A collection of policy statements and works from the great unrest group (Welsh socialist republican congress)
The great unrest group (Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr) was a Welsh socialist republican and Maoist group created in March 2012 active in various campaigns throughout its existence mostly to do with welsh land issues also they would do remembrance events for historical events such as the 1831 Merthyr rising. They would create, in 2014 with Tjen Folket (Serve the People) and revolutionary praxis, the Red block. The great unrest group would also show solidarity to the Indian Maoists during operation green hunt, as well as for Kurdish and Catalan self-determination the group became inactive sometime between 2019 and 2020.
The Spirit of Hirwaun Common : Statement by the Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party - 2013
The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican party celebrates the Merthyr Uprising in 1831 a defining point in Welsh History when the Welsh Working Class in open rebellion announced itself on the world stage.
The raising of the Red Flag on Hirwaun Common was a symbolic act of national and class defiance from the new Welsh Working Class.
The Red Flag was the gift of the Welsh Working Class to the workers of the World just has workers in the USA and in particular Chicago gave the world's workers day May Day.
Gifts of working class struggle are the most precious and the new generation needs to learn to honour them.
We at the Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party seek the renewal of the spirit of Hirwaun Common in Wales in our ceremonial renewal of the raising of the Red Flag in the 21st century on June 1st 2013.
We have messages of Solidarity from England, Brittany and Occitania and Galicia and Italy, Iceland and Norway and the Philippines for our ceremony on Hirwaun Common.
Our ceremony is not only national but international like the class we represent, we reject supra national bourgeois cosmopolitanism, the ideology of global capitalism for proletarian internationalism the true friendship of peoples based on mutual respect for each others struggles for national and social liberation.
Let the message from Merthyr in 1831 ring our across Wales and the World, We have a Wales to win - we have a World to win.
Hold the Red Flag high beyond the reach of our enemies and false friends, the battle for the 21st Century is just opening and by rectifying our past mistakes we will speed capitalism's demise - socialism is the future, its day is dawning has the 21st century progresses.
Tanks on the Lawn - NATO forces get out of Wales Now ! - 2014
Welsh National Day - March 1st - A New Flag For a New Movement of Welsh Socialist Republicans - 2016
It is also four years since the formation of Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr - The Great Unrest.
Four years ago Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr was only present in West Wales, but since then we have expanded to South Wales and North Wales and have supporters in mid-Wales.
We have also produced the magazine Liberation, the third Issue will come out at the end of March 2016 as will a new Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr website.
Today we adopt a new flag for our Welsh Socialist Republican Movement by combining the White Eagle of Snowdon with Red Flag of the 1831 Merthyr Rising - we authentically combine national and social liberation for Wales in our symbolic flag on this St David's Day March 1st 2016.
"Leanne Wood taking the leadership of Plaid Cymru will spread and perpetuate the illusion that Plaid Cymru is or can become a vehicle for a progressive, socialist and republican movement, that Plaid Cymru can challenge the Westminster imposed austerities, take Wales out of the neo-imperialist wars in the middle east and elsewhere, and get rid of those imposters posing as the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Plaid Cymru cannot really do this, because it is at bottom the party that represents Welsh businessmen, and not the working people of Wales.
Its call for an independent Wales inside the European Union only seeks to change one set of rulers from Westminster for another in Brussels, the pound for the Euro.
The essential link between national and class oppression was exposed in Ireland by James Connolly. In Wales, Gethin ap Gruffydd is one of the few Welsh patriots that recognises that at root the national question in Wales is a class question." in 2012.
There are less people in Wales today who share the illusions about Plaid Cymru being the vehicle for a progressive socialist republican movement in 2016 than in 2012 - truth is a process that is revealed over time and actions always speak louder than words.
Here are a few actions from Yr Aflonddwch Mawr over the past four years in defence of Wales and exposing Imperialism and Capitalism.
The Policies of the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress, 2016
Resolution adopted at the First Welsh Socialist Republican Congress
The Policies of the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress
The policies of the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress are an integral part of our strategic aim of an Independent Welsh Socialist Republic, which we see as a social process over many years rather than just one single event.National Community Bank for Wales
We consider any talk of Welsh Independence that does not address the question of a community public banking system for Wales as irresponsible - a Welsh Public Banking system is at the core of our demands to build an Independent Socialist Wales.
Every 24 hours, money from Wales flows into the big Five British Banks to be on deposit in City of London overnight - we want that money to stay in the Welsh Banking System to aid Welsh national local and community development. We will support legal changes to create a National Community Bank of Wales through a Welsh Banking Act.
