What Kind of Revolution?

During the 1970s there existed a short-lived SPGB group centred around Aberdeen university made up of a member or two and some sympathisers. It produced several leaflets amongst which was the following.

Marx v Lenin

Reformist political parties, such as the Labour Party, have failed abysmally to remove inequality or solve social problems such as slum housing, pollution, unemployment, war, etc, etc. This fact along with the increasing class conflict on the industrial field is bringing an increasing number of people round to the view that there is a need for a fundamental revolutionary change in present day society. But what is this revolutionary change to involve?

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has a basically Marxist view on the nature of revolution. This is not because we look on Marx as some sort of god but because we consider his analysis to be generally correct.

SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
The central feature of the Marxist concept of socialist revolution is that it is seen in the context of the whole historical development of mankind. We contend that the basis of all societies is the means of producing wealth and the relations into which people enter in order to produce this wealth. Society is revolutionised by means of class struggles when the means of production come into conflict with the relations of production. Socialism is not just a ‘good idea’ which could be put into practice at any time in history. Marx attacked the views of revolutionaries such as Bakunin and the 19th century Russian insurrectionists who thought that socialist revolution was most likely in industrially backward countries.

Marxists insist that socialism is only possible after a capitalist society has been established and developed modern industry and technology. This, of course, has long since taken place and now an abundance for all is possible; but the capitalist relations of production hold back the productive forces and prevent potential abundance becoming a reality. Private property and production for profit have to be abolished for man to progress.

WHO MAKES THE REVOLUTION?
The only force capable of carrying out this task are the working class – all those who, owning no substantial amount of property, have to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer in order to live. Developments within capitalism lead to an increasing working class revolutionary consciousness. The class structure becomes more and more simplified and polarised into the two great opposing classes of capitalists and workers; peasants are driven off the land and into the towns to become wage labourers, small businessmen go bankrupt and are hurled into the ranks of the working class, the ‘professional classes’ are turned into white collar workers and increasingly realise this. Working conditions become more oppressive as work is intensified and, with increasing mechanisation and division of labour, made monotonous and devoid of any creative interest. Capital becomes concentrated in the hands of a small minority of the population, and even though workers’ absolute standards of living may rise, relative to the capitalists' wealth their social position declines.

In addition to these factors, workers’ class consciousness is also increased by their experiences and struggles in capitalism. First, trade unions are formed to defend and improve living standards, and then workers increasingly realise that this is not enough, and that a complete change in society is needed to solve the problems they face. Accordingly a workers political party is formed with the aim of capturing political power to establish socialism. Marx always stressed, as do we in the SPGB, that the working class have to free themselves by their own self-conscious action – they cannot be freed from above by some ‘revolutionary elite.’ Thus the workers’ political party must be democratically organised and controlled by the membership as a whole – as is the SPGB. Marx put his principles into practice in his revolutionary activity in the Communist League and the First International, insisting on their open democratic organisation.

PEACEFUL OR VIOLENT DEVOLUTION?
In his early days as a revolutionary Marx thought that the only road to socialism was a violent armed insurrection. However later, when workers won the right to vote, he advocated that where it was possible the working class revolutionary party should contest elections and try and win political power by that means. If this was done there was a possibility that the revolution could be largely peaceful. Like Marx, the SPGB believes that where that means is available the revolutionary party should contest elections and, when resources allow, we do so – on a revolutionary platform of course, not on a reformist programme like the Labour Party.

Having captured political power the working class must use the state machine to dispossess the capitalists and establish a system based on the common ownership of wealth. However the bureaucratic capitalist state is not at all a suitable instrument for this task – first, therefore, the working class have to make the state organisation thoroughly democratic, with all officials being directly elected and re-callable, and being in no way privileged as compared to other workers.

THE AIM OF REVOLUTION
Socialism will be a world-wide classless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means for producing and distributing wealth. Thus once it has been established there will be no need for the state – the armed forces, police, judiciary, etc. – since it exists only to protect the private property of the rich minority. The government over people will be replaced by a democratic ‘administration of things’.

Socialist production will be consciously planned, aiming purely at meeting peoples’ needs. Thus there will be no buying and selling, exchange, prices, money, wages, or profits. In the first phase of communism Marx thought there would have to be some restrictions on the consumption of consumer goods – perhaps by labour-time vouchers – before industry could be developed to the extent where it would be possible to distribute goods and provide services free. With the tremendous growth in man’s productive ability since Marx’s time we consider this first phase of communism could be gone through very quickly, and free access operated soon after the establishment of socialism.

For Marxists a central feature of socialism is that work would no longer be monotonous drudgery, in which the producers control neither the labour process nor the products of their work. Instead with the ending of capitalism's extreme division of labour and the automation of unpleasant jobs, work would be a creative activity in which people would find a means of self-expression. Thus Marx advocated, as does the SPGB, a world revolution aiming at the establishment of a system based on common ownership and production for use, to be consciously carried out by the working class as a whole, democratically organised in a revolutionary socialist party.

BUT WASN'T LENIN A MARXIST?
Many people, both opponents of socialism and those who consider themselves to be socialists, think so. Modern Russia, China, Cuba, E. Germany, etc were all founded and are at present ruled by, parties calling themselves ‘Marxist-Leninist’. Many political groups operating in the West proclaim themselves to be both Marxist and Leninist – in Britain for example, the ‘Communist Party’, ‘International Socialists’, and the ‘Workers Revolutionary Party’. The SPGB contends that Lenin's views on revolution were fundamentally different from Marx’s, and that when Leninist revolutionary theory is put into practice the result is not socialism but state capitalism – as now exists in Russia, China, and all the other states that claim to be communist. An examination of Lenin’s theory of revolution will prove our point.

THE REVOLUTIONARY ELITE
Very early in his political activity Lenin formulated two theories that were always to remain central to his views. Firstly, he argued that the working class by its own efforts was incapable of wanting and understanding socialism. Secondly, following on from this, Lenin held that socialist consciousness would have to be brought to the working class from outside, from a tightly organised revolutionary organisation under a strong centralised leadership. This party was to be composed of full time professional revolutionaries, drawn mainly from the bourgeois intelligentsia.

Lenin’s view that workers by their own efforts could only reach a ‘trade union consciousness’, and that socialist consciousness could only come from outside the capitalist-worker class struggle, is in complete contradiction to Marxism. Marx, as we’ve seen, always stressed that the working class had to free itself, and that socialist understanding developed in the working class as a result of workers’ experiences and struggles in capitalism. Similarly, Lenin’s idea of an exclusive, hierarchically organised revolutionary party, in which the leadership would have great power, goes completely against Marx’s belief in open democratic organisation.

The SPGB believes that the means used, and the end aimed at, are inextricably linked. If elitist authoritarian means are used then an elitist authoritarian society will be the result. If an egalitarian democratic society is aimed at, it can only be achieved by a self-conscious majority, democratically organised without any leadership which could, become a future ruling class.

BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION FOR RUSSIA
It is not too well known that in all his revolutionary activity up to April 1917 Lenin was advocating, not a socialist revolution for Russia, but a bourgeois revolution which would establish a capitalist republic. Correctly applying Marx’s materialist conception of history to the Russian situation, Lenin rejected the possibility of an immediate transition to socialism because of the lack of economic development and. the insufficient degree of socialist consciousness among the workers. Since he considered that the Russian capitalists were too weak to smash Tsarism and establish capitalism themselves, Lenin advocated that the Bolsheviks should take power, establish a bourgeois republic with political democracy, and then become a revolutionary opposition within that republic, building up support for socialism.

DISTORTIONS OF MARXISM
However in April 1917 Lenin declared himself to be in favour of the viewpoint which he had previously scornfully rejected – adopting Trotsky's ‘permanent revolution’ theory he urged that the Bolsheviks prepare to seize power with the aim of immediately taking socialist measures. Again, Lenin was rejecting the Marxist position. As he had himself argued earlier, the degree of economic development and socialist consciousness needed for socialist revolution did not exist. In advocating socialist revolution for backward Russia Lenin was adopting the policy of the 19th century insurrectionists whom Marx and Engels had strongly criticised.

At the same time as he took up the permanent revolution theory Lenin introduced a distinction between Socialism and Communism. He stated that the coming revolution would establish not communism, but socialist society, a system which would persist into the foreseeable future, and in which there would still be the state, the wages system, and. production for sale . This was of course a further distortion of Marx who had always used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably. It does though perhaps show that Lenin really still recognised the validity of the Marxist argument that backward countries could not be the starting point for socialist revolution. For, while he advocated the immediate establishment of socialism, Lenin had now re-defined socialism so as to make it mean in effect a form of state capitalism – which was all that could be established in Russia at that time.

