John Maclean: Red Clydesider

• About the book

This updated edition of John Maclean: Red Clydesider marks the centenary of the death of John Maclean; the Glasgow schoolteacher who became one of the finest socialist leaders the British working class has ever produced. A fierce opponent of empire, Britain's war cabinet saw Maclean as public enemy number one, whereas Lenin and the leaders of the first ever workers' government in Russia regarded him as Britain's outstanding revolutionary. A key figure of Red Clydeside, Maclean was involved with the Clyde Workers' Committee, which spearheaded the rank and file revolt against the dismantling of trade union conditions during the First World War. He campaigned against spiraling wartime prices and helped lead the successful Glasgow rent strike of 1915, which pioneered council housing. He was only forty four when he died of pneumonia in November 1923. Yet his powerful legacy of anti-imperialism and commitment to workers' power lives on, making him a figure from history whose political messa