Review : Mrs Barbour's Daughters, A Play A Pie and A Pint, Oran Mor.

Theatre Review : Mrs Barbour's Daughters, A Play A Pie and A Pint, Oran Mor. Oct 2014

I'm only after writing about Glasgow's radical past last week, when one of the people I was reading about, Mary Barbour, is remembered in a play at Oran Mor's A Play, A Pie and a Pint series a few days later.

In "Mrs Barbour's Daughters" by A J Taudevin (which is on in Glasgow this week before transferring to the Traverse in Edinburgh) an 87 year old woman is facing eviction from her crumbling tenement. Libby McArthur plays her carer niece and whilst they talk about the present day and worries of the Bedroom Tax, Mary, played by Anna Hepburn is overwhelmed with memories from her early family life. With a clever bit of direction they easily flit back and forwards through the decades as Mary remembers her more politically minded sister, played by Gail Watson (who plays Katie Morag's mum on cbeebies, and showed her singing prowess previously in Oran Mor's "A Bottle of Wine and Patsy Cline").

It is easy to see the modern day comparisons, with Mary Barbour getting woman politically motivated in the rent strikes of the 1915 and modern day women becoming a force for change in the mass meetings of the Women for Indy campaign recently. Mary in the play feels that she was taken for granted and missed out on a life, whilst her mother and sister were off campaigning and living theirs, but she still has a stubborn glint in her eye.

The whole play is lifted by two musical moments. Once when Gail Watson raises the spirits with a rendition of "John MacLean's March" and then in a rousing finale that brought a wee tear to my eye. Libby McArthur also does a standout turn as she becomes Mary Barbour, delivering a speech urging us to fight (she looked uncannily like her I thought). It was a clever way of portraying a time just beyond living memory.

The only issue I had with the play was that it felt incredibly positive and optimistic at the end, which just isn't something that sits comfortably with a Glaswegian like me.

Like a couple of my great-great-great grandparents, Mary Barbour was the daughter of a weaver from Kilbarchan. She became politically active during WW1 when she led the rent strike campaigns in Govan. In 1920 she stood as the Labour candidate in Fairfield ward and became one of Glasgow's first woman Councillors, where she continued her campaigns. If you want to find out more about Mary Barbour and the campaign to get a lasting memorial to her in Glasgow look here at RememberMaryBarbour.
My reflections on Glasgow's other neglected radicals is here.

A Look Back at Glasgow's Socialist History

Red Clydesiders. Where are their memorials in our city?

The old aphorism says that "history is written by the victors". I was thinking about this after recently reading a book on the history of the Greek city of Thessaloniki. This tells the story of the Ottomans, Muslims and Jews that for centuries made up the majority of the population of what is now a decidedly Greek city. However in the city itself most traces of these previous inhabitants have been removed, as the city has emphasised its Greek-ness over recent decades.

We know Glasgow for its "Red Clydesiders", its trade unionism and Socialist leaders of the past. But when you look at the city today you have to search hard to find any physical proof of this past. I was never taught about these battles and people in school history lessons. As heavy industry fades away from the city, even family memories of these past events are passing. The top floor in the People's Palace records some of these struggles, but elsewhere in the city traces of this are harder to unearth.

In the recent Scottish independence referendum, the "No" result was a bitter disappointment for many people living in the poorest areas of Glasgow, who largely gave their support to a "Yes" vote. These are the people with most to lose from the status quo, and the most to gain by creating a fairer society. I believe that this goal was what drove the majority of voters in my city to vote Yes. Much was made of the public's engagement with ideas and politics during the referendum debate, as if this is some weird notion not for the likes of ordinary people. An 87% turnout for a vote is unprecedented in Scotland, where general elections  are closer to 60% turnouts and council and European elections much less than that. The re-invigorated political engagement, the increased numbers of people joining the Greens, Scottish Socialist Party and SNP post-referendum, the support that organisations such as the Common Weal and Radical Independence Campaign have garnered, feels like a new thing. However I think it is more a case that many people have for decades felt powerless to control many aspects of their life, and that means job prospects, pay levels, watching the privatisation of essential services happening, feeling powerless even to affect their own health - it is part of the same problem. With all the main political parties telling you it has to be this way, why bother arguing? The referendum has re-awakened an old idea in people's heads. That ordinary people could join together and make things better.

There are many forgotten episodes and individuals in Glasgow's working class and trade union history, people who believed that they could make a better world. It is strange that many of these stories are not commemorated on the streets of my city, Glasgow. My plan was to spend a day or two trying to tour about the city a wee bit to find out about some of them. So for the 24,079 people of Maryhill and Springburn who voted "Yes" as opposed to the 18,094 who voted "No" in the referendum, this is a look back to some other Glaswegians who thought change could bring greater equality.

