|
Jack London’s Vision of Fascism cf. Ellen
White’s View of the End-time “In India, China,
Russia, and the cities of America, thousands of men and women are dying of
starvation. The monied men, because they have the
power, control the market. They purchase at low rates all they can obtain,
and then sell at greatly increased prices. This means starvation to the
poorer classes, and will result in a civil war. There will be a time of trouble such
as never was since there was a nation. "And at that time shall Michael
stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and
there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation,
even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone
that shall be found written in the book. . . . Many shall be purified, and
made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the
wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand."--Ms 114, 1899.
(General manuscript, untitled, typed August 13, 1899.) {5MR 305.4} |
FROM THE BACK STACKS
December 30, 2002
The Iron Heel -- Jack London's
Vision of Fascism
Today Jack
London is remembered mostly for The Call of the Wild and White Fang
and some other adventure stories. But besides being an adventurer, Jack London
was a Socialist and very concerned with social and political issues. He has the
distinction of having preceded Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New
World, and Zamyatin's We with an
anti-utopian vision of society in his book The Iron Heel.
Political
theory only lightly cloaked in a fictional form, The Iron Heel is
stunning in its insight into how a fascist society could take shape. Though the
century-old language seems quaint in some ways, it is clear that London had
insight into the mechanism by which unrestrained capitalism could turn society
into an extremely oppressive and dismal environment for human beings. The story
prefigured the growth of fascism in Italy, Germany and trends toward fascism in
the United States. The novel portrays a society under the control of a group of
monopoly capitalists called The Oligarchy or The Iron Heel. The book was
written 1906, published in January 1908.
The Iron Heel was written
well before World War I. It was in July 1908 that the national police for was
first formed, the Bureau of Investigation, later called the FBI.
On January 2,
1920, a raid was carried out simultaneously in 20 cities by J. Edgar Hoover,
then a deputy of the attorney general. Workers were dragged from their homes
and beaten, printing presses were destroyed and 10,000 activists were
imprisoned. Four years later, Hoover was made head of the newly renamed FBI.
In 1922 the
Fascists took over Italy. An edition of The Iron Heel published there in
1929. Within months the regime banned all cheap editions to keep it out of the
working class, allowing expensive editions to remain.
In the Foreword
of the 1980 edition, Rutgers professor H. Bruce Franklin, itemizes some of
London's specific descriptions of the world that was to come.
Franklin: London
foresees: the creation of attractive suburbs for the relatively privileged
strata of the working class while the central cities are turned into what he
calls "ghettoes" for the masses of unemployed and menial laborers,
shoved into the darkest depths of human misery; the deliberate economic
subversion of public education in order to spread illiteracy and ignorance;
adequate food, health care, and housing priced above the reach of more and more
people; the ubiquitous secret police infiltrating all organizations opposing
the government; the establishment of a permanent mercenary army; the government
conspiring in real and phony bomb plots, in the suppression of books and the
destruction of printing presses, in witch hunts aimed at dissident labor
leaders, professors, and authors, in destroying the reputations of some of its
opponents, imprisoning many others and murdering the few it finds too
formidable; spontaneous mass rebellions of the downtrodden people of the
central cities; urban guerrillas battling the government's army of mercenaries
and police in the canyons of the cities.
According to
London's vision, what we call fascism is the form that the capitalist state
assumes when the ruling oligarchy feels that its economic and political power
is seriously threatened by working class revolution.
The Christian
religion had been sufficiently twisted to accommodate forced labor from human
beings. In 1835 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church proclaimed that
"slavery is recognized in the Old and New Testaments, and is not condemned
by the authority of God."
The same year,
the Charleston Baptist Association also proclaimed: "The right of masters
to dispose of the time of their slaves has been recognized by the Creator of
all things, who is surely at liberty to vest the right of property over any
object whosoever He pleases."