It was obvious that the Bolsheviks could only seize power by an armed insurrection and Lenin attempted to give this policy Marxist theoretical justification by claiming that Marx considered it impossible for the proletariat to come to power without smashing the state machine. In fact as we’ve seen Marx recognised that in some circumstances the proletariat would be able to peacefully capture the state machine and then smash/dismantle its oppressive and undemocratic features.

DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT =  DICTATORSHIP OF THE BOLSHEVIKS
Marx sometimes referred to the political transition period between capitalism and communism, in which the democratically organised working class used political power to dispossess the capitalists, as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin in addition to differing from Marx on the length of time that he envisaged the state existing after the revolution, developed a completely different concept of the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead of the extremely democratic set-up Marx advocated, he re-defined the dictatorship of the proletariat to the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party which actually meant the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party leadership. Not long after their seizure of power the Bolsheviks started to oppress all opposition, left-wing as well as right-wing, and verbal and written opposition as well as anti-Bolshevik actions.

The SPGB in contrast, while recognising that violence would have to be used against a minority who first used violence against the socialist majority, is in favour of the freest and fullest possible expression of ideas both before and after socialist revolution. We totally oppose all censorship. Thus Lenin’s views on the revolution are basically contradictory to Marx’s theory of revolution in many respects – even though Lenin claimed to be a Marxist. How is this to be explained?

THE HISTORICAL ROLE OF LENINISM
Lenin’s theory of revolution was developed in an industrially backward s basically feudal society that was ripe not for a socialist, but for a bourgeois revolution. Lenin up to 1917 had advocated that the Bolshevik Party should take power to carry through this capitalist revolution.

In 1917 the Bolsheviks did take power, and though they did so proclaiming that they were establishing socialism, they were prisoners of Russia’s backwardness and could do no more than develop capitalism, as Lenin had earlier advocated. However the Bolsheviks did not relinquish power to a traditional capitalist government. Justifying their rule on the grounds that it was the dictatorship of the proletariat the Bolsheviks have retained power ever since, and over the years their leaders have become a new ruling class, collectively controlling and thus in effect owning the means of production, and performing the same role as the private capitalists in the West. Thus historically Leninism has been an ideology used in the building up of state capitalism in backward areas of the world. Its insistence on the need for hierarchical organisation and a revolutionary elite, and its denial of the possibility of the working class itself developing mass revolutionary consciousness, stamp it as belonging to the era of bourgeois revolutions.

Lenin’s concept of revolution has no relevance for socialist revolution in modern industrially advanced capitalism – and if a Leninist party seized power the only result could be the establishment of some type of state capitalism.

REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE TODAY
It is vital that when abolishing present day exploitation we do not substitute a new form of exploitation. The only sure guarantee against this is a revolution made and controlled by the self conscious majority of the working class.

As Marx put it "The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the workers themselves."

Written in 1974 by comrades of the Aberdeen SPGB group

ANOTHER CUNNING PLAN

In the BBC TV comedy series Blackadder one of the character is always coming up with a "cunning plan" that always turns out to be completely useless. The present government has a cunning plan to deal with the economic crisis. Cut the workers wages, increase their pension contributions, slash their pensions benefits and increase the pension age to sixty eight. This has led to hundreds of thousands of public sector workers taking part in a 24-hour UK-wide strike in a dispute with the government over pension changes. "Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said pension talks will not be reopened and "nothing further will be achieved through strike action". Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union - which estimates that an "overwhelming majority" of its 250,000 public sector members are on strike - said the UK would have "the highest pension age of any European country". (BBC News, 10 May) The truth is that inside capitalism slumps and booms are part and parcel of the system and there is no cunning way to plan it despite the efforts of Baldric or Francis Maude. RD

Clearing away the Scots

 "Should the Czar of Russia take possession of these lands next term that we couldn't expect worse treatment at his hands than we have experienced in the hands of your family for the last fifty years." (In 1854 Highland landowners were asked to recruit troops from their tenants to fight in the Crimean War. One retort was the above)

 Fuadaich nan Gàidheal, the expulsion of the Gael, is a name given to the forced displacement of the population of the Scottish Highlands from their ancient ways of warrior clan subsistence farming, leading to mass emigration from the Highlands to the coast, the Scottish Lowlands, and abroad. This was part of a process of agricultural change throughout the United Kingdom, but the late timing, the lack of legal protection for year-by-year tenants under Scottish law, the abruptness of the change from the clan system and the brutality of many of the evictions gave the Highland Clearances particular notoriety.The Highland Clearances are a notorious part of Scottish history. The Clearances' was not just a hundred or so victims who suffered eviction, but tens of thousands of men, women and children alike, often violently, from their homes to make way for large scale sheep farming. The stories of the Clearances are endless, whether they are individual cases or something that effected whole communities. Although the clearances are associated with the Highlands there were other parts of Scotland which suffered as well, like Argyll and Perthshire, not to the same extent as the likes of Sutherland, but they were cleared never the less. Rural England had already experienced areas of depopulation in the agricultural revolution and the Enclosure Acts, but not to the extent of what the Highlands would experience. Similar developments also began in Scotland in the Lowlands and this Scottish agricultural revolution was changing the face of the Lowlands and transformed the traditional system of subsistence farming into a more productive agricultural system. This also had effects on population and precipitated a migration of Lowlanders. Towards the end of the 18th century ships were leaving from all parts of Scotland with those who were being forced to leave in one way or another.

From the late 16th century the clan-leaders increasingly took up droving, taking cattle to sell in the Lowlands. Increasing demand in Britain for cattle and sheep and the creation of new breeds of sheep, such as the black-faced which could be reared in the mountainous country gave the landowners and Chieftains the opportunity of higher rents to meet the costs of their increasingly aristocratic lifestyle. As a result, many families living on a subsistence level were displaced. Yet despite the emigration, the population of every highland county increased between 1755 and 1821. Population was not the only thing on the way up. Rent was increasing and ordinary people found it more and more difficult to pay. Crofters had become a source of virtually free labour to their landlords, forced to work long hours, for example, in the harvesting and processing of kelp. Burning seaweed produced kelp ash, an alkali source, an important constituent in glassmaking at the end of the 18th century. It was also crucial in the textile industry: mixed with quicklime it was used as a bleach; in soap form it washed wool and, for dying, it was an ingredient in potash. The requirements of shipbuilding led to legislation which prevented wood being burned to produce this so the seaware of the Western Isles became extremely attractive as an economic resource. The kelp, though, did not come from just any seaweed washed ashore, the best sources lay underneath rocks some distance offshore which had to be cut by workers wading out and cutting it with scythes. It was then dragged ashore and dried, before burning, all in all a most labour-intensive activity and a most unpleasant one.To landlords, 'improvement' and 'clearance' did not necessarily mean depopulation. Hard and unpleasant though the work was it was very lucrative for the landlord that is. The wages of the kelp harvester was between £1 and £3 per ton for the entire period from 1790 until the collapse of the industry. It was during this period that fortunes were made by the landlords who “owned” the kelp. During the Napoleonic Wars kelp prices reached £20 per ton. As the entire manufacturing process was carried out by cheap island labour, this constituted pure profit for the landowners. Even the small cost of labour did not really need to be met: the labourers were crofters and either had a requirement to work so many days each year for their landlord or, alternatively, the kelping was deducted from their rent payments. At least until the 1820s, when there were steep falls in the price of kelp, landlords wanted to create pools of cheap or virtually free labour, supplied by families subsisting in new crofting townships. Kelp collection and processing was a very profitable way of using this labour, and landlords petitioned successfully for legislation designed to stop emigration. This took the form of the Passenger Vessels Act passed in 1803. Its net effect was to raise the minimum cost of a passage (Many of the requirements of the 1803 Act were lost in new legislation in 1817 and emigration, which now suited the landlords, was made easier). It was little wonder, then, that landlord after landlord was prepared to subordinate all other land management considerations to the almost unbelievably lucrative business of making and marketing kelp.The landlord to benefit most from this industry was Lord Macdonald of Sleat.

Attitudes changed during the 1820s and for many landlords, the potato famine which began in 1846 became another reason for encouraging or forcing emigration and depopulation. As in Ireland, the potato crop failed in the mid 19th century, and a widespread outbreak of cholera further weakened the Highland population. The ongoing clearance policy resulted in starvation, deaths, and a secondary clearance, when families either migrated voluntarily or were forcibly evicted. There were many deaths of children and old people. As there were few alternatives, many emigrated, joined the British army, or moved to the growing urban cities, like Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee in Scotland and Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Liverpool in England. In many areas people were given economic incentives to move.