Forgotten Glaswegians

I hadn't heard of Thomas Muir of Huntershill until I read about him today in the People's Palace. He set up the radical "Friends of the People" organisation in Glasgow in 1792, inspired by the French Revolution and was transported 2 years later for sedition. He eventually escaped from Australia to America, passing through Cuba before ending his days in France. Nor had I heard of John Baird and Andrew Hardie, executed for treason in 1820  after leading a strike of 60,000 men in support of Parliamentary reform. There are little known men like George Millar who I've written about before. The "Maryhill Martyr" who was stabbed for trying to set up a union for calico workers in Maryhill in 1834. He once had a memorial plaque in a Maryhill churchyard, but for several years it has been held in storage by Glasgow City Council. At the start of the 20th century the Clydeside was becoming a hotbed of Socialist campaigns and ideas and by 1919, after events in Russia, the British government was even fearing revolution.

One hundred years ago many women supported the militant tactics of those campaigning for woman's suffrage. Suffragettes even let off a bomb in 1914 in the Kibble Palace in Glasgow to try to further their aims. Helen Crawfurd, who had just been released from prison after a 5 day hunger strike was re-arrested on suspicion of the bombing. She later supported the, largely women led, rent strikes, campaigned against the First World War, joined the ILP and became a councillor in Dunoon. Mary Barbour campaigned alongside her in the rent strikes of 1915, organising local women to drive out sheriff officers and prevent evictions. She joined the ILP and became Glasgow's first female town councillor in 1920. There is no memorial to either of these women in Glasgow, despite their dramatic and active roles campaigning for the working people of the city. Other women became very politically active through trade unionism. The Singer Sewing Machine factory strike of 1911 was largely led by the women in the workforce, many of whom went on to become Socialists and active trade unionists despite the management winning the strike and victimising and sacking many people involved in it. Amongst those sacked was Arthur McManus, who later went on to become the first chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain. His name was written alongside Grigory Zinoviev's on the forged "Zinoviev Letter" used in 1924 to discredit the Labour party.

The Co-operative Movement

I've also previously mentioned Willie Nairn a Scottish Marxist I had never heard of before until James Kelman mentioned him in a talk I was at. Born in Brechin in 1856, he moved to Glasgow and became active in the Social Democratic Federation and the Co-operative Movement. He was president of the St George's Cooperative Society. Their building no longer stands but was at St George's Cross and this statue once stood at the top of it. The Co-operative Movement was one way many people tried to work together to help their fellow man, an idea that is growing in popularity around the world, such as in coffee producers getting together to sell their produce at a fair price, or in the ethos of our credit unions.

Statue from atop the old St Georges Co-op building

Mill owner Robert Owen is often considered as one of the founders of the Cooperative Movement.

The last remaining 18th century villa on Charlotte Street,
Glasgow similar to the one in which David Dale lived.

He put his theoretical ideas into practice in his mill town of New Lanark, 35 miles from Glasgow. Born in Wales in 1771, he met the daughter of New Lanark mill owner David Dale whilst on a visit to Glasgow and later married her. He took over the running of the mill town. He moved away from the "truck system" of paying the workers in tokens which could only be used to buy poor quality goods from the mill owner's shop and tried to implement ideas the co-operative movement followed, of bulk buying products of sound quality and selling them at near to wholesale prices, putting profits back into the town. David Dale was born in Cambuslang and lived on Charlotte Street, near Glasgow Green. Robert Owen is remembered in the name of Robert Owen House on Bath Street, which was home to the Scottish Co-op movement until recently, but it now appears to be closed. It will be a sad irony if the office space is taken over by some fund-managers, but much of the building has actually been converted into student accommodation.

Robert Owen House, Bath Street

The Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society was formed in 1868. Their aim was to create a co-operative method of production and distribution, supplying local co-operative retailers, they had a vision of a more equal and sharing society. As they expanded they took over smaller societies or opened their own local branches. They moved into banking, funeral care and hotels. They tried to supply their own raw materials, taking over a tea plantation in Ceylon and a timber supplier in Canada and they ran a factory complex in Sheildhall producing food, furniture, metalwear and clothing. They also were a place where many politically active women met up, in the popular Co-operative women's guilds. My memories of the Co-op is really just of running across to the one in Knightswood for my granny and getting to stick her Co-op divi stamps into her book afterwards. Or of going out to the Clydebank Co-op for school clothes. Nowadays it just seems to run along the same lines as other shops, and their banking sector seems to be as rotten as any other bank.

The old Co-op Building on Morrison Street

The scale and grandeur of the Co-op Building beside the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow shows the scale of what they once managed to achieve, and many smaller scale operations look back to their ideals for inspiration with their new cooperative movements (eg Social Bite or the Bike Station in Glasgow).

