The Red Commune of Merthyr, 1871

[Udo Erasmus]

Class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs. The class experience is largely determined by the productive relations into which men are born--or enter involuntarily. Class-consciousness is the way in which these experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms. If the experience appears as determined, class-consciousness does not. We can see a logic in the responses of similar occupational groups undergoing similar experiences, but we cannot predicate any law. Consciousness of class arises in the same way in different times and places, but never in just the same way.
- Edward Thompson, Making of the English Working Class

This week marks the anniversary of when the people of Merthyr rose up and attempted to create a utopian and egalitarian society in 1831!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Which makes it most unfortunate that you've titled the thread as if it were the Paris Commune instead.

 

[butchersapron]

Well worth remembering, well worth celebrating but please 'red commune'?

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Which makes it most unfortunate that you've titled the thread as if it were the Paris Commune instead.

I accidentally typed the date wrong, but you can't edit post titles. While the Merthyr Rising certainly didn't have time to develop the radical forms of democracy of the Paris Commune 40 years later - it was crushed by a thousand troops. I think it is important to defend the record of the Merthyr Rising as an insurrection. The rich and bosses were ejected from the town which was under workers control.

With the exception of Gwyn Alf William's groundbreaking book, somehow this epochal moment in working class history has been overlooked outside of Wales. This is especially strange given the Peterloo Massacre and deportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs in the same period are widely known.

My contention is that this is because of the insurrectionary nature of the rising that saw workers disarming soldiers, even liberal historians can feel at ease with the Tolpuddle Martyrs. And also that Wales has been peripheral to the vision of many English socialist historians.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I always found the reference to Jacobinism in Wales by Gwyn Alf Williams very fertile, in Artisans and Sans-Cullottes he writes:

By this time, factory operatives, 'mechanics' and industrial workers were active in the shadowy popular societies and it was in this dense and dark atmosphere, under a cloud of hostility and repression, that artisan Jacobinism was transmitted face-to-face to workers beginning to think of themselves as a class.

One of the centres of this underground was the novel iron and coal community of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales

Merthyr at this time was the biggest town in Wales, often characterised as a wild "frontier town". 40% of Britain's iron was being drawn from the mines of Merthyr.

I've alway been intrigued by this suggestion by Murray Bookchin that one of the reasons for the explosive millenarian character of much of the uprisings of the twentieth century was due to a disolcation in consciousness, For example, workers at the Car plants of America in the early twentieth century who had come to the city from the Appalachian mountains bringing an expansive rural consciousness into the narrow jungle of the city. Bookchin describes the utopian impulse that led anarchists in Barcelona to burn money in looted gun-shops.

I think you can talk about the explosiveness of Merthyr 1831 in terms of the weird nature of the town at the time. Within a short period it had quadrupled in size, it has no MP, Councillor or political representative. Loads of the workers were migrants from Ireland and England. Many were rural workers who still had ties back home and would make long treks back to West Wales during the harvest time. Add the expansion of popular literacy, the political context around the great reform bill and corn laws, and you begin to see the roots of the explosive character of the rebellion.

 

[Belushi]

Good thread Udo

By this time, factory operatives, 'mechanics' and industrial workers were active in the shadowy popular societies

They were called the Scotch Cattle iirc

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Well worth remembering, well worth celebrating but please 'red commune'?

I forgot to remember another reason why this was a historic moment -
It was the first time the Red Flag was raised in Britain. A white sheet was dipped in the blood of a calf and placed at the front of the march as a symbol of workers power.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

In this time of credit crisis, it is important to note that a credit crisis and attacks on wages underpinned the Rising.

From 1829, Britain had entered a deep economic depression.

 

[Gavin Bl]

With the exception of Gwyn Alf William's groundbreaking book, somehow this epochal moment in working class history has been overlooked outside of Wales. This is especially strange given the Peterloo Massacre and deportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs in the same period are widely known.