 Landlords of the clan estates removed the local people to make way for sheep. Sheep were given priority over people, but not just any people, for the folk burned out of their homes were the descendants of the clansmen, the native people of the land - the Highlanders,  those who had fought or fell in previous campaigns to preserve their clan identity. Many chiefs engaged Lowland, or sometimes English, factors with expertise in more profitable sheep farming, and they "encouraged", sometimes forcibly, the population to move off the land. 1792, infamously known as the Year of the Sheep, signalled another wave of mass emigration of Scottish Highlanders. The people were accommodated in poor crofts or small farms in coastal areas where farming could not sustain the communities and they were expected to take up fishing. Population fell significantly in some areas, where large numbers of Highlanders relocated to the lowland cities, becoming the labour force for the emerging industrial revolution, many emigrated to other parts of the British Empire, particularly Nova Scotia, Quebec and Upper Canada and later Cape Breton and the Carolinas of the American colonies. 

Karl Marx could accurately write that "The history of the wealth of the Sutherland family is the history of the ruin and of the expropriation of the Scotch-Gaelic population from its native soil." (The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery )

Time-line

1724 --25 Anticipating the clearances of the Highland lairds, the gentry of Galloway and Dumfriesshire evict farmers and the tenants who rose and destroyed the stane-dykes and slaughtered cattle. They had already been passive resisters of rent; the military were called in; women were in the forefront of the resistance

1729 -- That good Jacobite, Mackintosh of Borlum, who in 1715 led the Highlanders to Preston, wrote a book recommending enclosures and plantations so a defeat of the Hanovarians would have meant little what took place.

1747 -- The Act of Proscription was introduced which was to ban the wearing of tartan, the teaching of Gaelic, the right of Highlanders to "gather," and the playing of bagpipes in Scotland. The Heritable Jurisdictions Act forced Highland landowners to either accept all English rule or else forfeit their lands. Many Highland landowners and Clan chiefs moved to London. The Act of Proscription is repealedin 1782 , but many Highland landowners, who have been born and raised in London or other metropolitan areas, remain in their urban homes, distancing themselves from the tenant clan members on their lands.

1762 -- Sir John Lockhart-Ross brings sheep to his Balnagowan estate, raises tenant rents, installs fences and Lowlander shepherds.

1782 -- Thomas Gillespie and Henry Gibson lease a sheep-walk at Loch Quoich, removing more than 500 tenants, most of who emigrate to Canada.

1780s  -- Donald Cameron of Lochiel begins clearing his family lands, which span from Loch Leven to Loch Arkaig.

1791 --The Society of the Propagation of Christian Knowledge reports that over the previous 19 years more than 6,400 people emigrated from the Inverness and Ross areas.

1791 -- "The dis-peopling in great measure of large tracts of country in order to make room for sheep is taking place," observes the Reverend Kemp after visiting the Highlands.

1792 -- Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster brings the first Cheviot Sheep to his Caithness estates. These sheep would later be referred to as four-footed Clansmen, indicating the tenants' rage at being removed in favour of animals.

1792  -- Angry tenant farmers drive all the Cheviots in Ross-shire to Boath. The 42nd (Royal Highlanders) Regiment intervenes, and the sheep are returned to Ross-shire.

1800-1813 -- Extensive clearances in Strathglass, Farr, Lairg, Dornoch, Rogart, Loth, Clyne, Gospie, Assynt, and lower Kildonan.

1801 -- The first clearances of the Strathglass area by William, the 24th Chisholm. Nearly 50% of the Clan living there are evicted.

1807  -- Evictions at Farr & Lairg -- the first major Sutherlandshire clearances.

1807  --  The Northern Association of Gentlemen Farmers and Breeders of Sheep agree to move their activities into Ross-shire, Sutherlandshire, and Caithness. This decision would lead to massive clearances in those areas.

1809 -- The Chisholm enacts another large clearance of his lands in Strathglass, advertising to interested sheep-farmers lots holding between 1,000 and 6,000 sheep.

1811 -- More than 50 shepherds are brought into Sutherlandshire and made Justices of the Peace -- thereby giving them legal control over the native tenants.

1813 -- Lord and Lady Stafford, the landowners of Sutherlandshire, hire James Loch to oversee the clearing of their lands.  Lady Stafford writes that she would like to visit her Sutherlandshire estate but: "at present I am uneasy about a sort of mutiny that has broken out in one part of Sutherland, in consequences of our new plans having made it necessary to transplant some of the inhabitants to the sea-coast from other parts of the estate"

1813 -- Nearly 100 tenants of Strath Kildonan emigrate to Canada aboard the Prince of Wales and settle near Lake Winnipeg.

1813 -- Sir George  MacKenzie of Coul writes a book justifying the clearances, citing: "The necessity for reducing the population in order to introduce valuable improvements, and the advantages of committing the cultivation of the soil to the hands of a few...."

1813  -- a group of Strath Kildonan residents march towards Golspie in order to have their grievances against the clearances heard. They are met by soldiers and the Sheriff, who, aided by local church ministers, intimidate the tenants into returning to their homes to await their eviction notices.

1813 (December 15) -- Tenants of the Strathnaver area of Sutherlandshire go to Golspie at the direction of William Young, Chief Factor for Lord and Lady Stafford. The tenants are told they have until the following Whitsunday to leave their homes and relocate to the wretched coastlands of Strathy Point.

1814  -- Under the direction of Patrick Sellar, a Factor for Lord and Lady Stafford, heath and pastures surrounding Strathnaver are burned in preparation for planting grass for the incoming sheep. The native tenants of Strathnaver make no motion of moving to Strathy Point, or anywhere else.

1814 (June 13) -- Patrick Sellar begins burning Strathnaver. Residents are not given time to remove their belongings or invalid relatives, and two people reputedly die from their houses burning.

1815 -- The Sheriff-Substitute for Sutherlandshire arrests Patrick Sellar for:willfull fire-raising. Not surprisingly, a jury of affluent landowners and merchants acquit Sellar in 1816. Soon after, Sellar continues clearing vast areas of Sutherlandshire.

1818 -- Patrick Sellar retires to his Sutherlandshire estate, given to him by Lord and Lady Stafford in acknowledgment of his work.

1819  -- Another violent clearing of Strathnaver residents. Donald Macleod, a young apprentice stonemason witnesses: "250 blazing houses. Many of the owners were my relatives and all of whom I personally knew; but whose present condition, whether in or out of the flames, I could not tell. The fire lasted six days, till the whole of the dwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking ruins."

1819  -- The Kildonan area is cleared. Donald MacDonald later writes: "...the whole inhabitants of the Kildonan parish, with the exception of three families--nearly 2,000 souls--were utterly rooted and burned out."

1820 -- James Loch publishes his account of enacting the clearances, or, as he calls them, the improvements. He declares that Gaelic will become a rarity in Sutherlandshire. Journalist Thomas Bakewell severely criticizes both Loch's book and his actions during the clearances.

1820  -- Hugh Munro, the laird of Novar, clears his estates at Culrain along the Kyle of Sutherland. A riot ensues when the Sheriff and military arrive to evict the tenants. Remonstrated by the minister Donald Matheson, the tenants eventually cease fighting and move away.

1821  -- Officials bearing Writs of Removal for the tenants of Gruids, near the River Shin, are stripped, whipped, and their documents are burned. Fearing another riot like Culrain, military and police accompany the Sheriff back to Gruids where, faced with such strong opposition, the tenants gathered their few belongings and moved to Brora.

1821 -- showed an increase over the census of 1811 of more than two hundred. The county has not been depopulated, its population has been merely been re-arranged in a new fashion. "The Duchess of Sutherland found it spread equally over the interior and the sea-coast, and in very comfortable circumstances--but she left it compressed into a wretched fabric of poverty and suffering that fringes the county on its eastern and western shores".

1826 -- The Island of Rum is cleared except for one family. MacLean of Coll pays for the other natives to emigrate to Canada.

1832 -- Despite the fact that he forcibly evicted them, exiled members of Clan Chisholm swear allegiance to their chief back in Scotland!

1847  --  "The Scotsman," reports that the Highlanders' problems are due to their own laziness and suggests the best solution is for the native tenants: as soon as they are able to labour for themselves, be removed from the vicious influence of the idleness in which their fathers have been brought up and have lived and starved.

1849 -- Despite some rioting by the native tenants, Lord Macdonald clears more than 600 people from Sollas on North Uist.

1850s  -- Clearances of thousands of tenants in the Strathaird district, Suishnish, and Boreraig on Skye; and Coigach at Loch Broom.

1851 -- Sir John MacNeill, under the direction of the Home Secretary, tours the Highlands and reports back that the Highland poor are "parading and exaggerating" their poverty and are basically lazy. The only solution MacNeill sees is emigration.

1851 -- The clearance of Barra by Colonel Gordon of Cluny. The Colonel called all of his tenant farmers to a meeting to "discuss rents", and threatened them with a fine if they did not attend. In the meeting hall, over 1,500 tenants were overpowered, bound, and immediately loaded onto ships for America.

