Glasgow/Clydeside was once known as the Red Clyde, a period of radical action by thousands of ordinary people from the area. However some historians seem intent in watering that history down to a wishy-washy very pale pink. However, no matter how the establishment historians and their sidekicks in the media, try to portray the Red Clyde as a wishy-washy very pale pink, the real history defies them. The people of the Clydeside have a proud history, they have a heritage, and it is one of continuous struggle for justice and a better world. There were more industrial strikes on Clydeside during the first world war than before or after, Hundreds of thousands organised rent strikes from Clydebank to Glasgow, and successfully forced the UK government to bring in the 1915 rent restriction act. The Clydeside history is littered with hard and sometimes brutal struggles, struggles of people who demanded more, who demanded change, and in many case got it.
However the struggle is not over, we are now in the midst of the most brutal attack on the living conditions of the ordinary people for many a decade. Despite the struggles and victories of the past, we are once again heading back to the poverty of the thirties, increase homelessness, increased child poverty, working families relying on charities. It is once again time to reignite that fighting spirit of the Red Clyde, time to call on that solidarity, that unity of purpose. We don't have the shipyards, we don't have the engineering factories, but we do have the people of Glasgow/Clydeside and their history of determined struggle, and their desire for justice. Now more than ever, we need that Red Clyde radical spirit to defend and improve our living conditions and those of tomorrow's generation.
A poster from the 80's. calling on that Red Clydeside spirit. We are alive, from the rent strikes, to bloody Friday, to the poll-tax and beyond, our struggle will end when we win the world.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
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