ANTI-CHURCH MOVEMENT
Demonstration in Hyde Park
by
KARL MARX
written: June 25, 1855, London
published: Neue Oder-Zeitung June 28 1855
translation: Institute of Marxism-Leninism, 1957
transcription: director@marx.org, Dec 31 1995
It is an old and historically established maxim that obsolete social forces,
nominally still in possession of all the attributes of power and continuing
to vegetate long after the basis of their existence has rotted away,
inasmuch as the heirs are quarrelling among themselves over the inheritance
even before the obituary notice has been printed and the testament read --
that these forces once more summon all their strength before their agony of
death, pass from the defensive to the offensive, challenge instead of giving
way, and seek to draw the most extreme conclusions from premises which have
not only been put in question but already condemned. Such is today the
English oligarchy. Such is the Church, its twin sister. Countless attempts
at reorganization have been made within the Established Church, both the
High and the Low, attempts to come to an understanding with the Dissenters
and thus to set up a compact force to oppose the profane mass of the nation.
There has been a rapid succession of measures of religious coercion. The
pious Earl of Shaftesbury, formerly known as Lord Ashley, bewailed the fact
in the House of Lords that in England alone five millions had become wholly
alienated not only from the Church but from Christianity altogether.
"Compelle intrare," replies the Established Church. It leaves it to Lord
Ashley and similar dissenting, sectarian and hysterical pietists to pull the
chestnuts out of the fire for it.
The first measure of Religious coercion was the Beer Bill, which shut down
all places of public entertainment on Sundays, except between 6 and 10 p. m.
This bill was smuggled through the House at the end of a sparsely attended
sitting, after the pietists had bought the support of the big public-house
owners of London by guaranteeing them that the license system would
continue, that is, that big capital would retain its monopoly. Then came the
Sunday Trading Bill, which has now passed its third reading in the Commons
and separate clauses of which have just been discussed by commissions in
both Houses. This new coercive measure top was ensured the vote of big
capital, because only small shopkeepers keep open on Sunday and the
proprietors of the big shops are quite willing to do away with the Sunday
competition of the small fry by parliamentary means. In both cases there is
a conspiracy of the Church with monopoly capital, but in both cases there
are religious penal laws against the lower classes to set the consciences of
the privileged classes at rest. The Beer Bill was as far from hitting the
aristocratic clubs as the Sunday Trading Bill is from hitting the Sunday
occupations of genteel society. The workers get their wages late on
Saturday; they are the only ones for whom shops open on Sundays. They are
the only ones compelled to make their purchases, small as they are, on
Sundays. The new bill is therefore directed against them alone. In the
eighteenth century the French aristocracy said: For us, Voltaire; for the
people, the mass and the tithes. In the nineteenth century the English
aristocracy says: For us, pious phrases; for the people, Christian practice.
The classical saint of Christianity mortified his body for the salvation of
the souls of the masses; the modern, educated saint mortifies the bodies of
the masses for the salvation of his own soul.
This alliance of a dissipated, degenerating and pleasure-seeking
aristocracy with a church propped up by the filthy profits calculated upon
by the big brewers and monopolizing wholesalers was the occasion yesterday
of a mass demonstration in Hyde Park, the like of which London has not seen
since the death of George IV, "the first gentleman of Europe." We were
spectators from beginning to end and do not think we are exaggerating in
saying that the English Revolution began yesterday in Hyde Park. The latest
news from the Crimea acted as an effective ferment upon this
"unparliamentary," "extra-parliamentary" and "anti-parliamentary"
demonstration.
Lord Robert Grosvenor, who fathered the Sunday Trading Bill, when
reproached on the score of this measure being directed solely against the
poor and not against the rich classes, retorted that "the aristocracy was
largely refraining from employing its servants and horses on Sundays." The
last few days of the past week the following poster, put out by the
Chartists and affixed to all the walls of London, announced in huge letters:
"New Sunday Bill prohibiting newspapers, shaving, smoking, eating and
drinking and all kinds of recreation and nourishment, both corporal and
spiritual, which the poor people still enjoy at the present time. An
open-air meeting of artisans, workers and 'the lower orders' generally
of the capital will take place in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon to see
how religiously the aristocracy is observing the Sabbath and how anxious
it is not to employ its servants and horses on that day, as Lord Robert
Grosvenor said in his speech. The meeting is called for three o'clock on
the right bank of the Serpentine" (a small river in Hyde Park), "on the
side towards Kensington Gardens. Come and bring your wives and children
in order that they may profit by the example their 'betters' set them!"
It should be borne in mind, of course, that what Longchamps [Ed. -- A
hippodrome in the outskirts of Paris] means to the Parisians, the road along
the Serpentine in Hyde Park means to English high society -- the place where
of an afternoon, particularly on Sunday, they parade their magnificent
horses and carriages with all their trappings, followed by swarms of
lackeys. It will be realized from the above placard that the struggle
against clericalism assumes the same character in England as every other
serious struggle there -- the character of a class struggle waged by the
poor against the rich, the people against the aristocracy, the "lower
orders" against their "betters."
At three o'clock approximately 50,000 people had gathered at the spot
announced on the right bank of the Serpentine in Hyde Park's immense
meadows. Gradually the assembled multitude swelled to a total of at least
200,000 due to additions from the other bank. Milling groups of people could
be seen shoved about from place to place. The police, who were present in
force, were obviously endeavouring to deprive the organizers of the meeting
of what Archimedes had asked for to move the earth, namely, a place to stand
upon. Finally a rather large crowd made a firm stand and Bligh the Chartist
constituted himself chairman on a small eminence in the midst of the throng.
No sooner had he begun his harangue than Police Inspector Banks at the head
of 40 truncheon-swinging constables explained to him that the Park was the
private property of the Crown and that no meeting might be held in it. After
some pourparlers in which Bligh sought to demonstrate to him that parks were
public property and in which Banks rejoined he had strict orders to arrest
him if he should insist on carrying out his intention, Bligh shouted amidst
the bellowing of the masses surrounding him:
"Her Majesty's police declare that Hyde Park is private property of the
Crown and that Her Majesty is unwilling to let her land be used by the
people for their meetings. So let's move to Oxford Market."
With the ironical cry: "God save the Queen!" the throng broke up to journey
to Oxford Market. But meanwhile, Finlen, a member of the Chartist executive,
rushed to a tree some distance away followed by a crowd who in a twinkle
formed so close and compact a circle around him that the police abandoned
their attempt to get at him.
"Six days a week," he said, "we are treated like slaves and now
Parliament wants to rob us of the bit of freedom we still have on the
seventh. These oligarchs and capitalists allied with sanctimonious
parsons wish to do penance by mortifying us instead of themselves for
the unconscionable murder in the Crimea of the sons of the people."
We left this group to approach another where a speaker stretched out on the
ground addressed his audience from this horizontal position. Suddenly shouts
could be heard on all sides: "Let's go to the road, to the carriages!" The
heaping of insults upon horse riders and occupants of carriages had
meanwhile already begun. The constables, who constantly received
reinforcements from the city, drove the promenading pedestrians off the
carriage road. They thus helped to bring it about that either side of it was
tined deep with people, from Apsley House up Rotten-Row along the Serpentine
as far as Kensington Gardens -- a distance of more than a quarter of an
hour. The spectators consisted of about ...
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