Ed George's New Reading Marx Blog

A Farewell to the Vanguard Party or a Return to Leninism? (2003)

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At the Third Congress, in 1921, we adopted a resolution on the organisational structure of the Communist Parties and on the methods and content of their activities. The resolution is an excellent one, but it is almost entirely Russian, that is to say, everything in it is based on Russian conditions. This is its good point, but it is also its failing. It is its failing because I am sure that no foreigner can read it. I have read it again before saying this. In the first place, it is too long, containing fifty or more points. Foreigners are not usually able to read such things. Secondly, even if they read it, they will not understand it because it is too Russian. Not because it is written in Russian—it has been excellently translated into all languages—but because it is thoroughly imbued with the Russian spirit. And thirdly, if by way of exception some foreigner does understand it, he cannot carry it out. This is its third defect. I have talked with a few of the foreign delegates and hope to discuss matters in detail with a large number of delegates from different countries during the Congress, although I shall not take part in its proceedings, for unfortunately it is impossible for me to do that. I have the impression that we made a big mistake with this resolution, namely, that we blocked our own road to further success. As I have said already, the resolution is excellently drafted; I am prepared to subscribe to every one of its fifty or more points. But we have not learnt how to present our Russian experience to foreigners. All that was said in the resolution has remained a dead letter. If we do not realise this, we shall be unable to move ahead.

The Chapter on Money Part 7: Money as the Material Representative of Wealth (pp. 203-225)

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Marx has discussed two functions of money: (1) as measure of exchange value, i.e. as unit of price, and (2) as medium of circulation. He now comes to a third, inserting the heading: “(c) Money as material representative of wealth (accumulation of money; before that, money as the general material of contracts, etc.)”.

“It is in the nature of circulation that every point appears simultaneously as a starting-point and as a conclusion, and, more precisely, that it appears to be the one in so far as it appears to be the other.” Seen from this point of view, the movement C-M-M-C appears “just as correct” as M-C-C-M. In the process C-M-M-C, under the assumption that one quantity of labour-time is exchanged for another of the same magnitude, the actual quantity of money involved is irrelevant.

The Chapter on Money Part 8: The Contradictions of Money (pp. 225-238)

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Marx shifts tack. He is coming to the end of his discussion of money and is beginning to lay the groundwork for his discussion of capital.

It is the elementary precondition of bourgeois society that labour should directly produce exchange value, i.e. money; and, similarly, that money should directly purchase labour, and therefore the labourer, but only in so far as he alienates his activity in the exchange.

Wage labour and capital are therefore only different forms of exchange value, of money, and since all production becomes exchange value, the individual in society becomes objectified in production. Exchange value becomes the form the social totality takes and the individual in bourgeois society becomes objectified not in her individual quality, but socially.

Welsh Politics after Four Years of the Assembly (2003)

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Daniel Morrissey

[Workers Action 20 (Februray-March 2003).]

It hardly needs repeating that the five and a half years of the Blair Government has been a time of profound political upheaval, which has thrown up a number of new challenges for socialists. One of the developments which is likely to prove of greatest long-term significance, however, is also one that has been consistently neglected by the Anglo-centric ‘British’ left: namely, Scottish and Welsh devolution. It is typical of New Labour that even this - one of its most progressive initiatives - was diminished by the detail of its implementation, at least in Wales. The strength of popular support for self-government in Scotland was such that New Labour could not credibly have offered anything less than a full Parliament with primary legislative powers, and Scottish politics has indeed begun to develop a dynamic of its own. In Wales, however, the introduction of a weak and limited body, with a far from overwhelming plebiscitary mandate, has left its mark on Welsh politics.

A Note on Welsh History and Politics (2002)

Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ed George

[Post to the marxmail mailing list; October 2002.]

The first point is that I think we need to be wary of characterisations of Wales as a colonial nation , or of talk of occupation . If it is fundamental to understand that Wales is not England, it is also of equal importance to grasp that it is not Ireland either - the historical experience is in fact completely different: specifically, the Acts of Union of 1536, which formalised the incorporation of Wales into England, precisely did not make Wales a formal colony of England:

The Chapter on Money Part 6: Money and its Circulation (pp. 186-203)

Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Marx returns to his main thread: money and its circulation.

