By the YSG editorial board
In 2019, 6 years ago, the Socialist-Republican group Valleys Underground formed, with the aim to create a movement which is not just rooted in the communities, but in the working class history of Wales. It has grown in the past half decade to become a national organisation, the Welsh Underground Network, and in 2024 launched the Plaid Gomiwnyddol Cymru (Communist Party of Wales) to lead the political charge.
But let’s rewind to the first 9 months of Valleys Underground, there was a deluge of activity, a sort of ‘insurgent’ community cleanup campaign, fired by people who were fed up of waiting for things to happen. Then the pandemic hit, and forced everyone inside, onto Twitter, to have the same tired, old arguments, to again retreat from meaningful activism, back to bitterly feuding in the same “lefty” circles.
Still, Valleys Underground took the opportunity to make something happen and uploaded the entirety of ‘The Dragon Has Two Tongues’ onto their website; a ground-breaking show from 1985 that pits the formidable Marxist historian Gwyn Alf Williams against the liberal historian Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, in a battle for not just Welsh history, but a battle for history as a whole.
They tell the story of Wales together from ancient civilisation to the 80s. Gwyn’s marxist focus on the people and their material conditions is juxtaposed with Wynford’s somewhat more romantic and liberal explanation. For many viewers this programme is the first time they will question the way history is told.
The problem is that the series was incredibly difficult to access.
ITV wants to charge £143,000 to anyone who wants to upload this nationally significant show to a streaming site, and pretend that they can’t simply remove the copyright. Charity screenings are possible, but there’s a large fee per episode and it’s one-off.
Others have had to remove the show from websites and blogs after threatening letters…
We sat down with Joe, the founder of Valleys Underground, to find out why he thinks it’s important to have the show hosted online for free for all.
Q: Why did you make the decision to upload this show, despite the threat of legal action? What makes this show that important?
The show arguably is the best history of Wales ever produced. Not just as Marxists, not just as a historian, but as people in Wales. History has been white-washed, quite literally in many cases, as a story of kings and queens. In Wales even now, our history is taught in the context of what monarchs were reigning, and their sordid activities. The Dragon Has Two Tongues gave the people of Wales their agency back. Not just monarchs, aristocrats, and the big politicians of the day – but regular people, working people, being the movers and shapers of history. It shows that throughout the millennia, it wasn’t the ‘great men of history’ shaping the developing nation around themselves, but the people themselves, constantly evolving, constantly having to redefine themselves, and what it means to be ‘Welsh’, amidst almost constant turmoil.
The reason we uploaded this though, isn’t even so much to do with the show. Who controls our history? Who decided what history is important? For one of the greatest historical accounts of our shared history to be locked away, guarded under copyright, by a company that refuses to even air it is a crime.
The documentary isn’t a commodity, it isn’t a product of a company, it’s the product of the Welsh people, it’s our history – and to have that held to ransom, to have nameless, faceless corporate employees try and sell it back to us is something we can’t abide.
Q: What does this show mean to you?
As a Marxist, a historian, and a Merthyr boy, it basically ticks all the boxes! The show is the best, most in-depth history of Wales, and the people who’ve inhabited it. More importantly, though, it centres the driving force of all historical change – people, or specifically, working people. Too often, the sanitized, watered-down history that gets regurgitated to us in Wales focuses on the big events, the ‘great men’, etc… This documentary shows us that it’s us, the people, who have shaped the course of this nation. Rather than being passive actors in our own history, it gives us our agency – no wonder it’s so popular, and no wonder they want to try and limit who sees it.
Q: What will you do if ITV force you to take it offline?
Good luck to them trying. If they think we haven’t got backups upon backups, and aren’t willing to repost it again and again, they’re dreaming. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.
Q: Since uploading the show, it’s been viewed 17,800 times on the website. How does that make you feel?
Angry, in all honesty, that despite its clear popularity, and its importance, that it’s still being held to ransom. It belongs to us, and it always will. I’m incredibly proud that we’ve been able to host it, and it’s a great privilege to know we’ve been able to allow new generations access to their own story.
After reading this article, please check the show out here: https://welshundergroundnetwork.com/the-dragon-has-two-tongues/
