The Erosion, Breaking, and Betrayal of the Moral Economy

The final chapter looks back at the cases of mutiny through several different lenses. First we use Wright Mills’s notion of Vocabularies of Motive that takes what actors say they are doing as opposed to how we might interpret that. In effect these act as mobilizations, not descriptions, of action and explore the way leaders channel a general discontent into a particular form of action. Second, the cases are distributed according to whether the mutineers appear to assume the situation is one where the economic or social or political contract has been undermined. This is mirrored on the establishment side by considering whether the actions of the mutineers are perceived to be a fait accompli or the result of misled subordinates or something that actually poses an existential threat to the status quo. Finally, the nature of the individual leaders of mutinies is explored through the frame of the puer robustus, a term used by many philosophers and political commentators to describe those individuals—rule breakers—who invariably end up taking control over mutinies and often paying the price for that leadership.

Mutinies in War

This chapter covers mutinies which occur during the most dangerous times for the establishment: under conditions of war. Theoretically, any collective dissent from a legal order in a military organization is mutiny, and the events over Christmas 1914 along the Western Front in France and Belgium precisely capture this tension, with some calling it a ‘truce’ and others categorically calling it a mutiny—thus ensuring it is not repeated the following Christmas. Next we consider the Russian mutiny of 1917 that, unlike the Potemkin mutiny, occurs in a febrile national context with significant support from the political left. Some of the reverberations of Russia end up in France in 1917, straight after the failed Nivelle offensive, and this also reveals the significance of dashed expectations, as well as the dire consequences of the French state’s response. Within a year the German Navy is convulsed by similar issues, the first time it is crushed because the conditions are inadequate, but the second time, in 1918, against the backdrop of a military catastrophe and political turmoil, it is the mutiny of the German sailors that leads to the toppling of the German state. For the British and Commonwealth armies in France, post 1914, mutinies are rare, but they do occur, and it is serendipity that lends at hand. However, the largest of all British mutinies in wartime occurs in Salerno in 1943, and ironically it is stimulated by loyalty to the regiment, rather than disloyalty to the state.

Mutinies after War

If mutinies are significant threats to those military parties facing defeat during wars, they are still more dangerous to the victors after the war is ended, when those conscripted for the duration of the war are desperate to return home. This chapter covers three such mutinies: those affecting British forces in 1918 and 1919; those facing Canadian forces in 1919; and finally the mutiny that literally grounded the RAF in 1946 in India and the Far East. The first cases occur in the south of England and France as the First World War is ending, but Churchill in particular was keen to retain both naval and army units to continue the fight against the fledgling Bolshevik regime. What is intriguing about these is just how militant the mutineers were and how the British government treated them with kid gloves, unlike those in the British Foreign Labour units who we meet in chapter 6. For the Canadian army the problem starts in Russia but end up in Wales, as the troops kick their heels waiting to return home and frustrations boil over into gunfights near Rhyl in 1919. Finally, we consider the similar issues prevailing over the RAF in India and the Far East as it becomes clear to the subordinates that they are a long way from home and have little immediate prospect of going home—unless they mutiny.

Mutinies in Civil Wars

If mutinies during wartime are amongst the most dangerous to the establishment, mutinies during civil wars generate the most angst, for one-time comrades now become enemies and neither side celebrates success, even if there is a recognition that the day of reckoning has arrived. This chapter begins with the mutinies in the English Civil Wars that saw the Parliamentary side rent between its conservative side, led by Cromwell amongst others, and its radical side, who supported the Levellers. The mutinies also reveal the complexity of the rebels’ cause: some saw the mutiny as a way of securing a more democratic polity, while others were simply intent on securing their backpay before embarking for Ireland to eliminate Irish and Royalist dissent. Nearly 300 years later a similar situation in Russia saw the sailors of Krondstadt rebel against their erstwhile comrades in the Bolshevik Government in a failed attempt to pull the revolution back to its original roots.

Rethinking Mutiny

This chapter begins with defining mutiny and exploring its origins. It considers the nature of military relationships across time before focusing upon the British Army Act (1955) and the American Uniform Code of Military Justice. The issues of mutiny as a collective act, and the active or passive role of those involved in mutinies, are used to illustrate the intricacies of the legal framework which then flows into using cases of mutiny on slave ships to highlight the importance of the historical context. The nature of sovereign power is then used to illustrate both the coercive control over military subordinates and the fragility of that very same coercion. This leads into the way the act of mutiny is socially constructed—in other words, what counts as ‘mutiny’ is a subjective not an objective construction. The chapter concludes with two sections, the first of which lists the ‘Refrains of Mutiny’: the patterns that recur across space and time, from the social construction of mutiny to the importance of establishing who the enemy is, the role of antecedence, the default response of the authorities, the importance of scapegoating, the omnipresence of the phenomena, the role of the heroic leader, the impact of serendipity, the relational nature of leadership, and finally the role of enthralment. The final section focuses on various explanations of mutiny, using material drawn from political revolutions and industrial relations to highlight the similarities and differences between these and mutinies, and relates such disputes to the difference between agonism and antagonism.

