16.01.2014

Review: Full of militant stories but theoretically flawed

Geoff Jones, 'Land of whose fathers? A short history of the Welsh working class', Socialist Party Wales/Plaid Sosialaidd Cymru publication, 2013, pp64, £4

Given the relative paucity of writing on the history of militant leftwing struggle in Wales throughout the past couple of centuries, Geoff Jones’ Land of whose fathers? is a welcome contribution. Despite, however, proclaiming its ability to bolster collective working class self-confidence in preparation for struggles ahead, the work is not without its limitations.

The positive aspects of comrade Jones’ pamphlet are twofold. Firstly, it discusses all significant working class struggles throughout Wales during the period immediately leading up to and after the industrial revolution. Thus, as a result of the growth and spread of world capitalism and its subsequent developmental twists, turns and periods of decline, readers are given a context against which to interpret how events and movements such as the Merthyr Rising in 1831 and Chartism in the 1840s initially rooted and moulded the working class in Wales, as well as how such phenomena helped to establish a vibrant revolutionary tradition in the country.

Secondly, the pamphlet highlights the important political questions. As a result we are informed, for example, not only about the political legacy of the Labour Party and how it has shaped political perspectives, but also why questions relating to the role of the Welsh parliament and devolution are key issues for the working class in Wales in the 21st century.

Yet there are major weaknesses. From the beginning, there is a tendency towards just outlining one event after another. So, whilst it is true that, from the outset, Jones attempts only to “highlight crucial points in the historical struggles of Welsh workers” (p5), the historical account is not cohered by a clear, programmatic perspective. Hence, while the Socialist Party in England and Wales claims to adhere to a “socialist programme” that “can finally send capitalism to the dustbin of history” (p4), in reality this amounts to little more than an economistic perspective of nationalist reformism. And, of course, SPEW nowadays is unable to distinguish the Labour Party, with its six million trade union affiliates, from the Lib Dems and the Tories. Jones therefore writes about the need to establish working class representation that is independent from the perspectives of the various mainstream political parties representing the interests of capital. The Labour Party has been abandoned as a site of struggle ... logically this should be extended to the trade unions, co-ops, etc.

Of course, there is always room for Labourite nostalgia. So, for example, Jones write about the adoption in 1918 of “socialist policy embodied” in Labour’s clause four and its dumping by Tony Blair in 1995 (p33). Similarly, while it is noted that the type of nationalisation that took place between 1945 and 1951 did not involve “any element of workers’ control” (p47), there is no comment on the Labour Party’s overall constitutional conservatism also prevalent throughout those years: a republican challenge to the monarch and institutions of traditional privilege must surely be raised if the working class is to fight for and win state power. Indeed, the Marxism of SPEW is entirely false if it believes that the fight for radical and revolutionary change can be achieved through the prioritisation of economic demands at the expense of, or while downplaying, those demands that are democratic and genuinely political in nature.

Gareth Phillips