Our Struggle Ends When We Win The World.

        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

The Rent Strike, A Tool In Our Armoury.

Brooklyn 2012.

       I hope, after Spirit of Revolt's recent exhibition on the Glasgow 1915 Rent Strike, that more people are now aware of the rent strike as a tool, a weapon in the struggle of the ordinary people. What we tried to get across was that the 1915 rent strike was not a unique event, not a one-of happening. The rent strike has been used to defend tenants rights across the world long before 1915, and is still used today. It is a powerful weapon and should always be in the armoury of the ordinary people. The 1915 victory in Glasgow did not end the exploitation of tenants, the greed of landlords is just as virulent today as it was back then. It is still the same struggle today, a struggle for a decent standard of life and the right to have a home to lay your head down in security and comfort. To make my point about the longevity of the rent strike here is a short video of one that is taking place today in San Francisco.

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The Rent Strike, 100 Years On.

       Spirit of Revolt is putting on another exhibition in the foyer of the  Mitchell Library, Glasgow from November 2^nd. to November 29^th. The main theme will be The Rent Strike, 100 years on. We are sure there is a lot of interest in this subject, and we hope that this exhibition will help feed and maintain that interest. The history of the struggles of the ordinary people is seldom fully recorded, but we should never let it be lost, to this end the Spirit of Revolt collects, catalogues and publishes on line, as much of the struggles of the ordinary people of Glasgow and Clydeside, as we can get our hands on. It is our history, our culture of struggle for a better life, if we don't record it it will be lost, and we become a people without a history, a people without a culture. If this exhibition is as successful as the last one we put on at the same venue, the group will be extremely pleased. Our history is important to us all, as well as future generations, so do spread the word, come along, bring some friends, make your comments, we welcome your feed-back.

 Photos courtesy of The Mitchell Library, from "Rent Strike Information Pack".

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

When Will We Ever Learn?

        Our life is a constant struggle, we produce an abundance of wealth, and struggle to survive. For generations the public have listened to politicians and walked round to the ballot box to make their mark on that bit of paper, that guarantees a decent job for somebody else, and the same old shit for themselves. In Glasgow we remember the rent strike of 1915, it was a victory on that issue, but the system stayed the same, and that's why in  Kirby, 1972/73, the local people were once more in an organised rent strike, nothing had changed.

         Here we are today with the bedroom tax, among other repressive legislation, still struggling to keep our heads above water, still producing an abundance of wealth, and there are still people who listen to politicians, who still walk round to the ballot box, make that same mark, and get the same results. They say that one of the signs of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, but expecting a different result, makes you think??

         In this video the voice of Ethel Singleton in 1972, could be from the 1915 rent strike, or it could be from any housing scheme in 2014 Britain. When will we ever learn?

'Behind the rent strike' was Nick Broomfield's graduation project. It followed the progress of the 1972/73 Kirkby rent strike. This video features Broomfield's interviews with Ethel Singleton, one of the forces behind the strike who gives an insightful, intelligent and articulate analysis of the plight of the working class in 70's Britain.

    

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

We Are Alive, From The Rent Strikes To Bloody Friday.

     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. 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 Clydeside and their history of struggle, and their desire for justice.

  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.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

WHERE TO NOW, WHERE, TODAY?

      From The Anarchist International:

Thesis:

The majority of the Anarchist International does not reside in the country, in the small town, or on the periphery of capitalism. The majority of us inhabit the centers of global capital and spend our lives close to our enemies heart. One side effect of living in such close proximity to these glowing cores of money and power is a confusion as to what reality is like for those who live far away and near the edge. Military suppression, famines, civil war, and urban guerrilla warfare are commonplace in nation states such as India, China, the Philippines, and Afghanistan. Those inhabiting the interior sometimes trick themselves into thinking they understand what living in these situations is like, but obviously they do not.

 Continue READING:

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MAY DAY -- WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

Glasgow's Glorious May Day celebrations, this Sunday.

Now more than ever we have to show solidarity, we have to come together to defend our standard of living. May Day this year is an ideal opportunity to show your solidarity with  all the ordinary people of this country and across the world, to lay down a marker, as the pampered parasite class make a savage grasp to capitalise everything in sight to save their spiv friends, the bond merchants, from carrying their own gambling debts. We are expected to pay the gamblers for their greed and stand by while they privatise everything they can lay their sweaty palms on that can make them money. It is their world -- or it is our world, you can decide.

        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.

The Haymarket Martyrs

        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 Monday, 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 George Barrett, Tom Anderson, John MacLean, Helen Crawfurd, Guy Aldred, Ethel MacDonald, Jenny Patrick, William McDougal --- and the names go on and on and on, events such as, The Cotton Spinners strike, the rent strikes, the first world war peace movement, the 1919, 40 hour week strike, 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 what you expect to find, 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 bloated pampered parasites.

