SOLIDARITY AND HISTORY BOARD GAME

SOLIDARITY AND HISTORY BOARD GAME

Rules

1. Make your own board in a Monopoly style, numbering the squares thus: 1-10 on the first side of squares; 11-19 on the second; 20-28 on the third, and 29-36 on the fourth side. Also take a die or dice from another game you might have or make your own spinner with numbers 1-6. Use tokens from another game or coins, pebbles, nuts etc.

2. I made a collage for the large rectangular area within the outside circuit of 36 squares. You might wish to leave yours blank to save time. Or write SOLIDARITY AND HISTORY BOARD GAME. Or whatever.

3. Then add titles to each square. Each title will have an explanation and a score revealed by the judge (See SOLIDARITY AND HISTORY THE CLASS CONFLICT BOARD GAME CLASS CONFLICT SCORES: COMRADE OR OPPRESSOR? This follows this list of rules.)

Here follows the titles and numbers BUT YOU ARE AT LIBERTY TO CHANGE THESE (and, of course, the linking information at SOLIDARITY AND HISTORY THE CLASS CONFLICT BOARD GAME CLASS CONFLICT SCORES: COMRADE OR OPPRESSOR): 1. Alpha and Omega 2 Fire 3 Stonehenge 4 Romans 5 Vikings 6 Normans 7 Peasants’ Revolt 8 Witches 9 The Reformation 10 The Civil War 11 Enclosure 12 War, Empire and Enslavement 13 Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft and Edmund Burke 14 Turnpikes and bread prices 15 Water power and steam power 16 General Ludd 17 Peterloo 18 Tolpuddle Martys 19 Captain Swing 20 Workhouses 21 Enslavement 22 Chartism 23 Wages and Profits 24 The Age of Empire 25 Votes for Women 26 The Great War 27 Revolution and the end of the War 28 The General Strike 29 Spain 30 The Great Depression 31 Churchill and the Second World War 32 The Cold War 33 Decolonisation and the end of Empire 34 Thatcher 35 Contested culture wars 36 The Anthropocene and the Capitalocene

4. The game can be for 1-4 players or it could be played in paired teams (therefore up to 8 participants. But, again, you can alter the rules to suit the occasion). The judge is elected by the players.

5. Players throw dice. The person with the lowest score goes first. If a tie, obvs have another throw until a lowest score is achieved.

6. Players throw dice in turn. If your score is an even number then the judge will read your class-position and your score for this place in time and space. Ditto, if an odd number. If a player throws a 1 then they throw again after hearing the judge’s verdict on their move of 1. Players keep a record of their class-position scores. (This outlook about odd and even is derived from the proverbial wisdom of an association of even-handedness with fair dealing. Players can change this rule of course.)

7. Players go around the board three times. Or whatever. If a player lands upon a square that they have already visited then they move to the next one, btw.

8. At the end of three circuits, or ‘whatever’ (for example, a time limit), the player with the highest class-comrade points is the winner and, in celebration, the judge makes everyone a cup of tea.

SOLIDARITY AND HISTORY THE CLASS CONFLICT BOARD GAME CLASS CONFLICT SCORES: COMRADE OR OPPRESSOR?

1. Alpha and Omega

You say fire will destroy life both animal and floral.

+ 3

You help keep a fire going to clear the landscape.

Minus 2

You are ordered to help in the construction of ‘Stonehenge’.

You object to forced labour

and are banished. + 2

You order the construction of a massive stone monument

And consequent forced labour.

Minus 5

You revolt against Roman control + 5

You welcome Roman civilisation: mosaics and hypocausts!

Minus 5

You adulterate Viking strong drink

with magic mushrooms and incapacitate them.

+ 10

You tell the Vikings where to ford the Thames.

Minus 10

You tell the Norman Domesday Book commissioner

lies and share hidden crops. +8

You are a Domesday Book commissioner

and tour the shires. Minus 10

You join the Peasants’ Revolt

and march on London. + 1O

You stay loyal to Lord and King

in the Peasants’ Revolt. Minus 10

You demand the burning of women as witches

when the crops fail. Minus 10

You say that there is no god,

no devil and no witchcraft when crops fail or grow.

It is weather and nature. +10

You support the Reformation

because of the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.

+ 5

You support the Reformation because

you want the land and estates of the monasteries.

Minus 5

You join the Diggers at St George’s Hill,

Proclaiming ‘All should be held in Common’. +10

You support King Charles,

asserting ‘The Divine Right of Kings’.

Minus 10

You tear down fences and hedges

in riots against enclosure. +10

You take over common land with fences

and hedges and privatise. Minus 10

You speak out against wars, enslavement

and Empire. +10

You say that war, enslavement and Empire

bring wealth to the country. Minus 10

You read Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man

and Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women

to regulars in the tavern. +10

You read Edmund Burke’s

Reflections on the Revolution in France

and say common people are ‘a swinish multitude’.

Minus 10

You smash down turnpike gates at toll houses

and riot against the high price of bread too. + 20

You invest in a turnpike trust and hoard wheat

to ensure the price goes up. Minus 20

You tell the mill-owner that water power

is not only cheaper than steam but it’s healthier too.