St Andrew's Halls and George Square

Former St Andrew's Halls

World War 1 led to many social changes, including the increased reliance on getting women into the workforce. Needing to increase munitions production the government passed laws to increase the power of employers over their workforce. Munitions Minister David Lloyd George spoke in December 1915 to the Clyde Workers Committee and munitions workers at St Andrew's Hall. The Mitchell Library now sits in what was formerly the St Andrew's Halls, gutted by fire in 1962. By introducing unskilled workers alongside the skilled workers, to increase production for the war effort on lower pay (Dilution of Labour) the workers felt he was planning to roll back gains they'd made in pay and working conditions. Lloyd George was shouted down and chased out of the building with "The Red Flag" ringing in his ears. At this point the workers could have maintained their defiance and put the ability of Britain to continue in the war in serious danger. There was a strong Socialist anti-war movement in the city at the time. Ultimately the workers were let down by their leadership, in particular David Kirkwood of the Parkhead Forge gets the finger of blame pointed at him for securing a dilution agreement. He later joined the ILP, then moved to the Labour Party and was eventually made Baron of Bearsden and sat in the House of Lords.

David Kirkwood, beaten to the ground by policemen
in the George Square riot of 1919

In George Square the statues commemorate the great and the good of Scotland. I've written about the statues there before and if I had my way I'd get rid of most of them (except maybe Robert Burns and some of the scientists) and replace them with statues of more inspirational types. Why not Mary Barbour, Jimmy Reid or John MacLean? The picture above is from George Square in 1919 on the day later known as "Bloody Friday".

Red flag in George Square 1919

The workers, led by the Clyde Workers' Committee, went on strike demanding a reduction in the working week to 40 hours, in order to help find work for soldiers returning from the war and avoid a build up of unemployed men being used to force down working conditions. The strikers had put their proposals to the Lord Provost and 60,000 gathered in George Square to hear his reply. Fearing that a revolution might take place, Home Secretary Winston Churchill sent 10,000 English troops to Glasgow along with tanks and heavy weaponry. It was feared that local troops in Maryhill Barracks could not be relied upon to not join the strikers, so they were confined to barracks. A newspaper photograph at the time shows a red flag being raised in the crowd on 31st January 1919. Whilst the CWC leaders were inside the City Chambers the Police led a baton charge on the crowd, felling men and women. The demonstrators, led by many ex-servicemen, retaliated, forcing the police to retreat and battles continued through the streets. As the CWC leaders emerged from the city chambers some were arrested and David Kirkwood was knocked to the floor by a police baton. He was arrested along with Willie Gallacher, Emanuel Shinwell, Harry Hopkins and George Edbury.

Tanks brought onto the streets of Glasgow 1919

The next day the tanks were on the streets of Glasgow, with Howitzers and machine guns posted on buildings around George Square to prevent any recurrence and the protests petered out. John MacLean, who spent many of his evenings trying to educate workers about Marxist ideas, felt that the workers had been defeated

 "more by the lack of working class ripeness than by batons, tanks and machine guns"

George Square was quieter today

George Square has since then often been a rallying point for protest and rallies. Nelson Mandela spoke here on his release from prison as he came to Glasgow to thank the city for the support he was given whilst a prisoner of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. The city council seems hellbent on turning the square into a naff fairground or money making site instead of it being a public space for the citizens of the city and a campaign has been set up to try to save it (Restore George Square).

Uglier scenes were seen in the square recently when Unionist supporters gathered here the day after the "No" vote in the Scottish Independence referendum. All through the campaign the square had been a rallying point, mainly for "Yes" campaigners, but only on this night did the police have to get involved. 

95 years after a red flag was hoisted in George Square, the Union Jack was being waved instead by people with their own way of viewing history.

John MacLean

Former Corporation
Transport Building 

Neither the Co-operative movement or the ILP were revolutionaries, but John MacLean was. Born in 1879 at 59 King Street, Pollokshaws, John MacLean trained as a teacher. In 1903 he joined the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), an early Marxist organisation and spoke at factories and public meetings spreading their ideas. He started holding teaching classes in Glasgow on industrial economics and Marxist history, open to trade unionists and the general public. My granny lived at Gorbals Cross and remembered meetings being held by him in her dad's front room there. Strongly opposed to the pro-war stance which the SDF took, he joined the British Socialist Party in 1911 and became a strong campaigner against the war and against corruption.

On Sunday evenings John MacLean would hold anti-war meetings at the former Corporation Transport Building on Bath Street at Renfield Street. In 1915 he was arrested under the Defence of the Realm act for his anti-war stance and when he refused to pay a fine was imprisoned and sacked as a teacher. He saw it as a war between imperialist powers in which workers should take no part and when he continued to speak out against the war he was arrested for the second time in Feb 1916 after a meeting here. Charged with sedition he was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment but released following public protests after 14 months.

