Emancipation & Liberation

Allan Armstrong interviews Jim Slaven, a founder member of the James Connolly Society and currently Chair of the Connolly Foundation. Jim outlines the longstanding campaigns to have James Connolly commemorated in Edinburgh, the city of his birth.

Our own radical tradition is a mystery to us, that we don’t know about our historical links
with people who we should be proud of – we should be proud that James Connolly is an
Edinburgh man, why are we not proud of that? One of the greatest twentieth century socialists
was murdered by the British army in 1916. Why do we not admit what happened with John
Maclean, somebody who was murdered, who was poisoned by the State. Why is he not a
hero?

James Kelman, Edinburgh Book Festival, 26th August, 2009

James Kelman’s comments on James Connolly (and John Maclean) at this year’s Edinburgh Book Festival seem very pertinent. How did James Connolly first come to your attention?

I think Kelman’s comments at the Book Festival really hit the nail on the head about the ignorance that exists about James Connolly in Edinburgh or John Maclean in Glasgow. Personally, with my own experience coming from Edinburgh, where my family was brought up in ‘Little Ireland’, when they first arrived in Scotland, I would have been aware of Connolly from an early age. I made the connection between James Connolly in 1916 and modern politics in the early 1980’s, at the time of the Hunger Strike, particularly when Francis Hughes died on May 12th. May 12th was the date that Connolly was executed by the British state and the date that this hunger striker died. For me, this connected the history and the reality of politics at the time.

When was the James Connolly Society formed and what was its purpose?

Well, the James Connolly Society grew out of the Rising Phoenix Republican Flute Band which had been formed in Edinburgh in 1984, round about the same time as many republican flute bands appeared in Scotland, in the late 1970’s and early 80’s political context of the prison struggle. The Rising Phoenix organised the first Connolly march in Craigmillar Edinburgh in 1986. It became clear that after that initial march in the city that what was needed was a broader political organisation to take forward the memory of James Connolly as well as some of the Irish solidarity work that was required at the time. So, out of the band, came the James Connolly Society, which was formed in the late 80’s after the first march.

The Connolly march in Edinburgh was the subject of a great deal of official hostility. Why was this?

For us, the primary reason why there was such hostility from the state to the Connolly march was because of its politics. James Connolly was a revolutionary leader who was incredibly important for working class people in Edinburgh, but also important to people in Belfast and other areas of the occupied ‘Six Counties’. We felt that Connolly had been very badly neglected in Edinburgh and that his revolutionary analysis of republicanism and socialism needed to be expounded to a wider audience.

The other element, which shouldn’t be neglected, was the fact that the Connolly march was very mucha working class event, organised by young working class people in the city. That is what differentiated it from earlier attempts in the early ‘80’s to organise Connolly events in Edinburgh. These had been smashed by loyalism. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen when local, young working class people were determined to defend their rights.

Although the struggle for Irish self determination, and opposition to British troops in ‘the Six Counties’, was at the centre of the Connolly marches, the organisers always invited a wider range of speakers. What was the thinking behind this?

Well, consider the Connolly marches principal objectives – one was to show solidarity with the risen people in ‘the Six Counties’. We were very clear that the Connolly march was taking place against a backdrop of ongoing military conflict and this was an opportunity to take to the streets in solidarity with the Irish people and their fight against the British state.

The second principal objective of the march was to try and take James Connolly to a wider audience; to make the connection with other people in struggle. So, it wasn’t just about Ireland, or the Irish in Edinburgh, it was linked to various other campaigns. Sometimes speakers were from some ongoing industrial action, and speakers from Palestine, South Africa or various other international struggles. So, it was important for us that we recognised James Connolly’s work in its totality, and not just one aspect.

Despite state and labour movement recognition in Ireland, and American-Irish and labour movement recognition in the USA, there has been a much greater reticence to recognise Connolly in the city of his birth. Why is this?

