Anarchism in Glasgow (part 2)

Anarchism in Glasgow : Charlie Baird Snr, Mollie Baird, John Taylor Caldwell, Babs Raeside, Jimmy Raeside, etc.;

14/8/87

Q : How did people come in contact with the movement and how did the movement strike them at the time ?

JR : Well, the clothes have changed a bit ! And the venue - the anarchist movement would have had to grow quite a bit to get a room like this.

MB : Yes... The "Hangman’s Rest" : when there was a lull in the questions the rats used to come out !!

JR : Or street corners...

JTC : The movement started in Glasgow in a way that’s buried in a certain amount of mystery because they haven’t been able to research it properly, but after the Paris Commune a number of Frenchmen came to Britain and one of these settled in Glasgow and became the companion of a woman called MacDonald who lived in Crown St. She had anarchist views and they organised the first anarchism movement in Glasgow working from Crown St. and meeting in the space outside Glasgow Green which is called Jostling Sq or Jail Sq. People gathered there every Sunday. Afterwards there was a lull until we have the Social Democratic Federation (Hyndman’s crowd) building up a group in Glasgow ; the next stage on the road to anarchism was when the disaffected formed the Socialist League under William Morris. They wanted to be anti-parliamentary but not anarchist. There was such an influx of anarchists in Glasgow and eventually in 1895 it broke up and the anarchist movement of Glasgow was formed. It had 50 members and met in a place in Holland St. It had a number of speakers : Willie MacDougal was one - and the movement developed from that.

From 1900 it was able to invite Kropotkin and Voltairine deClerke to speak in Glasgow and was quite a force up to the start of the 1st World War when it broke up because of the persecutions it had to endure because of its anti-war position.

MB : I knew that Guy (Aldred) had a group in little rooms in Clarenden St...

JTC : Guy Aldred came to Glasgow in 1912... The anarchist movement in London had three elements : one was Stepniak, one was Kropotkin, the other was Bakunin. Stepniak had shot a policeman in St.Petersburg and fled to London - he belonged to the old Russian Narodniks, who believed in propaganda by deed, in shooting officials and they believed that the State has a social contract with the people and when it fails to fulfil that contract, the common people are in a state of nature and can declare war. That was the beginning of the theory of propaganda by deed in Russia. The other stream was Kropotkin who believed that we are dominated by the State and he gave a historical analysis of the State and that we should get back to a pre-state condition of a society run by communes. But the third person was Bakunin who from a philosophical point of view came through Hegel and he believed that we had to destroy authority. Guy developed that point of view in the Freedom Press, but then felt that they were too theoretical, Sunday afternoon anarchists, so he and another founded a paper called the "Voice of Labour", to carry the fight into the factories. After 3 or 4 months Guy realised that it you do that it runs along trade-union and amelioration lines ; what we need is education - so he formed the Communist Propaganda Groups - these were to educate, the other to agitate. Now the CPGs were anti-parliamentary. You have to remember the context : the Labour Party was something new, it had been formed to represent trade unions and wasn’t sure whether it was going to be a left or liberal party or be an industrial syndicalist organisation as identified with Tom Mann or Daniel deLeon in America. There was a careerist element and Guy fought against payment of members, and this took on the form of an anti-parliamentary faction.

Guy was invited to speak in Glasgow in 1912 by a splendid organisation called the Clarion Scouts. It had all kinds of things to interest young people - camera clubs, bicycle clubs, etc. Youngsters used to get on their bikes and cycle through the villages and they had a secret sign when they passed each other (one said "hoops", the other said "spurs"). They formed their first organisation in Glasgow in 1898, I think, and would help any left-wing organisation - they helped the ILP, they helped the anarchists - they were not sectarian. They invited Guy Aldred to speak in the Pavilion Theatre in 1912. There were no microphones in those days and the theatre was filled, but he was such a success that he came back again and again, and in the end made Glasgow his native city and formed his own Communist Propaganda Group. He was running "The Spur" which had a good circulation and was well known in the movement.

When the war came Guy went off to jail but his paper was carried on by Rose Witcop, his free-love companion. When he came back after the war, his CPG had folded, because he was really the centrepiece of it.

The Glasgow Anarchists (those who’d formed a group at the time of William Morris) were carrying on : Willie MacDougall was one of them - he’d been jailed too, taken down to Dartmoor. He simply escaped from Dartmoor - he jumped on a bike and cycled home and nobody stopped him. (Only a few years ago, at 86, he was still carrying on his propaganda)

click read more to continue

Anarchism in Glasgow (part 1)

=========

1) Charlie Baird Sr. : An Interview

6th June 1977

Before the war I’d been sympathetic to the Communist Party, as early as 16 or 17 years of age. It wasn’t until the war, when Russia had signed the pact with Hitler, that I started to have my doubts about the CP. But even prior to that I’d drifted away from them. When the war started, I took up the Conscientious Objector position, and finished up, of course, in jail. It was in jail - I hadn’t been conscious that there was such a movement as the libertarian movement, the anarchist movement - I thought that the CP was the last thing in left-wing movements.

