The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth, by Lewis H. Berens

The Diggers were an English group of radicals during the English Civil War period (some say early communists). The movement was begun by Gerrard Winstanley (an ex Leveller) in 1649, and Diggers tried to reform (by "levelling" real property) the existing social order with an agrarian lifestyle based on their ideas for the creation of small egalitarian rural communities.

In April 1649 two 'Diggers', Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, appeared in Whitehall before the leader of the army, Lord Fairfax, to declare that deliverance was at hand - 'God is bringing his people out of slavery. Freedom is restored.' 

This book surveys radical thinking arising from the Reformation, and the Digger writings that pressed for the rights to land. It also includes key texts from the movement

• Digger Manifestoes
• The Appeal to the House of Commons
• The Watchword to the City of London
• Winstanley's 'Utopia'.

The Diggers were regarded by the establishment as dangerous radicals bent on the destruction of the existing social order, and as such were brutally repressed by Cromwell's new Commonwealth. Several digger communities sprang up in 1649 and 1650, but a variety of measures employed by landowners (including violence, beatings, murders, arson, and more) made sure that by 1651 the movement had collapsed.