We have to recognise the difficulties in Scottish society. At times, Scotland is a terribly nasty, divided, sectarian state. The Irish community in Scotland is under continuing pressure and clearly James Connolly was seen as someone of particular significance. His memory was treated with great hostility by the forces of state, including the police and the council, but also by reactionary elements like the Orange Order and British National Party, in a way that would not happen in the United States, where there would perhaps be greater recognition of the contribution immigrants have made.

Scotland has been very slow to recognise the contribution of the Irish community. And certainly, with the revolutionary politics of James Connolly, some did not take very kindly to the centre of Edinburgh being taken over by people who were expounding these ideas.

Even the Left here is hardly aware of Connolly’s key role in building the first Socialist Movement in Scotland. What do you see as the reasons for this?

I think it has to do with the particular political terrain in Scotland. We have to be honest, the Left in Scotland, in this regard, is a bit of an embarrassment. They showed very little support for the Connolly march at all, which was a disgrace. Even when the annual Connolly march was the only place where the BNP publicly organised themselves in Scotland, with counter demonstrations in conjunction with the Orange Order, publicly encouraging large groups to come along and attack the march, significantly, most of the Left decided to stay away. At times they organised events to coincide with the march to provide an excuse to stay away. They were afraid of the legacy of James Connolly, scared of the conflict that was going on in Ireland, and wanted to keep their heads down, which, as I said, was a disgrace.

When the decision to end the annual march in Edinburgh was taken by the Connolly Society, how did you see the work to commemorate his memory continuing?

We made the decision in 2006, after 20 years of the Connolly marches, that it was time for a strategic departure. The Connolly Society decided it was going to advance Connolly’s memory through other pieces of work and the establishment of the Connolly Foundation, which would be a centre for research, education and advocacy, based in Edinburgh.

It was very important that, although it was the end of the Connolly march, it wasn’t the ending of commemorating James Connolly. Indeed it was about advancing Connolly, perhaps in a way that the backdrop of the march and all the controversy surrounding it, wasn’t able for us to do. So the Connolly Foundation is a new vehicle to achieve this aim.

How is work progressing with the Connolly Foundation, and in particular, with the campaign to have a statue erected in this city to honour Connolly’s memory?

One of the key pieces of work for the Connolly Foundation in the future is going to be to raise the necessary funding and the public and political support for the James Connolly statue. We’ve signed an agreement with Tom White, an American artist, who was recently commissioned to erect a monument to Connolly in Chicago, and who is ready to go ahead with one in Edinburgh.

A statue of Connolly shouldn’t be seen as an end in itself, but as a recognition of the contribution made by the working class and immigrants to the city. There are all sorts of statues in Edinburgh to all sorts of people – mostly distasteful – but there are no statues to working class people or to immigrants. So, it is in that wider context that we want a statue erected to James Connolly.

The Edinburgh Trades Council faced a considerable political battle, both within its own ranks and from the city council, to have the small James Connolly commemoration plaque installed by his birthplace in the Cowgate. However, the recent article in the Edinburgh Evening News, announcing the campaign to have a statue erected was surprisingly sympathetic. Do you think today’s campaign will face fewer obstacles?

We recognise that there will still be obstacles, but clearly we are in a different place to where we were, when we started in 1986. The James Connolly plaque was erected in 1968 at the end of a fifteen-year campaign. We hope that we can get a Connolly statue considerably quicker than that! We think it should be a process which directly engages with the local community.

Connolly himself saw the importance of song in creating a culture of resistance.Both Irish traditional and rebel songs and music have been very important to the Irish struggle. A more recent development, which goes back to Connolly’s own songs drawing on both republican and wider socialist imagery, has been the songs of The Wakes, who are also trying to bridge this gap. Do you see this as significant?