Telegram from British Socialist Party on his release from prison

After the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia he was appointed as the Soviet Consul to Scotland due to the support he gave to their cause. He opened an office of the Soviet Consul on 12 Portland Street (which has been demolished), just south of the suspension bridge over the River Clyde. (Benny Lynch the boxer was a 4 year old boy living in the next street at this time).

Portland Street, Glasgow

In December 1918 the police raided the consulate office and MacLean was arrested again. He defended himself at the trial in Edinburgh with a famous speech including the line

"I am not here as the accused, I am here as the accuser of capitalism, dripping with blood from head to foot."

He was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, during which time he went on hunger strike fearing his food was being poisoned. Again regular protests called for his release and in 1918 the coalition government of Lloyd George agreed to his release, although MacLean refused the Royal pardon he was offered. He believed in Scottish independence and formed a Scottish Communist Party separate from the CPGB. In his pamphlet titled "All Hail! The Scottish Communist Republic" he made clear his views on what direction he felt Scotland should take

"Scotland must again have Independence, but not to be ruled by traitor kings and chiefs, lawyers and politicians....The control must be in the hands of the workers only, male and female alike..."

He was arrested again and again and after 5 terms in prison, hunger strikes and force feeding his health failed. Aged 44 he died in 1923. His funeral cortege was followed by a crowd of 10-20,000 to his final resting place in Eastwood cemetery. John MacLean and Robert Burns are the only Scots commemorated by Soviet postage stamps.

Plaque on the walls of the City Halls, Glasgow

In Glasgow we have nothing on a par with that. There is a plaque on the wall of the City Halls marking it as a site he spoke often at. In the People's Palace on Glasgow Green some of his papers are kept on display alongside his old desk.

Memorial stone to John MacLean at Ashtree Road, Pollokshaws

In 1973 on the 50th anniversary of his death a commemorative cairn was unveiled in Pollokshaws, close to his birthplace. It reads "Famous pioneer of working class education, he forged the Scottish link in the golden chain of world Socialism."

Glasgow Green

From ancient times Glasgow Green always been a rallying point and meeting place. It was where James Watt came up with the ideas for his steam engine and Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to rally his Jacobite troops in 1746. A stone marks James Watt and a circular bench marks Bonnie Prince Charlie on Glasgow Green, but commemorations of other events on the Green are few and far between.

On 6th March 1848 unemployed workers had gathered on Glasgow Green expecting to be given provisions. When none appeared speakers denounced the government and called for people to take what they needed. Serious rioting then erupted, with food shops and a gunsmiths at Glasgow Cross being raided. The army were called in as the rioters retreated towards Bridgeton and opened fire into the crowd with live ammunition killing at least one man and wounding many others. The leaders were given 18 years transportation.

 From 1872 until the time of World War 1 suffragettes used to gather at Nelson's column on Glasgow Green, which may explain why Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested in 1914 at the nearby Central Police station on Turnbull Street after a rowdy meeting. The Women's Peace Crusade rallied 14,000 women on Glasgow Green on the 8th July 1916, a women's crusade against the war, with many women who had lost sons or husbands in the war getting involved. Organising it were Mary Barbour, Agnes Dollan and Helen Crawfurd.

On the 1918 May Day strike 100,000 workers downed tools. Some of them rallied here and demonstrated against the war and for worker's solidarity, then headed to nearby Duke Street prison to demand the release of John MacLean who had been arrested again. It was also the rallying point in Glasgow during the national General Strike of 1926.

In more recent times the Anti-Apartheid Movement organised a rally here where 30,000 people came to hear ANC leader Oliver Tambo speak in 1988, two years before Mandela was eventually released from prison in South Africa.

Hugh MacDonald, Chartist

One memorial that you can find here is to Hugh MacDonald, commemorated on Glasgow Green with a fountain. The City Council Glasgow Green heritage trail tells us he was a journalist, famous for his book "Rambles Around Glasgow" (which I quite like the sound of). What it doesn't tell you is that he was also a supporter of the Chartist movement and wrote articles and poems for Chartist newspapers. Born in 1817 in Bridgeton to Highland parents, he was a Glaswegian social reformer and supporter of Chartism. Bridgeton Cross was an important rallying point for Glasgow Chartists in the 1830s and 1840s, campaigning for the vote for all over the age of 21, although some disagreed on whether "all" should also include women. However there were two Female Chartists' Associations based around here at that time. In 1838 in Glasgow 100,000 people attended a rally in support of Chartism.