The hero of The
Iron Heel is Ernest Everhard, a more or less typical Londonian superman, an
alter ego of the author. He is portrayed, like London himself and his
fictionalized version of himself in the autobiographical novel Martin Eden,
as a man who worked his way up from the working classes to the upper classes:
"He spoke of his birth in the working class, and of the sordidness and
wretchedness of his environment, where flesh and spirit were alike starved and
tormented..."
When he is on
the bottom, he imagines the upper class world to be a paradise:
"Up above
me, I knew, were unselfishness of the spirit, clean and novel thinking, keen
intellectual living," Everhard says. "I knew all this because I had
read Seaside Library novels in which, with the exception of the villains and
adventuresses, all men and women thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful
tongue, and performed beautiful deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising of
the sun, I accepted that up above me was all that was fine and noble and
gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made life worth
living and that remunerated one for his travail and misery."
When he does rise
in society, he is bitterly disillusioned: "He was surprised at the
commonness of the clay. Life proved not to be fine and gracious. He was
appalled by the selfishness he encountered, and what had surprised him even
more than that was the absence of intellectual life. Fresh from his
revolutionists, he was shocked by the intellectual stupidity of the master
class. And then in spite of their magnificent churches and well-paid preachers,
he had found the masters, men and women, grossly material. It was true that
they prattled sweet little ideals and dear little moralities, but in spite of
their prattle the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic. And
they were without real morality - for instance that which Christ had preached
but was no longer preached."
The Oligarchy,
as represented by one Mr. Wickson, responds to those who rebel against its
control in harsh terms, similar to those used by Orwell's Party in 1984:
"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you... We will
grind you revolutionists down under our heel and we will walk on your faces.
The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain."
Ernest
Everhard's description of the early 20th century industrial revolution has
something in common with our situation a century later. He says, "Never in
the history of the world was society in so terrific flux as it is right now.
The swift changes in our industrial system are causing equally swift changes in
our religious, political, and social structures. And unseen and fearful
revolution is taking place in the fire and structure of society. One can only
dimly feel these things. But they are in the air, now, today. One can feel the
loom of them - things vast, vague, and terrible."
I include below
a series of selections that are striking in comparison with our historical
situation a century later.
"When the
combination of trusts will control all legislation, then the combination of the
trusts will itself be the Government..."
"There is
such a thing as civil law," Mr Owen insisted. "Not when the
Government suspends civil law. In that day, when you speak of rising in your
strength, your strength would be turned against yourself. Into the militia you
would go, willy-nilly. Habeas corpus, I heard someone mutter just now. Instead off habeas corpus you would get post mortems. If you
refused to go into the militia, or to obey after you were in, you would be
tried by drumhead court martial and shot down like dogs. It is the law... (88)
"How is it
we've never heard of this law?"...
"First,
there has been no need to enforce it. If there had, you'd have heard of it soon
enough. And secondly, the law was rushed through Congress and he Senate secretly, with practically no discussion. Of
course, the newspapers made no mention of it. But we Socialists knew about it.
... (89)
"But your
strength is detachable. It can be taken away from you. Even now the Plutocracy
is taking it away from you. In the end it will take it all away from you. And
then you will cease to be the middle class. You will descend to us. You will
become proletarians...
"One and
all, the professors, the preachers, and the editors hold their jobs by serving
the Plutocracy. Whenever they propagate ideas that menace the Plutocracy, they
lose their jobs, in which case, if they have not provided for the rainy day,
they descend into the proletariat and either perish or become working-class
agitators. (101)
"I tell
you we are on the verge of the unknown," he insisted. "Big things are
happening secretly all around us. We can feel them. We do not know what they
are, but they are there. The whole fabric of society is a-tremble with them.
Don't ask me. I don't know myself. But out of this flux of society something is
about to crystallize. It is crystallizing now. The suppression of the book is a
precipitation. How many books have been suppressed? We haven't the least idea.
We are in the dark. We have not way of learning.