Definitely. One of the important things about Connolly’s life was the way he used different vehicles to get across his political message. So, as well as his political activism and the organisations he joined and founded, he was also a play-writer and a songwriter. I think over the years we have tried to work with various bands, like The Wakes, who have tried to make the connection between socialist song and Irish republican song. It is definitely something we think is significant. Cultural expression is important.

You personally took the decision to get yourself involved in the Edinburgh Peoples’ Festival. Do you see this as important?

I think that the Edinburgh Peoples’ Festival, as an organisation, does a lot of good work in taking the arts to working class communities that are excluded from the official cultural celebrations that take place in this city. I think by drawing attention to James Connolly, we want to work with the Edinburgh People’s Festival in highlighting the hidden histories of this city – the different narratives that exist. I think this is fantastic work and some people are very supportive.

Are there any other ways in which you think the memory of James Connolly could be enhanced in this city or in Scotland as a whole?

I think there are various ways that this can be done. One of the things the Connolly Foundation is keen to do, is to look at some of the research around the experience of the Irish community in this city; but also to focus on some of the problems that exist for that community, looking at material issues like health inequalities, educational attainment and the interaction with the criminal justice system. So the Connolly Foundation is keen that Connolly’s memory is enhanced in the city through improving the material conditions of working class people.

Republic of the Imagination Kelman also highlighted the importance of John Maclean in Glasgow. I think that Maclean is right up there with Connolly as a giant in the Socialist movement in Scotland. I think that it is vitally important that Scotland tries to explore the history of both James Connolly and John Maclean, as well as others. Certainly, the Connolly Foundation would like to work with comrades in Glasgow to try and uncover and celebrate the history of John Maclean. We recognise his contribution in combining the wider struggle for socialism with support for the Irish war of independence.

No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.

James Connolly, from the Introduction to his Songs of Freedom, 1907.

The Connolly Foundation

To support the campaign to get a statue of Connolly erected in Edinburgh contact: statue@connollyfoundation.org or go to: http://www.connollyfoundation.org

Allan Armstrong interviews Alan McCombes, a key influence on the theoretical direction of the SSP and a member of the SSP national executive. He gives us his views on Salmond’s SNP government, the future prospects for socialist unity, and the SSP’s constitutional conference.

How do you assess the current situation with the new SNP government?

In the short term this creates problems for the SSP. I saw this recently when canvassing for our council candidate in Cambuslang. As socialists we often look from on high and see the whole terrain. The people on the ground don’t have the same perspective.

There is still a fairly positive perception of the SNP Government. It has abolished graduate endowments, begun to reverse the centralisation of hospitals, extended free school meals, started the process of scrapping prescription charges, abolished bridge tolls, and it opposes nuclear power. The SNP are doing the sort of things that Labour once did. However, Scotland’s last Labour administration, under McConnell, was too frightened to upset their puppet masters at Westminster, and take advantage of the devolved powers at its disposal. The Labour Government in Wales (and it called itself that) did more, despite the Welsh Assembly having fewer powers.

However, we have to look beyond this to assess the overall political situation. When I was a member of Scottish Militant Labour, in the early ‘90s, there was real class anger. The Tories under Forsyth were hated. Labour were just seen as collaborators, afterthe poll tax. SML was able to win council seats in first-past-the-post elections in the housing schemes, and get up to 25% of the vote elsewhere. There was a strong consciousness of class even if it wasn’t always socialist.

In 2003 the situation was different from today. The SNP was in a mess, and there was the mass movement against the war in Iraq. The SSP made its big electoral breakthrough.

Now there is a certain passivity. Even the change from Blair to Brown has encouraged some to think that the worst excesses of New Labour in Westminster are over, and there will be a gradual pull-out from Iraq. Economic changes have also had their effects. Poverty and inequality has been mitigated by the prolonged upswing in the economy. Cheaper consumer goods and easy credit have given the illusion of prosperity.