I met two lads in prison (I also knew one prior to going in, who’d told me to look out for these two lads); one was Jimmy Dick. He’d managed to get some anarchist literature in. I went through that and discovered that was what I’d been looking for. It was what I’d believed, even when I was in the CP ; I was dissatisfied with the centralised character of the movement.

Then, of course, when we came out, there was an anarchist movement in Glasgow at that particular time. We came out of jail and teamed up with them. It was around 1942 when I came out of jail, and there were about 40 active members of the group. By 1944-45 it was probably around 70-80 members.

The peculiar thing about the Glasgow group was that there was no such thing as recognised members of the group. The only way you could recognise a regular member of the group was by his activities; there were no things like membership cards or anything like that. The 70 or 80 would include the lads from Burnbank and Hamilton - miners, the small groups out there with 3 or 4 members. They organised meetings and we supplied them with speakers.

Edinburgh was the same. We’d contacts in Edinburgh who organised meetings and we supplied them. There was an old diehard there, but you couldn’t say there was a group. There were many sympathisers, right enough, who were always there at the meetings. They were active insofar as during the meetings they would go round with literature and a collection. They were sympathetic and that was good enough for me. There was an Italian lad who was the original contact ; he had a cafe on Leith Walk, but his father was very reactionary - pro-fascist - while the lad was very revolutionary, very keen, but obviously under his father’s influence. Nevertheless, you went through and saw him, and organised the meetings at the Mound in Edinburgh.

We had the members in Glasgow, plenty of speakers : Jimmy Raeside, Eddie Shaw, Jimmy Dick, Sammy Lawson, Frank Leech, Johnny Gartmore. But Raeside and Shaw were the main speakers, they seemed to enjoy it. They were good propagandists. Shaw was more the humorous type ; he was a satirist - he ridiculed the system in a humorous fashion which went down big with the public. They got entertainment, and at the same time they got the message. Raeside was a more serious type, very logical, and enjoyed a debate - SPGB, Marxist Study Group. Raeside was the main speaker ; he’d an extensive knowledge of the movement. Even apart from that he was an incredible speaker, very convincing. There were even occasions when he was taken up on aspects of the struggle which he wasn’t aware of. He could carry the audience with him.

Shaw and Raeside were highly developed social animals. Even in the company of opposition they were very friendly - no chip on their shoulder. They could walk into the company of Communists or Trotskyists, who you’d find would be very careful, but Shaw and Raeside would walk in, they wouldn’t have to be introduced. Shaw especially - he would just wade into a company, any company at all.

Shaw was called up, but he’d made up his mind that he wasn’t going into prison. So his case went to the High Court of Appeal in Edinburgh. Even the "Evening Citizen" gave him a big front-page write-up "Glasgow Anarchist Wins Case in High Court". He defended himself. Incidentally, he was briefed by Guy Aldred - Guy prepared the case, but he handled it himself. You can have the best case in the world, but you’ve got to face the three highest judges in the land. The "Evening Citizen" said he handled the case with force. That would be around 1944-45. I was with him when he went to Edinburgh ; it must have been about May or June.

His case was very simple. He went through the usual process of being called-up. They took you into custody when you were registered as a conscript, the next you’d hear from them was when you had to go to court. If you’re political you’ve no chance. Shaw went to the Sheriff Court for sentence. You’re called into court twice, the first time there was a CID man who was instructed to take you down to Dumbarton Rd and the Army Doctor ; you’ d refuse to go through the medical and they’d bring you back to court a month after that. The CID man had been told to take him down at 2pm, but he didn’t take him down until 4pm - and this was Shaw’s case. When he got back to court, the judge sentenced him to one year and Shaw said "I’m asking for a stated case". The judge said "On what basis ? You’ve no basis for a stated case". Shaw said "You instructed the CID man to take me before the doctor at 2pm but I didn’t get to the doctor until 4pm."

That was the case. It took them over an hour to settle it. Lord Thomson presided and, what do you call him ? they called him the Bloody Judge at the time... Anyway there were the three of them. After Shaw had stated his case "Are you going to allow CID men to flout the law ; you’re going to end up like Germany or Italy, where the people have no rights, you know..." Lord Thomson said "Look Mr Shaw, you know you’ve no intention of going to the army" and Shaw said "That’s right, but it’s the facts of the case, not whether I’ll go to the army". A precedent had been set, perhaps during the First World War, and it was Guy Aldred who’d dug this one up. He’d told Shaw, if you have any trouble ask for access to the court library and you’ll be able to get the chapter and page. They were about to dismiss him when he did this and the three judges hummed and hawed, and Lord Thomson said "All right then". The court clerk went down and then handed it on to Thomson. Thomson just looked at it with a look of disgust on his face and passed it on and said nothing. So the appeal was upheld with expenses and the CID man was called into the dock and given a dressing-down. When Shaw had mentioned the basis of the case I’d said "Ach, no chance".

You’d people in the services who were anti-war and at the same time were unattached. There was a common danger during the war which was the common ground for people with political views like my own. We must admit this - we’d huge meetings, particularly in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but I think t his was due to the fact that there was always the danger of someone being arrested, something violent happening, something sensational. It was a very precarious position to take during the war, especially in public when you’d troops, etc. You can imagine the atmosphere. What did matter was that you recruited members at these meetings, and, if not members, at least sympathisers who took papers into the factories.

