile industries had already reached significant development at that time, and it was in the industrial sphere, especially in the textile industry, that the features of the new capitalist order were most clearly manifested.
New technical inventions and improvements, and most importantly - new forms of organization of industrial labor and production clearly showed that English industry more and more imbued with capitalist tendencies, the spirit of commerce.
In England, there were quite large reserves of iron ore. Gloucestershire was especially rich in ore. Ore processing was carried out mainly in the counties of Cheshire, Sussex, Herefordshire, Yokshir, Somersetshire. Copper ore was mined and processed on a significant scale. England also had large coal reserves - mainly in the county of Northumberland. Coal as a fuel has not yet been used in metallurgy, but was widely used in everyday life (especially in London). The need for coal both for domestic consumption and for export abroad was very high.
Both in the metallurgical and stone industries in the 17th century there were already quite a few fairly large manufactories where hired workers worked and there was a division of labor. Despite the importance of these industries, they, however, had not yet become the main ones in the English economy at that time.
The most widespread industry in England was the textile industry, especially the production of woolen fabrics. To a greater or lesser extent it existed in all the counties. Many counties specialized in the production of one or two grades of matter. The wool industry was most widespread in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, West Riding (Yorkshire) and in eastern England, where sheep breeding was highly developed.
The linen industry developed mainly in Ireland, where there were suitable climatic conditions.
In the 17th century, the cotton industry appeared, the raw materials for which were brought from the Levant, Smyrna and from the island of Cyprus. Manchester became the center of this industry.
In the textile industry, there was a significant variety of organizational forms of production. In London and in many old cities, handicraft workshops with their medieval rules, which hindered the free development of industry, were still preserved. In rural areas and in those settlements where there were no workshops, a large number of independent small artisans worked, and in rural areas they, as a rule, combined craft with agriculture.
But along with workshops and small artisans, a new form of organization of production gradually took shape - manufactory, which was a transitional form from small-scale production of artisans to large-scale capitalist industry. In the 17th century England already had a centralized manufacture. But in most branches of industry, the so-called scattered manufacture, associated with the processing at home of raw materials belonging to the entrepreneur, was predominant. Sometimes the workers also used the tools of the owner. These were already independent artisans. They became essentially wage workers subjected to capitalist exploitation, although in some cases they still retained a tiny piece of land that served as an additional source of livelihood. Cadres of manufacturing workers were recruited from among the landless and ruined peasants.
A very important moment in the history of the disintegration of English feudalism was the penetration of capitalist relations into Agriculture. English agriculture developed in close cooperation with the development of capitalism in other areas of the national economy - in industry, trade, maritime affairs.
The English countryside turned out to be very early connected with the market - first with the external, and then more and more with the internal. A huge amount of wool was exported from England to the continent of Europe as early as the 11th-12th centuries. and especially from the XIII - XIV centuries. The growth in demand for English wool in the foreign and domestic markets led to the extraordinary development of sheep breeding in England. And this, in turn, was the impetus for the beginning of the famous "fencing" (forcible removal of peasants from the land by feudal lords) of the 15th, 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. The mass breeding of sheep and the transformation of arable land into pasture entailed the most important socio-economic consequences. Enclosures were the main method of the so-called primitive accumulation, carried out in English countryside the landowning class in the most cruel forms of open forcible exploitation of the masses of the people. A feature of the fences of the XVII century. was that their motive was no longer so much sheep breeding as the development of intensive agriculture. The immediate result of the enclosures was the separation of the mass of producers, the peasants, from their main means of production, i.e. from the earth.
In the English countryside in the XVI - XVII centuries. capitalist farming developed, which in economic terms was an analogy with manufacture in industry. The entrepreneurial farmer exploited on a large scale agricultural workers from the rural poor. However, the central figure of the village of the Stuart period was still not large farmers - tenants of foreign land, and not landless cotters - rural laborers, but the numerically predominant yeomen - independent tillers, owners of a hereditary allotment.
The peasant population (yeomen) was going through a process of property and legal stratification and was to a greater or lesser extent from the landlords. The most prosperous peasants, approaching the position of full owners of the land, were called freeholders (free holders). In the southeastern part of the country, they made up about a third of the peasantry, while in the northwest they were much smaller. The bulk of the peasants were represented by the so-called copyholders (holders by copy, or by agreement), who were in a much worse position. Some of them were considered eternal hereditary land holders, but usually the landowners were inclined to consider this holding as temporary and short-term. Short-term holders were called tenants or leaseholders. Copy holders were obliged to pay the landlord a permanent cash rent, but when the allotment was transferred to a new holder by inheritance or as a result of purchase and sale, the landlords increased the rent. Fines were heavy requisitions - special payments to the landowner upon transferring the allotment to other hands, as well as posthumous contributions (heriots). Landlords levied fees for the use of pastures, forests, mills, etc. In the north-west of the country, quitrents in kind and corvée work were often preserved. Kopigolder held an answer before the landowner's court in petty cases, which were not under the jurisdiction of special judicial authorities.
The poorest part of the village was made up of landless farm laborers, day laborers, apprentices and workers in village workshops, who had only their own hut, or cottage - they were called cotters. Among the rural poor, the desire for equalization of property and hostility towards wealthy landowners intensified.
Thus, England in the 16th century and in the first half of the 17th century became a major economically developed power with a highly developed industry and a capitalist form of production. "Having built a strong navy, the British were able to participate in the Great geographical discoveries and in the capture of many overseas territories. In 1588, they defeated the fleet of their main rival in colonial conquests, Spain. The colonial possessions of England expanded. Merchants and the growing bourgeoisie profited from their robbery, and the new nobility profited from the "fencing" that was taking place. The economic power of the country was actually concentrated in the hands of these sections of the population, and they began to strive through parliament (the House of Commons) to direct public policy in their own interest."