 

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GLASGOW'S RADICAL WOMEN.

       Well, the party's over, as the words of the song go, and today that could be literally, as the year ended and also figuratively, as the millionaire public school thugs rip our welfare system apart. Of course in ordinary life when the party's over, we have to get back to the daily grind. In this case it will be realising that we have a helluva fight on our hands if we want a world in which all can live with dignity and free from the fear of deprivation. We now face a period where the thoughts will be of survival, not of parties. However in times of adversity the ordinary people have always shown tremendous resolve and when the come together they are an unstoppable force that can re-shape the world. Glasgow, like most cities, can be proud of its radical history of struggle and at times like these we can perhaps learn from those past battles when we took on the establishment and won. We can also take inspiration from some of those members of the working class that showed selfless dedication to the cause of the ordinary people. One of Glasgow's many working class heroes was Mary Barbour, at a time of tremendous deprivation she organised with other women in the city and took on the British government and won. The battle is known as "The Rent Strikes", perhaps now we can again call on the strength and determination of all those Mary Barbours' that are living in the city today.

    The following is a page from Radical Glasgow's Strugglepedia, where you will find more of Glasgow's heroes and some of the city's struggles.

MARY BARBOUR, 1875-1958

EARLY LIFE.

      Mary Barbour was born on the 22nd of February 1875 in the village of Kilbarchan. She was the third child of seven, her father was a carpet weaver. In 1887 the family moved to the village of Elderslie. Mary worked as a thread twister eventually becoming a carpet printer. The year 1896 saw her marry David Barbour and settle in the Govan Burgh of Glasgow. She joined and became an active member of the Kinning Park Co-operative Guild, The first to be established in Scotland.

GLASGOW RENT STRIKE & WOMEN’S PEACE CRUSADE.

      Mary joined the Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Sunday School. The Glasgow rent strike during the first world war brought her to the forefront of local political activity. Because of large rent increases by the Landlords, the Glasgow Women's Housing Association was born in 1914. It was in Govan that the first active résistance to rent increases appeared. Mary Barbour was instrumental in forming the South Govan Women's Housing Association. As a working class housewife with two sons and her husband an engineer in the shipyards she was well qualified to be energetically engaged in all its activities from the organising of committees to the physical prevention of evictions and the hounding of the Sheriff's Officers. This type of activity soon spread to the whole of the Clydeside area. The situation climaxed on the 17th of November 1915 with one of the largest demonstrations in Glasgow's political history. Thousands of women marching with thousands of shipyard and engineering workers paraded through the streets of the city to the Glasgow Sheriff's Court where the demonstration was near riot proportions. Out of this defiant stand came the "Rent Restriction Act" heralding in a change in the housing system of the city of Glasgow. The act also benefited tenants across the country. Mary's involvement in this struggle had made her a working class hero in Govan and much further afield. Together with Helen Crawfurd and Agnes Dollan, Mary, in June 1916, was instrumental in founding the Women's Peace Crusade in Glasgow. She was a frequent and regular speaker at its many rallies on Glasgow Green.

FIRST WOMAN LABOUR COUNCILLOR.

      1920 saw Mary stand as one of three candidates for the Fairfield Ward of Govan, and elected to the Glasgow Town Council as its first woman Labour Councillor. It was mainly the women's vote that gave her the 4,701 votes that marked her success. During her term as a Labour Councillor she fought for many causes to help the poorest in the community. The range of policies that she pushed for covered a very wide spectrum but all for the benefit of the working class community. Among them were such things as washhouses, laundries and public baths, free milk to school children, child welfare centres, play areas, pensions for mothers, home helps and municipal banks, she also pushed for a campaign against consumption.

FIRST WOMAN BAILLIE.

       The years 1924-1927 saw her serve as Glasgow Corporation's first woman Baillie and appointed as one of the first woman Magistrates in Glasgow. Her council work allowed her to develop her commitment to the welfare of women and children. In 1925 she was chairperson of the Women's Welfare and Advisory Clinic, Glasgow's first family planning centre. Mary worked continuously and energetically to raise funds to support its team of women doctors and nurses. Mary Barbour retired from her council work in 1931 but never relented on her work load in committees for welfare and housing and remained energetically involved in Co-operative Committees. In her later years she continued her commitment to the welfare of the poor by organising trips to the seaside for children of the poor. At the inaugural meeting in Glasgow of the Scottish National Assembly of Women she was the guest speaker. At the age of 83 she died on the 2nd of April 1958. Her funeral took place at Craigton Crematorium in Govan.

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