Willie Mc.

            Glasgow has a long history of anarchist activists one being Willie McDougal, born 1894, Willie was an active anarchist from his teens until his death in 1981. As a conscientious object he was in several prisons, escaping from Dartmoor, after stealing a bike cycled part way back to Glasgow, where he continued his anti war public stance. He kept the Anti-parliamentary Communist Federation going until 1941, Guy Aldred having left in 1932. Willie held street meetings at the bottom of Buchanan St. Arrested for speaking on Glasgow Green without a permit during the "Fight for Freedom of Speech on Glasgow Green". He published printed and edited numerous papers, among them, Advance, Fighting Call, Barcelona Bulletin, Workers Free Press, Solidarity,  He also formed Workers Revolutionary League. Also with others formed The Workers Open Form and kept it going until 1950's. The last issue of his paper Sense was at the printers when he died in 1981. We owe his dedicated life a gift of gratitude for helping to keep that vision of a better world alive for us to take up the struggle and carry forward. See https://spiritofrevolt.info and Clck on STRUGGLEPEDIA.

Image courtesy of LibCom.

 

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Let's All Be Smugglers Of Beautiful Ideas.

      Being a lover of poetry I thought today I would post a poem from our Spirit of Revolt Archive. This is taken from the Alan Burnett Collection, a Glasgow anarchist who as a young man spent time in prison for proclaiming is right to be a conscientious objector. He later settled in New Zealand where he became a long standing member of a writers group. After his death his partner sent us some of his material, which formed the first collection in our archive.

WATER BARRELS

Smugglers
               connote
                           camel trains
                                              from the East
Ponies laden with silk or tea
               Muffled hooves down dark lanes
               light flashing on remote hilltops
Kegs of brandy
                   stacked in caves
                                     revenue cutters lurking
                                                            in moonlit coves
Frontiers
          border guards
                          diamonds
                                      drugs
                                           gold
                                               illegal immigrants
Gloating sheiks
                       sinuous harem girls
                                                    hedonistic orgies
White slavers
                    white-collared crime
                                                 laundered currency
               Corporate raiders
               Credit card fraudsters
               Flies/fleas/cockroaches
               Insider traders
SRA's            slow release asprins
               sadistic ritual abusers
But comrades
                 let us smuggle
                                    our emotions
                                                     into society
Let us continue
                     staggering with
                                         our illicit water-barrels of poems
Across the arid desert
                            of our materialistic community---------------  
                                                                                   Alan Burnett.  

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"Holidayism".

       As capitalism lurches from one "crisis" to another, we get ever new theories, economic theories, social theories, some very complex, others not so, all pointing the way how to change the system, how to destroy the system, where we should be heading, and so on. Sometimes if we look back we find that somebody has said it all before, and in some cases in a very explicit fashion and very simply.

Walter Wilkinson, 1888-1970, author, puppeteer, put it quite simply in his book, The Peep Show:

       "If I were a philosopher expounding a new theory of living, inventing a new "ism," I should call myself a holidayist, for it seems to me that the one thing the world needs to put it right is a holiday. There is no doubt whatever about the sort of life nice people want to lead. Whenever they get the chance, what do they do but go away to the country or the seaside, take off their collars and ties and have a good time playing at childish games and contriving to eat some simple food very happily without all the encumbrances of chairs and tables. This world might be quite a nice place if only simple people would be content to be simple and be proud of it; if only they would turn their backs on these pompous politicians and ridiculous Captains of Industry who, when you come to examine them, turn out to be very stupid, ignorant people, who are simply suffering from an unhappy mania of greediness; who are possessed with perverse and horrible devils which make them stick up smoky factories in glorious Alpine valleys, or spoil some simple country by digging up and exploiting its decently buried mineral resources; or whose moral philosophy is so patiently upside down when they attempt to persuade us that quarrelling, and fighting, and wars, or that these ridiculous accumulations of wealth are the most important, instead of the most undesirable things in life. If only simple people would ignore them and behave always in the jolly way they do on a seashore what a nice world we might have to live in. Luckily nature has a way with her, and we may rest assured that this wretched machine age will all be over in a few years' time. It has grown up as a mushroom, and like a mushroom it has no stability. It will die."