The alignment of social forces on the eve of the revolution. Social background.
The political and economic image of the society of pre-revolutionary England was determined, as mentioned above, by the presence of two economic structures at the same time: the new - capitalist and the old - feudal. The leading role belonged to the capitalist system. England, as already noted, moved along the capitalist path much faster than other European countries, and the peculiarity of the development of this country was that the active breakdown of the medieval economic structure began in the countryside much earlier than in the city, and proceeded along a truly revolutionary path. . English agriculture much earlier than industrial turned into a profitable object of profitable investment of capital, a sphere of the capitalist type of management.
The agrarian revolution that had begun in the English countryside provided industry with the necessary raw materials and at the same time pushed out a mass of "surplus population" that could be used by capitalist industry in various types of domestic and concentrated manufacturing production.
For these reasons, it was the English countryside that became the center of social conflict. In the English countryside, two processes took place in class form - the dispossession of the peasantry and the formation of a class of capitalist tenants. The dispossession of peasants, largely caused by the notorious enclosures of communal lands, went so far that many villages disappeared and thousands of peasants became vagabonds. It was at this time that the rise of the movement of the peasantry and the urban poor was observed. The immediate reasons for the actions of the peasantry were given by this or that next oppression (most often, fencing or depriving the peasants of communal marshy pastures under the pretext of draining the swamps). The real reasons for the rise of the peasant movement lay deeper. The peasantry strove for the abolition of feudal rent, for a radical agrarian reform that would transform the peasants' unsecured feudal landholding into their complete "free" property.
Scattered peasant uprisings were an almost constant occurrence. At the same time in the first decades of the XVII century. in various cities "revolts" of the urban plebeians broke out from time to time. All these popular uprisings, of course, were not yet the beginning of the revolution. But they undermined the existing "order" and created in the bourgeois leaders the feeling that one need only give a push - and the forces necessary for victory would set in motion throughout the country. This is what happened in the 40s. Engels, speaking of the revolutionary uprising in England, points out: “The urban bourgeoisie gave it the first impetus, and the middle peasantry of the rural districts, the yeomanry (yeomanry), led it to victory. An original phenomenon: in all three great bourgeois revolutions, the fighting army is the peasants; and it is the peasants who turn out to be the class that, after winning a victory, is inevitably ruined as a result of the economic consequences of these victories ... Thanks to the intervention of this yeomanry and the plebeian element of the cities, the struggle was carried to the last decisive end, and Charles I landed on the scaffold. only those fruits of victory, which were then already quite ripe for harvesting, needed to carry the revolution much further than such a goal.
Thus, in the course of the English bourgeois revolution, rather complicated and contradictory relations between the bourgeoisie and the peasant-plebeian masses were bound to come to light. An alliance with this mass, capable of leading to victory, could not but frighten the bourgeoisie at the same time, since it concealed the danger of an excessive activation of the masses. The English bourgeoisie, therefore, in practice only used the movement of the masses, but did not enter into an alliance with them; all the time she never ceased to be afraid of too much to shake and shake the old state machine, which curbed the masses of the people.
The feudal-absolutist state for a long time skillfully used these fluctuations of the bourgeoisie. Throughout the 16th century under the Tudor dynasty, it made partial concessions to the bourgeoisie, provided it with economic protection, and thereby separated it from a possible alliance with the muffled bubbling in the 16th century. peasant-plebeian revolutionary forces.
The main social support of absolutism was the nobility. But a feature social structure England XVI-XVII centuries. was that the English nobility itself was in some part subjected to a capitalist degeneration, approaching in its socio-economic appearance more and more to the bourgeoisie.
Absolutism, which hindered the development of capitalism, could not solve the problem of jobs for the vast mass of peasants who had become unemployed. The activities of the government were reduced to the adoption of legislation against vagrants and healthy beggars, providing for punishment and forced labor, and the creation of a system of "help to the poor." Nine-tenths of the population of England were disqualified from voting for members of Parliament. Only one-tenth of the male population were gentlemen, burghers, wealthy peasants who had access to government.
The most remarkable feature of the social structure of England in the pre-revolutionary period is the split of the nobility into two social classes, in many respects antagonistic - the old and the new (bourgeois) nobility. About the English nobility, Marx wrote: "This class of large landowners associated with the bourgeoisie ... was ... not in contradiction, but, on the contrary, in full agreement with the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie." Gentry (small local nobility), being nobles by class position, were bourgeois by economic structure. The history of industry and trade in England in the pre-revolutionary period was largely created by representatives of the new nobility. This feature gave the revolution of the 40s. 17th century historical originality and predetermined both its character and the final result.
So in social conflict between feudal England and bourgeois England were involved various sections of the population.
Puritanism - the ideology of the revolution
One of the most important features English revolution 17th century is a kind of ideological formulation of its social-class and political goals. The role of the combat theory of the rebels was played by the ideology of the Reformation in the form of puritanism, i.e. struggle for the "purification" of the faith, which performed an ideological function in the process of mobilizing the forces of the revolution.
Puritanism as a religious movement arose long before the revolutionary situation in the country, but in the 20-30s of the XVII century. turned into the ideology of a broad anti-absolutist opposition. The most important consequence of this movement was the dissemination in large sections of society of the consciousness of the urgent need for change in both church and state.
