Peter Halton
William Morris, que sabia uma coisa ou duas sobre móveis, descreveu a coluna Vendôme como "uma peça horrível de estofamento imperial" e elogiou Courbet por seu papel em derrubá-la durante a Comuna de Paris. Apesar do interesse acadêmico e popular sustentado por Morris desde sua morte, suas opiniões sobre o imperialismo e as relações exteriores geralmente atraíram pouca menção. Na frente popular, seu status dentro da paisagem do patrimônio cultural o levou a ser facilmente adaptado a um acolhedor etilo inglês de toalhas de chá estampadas e estampas vintage peculiares. Estudiosos da política de Morris se concentraram mais frequentemente no lugar do romantismo em seu socialismo e na relação entre socialismo, arte e trabalho. Embora algumas das opiniões de Morris sobre o imperialismo e seu ódio ao chauvinismo nacional estejam presentes em suas palestras e em suas obras criativas bem conhecidas, como News from Nowhere e The Pilgrims of Hope, essas opiniões nunca dominantes podem facilmente ser perdidas. Para ver a gama completa do anti-imperialismo de Morris e sua importância para o socialismo de Morris, temos que nos voltar para seu jornalismo, particularmente para seus artigos, mas também para suas "Notas" regulares para o Commonweal.
Não existe uma linha inevitável do socialismo ao anti-imperialismo, na época de Morris ou desde então. Muitos socialistas têm opiniões pró-imperiais e muitos ainda não veem contradição nisso. Se houver uma linha no caso de Morris, provavelmente é o contrário; a oposição à política imperial britânica foi um fator-chave não apenas na conversão de Morris ao socialismo, mas na forma que seu socialismo tomaria. Em 1876, Morris se envolveu em uma agitação liberal dentro da Eastern Question Association, fazendo campanha contra a política externa de Disraeli e contra a ajuda à Turquia em sua disputa com a Rússia. Após sua campanha de Midlothian, Gladstone foi devolvido ao cargo em 1880 e no ano seguinte passou a publicar o Ato de Coação da Irlanda e em 1882 ordenou o bombardeio de Alexandria e mais ações militares no Egito. Esses dois eventos sinalizaram para Morris que o liberalismo e o radicalismo não poderiam ir mais longe, e que os políticos, que prometem princípios na oposição, mas capitulam quando estão no poder, não eram confiáveis.
Assim como o socialismo não leva necessariamente ao anti-imperialismo, o inverso é verdadeiro. Diversas figuras como Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Herbert Spencer e os positivistas britânicos se opuseram ao imperialismo britânico, mas nenhum se tornou socialista. Para dar conta da conversão aberta de Morris ao socialismo em 1883, seria necessário dar espaço às suas ideias em desenvolvimento sobre arte e sociedade, mas, crucialmente, qualquer relato do movimento de Morris para o socialismo e de seu forte antiparlamentarismo precisa levar em consideração sua experiência com o partido liberal e o que ele via como uma traição aos seus próprios princípios. Ocasionalmente, Morris viu uma ligação entre esses aspectos, observando como os estudantes de arte na Grã-Bretanha estavam aprendendo com exemplos da arte e dos têxteis indianos, enquanto ao mesmo tempo os britânicos estavam destruindo sua própria fonte.
At the end of 1884 Morris was part of a group, including Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling, and Ernest Belfort Bax, that broke away from the Social Democratic Federation led by Henry Mayers Hyndman and formed the Socialist League. Morris took up the position as editor of the League’s journal, Commonweal, which was published monthly until May 1886 when it switched to a weekly. From the outset the League and Commonweal had a clearly internationalist and anti-imperialist stance, with Eleanor Marx using her extensive knowledge and contacts to compile notes on the international movement. It was Bax’s article ‘Imperialism vs. Socialism’ that was the first to appear in Commonweal, following Morris’s editorial introduction and the League’s Manifesto. The manifesto itself noted that ‘all the rivalries of nations have been reduced to this one - a degraded struggle for their share of the spoils of barbarous countries to be used at home for the purpose of increasing the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor.’