Watch out next for the suppression of the socialist press and socialist
publishing houses. I'm afraid it's coming. We are going to be throttled.' (107)
"The Black
Hundreds are being organized in the United States," he said. "This is
the beginning. There will be more of it. The Iron Heel is getting bold."
(108)
"The
Oligarchy wanted the war with Germany. And it wanted the war for a dozen
reasons. In the juggling of events such a war would cause, in the reshuffling
of international cards and the making of new treaties and alliances, the
Oligarchy had much to gain. And furthermore, the war would consume many
national surpluses, reduce the armies of unemployed that menaced all countries,
and give the Oligarchy a breathing space in which to perfect its plans and
carry them out. Such a war would virtually put the Oligarchy in possession of
the world market. Also, such a war would create a large standing army that need
never be disbanded, while in the minds of the people would be substituted the
issue 'America versus Germany,' in place of 'Socialism versus Oligarchy'… (130)
"I know of
nothing that will influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be
influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves
Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic
Party. There are no Republicans or Democrats in this house. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy.
You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all
the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel"… (160)
"They were
taught, and later they in turn taught, that what they were doing was right.
They assimilated the aristocratic idea from the moment they began, as children,
to receive impressions of the world. The aristocratic idea was woven into the
making of them until it became bone of them and flesh of them. They looked upon
themselves as wild-animal trainers, rulers of beasts. From beneath their feet
rose always the subterranean rumbles of revolt. Violent death ever stalked in
their midst; bomb and knife and bullet were looked upon as so many fangs of the
roaring abysmal beast they must dominate if humanity were to persist. They were
the saviors of humanity, and they regarded themselves
as heroic and sacrificing laborers for the highest good.
"They, as
a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization. It was their belief
that if ever they weakened, the great beast would engulf them and everything of
beauty and wonder and joy and good in its cavernous and slime-dripping maw.
Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the
primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged....(190)
"The
condition of the people in the abyss was pitiable. Common school education, so
far as they were concerned, had ceased. They lived like beasts in great squalid
labor-ghettos, festering in misery and degradation. All their old liberties
were gone. They were labor slaves. Choice of work was denied them. Likewise was
denied them the right to move from place to place, or the right to bear or
possess arms. They were not land-serfs like the farmers. They were
machine-serfs and labor-serfs. When unusual needs arose for them, such as the
building of the great highways and air-lines, of canals, tunnels, subways,
fortifications, levies were made on the labor-ghettos, and tens of thousands of
serfs, willy-nilly, were transported to the scene of operations. (192)
LETTER
December 31, 2002
Source of the title The Iron Heel?
I'm glad to see
a feature on "The Iron Heel". I discovered it a few years ago, and
have been telling friends about it ever since.
Only a couple
days ago did I discover the possible origins for the title of London's book. I
got this quote from Grover Cleveland, from an article by Thom Hartmann:
On December 3,
1888, President Grover Cleveland delivered his annual address to Congress.
Apparently Cleveland had taken notice of the Santa Clara County Supreme Court headnote, its politics, and its consequences, for he said
in his speech to the nation, delivered before a joint session of Congress:
"As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the
existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is
struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel.
Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and
the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."
Hartman's
article can be found at: commondreams.org. great going,
KE
Ellen White was Right Again!