The opposition against absolutism developed in England precisely under the religious principles of Puritanism. The reformist teachings of the sixteenth century created fertile ground for the ideology of the English bourgeois revolution. This ideology was Calvinism, the dogmas and church-political principles of which, even during the Reformation period, served as the basis for the organization of the church in Switzerland, Scotland and Holland and were the beginning of the revolution of 1566 in the Netherlands.
Calvinism in the 16th - 17th centuries became the ideology of the most daring part of the then bourgeoisie and fully met the needs of the struggle against absolutism and the English Church in England. Puritanism in England was a variation of Calvinism. The Puritans rejected the doctrine of "grace," the need for the episcopate, and the subordination of the church to the king. They demanded the independence of the church from the royal power, the collegial management of church affairs, the expulsion of "idolatry", i.e. magnificent ceremonies, painted windows, worship of icons, rejected the altars and utensils used in English churches during worship. They desired the introduction of free oral preaching, cheapening and simplification of religion, the abolition of the episcopate, and they conducted worship in private homes, accompanying it with accusatory sermons against the luxury and depravity of the court and the aristocracy.
Diligence, frugality and stinginess were glorified by the Puritans in full accordance with the spirit of enrichment and hoarding, characteristic of the young English bourgeoisie. The Puritans were characterized by the preaching of worldly asceticism, secular entertainment. In these features of puritanism, which turned into hypocrisy, the protest of the English average noble nobility and the royal court was vividly expressed.
During the revolution, Puritanism was split. Among the Puritans, various currents arose that met the interests of various strata and classes of society that were in opposition to absolutism and the English church. A moderate trend among the Puritans was represented by the so-called Presbyterians, who advocated a Presbyterian church structure. The Presbyterians wanted to maintain a single church in England with the same worship, but demanded that the church be cleansed of the vestiges of Catholicism, or papism, and that bishops be replaced by assemblies of elders, or presbyters, chosen by the faithful. They sought the independence of the church from the king. The Presbyterians found their supporters among the wealthy merchants and the top of the new nobility, who, with such a structure of the church, hoped to seize the leading influence on it in their own hands.
A more radical trend among the Puritans were the Independents, or "independents", who stood for the abolition of any single church with obligatory texts of prayers and dogmas. They advocated complete independence in religious affairs for each religious community, i.e. for the disintegration of a single church into a number of independent communities and sects. This trend was successful among the middle and petty bourgeoisie, peasants, artisans and the middle class of the rural gentry. An analysis of Puritanism shows that its essence was bourgeois, i.e. that it was only a religious shell of bourgeois class demands.
Presbyterianism, uniting the big bourgeois and landed aristocracy, preached the idea of a constitutional monarchy. Independence found supporters in the ranks of the middle and petty bourgeoisie. In general, agreeing with the idea of a constitutional monarchy, the Independents at the same time demanded the redistribution of electoral districts, which would allow them to increase the number of their representatives in Parliament, as well as the recognition of such rights as freedom of conscience, speech, etc. for a free person. The most radical movement of the Levellers united artisans, free peasants, who demanded the establishment of a republic, equality of all citizens.
Conclusion
Gradually, in the economic and political life, the absolutism of the Stuarts and the feudal order protected by them became the main obstacle to the development of capitalist relations in the country. The conflict between the growth of the productive forces of the new, capitalist order, on the one hand, and the old, feudal production relations, together with their political superstructure in the form of absolutism, on the other, was the main reason for the maturing of the bourgeois revolution in England. This root cause of the revolution should not be confused with the revolutionary situation, i.e. set of circumstances leading directly to the beginning of the revolution.
A revolutionary situation developed in England in the late 30s and early 40s of the 17th century, when illegal taxes and other restrictions led to a delay in the development of trade and industry and a sharp deterioration in the situation of the people. The mediation of merchants - monopolists interfered with the sale of cloth and increased their cost. Many thousands of pieces of cloth did not find buyers. A large number of apprentices and workers were dismissed and lost their earnings. The aggravation of the needs and misfortunes of the working people was combined with the critical position of the ruling elite. The king and his court fell into the grip of a financial crisis: in 1637, an uprising broke out against the king in Scotland, where Charles I wanted to establish an absolute monarchy and an episcopal church; the war with Scotland demanded large expenditures; a large deficit formed in the treasury, and the king was faced with the need to convene parliament to approve new loans and taxes.
The sittings of Parliament opened on April 13, 1640, but on May 6 the king dissolved it without achieving anything. This parliament went down in history under the name of the Short. Its dispersal gave a new impetus to the struggle of the masses, the bourgeoisie and the new nobility against absolutism.
IN AND. Lenin noted that in any revolutionary situation, 3 signs are sure to take place: a crisis of the “tops”, or the inability for them to govern in the old way, a significant increase in the disasters of the masses, and events that cause an increase in their political activity. All these signs of a revolutionary situation arose and were evident in England in the early 1740s. The political situation in the country has heated up to the extreme limit.
Bibliography
1. Tatarinova K.I. "Essays on the history of England" M., 1958
2. Polskaya N.M. "Great Britain" M., 1986
3. New story, ed. V.V. Biryukovich, M., 1951
4. History of the world economy, ed. G.B. Polyak, A.N. Markova, M., 2004
5. Barg M.A. Cromwell and his and time. - M., 1950
6. New history, Ch. 1, ed. A.L. Narochnitsky, M., 1972
For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://minisoft.net.ru/
The prerequisites for the English bourgeois revolution are:
Economic
Ideological
Political
Economic
England, earlier than other states in Europe, embarked on the capitalist path of development. Here the classical version of the establishment of bourgeois relations was realized, which allowed England already in late XVII-XVIII centuries to become a world economic leader. The main factor in the development of capitalism in England was that not only the city developed, but also the village (4/5 of the population lived in villages and was engaged in agriculture.) The village in other countries was the basis of feudalism and traditionalism, and in England it became the base for the development of the most important industry industry XVII-XVIII centuries - cloth making. Capitalist relations of production were manifested in the following:
Most of the nobility began to engage in entrepreneurial activities, creating sheep farms.