All these things make things more difficult for us in the short term. This isn’t any endorsement of the SNP, just a recognition that socialists face a different situation today. That will change in the future, maybe in a quite accelerated timetable given the global credit crunch, rising food and energy prices and galloping climate chaos.

How do socialists deal with this situation?

Well obviously we have faced a major setback after the split. Even without the split, the SSP would still have faced problems, but the split has magnified these problems many times over.

This means we have to return to politics and a period of introspection. We cannot artificially create big national campaigns, although these may emerge. There will be local campaigns SSP branches can relate to. However, in this period we have to seriously address, discuss and debate the big issues, such as the Environment, Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights.

The Eco-socialist argument is vital. With global warming and potential environmental catastrophe, the issue of ownership and control of resources is more relevant than ever. In a recent interview, the environmental guru of the past James Lovelock claimed that it is too late to reverse global warming. Instead we have to concentrate on survival in the face of inevitable climate change. Its likely that the ruling classes internationally go more and more down that road – damage limitation and the survival of capitalism on its own terms. It’s a potential nightmare scenario. They will be prepared to write-off millions of people in the Third World. There will be mass movements of population and a proliferation of wars over land, food and water as whole tracts of the planet become uninhabitable desert. I think we need some kind of a red-green alliance that will be antibig business, anti-capitalist– not in the sense of an electoral pact between the Green Party and the SSP – but on a broad campaigning basis. More and more people around green movement are going to come to the conclusion that its not enough just ask people to change their lifestyles or appeal to big business and governments to be kinder to the environment.

Before the split, the SSP could legitimately claim to be the party of socialist unity. Now we back to being the party for socialist unity. How do we rebuild that lost unity?

The project to build a specifically anti-capitalist party cannot be abandoned. The SSP represents a real gain in Scotland. A good example of a successful anti-capitalist – and not merely anti-neo-liberal – organisation today is the Portuguese Left Bloc. It is, in effect, a party, like the Danish Red/Greens and the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) in France. The Portuguese Left Bloc has 350 councillors and 10 MPs and is a real political force to be reckoned with.

In Germany and Greece new left formations such as Die Linke and Syriza have made big electoral gains, which is big advance for the left. They have helped to change the political atmosphere in their countries in a positive way. But the ideological basis of these parties,is less clear-cut – they’re not so much parties as electoral alliances.

In some countries, such an electoral alliance may be a step forward.

In very broad terms you can divide politics into three main trends:-

• The dominant neo-liberals, whether it be Tories or New Labour, Blair or Brown, Republicans or Democrats, Clinton or Obama. They want to reduce public expenditure and taxation, and to create a more favourable environment for the global corporations.
• The reformists who want a fairer capitalism.
• The anti-capitalist bloc, which includes socialist parties, anarchists, sections of the Greens, Castro and Chavez. The weakness is, that although we all oppose capitalism, we have no shared agreement about what should replace it.

However, some political parties can straddle these particular trends. The Greens, for example, have a largely reformist leadership. However, they include some genuinely anti-capitalist elements, more so in England, with Derek Walls using Marxist arguments, and Carolyn Lucas being on the Left. This is different from the situation in Scotland, where the reformists appear to dominate the Green Party.

The SNP straddles neo-liberalism and reformism. There are some anti-capitalist individuals, but they are marginalised at this stage because of the euphoria surrounding the SNP government which has affected not just the SNP left, but even some socialists who in the past were critical of the SNP. Right now it seems the pull of the SNP on the Left is currently greater than the pull of the Left on the SNP – although I would expect that to change in the future because of the state of the economy. It was a different story in 2003, when the SNP appeared to be in disarray and some SNP members joined the SSP.

We need a wide discussion on how we relate to reformist groupings. We can work with people who are not necessarily socialist, or anti-capitalist, but who are prepared to challenge neo-liberalism on a kind of social democratic basis – in other words all those who are to the left of the four main parties. That doesn’t mean we have to unite in the same party – there can be co-operation on specific campaigns and policies, and possibly even electoral pacts or alliances on agreed terms.