Judging by the attention that you got from the troops, apart from a few hotheads, particularly the Americans and Canadians, the other lads used to come and buy the paper and discuss it. We’d contacts with them too, mainly the Air Force, I don’t know why the Air Force. There was no war fever as such during the war, even among the troops and their families. My own experience with the public was "Aye, that’s right, but what can you do about it ? The war’s there and Hitler’s there, and you have to face up to him". The usual answer to that one was "You can’t beat fascism by greater military force ; fascism is inherent in the capitalist system". It was the Empire, not the fact that Hitler was killing the Jews or Poland - they sold Poland.

"War Commentary" was the paper at that time. It had tremendous sales in Glasgow. And we’d all the Freedom Press literature - the pamphlets, the books. We’d a bookshop in George St. (originally, I believe, with the Marxist Study Group, but that was all over by the time I’d come out of prison). Shaw and Leech had broken away, and later linked up with the other groups in England and contacts in Scotland. The Anarchist Federation of Britain was formed just after that.

The relations with Guy Aldred were very strained. I think one of the main reasons was that Guy was a loner : he was a movement in himself. There’s no question about the man’s integrity. He’d built up his movement, made his international contacts. I suppose Guy was afraid that someone could infiltrate and take over the movement by a process of building up support and them getting a vote. His relationship to the Anarchist Federation wasn’t very good. In spite of Guy’s help, Shaw often attacked him, especially on the question of the ballot box. We knew that Guy had no intention of going to parliament, but, in my opinion it was stupid, you know, there was nothing to gain. He’d built up such a reputation of integrity and consistency that I thought it was awful foolish that he should sacrifice all this.

One of Guy’s old members was a man by the name of Frank Leech, a peculiar character. He was bourgeois through-and-through. He’d a good-going business, a general store. He was very friendly with the Freedom Press and used to make contact with Freedom Press in a private capacity. I was the Secretary of the AFB at that time and all correspondence was supposed to go through me, but Leech would never accept this. Personally, it didn’t matter to me - as long as the movement was there and was working. You’d never get a group where that wouldn’t happen, but it all depends on the extent to which it goes on.

We were a great source of income to Freedom Press, but they didn’t seem to put any account on that at all. We thought they had a function, they thought we had a function, and that was just to distribute the literature and send the proceeds down. This didn’t go down at all with most of the members.

When the split took place it wasn’t at a business meeting or a conference. It’s difficult even now to understand how it happened the way it did and why it happened. It was just suddenly that a section didn’t turn up at a business meeting - that was Leech, Shaw, Raeside and some followers. That would be around November 1944. The reason was a general disillusionment with the way the group was being run. Leech was the source of all this and Shaw supported him - he was somewhat dependent on Leech. The big fellow had a lot of money and Shaw was taking time of work to do meetings up and down the country. Raeside had got married and bought a horse-drawn caravan and travelled up and down the country. Shaw and Raeside decided to go abroad. Shaw had boys of 13 and 15 and for the boys sake he was clearing out, of course you’d have conscription in Canada anyway. And Raeside went to Australia.

Anyway we carried on, me and the wife and some other lads, we carried on for a year. This must have been shortly after the war. We held meetings at the corner of Wellington St. It took a toll on me, the outdoor speaking, it’s a hell of a strain physically. Mentally it didn’t bother me, in fact latterly I began to enjoy it. Then one of the other speakers, a lad called Bill Gollan, fell into bad health and died in Knightswood Hospital of tuberculosis. When the war ended the common danger ended too. And finally the wife and I were left... By this time the breakaway group were about finished too. They held meetings in Maxwell St. Leech died suddenly. He was a big heavy man, he’d heart trouble, and Shaw and Raeside went to Canada and that was the end of that.

===========

In August 1987 the Raesides, who had been living in Australia for many years, returned to Glasgow for a visit. This provided a rare opportunity to bring together some surviving members of anarchist groups in Glasgow during the 1940s for a public discussion on the history of that movement and the lessons which can be learned.

Transcribed in November 1993 from a not-always-clear cassette tape. A formerly inaudible section has now been transcribed with help from Charlie Baird Jnr.

https://libcom.org/history/anarchism-1940s-glasgow

Putting world socialism on the ballot

Those who would like to vote the Socialist Party, invariably cast their votes no matter how reluctantly for the candidate most likely to ensure the defeat of the Tory. What is the difference between the Labour Tweedledee and the Tory Tweedledum?

The return of a Socialist Party candidate does not then mean the immediate realisation of a programme of palliatives commonly set before the electors by the rest of the parties. The election of a Socialist Party member to any public body at present, is only valuable in so far as it is the return of a disturber of the political peace. Until socialism attains a foothold any seat captured must simply be regarded as a means of spoiling the political intrigues and games played by the politicians.

As William Morris wrote: “I believe that the Socialists will certainly send members to Parliament when they are strong enough to do so: in itself I see no harm in that, so long as it is understood that they go there as rebels...”