Circulation (in other words, “the turnover of money”) corresponds to “an opposite circulation, or turnover, of commodities. Money goes one way, commodities the other: “[a] commodity possessed by A passes into the hands of B, while B’s money passes into the hands of A, etc.”

More (pdf, 269 KB): The Chapter on Money Part 6: Money and its Circulation (pp. 186-203)

"We Still Have Much to Learn from the Seventeenth Century" (2003)

Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Following as it does from that of Rodney Hilton last June, the recent death of Christopher Hill at the age of 91 marks the passing of another important member of that remarkable levy of twentieth-century British Marxist Historians (prominent in whose ranks stand, amongst others, Maurice Dobb, Eric Hobsbawm, Victor Kiernan, George Rudé, Dorothy Thompson, E P Thompson, Raphael Samuel, John Saville and Raymond Williams). Born into a northern English Methodist family, Hill began to read history as an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was to remain, with the exception of one year in Moscow in 1935, and two years teaching in Cardiff, for his entire academic life, finally successfully standing for the position of Master, which he held from 1965 to 1978. By graduation, he had already joined the Communist Party: he was to remain a member until the exodus precipitated by the crisis of 1956, finally leaving in 1957. Hill, however, uniquely among this pantheon, was able to win an unprecedented hearing and an acceptance within mainstream academe on his own terms as a serious historian in his own right; unlike, for example, E P Thompson, who shunned the pursuit of academic glory, preferring in its place a lifelong commitment to active politics (for which he deservedly won the respect of generations of footsoldiers of the left), or Hobsbawm, whose florescent reputation these days is rather more of the Sunday-supplement variety. In fact, such was Hill’s mainstream prestige within British – or rather English – academia that his interpretation on his speciality subject – seventeenth-century England, or, to put it another away, the English Revolution and civil war – although not nowadays accepted as the near orthodoxy it once was, is still for many entering the fray of debate around this period a necessary starting point, even if a starting point from which to develop a critique. Thus any assessment that is drawn up of Hill’s intellectual career must take account of both of the elements that make up the double-handed adjective “Marxist historian”: how did Marxist theory affect Hill’s work, and to what degree was he as a historian successful in developing a Marxist account of English-British history within a non-Marxist, if not actively anti-Marxist, academic milieu?

Wales in Europe: The Poor Relation? (1997)

Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Brendan Young

[Paper presented to the “Socialists and a Welsh Assembly” Conference, Cardiff, 19 July, 1997.]

When we discuss both the present position and the future development of Wales as a political and economic entity within the EU, we must always bear in mind the economics and politics of the EU. Any discussion that makes reference to “Europe”, but ignores the fact that the structures and politics of the EU are intended to make possible the best conditions for capitalist accumulation across Western Europe, will not be able to make an adequate analysis of the dynamics of European integration or the place of Wales in that process.

Anwar Shaikh, Marx’s Theory of Value and the Transformation Problem: Mathematical Appendix (1971)

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This text is an appendix to Anwar Shaikh, “Marx’s Theory of Value and the ‘Transformation Problem”’, in Jesse Schwartz (ed.), The Subtle Anatomy of Capitalism (Santa Monica: Goodyear Publishing, 1971), pp. 106-39. Other than through a link on the “Real Economics” webpage, I am unaware of its publication elsewhere. The text accessible at this link is a copy of a manually-typed and hand-annotated original; since it is such a seminal contribution to a crucially important debate, I have decided to retypeset it in more legible form.

For Welsh Self-Government! (1996)

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ceri Evans

[International Socialist Group discussion document.]

The question of a Welsh Assembly is without doubt a key issue in Welsh politics today. It has created the greatest ferment in the Welsh Labour Party for many years and promises to be an on-going source of problems for the party’s Welsh Executive. This document attempts to locate these developments within an overall historical context and to offer a Marxist analysis of the question.

Revolutionary Socialists and the National Question: Five Draft Points (2003)

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

1. Nations as such do not exist (apart from in the minds of nationalist theoreticians) other than in the form of national consciousness and national movements; national existence itself is a function of national movements and national consciousness, and not the other way round.