Brigdeton Cross was also where James Maxton used to hold open air meetings. He was the Independent Labour Party MP for this area from 1922-1945. Presumably he kept on with his meetings even if someone thought to throw an egg at him. He was a leading figure in the Glasgow ILP. Like many of his colleagues he was a pacifist and spoke out against the First World War, for which he was imprisoned in 1916. He also spoke out in favour of Home Rule, wanting to transform the "English-ridden, capitalist-ridden, landlord-ridden Scotland, into a Scottish socialist commonwealth". He later tempered his views, feeling that the target of their fight should be against international imperialism. Kelvingrove Art Gallery have apparently a bust of Maxton, but when I was there today I couldn't find it, and there is no memorial to him at Bridgeton Cross either. (If you are at Bridgeton Cross I'd encourage you to spend a couple of hours trawling through the BFI archives in Bridgeton Library/Olympia).

Bridgeton Cross

Nearby is the old Calton burial ground on Abercromby Street. Here are commemorated those weavers who died in what was probably Scotland's first major industrial dispute. Protesting against a 25% pay cut the weavers of Calton went on strike. The dispute carried on for months and when demostrators gathered on 4th September 1787, they were fired upon by soldiers. Three weavers were killed instantly and three more were fatally wounded. The memorial stones on the walls of the burial ground are now quite worn, but new plaques have been fixed around the graveyard to tell their story.

Memorial to the Calton Weavers

Another noteworthy grave in Calton burial ground is that of Reverend James Smith, pastor of Abraham Lincoln's church in Illinois.

Onwards...

Robert Climie with Keir Hardie,
leader of the ILP

In 1922 Glasgow returned eight ILP MPs, whilst in nearby towns the Communist Party was getting support at the ballot box. They departed to London from St Enoch Station, now a shopping mall, amidst cheering crowds (by the way, did you know that Saint Enoch was a woman, the mother of Kentigern, Glasgow's founder?). Two of the Clyde Workers' Committee strike leaders from 1919, Emanuel Shinwell and David Kirkwood joined other Independent Labour Party members such as James Maxton, John Wheatley, Neil MacLean and George Buchanan, in the House of Commons representing Glasgow. In 1922 my great-great uncle was unsuccessful as the ILP candidate for Kilmarnock, but became their MP a year later and joined his party in parliament. Meanwhile another CWC leader of that time was standing for the parliamentary seat in Dundee in 1922 for the Communist Party. It wasn't until 1935 that Willie Gallacher was elected as an MP, for West Fife.

Apart from Willie Gallacher the Communist Party never achieved any real electoral success and some within the party felt that they should not even engage in a parliamentary democracy that they saw as unjust.

La Pasionara statue, Glasgow

Communists were however active within the trade union movement and a disproportionately high number of workers from Scotland and Glasgow joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, to fight against Franco. (See Daniel Gray's Homage to Caledonia book for fantastic insights into their actions). A sculpture of La Pasionara (Dolores Ibarruri) was unveiled in 1979, at the bottom of Jamaica Street on the Clydeside to pay tribute to those men and women who went to Spain to fight fascism. As it says on the plinth "2,100 VOLUNTEERS WENT FROM BRITAIN; 534 WERE KILLED, 65 OF WHOM CAME FROM GLASGOW". I was there at the unveiling, standing alongside a friend of my parents whose grandfather had died in Spain and I am glad to see that the statue has recently been restored after falling into disrepair for a while. (It is one of only three women represented in sculpture in Glasgow, the others being Queen Victoria in George Square and Lady Elder in Elder Park, Govan. Time for us to commemorate Mary Barbour or Helen Crawfurd maybe?)

Young shop stewards who were also members of the Communist Party led the successful UCS work-in, such as Jimmy Reid, Jimmy Airlie, Sammy Gilmore and Sammy Barr. When Upper Clyde Shipyards threatened to close the shipyards the union, instead of striking, decided to have a "work-in" and complete the orders they already had on the books. Although the state of Glasgow's shipbuilding industry today is precarious, without their efforts it would have died out 40 years ago. Maybe the best way to commemorate their efforts would be to invest in the yards now to keep what we have. The threat of closure still hangs over the remaining two yards at Govan and Scotstoun and if BAE no longer want to run them, why not nationalise them, invest in new technology and re-name them? Perhaps the "No Hooliganism, No Bevvying Yards" or suchlike.

These men and women were all fighting for social justice and a fairer society. It is important that they are not forgotten and that we remember them and their ideas. They can inspire us, and others, to reject injustice and inequality as they themselves did. As part of that I think Glasgow city council needs to look at ways to tell its people about their history, not to let it be forgotten. A series of paintings by Ken Currie hangs in the People's Palace , telling the story of the working people of Glasgow. It was commisioned in 1987 on the 200th anniversary of the massacre of the Calton Weavers. The last panel is called "Unfurling Our History", the artist's vision of the future. A group in the centre are learning about their history through Museum collections and unfurling a banner of the future to come. That is why I think we need to spend more time remembering these men and women.

