Celebrate, Peasants!

- The Royal Wedding

By Prof. Rosa Zetkin, June 2011.
The institution of monarchy has been an important tool for the ruling class in Britain. In the
17thcentury, as a result of class compromise between the old feudal class and the emerging
capitalist class, the monarchy in Britain survived and has continued to serve the interests of
the capitalist system. Engels wrote in The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845)
that the English working-man respects neither Lords nor Queen. The bourgeois, while in
reality allowing them but little influence, yet offers to them personally a sham worship.
Monarchy played some role for the British Empire to colonise vast areas of the planet, causing
slavery, misery, death and destruction under the pretext of modernity and developing
civilisation.
During the early decades of 20th century, the republican movement could defeat the ruling
class in the south of Ireland. However, the Labour Partys domination over the working class
movement in Britain and its politics of class compromise has prevented such a movement
developing further. Since the late 19th century, when capitalism developed to its final stage,
imperialism, the monarchy has gone through some changes. The imperialist ruling class in
Britain has not been able to prevent the decline of its empire. In fact, after the World War II,
British imperialism lost its top position to US imperialism. However, the institution of
monarchy has been an integral part of the ruling class in sustaining its rule over the people of
this country, its colonies and its semi-colonies.
The current concrete condition shows that the global monopoly capitalist system is in
deepening crisis. Also, since the global economic recession in 2007, the ruling class in Britain
has not been able to find any effective solution. Waging wars against the oppressed peoples of
Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya; more suppression at home and curbing civil liberties;
further privatisation of what is left of the public services; introducing massive budget cuts to
overcome the governments self inflicted colossal debt, etc., have so far had the opposite
effects. In general, these policies have deepened the crises, intensified peoples resistance in
Britain and abroad, as well as causing more divisions within the ruling class.
Economic crisis
The ruling class in Britain, their think tanks and the media have deceitfully insisted that the
reasons for the recession were the deregulatory financial policies and the greed of a few
individuals and bankers. They insist that the accumulation of bad debt has led to the credit
crunch. In fact, they deliberately conceal the truth from the people, that these factors are
only by-products, but inseparable aspects, of the irresolvable contradictions of the monopoly
capitalist system and of ruling class corruption.
So far quantitative easing has to some extent disguised the depth and breadth of the
recession. The coalition government amidst the economic crisis is aggressively implementing
policies to overcome the crisis. But in fact, its main purpose is to safeguard the interest of
monopoly capitalists. On this basis, the government is endlessly awarding top bankers,

managers and its own corrupt politicians. At the same time, it has initiated a long period of
austerity for the people, mainly wrenching the working class. Indeed the global economic
crisis is persevering. All imperialist states including the British, are transferring the main
portion of the crisis to the countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, causing further
poverty, wars and misery for billions of people.
Political crisis
Despite devastating Iraq, the Iraqi peoples fierce resistance against the occupation of their
country turned the US-British colonial project into a humiliating defeat. The military
aggression and occupation of Afghanistan is also heading towards a shameful disaster for both
ruling classes in Britain and the US. Today, there are many rebellions against the overt
dictatorial regimes, installed and backed by the West to suppress the people of countries in
North Africa and the Middle East. These rebellions have further exposed the true nature of
Western democracy. Moreover, direct military intervention to control and suppress peoples
rebellions in Libya and Bahrain has caused outrage around the world against the US, British
and French ruling classes.
In Britain, when the parliamentary expenses scandal was revealed and the tip of the iceberg
of ruling class corruption surfaced, numerous corrupt politicians, including the leaders of the
three major parties, were desperately striving to hide the following. However, the exposure of
their corruption caused further breakdown of peoples confidence and intensification of
contradictions within the ruling class, weakening their political structures, particularly the
parliament.
According to a survey by the Committee on Standards in Public life in 2008, only 29% of
people trust politicians to tell the truth, as against 93% who trust doctors and 84% who trust
head teachers. A YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph in February 2008 showed that only 4% of
people believe that MPs put the country before themselves, and 79% agree with the
statement: Most MPs use public office to make money improperly. The damage extends far
beyond one party, and a long-term repair, if possible at all, could take decades.
The royal family today
The parasitic ruling system in Britain, particularly its bourgeois democracy and monopoly
capitalist economy, is entangled in a deep crisis and is increasingly losing the confidence of
the people. The inability of the two major parties to win outright in the last election is one
example. Evidently, the ruling class politicians and economists are unable to provide any
proper solution to reverse this detrimental trend.
For a growing number of the working class and the masses it is becoming increasingly evident
that the existing political system is inherently flawed and its ruling politicians are corrupt and
incompetent. Today, people are generally fed up with the ruling politicians, and the objective
situation is compelling the working class, particularly the youth, to seek a way out of these
unfair, insecure and unstable living conditions.