1853 -- Knoydart is cleared under the direction of the widow of the 16th Chief of Glengarry. More than 400 people are suddenly and forcibly evicted from their homes, including women in labor and the elderly. After the houses were torched, some tenants returned to the ruins and tried to re-build their villages. These ramshackle structures were then also destroyed.

1854 -- The clearing of Strathcarron in Ross-shire. Some Clan Ross women tried to prevent the landlord's police force by blocking the road to the village. The constables charged the unarmed women, and, in the words of journalist Donald Ross: "...struck with all their force. ...Not only when knocking down, but after the females were on the ground. They beat and kicked them while lying weltering in their blood....and more than twenty females were carried off the field in blankets and litters, and the appearance they presented, with their heads cut and bruised, their limbs mangled and their clothes clotted with blood, was such as would horrify any savage."

1856 --  Harriet Beecher Stowe author of the anti-slavery Uncle Tom's Cabin visits Sutherlandshire. Her tour is carefully orchestrated by the current Duchess of Sutherland to avoid sites of eviction, and so Stowe proclaims the tales of the clearances to be mostly fictional.

1872 -- A Parliamentary Select Committee is established to investigate claims that tenant farmers are being evicted in the Highlands to make room for deer. As the people had been cleared for sheep and not deer, the Committee finds no evidence.

1874 -- Starving tenants of Black Isle, Caithness and Ross areas attempt to commandeer grain shipments going from Lairds' estate farms to export ships. Military forces are called in to guarantee safe shipment of the grain

20th Century

1976 -- A study concluded that some thirty‑five families or companies possess one third of the Highland's 7.39 million acres of privately owned land.

1977 --  Earl of Airlie’s trustees sold two parcels of this common land, and admitted in the deed of sale they had never claimed the disputed area they were selling on the Hill of Alyth was part of their property. They simply claimed it could be “construed” to be. They also conceded in the deed “we or our predecessors in title have at various times disponed [made over or conveyed legally] parts of the subjects known as The Hill of Alyth to which we or they may have had a right but granted no warrandice [legal guarantees, including that the seller can validly transfer ownership]. So, despite not being able to prove they owned it, they sold it to another landowner who then sold it to the Scottish Government, whose lawyers approved the purchase.

1993 -- One of the world's richest absentee landlords, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoumm of Dubai, bulldozes houses in his Wester Ross "glen of sorrow" to prevent human habitation,  because of "the night-time poaching activities of the local population." Twelve family homes have been reduced to rubble in a district which has 800 applicants on the local authority housing waiting list.

1997  --  The Scotsman reports: "The tenth Earl of Airlie, a former Lord Chamberlain to the Queen and brother of Sir Angus Ogilvy, has started an action to evict Norman Ogg, 58, a farmer, from his 125 acre farm on the 40,000 acre Airlie estate. "Nearby, in a separate action, Captain Alwyne Farquharson, chief of the Clan Farquharson and 16th baron of Invercauld, is trying to evict Jean Lindsay and her son, Sandy, from the 2,500 acre hill farm she has farmed for 26 years in Glenshee. "Capt Farquharson wants to extend the area available for grouse habitat -- and at Kinwhirrie farm, near Cortachy, Lord Airlie wants to improve the pheasant shooting."

1997 -- The Scotsman reported that the owners of the Highland Spring mineral water bottling company are allowing the houses on their 3,000-acre Blackford estate in Perthshire "to crumble as they fall vacant." Scottish National Party MP Roseanna Cunningham said "...the owners appear to be pursuing a policy of deliberately allowing perfectly serviceable properties to fall into disrepair rather than providing much needed rural housing."

1998  -- From The Scotsman: The 6th Earl of Granville, the Queen's godson and a man whose favourite pastimes include scuba diving for scallops, is invoking an archaic law, "foreshore entitlement", which allows him to levy royalties on kelp harvested from his 60,000-acre estate in the Outer Hebrides. While he sits in his elegant seven-bedroom mansion in Callernish accumulating royalty cheques, around 40 crofters on North Uist eke out a meagre living using sickles to hack tonnes of the crop from rocks jutting out of freezing Atlantic waters. After labouring in the bitter cold for as long as eight hours a day, the cutters are likely to earn just £15.20 per tonne. On a good day they may receive £45 for the seaweed harvest, which is shipped to the mainland and turned into a thickening agent for toothpaste, ketchup and jam. The 38-year-old Earl, Fergus Leveson Gower, is entitled to a percentage of the value of the seaweed crop simply because it is washed up on his piece of shore. Earl Granville has done his best to defend the seaweed royalties, amounting to around £800 a year, saying the money was paid by the alginate company Kelco-NutraSweet and did not affect the price paid to cutters. However, the crofters say the Earl's argument is disingenuous. They argue the tax is passed on to them in the form of reduced rates for their crop.

1998 -- leading estate agents Savills market a part of the common land on the Hill of Alyth as part of a farm for sale and were completely frank that the sellers could not prove they owned it. According to the particulars, they had acquired title “from previous heritable proprietors to the Hill of Alyth without warrandice. The purchaser will be given title to the hill on the same terms.”

2000 -- John MacLeod, the 29th MacLeod clan chief, puts the Black Cuillin mountains on Skye up for sale for £10 million. Local residents protest, sparking a debate about who actually owns the land and their rights to sell it.

Some writers see the Clearances as an early version of "ethnic cleansing". Although, landowners and employers were generally callous about the "lower orders", these modern terms such as  "ethnic cleansing"  do not apply, as most of the landlords were fellow Scots. Highlanders were also required to provide factory fodder in the rapidly expanding Scottish cities. Marx noted, "In the 18th century the hunted-out Gaels were forbidden to emigrate from the country, with a view to driving them by force to Glasgow and other manufacturing towns." As early as 1790, 30 percent of the population of Greenock was from the Highlands, while in Glasgow in 1851 there were 16,500 workers who had been born in the Highlands.

SOURCE
http://www.cranntara.org.uk/clear.htm

Marx and the Clearances

It should not be overlooked that Karl Marx was spurred to his communist conclusions when Rhineland landowners sought to introduce a bill to outlaw as theft the customary right of peasants to collect fallen timber for firewood. This was a time-honored tradition that--for the impoverished peasantry--often meant the difference between life and death during the harsh German winters.

The tenure of land in the Highlands was essentially a tribe or family right.  All the members of the clan had an equal right to their proportionate share of the land occupied by the whole. The equality of title and blood thus enjoyed created a sense of individual self-respect and mutual dependence. The tenures of a clan was of course frequently disturbed by war; and whenever a tribe was driven or emigrated into a district where it had no hereditary claim, if it obtained land it was on the payment of a tribute to the king. Marx commented on the similar legal robbery of clan land in Scotland:

"...the Scotch lairds-chiefs of clans profited, since the insurrection of 1745, of this juridical confusion, of the tribute paid to them by the clansmen, with a “rent” for the lands held by them, in order to transform the whole of the clan-land, the common property of the clan, into their, the lairds, private property; for — said the lawyers, if they were not the landlords, how could they receive rent for that land? And thus this confusion of tribute and rent was the basis of the confiscation of all the lands of the Scottish Highlands for the benefit of a few chiefs of clan who very soon after drove out the old clansmen and replaced them by sheep"
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_06_10.htm

He also writes that "the systemic robbery of the Communal lands helped...to swell those large farms, that were called in the 18th Century  capital farms or merchant farms, and 'set free' the agricultural populations as proletarians for manufacturing industry"

Gas going up

British Gas owner Centrica warned a 15 per cent rise in the wholesale cost of gas could be passed on to consumers which could add £50 a year to average bills. If the 15 per cent increase is passed on to consumers, it could mean a £128 a year increase, taking average bills to £1,388.

 Audrey Gallacher, director of energy at Consumer Focus, said "... the perception is that suppliers are quick to pass on high price rises and slow to pass on small price cuts."

Tom Lyon, energy expert at uSwitch.com, said: “This is deeply worrying as consumers are still struggling to come to terms with the £224 or 21 per cent increase in bills from the end of 2010 and only enjoyed a £41 or 3.2 per cent reduction at the beginning of this year. Any further increases will see even more people seriously struggling to afford their bills."
 http://www.scotsman.com/business/energy-and-utilities/gas-prices-to-rocket-by-15-millions-of-families-warned-1-2290123

Solidarity Forever

WAGE SLAVERY AT $1.50 A DAY

You have probably never heard of Chittagong but for many capitalist firms it is a very important place indeed. "Bangladesh is proud of its Chittagong zone, not just because its 137 factories export $1.6bn worth of goods a year, and last year invested $930m, but because it claims to have the cheapest labour in the world and there is a desperate need for foreign currency and jobs. China's minimum wage in its EDZs is $250 a month, Indonesia's $135 and Pakistan's $80. But corporates manufacturing goods in Chittagong need pay workers an average of only $48 a month, said the zone manager. That's about $1.50 a day. " (Guardian, 30 April) Inside capitalism profit means everything and one of the best ways to make a profit is low wages. So where does Nike make its trainers? Or Wrangler its jeans? In the same place Raleigh make its bikes, Philip Morris makes its cigarettes, Korean companies make LED lights, and giant corporations like Walmart, Mothercare, Tesco and Reebok make practically everything from pharmaceuticals to fishing rods and baseball caps. The Chittagong export development zone (EDZ) in Bangladesh is the capital of globalisation, the plumb centre of global free trade, and the reason, it could be argued, that many workers in industrialised countries are now unemployed. RD

what austerity?