What is a nation? A nation, in the sense in which the word is commonly used and understood, refers to group of people which is demarcated off through the special and unique—“national”—qualities they share and embody; special qualities—comprising British-ness, Spanish-ness, German-ness, and so forth—which are not ultimately reducible to such tangibles as language, territory, or political institutions, but which take the form of the “national character” that the people both embody in the present and have embodied since time immemorial. For each nation thus understood the world is divided into “them” and “us”: us-ness being defined by the special foundational qualities of our own national character, and them-ness by their absence, which is, for each nation, the one thing that all other nations have in common. Nations do not therefore treat other nations with equanimity: being national does not signify being an equal member of a brotherhood of nations but precisely being different from all the other nations put together. The lack in other nations of that which makes us what we are not only makes us unique but also frequently marks us off as superior, and often our superiority over the rest of the other nations comes from the fact that we have been chosen by God as special: with alarming frequency, the native tongue of each nation is quite literally the language of heaven.

Picking over the Ruins: Wales after Thatcher (1996)

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ed George

[Document presented to a public meeting of Socialist Outlook supporters in June 1996.]

Thatcherism in Wales

Thatcherism emerged in the mid 1970s as a response by sections of the ruling class to the structural deficiencies of British capitalism, which had been exacerbated to breaking point by the long term ‘retreat from empire’ and the end of the post war boom. It also presented itself as a solution to the decline of the Tory Party, whose electoral support had been on a long term declining trend for fifty years and which from 1964 to 1979 had lost four general elections out of five. Thatcherism was a populist attempt to effect a qualitative break from the post-war political consensus to the benefit of capital.

Dave Bailey, The Socialist Revolution East and West: A Conspectus (1979)

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This text is an internal discussion document written by a leading member of the International Marxist Group in Britain in the late 1970s. The document, in barely legible photocopied form, circulated among former members of the successor organisations to the IMG in the early 1990s. The original document had no title; “The Socialist Revolution East and West: A Conspectus” is my addition.

The reason why the text is important is set out in a Presentation (written in 2001) that appears at the beginning of the document. An assessment of the text, of its strengths and weaknesses, written at the same time as the Presentation, is included as an Afterword.

Ten Draft Points on the National Question (1995)

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ceri Evans

[Document presented to a Socialist Outlook Summer School held in the summer of 1995.]

Why do we need a discussion?

They are waving those flags again! The resurgence of great power nationalism within the imperialist countries.
The national movements of small nations within the imperialist countries and the rise of regionalism in Europe.
The national question in the post-Stalinist states.

More (html, 11 KB): Ten Draft Points on the National Question

Mobilise for a Democratic Welsh Parliament (1995)

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[Socialist Outlook leaflet.]

Wales is at a turning point. Unemployment is at catastrophic levels and the majority of new jobs are appallingly low paid. The WDA is consciously advertising Wales as a low wage, high productivity area. The public sector, now the largest employer in Wales, is threatened with vicious cut-backs.

We face a return to the 1930s.

More (html, 8 KB): Mobilise for a Democratic Welsh Parliament

On "Stalinism" (2002)

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[Post to the marxmail mailing list]

The problem with coming up with a simple definition of Stalinism is that—since the term has been used to talk about such diverse elements as ideology, political practice, political parties and movements, forms of state governance and so on—to avoid a definition that is hopelessly unwieldy and ridiculously over-inclusive an a priori decision as to what exactly the term is to be applied has to be made, a decision which methodologically logically requires in turn some sort of definition. This elemental tautology lies at the heart of the great bulk of discussions on the nature of Stalinism. This lack of methodological clarity is only compounded by the fact that the very term itself has passed into the vernacular of politics as a term of abuse, applicable to anyone one doesn’t like, especially anyone with an “authoritarian” bent: thus not only was Gerry Healy a “Stalinist” in his pomp, but so was Tony Blair and in turn Margaret Thatcher too. Does the term have any value then? I am going to argue that it does, but what I intend to do here is try to return an analytical content to it, and to strip it of its pejorative force. A subsidiary objective of mine will necessarily be to argue strongly against the increasingly common view that the question of “Stalinism”—or, more accurately, the matters to which the label “Stalinism” is, not always fortuitously, applied—is now an historical rather than a contemporary one—a view which has been very much current within USFI circles over the last ten years or so. I shall suggest that an account of how the concept of Stalinism has been dealt with by ostensible non-Stalinists over the years raises questions acutely relevant to the kind of political clarification that revolutionaries need in the here and now and will need in the at least foreseeable future.