Regarding the royal family, a very small portion of decades of scandals have been exposed,
such as Andrews involvement with the arms trade and accepting bribery, Margarets
addiction and affairs, Charles continuing his affair with Camilla even after his marriage,
Dianas contradictions with the royal family, Dianas death and subsequent cover ups, Harry
going to a club with a swastika arm band, etc. The ruling class has always engineered the
truth, portraying the royal family as the symbol of moral authority with decent human and
family values. But even the minor exposures of facts have revealed debauched behaviour of
the members of this corrupt and dysfunctional family, including the Queen (people do not
forget her heartless and adverse behaviour, when Tony Blair compelled her to express sorrow
at Dianas death.)
The institution of monarchy is a historical baggage hindering democracy and progress. The
royal family is sitting at the top of a pyramid of pomposity, nepotism, white-supremacist
male-dominated chauvinism, ignorance and outdated religious idealism. This institution is
based on the old feudalistic hereditary rules, yet it strengthens the monopoly capitalist
relations and its ruling structures in Britain. As with the rest of the ruling class, the
monarchys luxurious, parasitic life feeds on the blood and sweat of millions of people in
oppressed countries and exploitation of the working class in Britain.
The royal wedding
The royal wedding is intended as a diversion from the pains of the unjust austerity measures
introduced by the coalition government. Initial reactions to these measures even before their
implementation included fury, demonstrations and occupations, particularly by university
students. Despite police violence, mass arrests and severe punishments, thousands of anticuts activists have courageously continued their activities all over the country. In fact, the
situation is simmering with rage.
In this explosive situation, the royal wedding is used by the ruling class to divide the people
and unite the enemies of the people. The royal wedding promotes the notion of reactionary
nationalism of the ruling class. Such a notion is propagated through the three major ruling
class parties, governmental departments and organisations and councils, as well as trade
unions, charities, and reactionary political parties and organisations such as UKIP, SNP, DUP,
BNP, EDF to win some sections of the people over to the side of the ruling class.
Councils have been instructed by the government to organise street parties, getting
neighbourhoods involved and vehemently blocking any opposition. The media has already
started to promote this event one-sidedly, censoring any different views. The police and
security forces are preparing to crush any serious opposition on the spot. Church of England
is working on the spiritual side of this event, opening its exclusive channels for gods blessing.
Merchandise such as coins, cards, posters, cups and T-shirts are being produced to make
more profit for a handful of bootlickers, who already have millions.

