Rent Strike Exhibition, Glasgow.

        Small correction regarding the coming Spirit of Revolt exhibition on The Rent Strike, 100 years on, being held in the Mitchell Library main foyer. The exhibition will start on November 2nd. as stated, but will close Saturday 28th. November, not the 29th. as previously stated, as the Mitchell Library is closed on Sundays. Sorry for the misinformation. Hope to see you all there with your comments and chat.

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The Long History Of Glasgow's Anarchists.

       We in the city of Glasgow can trace the roots of its anarchist groups, individuals and activities, back into the distant past. We have always been there, standing with the people of the city in their many and varied and sometimes brutal struggles for that better world, for justice and for freedom. The history of the Glasgow anarchists is one of which we can be proud.

         It was in 1894 that Tom Anderson founded the first Scottish Socialist Sunday School, and three years later founded the South Side Socialist Sunday School, which lasted well into the 1930's. In 1910, George (Ballard) Barrett settled in Glasgow and set about holding street meetings with some assistance from John McAra from Edinburgh. Around about the same time George along with John Paton, set up the Glasgow Anarchist Group. 1919 saw the well know anarchist Guy Aldred settle in Glasgow, stating it was, "its citizen's truculent attitude, rebellious spirit and disrespect for leaders" that made him think of settling in Glasgow. Let's hope we can enhance that particular trait in the citizens of our great city. When we mention Guy Aldred, we have to mention Ethel MacDonald. Running along with and over lapping the time of Guy Aldred, we had such gallant working class fighters as, Frank Leech, Charlie and Mollie Baird, Willie McDougal, who helped keep the Workers Open form running until the 1950's, Jimmy and Babs Raeside,  Bobby Lynn, The list goes on and on, some known, some forgotten, some lost in the fog of history, much to our regret. Some others are, Farquar McLay, John Taylor Caldwell, Rita Milton, Allan Burnett, with more on Allan HERE, and Dave Carruthers.

        A little hint of what was happening in the anarchist movement in Glasgow during the 1960's can be read HERE,  and a little later, 1974-1986, HERE.

        These are just a few of the anarchist that have helped shape our city, like I said, there are so many names that have been lost, that this is just a fragment of the picture. What is encouraging is that the anarchist tradition is still alive and well in our city today. There is a crop of enthusiastic individuals and groups, who are still at the forefront of the struggles of the people of our city, and it is uplifting to see that it is not all grey haired and slow walking individuals, but a wonderful gathering of young, intelligent and dedicated individuals, that are forming groups and pushing forward with the anarchist dream of that better world for all.

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Workers Know Your History, Tom Anderson.

        A wee poem from the past. Written by Tom Anderson, born Pollokshaws 1863, died 1947. He founded the first Socialist Sunday School, 1894, and in 1897 formed the South Side Socialist Sunday School. As well as a revolutionary socialist, he was a song writer and poet.

 
The Revolutionist

“We fear not their law, nor yet their great men;

We fear not their prisons or blood-gallows pen;

We fear nor their priests, or parsons, or their spies;

We fear not their land away up in the skies.

We laugh at their army, and navy, and king;

We laugh at the god to whom these thieves sing.

We laugh, and in earnest we strive for the day

We wipe out the tyrants who do our class slay.”

Tom Anderson

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Workers, Know your History: We Don't Need A Carpark.

    Another episode in which The Glasgow City Council decided what the people needed, without consulting the people, and the people, by direct action and solidarity, made them change their minds and listen to the people.

     This successful campaign took place in Castlemilk, what was at one time the largest housing estate in Britain. 

Taken from Strugglepedia:

Community Action – Housing; regentrification, greens into car parks, loss of safe play spaces. Injustice/ normal channels closed / bureaucracy /desperation /solidarity with experienced anarchist strategies/ planning direct actions/ increasing the agitation/ use the demolition workers in the struggle, to bring the bureaucrats to the site/ impact on people as activists

John Cooper, John Cooper - taped and scribed by A Rice 17.7.12

I tell it all as if it was a day but it was actually maybe 6 months or a year of struggle.

    Campaign in Castlemilk, A group of tenants had been told that the Council are going to build a car park in their back greens. The back greens being the area in which they hung out their washing and where the kids played in safety. The people in the area were all against it and they had actually got a petition together, taken it up to the Labour club, and handed it into the Labour Club and low and behold the Labour Club lost the petition they said later, or they claimed they lost it. And therefore the peoples’ thing could not be taken any further. So by luck one of the tenants bumped into one of us and he told us about the situation.

