Oppression and revolution

 

London's critical utopia

Imagine the world in the XXVII century. Imagine a society in which capitalism as a ruling system has given its way to the Brotherhood of Man. Now, imagine a diary written in 1932 has been found, the biography of a great revolutionist called Ernest Everhard, written by his beloved wife and fellow comrade Avis. You are then presented with a detailed account of the first revolutionaries' struggle to overthrow the Oligarchy, the Plutocracy, the Iron Heel which is the entity that controls the power and wealth of the United States.
The greatness of The Iron Heel is that it speaks on behalf of different people, first of all Ernest, the eloquent socialist hero; Avis, the highly educated girl converted to the Cause of Socialism, and finally the academic notations of a man who now leaves in the utopia envisioned by the revolutionaries.
Through Avis's passionate and subjective record of Ernest's talks on the injustices of the Iron Heel towards the members of the labour class, London creates a first layer of narration, through which he can express his critical analysis of the American class struggle, and possibly his delusion for the failure of the 1905 Russian Revolution. London actually writes the novel in 1908, a period of labour's struggle in the USA against the evergrowing power of corporations that constitutes the suffocating regime Avis and Ernest dream to overthrow.
The second layer of narrative, the perspective of the XXVII century scholar, serves as more than one function; firstly, it represents a utopian age in which the socialist dream has finally been achieved, when people don't even remember certain practises or they find them barbarian; secondly, it balances Avis's account by correcting or explaining certain facts or characters that she talks about. London uses this second narrative-framing voice, both as a device to take distances from Avis's story, but also as yet another way to criticise and to make bitter remarks about his own society.
Description of the utopian society of the XXVII century, that so critically describes those of the XX century, are only hinted in the foreword and footnotes, and the reader is not to know how the centuries' long struggle eventually positively ended with the establishment of the Brotherhood of Man – London is concerned with the description of the present conflicts and does not bother with the explanation of a reality that is, in its nature, utopic. Knowing that there is the future perspective of a fair society is enough to provide for a happy ending that Avis's story, abruptly interrupted in the middle of a sentence, actually does not have.
The Iron Heel is about injustices, violence, conflicts. London shows how these actions are perpetuated by both sides of the “enemy line”, as both Oligarchists and Revolutionaries adopt violent methods to confront each other. However, London's sympathy, and the reader's, cannot help but falling with the rebels, who are striving for change in face of the oppressive status quo.
The society that the Oligarchy shapes and controls through its power relationship and invisible claws still bears remarkable similarities to the present US society, where lobbies and trusts are able to influence government's policies, where freedom of speech is threatened by the laws made ad corporationes, where the poor are denied health insurance or good education. London's text shouldn't be read as prophetical, but as a starting point from which to reflect upon the status of our present society. Do we still live under the Iron Heel? Do we have to wait for other six centuries before getting rid of systems of oppressions? Is Capitalism THE best economic-political-social system we can think of, or is a (modernised) socialist Utopia still a suitable option for designing our society? Food for thought, my friends, but remember: the fight goes on.

Sofia Lotto Persio, 1st year student, LUC