       Of course Walter didn't see the strange new world that would spring from the madness of the old industrial world. The world of electronics, IT, artificial intelligence and mass surveillance, further alienating us from the simple world of "holidayism". However "holidayism" is still a road to be examined in detail.

       Walter Wilkinson was the brother of Arthur Wilkinson, English born anarchist, puppeteer, artist, and conscientious objector during the first world war. Arthur married Scottish born woman anarchist, writer, translator, and artist, Lilly Gair Aitken, (Lilly Gair Wilkinson).

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Who Was Peter McKellar?

    I believe that we should never forget those comrades who stood against authority when it was at its harshest and most repressive. Reading through an old copy of The Word, on the Sparrow's Nest site, I came upon the case of Peter McKellar. The article starts with:-- 

     Our comrade Peter McKellar of 38 South Annadale Street, Glasgow, will have been court-martialled for the second time before these lines are printed.
     Then aged 22, a glazier by trade, he registered as a conscientious objector on December, 26, 1939. His case was heard on April 23, 1940, by the Glasgow Tribunal, consisting of Sir A. C. Black, K.C., Sir Robert Bruce, J.P.. L.L.D., and Mr. (now Sir) R. Bryce Walker, C.B.E., etc.
    McKellar told the Tribunal that his father was killed in the great war. He would not butcher nor yet be butchered. It was enough that this had happened to his father. The Tribunal sympathised with him. He replied that he wanted justice as an anti-militarist, not sympathy. --------

      Who was Peter McKellar, is there anybody out there who can throw some light on this comrade and man of principle. We should remember our own, record their life, they are part of our history, the history of the ordinary man and woman of our communities.  So if you have any wee bit of info, no matter how little a detail, please share it with ann arky, so that we can try to put his page in its rightful place in our history.

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Enemy of God And Foe of Kings.

      Today's poem was written by one of Glasgow's best known anarchists, Guy Aldred. A man who dedicated his entire life, selflessly to the struggle of the ordinary people, a man who died with 2 shillings in his pocket. A conscientious objector, he served many years in prison. A prolific writer on a myriad of subjects, this poem was written on the eve of his first Court Martial at Fovant in 1916.

 from, A Meditation.

To the destiny of man

to the instinct of my own nature

to the martyred spirit of all dead pioneers

let me pray.

Let me commune for health & strength & endurance

in captivity

Let me pray for zeal of spirit & power of faith.

Let me pray for intellectual vision & fervour of passion.

Let all vulgarity slip from me & the word, the spirit

of truth, become incarnate in me.

Let me never deny the truth either in word or spirit.

Let me work for the overthrow of scoffers in high places,

for the destruction of scoffing.

Let me become a prophet against scepticism

of worldly piety and social unbelief.

Let me become a son of man

the enemy of God the foe of kings

the destroyer of ritual, ceremony & all useless form.

Let truth & truth alone be my mistress

and may I bring witness to her integrity

from all lands & climes.

May no worldly ambition

no temptation in this wilderness of understanding

lead me to serve the enemy of man,

the principle of power and domination.

                                                GUY ALDRED.

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - WILLIE MCDOUGAL, GLASGOW.

Glasgow has many who have dedicated their lives to the working class cause and Willie McDougal stands tall among Glasgow's many working class fighters for justice and a fair society.

WILLIAM C. McDOUGAL 1894-1981.

EARLY YEARS.

        Born on the 22nd. of January 1891 in the district of Partick in Glasgow, William C. McDougal spent nearly seventy years actively promoting Libertarian non-sectarian Socialism. He joined the Glasgow Anarchists around the age of nineteen. Willie served as secretary to the Glasgow Anarchist Group and held Sunday meetings at the foot of Buchanan Street. At this time anarchists groups were growing in number in and around Glasgow.

PRISON.