For the third time in as many years we are being asked to make a decision for the capitalist class. Last year it was whether Britain PLC should or should not remain in the capitalist EU.

The year before it was about which set of professional politicians should run the state machine on behalf of the capitalist class. Now, we are being asked to do this again.

But, in voting to continue with capitalism, those who bother to vote will be voting for the problems in fields such as housing, health care, education and the environment to continue, because the root cause of these problems is capitalism and its economic imperative to put making profits before satisfying people's needs.

Britain's oldest socialist party,the Socialist Party of Great Britain (1904) consists of working men and women and has no funding save from its own donations.

It has no leaders and has no wish for followers either and never has done, it holds that the emancipation of the working calss is the task of the working class itself.

A vote for the SPGB candidate or writing “world socialism” across your ballot paper says a plague on all the parties of capitalism and is a vote for your self emacipation.

We do not want a mere protest vote, but an active politically conscious one supporting the democratic post-capitalist society, of common ownership,(not state ownership), production for use and free access run by our selves, not governments over people but the people administering over the commonly owned resources.

But, except in the few constituencies where they will be candidates standing for this, namely these 3 seats in the coming General Election: Islington North, Battersea, and Swansea West, we shan't be voting for any of the candidates on offer but instead casting a write-in vote for "world socialism" by writing this across our ballot paper.

Socialism is an advanced post-capitalist society of common ownership, production for use and free access. Money or any other means of exchange will be unnecessary with the abolition of waged slavery, the last great emancipation taht of the wage slaves, and free access to the commonly owned wealth being the normative distribution method overseen by us all in a recallable delegatory democratic framework as an administration by the people over the commonly owned resources, rather than government over the people, in the interests of and by an elite parasite class.

World Socialism – is a revolutionary advancement for the human species which will make 21st century capitalism look like the Dark Ages, yet the debate is not yet out in the open. Hardly anyone dares conceive of a society after capitalism, so powerful is its hold on the collective mind. But we dare.

Wee Matt/AJJ

No to Nationalism

The fear of ‘the others’, fear of people we don’t understand permeates the thoughts of the British nationalist Brexit voter. This fear is man-made, developed by the owning class to undermine working class solidarity. Prejudice, intolerance, bigotry, racism, hatred and xenophobia have spread like insidious contagious diseases. The media demonise and denigrating the poor while attacking the migrant worker. The interests of fellow-workers have become secondary to many people who are actually good working class people, simply blinded by unfounded fear. That is a disturbing reality.  It is suffocating the empathy and understanding of the plight of the migrant worker, the vulnerable and the poor. There are those who were in the trenches with the working class, who are now fighting against the worker, shoulder-to-shoulder with the enemy of the working class. They are openly wearing their prejudices on their sleeve. The hold a sense of belonging which brings a sense of security and protection. A belief that in the ‘protectors’ – the one’s who are loudest attacking ‘the others’ will keep us safe from harm. People must stop allowing the irrational fear of others to guide their beliefs, opinions, and decisions and, instead, notice the attacks on all workers. Otherwise, the ruling class may win and destroy everything the working class has fought for, were jailed for and died for. It should be clear that you don’t move towards the unity of the world working class movement - a unity that must be forged if we are to win any significant victory over a vicious capitalism - by dividing the actually existing unity of the working class in Britain along national lines.

Nationalism is diverting working people from their historic mission. History shows that is dangerous for socialists to flirt with nationalism. The result is usually a boost for nationalism and a defeat for socialism.  What is at stake is not merely electoral success or failure, but whether the idea of nationalism triumphs over the ideas and values of socialism. The most important division in society is not one between England and Scotland. It is between those who create the wealth and those who own it. Only by going back to first principles of workers' organisation of political education, using the collective strength of a united working class irrespective of gender, race or nationality will we be able to challenge the status quo. Socialists need to win the argument against independence within the labour movement – if we fail to do so then we will have lost for decades to come. Nationalism is the antithesis of socialism. Only by doing so will we build support for an alternative future which is much closer to the values of democratic socialism than it is to anything nationalism has to offer. Today, one of the most tragic features of the left is that many accommodate people who are utterly reactionary just because they are militant nationalists. But they are anti-working-class forces through and through. It should be obvious that any divide will weaken the potential for a working class fight back against austerity. Workers in Scotland are no longer urged to look to their comrades south of the border for solidarity and a common project to win pro-working class reforms but instead urged to look to their fellow Scots in a national movement for Scottish independence. However the fact that the independence movement is funded and supported by a significant section of the Scottish elite such as billionaire Brian Souter of Stagecoach.  This should be an indication and a warning that the Scottish independence movement is no friend of the Scottish working class. The Socialist Party understands the unity of the working class is required to transcend capitalism. Left-nationalists downplay the likelihood that the establishment of an independent Scottish state will lead to the weakening of the British working class. Support for both British and Scottish nationalism has grown in consequence of working class defeats. The fact that the labour movement in Britain has so far failed to produce any real fight back against growing inequality, food banks, benefit sanctions, zero-hour contracts, housing shortages has allowed the nationalists to gain increased traction among working people.  The SNP has been able to pose left on such matters and hides behind the excuse of Westminster control in order to justify its own austerity measures.