My contention is that this is because of the insurrectionary nature of the rising that saw workers disarming soldiers, even liberal historians can feel at ease with the Tolpuddle Martyrs. And also that Wales has been peripheral to the vision of many English socialist historians.

The second point is more telling IMO, and an interesting admission from yourself Udo - its a clear example why a number of us find it very galling to be lectured on internationalism, and the apparently poisonous nature of any form of welsh nationalism, when many on the English left have ignored Wales and its history quite so blatantly.

Quoting Thompson is particularly striking in this context - 'Making of the English Working Class', indeed. The Merthyr Rising was never discussed or even mentioned in the several years I spent in or around the far left in England.

Commune is overcooking it (it lasted 4 days, and vapourised strangely at its height) but it is a great book. Williams really injects analysis and life into it all, particularly vivid in my memory is the workers loading stolen muskets with marbles after they ran out of ammunition, during the battle outside the Castle Hotel.

If you are ever fortunate enough to find yourself in Merthyr (), there is a plaque to Penderyn on the of the old Library in the High Street, with a statue of S.O. Davies in front, while we are talking about lefties.

Cyfarthfa Castle, home of the 'Iron Master' Crawshay has a museum that looks at merthyr's radical history. Remnants of the foundries are also being uncovered slowly. Also at Vaynor church (between Trefechan and Pontsticill) you will see the gravestone of another Crawshay, which has a ten ton slab over it, with 'God Forgive Me' inscribed across it.

Its worth an afternoon if you are that way inclined, and passing through. You could even have a pint in the Three Horsehoes (unless its closed recently) by the Fire Station, where the Chartists used to plot. Merthyr has had a very strong local history scene for many years, and so plenty of stuff should be fairly easily available.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I have often wondered why that peoples remembrancer,Thompson chose not to include Welsh working class struggle in his book (though it might have meant renaming it), I guess one can't cover everything, though much of english and welsh history seems entwined, People like John Frost and Lewis Lewis deserve to have been remembered in that monumental work.

I defend the famous quote by Thompson on class as a relationship, describing the transformation from marx's class-in-itself to a class-for-itself because it captures the firestorm in people's consciousness that exploded in Merthyr.

Gwyn Alf Williams described the Merthyr Rising as an epochal moment, afterwards we see explosion of class organisation, the birth of the modern labour movement. He called it the end of the prehistory of the Welsh working class. Thereafter, the emphasis was upon organisation: "In Merthyr Tydfil in 1831, the prehistory of the Welsh working class comes to an end. Its history begins"

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Commune is overcooking it (it lasted 4 days, and vapourised strangely at its height)

It vapourised because there was a split in the movement after the bosses offered concessions. Though some might suspect the bosses were buying time, until the troops arrived to restore order. Some of the insurgents wanted to end the rising, while others wanted to storm the local winter palace.

They were internationalist and politically conscious rebels chanting, "REMEMBER POLAND!", "REMEMBER PARIS!" and "DOWN WITH THE KING!" and also "BREAD AND CHEESE!"

 

[Brockway]

I forgot to remember another reason why this was a historic moment -
It was the first time the Red Flag was raised in Britain. A white sheet was dipped in the blood of a calf and placed at the front of the march as a symbol of workers power.

That's cool never knew that.

Must do something soon on police attacking Communist demonstrators in the '30s in Cardiff - nobody ever remembers that either.

 

[Brockway]

The second point is more telling IMO, and an interesting admission from yourself Udo - its a clear example why a number of us find it very galling to be lectured on internationalism, and the apparently poisonous nature of any form of welsh nationalism, when many on the English left have ignored Wales and its history quite so blatantly.

Quoting Thompson is particularly striking in this context - 'Making of the English Working Class', indeed. .

Innit. Thompson was just another English public schoolboy with a guilt complex.