(2 Cor. 6:17.) The
wicked are being bound up in bundles, bound up in trusts, in unions, in
confederacies. Let us have nothing to do with these organizations. God is our
Ruler, our Governor, and He calls us to come out from the world and be
separate. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing." If we refuse to do this, if we continue
to link up with the world, and to look at every matter from a worldly
standpoint, we shall become like the world. When worldly policy and worldly
ideas govern our transactions, we cannot stand on the high and holy platform of
eternal truth (MS 71, 1903). {4BC 1142.6}
Civil War in time of trouble
In India, China,
Russia, and the cities of America, thousands of men and women are dying of
starvation. The monied men, because they have the
power, control the market. They purchase at low rates all they can obtain, and
then sell at greatly increased prices. This means starvation to the poorer classes,
and will
result in a civil war. There will be a
time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation. "And at that
time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children
of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since
there was a nation, even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall
be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book. . . . Many
shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly,
and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall
understand."--Ms 114, 1899. (General manuscript, untitled, typed August
13, 1899.) {5MR 305.4}
I was shown the inhabitants of the earth in the utmost
confusion. War, bloodshed, privation, want, famine, and pestilence were abroad
in the land. As these things surrounded God's people, they began to press
together, and to cast aside their little difficulties. Self-dignity no longer
controlled them; deep humility took its place. Suffering, perplexity, and
privation caused reason to resume its throne, and the passionate and
unreasonable man became sane, and acted with discretion and wisdom. {Mar
259.2}
Chap.
138 - Spiritism and Revolution
He answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, . . . and thy neighbour as thyself. Luke 10:27.
As the youth
go out into the world to encounter its allurements to sin--the passion for
money getting, for amusement and indulgence, for display, luxury, and
extravagance, the overreaching, fraud, robbery, and ruin--what are the
teachings there to be met? {Mar 146.1}
Spiritualism
asserts that men are unfallen demigods; that "each mind will judge
itself"; that "true knowledge places men above all law"; that
"all sins committed are innocent"; for "whatever is, is
right," and "God doth not condemn." The basest of human beings
it represents as in heaven, and highly exalted there. Thus it declares to all
men, "It matters not what you do; live as you please, heaven is your
home." Multitudes are thus led to believe that desire is the highest law,
that license is liberty, and that man is accountable only to himself. {Mar
146.2}
With such
teaching given at the very outset of life, when impulse is strongest, and the
demand for self-restraint and purity is most urgent, where are the safeguards
of virtue? what is to prevent the world from becoming a second Sodom? {Mar
146.3}
All the same
time anarchy is seeking to sweep away all law, not only divine, but human. The
centralizing of wealth and power; the vast combinations for the enriching of the few at the expense of the many;
the combinations of the poorer classes for the defense of their interests
and claims; . . . the world-wide dissemination of the same teachings that led
to the French Revolution--all are tending to involve the whole world in a
struggle similar to that which convulsed France. {Mar 146.4}
Such are the
influences to be met by the youth of today. To stand amidst such upheavals they
are now to lay the foundations of character. {Mar 146.5}
In every
generation and in every land the true foundation and pattern for character
building have been the same. The divine law, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, . . . and thy neighbour as thyself" (Luke 10:27),
the great principle made manifest in the character and life of our Saviour, is
the only secure foundation and the only sure guide. {Mar 146.6}
“The battle
of Armageddon is soon to be fought. He on whose vesture is written the name,
King of kings and Lord of lords, leads forth the armies of heaven on white
horses, clothed in fine linen, clean and white.
“Every form
of evil is to spring into intense activity. Evil angels unite their powers with
evil men, and as they have been in constant conflict and attained an experience
in the best modes of deception and battle, and have been strengthening for
centuries, they will not yield the last great final contest without a desperate
struggle. All the world will be on one side or the other of the question. The battle
of Armageddon will be fought, and that day must find none of us sleeping. Wide
awake we must be, as wise virgins having oil in our vessels with our lamps . . .
Scenes of stupendous interest are right upon us.”—7 Bible Commentary, 982.
“When the
protection of human laws shall be withdrawn from those who honor the law of
God, there will be, in different lands, a simultaneous movement for their
destruction. As the time appointed in the decree draws near, the people will
conspire to root out the hated sect. It will be determined to strike in one
night a decisive blow, which shall utterly silence the voice of dissent and
reproof.