      The work was about to begin in the back greens. They had knocked down a couple of the gable ends to allow bull dozers to get through into the backs. And they were going to start digging up the drying greens and the kids play areas to build this car park.

And basically the people says to us ‘do you think there’s anything we can do about this. Nobody in the area wants this. Everybody is absolutely against the idea. We have petitioned the Labour Party through the Labour Club – they lost the petition that we handed in – and can it be stopped? ’.

     I gave the answer that I always give people that ask me that question and I answered ‘How determined are you?’ And they said they were absolutely determined about it so I asked them to get a couple of the families together, we went up and saw them, and we talked to them. We being a group of local community activists in Castlemilk, myself and a couple of the others were anarchists, some of the others had no political affiliation, there might have been one or two people in the Labour party, or some kinda left wing groups or whatever but generally I would describe the whole feeling of the thing as kinda anarchistic.

We went up and seen the people. We suggested to them that they get another petition together – no because there any value in getting a petition - but jist to give us an opportunity to go back round everybody again , talk to them on their doorstep, and ask them if they were still prepared to do something about it. We did that the next day , it was only a quad , a really small area, everybody agreed that they were against it. So we went up to the Labour Club, we said that we had another petition, but we weren’t giving it them in or whatever, and we wanted something done about it. We asked to see somebody – they refused to let us see anybody, so we went back down the road and we made our plans for the next day.

      The next day the bulldozers came and we decided just to block the whole entrance to the back greens, refused to allow the bulldozers through. And I went up and I spoke to the guy that was driving the bulldozer and explained the situation to him and as usual when you speak to other working class people they generally see the point, I will have to phone my gaffer, well that’s exactly what we want you to do, and he phoned his gaffer and he phoned his gaffer and he phoned his gaffer and before too long we had all the relevant people down at the site and that ultimately they sent for the council. When the councillors arrived ( I don’t know if it was that day) but some point in the thing, the councillors arrived in a limo, and so it went from a situation where the councillors refused to see the people but because of the direct action that we took they had to eventually come to us to see us in person. And within a very short space of time they saw that we weren’t going to allow them to build a car park in the back green and they had to cancel the whole thing.

So it was an outright victory for the people.

Stasia; and these are publicity photos?

     This is a wee exhibition that the tenants done at the time. After the victory we done these sheets and people put in their comments and pictures, newspaper cuttings, explaining how we halted the car park and we actually used these in other struggles by putting these up and we explained to people that this is how you can take things on and win the situation.

List of the material

Sheets that you can put up on walls hand made posters (John Cooper Snr Handwriting)

A wee folder of all the newspaper coverage at the time

People writing poems about it

Pictures taken at the time by Charlie Fisher non resident photographer (who helped with the community newspaper Castlemilk Today)

Dept of housing official papers

Minutes of the council meetings

MP letters from Westminster Teddy Taylor

And letters from Glasgow District council

Copy of petition 2 not handed in because previous one lost.

     Initially the people went to the Labour Councillors which is the obvious way to deal with the situation. They went to them, handed in a petition to the Labour Club who basically ignored them and said they lost the petition so the Labour Councillors basically refused to take up their issue for them and they were quite happy to allow it to go ahead. And because they were able to come to us the people that lived there, we advised them on how to deal with the situation and we were there with them and we managed to stop it completely and the backs were all reinstated.

Impact

      Some of the people in the campaign for the most were delighted at the victory, it was something that they thought they could not achieve in view of the fact that they had already started the work so not only did they stop the thing but they actually retrieved the thing from the ashes so to speak. I think a lot of people felt a great sense of empowerment, and certainly some were involved in other campaigns after that.

 

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Workers Know Your History, Castlemilk Housing Struggle.

 

     History, our history, the struggle for justice and making a stand against the authoritarian institutional mentality of the state and its apparatus, is a tool kit that we can use again and again, in future struggles. We record our struggles and our children have a box of ideas to carry on that struggle, without recording our efforts, our children go naked into battle.

    That is the purpose behind the archive Spirit of Revolt, a record of the people's struggles in our own area, a wealth of ideas for future generations to take that struggle forward. Without recording our continuous struggles we become a people without a history.