+10

You invest in steam power because

you can control the workforce more rigorously

and keep their wages lower. Minus 20

You say the new machines mean shoddy cloth

as well as unemployment, lower rates and pay. ‘

Smash those machines!’, says General Ludd. + 10

You say: Machines and towns and mills mean progress.

We have all to submit to the march of progress.

What chance do we stand against the army up here?

Minus 10

You march proudly to St Peter’s Fields in 1819,

banner aloft, for universal suffrage. Including votes for women.

+ 15

You agree with the Home Secretary and the Prince Regent:

the yeomanry did a splendid job keeping order.

Minus 20

You join the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union

You support a general strike.

+10

You refuse to join the demonstration

in support of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Minus 10

You write a Captain Swing letter demanding

higher wages and an end to threshing machines

which take away your winter work.

+10

You inform on your workmates and tell the squire

who wrote the Swing letter and

who smashed the threshing machines. Minus 20

You campaign against workhouses. It criminalises poverty and punishes the poor. It splits families up. + 10

‘If we give the poor support outside of a workhouse it only makes them idle and profligate. Conditions inside the workhouse should be worse than the worst paid job outside. Lesser eligibility.’ Minus 20

You campaign for the abolition of enslavement.

You show the evils of the Middle Passage,

the cruelty on the plantations and the shame of the triangular trade.

+10

You say workers in British mills are treated

worse than slaves on plantations

in the West Indies.

You get compensation money at abolition

and invest it in railways.

Minus 30

You join the Chartists:

You say that moral force is not enough.

Appearing ‘respectable’ and ‘deserving’

of the vote could take for ever.

There must be strikes and threats

if the working class is to get the vote.

‘Physical force’.

+10

You say ‘moral force’ is the path to enfranchisement.

The working class must be respectful,

lawful and patient.

Minus 5

You declare that profits are stolen wages

+10

You say that we can only get higher wages

if the boss makes higher profits

Minus 10

You oppose the Age of Empire

and the carve-up of Africa

as exploitative and immoral.

+10

You say that the British Empire

civilises the world:

You use the phrase,

“White Man’s Burden”.

Minus 10

You chain yourself to railings

And go on hunger-strike

For Votes for Women.

+15

You declare that women are too emotional

And cannot understand politics;

Their place is in the home.

Minus 15

You oppose war in 1914:

‘Workers of the World Unite!’

How can this be a war for democracy

when so many soldiers – and all women –

don’t have the vote?

+15

You pass white feathers in the street.

Minus 15

You read about the Wobblies.

You read about revolution in Russia.

You try to form a soldiers’ soviet

in a British Army mutiny

against the slowness of demobilisation in 1919.

+ 10

You want to fight against the Bolsheviks in Russia

and you volunteer for the Black & Tans

in Ireland.

Minus 15

You are on the picket line throughout

The General Strike.

+ 10

You break the strike by volunteering

To drive trains and deliver food.

Minus 10

You volunteer to go to Spain to aid

the fight against Franco and Fascism.

+15

You support the British policy of neutrality

Even when British ships aiding

The struggle against Franco are bombed.

Minus 15

You go on hunger marches

and the Jarrow Crusade

during the Great Depression.

+10

You support cuts in unemployment benefit,

And you support the Means Test;

You say the government has to balance the budget.

Minus 10

You don’t forget Winston Churchill’s actions

during the coal miners’ strike in South Wales;

his bellicosity during the General Strike, and his attitude

towards demands for Indian independence.

+10

You believe Churchill’s speech

where he likens Labour to the Gestapo

and you vote Tory in the 1945 general election.

Minus 10

During the Cold War, you say the

Americans are protecting capitalism

rather than democracy.

+10

During the Cold War,

You proclaim, ‘

Better Dead than Red.’

Minus 10

You campaign for decolonisation

and the end of Empire,

and against apartheid.

+10

You say Africa and the Third World

is not yet ready for self-rule.

Minus 10

You campaign against Thatcherism

and all its varied attacks on collectivism,

Nationalisation, trade unions,

and the Welfare State.

Plus 10

You argue for self-help,

standing on your own two feet,

Market forces, laisser-faire,

Cuts in social security etc. etc. etc. etc.

Minus 10

You support BLM,

Decolonising the curriculum,

And aid refugees and asylum seekers.

+10

You use the terms ‘Woke’

‘snowflake’, ‘virtue-signalling’

And ‘cultural Marxism’.

You use ‘Marxism’ as a pejorative.

Minus 10

You show how climate change

Was initiated by the British steam-based

Industrial revolution

and the use of more expensive coal over cheaper

Water power, because it meant bosses could control

Their workforce.

You believe Capitalism is the cause of

Climate catastrophe;

‘The Capitalocene’.

+10

You look back to home sapiens;

You say the discovery of fire started it all.

Climate change is down to humanity as a species.

The Anthropocene.

Minus 10

Alpha and Omega