Land Act for Wales
We want all Royal Lands owned in Wales by the British Monarchy to be returned to the Welsh People - this demand is not limited just to the Crown Estates, but to all the Royal family ownership vehicles that operate in Wales. We call for a Welsh Land Commission to establish the detailed ownership of Welsh Land and to return absentee or unused Land to local community land trusts for communities to develop. We call for a halt to the sale of Welsh Land by local governments in Wales, who are forced to sell public land because of British Government austerity policies.
Welsh Water to be owned by the people.
We call for the end of 999 year agreements to supply water to England for token sums signed by Welsh Water with English Utility companies - we want Welsh Water brought back into public ownership.
Water is a precious natural resource and one that should be regulated and controlled to benefit the Welsh Economy and not abused by the British Economy as at present.
We demand a Welsh Water Act that puts ownership of Welsh Water into the hands of the people of Wales.
Our Demands are as simple as they are basic
1. Welsh Public Banking System
2. Welsh Land Act
3 Welsh Water Act
May Day, 2018 Call from Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr for Welsh Revival and Renewal
We at the Aflonyddwch Mawr - The Great Unrest are Welsh Socialist Republicans with the working class spirit of the Miner's Next Step of 1912 we believe in the power of our class the working class to change Wales and the world.
On this May Day 2018 we call for the social and economic decline of Wales to be arrested and to bring forth a new spirit of Revival and Renewal in Wales based upon the ideas of Welsh Socialist Republicanism.
Socialism and a Welsh Socialist Republic is our aim.
To achieve that aim Wales needs social movements to bring together the forces for social change, these social movements need to address the
10 Point Programme of Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr - The Great Unrest.
The Mass Line for Wales with radical First Step Up Policies.
To that aim, we have outlined a 10 point Programme.
1. We place the question of Welsh Land Act at the centre of Welsh Politics, we have taken up the fallen banner of 1895 for a Welsh Land Act. Land is also key to solving current and future ecological problems in Wales. Welsh ownership of Land is key to the regeneration of Welsh National Life.Without Land there is no Liberty.
2. Welsh Utilities like Electricity, Gas and Water to be placed under the control of the People through the creation of new socially owned worker controlled Welsh Public Enterprises.We should eradicate Thatcherism and it's mantra of privatisation from Welsh National Life.
3. We require a Welsh Banking System with a Welsh currency and a Central Bank and Welsh Banks for urban and rural development. We reject the pound and the euro has being financial instruments unsuited for Welsh National development.
4. Welsh language survival in now in the hands of the British State with its corrupting grant system, a dangerous place for the Welsh language to be in times of austerity. In the hard place between the British State and the treacherous Cultural Crachach. Without addressing the Welsh Land Question which has been ignored for 100 years the Welsh language is in serious danger of decline, the Crachhach has failed the Welsh language.
5. With Land and Capital in Welsh hands, we can unleash the power of the creativity of Welsh Labour and rebuild the Welsh Economy. We see the revival of Welsh Labour has unleashed the creativity of the Welsh Soul and a flourishing of intellectual and physical labour, yes a new Welsh Revival in social as well as economic Welsh Life.
6. Bring forth new democratic institutions of the Welsh people, like a Welsh Republican Congress or a Senedd Glyndwr. Reject institutions of the British State for managing Welsh Decline in Wales like the Welsh Assembly.
7. Protect The National Health Service in Wales by halting any further privatisation of the Health Service. Ensure community and not bureaucratic capitalist control of the Welsh Health Service, community need not private profit should guide the Health Service in the spirit of Aneurin Bevan.
8. Implement Great Unrest First Step Up policies for the visitors to food banks, unemployed and part-time workers by giving them priority for allotments. New Allotments will result from the new proposed Welsh Land Act.
9. Township and Village Enterprises, Councils would be empowered to take over empty shops and make them into small units for new business start-ups - twelve months free rent would be offered has part of the Great Unrest First Step Up policies.
10. Implement Independence not Dependency Policies, restructure relationship with British State in Economy whereby the proper price of Welsh resources are paid for.
All raw material exports from Wales should be subjected to value added/ high energy processing evaluation and over time all raw material exports will be reduced has value added processing exports will replace low value material exports.
Bring all unemployed into productive activity - through public works and land based rural food sovereignty projects.
Wales and First World War by Nickglais Part 3 : AJ Cook - Class not Nation - 2013
War against War must be the Workers Cry
AJ Cook in 1917
It is argueable that the South Wales Coalfield reached it highest degree of class consciousness in the period called The Great Unrest - Y Aflonyddwch Mawr in 1910 to 1912.