 

[Belushi]

I have often wondered why that peoples remembrancer,Thompson chose not to include Welsh working class struggle in his book (though it might have meant renaming it), I guess one can't cover everything, though much of english and welsh history seems entwined, People like John Frost and Lewis Lewis deserve to have been remembered in that monumental work.

Isnt one of the criticisms of that work the limited geographical area he extrapolates from? (could have that completely wrong, hell of a long time since I studied it!)

 

[butchersapron]

Innit. Thompson was just another English public schoolboy with a guilt complex.

Do leave off, he wrote specifically about the english working class for perfectally respectable reasons that were outlined in the famous preface:

Finally, a note of apology to Scottish and Welsh readers. I have neglected these histories, not out of chauvinism, but out of respect. It is because class is a cultural as much as an economic formation that I have been cautious as to generalising beyond English experience. (I have considered the Irish, not in Ireland, but as immigrants to England.) The Scottish record, in particular, is quite as dramatic, and as tormented, as our own. The Scottish Jacobin agitation was more intense and more heroic. But the Scottish story is significantly different. Calvinism was not the same thing as Methodism, although it is difficult to say which, in the early 19th century, was worse. We had no peasantry in England comparable to the Highland migrants. And the popular culture was very different. It is possible, at least until the 1820s, to regard the English and Scottish experiences as distinct, since trade union and political links were impermanent and immature.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Difficult to write the history of chartism in england without referring to wales though. Dorothy Thompson wrote stuff on John Frost.

Turning to that moment Gavin talks of when the movement vapourised, surely part of the poblem was precisely that history was being made. What the working class was doing at Merthyr had never been done before, so they had no maps.

I do see an afinity with Mexico in the early 20th Century when the Nestor Makno of the Western Hemisphere, Zapata takes Mexico City along with Villa.
Let's qualify the use of the phrase "take Mexico City". They both march at the head of armies into the capital. But then they don't actually know what to do. They have no conception of the working class seizing power in the state. They wait, hesitate, and finally just march out of the capital again.

 

[butchersapron]

Difficult to write the history of chartism in england without referring to wales though. Dorothy Thompson wrote stuff on John Frost.

It's not a history of chartism.

 

[phildwyer]

Seen the statue of Dıc Penderyn there--the ınscrıptıon declares hım a 'hero of the workıng class.' They don't put stuff lıke that on statues ın England.

 

[Brockway]

Do leave off, he wrote specifically about the english working class for perfectally respectable reasons that were outlined in the famous preface:

So do you think he wasn't an English public schoolboy with a guilt complex then? He wasn't very working class that's for sure. His work reads like anthropology - like some posh person talking about the natives.

 

[Gavin Bl]

Finally, a note of apology to Scottish and Welsh readers. I have neglected these histories, not out of chauvinism, but out of respect. It is because class is a cultural as much as an economic formation that I have been cautious as to generalising beyond English experience. (I have considered the Irish, not in Ireland, but as immigrants to England.) The Scottish record, in particular, is quite as dramatic, and as tormented, as our own. The Scottish Jacobin agitation was more intense and more heroic. But the Scottish story is significantly different. Calvinism was not the same thing as Methodism, although it is difficult to say which, in the early 19th century, was worse. We had no peasantry in England comparable to the Highland migrants. And the popular culture was very different. It is possible, at least until the 1820s, to regard the English and Scottish experiences as distinct, since trade union and political links were impermanent and immature.

to be honest, that sounds like someone making excuses.

 

[Gavin Bl]

Gwyn Alf Williams described the Merthyr Rising as an epochal moment, afterwards we see explosion of class organisation, the birth of the modern labour movement. He called it the end of the prehistory of the Welsh working class. Thereafter, the emphasis was upon organisation: "In Merthyr Tydfil in 1831, the prehistory of the Welsh working class comes to an end. Its history begins"

And yet it is pretty much ignored....