The whole plan is a sham. Not a single right minded person would accept that the royal
wedding is an indication of social mobility, when the state is viciously cutting allowances of
the disabled, targeting the incapacity benefit, freezing workers salaries, as well as tripling
tuition fees. Nor can millions of people who have been tricked by the banks and credit card
companies and amassed backbreaking debt sympathise with David Camerons assertion that
happiness is not measured by wealth. Why does Cameron not say this to the Banks and
Building Societies and ask them to stop repossessing peoples homes at the rate of nearly 100
a day?!
Royal wedding in this situation?!
In 1644, Oliver Cromwell told MPs, I find the country bleeding, nay, almost dying. What
made him furious was not simply that people were suffering, but that the state was the
problem. He raged, The people are dissatisfied in every corner of the nation. All men laying
at our doors the non-performance of these things that had been promised.
The state has grossly failed and cant deliver even the most basic services for the people
competently. British schoolchildren compare dismally with similarly aged pupils in other
countries and in previous generations. Illiteracy and innumeracy have become major issues
for working class children and their parents. Many secondary schools, particularly in big
cities, are riddled with drugs, and the underage pregnancy rate is the highest in Europe.
Schools dont simply underperform; they systematically mask that underperformance through
manipulated examination grades. Universities have become huge businesses and the coalition
government has already made swingeing cuts, introducing 9,000 tuition fees and cutting the
educational maintenance allowance. These savage attacks will close the doors to higher and
further education for a generation of young people.
The NHS has already become a colossal profit-driven system through Hospital Trusts,
subcontracting different services to the private sector, giving priority and a different quality of
service to private patients and promoting the policy of putting personal income before
patients, even for GPs. In fact, the states policies have increasingly transformed the NHS into
a gigantic profit-making machine for different private companies at the expense of proper
health-care for the people as well as the workers of the NHS. Today, the healthcare system in
Britain is more likely to kill its charges than in any other industrialised country in the world.
Hospitals dont simply fail to cure people; they often infect them with diseases unrelated to
their original complaints.
There is no justice for the working class. Many, such as Birmingham 6 and Nottingham 4, on
the basis of fabricated evidence are imprisoned for a long time. Despite factual evidence, in
cases such as Steven Lawrence, racist murderers are often set free. Since 1999, nearly 400
people have died in police custody, the majority of whom were black youth. Cold blooded
murder, such as Jean Charles Dmenezes and Ian Tomilson, is simply whitewashed. The
justice system is so biased and corrupt that not even one police officer has been indicted with
murder. The police force is called The Law, but in fact, it is above the law.

Britain has the highest prison population in Europe, and one of the highest crime rates.
Prisons dont turn inmates away from reoffending; they make it more likely. It is a fact that
many prisoners become addicted to drugs while in prison, and thus wholly in the hands of the
state. Rampant drug use and addiction in prisons actually shows that the state with its strict
border controls has a powerful hand behind drugs smuggling and distribution within the
whole country.
Millions of working class pensioners, who have contributed to society for the whole of their
working lives, suffer greatly, simply because they cannot afford to have decent meals, proper
medical care or even heat their homes, and thousands die every winter. More than 25,000
people died in England and Wales last winter as a direct result of cold weather, (The
Guardian 28 Oct 2006). According to the ONS, 36,700 people died from cold weather from
December 2008 to March 2009. This was the highest number since the winter of 1999/2000
and a rise of 49% compared with 2007. In recent years food and particularly fuel prices have
soared, causing further pressure on these working class pensioners, many of whom wish to die
before they freeze to death.
Due to a constant increase of the aging population the state has deliberately allowed an influx
of migrant workers, legally and illegally, into this country. The population of illegal
immigrant workers is estimated at nearly one million. Many of these workers are not only
paid well below the official minimum wage, but they are also deprived of basic human and
legal rights and live in wretched conditions. Many of them live as a group in one room to be
able to pay the high cost of rent and others sleep in the workplace because they cannot afford
to pay any rent. The majority of these workers are young men who, despite hard work, usually
live on one meal a day to be able to send a little money for the survival of their families back
home. These workers are, however, an essential part of the monopoly capitalist economy in
Britain, producing super-profits for the housing, food and service industries.
In the 1970s there were nearly half a million workers in the coal industry, and industrial
workers constituted an important part of the work force in this country. The working class
movement, especially the trade union movement (despite its leadership being part of the state
machinery), was a considerable force. Since then, however, the ruling class has directed
society into a whirlpool. The coal industry, which was privatised in 1994, has almost
disappeared and other industries have largely closed down or been transferred to China, India
and other countries to make super-profits. In fact, manufacturing, including military
hardware, only accounts for 12% of the total workforce in Britain. Roads are choked and full
of potholes, railways are crumbling, airports are unbearable, houses are flooded, cities are
polluted, meadows and forests will be erased.
Conclusion
In general, during the last thirty years, all major ruling class parties in Britain have vigorously
pursued policies for the implementation of the extensive privatisation and diminishing of the
welfare system. Hard-working families who constitute the majority of the population and
contribute the most to society are increasingly wrenched financially, facing numerous growing

problems to sustain a basic level of life in the first industrial country in the world. The ruling
classs policies have created a quagmire of debt and corruption threatening every aspect of the
social development of the working class and the masses in Britain. The royal wedding is a
sham; it is planned by the state to divert the people from the serious problems that it really
faces.