In an effort to increase income, the feudal lords converted previously arable land into land for pastures, thereby driving the holders of peasants from these lands, enclosing and creating an army of pauper - civilian workers.
The development of the capitalist structure in England led to the stratification of society and its division into supporters and opponents of the feudal-absolutist system.
The opponents of absolutism were: the new nobility (gentry), merchants, financiers, merchants, industrialists and others who wanted to limit royal power and force it to serve the interests of the capitalist development of the country. But the main dissatisfaction with their position was expressed by a wide class of the population and, above all, the rural and urban poor.
The supporters of absolutism were: most of nobles (old nobility) and the highest aristocracy, which received its income from the collection of old feudal rents, and the guarantor of their preservation was the royal power and the Anglican Church.
Ideological
The ideological prerequisite for the first bourgeois revolutions in Europe was the Reformation, which gave rise to a new model of consciousness based on individualism, practicality and enterprise. In the middle of the 16th century, England, having survived the Reformation, became a Protestant country. The Anglican Church was a mixture of Catholicism and Protestantism. From Catholicism, 7 sacraments, rites, the order of worship and all 3 degrees of priesthood were withheld; taken from Protestantism is the doctrine of the ecclesiastical supremacy of state power, of justification by faith, of the significance Holy Scripture as the sole basis of doctrine.
The king was declared the head of the church, so the Anglican Church arose during the reign of Henry VIII, who approved the Anglican catechism (“42 articles of faith” and a special service book). Actions against the church meant actions against the royal power.
The most consistent supporters of the Reformation - English Calvinists - Puritans demanded changes both in the church (cleansing it from the remnants of Catholicism) and in the state.
In Puritanism, there are several currents that were in a contradictory state with absolutism and the Anglican Church. In the course of the revolution, they were divided into independent political groups.
The moderate course of the Puritans is the Prosbyterians (the top of the new nobility and the wealthy merchants). They believed that the church should not be run by a king, but by an assembly of priests. In the public sphere - they sought the subordination of royal power to parliament.
The course of the independents ("independents") - the middle bourgeoisie and the new nobility. In the religious sphere, they advocated the independence of each religious community. In the state, they wanted to establish a constitutional monarchy and demanded a redistribution of voting rights in order to increase the number of their voters in the House of Commons.
A radically religious and political group - the Levellers (equalizers) - artisans and free peasants. They advocated the proclamation of a republic and the introduction of general suffrage for men.
Diggers (diggers) - urban and rural poor. They demanded private property and property inequality.
Political
The crisis of English absolutism began to manifest itself already in the 90s. XVI century, i.e. at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. However, only during the reign of the first Stuarts did he become a determining factor in the domestic political life of the country and its foreign policy. With the weakening of absolutism, absolutist forms and methods of government became less and less effective and efficient. The greater the claims of the first Stuarts became, the more frankly they expressed their views on the nature of royal power and sought to establish rule in England in the manner of the French: the sole rule of the king without the participation of a class-representative body.
The most striking manifestation of the crisis of English absolutism was the escalating conflict between the king and parliament. The sessions of parliament became shorter, which less and less voted subsidies to the king, the consequence of which was a chronic financial crisis of the crown. The policy of the king was criticized more sharply and frankly in Parliament. To the same extent that the king insisted on the "sanctity" of his prerogative, parliament with increasing tenacity defended its primordial rights and privileges.
The monarch wanted to limit the power of parliament, parliament - the power of the king, as a result of which there was a clash of interests and this influenced the beginning of the revolution.
Socio-economic: England, by type of economy, is an agrarian country 4/5 of the population lived in villages and was engaged in agriculture. Nevertheless, industry appears, cloth-making comes to the fore. New capitalist relations develop => aggravation of new class differences. Changes are taking place in the countryside (fencing, landlessness of peasants => 3 types of peasants: 1) freeholders (free peasants), 2) copyholders (hereditary tenants of landed lands, performing a number of duties).
3) agricultural workers - the proletariat (most) were deprived of their basic means of subsistence and were forced to go to the city in search of work. The nobility is divided into 2 types: new (gentry) and old (lives on dues from the peasant class).
