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Item

Reminiscences about John Maclean fifty years after his death including (transcript page numbers given in brackets): his powerful speech in 1910 attacking the idea that Lloyd George’s budget was a socialist one (1); his joining of the Social Democrat Federation in 1902 or 1903, the success of his classes on Marxist economics (2, 3-4); working with him on the joint committee of Social Democratic Party and provisionally formed British Socialist Party to arrange visit of Victor Grayson to Glasgow (3); his belief that the European social democratic movement was superior to the British one (4); his criticism of the Independent Labour Party and Ramsey MacDonald (4-5); his opposition to BSP leader Henry Hyndman’s policy of expanding the Royal Navy before the First World War (5); his campaign against the war after it broke out, leading to his arrest and imprisonment and consequent sacking from his teaching post in 1915 (6-9); agitation against rent rises and evictions in Glasgow (9-11); suppression of ‘Forward’, the ‘Vanguard’ and the ‘Worker’ papers and deportation of leading Clydeside shop stewards (11-12); arrest and imprisonment of Maclean for urging workers to oppose the war (12); his support for the Easter Rising of 1916 following his release (13); his advocacy of revolution in Britain after the Russian Revolution, leading to his imprisonment for five years (14-16); impact of his speech during his trial in which he denounced capitalism and supported the Glasgow shop stewards’ call for an armistice (16-18); other socialists imprisoned for speeches at this time (17-18); successful campaign for Maclean’s release just before polling day in December 1918 (19).

20 pages

Open

Recording at 842/26.

English