TIMELINE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY IN WALES

1920   The South Wales Communist Council (formerly the South Wales Socialist Society), mostly coal miners, helps establish the Communist Party in Britain.

1921   The CP contests its forst parliamentary seat in the Caerffili by-election.

1927   The CP-led National Unemployed Workers Movement organises the first south Wales hunger march, followed by Welsh contingents on the all-Britain marches of 1929, 1930, 1932 and 1936.

1932   Arthur Horner wins 2nd place in the Rhondda East by-election with 11,228 votes.

1934   Dora Cox helps lead the first women’s contingent on a hunger march from south Wales to London.

1936   Horner is elected president of the South Wales Miners Federation (the ‘Fed’); the North Wales CP district publishes Llwybr Rhyddid y Bobl (‘The People’s Path to Freedom’) by John Roose Williams, arguing in favour of Welsh self-determination, Welsh culture and socialism and against the Welsh National Party’s reactionary policies.

1937   North Wales District of the CP established.

1937   Publication of the working class novel Cwmardy by NUWM organiser, CP councillor and former ‘Fed’ official Lewis Jones, followed by We Live (completed by his partner Mavis Llewellyn in 1939).

1937   The first of around 200 volunteers from Wales arrive in Spain with the International Brigades to defend democracy against General Franco’s rebellion backed by fascist Germany and Italy. At least 35 of them are killed in the war. 

1937   Thora Silverthorne returned from medical service with the International Brigades in Spain to co-found the Association of Nurses (later merged into the National Union of Public Employees).

1940   Prize-winning poet and CPGB founder member T.E. Nicholas interned in Swansea gaol for alleged fascist sympathies(!), where he writes sonnets published in 1942 as Canu’r Carchar (‘The Prison Sings’).

1944   Unification of the North Wales and South Wales districts of the Party; publication of The Flame of Welsh Freedom/ Fflam Rhyddid Cymru by John Roose Williams for the National Eisteddfod, proposing a Wales Trade Union Congress.

1945   CP general secretary Harry Pollitt is just 972 votes short of winning the Rhondda East seat at Westminster.

1946   Horner is elected general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers |(NUM) and retires in 1959.

1947   The CP Welsh Committee publishes the first translation of The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx & Engels, from the original German into Welsh by WJ Rees.

1948   In The Fight for Socialism in Wales, Welsh secretary Idris Cox sets out the Party’s support for ‘a Welsh Parliament in a Federal Britain’.

1950   CP Welsh Secretary Idris Cox adresses rally to launch the Parliament for Wales Campaign and joins its executive committee.   

1951   Will Paynter elected president of the South Wales Area NUM.

1953   Dai Dan Evans elected South Wales vice-president and pioneers the South Wales Miners Eisteddfod (1948) and the South Wales Miners Gala (1953).

1955   Annie Powell wins her first seat on Rhondda Borough Council.

1959   Will Paynter elected president NUM (retired in 1969).

1961   Communists lead the protest movement against NATO-German military training exercises in Pembrokeshire.

1961   Dr Julian Tudor Hart (later president of the Socialist Health Assocation) establishes his GP ‘people’s surgery’ in Glyncorrwg and wins worldwide praise for pioneering preventive medicine.

1963   Dai Francis elected secretary of the South Wales Area NUM and plays a leading role with son Hywel (later Labour MP for Aberafan) in establishing the South Wales Miners Library and Llafur (the Welsh Labour History Society and journal).

1969   The CP Welsh Committee begins publication of its journal Cyffro (‘Change’) followed in later years by Moving Left in Wales.

1972   Communists come to play a leading role in the militant campaign to defeat a plan to site giant gas storage tanks mear the village of Hirwaun.

1974   Dai Francis elected chair of the Wales TUC.

1974   Steel industry union convenor Graheme Williams plays a leading role in the campaign to close Re-Chem toxic waste incinerator, New Inn near Pontypool.

1976   Dai Francis stands against “Prince” Charles Windsor for post of Chancellor of the University of Wales.

1978   Publication of Quarryman’s Champion: The Life and Activities of William John Parry of Coetmor (1978) by John Roose Williams.

1979   Annie Powell elected Mayor of the Rhondda.

1984   Communists lead the formation of the Welsh Congress in Support of Mining Communities.

1997   Robert Griffiths chairs the ‘Socialists Say Yes!’ campaign in the referendum for a National Assembly for Wales.

1998   In his speech in Cardiff, Nelson Mandela pays personal tribute to the contribution of former CP Welsh secretary Bert Pearce to the Wales Anti-Apartheid Movement.

1998   Communists play a major role organising an international march and a conference of European communist parties to oppose the Euro-summit in Cardiff.

2004   The Communist University of Wales is relaunched as a biennial event.

2007   The Communist Party first contests all regions in the National Assembly elections and qualifies for party election broadcasts in English and Welsh on TV and radio.

2008   Gareth Miles and Gwyn Griffiths update the Welsh-language translation of The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx & Engels.

2008   Gareth Miles wins Welsh language novel of the year prize

2009   CP plays a leading role in the ‘No2EU – Yes to Democracy’ alliance in the European Parliament elections, organising an all-Wales speaking tour with the Socialist Party.

2012   Communists and allies produce a Welsh-language section in the Morning Star for the Bro Morganwg (Vale of Glamorgan) National Eisteddfod.

2016   Communists lead Lexit: the Left Leave Campaignin Wales in favour of a referendum vote for Britain to leave the European Union.