       Prior to the first world war anarchist groups received relatively little interference from the police. The war changed all that, with meetings being disrupted by police and patriotic groups. At one such meeting in Botanic Gardens, Willie was speaking and referred to the King as a parasite. A crowd rushed the platform and threatened to throw him into the nearby River Kelvin. In 1916 Willie was arrested for refusing the call-up, he was beaten by the local police and handed over to the Military. He refused military orders, was put on trial and sentenced to two years imprisonment. He was sent to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, then on to Denton Camp, eventually ending up in Dartmoor. While at Dartmoor he was involved in prison disputes and tried to organise a strike. He then decided to slip out of the camp by means of the camp bicycle, cycling part of the way he eventually reached Glasgow where he resumed his anti-war and anarchist propaganda. This activity also included holding classes on economics in the rooms of the Herald League and speaking at open-air meetings.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.

       After the war the Russian Revolution considerably increased political activity on the streets of Glasgow. Most anarchists were enthusiastic about the Revolution, some of Willie’s meetings indicate this with titles like, “Lenin’s Anarchy”, “Revolution of Necessity”, and “Dictatorship, democracy and Government”. It was not long before Willie and the Anarchists lost faith in “Lenin’s Anarchy”, by 1920 it had turned to hostility.

At this time the Glasgow Anarchist Group became the Glasgow Communist Group, in 1921 it changed to the Ant-parliamentary Communist Federation, this group was kept alive right through the 1930s by Willie McDougal, Guy Aldred, Jenny Patrick and other anarchists. Guy Aldred left in 1933, Willie kept it going until 1941.

GLASGOW GREEN FIGHT.

       Willie was also involved in the fight for freedom of speech and assembly on the Glasgow Green. This struggle came to a head in 1931 by the arrest and imprisonment of the Tramp Preachers. The major players in this struggle to repeal the bye-law forbidding public speaking on the Green were Guy Aldred, Willie McDougal, Harry McShane, and John McGovern. Willie was among those arrested and tried for speaking on the Green without a permit, many other activists played a part in this important Glasgow struggle. The bye-law was repealed in 1932 thanks to the excellent case put by Guy Aldred.

SPANISH CIVIL WAR.

        1936 to 1939, the years of the Spanish Civil War, saw a remarkable rise in the activity of Glasgow Anarchists. During this period Willie’s public speaking activities were to peak, the events in Spain also drove Willie to print, publish and edit a number of papers. The first to appear was “Advance”, 1936, then came “The Fighting Call”, 1936-37, “The Barcelona Bulletin” 1937, followed, next came the “Workers Free Press”, 1937-38, and then, “Solidarity”, 1938-40. Apart from trying to give an anarchist view point on the Spanish Civil War, these papers were trying to provide an open forum for anarchist and other voices of the left.

WORKERS OPEN FORUM.

       During the 2nd. world war Willie McDougal with Dugald Mackay formed the Workers Revolutionary League to follow on from the Anti-parliamentary Communist Federation. Later on with others he formed the Workers Open Forum, this was again an attempt to provide a platform for all the views from the left and try to create unity. The “Form” rented rooms at 50 Renfrew Street and continued until the late 1950s. The end of the Workers Open Forum marked the end of an era, an end to regular working class political meetings in dingy little halls dotted about the city.

PROPAGANDIST TO THE END.

      After this period Willie McDougal continued his struggle to spread anarchist views by publishing papers. In 1970s there was the “Industrial Republic”, and the year up to his death, “Sense”. Along with these he produced many pamphlets, among them, “Marxism Made Easy”, “An Open Letter to Mr Callaghan”, and “Anthology of Revolt”.

        Willie McDougal continued his propagandist activities right up to his death. The last issue of “Sense” being at the printers at the time of his death. He always tried to put his ideas in the simplest form possible. Willie never lost faith in the belief that the struggle to end the insanity of capitalism could and would develop towards Socialism. William C. McDougal together with other Socialist activists kept alive the Anti-parliamentary Libertarian Socialism that demands real change in society not the tinkering reforms of Party Politics within the framework of Capitalism. His life was an advancement of that cause, his death a loss to the fight for human liberty.

MORE OF GLASGOW'S WORKING CLASS HISTORY HERE.

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