Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 25, 2011



John Maclean MA (24 August 1879 – 30 November 1923) was a Scottish schoolteacher and revolutionary socialist. He is primarily known as a Marxist educator and notable for his outspoken opposition to the First World War. Maclean is regarded as one of the leading figures of the Red Clydeside era. His imprisonment for agitation against the war earned him an international reputation and he was elected an honorary vice-president of the Congress of Soviets and appointed Bolshevik representative in Scotland.

Maclean first came to politics through the Pollokshaws Progressive Union and Robert Blatchford's Merrie England. He became convinced that the living standards of the working-classes could only be improved by social revolution and it was as a Marxist that he joined the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), and remained in the organisation as it formed the British Socialist Party. By the time of World War I his socialism was of a revolutionary nature, although he worked with others on the left who were more reformist in outlook, such as his friend James Maxton. He heavily opposed the war, as he felt it was a war of imperialism which divided workers from one another. In January 1918 Maclean was elected to the chair of the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets and a month later appointed Bolshevik consul in Scotland. He established a Consulate at 12 Portland Street in Glasgow but was refused recognition by the British Government.