---
Title: Signs in the English Heavens (1855)
Description: Leading article on the Hyde Park riots of 1855 as a sign of popular anger against the English aristocracy and of the coming revolution.
Author: Karl Marx
Date: 1855-07-28
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/originales/1855%20Signs%20in%20the%20English%20Heavens
---


*Published without signature as a leading article in the* New-York Daily Tribune*, No. 4453, July 28, 1855, p. 4; attributed to Karl Marx by MEGA² (I/14), which considers the authorship doubtful and the article revised by the editors of the Tribune. Text after the original print of the newspaper (Library of Congress, Chronicling America). [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/1855%20Se%C3%B1ales%20en%20el%20cielo%20ingl%C3%A9s)*

Though the recent popular demonstrations in Hyde Park in London are local in their character and small in their objects, they still are straws on the current of public opinion, which indicate with sufficient clearness the direction of its flow. The masses of what are called “the “people” of London have little respect for anything beyond beef and beer. Still they are usually decent, devoted to work, and decorous to the privileged orders. They are not given, unless in moods of special roughness, to breaking into such bursts of anger as they have now exhibited on two occasions successively, and which seem to give fatal sign that the little prestige left to aristocracy by the Crimean blunders is fluttering faint and low. Neither can it be doubted that the contemptuous manner in which the feelings of the people have been treated in recent discussions in Parliament—especially by Mr. Dundas, who with jaunty arrogance, to the delight of that corrupt portion of British aristocracy who infest brothels, barracks and gambling-houses, calls a large portion of his working countrymen “canaille” and advises the crash of a six-pounder—will have the effect of swelling this anger and irritation of the masses, already galled by sores of long standing and excited by daily disclosures of the imbecility of the ruling classes.

Too much stress must not be laid on the silence and long-accustomed servility of the English people; and though we have not seen in the recent Reform movement a principle sufficiently strong to grasp the popular heart, and do not desire to exaggerate the causes or consequences of these recent riots, still all these stirrings in different directions give signs of some slight heaving of the popular heart. It must not be forgotton that this people of England pride themselves on being practical, and have an inveterate dislike, save at election times, when they make up their mind “to see it out,” to all talking, theorizing and declaiming. They simply wait until what they deem some huge wrong is impending, and then, forgetting their ordinary deference, go straight to the wrong-doer, to either force him to draw back or strangle him. The middle class of England, as a body, are undoubtedly as corrupt as the higher, without being redeemed by that doubtful but showy kind of chivalry which sometimes surrounds the other. But the myriads of the toiling masses have equal contempt for the pretension of the one and the meanness of the other. If the working out of revolution ever falls into their hands, the cry will be to both: “Your throat or our rights.” In the recent debates in the English Parliament Mr. Cobden and the representatives of the middle class have exhibited even greater awe of anything like revolution than the aristocracy.

Neither must it be imagined that republicanism finds no life because it is not spoken of. The English people have sense enough not to speak the forbidden word which would only expose them to an indictment of high treason, without achieving any good; but when opportunity brings it, be that sooner or later, *they will work it out*. To-day it is Lord Grosvenor and his mal-apropos bill. To-morrow it may be another lord and another bill. Again it may be a German Prince and his half sage, half serf-like admonition. Next it may be the Queen herself, if she is found following too closely upon the unlawful advice of her lawful husband. In all and every instance, when the people have stood up and spoken, Rulers and Lords have given way. In this they have found safety.

But though the occasion for what dwells at the heart to find utterance has not yet come, Republican sentiments do not the less prevail, though perhaps unnoticeable, not alone among the working classes, but among the members, and ablest members, of the House of Commons. The more thoughtful desire, it is true, to advance to it with safe and steady steps; but many would even run the risk and make the revolutionary bound.

Revolutions in England and France, in Berlin and Vienna, will ever take the world by surprise. They will not come logically to please the professional logic-hewer, or judiciously to please the theorizing reformer, or dramatically to please the poets and the ladies; they will fall as the rain falls from heaven, suddenly, but usually not without some portentous clouds, palpable to all bent on seeing. The smoke of the Crimean battle-field is the cloud. These Hyde Park and Reform gatherings and ever-recurring ministerial crises are the rain; the first faint showers. The tornado has yet to come, but it is advancing.