Dan Jones wrote in Summer of Blood:
“Between the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the end of the fourteenth century, large numbers of the common people of England paid their rent for the small plots of land that fed them in the form of compulsory, hereditary labor service for a lord.” Jones further noted that “lordship existed everywhere…there was little freedom to swap lords and in many areas serfdom (the total ownership of a servant by his or her master) still ran strong.”
These “common people of England,” were subjects to their lord. They had limited rights, limited chances of advancement, and limited freedom. Private ownership of land was beyond the reach for most of them. They belonged to a lower class than their lords. Their access to travel was restricted. Deprived of opportunities their lives were subject to the whims of their masters. The lords would live by one set of rules and the subjects were restricted by another set of rules.
Today there are people who ...
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