Nato's plans to upgrade the US's estimated 180 tactical nuclear weapons in western Europe. The alliance is preparing to replace "dumb" free-fall nuclear bombs and ageing delivery aircraft with precision-guided weapons that would be carried by US F35 strike aircraft. The plans to upgrade significantly the US's stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons would increase its ability to reach targets in Russia.

The cost to upgrade the bombs with precision-guided B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs will be at a cost of $4bn (£2.5bn). Replacing their existing aircraft with the US F35 Joint Strike Fighter, whose cost has risen to more than $100m (£62m) each.

Ted Seay, who until last year was arms control adviser to the US mission at Nato headquarters in Brussels  adds that modernisation would be a form of expensive nuclear escalation by default that could be expected to draw a hostile reaction from Moscow.

 Ian Kearns, chief executive of the European Leadership Network , a thinktank supported by former UK defence ministers including Lord Des Browne and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, said "The planned upgrade of Nato's tactical nuclear forces in Europe will be expensive and is unnecessary. Nato states are fully secure without this additional capability and should be focused on removing all tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, not on modernising them".

UCS Shipyard Occupation - What we said

Former Glasgow shipyard trade unionist Sammy Barr recently passed away.  Alongside Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie and Sammy Gilmore - he was one of the organisers of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders workers occupation in 1971. The shipyard work-in was an alternative to a strike to thwart attempts by the then Conservative government to close the yards by refusing subsidies. The decision meant at least 6,000 of the 8,500 shipyard workers employed by UCS would have to be made redundant. The work-in saw workers manage and operate the UCS shipyards until the government changed its policy. It was intended to prove that the yards were viable. The Heath government finally relented in February 1972 and announced a £35m injection of cash into the yards. Within three years, shipbuilding on the Upper Clyde had received about £101m of public grants and credits, with £20m going to the UCS.

The following is an article written at the time of the UCS work-in.

A Report from the Clyde

At the time of writing the UCS situation is still unresolved. It would appear that the government's plans for Govan and Linthouse may be extended to include Scotstoun with the remaining division, Clydebank, possibly being sold to a private buyer encouraged by favourable government terms. This would give the workers concerned a respite, however temporary, and leave them still hoping - and we shall return to this - that a future Labour government will nationalise the whole Upper Clyde shipbuilding complex. Whatever happens it seems unlikely that the original proposals which meant a reduction of another 6,000 jobs and the closure of the Scotstoun and Clydebank yards will go through. It looks, then, as if the resistance put up by the men has been at least partially successful. Of course their actions have nothing to do with Socialism and fall within the confines of trade union activity, an activity which is and only can be defensive in nature.

Much ink has been spilled over these events and many opinions have been expressed on the "work-in" tactics employed in the struggle. Several alternative courses of action have been suggested, the most popular one being that a "sit-in" would be more productive. This would entail occupation of the yards with no work being done on the ships already under construction in the hope that the delay would force the government to capitulate. However, this would mean finding money to pay the entire workforce instead of, as at present, only the several hundred made redundant. As the weekly wage-bill for UCS amounts to £250,000 then it can be seen that the task of providing even half this sum each week would be a monumental one. Also, it is unlikely that such a tactic would have secured as much popular support as the work-in and doubtless the shop stewards' committee to ok these and other considerations into account. Then there is the possibility that a non-working sit-in would present the government with an excuse to clear the yards on the grounds that the men had no legitimate reason for being there.

It is heartening to see a group of workers refusing to passively accept the sack, but we deplore the repeated promises to work harder and give the fullest cooperation to their employers in future. Of course these promises may only be so many words and were, after all, the product of having had the unemployment gun held to their heads. At least they didn't meekly accept their fate or rely solely on appeals to Labourite and trade union leaders to save them. They took positive action on their own account.

It could be argued that since shipbuilding is, at least at present, unprofitable and is bound to be run-down anyway, then the redundant workers should bow to the inevitable, take their redundancy payments, if any, and get out. This view could be supported by pointing out that even if the UCS workforce could be maintained at its present level then this would probably be at the expense of shipyard workers elsewhere : more orders coming to the Clyde means less orders for Tyneside or Belfast. This, of course, is true but because the industry is declining there is already a high level of unemployment in shipbuilding on Clydeside, so the chances of finding work locally are poor.

For many it would mean uprooting their families to seek work in England or overseas. And it is unreasonable to expect workers who generally think production for sale at a profit (capitalism) is the only way to run society, to put first the interests of the whole working class - that will come when they are socialist minded and not before. They joined a trade union for the limited purpose of combining with their fellow members on a craft basis to protect their own interests. We recognise this and accordingly don't expect revolutionary policies from non-socialist trade unionists.

We also recognise that before men can have any views at all, political or otherwise, they must have access to the necessities of life. They must have sufficient food, cothing, shelter, and all the other things which have come to be regarded as making life tolerable. For most workers nowadays "necessities", or their current standard of living, aren't acquired by dole money. Living standards should rightly be measured in relation to the wealth of society. Despite all the talk about how well-off to-day's workers are, their wages only enable them to live in a state of relative poverty. Nevertheless, these wages at least prevent them sliding into destitution which for many is what dole money means. Besides, there is either the personal experience or the handed-down knowledge of what large scale unemployment can do to men, so they feel that their backs are to the wall and that they must unite to save their jobs.

In their fight to change the government's mind the men have an unrecognised ally - the fact that governments cannot simply ignore political, economic and social pressures. For example, the Tories must have been dismayed at the general response to the proposed sackings and closures; they cannot afford to lose too many votes between now and the next general election. Also, the consequences of such severe unemployment might well result in increased social problems like the break-up of families or a steep increase in the crime rate, and there have been local warnings to this effect. So factors like these could account in part for the softening of the government's attitude.

The whole UCS episode has once more thrown into relief the utter hopelessness of the "left-wing". They have offered every solution under the sun but the real one; they will talk about absolutely anything except production for use and the abolition of exchange relationships. Some of their utterances have been simply ridiculous. The Communist Party actually called for an "end to redundancies and the nationalisation of shipbuilding". As if nationalisation ever meant anything less than the rationalisation of the labour force involving, as with British Rail and the Coal Board, large scale redundancies. Hugh Scanlon of the Engineers claimed that success for the UCS could mean the abolition of unemployment in Britain. Small wonder if workers remain convinced that their problems can be solved within capitalism. Scanlon should know that while production for profit remains, then so must unemployment in one degree or another. The "Militant" Trotskyists were outraged that the government sbould grant Yarrow's, which is outside the UCS,$4.5 million of "taxpayer's money". Apparently the taxes wbich are a burden on the capitalist class alone should be spent in a way Trotskyists approve of. We also bad the usual "appeals" for "soviets" plus howls that the imagined revolutionary situation was being betrayed by traitors, etc., etc.

Whatever the outcome on Clydeside the unpleasant fact remains that the production for profit system will still be with us. Even if the UCS workers realised their dearest wish to see the four yards remain as an integrated whole, production there as elsewhere must be subject to capitalism's economic laws - it must be profitable or, if under nationalisation, at least make the minimum of loss. This means that the process of removing as much unnecessary labour as possible must continue. Indeed, J. Reid, the men's spokesman, recognises this when he argues that by remaining together the yards would be "more viable" through a "lack of duplication in terms of marketing, design, research and many other factors" (Glasgow News 11 October). The avoidance of duplication is only achieved by sacking some of the workers concerned. So in order to be "more viable" the realities of capitalism - the need to produce cheaper ships to meet competition - must result in future sackings whether by the hand of the government or even by a shop steward's committee.

There is no way out of this. The fact is that in shipbuilding, just as in every other industry, the productive forces have outstripped the demand. True, there will be a continuing growth in the amount of tonnage required to meet the increasing volurne of world trade, but even a considerable increase in the demand for ships could not satisfy the present world capacity to produce them, so the contenders will still have to fight for a share in the market.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain will continue to urge workers everywhere to resist attacks made on their living standards by their employers. This is a basic necessity so long as capitalism lasts. At the same time we recognise such action to be purely defensive, besides never-ending, and which still leaves the factories, mines, shipyards, land, transportation systems, and the other places where wealth is produced, in the hands of the owning class. We therefore have organised politically to work to bring nearer the day when capitalism's inhumanity, waste and chaos will be swept away by the democratic action of the majority of the world's working class - the useful people.