In any election where the SSP does not put up a candidate, what would be your advice be to members on how to vote, particularly in a contest between Labour and the SNP?

I believe that when we aren’t standing, there doesn’t need to be a party line. Local factors come into play. Sometimes you might give your support to a Left Labour candidate with a fighting record against a right wing SNP candidate. Concretely, if I had been in Coatbridge during the last Holyrood election, I’d probably have voted for Labour’s Elaine Smith, a member of the Campaign for Socialism who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opposes nuclear weapons and has supported SSP bills to for free school meals, and to scrap warrant sales and prescription charges. I can’t think of any others though.

Where do you see the SSP’s potential support coming from if we are to rebuild principled socialist unity?

Well first we still have a big cloud hanging over us, as long as the police investigation is continuing. We don’t know what will happen to Solidarity. We still don’t fully know how damaged the SSP project is. Is it recoverable? The split did more than damage the SSP (and Solidarity too). Splits discredit the whole Left. This is equally true of the recent split in Respect in England, whatever its political basis. Splits lead to demotivation, demobilisation, and ultimately apathy.

However, the SSP has to look to those 200,000 people who gave us their vote over 10 years, as well as to the young people who didn’t have the vote, but were drawn into activity, particularly over the War. This is still a potentially big constituency. Despite my earlier assessment of the overall political situation, the economy now looks like it is about to take a nosedive. We have to address this too. How we do these things remains an open question.

Looking to the existing political parties, there are elements in the Labour Party, Solidarity, the Greens and the SNP which could contribute to a new united socialist party.

The Labour Party

I recently attended a Campaign for Socialism meeting addressed by John McDonnell. He said that Marxism, far from being redundant, is now more relevant than ever, with the problems of the Third World, the credit crash and global warming. He said that the space in the Labour Party for debate between anti-capitalists and reformists had now gone. The neo-liberal agenda dominated everything, so there was no opportunity for the Left to influence the Labour Party.

However, some of the Scottish Labour members present at this meeting claimed there was still some democratic space here, although they weren’t that optimistic. Sooner or later I expect a break. It’s not the numbers that will be significant, but the possible impact on the trade union movement. Will the Morning Star make a break with Labourism at last? The next Holyrood election or local government elections may concentrate minds. I expect some discussions to start next year.

Solidarity

First of all there needs to be open discussion on this issue in the SSP. People mustn’t get over-excited. There are elements in Solidarity whom I could work with. Some people joined Solidarity because of where they lived and who they knew rather than because they had thought through and understood all the issues.

However, with the benefit of hindsight, the experience of the SWP and the CWI was negative. We needed to go through that experience to learnthe hard way. The problem with these two organisations is that they operate on the basis of Democratic Centralism, or more accurately, Bureaucratic Centralism. I know from my direct experience in the CWI. The imposed centralised line isn’t just applied nationally, but within their wider international sections too.

This means their members didn’t engage in the internal debates of the SSP in an open and constructive way. They arrived with a predetermined line, which others couldn’t influence. This led to the loss of a number of new, more inexperienced SSP members, who found an atmosphere of sectarian point scoring in some branches unappealing.

In the SSP’s 50:50 debate on women’s representation, the SWP argued and voted as a block, despite some internal disagreement. Now, in this case, I agreed with many of their arguments. But, you know that the line was handed down from the SWP Central Committee. If the line changed next week, all their members would just vote the opposite way!

The CWI is little better, it’s just that it is smaller. This doesn’t mean of course that there weren’t times when I also agreed with some of their positions, – but that’s the point. You consider all the arguments, and don’t just arrive determined to force through your point of view, without considering other arguments. Don’t misunderstand me. I believe in robust political debate, but we must get beyond their failed way of operating.