The SNP has a difficult balancing act to perform. It must try to win over Scottish workers to independence while reassuring companies and corporations that sovereignty will be “business friendly” and that the working class will be kept firmly quiescent. It must make promises to workers that it knows it can’t keep so it keeps the promises vague and non-specific. Workers, of course, will be encouraged to line up to support their respective bosses. Not a good environment for the development of a united fight back against austerity. Unfortunately, its reformist posturing has not been challenged by the SSP or Solidarity who have provided an important service to the SNP by echoing the SNP's claim that independence will produce a fairer society and by promoting the SNP as a party to the left of Labour. They don’t want to rock the pro-independence boat or help dispel the illusion that the SNP is a progressive party. That would harm the independence cause to which they are now irretrievably wedded so silence is their best option.

The task for socialists in all countries, whether that be Scotland or Britain is indeed independence - not of nations but of the working class. This class independence is the very foundation of the struggle for socialism. Scottish nationalism and the call for independence throws up yet another barrier to achieving a socialist society.

There is only one alternative to barbarism: socialism

People in America today are dissatisfied with both the Tories and Labour, the Republican and Democratic parties. The bulk of them are aroused over the way these parties turn deep-seated grievances into mere subjects of campaign oratory that are forgotten the day after the election. Undoubtedly the hope is still strong among them of getting some reform in the old parties, especially from Trump, yet a large section would like to see a completely new alignment on the political scene. But this can be done only by offering them a meaningful alternative to the perennial “lesser evil” choice.

There is no shortage of critics of the socialist movement. Those political commentators who scoff at socialist sentiments and aspirations and say that such a concept is now outdated, that the working-class movement has been defeated should ask themselves the question: does the capitalist system which they are promoting, and which they say the people are accepting, solve any of the problems of the working people in any part of the world? The working class is still the decisive force in every country. Why would the ruling class devote so many policies and resources to ensuring that we are docile? Critics of socialism should question why we have to put up one recession which only leads to the next and ask is there no way that the economy can be organised that to eliminate recurrent recessions? There are a lot of questions anti-socialists refrain from asking for fear of the answer. Is there not some way in which the people can be guaranteed their well-being, and guaranteed decent standard of life for themselves, their families and the future generations. Then there is the question of the environment and the damage to the environment, looking into what it is which causes the damage to the environment. Is there not some way that life can be organised so that it does not cause these problems? Then very important, of course, the whole question of peace in the world. What is the root causes of those bloody brutal conflicts? In our view, these are the vital questions which have to be addressed. The Socialist Party has definite views on all these things. Unlike our critics, we looked deeper into these questions and found some answers. We are socialists and we propagate our full views. But, principally, it is the working class which has to take up these questions. Without the working class itself taking up these issues they will never be solved. The Socialist Party can only encourage as wide as possible discussion among the people on these questions and ask them to reflect upon our case for socialism.

The principle function of the Socialist Party is to educate fellow-workers to realize that their industrial power must back up a political or general class fight. It is only by using their political power that the capitalists make their exploitation of the working class legal and the oppression of their system constitutional. And it is only by using their political power that the working class can make their own exploitation illegal and their own oppression unconstitutional. It is only by the use of their political power that the working class can abolish capitalist class rule and privilege, and establish a society based on the common ownership of all the land and the tools of production. We plainly stated that we cannot expect revolutionary unless people themselves get the understanding and the spirit of socialist organization. The working class through the ballot box can abolish the capitalist system of ownership with its accompanying class exploitation and oppression, and establish in its place socialism — an industrial democracy — wherein all the land and the tools of production shall be the collective property of the whole people, to be operated by the whole people for the production of commodities for use and not for profit. The Socialist Party ask the working class to organize with us to end the domination of private ownership — with its poverty-breeding system of unplanned production — and substitute in its place the socialist co-operative commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilisation. Now, comrades is the time to dedicate yourselves to the revolutionary socialist principles and to the struggle for socialist freedom. Unite in the battle against capitalism.

Red Ed

A brief outline of the radical history of popular grassroots resistance on the East coast of Scotland. Not all events mentioned are anarchist or possibly something I would support in full. Hopefully, this will allow for the writing of a much more in-depth larger work in the future.