Vic Vanni
(Socialist Standard, December 1971)

A sick country

A team of researchers analysing 1.75 million people in Scotland found that nearly a quarter had two or more chronic diseases.

Rising numbers of people are living with more than two long-term disorders, called "multimorbidity", which could include coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke and depression. In general, people with multimorbidity are more likely to live in deprived areas and have a poorer quality of life. Their care is fragmented because they see a number of different specialists. "Existing approaches need to be complemented by support for the work of generalists, providing continuity, co-ordination, and above all a personal approach for people with multimorbidity." explained the report

The study of nearly two million patients registered with 314 medical practices in Scotland showed that people living in the most deprived areas were particularly affected by long-term physical and mental disorders. These disorders were more common among poorer communities and occurred 10-to-15 years earlier than among those living in affluent areas.

Dr Chris Salisbury, from the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol, said GPs in more deprived areas should have lower caseloads to account for higher levels of multiple morbidity.

RICHER, RICHER AND RICHER

The extreme wealth of the owning class is hardly a secret. Indeed the owning class are so confident of the slavish acceptance of this wealth gap by the working class, that they flaunt their extravagancies for all the world to see. "The combined wealth of the 1,000 richest men and women in Britain has risen to record levels in the past year, despite the country's continuing economic slump. .... Their total fortune has risen by just under five per cent since 2011, to £414 billion, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List." (Daily Telegraph, 28 April) Those members of the owning class who form this exclusive 1,000 club have nothing to fear as long as the exploited accept capitalism as the natural order of things. RD

BARGAINS GALORE

The forthcoming Olympic Games offers an excellent opportunity for British estate agents to coin in the cash. This is especially true for the high end of the market as this item in the US press highlights. "The travel service Lloyd and Townsend Rose rents high-end homes and, well, castles throughout Britain at rates starting at roughly £25,000 (about $39,500) a week. ... For many visitors, the Olympic Games are the activity of interest this summer, and Lloyd and Townsend Rose has a portfolio of properties just for them. Its "London Olympics Accommodation" promises properties within an hour of where the Games take place, in Stratford, or in London. One, on Ladbroke Road, could be considered a bargain. This four-bedroom, four-bathroom home in Notting Hill includes a live-in maid and two parking spaces at a price of £20,000 a week. Don't expect to see anybody camping in this garden." (New York Times, 25 April) They well may consider it "a bargain", but at £20,000 a week it represents the annual income of many workers in Britain. RD

THE UNCARING SOCIETY

As the government looks for more and more ways to cut support for the sick, the elderly and the disabled recent figures show how it is affecting voluntary carers. "Almost six in 10 admitted that taking care of vulnerable family members had put them under so much stress and strain it caused depression, anxiety and nervous breakdowns. The same number said their caring responsibilities had harmed their careers, research by the newly-formed Carers Trust found. There are about six million unpaid carers in Britain looking after older parents or disabled children." (Daily Express, 8 May) Capitalism always seeks to cut overheads to increase profits and caring is just not one of its priorities. RD

Strike to defend pay and pensions

Tens of thousands of Scottish workers will be on strike today protesting at government pension reforms. Departments affected include Jobcentres, tax and benefit offices, courts, coastguards, Historic Scotland venues such as  Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle, and civilian workers at the Faslane nuclear base and the Scottish Parliament. Some health workers, mainly porters and technicians from the Unite union, are also expected to take action.

PCS Scottish Secretary, Lynn Henderson, said the changes, which appeared in April's pay packets for the first time, were costing some members up to £150 a month.

 STUC general secretary Graeme Smith said the action demonstrated the frustration people were feeling. "People feel aggrieved at being asked to pay more, having to work longer and get less at the end of the day," he said.

We are being told practically every day that we are living in hard times and that we must be prepared to tighten our belts. Longer working lives, lower pensions and more unemployment are the prospects for the working class. Socialists recognise the necessity of workers' solidarity in the class struggle defending pay and pensions against the capitalist class.

It's simple really.Your pension is your wage deferred until you retire. And we need to be very clear. Lowering pension levels and raising the retirement age are cuts in real pay. That there is at present a "problem" once more proves that the market economy is incapable of going beyond the limits of the wages system. That capitalism cannot adequately provide for the needs of the class that creates all the wealth in the first place and it cannot offer us security in the long run.

Unions cannot work miracles. Unions cannot make revolutions. What is required in addition to trade union action is socialist political action.

If you accept the logic of capitalism, you play by its rules – and by its rules, government cuts are just necessary and inevitable. By its rules, to fight against the cuts and for higher wages is as senseless as trying to shake fruit from a dead tree. Without a decent anti-capitalist argument, and an idea of what we are for, we've lost before we’ve begun. That’s why socialism is so important. Yes, it is, as we are often told, a ‘nice idea’. But when it takes hold of workers, it could become much more than that.

Blast from the Past

Bill Knox, a one time member of Edinburgh branch of the SPGB,  produces some interesting facts from the 19th and early 20thcentury

The Inequality

In Scotland in 1867 by 10% of the population received over 50% of national income. Those in the top 1% of income earners annually received 200 times more than the bottom 30%. Some of these men were fabulously rich, with industrialists such as ironmaster James Baird leaving an estate worth £1,190,868 on his death in 1876. The uneven distribution of wealth is also shown in the fact that only 12% of Scots had estates worth making a will for in 1881, and that the yearly wage for a well-paid skilled worker, such as a compositor, only amounted to £78 in 1880. The skilled worker would have had to have worked for over 15,000 years before he could have earned what Baird left on his death.
The super-rich were followed by the substantial middle classes whose average annual income was around £145 in 1867. They enjoyed a lifestyle which revolved around work, family and the kirk. Although they did not enjoy the social trappings of the super-rich, which included lavish houses and country estates, they experienced all this on reduced scale. What marked them out from the rest of Scottish society was servant-keeping. Over 55% of female workers in Edinburgh in 1871, although somewhat less in Dundee and Glasgow, were employed as domestic servants.

By the 1890s the picture might have seemed rosy: economic growth was inducing complementary improvements in the standard of living which, in turn, was actively transforming the social experiences of the Scottish people. However, much of this was a delusion.

Between 1901 to 1910 net emigration was running at the equivalent of 52% of the natural increase in the population, or some 282,000 people. Although many of the emigrants  were from the Lowland towns, the numbers leaving the Highlands were still significant. The collapse of the fishing industry in the 1880s had impoverished many crofters and they were unable to afford the rents on their crofts. This led to rent strikes and land grabbing and provoked retaliatory measures in the form of evictions by the landlords. The result was the Crofters' Wars of the mid-1880s. The Highlands and Islands remained poor, with agricultural wages in 1907 13% below the British average. As much as 34% of the total land area of the crofting counties of the Scottish Highlands was given over to deer stalking in 1914. Hunting lodges proliferated costing anything between £10,000-£70,000 for the more palatial to £3,000-£6,000 for the more modest. Although activity in this respect created employment for builders and gamekeepers, the gains were more than offset by the decline in the number of shepherds. Spending was of little benefit to local suppliers as the rich brought their supplies of food and wine from Glasgow or London. As one contemporary put it, the popularity of deer stalking turned the Highlands into the happy hunting grounds of the rich.

In spite of reform in 1845, the Poor Law still discriminated against the able-bodied poor. Under the 'Law of Settlement' the Irish were singled out for particularly harsh treatment, with regular deportations. Spending on the poor was also parsimonious. Expenditure increased from £740,000 in 1864 to £1,600,000 in 1914, but this was still grossly deficient in relation to need. It was also less than expenditure in England. Indeed, the latter on average spent a third more on its poor than Scotland did. For those in work outside the skilled trades the picture was not much better. Women earned much less than men and there was a large gulf between the skilled and unskilled worker.

The Slums

An indicator of poverty - the infant mortality rate - increased as the 19th century wore on. The rate increased from 118 per 1,000 live births in the period 1854-1859 to 122 in 1904- 1905; a figure much higher than that for England and Wales. This was primarily the result of poverty but it also had an obvious connection with housing conditions. In Glasgow 32% of all children who died before the age of five in the late 1890s lived in one apartment houses. The 1861 census had showed that 34% of all Scottish housing consisted of only one room - the 'single end' - and a further 37% consisted of two rooms. Fifty years later the census showed that while the number of people living in one-roomed houses declined to 13% of the total, the number of those living in two-roomed houses remained high at 41% of the total. Of course, in the large cities the situation was much worse. Glasgow still had two-thirds of its population in this type of cramped accommodation, as did Dundee. A survey of Edinburgh in 1913 revealed that there were over 7,000 one-roomed houses, of which 94% shared a common water closet and 43% a common sink. In Glasgow there were 44,345 such houses and of these 93% shared a toilet, but most had their own sink. The position was not much better in Glasgow's 111,451 two-roomed houses as 62% of them shared a toilet. There was a need for good quality public sector housing let at rents people could afford, but the dominance of property owners and their interests on town councils blocked such a move. The public health measures introduced in the  large urban centres in the 1850s and 60s were ignored by smaller towns and villages. Lochgelly in Fife in 1867 had two toilets for a population of 2,000. Sewage was thrown on the streets where it seeped through the ground surface into a mine well from which the public water supply was drawn.