Dic was hanged (slowly and painfully) outside what is now Cardiff Central Market. I understand there is a plaque to commemorate him and the Merthyr rising (by the the St Mary's Street entrance) but I have never had the opportunity to look since finding this out

 

[butchersapron]

to be honest, that sounds like someone making excuses.

What, saying that there were different regional, cultural, economic, religious etc conditions that would need others books to cover adequately (the original book already being over a 100o large pages of tiny type) is an excuse? Sounds to me like an acknowledgment that he didn't personally have the necessary insight or knowledge to do the wider subject justice. Maybe he should have done it though and wrote a shit book full of gaps and misinterpretations? I do think some people would genuinely have prefer him to have done that as it would fit their own national prejudices better.

 

[llantwit]

to be honest, that sounds like someone making excuses.

Sounds reasonable enough to me. All books have to have boundaries, don't they? Or are we gonna barrack anyone who doesn't include Wales in their remit like some crazed nat version of Stattler and Waldorf?

So do you think he wasn't an English public schoolboy with a guilt complex then? He wasn't very working class that's for sure. His work reads like anthropology - like some posh person talking about the natives.

It's a history ffs. Some distance from his subject matter is kind of inevitable isn't it?!

 

[Brockway]

Sounds reasonable enough to me. All books have to have boundaries, don't they? Or are we gonna barrack anyone who doesn't include Wales in their remit like some crazed nat version of Stattler and Waldorf?

It's a history ffs. Some distance from his subject matter is kind of inevitable isn't it?!

There's distance and there's distance. What did posh boy Thompson really know about the working class? Public school, Cambridge, feck.

 

[Gavin Bl]

No, I'm suggesting that its part of a (normally) unintentional tendency of the English left to see what has gone on in Wales as a bit less 'important'. Maybe thats unfair to Thompson, but how does it make sense to talk about something like the formation of the working class on these islands, and arbitrarily stopping at Offa's Dyke and Hadrian's Wall, as opposed to

different regional, cultural, economic, religious etc conditions

that were quoted to justify the boundaries of the book. I'm quite happy to be wrong about the book, but its part of a wider phenomenon in my opinion, like the marginal status of the Rising on the left, and even the far left.

I do think some people would genuinely have prefer him to have done that as it would fit their own national prejudices better.

That's right, its only other people who have national prejudices or assumptions - not you, not EP Thompson, and not the left. That stone is just as easily cast straight back - the Welsh twitching at every perceived English slight, or the English vocally assuming that they couldn't possibly make unfair assumptions about the Celtic fringe. Most likely, a bit of both.

 

[zog]

And yet it is pretty much ignored....

Dic was hanged (slowly and painfully) outside what is now Cardiff Central Market. I understand there is a plaque to commemorate him and the Merthyr rising (by the the St Mary's Street entrance) but I have never had the opportunity to look since finding this out

never seen the plaque, but I'll keep a look out now.

 

[zog]

That's cool never knew that.

Must do something soon on police attacking Communist demonstrators in the '30s in Cardiff - nobody ever remembers that either.

tell us more

 

[butchersapron]

If you're happy to be wrong about the book Gavin (and you are wrong) then i'm afraid your stone is not coming anywhere near me.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

So do you think he wasn't an English public schoolboy with a guilt complex then? He wasn't very working class that's for sure. His work reads like anthropology - like some posh person talking about the natives.

No it doesn't, it reads like a history book - which it is.

There was always going to be a detachment from his subject as there is a 150 gap, but that's historiography....

 

[Gavin Bl]

If you're happy to be wrong about the book Gavin (and you are wrong) then i'm afraid your stone is not coming anywhere near me.

Sadly, I relish the opportunity to walk away from an argument - and you are a well-read guy, so OK I'll defer to your knowledge of the text.

But the general point is a valid one - with reference to the Rising in this case - the attitudes I'm talking about are unspoken assumptions, not crude anti-welsh prejudices.

Don't forget it was your stone - I was just throwing it back.