It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a more damaging accusation to make against any democratic politician or political party than to accuse them of being ‘Fascist’. During the second half of the twentieth century, Fascism came to be regarded as representing the nadir of human history. In the Nazi concentration and extermination camps — Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen . . . the roll-call is chillingly familiar — Fascists descended to depths of depravity that are beyond imagination. Notwithstanding the innumerable atrocities committed in the name of Stalin, of Mao or on behalf of the various empires constructed by European imperialism, Fascism occupies...

The 25 November 1938 edition of theCambrian News, in a column titled ‘UCW Notes’ reporting on life at what was then the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, included the following snippet:

A debate was held on Friday, the motion being ‘That Welsh Nationalism is Welsh Nazi-ism.’ The speakers were: For, R. Islwyn Pritchard and Edgar Jones; Against, G. I. Lewis and Dyfnallt Morgan. The motion was passed by a narrow margin.¹

Too much significance should not be attached to the outcome of student debates.² On this occasion at least, however, the discussion — and its conclusion — reflected a broader reality....

Thus far, we have considered the range and variety of the accusations of Fascism made against Plaid Cymru; it might even be said that the attention they have been given is far greater than the accusations themselves warrant. But it is only through close examination than we can establish how feeble were the efforts to present supporting evidence. It is also only through sustained scrutiny that we become fully aware of the sophistry and crude anti-Catholic prejudice that riddled the meagre ‘evidence’ that was actually produced. It would be an obvious travesty to indict Plaid Cymru of harbouring Fascist sympathies...

At no time did the Plaid Cymru leadership consider the party to be a Fascist party. Indeed, its opposition to Fascism was consistent and unequivocal evenbeforeFascism was finally rendered beyond the pale. It is also evident that Fascist parties saw no common ground between themselves and Welsh nationalism. Additionally, nowhere in the vast corpus of academic literature on Fascism do we find any discussion of Plaid Cymru as a Fascist party or a party that had any meaningful association with Fascism. Of course, we must consider the possibility that they were all mis taken: that the members and...

The decade from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s proved to be the most bloody in human history. Mussolini’s forces attacked Abyssinia in October 1935; July 1936 saw the start of the Spanish Civil War; Italy attacked Albania in April 1939; while in the same period in the Far East, China endured a war between the Communists, Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalists, the Japanese, and a host of minor warlords, with the Japanese also launching a number of military excursions into the Soviet Union. By September 1939, a general and truly global war was underway as the British and French empires declared war...

‘No party can throw a stone at another. No party comes clean.’¹ These are the words of the great Labour leader, Ernest Bevin, reflecting on the attitudes of the British political parties towards international affairs during the interwar years. His was a fair and accurate verdict. What is interesting in the present context is the fact that the sins of Plaid Cymru (actual or alleged) during the 1930s have received and continue to receive a disproportionate amount of attention in comparison to the behaviour of other political parties. Who, after all, reproaches contemporary Liberal Democrats for the policies and positions...

One year after the first National Assembly election, with theWelsh Mirrorcranking up its campaign against Welsh nationalists, Jan Morris published a short novel titledOur First Leader: A Welsh Fable. A few months later a superbly rendered Welsh-language version appeared, prepared by Morris’s son, Twm Morys, titledEin Llyw Cyntaf.¹ The novel satirises the notion that Wesh nationalists were Fascist sympathisers and fellow travellers. Morris’s counter factual history imagines a Second World War from which the United States and Japan had remained aloof, and in which Britain has been forced to surrender and has been occupied by Nazi...