The Iron Heel (Paperback)

The structure of this novel takes the form of a diary, written by one Avis Everhard, the wife of socialist firebrand Ernest Everhard, in the early part of the twentieth century. The diary contains footnotes inserted 700 years after the events depicted in the novel, after the socialists won the battle against capitalism. The first part of Avis's account describes her first encounter with Ernest, at a dinner her famous physicist father threw to see how his capitalist friends would deal with a young socialist. Avis predictably falls in love with the virile, intelligent Ernest and quickly falls under his spell. The following chapters describe Avis's conversion to socialism under the tutelage of Ernest. She discovers that the law courts and print media are under the control of industrialists, and the universities and social organizations function as mere shills for big business. Avis's father soon converts as well, as does a bishop who originally opposed Ernest's brash ideas. Ernest continually preaches that the capitalist system will collapse, citing as proof Karl Marx's idea about surpluses. In short, according to Everhard, capitalist countries always produce too much. In order to get rid of this abundance of goods, corporations must move into underdeveloped countries and dump their products. This leads to rapid development and then a new surplus in this region that must then seek another area to develop. Eventually, capitalism will reach a finite limit as all areas of the globe attain development. This eventuality, according to Marx/London, will lead to socialism's triumph.

Of course, the collapse comes quickly when an economic downturn leads to widespread strikes. The plutocracy, which London refers to as the oligarchs, seize power using totalitarian tactics. Relying on laws passed through a corporate friendly congress, the oligarchs sends in troops to crush labor uprisings. The upper classes want all of the wealth, so they squeeze out the middle class in order to dominate everybody else through the creation of giant trusts. Threats soon lead to gunshots as the lower classes battle the rich for control of the country. With the power of the military and institutions on their side, the oligarchs gain control over most of the country and its citizens. The rest of the book describes the civil wars and rebellions that break out in America, with footnotes from the future describing how things eventually turned out. The book concludes with a grim chapter about an enormously bloody uprising in Chicago where the oligarchs and the socialist revolutionaries finally duke it out in large numbers.

The introduction explains that the Ernest character is actually a symbolic representation of London himself. This makes sense because Ernest Everhard is one of those perfect souls who can do no wrong. During the dinner at Avis's house, Ernest holds his own against a slew of highly educated individuals who simply cannot form a coherent argument against socialism. For Everhard, and by extension London, a man who uses "facts" always defeats those who do not. The facts here concern the realities of the working classes and the condition of the factories. Theories cannot and will not solve the problems of capitalist exploitation because these theories assume that business has little or no responsibility for the well being of humanity. I would simply ask Everhard one question: how will you solve the inevitable problem of motivation? That is, under socialism, how will you convince people not to strive for a higher social station? We know how the communist regimes in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe answered this dilemma; they simply killed off anyone who dared question the dictatorship of the proletariat (as if the proletariat ever had any influence whatsoever in any of these governments). In London's futuristic socialist world, one assumes there are no secret police directorates, no political intrigues, and no questioning of the system. Yeah, right. Like every human being will embrace one overarching political regime.

THE IRON HEEL contains copious amounts of action, espionage, political intrigue, and even a little romance. Although I don't agree with London's ideas, at least he knows how to write an appealing story. The book is difficult to classify since it embraces both dystopian and utopian ideas. London never leaves the reader in doubt as to ultimately wins the war for control of the world, and reading about it does provide a measure of amusement that makes THE IRON HEEL a worthy read for socialists and capitalists alike.

"The Iron Heel" was written in 1908 and remains one of the more prophetic novels of the 20th century. His track record with regards to a national secret police agency, the rise of Fascism, the creation of attractive suburbs for the middle class while the unemployed and menials live in "ghettoes," is markedly better than that of Edward Belleamy's "Looking Backward," Aldoux Huxley's "Brave New World," or George Orwell's "1984," the novels that are usually lauded and judged by their prescience in terms of utopian literature.

The novel presents the story of the American revolutionary Earnest Everhard, as told by his wife Avis, who is actually the more effective revolutionary leader. London tells how the manuscript was unknown for seven centuries, to be discovered long after the final triumph of socialist democracy in the yar 419 B.O.M. Avis Everhard describes the struggles of the working masses against the oligarchy, and how they were ruthlessly suppressed, especially in the Chicago Commune that is the main setting for the action. There is a strong current of violence, with Black Hundreds wrecking the socialist presses,a bomb exploding in the House of Representatives, and revolutionaries being hunted down by the military arm of the government known as the Iron Heel. The Everhard Manuscript breaks off in the middle of a sentence, a footnote explaining that history does not know if the author escaped or was captured.

The story is somewhat atypical for London in that it does not represent the white supremacist and male dominant vision of the world we usually find in his novels. London's message is the blatant warning that if you allow the Revolution to be defeated, then the ruling class will "grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces." Ultimately "The Iron Heel" is a novel whose importance clearly outstrips its literary quality. The problem is that with the end of World War II and the defeat (essentially) of Fascism that London's novel was no longer of interest as the world was confronted with a new set of problems. Yet, London's dytopian novel is one of the works in that genre that deserves to be reconsidered more often.