      One successful struggle from the not too distant past is a rehousing issue in Castlemilk, a large housing scheme in the south of Glasgow. Taken from Strugglepedia:

Community Action – Housing ; Fire bombed close rehousing issue

Injustice/ normal channels closed / bureaucracy /desperation /solidarity with experienced anarchist strategies/ planning direct actions/ increasing the agitation/ to bring the bureaucrats to the site/ impact on people as activists

John Cooper, John Cooper Taped and scribed by A Rice 17.7.12

      May 1983 there was a group of tenants who had been burned out their tenement flats, about 4 or 5 families. There had been an empty flat on the bottom landing and someone had thrown a petrol bomb into it, - in Castlemilk – east end, and the tenants – it was lucky that no one was killed in it. The fire brigade had to be called and people had to be rescued, by the fire brigade, a lot of them suffered from smoke inhalation, there was nobody living in the bottom flat that was empty but it was petrol bombed and it nearly killed everyone else in the building.
     And they people were put in temporary accommodation only as long as it took the council to paint the close and fix up any of the burnt doors etc , and then they were told that was their houses ready and they would have to go back in. And even at that point you could still smell smoke in the whole building . But they were told that they would need to occupy the houses again because that was it and there wasn’t any other accommodation for them. And the people pointed out that not only was the place still smelled of burning but still smelling of smoke that they were terrified to return to that place again in case a similar incident happened. They pointed out that an awful lot of them had almost been killed in it.
      But the Housing Dept. was completely unsympathetic about it. And they said that that would be the only housing that they would be offered and they could take it or leave it sort of thing. So again they had went to their local Tenants Association who went up to the Housing Department with them and basically had had the wool pulled over their eyes by the housing authorities who told them there was nothing that they could do about the whole thing. And as it so happened on their way out of the Housing Dept. one of them met me and another couple of the guys that were involved in the other activities in Castlemilk and they told us about their situation and we immediately said did you go to your tenants group and they said that’s him there that’s the guy there from the Tenants Group and we quizzed him and he told us Oh the housing Association have told us that there’s nothing we can do about it and we will just have to accept it.
     And the people said to us ‘ is that right do we just have to accept that and can they force us to go back in there? ‘ And again I asked the question again ‘ Well how determined are you?’ And they said ‘well we are very determined’. And I said well you can be very determined but you might end up threatened with jail or stuff like that and the people said well, we don’t care that’s how bad we feel about the whole thing.
     So we had a wee meeting with them, a good discussion about the whole thing they were adamant that they weren’t going to return to that tenement building so we said lets try to work out a strategy of how to approach this, obviously the next stage was to go and lobby the housing dept. again and demand to see the housing manager etc. etc. but what other things can we come up with?
     Despite the fact that a lot of the people there were political activists we were honestly stumped about what to come up with – we came up with a few ideas like we will go to see the housing manager , push him etc. do this and do that, but here a wee woman one of the tenants that had been burned out her house who had never been involved in anything before stuck her hand up and timidly asked , ‘See how we are basically homeless it would be a good idea for us to get a tent and put it in the grounds of the housing department and we will just live there we will just live in the grounds of the Housing dept. right outside and we all looked at one another because it was basically one of the best ideas we had ever heard! And we thought Brilliant! Absolutely Brilliant! That’s exactly what we will do.
    And we did that the next day – we went in to see the manager pointed out that the people were not going to be returning to their tenement flats, had he another offer for them and he said that he ‘was not going to use that as another excuse for queue jumping’ and for trying to get into a better part of Castlemilk or whatever, you know.
     And of course the people were really indignant about that, it had nothing to do with that they had nearly lost their lives. So after a lot of arguing with him and him just refusing to help in any way whatsoever, we went outside, we got the tent that we had brought, and we pitched the tent and a couple of these collapsible chairs people sat outside the tent on that and from then on we started making posters and notices. Fortunately the bit of ground I mention about is right outside the door of the housing on a big triangle of ground I think there was a small fence at that point that you could just step over so we had the tent pitched and we started to hand draw notices and put them up on trees explaining to people going by and everybody that was going by we were able to tell them what was going on we were able to speak to them.
      So within a couple of days we had a couple of tents and tons of hand drawn notices up. People by this time that were going up and down to the shops because the housing office is right next to the main shopping area in Castlemilk so a lot of people had to pass it anyway and go up the lane that ran from the side of the housing dept down to the shopping centre . They had become used to what was happening and some people started giving us donations of money and then food and that was growing so we made a point of that we got big buckets and advertised what was going on and so on. And one day a guy passed and said ‘see how they poor people are staying in they tents would it not be better if they had a caravan and we said that would be brilliant. He said ‘I’ve got a caravan that I can give yous’.
     Well that night when the housing department was closed they had all went to their beds we brought the caravan in and lifted it over the wee fence. So the next day when the housing department authorities came in there was a caravan in the grounds. And by this time we had started printing up posters with the housing managers face on them and other posters saying ‘ cmon gies a hoose’ which was a reference to the Boys from the Black Stuff (TV) by Yosser, his phrase was ‘Cmon gies a job’ so we changed that a wee bit and as I say we had pictures of the Housing Manager’s face his name was Mugnaioni, I think so we changed that to Buggsieoni and posing as a housing manager for Wanted Posters and we covered the area with the posters and the trees with the posters and shortly after we got the caravan we thought lets extend this lets go and get another caravan and we did that so there was basically a couple of fairly big caravans and tents and stuff like that in the housing department. And every day that that was going on we basically occupied the housing department about 30 to 40 people occupying the housing dept. petitioning to see the housing manager and ultimately they sent for the police and 3 days in a row all 30 people were arrested by the police. And the police said, ‘now you are all under arrest, now will you all walk from here to the police station which was 50 yards away or whatever and we all said no you will need to send cars and vans. So they got cars and vans from the surrounding areas to come and take us all to the police station to charge us and then let us go so we immediately went back to the housing department and occupied it again. We got great public support, we got tons and tons of money and food handed in by people. Some people that were passing ended up joining the campaign it was absolutely fantastic. We’ve got an article originally written by Jeanette McGinn for Workers City which covers the whole event. I think eventually I think it lasted six months or so. And to cut a very long story short the people that the housing manager had absolutely refused to rehouse would never rehouse they could only take that tenement block or not got rehoused in houses of their choice ultimately after 6 months of struggle and the housing manager explained to us that it could all have been resolved a lot quicker if we had not have interfered in the whole thing. Which by then we were used to hearing all that when we come into conflict with the authorities that the thing would have been dealt with quicker if we had not have been involved but in reality what that would have meant is that they would have had their way . So that was a very successful campaign
    To escalate the whole thing we were going to take one of the caravans and take it down to George Square and ram it in the door down there.