Introduction

This chapter opens the debate about mutiny by considering the relationship between mutiny and leadership. Before considering the omnipresence of civil dissent, and the nature of power in military organizations, it explores leadership as a relational activity, rather than an individual competence, and suggests that, although the cases discussed are primarily historical, mutiny remains a permanent possibility. The rest of the chapter outlines the structure of the book, starting with a theoretical review of mutiny, followed by the various case studies: mutinies in revolutionary times; mutinies in the First and Second World Wars; mutinies after the First and Second World Wars; mutinies in Civil Wars; mutinies and ethnicity; dystopian and utopian mutinies; and mutinies against austerity. The final chapter reflects on the nature of the moral economy that underpins organizations and finishes by considering the role of individuals in mutinies.

Dystopian and Utopian Mutinies

Whilst most mutinies relate to wages, conditions, and discipline, some are rooted in far more radical ideas. The leaders of the Batavia mutiny in 1629 were as close to psychopaths as we are likely to meet in this book, and the events that occurred under their rule—and afterwards in their punishments—are positively vile. This in itself says something about the more conventional dreams of most mutineers across time, but some were much closer to a utopian idyll than a dystopian nightmare, and the mutineers on the Bounty in 1789 were surely in this category, choosing to abandon their captain and his supporters in the middle of the ocean and sail away to what they saw as a utopian island. That is not how the British Admiralty saw it, and, once Captain Bligh had undertaken his extraordinary feat of navigation and endurance, they hunted down the mutineers and meted out what they saw as justice. The final mutiny of this chapter, on the Soviet ship the Storozhevoy in 1975, is almost a replay of the Potemkin from seventy years earlier, in that the mutineers assume they will be the spark to a wider revolution, but they also completely misread the political situation and end up being extinguished.

Mutinies in Revolutionary Times

This chapter concerns four mutinies that occur against the background of revolutionary times, when the status quo is under threat, the military subordinates are no longer willing to acquiesce quietly, and the establishment is in a high state of nervous anxiety. The first two mutinies, at Spithead and the Nore in 1797, shook the British Royal Navy to its core: in the face of revolutionary acts across the channel in France, the seamen at Spithead effectively stop working until their claims of better pay and conditions are met. Given the precarious nature of the British Admiralty and government at this time, the mutiny is a success, but the consequences for a very similar mutiny just weeks later at the Nore are catastrophic for the mutineers as the British establishment unveils the mailed fist that it had been unable to deploy at Spithead. A few months later, in the same year, the crew of the Hermione undertake one of the bloodiest mutinies in British naval history, but one aimed at disposing of the officers and escaping to foreign lands, not securing improved pay and conditions. Some of the mutineers disappear for good, while others are hunted down and executed in a show of terror as meticulous as the original mutiny. The final mutiny covered here occurs on the Russian ship the Potemkin in 1905. Once again, the action occurs against the background of revolutionary fervour, but the requisite political support remains inadequate and the mutiny ultimately fails.

Mutinies and Ethnicity

The complexity of the causes of mutinies are captured in this chapter that focuses upon the role of ethnicity. Starting with the British West India Regiment in 1801, we examine the importance of the slave trade in supporting the recruitment to the British Army in the West Indies and consider how the ‘alternatives’ of slavery or forced recruitment are not regarded as alternatives by many ex-slaves. The chapter then moves on to the largest event to rock the early British Empire, the ‘mutiny’ or ‘1st War of Independence’ in India between 1857 and 1858. The nomenclature is a signal of the meaning of the events for different actors involved, and this ambiguity runs into the Curragh ‘Incident’ that has all the hallmarks of a mutiny, except it is staged by the military establishment not by the military subordinates. And if the British thought 1858 was the last time they would see Indian soldiers or sailors mutinying against them, they were wrong: in Singapore in 1915 and then in the Royal India Navy in 1946, the British Empire is forced to look at itself—but chooses not to. Finally, we consider the way British Foreign Labour Battalions were treated in France, compared to the treatment meted out to domestic units, and then consider the role of racism in the Port Chicago mutiny of 1944 which has echoes of the contemporary situation in the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

Mutinies against Austerity

The last empirical chapter considers mutinies under times of austerity, starting with the Chilean Navy and ending with the Invergordon mutiny of the British Royal Navy; both occurred in 1931. The first mutiny, called in response to drastic cuts in wages, terminates with Chilean attacks upon their own fleet, and there were calls to follow that lead in Invergordon. In the event the latter mutiny, also generated by wage cuts, is defused by reducing the cuts to wages and by dividing up the fleet—a classic tactic of the establishment that effectively separated the problems into individual ship’s cases that were much easier to discipline. And whatever the promises made to the various crews in Invergordon, the reality was that many ‘marked men’ were singled out and removed from the navy to prevent the spread of the political ‘contagion’.