Land Of Promise

I've recently concluded watching the 4 DVD boxset Land Of Promise that comprises of British documentary films spanning from 1930 to 1950; quite a time was had by all.

What struck me most of all is how close and real the people of the early 1930s films feel in comparison with people of the later films.

The films of 1930s miners may belong to an age of Britain that I am too young to have ever known, but the values and intrinsic brotherly and sisterly understanding of those portrayed reminds me at all times why I am a socialist. These are my brothers and sisters - not my great grandparents. What comes over time and time again is that the working class of Britain were coming to popularly demand socialism. There seems such an expectation that the problems of their day and the injustices of their past will be overcome by the socialism of tomorrow. And that is the promise in the Land Of Promise.

Then war comes. The war-time films are often tedious to watch because they do not seem to represent the humanity of the people they portray - yet the central message of many of them is about how wonderful Britain's democracy is at respecting and recognising each individual's humanity. My brothers and sisters are replaced from the films by cardboard cut-out phonies spouting on about how things are done in a democracy and why their methods ultimately mean the dictatorships will inevitably fail. It all comes across feeling hollow.

Far from being on the brink of eliminating social injustice via working class solidarity and strength, the British are now fed the image of themselves as green field-wandering, level-headed but plucky no-nonsense individuals who come together to fight the crass modernism of the dictators. Under-dogs who will stand up to fight for the survival of 'ways of the past'.

It is striking that the propaganda designed to inspire Britain to fight in the war perpetuates an image of the British as a mediocre people. What a curious people the British must be, that they develop a lump of patriotic pride in their throats when told that despite their absolute mediocrity they are prepared to die defending their mediocre land.

Of course, the story the Ministry of Information developed for the British people is informed by the social conditions of the earlier films : How could they have claimed Britain as an anything other than mediocre when so many people still had to live in horrendous Victorian slum housing? The tragedy for Britain, and perhaps a tragedy for socialism globally, is that this image of the British as a mediocre people turned into a national celebration of mediocrity when victory was finally won.

We all know that some socialistic advances were made after the war; and conventional wisdom is that such things as the NHS were brought about because the working class had sacrificed so much in the war. I think these films portray a slightly different version of history, the demand and movement for social housing and universal healthcare etc belonged to the people of the 1930s. Had there been no war (i.e. no rise of fascism), if you forgive me pulling stuff out of my arse, it may well have been the case that far greater socialist advancements could have been made.

Instead mediocrity became Britain's great badge of honour. In the face of modernity, this plucky Victorian dinosaur had won the war despite no longer being what it once was. And that became the British story, and remains so to this day. Of course, Britain never really won the war, they just survived it. The Russians won the war, but unfortunately they were no longer Communists, they were Stalinists.

The most notable post-war film is the title film itself, Land Of Promise. It is a brilliant film, the various voices of the day thrash out their arguments about how Britain should rebuild and it ends with an impassioned call for Britain to adopt a planned economy.

Instead the Land Of Promise would die a slow death; finally put to a bloody end in 1984's Miners Strikes. All we have left of it are films like these from the 1930s which remind us of a promise that, to the cost of all the workers of the world, went unfulfilled.