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Glasgow's Lost Comrades.

        Just back from our travels down south, and a wonderful time it was, the weather was great, very warm. So much so that I burnt my baldy head and was forced to buy a "bunnit", which seemed to create a considerable amount of laughter each time I placed it on my head. Which made me all the more determined to wear the thing.

       Our first stop was Warwick University Archive department, where we spent some time prowling through old issues of the Freedom paper, 1900's. What surprised me was the amount of names that appeared from Glasgow. It would appear that there were a considerable amount of active comrades in Glasgow at that time, who seem to have been lost to us, or at least to me.

      In Glasgow there were at one time, three names of individuals from whom you could get your Freedom. There meetings being arranged and literature being published by people we seem to have forgotten, that shouldn't happen. Perhaps it is my ignorance. I would be delighted if anyone anywhere, can provide any detail to the names that follow. Any information, date of birth, death, where, and if they worked, family, activities, addresses, writings, etc., of course photos would be icing on the cake.

     Blair Smith, 15 Sunnybank Street Dalmarnock and Paisley, seems to have been very active around 1902/03, he also published a pamphlet in September 1900, called "Direct Action Versus Legislation" it would be great if somebody could tell me where I can lay my hands on a copy. Also, P. Josephs 198 Main Street Gorbals. Other names that cropped up in articles/letters etc., are, Moscow, John Turner, Arthur St. John, Fred Charles,  McKay, Paisley/Glasgow 1904, Macfew Seklew, listed as "Individualist", A. P. Howie, 91 Aitkenhead Road also 69 Toryglen Street, 1905, and 99 Trongate 1905, (Seems Tronagte was a popular address from those comrades.). There was a J. Docherty, who wrote in Freedom, "Notes from Scotland" May, 1903.

     There was a D. Baxter 126 Trongate, around 1903, also listed at 127 Trongate, perhaps a typo, George Dallas, also listed as 126 Trongate, published Voice of Labour, 1904. Was 126 Trongate an office or book shop or a residence, or what, was Howie's 99 Trongate a typo?

       I hope someone, out there somewhere, can come up with some details, anything so as to get a better picture of who they were and of Glasgow at that time. I would be delighted if I could add them to Strugglepedia.

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May Day Is Fast Approaching.

        May Day is fast approaching and it is sad that so many young people don't know what it is all about. They sometimes see it as a government given holiday, just like the August bank holiday, or Easter Monday, it is not. It is a very special day for the ordinary people from all over the world. 

 May Day; what's it all about?

