The Suffragettes: How the Establishment Castrates Revolutionary Movements

Revolutionary changes and the movements behind them

Photo by Warren on Unsplash

Revolutionary movements, movements which challenge the powers that be and call into question the prevailing established order, are always met with the most vicious of attacks and slander. During the civil rights movement in the US, we saw protestors campaigning for civil rights for Black people being met with direct violence at the hands of the state as well as horrific treatment in the press.

The media were content to lie about the civil rights movement and paint them as a bunch of anti-white racists who were simply galavanting around, trying to destroy property and people’s lives for the fun of it. Of course, this was completely untrue, but this didn’t matter to those who were intent on protecting the status quo. The fact is that the civil rights movement in the US challenged the prevailing status quo in a number of major ways, and this was the source of the slander against it.

Such negative treatment and slander were not only levied against the civil rights movement in the US, but have been levied against every movement which has sought to challenge the established order. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher described striking workers as “the enemy within” and unleashed the full force of the state in order to crush organised labour and destroy the rights and liberties of the working class.

In more recent times, we have seen the state and the media come out in full force to attack the pro-Palestine movement in Britain, taking specific aim at the group Palestine Action. For the unaware, Palestine Action are a direct action group which aims to tackle and sabotage factories which manufacture weapons and drones in Britain, which are used by the state of Israel in its assault on Palestinians.

Last year, Palestine Action were proscribed by the UK Government as a terror group, joining the likes of ISIS and the IRA as groups which are illegal for people to join or publicly support. This sent major shockwaves throughout Britain as Palestine Action hadn’t engaged in any activity which could reasonably be described as terrorism; they hadn’t bombed or killed anyone, for example. The sum total of their mission and activities was to try and shut down support for Israel and to do so through sabotaging factories which make weapons and drones for Israel, as well as bringing awareness to the Palestinian cause.

Regardless of what anyone’s thoughts on these matters are, the fact is that Palestine Action haven’t killed anyone, which should call the proscribing of them as a terror group into question. There has since been an appeal to this proscription to the Court of Appeal, and recently we got a ruling which found that the proscription of Palestine Action was lawful and legitimate under UK law.

One of the most bizarre statements from this ruling came from The Lady Chief Justice, Sue Lascelles Carr, who said: “Palestine Action was not a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes, but used violence to destroy property.”

This statement from Carr garnered quite a bit of attention online from people pointing to the apparent historical illiteracy to claim that the Suffragettes were a mere peaceful protest group who didn’t engage in the destruction of property or violence.

Some people might not be aware of this, but the Suffragettes absolutely engaged in violence and saw it as a necessary tactic in advancing their cause. They attacked police officers and politicians, carried out arson attacks on public buildings, and even engaged in multiple bombings in order to achieve their goals. Perhaps most notable was the bombing of David Lloyd-George’s house.

For someone, especially someone as notable as Carr, to come along and act like the Suffragettes were just a simple civil disobedience group who were simply protesting peacefully to gain the vote is so laughable that it leads me to question whether she is genuinely that ignorant or if she is being intentionally dishonest. By absolutely no standard were the Suffragettes non-violent; in fact, the violence they carried out was a major line of attack used by the status quo to denounce them and their goals. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

It’s strange the levels the British government are willing to stoop to all in order to justify proscribing a group that has no business being proscribed in the first place. To claim that Palestine Action are terrorists is nonsensical, as many people out, by the standard the government is using to proscribe Palestine Action, they would have to have considered anti-apartheid protests in the 70s and 80s a form of terrorism. Mind you, Margaret Thatcher herself referred to Nelson Mandela as a terrorist, so I guess they are consistent if nothing else.

All in all, what this proscribing of Palestine Action, and the statement made by Carr show is how governments will absolutely castrate revolutionary movements once they have come to pass, once their goals have been achieved, and once it’s no longer difficult to support them. As I mentioned at the start of this piece, the civil rights movement in the US was consistently denounced as violent savagery and anti-white, communist thuggery.

Once the Civil Rights Acts were passed, and now that we’re some time removed from this struggle, it is no longer controversial to support the civil rights movement and thus, politicians across the spectrum will pay lip service to the struggle, as well as the likes of Martin Luther King. Furthermore, the established order will completely castrate the civil rights movement, watering down its revolutionary goals and the way in which it truly challenged the prevailing status quo during this time.

We see this exact same phenomenon now with the Suffragettes. The same politicians who will hold up the Suffragettes as exemplars of a noble cause would more likely than not be the ones denouncing them as violent terrorists were they around during the time the movement was taking place. At the same time, we see people like Lady Chief Justice Carr characterising the Suffragettes as a mere civil disobedience group instead of a violent revolutionary force fighting for basic rights for women. All of this reminds me of a quote from Vladimir Lenin’s *The State and Revolution*, which talked about this exact phenomenon.

“What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul.”

During the time of the Suffragettes, and every revolutionary movement that has challenged the status quo in any capacity, the established order have fought against it with all their might, resorting to the most devious and underhanded tactics to defeat them. They have painted uprisings as mindless thuggery and pointed to violence as a means to discredit them, as well as making use of the media to smear them with the most vile slander.

However, once it no longer becomes controversial to support these movements or their figureheads, when their goals have finally been achieved, the established order will lionise them and act like they were supportive all along. All of this is a complete farce, but it serves to justify reaffirming the established order rather than viewing it as an obstacle to genuine justice.

What happened with the Suffragettes — their canonisation and embracing by politicians — will almost certainly happen with Palestine Action and the wider pro-Palestine movement once it stops being controversial or difficult to support said movements. This has always happened with similar movements throughout history, and I see no reason why it would change now.