The Bolsheviks, the National Question and the Civil War (2002)

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The policy of Bolshevism on the national question, having ensured the victory of the October revolution, also helped the Soviet Union to hold out afterward notwithstanding inner centrifugal forces and a hostile environment.

—Leon Trotsky

During a debate on the national question in an internet forum, I was challenged on a comment I had made to the effect that “the Russian Revolution would not have taken place if it had not been for the positions of the Bolsheviks on the national question.” The objections that were raised were these:

The General Election and South Wales: A Draft Document (1992)

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ceri Evans

[Internal south Wales International Socialist Group discussion document.]

It is now nearly certain that the General Election will be held on 9 April. At present Labour and Conservatives are neck and neck in the polls and there is a real chance that Labour will win. This election presents a challenge to our young and small organisation in South Wales. A failure to work around it and to be seen to actively support the Labour Party will cause us real problems in the future. On the other hand it gives us an opportunity to reach activists and ordinary workers in a way that has not been possible in recent times. If carried out correctly our work can contribute in a small way to preparing the ground for a new left in Wales of which we will be a part.

"The Secret of the Forest is the Trees" (2001)

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The principle is not: Whoever wants to be a nation is a nation. It is just the opposite: A nation simply is, whether the individuals of which it is composed want to belong to the nation or not. A nation is not based on self-determination but on pre-determination.

—Friedrich Meinicke

A nation is […] a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a past; it is summarised, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life.

A Bydded i'r Hen Iaith Barhau? The Crisis of the Welsh Language and Our Work in the Language Movement (1990)

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ceri Evans

[International Socialist Group internal discussion document]

The Welsh language faces a possibly terminal crisis, brought on by a worsening of the economic conditions which have underscored its decline for many years. Thatcherism has resulted in a further impoverishment of the Welsh speaking areas, forcing migration or acceptance of desperately low paid jobs. The boom in house prices has also been particularly severe in these areas, which coupled with the shrinkage in public sector housing has created a chronic homelessness problem. Conversely Thatcherism has created an affluent, largely English, middle class eager to acquire ‘bargain’ homes for holiday or even permanent use often buying a small business for the price of an inner London flat.

The Chapter on Money Part 5: Money as Commodity (pp. 165-186)

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ostensibly, we are discussing money. Marx summarises where we are in that discussion.

The product becomes a commodity. The commodity becomes exchange value. The exchange value of the commodity acquires an existence of its own alongside the commodity; i.e. the commodity in the form in which (1) it is exchangeable with all other commodities, (2) it has hence become a commodity in general, and its natural specificity is extinguished, and (3) the measure of its exchangeability (i.e. the given relation within which it is equivalent to other commodities) has been determined—this commodity is the commodity as money, and, to be precise, not as money in general, but as a certain definite sum of money, for, in order to represent exchange value in all its variety, money has to be countable, quantitatively divisible.

Cardiff and its Valleys: The Political Implications of Economic Restructuring and Crisis (1985)

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[South Wales Socialist League internal discussion document.]

Recent Political History

The outstanding feature of Welsh political life over the last 20 years has been the steady decay in support for Labour and the parallel rise of Plaid Cymru. The roots of this decay lie in the inability of Welsh Labourism to provide answers to the problems posed for Wales by the emerging crisis of international capitalism from the late 1960s. This failure was symbolised by the response of the l964-70 Wilson government of closing down large sections of the Welsh coal industry and rail network.

The Debate on the Bourgeois Revolution Revisited (2001)

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, some French historians have called for an end to the discussion of the causes and meaning of the French Revolution, declaring it to be ‘terminated’. But an occurrence that raises such fundamental philosophical and moral questions can never end. For the dispute is not only over what has happened in the past but also over what may happen in the future.