“The people
of God—some in prison cells, some hidden in solitary retreats in the forests
and the mountains—still plead for divine protection, while in every quarter
companies of armed men, urged on by hosts of evil angels, are preparing for the
work of death. It is now, in the hour of utmost extremity, that the God of
Israel will interpose for the deliverance of His chosen. Saith the Lord; ‘Ye
shall have a
song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as
when one goeth . . . to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Mighty One
of Israel. And the Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard, and shall
show the lighting down of His arm, with the indignation of His anger, and with
the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones.’
Isaiah 30:29, 30.”—Great Controversy, 635.
“To us who
are standing on the very verge of their fulfillment, of what deep moment, what
living interest, are these delineations of the things to come—events for which,
since our first parents turned their steps from Eden, God’s children have
watched and waited, longed and prayed! At this time, before the great final
crisis, as before the world’s first destruction, men are absorbed in the
pleasures
and the
pursuits of sense. Engrossed with the seen and
transitory, they have lost sight of the unseen and eternal. For the things that
perish with the using, they are sacrificing imperishable riches. Their minds
need to be uplifted, their views of life
to be broadened. They need to be aroused from the lethargy of worldly dreaming.
“From the
rise and fall of nations as made plain in the pages of Holy Writ, they need to
learn how worthless is mere outward and worldly glory. Babylon, with all its
power and its magnificence, the like of which our world has never since
beheld,— power and magnificence which to the people of that day seemed so
stable and enduring,—how completely has it passed away! As ‘the flower of
the grass’ it
has perished. So perishes all that has not God for its foundation. Only that
which is bound up with His purpose and expresses His character can endure. His
principles are the only steadfast things our world knows.”—Education, 183.
“The time is
not far distant when the test will come to every soul. The observance of the
false sabbath will be urged upon us. The contest will be between the
commandments of God and the commandments of men. Those who have yielded step by
step to worldly demands and conformed to worldly customs will then yield to the
powers that be, rather than subject
themselves to derision, insult, threatened imprisonment, and death. At that
time the gold will be separated from the dross. True godliness will be clearly
distinguished from the appearance and tinsel of it. Many a star that we have
admired for its brilliance will then go out in darkness. Those who have assumed
the ornaments of the sanctuary, but are not clothed with Christ’s
righteousness, will then appear in the shame of their own nakedness.
Firmament of
Chosen ones -- “Among earth’s inhabitants, scattered in every land, there are
those who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Like the stars of heaven, which
appear only at night, these faithful ones will shine forth when darkness covers
the earth and gross darkness the people. In heathen Africa, in the Catholic
lands of Europe and of South America, in China, in India, in the islands of the
sea, and in all the dark corners of the earth, God has in reserve a firmament
of chosen ones that will yet shine forth amidst the darkness, revealing clearly
to an apostate world the transforming power of obedience to His law. Even now
they are appearing in every nation, among every tongue and people; and in the
hour of deepest apostasy, when Satan’s supreme effort is made to cause ‘all,
both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond,’ to receive, under penalty
of death, the sign of allegiance to a false rest day, these faithful ones,
‘blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke,’ will ‘shine as
lights in the world.’ Revelation :16; Philippians 2:15. The darker the night,
the more brilliantly will they shine.”— Prophets and
Kings, 188-189.
“While the
Lord has not promised His people exemption from trials, He has promised that
which is far better. He has said, ‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be’ . . .
If you are called to go through the fiery furnace for His sake, Jesus will be
by your side, even as He was with the faithful three in Babylon. Those who love
their Redeemer will rejoice at every opportunity of sharing with Him
humiliation
and reproach. The love they bear their Lord, makes suffering for His sake
sweet.
“In all ages
Satan has persecuted the people of God. He has tortured them and put them to
death; but in dying they became conquerors. They revealed in their steadfast
faith a mightier One than Satan. Satan could torture and kill the body, but he
could not touch the life that was hid with Christ in God. He could incarcerate
in prison walls, but he could not bind
the spirit. They could look beyond the gloom to the glory, saying: ‘I reckon
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us’ . . .