56. Prerequisites for the bourgeois revolution in England (economic, political, ideological).
E. Prerequisites England, earlier than other states of Europe, embarked on the capitalist path of development. Here the classical version of the establishment of bourgeois relations was realized, which allowed England to seize world economic leadership at the end of the 17th-18th centuries. The main role in this was played by the fact that the field of development of English capitalism was not only the city, but also the countryside. The village in other countries was a stronghold of feudalism and traditionalism, and in England, on the contrary, it became the base for the development of the most important industry of the 17th-18th centuries - cloth making. Capitalist production relations began to penetrate the English countryside as early as the 16th century. They manifested themselves in the fact that 1) most of the nobility began to engage in entrepreneurial activities, creating sheep farms and turning into a new bourgeois nobility - the gentry. 2) in an effort to increase income, the feudal lords turned arable land into profitable pastures for livestock, drove their holders - peasants (fenced) from them and thereby created an army of paupers - people who had no choice but to become civilian workers. The development of the capitalist structure in England led to the aggravation of class contradictions and the division of the country into supporters and opponents of the feudal-absolutist system. Absolutism was opposed by all bourgeois elements: the new nobility (gentry), who aspired to become full owners of the land by abolishing knightly holdings and speeding up the process of enclosing; the bourgeoisie itself (merchants, financiers, merchants, industrialists, etc.), who wished to limit royal power and force it to serve the interests of the capitalist development of the country. But main force the opposition drew from the dissatisfaction with its position of the general population and, above all, the rural and urban poor. The defenders of the feudal foundations remained a significant part of the nobles (the old nobility) and the highest aristocracy, who received their income from the collection of old feudal rents, and the guarantor of their preservation was the royal power and the Anglican Church. I. background and socio-political aspirations of the opposition. And the prerequisite for the first bourgeois revolutions in Europe was the Reformation, which gave rise to a new model of consciousness based on individualism, practicality and enterprise. In the middle of the 16th century, England, having survived the Reformation, became a Protestant country. The Anglican Church was a mixture of Catholicism and Protestantism. From Catholicism, 7 sacraments, rites, the order of worship and all 3 degrees of priesthood were withheld; taken from Protestantism is the doctrine of the ecclesiastical supremacy of state power, of justification by faith, of the significance of Holy Scripture as the sole basis of doctrine, of worship on mother tongue, the abolition of monasticism. The king was declared the head of the church, so the Anglican Church arose during the reign of Henry VIII, who approved the Anglican catechism ("42 articles of faith" and
a special service) speaking out against the church meant speaking out against the royal power. The same Protestantism, but more extreme, became the ideological opposition to absolutism and the Anglican Church. The most consistent supporters of the Reformation were the English Puritan Calvinists.
(in Latin "purus" - clean) demanded changes both in the church (cleansing it from the remnants of Catholicism) and in
state. There were several currents in Puritanism that were in opposition to absolutism and the Anglican Church. During the revolution, they were divided into independent political groups. The moderate course of the Puritans is the Prosbyterians, (the top of the new nobility and the wealthy merchants). It was believed that the church should not be controlled by the king, but by an assembly of priests - presbyters (as in Scotland). In the public sphere, they also sought the subordination of royal power to parliament. More to the left was the course of the Independents ("independent"), (the middle bourgeoisie and the new nobility). In the religious sphere, they advocated the independence of each religious community, and in the state they desired the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and demanded a redistribution of voting rights in order to increase the number of their voters in the House of Commons. The Levellers (equalizers), (artisans and free peasants) were a radical religious and political grouping. The Levellers advocated the proclamation of a republic and the introduction of universal male suffrage. Diggers (diggers), (urban and rural poor) went even further. They demanded the elimination of private property and property inequality. P. preconditions for revolution. After the death of Elizabeth I, the English throne passed to her relative - the Scottish king, who was crowned in 1603 under the name of James Stuart, King of England. Leaving behind the Scottish crown, Jacob moved to London. John Lilburn was the leader of the Levellers. The Levellers believed that if everyone is equal before God, then in life the differences between people must be eliminated by establishing equality of rights. The diggers got their name from the fact that in April 1649 they began joint cultivation of land on a wasteland hill 30 miles from London. Their leader Gerald Winstanley said: "The earth was created so that all the sons and daughters of the human race could freely use it", "The earth was created in order to be the common property of all who live on it." The first representative of the Stuart dynasty was obsessed with the idea of the divine origin of royal power and the need for the complete abolition of the power of Parliament. The course towards strengthening absolutism was continued during the reign of his son, Charles I. The first Stuarts regularly introduced new taxes without the sanction of parliament, which did not suit the majority of the population. 2 commissions continued to operate in the country: the "Star Chamber", which dealt with issues of state security, and in fact the persecution of those who dared to speak out against the lawlessness, and " High Commission",
which served as the court inquisition over the Puritans. In 1628, Parliament presented the King with a "Petition of Rights", which contained a number of demands: - not to levy taxes without the general consent of this act of Parliament (Article 10); - not to make arrests contrary to the customs of the kingdom (art. 2); - to stop the practice of military outposts among the population, etc. (Article 6). After some hesitation, the king signed the petition. However, the expected reconciliation did not come. In 1629, the refusal of Parliament to approve new royal requisitions provoked the wrath of Charles I and the dissolution of Parliament. Non-parliamentary rule continued until 1640, when, as a result of an unsuccessful war with Scotland, a financial crisis occurred in the country. In search of a way out, Charles I convened a parliament, called the "Short". By refusing to immediately discuss the issue of financial
subsidies, it was dissolved without even a month of operation. The dispersal of parliament gave a decisive impetus to the struggle of the masses, the bourgeoisie and the new nobility against absolutism. Thus, in England by the middle of the XVII century. the economic, ideological and political prerequisites for the bourgeois revolution took shape. The socio-economic development of the country came into conflict with a more rigid political system. The situation was aggravated by a severe financial crisis, which caused in the early 40s of the XVII century. revolutionary situation in the country.
Introduction
In the last centuries of the Middle Ages, new productive forces and new economic relations corresponding to them, capitalist relations, developed in the depths of feudal society. The old feudal relations of production and the political dominance of the nobility retarded the development of the new social order. The political system of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages in most European countries had a feudal-absolutist character. A strong centralized state was a tool of the feudal nobility to protect the feudal order, to curb and suppress the working masses of the countryside and the city, who fought against feudal oppression. The elimination of the old feudal economic relations and the old feudal-absolutist political forms, which hindered the further growth of capitalism, could only be done by revolutionary means. The transition of European society from feudalism to capitalism was carried out mainly as a result of the English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century.