Unfurling Our History, Ken Currie, from the People's Palace

Reflections on Scottish Independence Inspired By James Connolly's Songbook

In Glasgow's Glad Cafe recently I attended an evening of music from Mat Callahan. He and fellow musicians have made a recording of some songs by and about James Connolly and were reprinting his book from 1907, "Songs Of Freedom". He talked of the lengths he had to go to in order to see a copy of it (afterwards Eddi Reader offered a copy she had) and gave a rendition of one of the songs printed in the original book, by Irishman Connell, "The Red Flag" but with a "Motown feel" to change it from the traditional dirge it has become. James Kelman had got involved when Mat was in Ireland and persuaded him to also visit the country of James Connolly's birth, Scotland, for two nights. It was a fantastic evening, with James Kelman in fine form, talking at length about the influence that Connolly had on Scottish socialists such as John MacLean.

As we approach our Scottish independence referendum it made me want to read a bit more about Connolly and why he took up arms for Irish independence from Britain. What did he think independence would achieve for Ireland? I asked my dad if he had anything on him. He said "I've got a few of his books. I used to have his Songbook, but I think I loaned it to someone and never got it back." (Aaaargh!) I consider myself not so much as an 'undecided' on the referendum question, but as a 'yet to be persuaded'. Too much nationalist language in general is about being better than others, whether it is the rest of the world, or a close neighbour. This is something that can only be negative and parochial. Nowhere in the current debate am I hearing about the ideals that we can aspire to in an independent country. Perhaps we could aim to be greener, more peaceable, more just, fairer. Liberty, egality, fraternity - that sort of thing.

Looking at the headlines on a newspaper website by searching the word 'independence' the lofty subjects include "would face greater security risk", "face tough choices on tax", "jobs fears" and "we're all doomed" (I made that last one up). It is almost as if a country of 5 million people is unheard of. People can apparently only succeed as a giant supermarket of a nation, there's no room for a worker's co-operative corner shop on these streets. Maybe one angle the 'Yes' campaign should emphasise is that becoming independent has not stopped Bosnia-Hercegovina getting to the World Cup finals in Brazil next year, and Croatia are also still in with a shout. But maybe this highlights part of the problem. Scotland has always been a wee bit of a separate country from England anyway whether in law, sport, education, history or perspective. None of these benefits other states may fight for can be so prominent in our debate as they may be in other parts of the world. So I think we need to hear about what Scots, given a blank canvas, think they could achieve. What virtues could our country aspire to?

James Connolly

James Connolly is known as a socialist and trade unionist who fought, and died for the Irish Nationalist cause. He is maybe more well known in Ireland than in the country he was born. In Dublin a statue of him stands outside Liberty Hall and he is remembered in the name of Connolly Station, whilst it is reported that all his life he spoke in a Scottish accent. He was truly an internationalist. He opposed the false divisions of people along lines of religion or gender, and the nationalism he fought for was not nationalism for nationalism's sake, but for the establishment of an "Irish Socialist Republic". As he said

"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed."

He was born to Irish immigrant parents in the Cowgate of Edinburgh in 1868 where he was reportedly a fan of Hibernian football club. He left school aged 10 to start working, and aged 14 lied about his age to join the British army. The time he spent in the army in Ireland opened his eyes to the treatment of the Irish people at the hands of the British. He met his future wife here, Irish protestant Lillie Reynolds, and returned with her to Scotland in 1890 where he became active in trade unionism and the socialist movement. He was involved in the Independent Labour Party which Keir Hardie established in 1893. In 1895 he moved to Dublin where he founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party. After a speaking tour of America in 1902 he returned to Edinburgh and launched the Socialist Labour Party before emigrating to the USA for 6 years. Working initially as an insurance salesman, then in a Singer sewing machine factory in Newark, he became involved in the IWW (International Workers of the World or the "Wobblies") and became paid as the national organiser for the Socialist Party of America. He had established various socialist newspapers and was publishing his ideas in pamphlets and on speaking tours. Whilst in America he published "Songs for Freedom" in 1907 and the words of the songs clearly encapsulated his ideas. As he says in the introduction

"No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by joyous, defiant singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement; it is a dogma of a few and not the faith of the multitude."