1736- Porteous riots
1740- Leith food riots
1770- Meal riots
1780- Bowed Joseph died. Bowed Joseph born in the Cowgate was a famous Edinburgh agitator and took part in riots.
1790- Leith dockers strike
1864- Annuity tax riot.
1865-Midlothian farmworkers' union set up.
1867- Thomas Hastie Bell born.
1876- Kropotkin lives in Edinburgh for a brief time.
1881- Irish nationalist bombs Loanhead police station.
1882- Kropotkin returns to Edinburgh to give a lecture on the russian situation.
1889- School strikes. Dockers Strike.
1890- Cab drivers strike.
1891- Railway workers strike. Dockers strike.
1892- Soldiers riot against cops
1892- Thomas Hastie Bell returns to Edinburgh and involved in anarchism with J. Blair Smith and McCabe.
1895- Sept 14. Emma Goldman lectures in Scotland. Visits Edinburgh.
1896- Tsar Nicholas 2nd visits Leith. Thomas Hastie Bell gets in his face.
1897- Builders strike
1898- Thomas Hastie Bell goes to London.
1900- Emma Goldman visits Scotland again for lectures. She meets Thomas Hastie Bell.
1901- Tramworkers strike.
1905- medical student riot (possibly sectarian)
1911- railway strike, school strike, ropeworkers strike.
1912- carters strike, miners strike, (disgusting) pro-vivisection riot,
1913- Dockers strike, miners strike, tramwaymen strike, ropeworkers strike( pretty close to a regional general strike) rioting
1915- Leith carters strike. Dockers strike.
1919- School strikes.
1924- coal trimmers strike.
1926- riot in Edinburgh.
1933- National Unemployed Workers movement in Princes Street.
1938- March 6-13th Emma Goldman lecturers in Scotland on Spain. She received help from the Anarchist Communist Federation the predecessor to the Anarchist Federation.
1942- Thomas Hastie Bell dies.
1943- National League of the Blind and disabled sets up an Edinburgh branch which exists until 1975.
1977- protests against nuclear power.
1981- Broughton Unemployed Workers Centre opens.
1983- Leith dockers strike.
1984- Counter information news sheet produced. Miners Strike. Violent resistance to the police in Midlothian particularly Bilston Glen colliery. Anti-poll tax protests.
1994- Broughton Unemployed Workers Centre evicted. Protests against criminal justice bill.
1996- Opposition to Job Seekers Allowance. Opposition to deportation of John Gotip (reported in Broughton Spurtle)
2002- Bilston Glen Protest camp begun by Bilston, Midlothian.
2003- Protests against Iraq War. School kids occupy Edinburgh Castle.
2004- Counter information ceases publication. 05/04/2004 Edinburgh
100 people blockade an Esso garage in opposition to war on Iraq
2005- G8 riots in Princes street.
2011- Occupy Edinburgh set up in St Andrews Square.
2013- Bedroom tax protests.
2014- From Yes to Action Statement produced by ACE and signed by ECAP, Scottish IWW, Edinburgh AFed and others. Edinburgh Anarchist Federation puts out critical statements about Scottish Independence.
2015- Action Against Austerity Network founded in Edinburgh which comes to consist of ACE, ECAP, IWW, Scottish AFed, Scottish Unemployed Workers Network(SUWN) , Castlemilk Against Austerity, Dundee Against Austerity...Charles Stewart House is occupied by Edinburgh Uni students. PCS museum workers strikes.
2016- Homeless campers occupy the Cowgate in protest against luxury hotel. Charles Stewart House is occupied by Edinburgh Uni students. RMT railway workers strikes.

Rational Scots

SCOTLAND is one of the least religious areas in the UK, behind only the south-east of England and Wales, according to a new report.

The study, which is billed as the first in-depth look at the non-religious in the UK, found overall 48.6 per cent of the population in the UK now identify as non-religious.

In Scotland this figure rises to 55 per cent, behind Wales at 56 per cent and the south-east of England at 58 per cent. The most religious area was Inner London, with just 31 per cent saying they had no religion – called ‘nones’ in the report.

The research, carried out by St Mary’s University in Twickenham, London, also found for every person brought up with no religion who has become a Christian, 26 people who were brought up as Christians now identify as having no-religion.

Report author professor Stephen Bullivant, director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St Mary’s, said growing numbers of people were likely to say they had no religion. “As more and more people have done that in society, the default setting is to say you have no religion - whereas 40 years ago the default setting would have been to tick Church of England or Church of Scotland for example,” he said. “Added to that trend, people who have been brought up as non-religious tend to stay as non-religious.

A socialist on the BBC Daily Politics show

What Does Trump Care About?

The US-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre said Arctic ice is at a record low for the third straight year and is at its lowest level in the 38-year history of satellite record-keeping. The median figure for 1981 to 2010 was  15.6 square kilometers, which is now down to 14.5. Recent research has suggested that most of the loss is due to climate change and is expected to increase as carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which partly funds the Snow and Ice Data Centre, is threatened by proposed budget cuts from the White House, so it can't afford to piss 'em off.One glaring thing about Capitalism is that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse and to prove it we have Scott Pruitt, Trump's top environmental official, calling for an exit from the Paris climate agreement of 2015. 

On April 13 we have this worthy saying,'' Paris is something that we really need to look at closely. It's something we need to exit in my opinion. It's a bad deal for America.'' What he really means is it will affect the extent to which Manufacture in the US can make a profit.

Trump had previously shown he doesn't care about the policy of climate change Obama had pursued, but the question is what, except for the needs of US Capitalism does he care about? This isn't to say that if every signatory stuck to the accords of the Paris agreement it would solve the problem, though it would be better than nothing. The only sure way to solve it is to get rid of the cause, the pathetic apology for an economic system we live under. 

Steve and John.

Skinned Alive!

A Chinese friend told me that in the fur industry in China animals, including dogs and cats, are skinned alive for their fur. This is because the skinners are on piece rates and killing an animal without damaging the skin takes skill and time. The animals, he said die very unpleasantly - what a surprise! Their bodies probably stink too, in fact. 