English Revolution in the 17th century the first proclaimed the principles of bourgeois society and the state and established the bourgeois system in one of the largest countries in Europe. It was prepared by the entire previous development of Europe and took place simultaneously with serious socio-political upheavals in France, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Russia. The English Revolution evoked numerous ideological responses in Europe as early as the 17th century.
Thus, the English revolution of the XVII century. can be seen as the boundary between the Middle Ages and modern times. It became the beginning of a new era and made irreversible the process of formation of bourgeois socio-political orders not only in England, but also in Europe as a whole.
Features of the economic development of England on the eve of the revolution. Economic background.
On the eve of the revolution, England was an agrarian country. Of its 4.5 million population, about 75% were rural residents. But this did not mean that there was no industry in England. The metallurgical, coal and textile industries had already reached significant development at that time, and it was in the industrial sphere, especially in the textile industry, that the features of the new capitalist order were most clearly manifested.
New technical inventions and improvements, and most importantly, new forms of organization of industrial labor and production clearly showed that British industry was more and more imbued with capitalist tendencies and the spirit of commerce.
In England, there were quite large reserves of iron ore. Gloucestershire was especially rich in ore. Ore processing was carried out mainly in the counties of Cheshire, Sussex, Herefordshire, Yokshir, Somersetshire. Copper ore was mined and processed on a significant scale. England also had large coal reserves - mainly in the county of Northumberland. Coal as a fuel has not yet been used in metallurgy, but was widely used in everyday life (especially in London). The need for coal both for domestic consumption and for export abroad was very high.
Both in the metallurgical and stone industries in the 17th century there were already quite a few fairly large manufactories where hired workers worked and there was a division of labor. Despite the importance of these industries, they, however, had not yet become the main ones in the English economy at that time.
The most widespread industry in England was the textile industry, especially the production of woolen fabrics. To a greater or lesser extent it existed in all the counties. Many counties specialized in the production of one or two grades of matter. The wool industry was most widespread in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, West Riding (Yorkshire) and in eastern England, where sheep breeding was highly developed.
The linen industry developed mainly in Ireland, where there were suitable climatic conditions for growing flax.
In the 17th century, the cotton industry appeared, the raw materials for which were brought from the Levant, Smyrna and from the island of Cyprus. Manchester became the center of this industry.
In the textile industry, there was a significant variety of organizational forms of production. In London and in many old cities, handicraft workshops with their medieval rules, which hindered the free development of industry, were still preserved. In rural areas and in those settlements where there were no workshops, a large number of independent small artisans worked, and in rural areas they, as a rule, combined craft with agriculture.
But along with workshops and small artisans, a new form of organization of production gradually took shape - manufactory, which was a transitional form from small-scale production of artisans to large-scale capitalist industry. In the 17th century England already had a centralized manufacture. But in most branches of industry, the so-called scattered manufacture, associated with the processing at home of raw materials belonging to the entrepreneur, was predominant. Sometimes the workers also used the tools of the owner. These were already independent artisans. They became essentially wage workers subjected to capitalist exploitation, although in some cases they still retained a tiny piece of land that served as an additional source of livelihood. Cadres of manufacturing workers were recruited from among the landless and ruined peasants.
A very important moment in the history of the disintegration of English feudalism was the penetration of capitalist relations into agriculture. English agriculture developed in close cooperation with the development of capitalism in other areas of the national economy - in industry, trade, maritime affairs.
The English countryside turned out to be very early connected with the market - first with the external, and then more and more with the internal. A huge amount of wool was exported from England to the continent of Europe as early as the 11th-12th centuries. and especially from the XIII - XIV centuries. The growth in demand for English wool in the foreign and domestic markets led to the extraordinary development of sheep breeding in England. And this, in turn, was the impetus for the beginning of the famous "fencing" (forcible removal of peasants from the land by feudal lords) of the 15th, 16th and first half of the 17th centuries. The mass breeding of sheep and the transformation of arable land into pasture entailed the most important socio-economic consequences. Enclosures were the main method of so-called primitive accumulation carried out in the English countryside by the landowning class in the most cruel forms of open forcible exploitation of the masses of the people. A feature of the fences of the XVII century. was that their motive was no longer so much sheep breeding as the development of intensive agriculture. The immediate result of the enclosures was the separation of the mass of producers, the peasants, from their main means of production, i.e. from the earth.
In the English countryside in the XVI - XVII centuries. capitalist farming developed, which in economic terms was an analogy with manufacture in industry. The entrepreneurial farmer exploited on a large scale agricultural workers from the rural poor. However, the central figure of the village of the Stuart period was still not large farmers - tenants of foreign land, and not landless cotters - rural laborers, but the numerically predominant yeomen - independent tillers, owners of a hereditary allotment.
The peasant population (yeomen) was going through a process of property and legal stratification and was to a greater or lesser extent from the landlords. The most prosperous peasants, approaching the position of full owners of the land, were called freeholders (free holders). In the southeastern part of the country, they made up about a third of the peasantry, while in the northwest they were much smaller. The bulk of the peasants were represented by the so-called copyholders (holders by copy, or by agreement), who were in a much worse position. Some of them were considered eternal hereditary land holders, but usually the landowners were inclined to consider this holding as temporary and short-term. Short-term holders were called tenants or leaseholders. Copy holders were obliged to pay the landlord a permanent cash rent, but when the allotment was transferred to a new holder by inheritance or as a result of purchase and sale, the landlords increased the rent. Fines were heavy requisitions - special payments to the landowner upon transferring the allotment to other hands, as well as posthumous contributions (heriots). Landlords levied fees for the use of pastures, forests, mills, etc. In the north-west of the country, quitrents in kind and corvée work were often preserved. Kopigolder held an answer before the landowner's court in petty cases, which were not under the jurisdiction of special judicial authorities.