—Richard Pipes (The Russian Revolution 1899-1919 (London: Collins Harvill, 1990), xxiv.)

Marx and Engels and the National Question (1999)

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There are two ways to look at Marx and Engels: as the creators of a brilliant, but in its deepest essence, thoroughly critical, scientific method; or as church fathers of some sort, the bronzed figures of a monument. Those who have the latter vision will not have found this study to their taste. We, however, prefer to see them as they were in reality.

—Roman Rosdolsky

Benedict Anderson, the author of one of the most suggestive theoretical examinations of modern nationalism of recent years, offered the judgement that for Marxism nationalism represents an “anomaly”, and has, as a consequence, been “largely elided, rather than confronted”, theoretically speaking. This is evidently not intended to mean that the broader Marxist tradition—that movement incorporating not solely the theoretical explications of Marx and Engels themselves but also the practical experiences of subsequent generations of Marxists—has not concerned itself with the question of nationalism. Far from it, for the writings of Communists of such diverse outlooks as Kautsky and Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, Luxemburg and Bauer, are littered with endeavours to address the incidence of nationalism as both a theoretical question and as a practical difficulty as it presents itself to Marxist revolutionary politicians. The problem rather appears to be that there is no apparent direct lineage between the latter body of work and a “classical” framework of Marxist theory—as there is (naturally after having made allowances for theoretical discrepancies of a partial nature and the necessary evolution and development of concepts), in relation, say, to the inner mechanisms of the capitalist economy, or to the historical origins and functional operation of the modern state. Further: upon examination, it is not clear whether there is within “classical” Marxism itself even the elements of an essential notional framework upon which it is possible to develop, build and expand a coherent theoretical discourse; at first sight all we are able to discern are a series of fragmented and mutually contradictory references, apparently guided more by pragmatic considerations than by a framework of ‘scientific’ principles, and, after the passage of more than a century, ostensibly as of little use in the explanation of the modern world as is, say, the theory of “felicific calculus” of Bentham.

The Chapter on Money Part 4: The Objectification of the Relations between People as Relations of Exchange (pp. 156-165)

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Over time, to the extent that production becomes production for exchange (as, in other words the capitalist mode of production develops, and extends its reach), the exchange relation increasingly establishes itself, as Marx put it earlier in the text, “as a power external to and independent of the producers.” Over the course of this development, the exchange relation in general assumes a social position of ever-greater weight and autonomy, sucking all aspects of human life within its mode of existence.

Wales and the Capitalist Crisis (1984)

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[Internal south Wales Socialist League discussion document.]

Wales and the Capitalist Crisis

Capitalism and Wales

Capitalism in Wales has never been independent of either English capital or the British imperialist state. The feudal conquest of Wales prevented the emergence of an independent Welsh bourgeoisie able to compete effectively with that of England. The mid-Wales textile industry was subordinated to that of Manchester. The Welsh iron industry was developed by English iron-masters, largely out of the profits of the Bristol slave trade. Coal was also dominated by English capital, although here the smaller limited capital requirements allowed indigenous Welsh capital to stake its claim. But coal - like iron before it - depended, in the absence of a broadly-based Welsh economy, on exports. And exports in the nineteenth century depended above all else on the strength and influence of British imperialism.

Notes on the "Nairn-Anderson Theses" (1997)

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What follows is an initial and provisional assessment of the strengths and weaknesses, ellipses and omissions, and contemporary relevance of the series of texts that have come to be known as the “Nairn-Anderson Theses”.

The key tenets of the “Theses” in my view can be broken up into the three following essential themes.

More (pdf, 125 KB): Notes on the “Nairn-Anderson Theses”

Ricardo's Principles: An introductory note

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

David Ricardo was once described by Marx as representing the “complete and final expression” of “classical political economy”; his On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation is his opus magnum.