In 1910 he returned to Ireland and became involved with the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. The police brutality against workers in the 1913-14 Dublin 'lock-out' lead him to found a workers' militia, the Irish Citizens Army (ICA). He spoke out against the division of Ireland, wrote to warn Orangemen in Ulster from being blinded to the common cause they should have with the working people of Ireland, against their capitalist bosses "hiding their sweat shops behind orange flags". With regards to women he wrote that "of what use...[was the re-establishment of an Irish State]...if it does not embody the emancipation of womanhood". He saw the First World War as an imperialist war and campaigned against sending Irishmen abroad to fight. Today's conflicts around the world could be being referenced with these words

"If these men must die, would it not be better to die in their own country fighting for freedom for their own class, and for the abolition of war, than to go forth to strange countries and die slaughtering and slaughtered by their own brothers that tyrants and profiteers might live?"

In the rising in Dublin of Easter 1916, James Connolly and members of his ICA tried to make their stated aims a reality. Whilst Commandant of the Dublin Brigade at the GPO he was badly wounded in the fighting. He was one of the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation. Following the surrender he was arrested and at his court-martial again mentioned the role of women and the war in Europe,

"We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British government has been asking them to die for in Belgium . . . I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth and to seal it with their lives if necessary."

Sentenced to death he was taken to Kilmainham Goal, still seriously ill from his wounds, on a stretcher where he had to be tied to a chair to be shot.

My mother-in-law in the yard of a wet
Kilmainham Gaol

He had crystal clear aims for the nationalism for which he was fighting, something I have yet to hear in Scotland's current debate. His programme included a republic

"based upon public ownership by the Irish people of the land and instruments of production, distribution and exchange."

Also, there was to be nationalisation of the railways (and canals), abolition of private banks and government financed loans at cost price, graduated income tax, universal suffrage, establishment of a minimum wage, free maintenance for all children, free education up to higher university grades and public management of schools. What was the point of self-determination if it didn't provide a programme to benefit all of the ordinary citizens?

Prompted by James Kelman talking about him as though we were all familiar with his ideas, I recently sought out a book on an early Scottish Marxist called Willie Nairn. He was born in 1856 in Brechin, and aged 18 he gravitated to Glasgow where he worked as a labourer and stonebreaker. He lived in exciting times. Agitated by questions of land ownership in a country still reeling from the Highland clearances and by the ideas of the Paris Commune of 1871 he studied the writings of Marx and Engels in his evenings. The Communist Manifesto (first translated into English by Barrhead's Helen MacFarlane) and Das Kapital were hot off the presses when he first read them. As John MacLean later would, he spoke at meetings and in Cathedral Square and Glasgow Green trying to spread the ideas he found there. He was a founder member of one of Glasgow's first Socialist organisations, the Social Democratic Federation and active in the infant Cooperative movement. He was president of the St George Cooperative Society which stood at St George's Cross. Nothing is left of this building except for the statue of George and the dragon which once stood atop it, but now marks the junction beneath the Great Western Road flyover. Like Keir Hardie and James Connolly he spoke out against the Boer War and criticised the socialist leaders who could "out-jingo the jingoists" as they fell in behind the war bandwagon. In 1902 he died, aged 46. Despite his origins, the poverty and hardships he endured, he looked for a better way and tried to put it into effect.

My great-great uncle Robert
standing beside Keir Hardie

Early Scottish socialists often had a desire for Scottish independence. Keir Hardie is often quoted as an advocate of home rule for Scotland. He first stood for election, in 1888, as the "Labour and Home Rule" candidate but as Bob Holman points out in his biography of Hardie "this was to let the sizeable number of Irish residents in the constituency know where he stood on the question of home rule for Ireland". I have struggled to find any statements or writings by him on the issue of Scottish Home Rule. Later in 1888 Keir Hardie founded the Scottish Labour Party (not to be confused in ANY way with a party currently using that name), soon to merge with the Independent Labour Party he was to lead into parliament. In 1908 Hardie travelled to South Africa and was unusual in his day in condemning the treatment of blacks there. He also visited New Zealand, Australia and India on his tour. Writing in his book on India he writes about the Indians' desire for self government. He felt that the Indians had a right to self-determination, for their benefit and the benefit of future relations between Britain and India.

"Concerning political reforms, I am certain that no matter what is done for India there can be no real pacification, no allaying of discontent, no breaking down of the barrier rising between European and Asiatic, until the people of India have some effective form of self-government."

His book, which he wrote of his two months in India, is a fascinating read. The effort he goes to in order to meet people, to research facts and figures to support his arguments is just not something that you see in political analysis now. The fact that in the USA of the 1960s it was thought acceptable to segregate public transport on racial grounds seems even more bizarre than it was, when a Victorian mine worker from Holyton found it so obviously odd in the India of 1908.