Its historic moment was the publication of Miners Next Step a document still worth reading with a section about leadership which has lessons for today and certainly anticipated the personality effect on the leadership of Socialist and Communist Movements in the 20th century.
The Miners Next Step was a product of the Miners Unoffical Reform Movement and one of the authors of this collective work was A J Cook a Miner from the Rhondda Valley.
However this class consciousness was to evaporate into thin air in 1914 amid a welter of Anti German propaganda and a parade of Union Jackism.
Members of the Unoffical Reform Movement were stunned into silence by the patriotic fevour Noah Ablett and AJ Cook outstanding leaders of the Miners Unoffical Reform Movement remained silent in 1914.
W.F Hay was the exception that made a stand and put his head above the parapet and declared that he was opposed to the War and that War was : "The Sport of Kings, the hired assassins trade" Charle Gibbons of the URC joined the Medical Corp and people like Frank Hodges and George Parker who were linked to the URC declared themselves
pro War urging Miners and others to enlist in the forces and fight for
King and Country.
The Social Imperialist Robert Blachfords
"Merrie Englanders" were converted into "Murdering Englanders" and the
obscenity of working people murdering each other was urged on by
Christian Churches and the British Social Imperialists.
AJ Cook did not make any patriotic jingoistic speeches but choose to
remain silent, he had written articles in 1913 in the South Wales Worker
criticising the military build up but that was his limit.
We stressed in our First Chapter the psychological war in which the mass
media principally the Northcliffe Press played in creating the anti
German hysteria and how the radical population was stunned into silence
with the honourable exceptions of Niclas y Glais and W F Hay in Wales.
1915 began to see some movement when the Miners Federation of Great
Britain (MFGB) refused to be part of a Treasury Agreement giving up the
right to strike and against a so called "Industrial Truce".
In March 1915 the MFGB demanded a 20% wage increase to compensate for the rising inflation during wartime.
The coalowners flatly refused and the South Wales Miners struck alone in 1915.
The Government intervened and agreed to an eighteen and half percentage rise. in South Wales it was as if the Unoffical Reform Committee was brought
back to life and by 1916 AJ Cook was making his opposition to the war
apparent and stated :
"Daily I see signs amongst the working class with whom I move and work of a mighty awakening. The chloroforming pill of Patriotism is failing in its power to drug the mind and consciousness of the worker.
He is beginning to shudder at the stupidity of allowing himself to be party to such a catastrophe as we see today.
The chains of slavery are being welded tighter upon than ever.The
ruling classes are ever overreaching themselves in the hurry to enslave
us.
Economic conditions are forcing the workers to think- the scales are lifting from their eyes.
Men are wanted who will give he lead.
Comrades I appeal to you to rouse your union to protect the liberties of its members.
An Industrial Truce was entered into by our leaders behind our backs
which has opened the way to an encroachment upon our rights and
liberties.
Away with the Industrial Truce !
We must not stand by and allow workers to be exploited and our liberties taken away".
AJ Cook has been described as a lightening rod for the Lewis Merthyr
Colliery men and this speech in 1916 was indicating that he was going to
be part of something bigger in future an anti War movement.
When the Government planned to lift War exemption for Miners and
conscript 20,000 of them into the forces AJ Cook turned up his anti War
speeches and actions. Notices appeared at Pit Heads telling Miners not
to report for medical examinations for military service.
Soon after the Chief Constable of Glamorgan Captain Lionel Lindsey had
Arthur Cook in his sights and requested the prosecution of AJ Cook under
Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), but his requests were turned down.
AJ Cook was becoming more bold everyday and in 1917and declared :
" I am no pacificist when war is necessary to free my class from the curse and enslavement of capitalism.
What then is my opposition to the "comb out".
As a worker I have the interests of my class than any nation.
The interests of my class has not benefited by the war, hence my opposition.
Comrades let us take heart, there are thousands of Miners in Wales who are prepared to fight for their class.
War against War must be workers cry"
On April 17th 1917 a mass meeting of Lewis Merthyr chaired by AJ Cook called on the SouthWales Miners Federation Conference:
"To get a resolution passed in favour of peace by negotiations"
In June 1917 AJ Cook and other Rhondda militants attended the Leeds
Convention summoned to welcome the Foreign Policy of the Russian
Provsional Government.
