A Warning from the Past

Last time I thought about the way Margaret Storm Jameson represents Armistice Day in her novel Company Parade (1934). This has led me on to think a bit more about Jameson’s other political fiction of the 1930s, and specifically In The Second Year (1936). Apparently, she considered this to be her best work. The novel is set five years ahead of the time of writing, but this 1941 is a distinctly dystopian future in which the British fascists, the National State Party, have come to power enabled by a disastrous Labour government. A Council of Action has replaced the Cabinet, but it retains a couple of politicians from the old regime and still pretends to 'advise' the Prime Minister. And although ‘Labour’ camps and ‘Training’ camps have sprung up across the country to house dissenters, opponents and the unemployed, the general public seems to remain hopeful that the new regime will be for the better.

But as with most dystopian fiction, the events of Jameson’s novel are taken from the present, not the future. The narrative covers the period April to July during the second year of the new dictatorship and the events that take place mirror those of the second year of National Socialist rule in Germany in 1934. Jameson’s horror at learning of what has come to be known as the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ was her inspiration for the novel. It examines the way in which the dictator consolidates his power by removing many of those who enabled his rise but potentially threaten his future.

The Prime Minister of this British fascist regime is Frank Hillier (see what she did there). He shares many traits with the German Chancellor, and believes in a particular kind of Englishness, one that exudes patriotism but contradicts many of the accepted tropes of British character. The primary narrator, Andrew Hillier (Frank’s second cousin), asks him, “Well, will you allow Englishmen to write and say what they please? ... It used to be an English custom.” But the Prime Minister disputes this, finally arguing, “There is no liberty except in obedience…When the State is your father and mother, you are free again.” (p.26) So no freedom of speech then…

Andrew is also the brother-in-law of Hillier’s right-hand man, Richard Sacker. Intimate friends since their youth, Richard provided the ‘Volunteer’ army that enabled Hillier’s rise to power. But now they are an embarrassment and he wants them, and their robust general, gone. Andrew, on a visit from Norway where he is a professor, and his sister, Lotte, get caught in the crossfire in ways that make the reader think and fear. Andrew is liberal, not politically ambitious and has a disability which diminishes him in the eyes of the fascists. Despite his close ties to power, he offers us an everyman perspective as he explores the regime and skirts around the various conspiracies.

I had not read this book before but was interested to do so having read Crooked Cross by Sally Carson earlier this year. Crooked Cross, republished by Persephone Books to significant acclaim, first appeared in 1934 and is set in Bavaria in the early years of National Socialism. These two novels make for an interesting comparison. Both are chilling reading, in terms of the foresight of the authors who understood the threats facing these countries and present them with great clarity. But also, because so many of those threats seem to be replicated in our own society. Hillier states, “The idea of England – England becoming great again. It’s because of that that I have the right to ask men to obey blindly, like good soldiers.” (p. 142)

Sound familiar?