Remembering John MacLean

Remembering John MacLean

By Peter Urban

It is appropriate today, with the possibility of Scottish independence within sight and the working class of Scotland again confronted by the misery with which the system of capitalism fills their lives, but it is not sufficient to pay tribute to the man; it is important to pay attention to him as well. MacLean may easily lend himself as a symbol, an icon, to the contemporary struggle, but he has wisdom to lend to it as well and the Scottish working class would do well to make use of it.

MacLean was no romantic nationalist. He was a revolutionary socialist and he articulated a compelling case for the creation of an independent Scottish workers’ republic. MacLean observed the reality of the revolutionary temperaments of the Scottish and English working classes and asserted that so long as the working class in Scotland remained bound to that of England, it would face far greater obstacles in the path towards its own liberation through the destruction of the capitalist system.

Is any more evidence needed to testify to the continuing relevance of this analysis than the reality of a Tory government for the UK, while a Plaid/Labour coalition dominates the Welsh Assembly and the SNP dominates the Scottish Assembly? Today, as in MacLean’s day, the Welsh and Scottish working people stand out as far more radicalized than their counterparts in England. Independence for Scotland and Wales represents the best opportunity for those nations to achieve a working class victory over the system of capitalism and it cannot be denied that the dismantling of the ancient regime called the “United Kingdom” would be a blow to the whole of British imperialism.

But there are even greater lessons to be learned from John MacLean and that other great Scottish-born revolutionary, James Connolly. Scottish workers must not fail to learn from these towering figures from Scotland’s history that independence alone is not enough. More, independence alone is meaningless for Scottish workers. The fight for an independent Scotland must be made but an aspect of the larger struggle to create a Scottish workers’ republic; an independent republic wherein the working class alone controls the economic and political destiny of the nation. It is impossible in this era of globalization to separate Scottish capitalists from the interests they share with those of their class in England, as well as elsewhere in the EU, in North America, and throughout the globe and those interests are irreconcilable with the interests of working people. We have born the burden of this wretched and archaic long enough; the time has come to cast it off and move forward under our own guidance and in our own collective interests; and the way forward to such a future lies in the creation of a Scottish workers’ republic and cannot be attained through anything short of that.

In closing, there is yet another lesson from the great John MacLean that I would remind working people in Scotland about. MacLean, with Big Jim Larkin of Ireland, and Sylvia Pankhurst in England were participants in a founding congress for the Communist Workers’ International, convened by the Dutch revolutionary socialist Hermann Gorter. This was a congress of what we have come to call Council Communists today, from throughout the world. I make this point, because the revolutionary socialist current represented by those who attended that congress has been too long ignored and it offers today, as it did then, a path to socialist revolution suited to the conditions of a highly developed capitalist nation; a compelling and liberating alternative to the Bolshevik tradition that workers today would do well to reexamine.It is a fine thing that we today have assembled to remember and pay tribute to the memory of John MacLean; it would be a finer thing still if when we leave here today, we reflected on the insightful analysis that he left to us and seek to apply them to the challenges we confront in this present day. It is long-past due that we should, in this sense, bring John MacLean back to the Clyde.

All Hail the Scottish Workers’ Republic! The future lies before us.

Peter Urban

Comrade, International Republican Socialist Network