CANDIDLY, I confess attempting to find right-wing persons to balance all the lefties in this series. A brief foray found only a couple of none too convincing possibilities among the plethora of Red Jimmies and Bolshie Brians. 

That said, you know “Icon” is a misused word, though usually justifiable here, with this week’s subject a true hero of the Scottish Left: John Maclean of Red Clydesdale, aka “the Scottish Lenin”.
Maclean thought Scottish workers peculiarly suited to anti-capitalist revolution, and talked of a “Celtic communism” inspired by clan spirit, not such a great example given clan chiefs’ betrayal of their own.

Before all betrayals and politicking, innocent wee John Maclean was born on August 24, 1879 in Pollokshaws, now a suburb of Glasgow. His father was a Bo’ness potter, while his mother hailed from Corpach, Lochaber. Historically victims of the Clearances, both spoke Gaelic and were congregants of the Original Secessionist Church, which sounds fab.

John was educated at Queen’s Park school and Pollokshaws Academy and, in the holidays, worked as a newspaper seller, golf caddy, and print machine shop dogsbody. In 1896, he became a pupil teacher at Polmadie school and later enrolled at the Free Church Teachers’ College.

His first full-time teaching appointment was at Strathbungo Public (as in not private) School. After studying part-time, he graduated with an MA in political economy from Glasgow Yoonie.

In 1900, he joined the Pollokshaws Progressive Union, which campaigned for social reform. But John soon became convinced that only revolution could liberate the working class. 

This, he believed, could be carried out peacefully through education rather than violence by some elite group of no-marks or, indeed, no-Marx.

He joined top Marxist outfit the Social Democratic Federation and, by 1906, was lecturing the proletariat about economics. In 1908, he led a demonstration – unfortunately not called “Just Stop Toil” – through Glasgow Stock Exchange and, in 1910, organised female workers striking for decent wages and non-insane hours at Neilston thread mills.

Irish ayes
At this time, the Irish struggle for home rule was gaining attention, and Maclean supported it, despite fearing the influence of the conservative Catholic Church.

However, speaking in Ireland, he opposed the Easter Rising as a bourgeois event inimical to his pacifist principles. In 1919, he visited Dublin, witnessing the large British military presence, but still suggesting  “Irish workers ought not to antagonise the soldiers of occupation … but should try to win them over”. That went down well.

By 1920, however, his attitude had changed, and he was soon defending the killing of “scabs and traitors to their race”, and condoning the assassination of a magistrate, saying: “What self-respecting man or woman can blame the Irish for ridding the Earth of such a foul skunk?” Jings.
Maclean saw Irish independence as positive for Scotland. Unlike the First World War, which he considered an imperialist conflict dividing workers.

August 1914 saw the first anti-war demonstration held at Glasgow Green, where Maclean stated: “ … our business is to develop a ‘class patriotism, refusing to murder one another for a sordid world capitalism.”

In 1915,  he was charged under the Defence of the Realm Act with “uttering statements calculated to prejudice recruiting”. Before a Glasgow courtroom overflowing with supporters, he was fined a fiver or five days’ imprisonment. He opted for pokey and was duly sacked by Govan School Board from his teaching post at Lorne Street Primary School. 

So, as you do, he became a full-time Marxist lecturer. Sounds a bit minimum wage.

The Herald:

Bars ire brews
IN 1916, he was arrested again for his evil pacifism and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. Large demonstrations demanded his release, which duly came on June 30, 1917 after he’d served 14 months and 22 days.

On April 13, 1918, he was charged with sedition and, at Edinburgh High Court, conducted his own defence. Asked (not by himself, by the judge) if he objected to any of the jurors, he replied: “I object to the whole lot of them.” 

He endeared himself further to the court by declaring: “I want to expose the trickery of the British government and their police and their lawyers.” Judge: “Righty-oh.” Joking.

His 75-minute speech from the dock has passed in to leftist folklore, not least its definition of capitalism as “the most infamous, bloody and evil system that mankind has ever witnessed”. Incas/Romans/Genghis Khan: “Hold my beer!”

He was sentenced to five years in Peterheid, where he refused to eat and was forcibly fed twice a day. 

In December 1918, he was released following the armistice agreed by the various nutters partaking in the macabre war.

Shortly afterwards, Maclean was official Labour General Election candidate for Glasgow Gorbals where, natch, the proles declined to back him.

Never mind. In 1918, he was appointed Bolshevik consul in Scotland, establishing a Consulate at 12 South Portland Street, Glasgow, which was duly ignored  by the British government.
Maclean wanted to make Glasgow a Petrograd, “a revolutionary storm centre”, but didn’t want Moscow dictating to Scotland. 

Opposing the Communist Party of Great Britain, he tried founding a Scottish Communist Party, later renamed the Communist Labour Party, which he left in a schism to found another new Scottish Communist Party. Well, it’s nice to have a hobby.

In 1923, he founded the Scottish Workers Republican Party, seeking to imbue it with traditional Gaelic society’s sense of “community”. 

Quoth he: “The communism of the clans must be re-established on a modern basis.” Scotland: “Good luck with that, mate.”

Final speech
MEANWHILE, force-feeding during hunger strike in captivity had permanently affected his health. During an election campaign speech in Glasgow, he took ill and, two days later, on November 30, 1923, died aged 44 of pneumonia. Several days earlier, he’d given his only overcoat to a destitute man.

Thousands lined the streets for his funeral procession through the city, from Eglinton Toll to Auldhouse Road then on to Eastwood Cemetery.

Lenin hailed him as one of the “best-known names of the isolated heroes who have taken upon themselves the arduous role of forerunners of the world revolution”. 

Poet Hugh MacDiarmid described Maclean as “next to Burns, the greatest ever Scot”.
In 1973, to mark the 50th anniversary of his death, a 6ft granite cairn was unveiled at Pollokshaws.

In January, at Celtic Connections, Billy Bragg, Karine Polwart, Eddi Reader and Siobhan Miller were joined by surprise guest Dick Gaughan in a musical celebration of John Maclean’s life.