Steve and John

Nationalism – His Masters' Voice

SUPPORT
WORLD SOCIALISM

Capitalism has nothing to offer but barbarism. All too often, the employing class have resorted to nationalist flag-waving to defend “native” business enterprise against "foreign" competition - conflating the interest of the bosses with those of workers. The Socialist Party rejects all nationalism this is not the case with the many on the Left who support nationalist struggles. Every barbaric anti-working class nationalist movement with its attendant policies of genocide has found supporters within the left-wing. Apologies are made for death, rape, torture and human misery on the specious grounds of “your enemy is my friend”. 

The working class has a difficult, but urgent task: to gather all its resources to try to stop the attacks being waged against it. What is on offer is not ‘independence’, but the division of the working class into hostile camps, alongside the continued unity of the exploiters. Business as usual for British Bosses, in fact, nationalists should not imagine that they are ridding themselves of the exploiting class.  Just as in the case of Westminster rule, the real decisions will continue to be made by the British billionaire class behind the scenes in their board-rooms. The SNP will simply be what all other British politicians are and have been for centuries – the public face of a very old, very experienced and very cunning ruling class. The reality, far from being the socialist paradise that is painted by the Left-nationalists, in Scotland it will simply be a race to the bottom, as the government compete to attract investment by lowering wages, lowering corporation tax, restricting workers’ rights, to prove their subservience to capitalist class. This is a law of economics under capitalism, and especially in times of crisis, when unemployment is climbing ever higher and workers are becoming desperate for whatever they can get. Better conditions for workers, higher taxes for improved social services will be seen as less ‘attractive’ to ‘investors’ (capitalists), since anything that benefits workers cannot help but impact levels of profitability. So the capitalist will invest in the more ‘flexible’ side of the border, and the cry will go up on the other side … “we, too, need to be more flexible”. Down will come the wages, the corporation taxes and other ‘barriers’ to profit-taking. Back will come the exploiters to reap the rewards … until the workers on the other side of the border can be forced to accept even worse pay and conditions in the interests of ‘job creation’ and ‘competitiveness’. The Scottish nationalists such as Salmond and Sturgeon are showing they are more than willing to play their part. Such a future has appeal to the ruling class, but it is hardly the manifesto of a left-wing liberation struggle!

The separation of Scotland from Britain will fix the problems of our fellow-workers. The SNP present themselves as the progressive party but in truth all they promise slightly-less-inefficient hospitals and slightly-less-inefficient schools. We deserve a lot better  and there is little evidence that this is anything more than wishful thinking on the part of those who assert it. The Scottish capitalist parties will do what the capitalist ruling class requires them to do, no matter how people vote or how many of them take to the street to express their opposition. What we are witnessing in Scotland has its echoes all over Britain. The outward appearance may seem to be more progressive, since many left-wing workers support the call for independence, but it is essentially a mirror of the rise of those on the left who supported Brexit and call for increased immigration controls to gain support among impoverished and misguided English workers. As the recession bit ever deeper, workers have been suffering the same demoralisation and the same frustrations and have been asking themselves what the solution is. As independence has been used to dupe workers, elsewhere immigration has been blamed for the mounting misery. In Scotland nationalism has been offered up as the ‘answer’ to the problems of capitalism. But its effect is the same – it gives workers a scapegoat for the ills of capitalist society. “Don’t blame capitalism, blame the immigrants!” say the the British nationalists to discontented and disillusioned workers in England. “Don’t blame capitalism, blame the English!” say the SNP. 

Capitalism has shrunk the planet. The internet and other social media have brought the whole world into contact with one another. Communication and transport networks have made global production and distribution easier. Socialists do not envisage cultural uniformity but there is more that unites human beings than divides them. There is a universal need for shelter, food, housing, creativity and so on. Human beings are both social and co-operative and can work together to produce and distribute goods to meet human need. We cannot trust the capitalist system to be run in the interest of workers. Everything we win in the course of class struggle can be taken away again if we let down our guard. The only way to keep hold of the gains we make is to get rid of the capitalist system and establish socialism. A lack of local power is not an argument for nationalism; it is an argument for socialism. In the Socialist Party,, our job is to promote understanding in order to help workers discard popular yet harmful prejudices. If we don’t do that, then there’s really not much point to our existence, since it is only through discarding the prejudices that keep us shackled to ruling class ideas that we will be able to build a movement capable of overthrowing capitalism and building socialism. When we in the Socialist Party argue against Scottish nationalism, we do so not because we wish to endorse the rule of Westminster, but because we wish workers to understand that it is not ‘the English’ who are their enemies, but the British ruling class. And because we wish to create a movement that is as strong and unified as possible that will have a fighting chance of displacing our exploiters. Say no to nationalism, which ties workers to capitalists and turns us into tools of our own oppression. Say yes to working-class unity, yes to revolution, and yes to a socialist future.  

   

SPGB ON TV

The time has come for solidarity.

 People feel powerless – locked out of decision-making, by-passed by real governance – So they turn to protest. Especially for the disenfranchised and oppressed, protest is often the only way to exert power and affect policies and practices that impact their lives and communities.