At the end of 1884 Morris was part of a group, including Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling, and Ernest Belfort Bax, that broke away from the Social Democratic Federation led by Henry Mayers Hyndman and formed the Socialist League. Morris took up the position as editor of the League’s journal, Commonweal, which was published monthly until May 1886 when it switched to a weekly. From the outset the League and Commonweal had a clearly internationalist and anti-imperialist stance, with Eleanor Marx using her extensive knowledge and contacts to compile notes on the international movement. It was Bax’s article ‘Imperialism vs. Socialism’ that was the first to appear in Commonweal, following Morris’s editorial introduction and the League’s Manifesto. The manifesto itself noted that ‘all the rivalries of nations have been reduced to this one - a degraded struggle for their share of the spoils of barbarous countries to be used at home for the purpose of increasing the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor.’
Bax’s article argued that all modern statesmanship was based on the need to find ever more ‘fields for the relief of native surplus capital and merchandise’ and to try and keep other countries from doing the same. He strongly criticised the supporters of British power overseas such as newspapers like the Pall Mall Gazette, and heaped scorn on the idea of a civilising mission that merely provided cover for ‘the vampire Imperialism’. Morris learnt much from Bax’s writing and the two collaborated on several pieces, including their ‘Socialism from the Root Up’ series (revised in 1893 as Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome) which included a seven-part summary of Marx’s Capital.
One of Morris’s own clearest statements came in his article ‘Facing the Worst of It’:
... the one thing for which our thrice accursed civilisation craves, as the stifling man for fresh air, is new markets, fresh countries must be conquered by it which are not manufacturing and are producers of raw material, so that ‘civilised’ manufactures can be forced on them. All wars now waged, under whatever pretences, are really wars for the great prizes in the world-market.
What Morris understood clearly was that new markets are not just found but created, and in the face of resistance they are created with great force and violence. Bax argued that imperialism had the potential to provide new strength and even greater stability for the capitalist system, perhaps delaying its future collapse for as much as another century. Morris feared the same, and it is because he took this possibility seriously that he devoted much of his space in Commonweal to the issue.
Morris was less a detailed and considered theorist than he was a propagandist; his goal, ultimately, was to make socialists. It was therefore necessary not just to convince workers of the truths of socialism, but also to warn them of the dangers of falling prey to nationalist sentiment and to prevent them slipping into a support for an imperialism in which they as workers would not benefit, and which would only entrench their own misery.
Morris’s Commonweal ‘Notes’ are full of attacks on the violence at the heart of imperialism, the hypocrisy used to justify it and on its figureheads. General Gordon, whose death at Khartoum dealt a blow to the popularity of Gladstone, was described by Morris as ‘the general of the Christian commercialists’ and ‘an instrument of oppression whom fate at last thrust aside.’ Henry Morton Stanley, whose exploits in Africa made him a frequent target in Commonweal, was a ‘rifle-and-bible newspaper correspondent’ and Morris suggested he should be put on trial on his return to England, and if not why ‘his hanging men because they refused to serve him at the risk of their lives differs from murder?’
The British Empire was an ‘elaborate machinery of violence and fraud’, and when the Colonial and Indian Exhibition opened in South Kensington in 1886 Morris suggested alternative displays showing the death and horror at the core of British policy. He also took aim at the Poet Laureate, suggesting a ‘pair of crimson plush breeches with my Lord Tennyson’s ‘Ode’ on the opening of the Exhibition, embroidered in gold, on the seat thereof.’ Although comical, it was serious too. Morris had admired much of Tennyson’s work and hated to see a once great artist producing work in the cause of empire.
Yet, while Morris was undoubtedly a staunch socialist and committed anti-imperialist, there are problematic elements to Morris’s thought that need to be dealt with critically too. Though he sincerely believed in the universal brotherhood of labour, he near uniformly presents a dichotomy between ‘civilised’ countries and ‘barbarous’ or ‘semi-civilised’ ones. Morris never travelled outside Europe and, unlike his good friend Wilfred Scawen Blunt, he had no first-hand experience of the people of whom he wrote in his journalism, affording them no level of cultural equality.