AJ Cook spoke in Ynyshir and Porth and declared :
"Since the day of declaration of war I have unflinchingly opposed the
same. To hell with everbody bar my class. To me the hand of the German
and Austrian is the same as the hand of my fellow workman at home. I am
an internationalist. Russia has taken the step, and it is due to Britain
to second the same and secure peace and leave the war and its cost to
the capitalist who made it for the profiteer."
Certainly his silent opposition in 1914/15 had now become very vocal in
1917 and his explicit Marxist views were reaching the authorities again.
Deputy Chief Constable of Glamorgan John Williams reported that the
economics classes that AJ Cook was giving were "an insdious campaign
against law and order"
Captain Lindsey of Glamorgan Police said of AJ Cook.
"Anyone with the slightest knowledge of human nature must be aware that
to punish a conceited upstart of this type always gives universal
satisfaction"
At a meeting at Ynyshir on the 20th January 1918 AJ Cook declared :
" Are we going to allow this war to go on ? The Government wants a
100,000 men, they demand 50,000 immediately and the Clyde workers would
not allow the Government to take them. Let us stand by them and show
that Wales can do the same.
I have two brothers in the army who were forced to join but I say No !
I will be shot before I fight. Are you going to allow us to be taken to
the war, If so I say there will not be a ton of coal for the Navy."
In March 1918 the Home Office agreed with Captain Lindsey's request for
AJ Cook to be charged under DORA along with his said accomplice George
Dolling.
AJ Cook was sentenced at a crowded Pontypridd Police Court to three
months in prison and George Dolling was acquitted.There were a few
sporadic strikes in protest at AJ Cook's imprsonment but AJ Cook only
spend two months in prison before being released and was back in the
Rhondda by July 1918.
This later period also saw the formation of the South Wales Socialist
Society really a revival of the old Rhondda Socialist Society with AJ
Cooks help.
The South Wales Socialist Society was open to all who accepted the
class war theory and the society was composed of groups or trades that
would consider their own problems and recieve the co-operation of the
whole in bringing about reforms in their own industries.
The South Wales Socialist Society was strongly anti Parliamentarian and
Syndicalist in outlook.This outlook was to dominate AJ Cook's thinking
even in short lived further incarnations of his ideas like the Communist
Party of Wales and the West of England.
Summation
We do not tire of repeating the immense hostility to anyone who
questioned the First World War in Wales in 1914 and while we can be
proud of Niclas Y Glais and W.F Hay we should not dismiss AJ Cook who
bided his time until he could have some effect - which he certainly did
from 1916 -1917 onwards.
The South Wales Coalfield like the whole of Wales and the British Isles
succumbed to the worst excesses of Jingoism and Union Jackism. AJ Cook
unlike Niclas y Glais did not have deep Welsh roots to fall back on has
he came from West of England and the saw class struggle through British
eyes and not the Welsh eyes of Niclas y Glais.
Essentially AJ Cook could not oppose British Imperialism or deconstruct
and destroy it like James Connolly did in Ireland and John Maclean did
in Scotland because he thought in terms of a British Labour
Movement and absorbed the ideology of the centralising British Imperial
State even though he was a syndicalist, even Niclas y Glais the best
revolutionary Communist Wales produced joined the Communist Party of Great Britain,
and the historic revolutionary moment following the Russian Revolution
was stabilised by the British State precisely because the ideology that
could have combined national and social liberation in these islands was
not developed at the critical hour.
In fact the British State shot Connolly to death in 1916 and caused
early the death of John Maclean in 1923 by forcing rubber tubes down his
throat, the very men that combined national with social liberation were
treated with the utmost brutality.
It made sure that revolutionary ideology of national and social
liberation in the British Isles never got a grip in peoples
consciousness has that would be end game for the British Imperial State.
The Left in Britain basically pursued Reform of the British State after
1920 and were scared to death of smashing the British State which would
have been a consquence of revolutionary movements in Scotland and Wales
and Kernow for national and social liberation in the 1920's.
The deconstruction of the notion of Britishness a practical 18th Century
social construct that merged with the idea of British with the idea of
Empire has origins with London Welsh trying to sell the idea of
Brythonaeg from Tudor and Stuart times to the English has ideological
preparation for Empire.*
Learning the lessons of revolutionary failure can be instructive if we
have the will to revisit our past mistakes and draw lessons for the
future - the movement that arose in opposition to the First War World
throughout the British Isles is instructive in that respect and nowhere
more so than Wales
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.https://greatunrest2012.blogspot.com/
https://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2016/06/merthyr-rising-2016-yr-aflonyddwch-mawr.html
https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/05/wales-liberation-magazine-voice-of.html
https://all-to-human.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-resource-of-welsh-socialist.html
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