Lloyd George's election slogan 'Homes fit for Heroes' led to the passing of the Addison Act of 1919. This began a programme of house building in the public sector. Local authority building in Scotland was responsible for over 50% of new housing in 1934, while in England it was only around 20% which was to intensify after the 2nd World War and leave Scotland in the 60s with a higher state ownership of housing than most Eastern Bloc countries. However, in spite of the general expansion of the public sector, it was still a fact that most of the population of the leading cities were living in one or two roomed houses, with Dundee and Glasgow by far the worse. Those in most need of re-housing were put off applying for a new council house because of the high cost. In Dundee the yearly cost in 1926 of a four apartment house on the Craigiebank estate was estimated to be 52% of the average textile wage, and a three apartment at the Logie estate was 46%. As a result most of the new tenants tended to be from the white collar or the skilled working class.

The 'Godless Poor'

A survey carried out in 1900 showed that the unskilled did not attend church in large numbers. In mining areas evangelists found it difficult to win converts; in industrial Hamilton the presbytery found that from one-fifth to a half of Protestant families did not attend church in the 1890s. Ten years earlier in one area of Glasgow noted for its unskilled working population only two out of every seven men surveyed had any connection with the church. In spite of the abolition of pew rents, the working class was still alienated from the church and its ministry. The exception was the Catholic Church.

Religion divided Scotland on sectarian lines. Catholic Irish families suffered from the prejudices of presbyterian Scotland. They were depicted by the media and the pulpit as uncivilised and drunken, idle and lazy. The same did not apply to Irish Protestants who migrated in large numbers in the 1870s and 1880s to Clydeside. The growing large Irish Protestant population increased religious tensions as they brought their Orange Lodges with them. By 1913-1914 Glasgow had 107 Orange Lodges out of a total of 400 for the whole of the United Kingdom, and certain occupations, such as boilermaking, were recruited for on a religious basis. Prejudice and discrimination combined to keep the Catholic Irish at the bottom of the heap. Insecurity fuelled sectarianism rivalries. Reacting to the decision in 1918 to provide for Catholic schooling out of local taxation, the Protestant churches led a racist anti-Irish Catholic crusade. In 1923 the Church of Scotland issued a pamphlet condemning the Irish as a 'menace' to the Scottish race and kept up a stream of anti-Irish propaganda throughout the 1920s. This set the tone for more extremist Protestant organisations to make headway as the economic depression grew worse after 1929. At a time when the main churches were losing members in droves, the Scottish Protestant League in Glasgow and the Protestant Action Society in Edinburgh made spectacular gains in local elections, with the latter also carrying out a policy of attacking and harassing Catholic gatherings. Glasgow also faced the problem of sectarian gang warfare which emanated from football. The Billy Boys supported Rangers, while their rivals the Norman Conks identified with Celtic.

 

THE PAY RISES THAT AREN'T

One of the illusions beloved by supporters of capitalism is that while the system isn't perfect at least there is a steady improvement of conditions. The Income Data Services has come up with figures that prove that is complete nonsense. "Of Britain's 29.million-strong workforce around 80 per cent, or 23.1million, work in the private sector. The vast majority of these received a pay rise which failed to keep pace with inflation, said the report by pay experts Incomes Data Services (IDS). It said the average pay rise between January and March was 3 per cent, compared with inflation at 3.5 per cent. And 8 per cent of workers, typically those working in the manufacturing, construction or not-for-profit sectors, saw pay frozen." (Daily Mail, 8 May) RD

THE PLIGHT OF THE ELDERLY

It is only one case amongst thousands of how elderly men and women of the working class are treated, but it highlights the daily experience of workers everywhere. "A health board has been ordered to apologise to the family of an elderly man sent home from hospital in winter in his shirt, trousers, dressing gown and one slipper. David Spelman, 85, had hip replacement surgery at the Southern General in Glasgow after a fall in February 2011. Days after being discharged he fell again and died shortly afterwards." (BBC News, 8 May) An apology from the health board may satisfy some jobsworthy official somewhere, but for socialist this is just another reason why we must have socialism now. RD

The Free Colliers - the original Bravehearts

Continuing our little bit of Scots history

Until the end of the 18th century the Scottish collier was a serf, bound in servitude to his master, the coal owner, almost as tightly as any slave on the cotton plantations of the Americas. Although he could not actually be sold as an individual, he and his family were ranked with any other article attached to the colliery to be bought and sold along with lengths of rail or stacks of timber. Once bound to a pit they had no right to move to another place of work and could be brought back to face severe punishment if they tried. Many did just that and were returned in manacles to face the wrath of the owners. Convicted criminals, beggars and other homeless people were gifted as 'perpetual servants' to the masters and, children born to collier families were, on payment by the owner of a small sum of money, bound like their fathers to the owner and his pit for life. No surprise then that few outsiders would volunteer to join the ranks to labour in Scotland's dangerous pits even when the industrial revolution increased demand for coal and pushed up wages. It was with a good deal of reluctance that the colliers were granted their freedom in grudging stages, first the new recruits in 1775 and twenty four years later the whole workforce.

But their new found freedom did not bring justice.

 In the early decades of the 19th century conditions in Scotland's mines were deplorable with women and small children working long hours alongside the men in dark, cramped and dangerous conditions. Attempts by the colliers across the country to organise into trade unions were strenuously opposed by the authorities and the owners and even the repeal of the laws forbidding union activity did not protect workers and their families from the threat of dismissal for taking action or encouraging others to do the same. In 1856 the coal owners combined to reduce the colliers' wages from five to four shillings per day and a widespread strike followed. In the Falkirk area the Redding (In 1923 40 miners lost their lives in a pit disaster) colliers took the lead and on more than one occasion troops and special constables were sent to the area to disperse marches and demonstrations. Amid great hardship the strike dragged on for twelve weeks before the defeated colliers returned to work for the lower rate. Similarly, in the early 1860s, the establishment of a General Association of the Operative Coal and Ironstone Miners, Reddsmen  and Drawers* in Lanarkshire was crushed by an employers' lockout which lasted for six weeks and ended in a humiliating return to work and reduced wages. * reddsmen clear the way for the colliers, drawers transported the coal.

Soon after the anniversary of the Battle of Falkirk which had been fought near their homes in 1298 colliers they began an annual march from pit  to pit under the banner of their hero, William Wallace,  to the spot near their village, the Wallace Stone, where he is said to have viewed the battle. Such associations or brotherhoods among the miners were not unusual at the time but the annual demonstration and the association with Wallace marked out the Redding colliers from the rest.

It was obvious that a new defence was needed to mobilise the colliers and reassert their rights and this came about the following year. In 1863, at Redding, James Simpson who had been a trade union activist in the area before and during the 1856 strike, realised that he had in the annual William Wallace marchers a ready made army of volunteers, and on February 3rd he and his colleagues constituted themselves as the first Lodge of Free Colliers pledged to take up the struggle. Within nine months there were lodges in Slamannan and Bo'ness and the movement spread to the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire coalfields. By the end of the following year there were sixty-five lodges in a network covering the whole Scottish coalfield and uniting miners by the thousand. Some areas like Stirlingshire and Lanarkshire were more enthusiastic than Fife and Midlothian but no area was without its lodge. The lodges usually bore the name of a Scottish noble from  the romantically remembered  past  - John de Graeme and Robert Bruce, the Lord Andrew Moray and the Young Boswell, the Duke of Gordon  and the Sir William Baillie

One of the weaknesses of previous union activity had been its openness, which the masters had exploited. Many miners claimed they were frightened to speak out at open meetings for fear of their employers. To ensure that the actions of the Free Colliers remained secret and the new lodges adopted many of the trappings of freemasonry, binding each to the other by oaths of loyalty and using coded signs and language to preserve their unity and secrecy. Simpson himself became Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. 

