By R.W. Morrell

The Heirs to Paine’s Democratic Tradition. By Horst Ihde. P.M. Kemp-Ashraf, Jack Mitchell (Editor), Essays in Honour of William Gallacher, with Supplement: Thomas Spence: The History of Crusonia and Other Writings. Humboldt University Press, Berlin, 1966. pp 354. 15/- 

THIS commemorative volume is something of a botch-potch. Jumbled together are short tributes to Gallacher, extracts from his own writings, a number of essays mostly on literary themes, and a section which re-prints some of Thomas Spence’s work. 

Amongst the wealth of material there is much of pure gold and the essay by Horst Ihde The Heirs to Paine’s Democratic Tradition is a nugget which deserves high as a well reasoned and fair minded assessment of Paine’s influence amongst the revolutionary movements of his own time, and of ours. 

Herr Ihde begins his essay by rightly stressing Paine’s contact with the common people, emphasising his solidarity with the progressive rank and file, and underlining his tremendous contribution to winning converts to the working class movement by the power of his political writing. Ihde quotes to support these claims a letter from the Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information of March 1792, which gives a vivid insight into the impact made by Paine’s Rights of Man on the whole of the British working class movement: 

“We declare that we have derived more true knowledge from the works of Mr. Thomas Paine, entitled Rights of Man, Part the First and Second, than from any author on the subject. The practice as well as principle of government is laid down, in these works, in a manner so clear and irresistibly convincing that the Society do hereby resolve to give their thanks to Mr. Paine for his said two publications… Also, resolve unanimously, that the thanks of this Society be given to Mr. Paine, for the effectionate concern he has shown in his second work on behalf of the poor, the infant, and the aged.” 

This example can serve for many more. When Rights of Man was published it spoke for all men everywhere, and Ihde shows clearly how great was its influence on the revolutionary movements of Britain, France, America, Cuba, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, and Germany. He makes clear, too, Paine’s impact on minds as different as those of Jefferson, Whitman, and Freneau. He places Paine firmly in the broad republic democratic tradition which found its echo in the writing of Jefferson.