It appears that Ricardo began to plan the work in 1815, at the insistence of James Mill. Ricardo did not find writing easy. “I make no progress in the difficult art of composition,” he wrote to Malthus in February 1816; and then again in the May of that year: “I find the greatest difficulty to avoid confusion in the most simple of my statements.” In the November he wrote to Mill: “I have an anxious desire to produce something worth publishing, but that I unaffectedly fear will not be in my power.” Mill had to badger him throughout the writing process, encouraging him in his efforts and urging him on in the project. Both Mill’s son (John Stuart) and Ricardo’s own brother expressed the opinion after Ricardo’s death that had it not been for Mill senior’s efforts Ricardo would never have finished the work. In the end it was published in April 1817. A second edition, practically identical to the first, was published in February 1819; a third, incorporating significant changes (of which more below), in May 1821.

The Chapter on Money Part 3: Money and Exchange Value (pp. 144-156)

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We have seen that conceiving the commodity as exchange value means positing the expression of its exchangeability in relation to all commodities. This exchange relation, between one commodity and all, requires mediation, and this mediation is achieved through “the symbol of the commodity as commodity”. This “symbol” is money, and is itself the result of the social process of exchange. In turn, the commodity that serves as money, itself a symbol of the commodity’s general exchangeability, can itself be replaced by a symbol—a symbol of a symbol, as it were: “the commodity which is required as medium of exchange […][,] [which] becomes transformed into money, […] can in turn be replaced by a symbol of itself. It then becomes the conscious sign of exchange value.”

The Nature of the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement (1981)

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[South Wales IMG internal discussion document]

Criticism of the Previous Document

This new document has to correct the previous one on the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement, which we discussed at the last Area Aggregate. It is open to a basic criticism. The mistake of the previous document, and the discussion, was that it did not proceed as we are now - first, an historical analysis of Welsh nationalism and, second, an examination of the WSRM’s position in the light of that analysis of Welsh nationalism. As we didn’t do that, the nationalist roots of the WSRM lay hidden and the emphasis in our analysis miscued. We tried to analyse the WSRM in terms of a group with Marxist traditions, just because they presented themselves as Marxists or Socialists. We kept to admiring the foliage instead of digging up the roots. Thus we saw them implicitly as left-centrist, people vacillating between reformist and revolutionary positions, with no political understanding of reformism or labour bureaucracy, no definite stand on whether socialism could be achieved through parliament (whether a British or Welsh one), and no concept of what forms of organisation the working class would organise itself through in the struggle against British capitalism (workers’ councils, workers’ democracy, dual power). Obviously, we recognised nationalist tendencies within that the WSRM’s call for a separate Welsh state, confusion over whether the character of such a state should be socialist or capitalist, and putting Wales on the same parallel as Ireland in its oppression by the British state and British capitalism. Rather than seeing these nationalist tendencies as the dominant ones, the all-encompassing ones, we presented them as certain strains within a centrist framework. The present document has to correct this.

The National Question, the Language and Broadcasting in Wales (1981)

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[South Wales IMG internal discussion document]

‘A “solution” to the national question can be secured only by ensuring to every nation completely unconstrained access to world culture in the language the given nation considers to be its mother tongue.’ (Trotsky, ‘Thoughts on the Party: The National Question and the Education of the Party Youth’)

The recent political crisis of the Tory Government on the issue of the Fourth Channel has brought out that the question of Welsh nationality is a live factor in the class struggle in Wales. This document is an initial contribution based on discussions in the language commission. The content of the discussion is both educational and political. Given the small amount of time spent on this document it needs stressing that this is an opening of the discussion.

Notes on Welsh Nationalism and Plaid Cymru (1981)

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[South Wales IMG internal discussion document]

The Origins of Welsh Nationalism and Plaid Cymru

There was an absence of a nationalist movement in Wales until the late nineteenth century. Marxists should reject the notion that the Llewelyns revolt of the thirteenth century, or Glyndwr’s revolt of the fifteenth century were actually nationalist. Instead we should characterise them as disputes by feudal lords whose ambitions were essentially the enlargement of their territory. There was some play, especially by Glyndwr, of elements of the latent nationality, as in the proposal for a north and south university. But it remained a matter of enlarging the caste area of Glyndwr’s domination.