TOWARDS WORLD SOCIALISM

Socialism involves such a complete change in the way in which the world is organised that it can only be put into practice when all the factories, mines, transport systems, shops, and so on are owned by mankind and used for the benefit of the entire world population. The whole system of employment, of a class of bosses buying our energies with wages and then setting us to work for themselves, will be replaced by voluntary, co-operative effort by all members of society. This means that, just as there will be no buying and selling between individuals.   One of the first priorities in a socialist world will be to get rid of the boring and repetitive tasks which today make so much work unpleasant and replace them with alternative methods. Socialism must be a world community without frontiers. It can not be set up in one country or even in one part of the world.  In Socialism, so there will be no trade between different countries. Production in socialism will involve a worldwide effort to make what is wanted and since every region will be working towards this end and will participate in the democratic processes used to decide what is needed and in what quantities naturally every group of people will have free access to what is produced. Socialism is not just a good idea but also is urgently needed to solve many of the serious problems which now plague the world.

There can be no politics of socialism without challenging the concept of property rights over the land, capital and intellectual ownership. Rights of use rather than rights of property must be the juridical axis for the transformation of society. The liberation of work from capitalist control will only be possible if the enterprise becomes an institution of a democratic society. Any workplace democracy is incompatible with capitalism’s control of what it considers to be its exclusive property. Yet state control is not the way forward.  So-called public-ownership is unable to practice anything other than a centralized, bureaucratic form of management. The politics of common ownership aims to return the control of the institutions of reciprocity and solidarity to society.

We tend to think of the various components of the natural world around us as being, quite rightly, the common legacy of humankind. In his famous lament of 1854, Chief Seattle’s chastised the white settlers of North America and their system of commercialised greed in these haunting words:

“The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth…All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself”.

The venerable old chief expressed bafflement at the American government's offer to purchase land from the tribe. How can you buy or sell the sky or the warmth of the land, he pondered.

The struggle between those who possess social power and those who do not, between freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed is a war fought with many and varied weapons. It is not an all or nothing case.  It does not say that workers can do nothing to protect themselves short of socialism.  

Our present society is founded upon the exploitation of the propertyless class by the propertied. And it is the goal of the Socialist Party to remove the existing ruling class, by all means, i.e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international action so to establishment of a free society based upon cooperative organisation of production. The struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation is necessarily a political struggle.

In Marx’s view, a system run by freely associated producers and their communities, socially unified with necessary conditions of production, by definition excludes commodity exchange and money. As a result, “the money-capital” (including the payment of wages) “is eliminated” although during communism’s lower phase, “the producers may…receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time” but “these vouchers are not money. They do not circulate.” 

There is a widespread notion that socialism and communism are two different , successive, societies, that socialism is the transition to communism, and precedes communism. However, for Marx (and Engels) socialism is neither the lower phase of nor the transition to communism. Socialism IS communism. In fact Marx calls capitalism itself the ‘simple transitional point ‘ or ‘transitional phase’ ( to the higher form of society (in Grundrisse,Notebook 5;Notebook 18 of the 1861-63 Notebooks). For Marx socialism and communism are simply equivalent and alternative terms for the same society that he envisages for the post-capitalist epoch which he calls, in different texts, equivalently: communism, socialism, Republic of Labour, society of free and associated producers or simply Association, Cooperative Society, union of free individuals based on the Associated Mode of Production, as opposed to the Capitalist Mode of Production. Hence what Marx says in one of his famous texts – Critique of the Gotha Programme – about the two stages of communism could as well identically apply to socialism undergoing the same two stages.

To drive home our point that socialism and communism in Marx mean the same social formation, and thereby to refute the uncritically accepted idea – a sequel to the Bolshevik tradition shared by all the Party-State régimes and their partisans following the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of political power – of socialism as the first stage and being only the transition to communism, we can mention at least four of Marx’s texts where, referring to the future society after capital, Marx speaks exclusively of ‘socialism’ and does not mention ‘communism.’

"Generally a revolution – overthrow of the existing power and the dissolution of the old relations – is a political act. Without revolution socialism cannot be viable. It needs this political act to the extent that it needs destruction and dissolution. However, where its organizing activity begins, where its aim and soul stand out, socialism throws away its political cover”(in his 1844 polemic with Ruge).

The second and the third texts are almost identical, appearing respectively in one of his 1861-63 notebooks (second notebook of the 23 notebooks) and in the so-called ‘main manuscript’ for Capital III. Here is the 1861-63 text, in Marx’s own English:

Capitalist production…is a greater spendthrift than any other mode of production of man, of living labour, spendthrift not only of flesh and blood and muscles, but of brains and nerves. It is, in fact, at [the cost of] the greatest waste of individual development that the development of general men [general development of human beings]is secured in those epochs of history which prelude to [which presage]a socialist constitution of mankind. 

This text is repeated almost word for word in the ‘main manuscript’ of volume 3 of ‘Capital’. Finally, in the course of correcting and improving the text of a book by a worker (Johann Most), meant for popularizing Capital, Marx inserted: "The capitalist mode of production is really a transitional form which by its own organism must lead to a higher, to a co-operative mode of production, to socialism.