The poorest part of the village was made up of landless farm laborers, day laborers, apprentices and workers in village workshops, who had only their own hut, or cottage - they were called cotters. Among the rural poor, the desire for equalization of property and hostility towards wealthy landowners intensified.
Thus, England in the 16th century and in the first half of the 17th century became a major economically developed power with a highly developed industry and a capitalist form of production. “Having built a strong navy, the British were able to participate in the great geographical discoveries and in the capture of many overseas territories. In 1588, they defeated the fleet of their main rival in colonial conquests, Spain. The colonial possessions of England expanded. Merchants and the growing bourgeoisie profited from their robbery, and the new nobility profited from the "fencing" that was taking place. The economic power of the country was actually concentrated in the hands of these sections of the population, and they began to strive through parliament (the House of Commons) to direct state policy in their own interests.
The alignment of social forces on the eve of the revolution. Social background.
The political and economic image of the society of pre-revolutionary England was determined, as mentioned above, by the presence of two economic structures at the same time: the new - capitalist and the old - feudal. The leading role belonged to the capitalist system. England, as already noted, moved along the capitalist path much faster than other European countries, and the peculiarity of the development of this country was that the active breakdown of the medieval economic structure began in the countryside much earlier than in the city, and proceeded along a truly revolutionary path. . English agriculture much earlier than industrial turned into a profitable object of profitable investment of capital, a sphere of the capitalist type of management.
The agrarian revolution that had begun in the English countryside provided industry with the necessary raw materials and at the same time pushed out a mass of "surplus population" that could be used by capitalist industry in various types of domestic and concentrated manufacturing production.
For these reasons, it was the English countryside that became the center of social conflict. In the English countryside, two processes took place in class form - the dispossession of the peasantry and the formation of a class of capitalist tenants. The dispossession of peasants, largely caused by the notorious enclosures of communal lands, went so far that many villages disappeared and thousands of peasants became vagabonds. It was at this time that the rise of the movement of the peasantry and the urban poor was observed. The immediate reasons for the actions of the peasantry were given by this or that next oppression (most often, fencing or depriving the peasants of communal marshy pastures under the pretext of draining the swamps). The real reasons for the rise of the peasant movement lay deeper. The peasantry strove for the elimination of feudal rent, for a radical agrarian reform that would turn the peasants' unsecured feudal landholding into their complete "free" property.
Scattered peasant uprisings were an almost constant occurrence. At the same time in the first decades of the XVII century. in various cities "revolts" of the urban plebeians broke out from time to time. All these popular uprisings, of course, were not yet the beginning of the revolution. But they undermined the existing "order" and created the feeling among the bourgeois leaders that it was enough to give a push - and the forces necessary for victory would set in motion throughout the country. This is what happened in the 40s. Engels, speaking of the revolutionary uprising in England, points out: “The urban bourgeoisie gave it the first impetus, and the middle peasantry of the rural districts, the yeomanry, led it to victory. An original phenomenon: in all three great bourgeois revolutions, the fighting army is the peasants; and it is the peasants who turn out to be the class that, after winning a victory, is inevitably ruined as a result of the economic consequences of these victories ... Thanks to the intervention of this yeomanry and the plebeian element of the cities, the struggle was brought to the last decisive end, and Charles I landed on the scaffold. In order for the bourgeoisie to be able to get at least those fruits of victory, which were then already quite ripe for harvesting, it was necessary to carry the revolution much further than such a goal.
Thus, in the course of the English bourgeois revolution, rather complicated and contradictory relations between the bourgeoisie and the peasant-plebeian masses were bound to come to light. An alliance with this mass, capable of leading to victory, could not but frighten the bourgeoisie at the same time, since it concealed the danger of an excessive activation of the masses. The English bourgeoisie, therefore, in practice only used the movement of the masses, but did not enter into an alliance with them; all the time she never ceased to be afraid of too much to shake and shake the old state machine, which curbed the masses of the people.
The feudal-absolutist state for a long time skillfully used these fluctuations of the bourgeoisie. Throughout the 16th century under the Tudor dynasty, it made partial concessions to the bourgeoisie, provided it with economic protection, and thereby separated it from a possible alliance with the muffled bubbling in the 16th century. peasant-plebeian revolutionary forces.
The main social support of absolutism was the nobility. But a feature of the social structure of England XVI-XVII centuries. was that the English nobility itself was in some part subjected to a capitalist degeneration, approaching in its socio-economic appearance more and more to the bourgeoisie.
Absolutism, which hindered the development of capitalism, could not solve the problem of jobs for the vast mass of peasants who had become unemployed. The activities of the government were reduced to the adoption of legislation against vagrants and healthy beggars, providing for punishment and forced labor, and the creation of a system of "help to the poor." Nine-tenths of the population of England were disqualified from voting for members of Parliament. Only one-tenth of the male population were gentlemen, burghers, wealthy peasants who had access to government.
The most remarkable feature of the social structure of England in the pre-revolutionary period is the split of the nobility into two social classes, in many respects antagonistic - the old and the new (bourgeois) nobility. Of the English nobility, Marx wrote: "This class of large landowners associated with the bourgeoisie ... was ... not in contradiction, but, on the contrary, in full agreement with the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie." Gentry (small local nobility), being nobles by class position, were bourgeois by economic structure. The history of industry and trade in England in the pre-revolutionary period was largely created by representatives of the new nobility. This feature gave the revolution of the 40s. 17th century historical originality and predetermined both its character and the final result.
So, various sections of the population were drawn into the social conflict between feudal England and bourgeois England.