The Chapter on Money Part 2: Value and Price (pp. 136-144)

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One difficulty (as we have seen) with metallic (gold and silver) money, or paper money convertible to gold, is that its denomination (one sovereign, one pound, one franc) is equated with a given (statutorily determined) amount of metal; this amount of metal is equivalent to a given amount of labour-time, which means that the value of the money—equal to what it can be exchanged for—is sensitive the labour-time necessary to produce that metal. Over time, we would expect, and actually observe, a secular rise in the general productivity of labour, the amount of labour-time a given amount of metal will represent will fall correspondingly. If money (whether metal money or token money) is denominated in units (weights) of gold, whether directly or indirectly (symbolically), then, given a secular rise in the general productivity of labour, such money will be devalued over time.

Review of Gareth Miles and Robert Griffiths, "Socialism for the Welsh People" (1980)

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Steve Mann

[Unpublished review article written for Socialist Challenge]

Written by leading members of the left nationalist movement this pamphlet is a challenge. It examines the evolution of Welsh society with the aid of Marxism, and suggests an appropriate strategy for Welsh socialists.

More (html, 8 KB): Review of Gareth Miles’ and Robert Griffiths’ Socialism for the Welsh People

The National Question in Wales: Outlines of a Strategic View (1979)

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Steve Mann

[Internal IMG discussion document]

With the abdication of the national question by the gentry, and the integration up to this day of Welsh capital into the British bourgeois state there is no class layer in Wales with a material interest in a separate Welsh state. The petty bourgeois layers who have maintained national aspirations throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (intellectuals, students, small farmers and ’low’ church ministers) can defend their interests only in alliance with the major classes. Their movement has gained ’national’ strength in Wales only when the working class has identified with their movement.

The Chapter on Money Part 1: Alfred Darimon and Monetary Crises (pp. 115-136)

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Marx begins the 1857-58 manuscript proper (writing in October 1857) by jumping straight in to a critique of the politician and journalist, and follower of Proudhon, Alfred Darimon (1819-1902). Darimon had argued that in monetary crises the drain of bullion from the banking system reduced the supply of available money (and hence credit), making the crisis worse. To counter this, Darimon had proposed a reformed monetary system based on joint-stock banking backed by system of credit-insurance, rather than having bank money backed by gold and silver.

The "Introduction"

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The “Introduction” (“Enleitung”) was written at the end of August 1857, a month or so before Marx started to write the actual 1857-58 Manuscript itself. Although it is an important text, it is not easy to say what it is the “introduction” to, exactly. The 1857-58 Manuscript was never intended for publication, but seems to have been an exercise whereby Marx could set out his ideas in written form. The “Introduction” is clearly not an introduction to this manuscript. When Marx did publish a version of his economic theories, at least in part, in the form of the 1857 Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, he wrote a “Preface” to it, in which he remarked that a “general introduction [to my work], which I had drafted, is omitted, since on further consideration it seems to me confusing to anticipate results which still have to be substantiated, and the reader who really wishes to follow me will have to decide to advance from the particular to the general.” It is generally agreed that the “general introduction” that Marx refers to in the 1859 Preface is the August 1857 “Introduction”, although it is not entirely clear to which specific “results” Marx’s comment makes reference.

Bastiat and Carey

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This short text, which Marx apparently wrote in July 1857, is titled (by Marx): “Bastiat. Harmonies Économiques. 2 édit. Paris. 1851.” The reference is to the work (Harmonies Économiques) of the French liberal economist and ardent supporter of free trade and laissez-faire Fédéric Bastiat (1850-1851).

More (pdf, 78 KB): Bastiat and Carey

The Grundrisse: An introductory note

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The 1857-58 Manuscript—known as the Grundrisse (literally “floor plans”, i.e. “outlines”, but this title was not Marx’s)—consists of those texts Marx wrote from the summer of 1857 to the summer or 1858, namely the text “Bastiat and Carey”; the “Enleitung” (“Introduction”); the two longer “chapters”, “Chapter on Money” and “Chapter on Capital”; and the fragment “Value” (even though the first two of these texts—“Bastiat and Carey” and the “Introduction”—do not really form an integral whole with the other three). The Manuscript, not intended by Marx for publication, and unknown at the time of his death, represents his first attempt to put his mature economic theories (developed in London over the course of the 1850s) into written form.