His internationalism was therefore limited, mostly euro-centric, and at times he was unclear what internationalism would mean in a socialist future that had overcome the nation as a political entity—if it would have a meaning at all. The end goal for all peoples was something akin to the socialism he saw for Britain, and while he abhorred its practice in his own day he held out the possibility of a socialist colonial policy, thinking ‘it will surely be one of the solemn duties of the society of the future for a community to send out some band of its best and hardiest people to socialise some hitherto neglected spot of earth for the service of man.’
Morris’s Commonweal ‘Notes’ are full of attacks on the violence at the heart of imperialism, the hypocrisy used to justify it and on its figureheads. General Gordon, whose death at Khartoum dealt a blow to the popularity of Gladstone, was described by Morris as ‘the general of the Christian commercialists’ and ‘an instrument of oppression whom fate at last thrust aside.’ Henry Morton Stanley, whose exploits in Africa made him a frequent target in Commonweal, was a ‘rifle-and-bible newspaper correspondent’ and Morris suggested he should be put on trial on his return to England, and if not why ‘his hanging men because they refused to serve him at the risk of their lives differs from murder?’
The British Empire was an ‘elaborate machinery of violence and fraud’, and when the Colonial and Indian Exhibition opened in South Kensington in 1886 Morris suggested alternative displays showing the death and horror at the core of British policy. He also took aim at the Poet Laureate, suggesting a ‘pair of crimson plush breeches with my Lord Tennyson’s ‘Ode’ on the opening of the Exhibition, embroidered in gold, on the seat thereof.’ Although comical, it was serious too. Morris had admired much of Tennyson’s work and hated to see a once great artist producing work in the cause of empire.
Yet, while Morris was undoubtedly a staunch socialist and committed anti-imperialist, there are problematic elements to Morris’s thought that need to be dealt with critically too. Though he sincerely believed in the universal brotherhood of labour, he near uniformly presents a dichotomy between ‘civilised’ countries and ‘barbarous’ or ‘semi-civilised’ ones. Morris never travelled outside Europe and, unlike his good friend Wilfred Scawen Blunt, he had no first-hand experience of the people of whom he wrote in his journalism, affording them no level of cultural equality.
His internationalism was therefore limited, mostly euro-centric, and at times he was unclear what internationalism would mean in a socialist future that had overcome the nation as a political entity—if it would have a meaning at all. The end goal for all peoples was something akin to the socialism he saw for Britain, and while he abhorred its practice in his own day he held out the possibility of a socialist colonial policy, thinking ‘it will surely be one of the solemn duties of the society of the future for a community to send out some band of its best and hardiest people to socialise some hitherto neglected spot of earth for the service of man.’
It would be harsh to criticise Morris for failing to give solutions to such seemingly intractable problems. The difficulty of such questions, like the overcoming of the nation state and the question of foreign relations once it was, should not be underestimated. Perhaps, where he can be faulted is for failing to realise that these were actually difficult problems in the first place. At times, he suggests, and this is common across all areas of his socialist thought, that because the class struggle was at the root of society’s problems, once this was overcome then any issues would be easily solved.
Opposition to imperialism needs to be seen as an integral part of Morris’s politics, not only because he himself saw it as such, but also because it is important to remember in our own moment that the British Empire always had internal critics and opponents who knew at the time that injustice, violence and exploitation lay at its core. Since his death, Morris has been claimed by just about all factions of the British left. Clement Attlee once remarked ‘how much more Morris meant to us than Karl Marx.’ To truly do justice his legacy, as more than the artist who believed that ‘fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death’, the full Morris must be remembered, full of indignation and fury at the injustice of empire and imperialism.
Sobre o autor
Sobre o autor
Peter Halton é candidato a PhD em História Intelectual na University of Sussex. Sua pesquisa se concentra em William Morris, Commonweal e no socialismo britânico do final do século XIX.
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