When it comes to a question of Solidarity members being readmitted to the SSP, I have no problems with many of the individuals concerned. However, it would be a different matter with those who vociferously called for a split and led a malicious public campaign against many good comrades in the SSP.

The Greens

The Greens are a very small party. A report of their recent conference suggests no more than 50 members were present. However, the Green Party represents the political wing of a much wider movement, including the likes of Friends of the Earth.This is where the Greens get their wider electoral support. The SSP has more members, more branches, and more vibrant conferences, but we don’t have this wider periphery. The old Labour Party used to have a periphery of active trade union branches; we don’t.

The current Green leadership in Scotland, especially Robin Harper, wouldn’t touch the Left with a barge pole. They believe a Red/Green alliance would cost them votes, and undermine their project of joining mainstream government coalitions. However, comrades in Glasgow tell me there are a number of excellent Eco-socialist Greens they have come into contact with, over the old M77 and the new M74 campaigns.

I don’t have enough experience in this particular political arena. Once again though I believe the SSP should initiate a wider discussion on our relationship with the Green Party/Movement. I’m sure splits will emerge amongst the Greens, and that the Eco-socialist argument will develop much greater purchase in the future, challenging the Eco-capitalism of the Green’s leaders.

The SNP

There is a Left, but it is marginalised at present. Four things are working in favour of the SNP leadership. First, Salmond is a highly skilled political operator. Secondly, they have become the beneficiaries of the soft protest vote in Scotland, in a similar manner to Centre or supposed Centre parties elsewhere, e.g. in Italy and the USA. Thirdly, the unresolved National Question colours most politics in Scotland. A wide range of issues are viewed through the distorting lenses of Unionism and Independence. Fourthly, Holyrood doesn’t enjoy substantial power, so a lot of politics just involves making gestures.

This all aids Salmond’s populist approach to politics, with the SNP Government promoting policies both for big business and the people of Scotland. In as far as anyone can see into the future, I believe the SNP will strengthen its position in the next election. An SNP majority government could well emerge. This is one reason why I am so pro-independence. Only when we have Independence will a more clearly ideological differentiation occur.

What is your assessment of the various projects the SSP has been involved in to have a say in the resolution of the National Question?

I was strongly in favour of the republican Calton Hill Declaration. We faced two sorts of opposition within the party. First, the CWI opposed it because the Declaration didn’t specifically mention socialism. Secondly, I remember some SSP members were unhappy about the Declaration dealing with social issues, wanting it to concentrate on Scottish self-determination on the grounds that it would exclude people. I disagreed with both criticisms.

I think the first Calton Hill demonstration was a major success. We were given a real opportunity with the official state opening of Holyrood by the queen. We related to a deep-seated anti-monarchist sentiment in Scotland. However, right after this, the crisis hit the party. It was this, rather than deliberate negligence by the executive and national council that led to the lack of follow-through activity.

I share with the RCN a strong identification with republicanism. It emphasises the SSP’s democratic approach to politics. I think Salmond misjudged the feeling in Scotland, when he declared the SNP’s support for the monarchy. A recent survey in the Daily Express showed that, if Scotland were to become independent, then over 50% would want it to become a republic.

Where I disagree with the RCN is that I believe we should support independence without any preconditions. I think, although that’s not what Blair wanted, devolution has undermined rather than strengthened the union. Similarly, whatever Salmond thinks, Independence will open up the road to both a Republic, and provide an opportunity for socialists to make a real impact again. There is an underlying dynamic to all this. That’s not to impose a rigid stages theory which a priori excludes moving directly to a republic, which would certainly be my preference, but to recognise that even if an independent Scotland didn’t start off a republic from day one, there would be a momentum in the direction of a republic. It would be certainly open up a mass debate around republicanism or monarchism – a debate which is unlikely to happen on that scale while the United Kingdom appears secure and permanent. If not in the run-up to an independent Scotland, then at least immediately after an independence referendum is victorious, the momentum towards a republic could be unstoppable – especially if republicans and socialists prove their credentials by being seen to fight for independence in a non-sectarian way, rather than cutting ourselves off with an ‘all-or nothing, our way or no way’ approach.