        May Day, Labour Day, Workers Day, our day, a day when we the ordinary people of the world can celebrate the heroes from our ranks. Paying homage to the men and women who dedicated their lives to the cause of working class emancipation. People who sought nothing for themselves, many dying for their beliefs, individuals that sometimes stood like a colossus astride the political scene, others that worked tirelessly in the shadows, all for the greater good of all peoples, not more for themselves. Their statues, their plaques are no where to be seen, the establishment has them airbrushed out of history. Instead, the powers that be litter our public squares and parks with grandiose statues of arrogant warmongers, empire builders, kings of industry, rich merchants, all who made a fortune on the back of slave and/or cheap labour or the bloodshed of ordinary people. The establishment wants us to forget our heroes, no statues, no plaques, we mustn’t be allowed to think that fighting for the betterment of ordinary people is a worth while cause, much better to try to convince us that it is more honourable to be a self-centred arrogant pursuer of power and wealth at the expense of others. We mustn’t let this happen, we have to keep alive the names and deeds of that legion of men and women who dedicated their lives to our future well being and that of our kids. Spirit of Revolt is helping to do this for those in struggle in the Glasgow/Clydeside area.

MAY 1st.    Must always be a festive day, a day of celebration and pride, a day when we can all come together and wave our banners, party, and remember those names and deeds. A day to revive that spirit of co-operation in struggle and hopefully push our cause to a higher plain. Always on May 1st. not some conveniently arranged employer/union date, the nearest Sunday or Monday holiday, so as not to upset their production. It is our day, always claim it as a day of family fun, festivities and remembrance, a day of hope for the future of all the ordinary peoples of the world. Glasgow, like most cities, is fortunate in having its own legion of working class fighters, a legion that stretches back through the industrial age and beyond. To pick a few at random, names like Thomas Muir, George Barrett, Tom Anderson, John MacLean, Helen Crawfurd, GuyAldred, Ethel MacDonald, Jenny Patrick, William McDougal, Mary Barbour --- and the names go on and on and on, events such as, The Calton Weavers strike, The Cotton Spinners strike, the rent strikes, the first world war peace movement, etc, etc, etc. All names and events to be justly proud of but difficult to find recorded, all the more need to celebrate MAY DAY and keep alive that part of our history, our culture. Take to the streets this MAY DAY, bring the family, bring colour, bring music, bring the spirit of the working class, have fun, remember why we are there, be proud and strengthen your resolve to do more to push the cause of co-operation in struggle with all our people. Keep alive the names and deeds of our past, not those of a corrupt, brutal, exploitative system. Keep alive the dream of a society of free association, voluntary co-operation, and mutual aid, a system of seeing to needs and not to the greed of the few.

More on Glasgow's radical past HERE:

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The Miners' Strike And International Women's Day.

       International Women's Day, in 1910, in Copenhagen, a second International Conference of Working Women was held. At that conference Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) put forward the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result. 

 

 

       It is fitting that we celebrate the start the 30th anniversary of the miners strike, as we celebrate International Women's Day, for during that year long savage and bitter strike, the courage and solidarity of women is writ large. Throughout the miners strike, March 1984 to March 1985, women were an integral part of the struggle. They took their place in lines against the police brutality, they organised fundraisers, organised and ran soup kitchens, they battled on the streets, they were the cement that helped hold the mining communities together. Without the strength and backing of the women and the communities, the strike would have been quickly crushed.

 

       International Women's Day is a day when we can pay homage to all those women who selflessly fought to improve the conditions of not just women, but all humankind. Women who struggled to improve working conditions, for justice, for peace, for unity of all ordinary people. The miners strike was not just about miners and pit closures, it was about communities and an attempt to stop the devastation of those communities, and women were an inseparable part and parcel of that struggle. That is why the women of the miners strike can take their place on that roll of honour, not only of women, but of working class heroes.

 

  

   Every country, every city, every town, has its roll of honour of such women, perhaps not publicly displayed but it will be there, in folklore, in song, in theatre and poem. Glasgow can be proud of its list of women who fought injustice where they saw it, some struggled away in obscurity, some in the limelight of publicity, all paid their part in improving our lives. Today more than ever we need our women heroes, we need the unity of all men and women to combat the savage onslaught against our living standards. Today more than ever people have to stand up and join hands in solidarity with all people's across the globe.
      Here are just a few of Glasgow's women from our recent past that are worthy of being honoured today.

Mary Barbour, Ethel MacDonald, Helen Crawfurd, Agnes Dollan, Jenny Patrick, Rita Milton, who would you add to this list, there are hundreds if not thousands, from which to choose. Where are our modern Mary Barbour's, where is today's Ethel MacDonald? Can you name them?

       "It is not by changing ministers - such guilty men! - or issuing declarations that fascism will be conquered. The problem is more complex than that. We do not intend to add our voice to those who delude the workers that their 'leaders' will get them out of the mess. The problems need a complete transformation in the present attitude of the working class." Marie Louise Berneri From; War Commentary, December 1940.

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