The actions of some of the Free Collier lodges especially in the west of Scotland led to considerable internal argument and many union members outside the movement felt that the secrecy associated with the lodges could be counter productive. Their very Scottishness was seen by many as potentially devisive in an industry where a growing number of the colliers were immigrant Irishmen and where solidarity of all workers was essential. The Free Colliers insisted that their ranks were open to all miners but hostility and suspicion remained. Just four years after their birth Free Collier membership began to decline and many of the lodges which had bloomed so quickly began to wither away. In east Stirlingshire, in the last of the lodges,  the role of representation passed and eventually to the National Union of Mineworkers.

http://www.falkirklocalhistorysociety.co.uk/home/index.php?id=98

SEVENTY FIVE AND OUT

Dreams of rocking chair contentment in retirement may be the goal for many workers but capitalism's reality could well shatter that notion. "Millions of workers will be forced to work past the age of 75 because they are in the dark on how much they need to save for a comfortable retirement. The Pensions Policy Institute, which carried out the research, said that people were not saving enough, although living longer, volatile stock markets and plunging annuity rates were also to blame. Its research found that 45 per cent of people over the age of 50s would have to work for an extra 11 years past the state pension age, currently 65, if they wanted to live a comfortable retirement." (Daily Telegraph, 25 April) After a lifetime of exploitation and insecurity most workers will not attain their retirement aims. RD

AFRICAN CAPITALISM

The popular image of Africa as being a backward, poverty-stricken continent does not apply to the fabulously wealthy owning class of that continent."Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Africa. He dwarfs diamond kings, telecom giants and oil magnates, and his estimated $11.2-billion net worth is four times that of Oprah Winfrey's. His only rival on Forbes' global list of black billionaires is a Saudi of Yemeni-Ethiopian parentage who recently nudged Dangote from the top spot, thanks to a decline in Nigeria's stock exchange." (Los Angels Times, 25 April) With Europe in crisis and America's recovery sluggish, Africa is an economic bright spot. Nigeria's economy has grown about 7% a year in recent years, just behind Ethiopia, Angola and Ghana. Capitalism is an international system and its class divisions between the immensely rich and the working class are world-wide too. RD

Scottish common ownership

Scotland has a tradition of common property rights. They include rights arising from commonties, grazing rights, peat-cutting rights, salmon rights, rights to use harbours and foreshore, mineral rights, sporting use rights, ownership rights, rights to usufruct, rights of access to resources and rights of passage over land and inland water. Commonty in Scots Law means; a piece of land in which two or more persons have a common right. A widespread example of such common property is living in a  tenement. Those who own or rent a flat also hold other parts of the property,  e.g. the stairs or close (and have its common responsibility - your turn to clean the stairs!) and access to the communal back-garden  It does not mean state-owned or public-land but could be parish/burgh land.

It is estimated that half the land area of Scotland was still common land in 1500. They provided areas of free access. It was not a "free for all" but their use was covered by sets of rules that were well established and understood locally. No-one could make financial profit. The resources of the commonty were solely for personal uses, and individuals could not, for instance, cut timber for sale or rent grazing to someone else. By the mid 19th century, virtually all this common land had been divided into the private property of neighbouring land owners. Subsistence farming could not survive without access to the resources that the commons traditionally supplied and their loss was a major factor in forcing local people to abandon the way of life that had sustained generations before them and join the mass of people leaving the Scottish countryside. "Ferm touns" or collective farm settlements, of Scotland’s subsistence agriculture, which survived in northern areas into the 19th century, were a traditional arrangement that typically could not have survived without the resources provided by a commonty which provided many of the resources needed by a community at no cost apart from the inhabitants’ own labour. The commonty also offered a degree of flexibility to meet fluctuations in population or food supply, that was not possible within the formal restrictions of privately held land. The image of commonties as barren wastes was the perspective of the land-owning class, who were seeking to do away with commonties and the "ferm touns" they served.

A green is a small area of common land usually closely associated with a settlement, whether a town or village or single clachan. These greens provided an area where cows could be milked, markets and other events held, garments bleached and a host of other common and communal activities carried out. The greens associated with many fishing communities were used for the drying and repairing of nets, the salting and drying of fish and other related activities. One specific type of green were the overnight and river crossing stances associated with traditional routes and drove roads.

A loan was a common route through private property to and from an area of common land or some other ‘public’ place. The distinction between this and a right of way was that the loan was itself common land and not just a right of use. Their former existence of others is indicated by street and  place names, like Loanhead.

A moss is a wet area where peats can be dug and historically many were used in common by local inhabitants. Common mosses were the same form of shared property. The common status of surviving common mosses has often gone unnoticed because they have been of relatively little use since the decline of peat cutting in the eastern and central Highlands.

Rigs were narrow strips of cultivated land, sometimes up to around 15 metres wide. Traditionally, adjacent rigs were used by different cultivators and the rigs periodically re-allocated between them. This system was known as runrig. Lands lying runrig were invariably associated with an area of rough ground or hill land that was also shared in common. These two types of land were the longstanding basis of farming in Scotland before the Improvements of the 18th  and 19th centuries. Originally, many areas of runrig, together with their shared hill ground, were held by two or more proprietors. Each owned a number of rigs, which were interspersed with the rigs of the other owners and each owner had an undivided share of the ownership of the common hill. The common hill was thus a commonty and the runrig lands equivalent to a commonty on arable land.(Bishopbriggs was originally Bishoprigs)

Burghs were established in Scotland from the 12th century. The creation of Royal Burghs was to provide the Crown with a convenient counter-balance to a feudal aristocracy which threatened to assume supreme power in the State. It was necessary that the King’s burgesses should have absolute freedom from the jurisdiction of the neighbouring baron and should have an adequate patrimony. The Kings, therefore, granted wide privileges and vast territorial estates for the common good use of their chartered burghs. In 1617 the jurisdiction of the Magistrates of Rutherglen extended from Polmadie on the south side of the river Clyde to Carron; the entire parish of Ayr at one time belonged to the Burgh of Ayr; Aberdeen once possessed lands which extended many miles in circuit round Aberdeen, granted by the Kings of Scotland, for the use of the town. Edinburgh’s common land, the Burgh Muir had a total area of approximately 5 square miles. The last open area of common land remaining of the Burgh Muir is now Bruntsfield Links. The Border towns still retain the tradition of the annual Common Ridings, reasserting the boundaries of it.

 Even the towns which did not hold their charters from the Crown, but from the neighbouring baron, possessed wide territories of commonity. The lands over, which property rights and privileges of use were held by the burgh were the burgh commons. The loss of the burgh commons stemmed in large part from an Act of the Scots Parliament in 1469. This Act had suppressed the popular election of Councils and led to the dominance of burghs by local land owners and wealthy merchants. The evidence in the reports shows how these land owners and merchants, with their relations and allies, had appropriated the burgh commons to themselves through generous land grants and cheap feus.  Labour politician Thomas Johnson wrote extensively about Burgh commons and its loss, being a sympathiser of "municipal socialism" and nationalisation

Crown Commons were land held directly by the Crown and are thought to have originated out of the once extensive Royal Hunting Forests. The lands that became Crown Commons were areas within those forests where traditional communal use, which had predated the establishment of the forests, continued after the system of forests broke down in the medieval period. While these Commons were most heavily used by people living nearby, anyone unconnected with the area could also use them. Crown Commons had certainly largely disappeared by the early 19th century. An Act in 1828 allowed for their division and the land was then shared out between the adjoining land owners.

Crofters’ Common Grazings are an example of a common property resource where legislation has been used to safeguard equitable access to the resource by those entitled to a share in it. Many, but not all crofts have two parts: the in-bye land - arable ground on which the crofter’s house is usually built; and rough grazing held in common with neighbouring crofts, usually a much larger area of rough hill pasture – the common grazings. While the land involved is mostly owned by private land owners, the local crofting communities have secure legal rights of occupation and use. This is as a result of the Crofting legislation of 1886 and 1891 that followed a period of riots, rent strikes, political agitation, land raids and government commissions of inquiry in the aftermath of the Highland Clearances. crofting common grazings still cover a substantial part of the Highlands and Islands - 541,750 hectares or around 7% of Scotland’s total land area. The management of common grazings is governed by regulations which are administered by local committees appointed by the grazings shareholders. There are some 853 registered grazing committees and a further 200 unregulated grazings. The main functions of these committees has until recently been to administer, manage and improve the grazings primarily for livestock production

During recent decades, an increasing number of rural communities mostly in the Highlands and Islands have become directly involved in the ownership and management of land within their locality through purchasing, leasing or some form of management arrangement. It is estimated that over 94 community land trusts control around 130,242 hectares which amounts to some 1.98 percent of rural land. Many of the early instances of this were remote rural communities whose members were largely the tenants of a single large private estate and who set up a collective body which bought the property on the open market, preferring to be their own landlord than have another new private landlord. In a number of celebrated cases (Assynt, Eigg and Knoydart), community purchases took place when the private land owner had gone bankrupt or run into financial difficulties and the community was able to negotiate with the main creditors or the financial receivers. To purchase properties, local communities form a democratic body with an appropriate legal structure to represent the whole community or make use of an existing one.

SOURCES
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_1.pdf
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_2.pdf
http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_3.pdf