Puritanism - the ideology of the revolution
One of the most important features of the English revolution of the XVII century. is a kind of ideological formulation of its social-class and political goals. The role of the combat theory of the rebels was played by the ideology of the Reformation in the form of puritanism, i.e. the struggle for the "purification" of the faith, which performed an ideological function in the process of mobilizing the forces of the revolution.
Puritanism as a religious movement arose long before the revolutionary situation in the country, but in the 20-30s of the XVII century. turned into the ideology of a broad anti-absolutist opposition. The most important consequence of this movement was the dissemination in large sections of society of the consciousness of the urgent need for change in both church and state.
The opposition against absolutism developed in England precisely under the religious principles of Puritanism. The reformist teachings of the sixteenth century created fertile ground for the ideology of the English bourgeois revolution. This ideology was Calvinism, the dogmas and church-political principles of which, even during the Reformation period, served as the basis for the organization of the church in Switzerland, Scotland and Holland and were the beginning of the revolution of 1566 in the Netherlands.
Calvinism in the 16th - 17th centuries became the ideology of the most daring part of the then bourgeoisie and fully met the needs of the struggle against absolutism and the English Church in England. Puritanism in England was a variation of Calvinism. The Puritans rejected the doctrine of "grace," the need for the episcopate, and the subordination of the church to the king. They demanded the independence of the church from royal power, the collegial management of church affairs, the expulsion of "idolatry", i.e. magnificent ceremonies, painted windows, worship of icons, rejected the altars and utensils used in English churches during worship. They desired the introduction of free oral preaching, cheapening and simplification of religion, the abolition of the episcopate, and they conducted worship in private homes, accompanying it with accusatory sermons against the luxury and depravity of the court and the aristocracy.
Diligence, frugality and stinginess were glorified by the Puritans in full accordance with the spirit of enrichment and hoarding, characteristic of the young English bourgeoisie. The Puritans were characterized by the preaching of worldly asceticism, secular entertainment. In these features of puritanism, which turned into hypocrisy, the protest of the English average noble nobility and the royal court was vividly expressed.
During the revolution, Puritanism was split. Among the Puritans, various currents arose that met the interests of various strata and classes of society that were in opposition to absolutism and the English church. A moderate trend among the Puritans was represented by the so-called Presbyterians, who advocated a Presbyterian church structure. The Presbyterians wanted to maintain a single church in England with the same worship, but demanded that the church be cleansed of the vestiges of Catholicism, or papism, and that bishops be replaced by assemblies of elders, or presbyters, chosen by the faithful. They sought the independence of the church from the king. The Presbyterians found their supporters among the wealthy merchants and the top of the new nobility, who, with such a structure of the church, hoped to seize the leading influence on it in their own hands.
A more radical trend among the Puritans were the Independents, or "independents", who stood for the abolition of any single church with obligatory texts of prayers and dogmas. They advocated complete independence in religious affairs for each religious community, i.e. for the disintegration of a single church into a number of independent communities and sects. This trend was successful among the middle and petty bourgeoisie, peasants, artisans and the middle class of the rural gentry. An analysis of Puritanism shows that its essence was bourgeois, i.e. that it was only a religious shell of bourgeois class demands.
Presbyterianism, uniting the big bourgeois and landed aristocracy, preached the idea of a constitutional monarchy. Independence found supporters in the ranks of the middle and petty bourgeoisie. In general, agreeing with the idea of a constitutional monarchy, the Independents at the same time demanded the redistribution of electoral districts, which would allow them to increase the number of their representatives in Parliament, as well as the recognition of such rights as freedom of conscience, speech, etc. for a free person. The most radical movement of the Levellers united artisans, free peasants, who demanded the establishment of a republic, equality of all citizens.
Conclusion
Gradually, in the economic and political life, the absolutism of the Stuarts and the feudal order protected by them became the main obstacle to the development of capitalist relations in the country. The conflict between the growth of the productive forces of the new, capitalist order, on the one hand, and the old, feudal production relations, together with their political superstructure in the form of absolutism, on the other, was the main reason for the maturing of the bourgeois revolution in England. This root cause of the revolution should not be confused with the revolutionary situation, i.e. set of circumstances leading directly to the beginning of the revolution.
A revolutionary situation developed in England in the late 30s and early 40s of the 17th century, when illegal taxes and other restrictions led to a delay in the development of trade and industry and a sharp deterioration in the situation of the people. The mediation of merchants - monopolists interfered with the sale of cloth and increased their cost. Many thousands of pieces of cloth did not find buyers. A large number of apprentices and workers were dismissed and lost their earnings. The aggravation of the needs and misfortunes of the working people was combined with the critical position of the ruling elite. The king and his court fell into the grip of a financial crisis: in 1637, an uprising broke out against the king in Scotland, where Charles I wanted to establish an absolute monarchy and an episcopal church; the war with Scotland demanded large expenditures; a large deficit formed in the treasury, and the king was faced with the need to convene parliament to approve new loans and taxes.
The sittings of Parliament opened on April 13, 1640, but on May 6 the king dissolved it without achieving anything. This parliament went down in history under the name of the Short. Its dispersal gave a new impetus to the struggle of the masses, the bourgeoisie and the new nobility against absolutism.
IN AND. Lenin noted that in any revolutionary situation, 3 signs are sure to take place: a crisis of the “tops”, or the inability for them to govern in the old way, a significant increase in the disasters of the masses, and events that cause an increase in their political activity. All these signs of a revolutionary situation arose and were evident in England in the early 1740s. The political situation in the country has heated up to the extreme limit.
Bibliography
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