On St Andrew & John Maclean

In first century Greece, in a small city west of Athens, a Christian was crucified on an X-shaped cross. With his last breath he told the little crowd gathered round him: “this punishment is the mystery of man's restoration”. So goes the story of the martyrdom of St Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, the first apostles of Jesus. To spread his message, Andrew had travelled up to the Black Sea, reportedly as far north as Poland and down the Adriatic Sea, until at Patras his incessant preaching resulted in his death on the X-shaped cross - which know today as the ‘saltire’.

Near two-thousand years later, on St Andrew’s Day 30th November 1923, in a city very different to Patras, a similarly relentless proclaimer lay dying of pneumonia. Like St Andrew, John Maclean gave everything and to his last breath continued to spread his message - that of a Scottish socialist republic. Seven days before his death Maclean had told the crowd gathered to hear his general election address, as a candidate for the Scottish Workers’ Republican Party, that:

“[t]he root of all the trouble in society at present is the inevitable robbery of the workers by the propertied class... To end that robbery would be to end the social troubles of modern society. The way to end that robbery is the transfer of the land and the means of production and transport from the present possessors to the community.”

Maclean was on a platform at an open-air public meeting, again addressing the crowd, when he collapsed and was carried home. In the freezing Glaswegian November, while on the campaign trail, he had given his only overcoat to a man from Barbados. Not the cold, nor jail, nor any thought of his personal comfort or safety would deter Maclean from agitating for workers ownership. Despite the torturous force feeding in prison, despite the lose of his teaching career, despite the strain on his family - Maclean never watered down his demands.

Such dogged determination should give modern socialists pause for thought.

Maclean is sometimes treated by modern socialists as saints are treated by modern Christians - a great story, moving, inspiring but ultimately unrelatable. Christians today are no more likely to be hung up on a saltire cross, than socialists are likely to lead 90,000 strikers to George Square. Such days are over: agitation, strikes, labour colleges, public meetings, even socialist parties are but relics of the past. To succeed socialists must instead embed ourselves inside bigger non-socialist, but progressive, movements - where we must downplay our views on class or property for the sake of unity. In the Scottish Independence Movement, it’s argued the SSP should limit our criticism: ‘independence first, socialism second’. That wasn’t Maclean’s approach, nor Connolly’s, theirs was an independence to be won for socialism.

The inspirational thing about Maclean’s politics is how, almost a hundred years ago, he drew together these two traditions in Scottish politics: independence and socialism. In 1920 he wrote: “Scottish independence means economic as well as political independence, and that can only be assured by the co-operation of all [under socialism].”

1 in 200 people in the UK are homeless. 1 million Scots live in poverty (that’s 1 in 5). The majority of that 1 million are employed working yet still in poverty, thanks to a decade of wage stagnation, short-term contracts and ‘flexible’ hours. The gap between rich and poor is staggeringly high and grows every year. Life expectancy in America, America the largest economy in the world, dropped again this year, as it did last year.

Socialism is as urgent a demand now as it was on St Andrew’s Day 1923 and it’s as difficult a demand as it was then. Perhaps we won’t face the same hardships as Maclean, but it will be hard, our message often won’t be welcome and won’t be listened to, regardless we must keep making it heard. Because not doing so guarantees that nothing will change. All of us should look to the restless determination of Maclean. This is not 1920s Glasgow, but perhaps with the same unbending will a new age of class consciousness might be born. Certainly, to begin to build any fight back, in a society where workers are so alienated from each other, will require a determination, a selflessness, and a set of clearly argued principles - of the sort which Maclean had. Don’t hold him apart as a unrelatable socialist saint, instead take that determination and apply it to educating and agitating for a Scottish socialist republic today.