“The church
of God, hated and persecuted by the world, are educated and disciplined in the
school of Christ. They walk in narrow paths on earth; they are purified in the
furnace of affliction. They follow Christ through sore conflicts; they endure
self-denial, and experience bitter disappointments; but their painful
experience teaches them the guilt and woe of sin, and they look upon it with
abhorrence. Being partakers of Christ’s sufferings, they are destined to be
partakers of His glory. In holy vision the prophet saw the triumph of the
people of God. He says: ‘I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and
them that had gotten the victory . . . stand on the sea of glass, having the
harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song
of the Lamb.’ ”—Sons and Daughters of God, 74.
“The thought
to be kept before students is that time is short and that they must make speedy
preparation for doing the work that is essential for this time . . . . I am bidden
to say to you that you know not how soon the crisis will come. It is stealing
gradually upon us, as a thief. The sun shines in the heavens, passing over its
usual round, and the heavens still declare the glory of God; men are
pursuing
their usual course of eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and
giving in marriage; merchants are still engaged in buying and selling;
publications are still issuing one upon another; men are jostling one against
another, seeking to get the highest place; pleasure lovers are still attending theaters, horse races, gambling hells,
and the highest excitement prevails; but probation’s hour is fast closing, and
every case is about to be eternally decided. There are few who believe with
heart and soul that we have a heaven to win and a hell to shun; but these show
their faith by their works.”—Counsels to Parents Teachers, p. 414.
“Christ will
never abandon the soul for whom He has died. The soul may leave Him, and be
overwhelmed with temptation; but Christ can never turn from one for whom He has
paid the ransom of His own life. Could our spiritual vision be quickened, we
should see souls bowed under oppression and burdened with grief, pressed as a
cart beneath sheaves, and ready to die in discouragement. We should see angels flying swiftly to aid
these tempted ones, who are standing as on the brink of a precipice. The angels
from heaven force back the hosts of evil that encompass these souls, and guide
them to plant their feet on the sure foundation. The battles waging between the
two armies are as real as those fought by the armies of this world, and on the
issue of the spiritual conflict eternal destinies depend.
“To us, as to
Peter, the word is spoken, ‘Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift
you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.’ Thank God,
we are not left alone.
“We are
coming to the crisis. Let us stand the test manfully, grasping the hand of
Infinite Power. God will work for us. We have only to live one day at a time,
and if we get acquainted with God, He will give us strength for what is coming
tomorrow. Grace sufficient for each day, and every day will find its own
victories, just as it finds its trials. We shall have the power of the Highest
with us, for we shall be clad with the armor of Christ’s righteousness. We have
the same God that has worked for His people in ages past. Jesus stands by our
side, and shall we falter?— No, as the trials come, the power of God will come
with them. God will help us to stand in faith on His Word, and when we are
united, He will work with special power in our behalf.”—My Life Today, 94.
“As Jesus
rested by faith in the Father’s care, so we are to rest in the care of our
Saviour. If the disciples had trusted in Him, they would have been kept in
peace. Their fear in the time of danger revealed their unbelief. In their
efforts to save themselves, they forgot Jesus; and it was only when, in despair
of self-dependence, they turned to Him that He could give them help.
“How often
the disciples’ experience is ours! When the tempests of temptation gather, and
the fierce lightnings flash, and the waves sweep over us, we battle with the
storm alone, forgetting that there is One who can help us. We trust to our own
strength till our hope is lost, and we are ready to perish. Then we remember
Jesus, and if we call upon Him to save us, we shall not cry in vain.
Though He
sorrowfully reproves our unbelief and self-confidence, He never fails to give
us the help we need. Whether on the land or on the sea, if we have the Saviour
in our hearts, there is no need of fear. Living faith in the Redeemer will
smooth the sea of life, and will deliver us from danger in the way that He knows
to be best.”—Desire of Ages, 336.