"When I entered the train at Madras there were  two Indian gentlemen in the compartment. One of them rose as I entered and said: "Shall we move to another compartment, sir?" I stared at the gentleman and asked whether he had paid his fare.....Now I knew that in parts of America the colour line was strictly drawn, but I was not prepared for this kind of thing in India. Here, be it remembered, is a people who have inherited a civilisation which was old ere the West had begun to emerge from savagery." 

Again, like Connolly, Hardie was a man from a previous age who shaped his opinions through no narrow, parochial viewpoint. Hardie's colleague in The Scottish Labour Party it's president, Robert Cunninghame-Graham later founded the National Party of Scotland, forerunner to the Scottish Nationalist Party so there were other socialists at that time who did feel that Scottish home rule was an important issue of the time.

John MacLean took this idea and ran with it, calling for

"a Scottish Communist Republic as a first step towards World Communism with Glasgow as its headquarters."

No matter how many times I read over that statement, the only response I can think of is "Build a Scottish Communist Republic, and make Glasgow the centre of this world. Bloody brilliant. Think big - when do we begin?" He also issued a leaflet in 1920, 'All Hail! The Scottish Communist Republic' with echoes of Connolly's call for an "Irish Socialist Republic", in which he made his views clear.

"Scotland must again have Independence, but not to be ruled by traitor kings and chiefs, lawyers and politicians....The control must be in the hands of the workers only, male and female alike...".

10 days before his death in 1923 at the age of 44,  he wrote in his last political address that

"Before England is ready I am sure the next war will be on us. I therefore consider that Scotland's wisest policy is to declare for a republic in Scotland, so that the youths of Scotland will not be forced out to die for England's markets."

Sitting to write this and trying to find the views of these men, I struggled with my lack of knowledge about these thinkers from Scotland's recent history, and that is from someone brought up as a child in a politically active, trade unionist household. I could lay my hands on some of their writings I've bought from obscure online bookstores over the years or borrowed from relatives. Even then, what I could access in these days of the internet being the font of all knowledge, the amount of detail I could find was very limited. This is where the gap is in the current debate. It is a knowledge gap. We don't know about these working class people with sparkling, positive, idealistic ideas. We aren't taught about these men in school history, or of the tanks in George Square in 1919 or the UCS work-in. My granny, living in the Gorbals had seen and heard John MacLean, my great uncle was involved in the UCS work-in but they are dead now. The link to these words and ideas dies with that generation unless it is documented and today's children are shown what working people can and have achieved.

Why fight for a new state which will keep people as enslaved as the old state? That is a question that is not being heard in the current referendum. What sort of Scotland do you envisage in the future and how can we get there? 'That's no fair' is something we see as an unbeatable argument when we are schoolchildren. We should start with this fine axiom as adults too. Surely it is clear that the historical, socialist beliefs and feelings of our country should still be our guiding principles. Take Connolly's programme and start from there. Add in the maintenance of a free NHS, the scrapping of Trident and highlight the benefits of creating a country welcoming immigrants and I'd vote for that country. Free education and childcare, minimum wage and a graduated income tax (not tax breaks for the wealthy), nationalisation of essential services. Why not add democratic control of our rich energy resources too? Yes, hoist the Scottish flag over Edinburgh Castle, but not if we end up being run by the same capitalists, financiers, commercial institutions and individuals as before.

The politicians debating the referendum all look and sound like middle management people discussing how they'll run the office stationary fund better than the other mob. Come on, people.
Raise the level of the debate, as so far the politicians are grinding it down to their mundane level.  Think a bit bigger. Okay, you could regard a lot of what I've written above as complete pie in the sky. But if we aim for the pie, we might miss and land in the beans.

There are people trying to look forwards and see what benefits we could all gain with a vote for independence, such as the Radical Independence Campaign. The Jimmy Reid Foundation, named in honour of the union leader at the heart of the UCS work-in, launched their "Common Weal Project" with the aim of starting a debate about how Scotland could develop socially and economically with "mutuality and equity" as guiding principles. I agree that we should take advantage of this juncture to start from scratch. The question shouldn't be whether we want independence or not, but what type of society we want. If independence will be used to make a better society then I'd vote for it. If not, I really don't see the point.

Lenin famously said that for a revolution to occur required "mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never, not even in a period of crisis, 'falls', if it is not toppled over”. I quite like the idea of jolting our political situation enough to dislocate our current politics.

A simple cairn in Pollokshaws is the only memorial we have in Glasgow to John MacLean. It reads

FAMOUS PIONEER OF WORKING CLASS EDUCATION

HE FORGED THE SCOTTISH LINK IN THE

GOLDEN CHAIN OF WORLD SOCIALISM

Start with this as a simple aspiration for a new nation and I think it would be off to a good start. Pioneer working class education and forge Scotland as a Socialist link in a worldwide chain.

Scotland is a small country. However people should try to think a bit bigger.