842/96

Item

Subjects include (transcript page numbers given in brackets): discussion in Glasgow of industrial disputes such as the 1913 Dublin strike (1-3); lectures on Christianity and Irish history on Glasgow Green (2, 4); demonstrations on issues such as conscription at Nelson’s Monument (3); unemployment demonstrations on Glasgow Green after First World War (4); ban on meetings there and elsewhere in Glasgow in 1931 and unsuccessful campaign against it (5-6); McShane’s arrest and imprisonment for resisting the eviction of a tenant in 1939 (7-8); repeated targeting of him by the authorities, including his arrest in 1931 on a charge of breach of the peace at a meeting at Queen’s Park Gate (8-10); brutality of Glasgow police (10); arrests in the 1930s of British Communist Party members for spying, for criminal libel in ‘Daily Worker’ articles, and for involvement in agitation (11-14); the party’s excessive support for the Soviet Union, leading, in McShane’s view, to its becoming an obstacle to revolution at the time of the interview (13); unconcerned response of Wal Hannington to several spells of imprisonment (14); examples of unscrupulous behaviour by John McGovern (14-16).

16 pages

Open

Recording at 842/30.

English