Now looking to the Scottish Independence Convention and Independence First, I believe these still have a positive role to play. When the SIC was formed, support for Independence was greater than support for the SNP, and this was represented in Holyrood by the SSP, the Greens and some Independents as well.

Today, with a new confident SNP Government, the situation has changed. The SIC experienced a splinter, with the formation of the more moderate Scottish Constitutional Convention. This tension amongst Independence supporters mirrors that which split devolutionists, when faced with the rising strength of the Labour Party in the run-up to the 1997 General Election. Only now it’s the SNP leadership calling the shots, but over independence.

However, Elaine C. Smith is now convenor of the SIC – in the past she’s voted SSP as well as SNP, and has a reputation as an outspoken working class left wing feminist. It’s positive that the figurehead of the broad independence movement represents progress and equality rather than conservative middle class nationalism.

Without MSPs it’s more difficult for the SSP to play a decisive role in the broad independence movement; if we had even a small foothold in the parliament we would now have much more clout than in the past given the precarious balance of forces in Holyrood.

I agree with you that the SNP leadership aren’t that keen to press forward with an IndependenceReferendum, for fear of losing – that’s why it’ important we have organisations like Independence First and the Independence Convention – to keep up external pressure.

The SSP should not dilute its republican socialist message. I hope we can build something positive around the Calton Hill Declaration. However, I think that party members need to take more of their own initiatives and not expect the leadership to deliver everything. An example of a good initiative from below is the SSY’s latest film on knife crime. This can be taken to community centres, etc, and then we can really begin to engage people in debate.

The mainstream parties, whether unionist or nationalist, are now cooperating within the current devolved UK framework. For example Alex Salmond meets with Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. How do you think socialists in these islands should coordinate their activities?

The SSP is now committed to the RCN-initiated motion, which calls for coordination. This is policy so we will act upon it. My reasons for opposing this at the last Conference were practical. I support the principle.

The problem is the fragmentation of the Left. Taking England, you now have two Respects, the Socialist Party, the SLP, the Labour Coordinating Committee, and a trade union opposition focussed mainly on the RMT. In Ireland things are more confused with the problem of the North. In Wales the situation has changed. The SSP related in turn to Cymru Goch, the Socialist Alliance, and then Forward Wales, which has now disappeared.

The SSP is not in as strong a position to influence and shape things as it was a few years ago. If we were in a stronger position then things might well be different. Therefore I see the issue of such coordination as being a question of timing.

What do you think are the important issues at the forthcoming SSP Conference?

I haven’t yet had much time to go through the agenda, the motions etc.. I also believe that we have to look wider than our own internal affairs and discuss how we communicate with the people out there.

One motion to Conferences says that the SSP should drop its provision for Trade Union affiliations. This seems to reflect a certain tension between whether the SSP should be a socialist or a labourist party. What is your view?

I don’t have a fixed position. We need to have an open debate. There are those who argue that trade unions should be independent of all political parties. However, there is also a growing realisation that trade unions no longer enjoy any real political representation. The politics of this is complex, with people politically split a number of ways.

Another key debate, after our party’s previous experience, is whether or not we need a single leader. What is your opinion?

Again I have no fixed view, but I would want to encourage real debate. In the English Green Party, which has had a more collective leadership, Carolyn Lucas now wants a single leader. In a world where getting media attention is important, we have to recognise that they will focus on individuals. Even as socialists, we tend to celebrate key individuals, like Che Guevara or James Connolly. This doesn’t mean we need to depend on a charismatic superhero figure. Both the Portuguese Left Bloc party, and the Greek Syriza alliance have performed well without such a leader.

There is also a motion to end Platform rights in the SSP. Do you support this?

No, I don’t agree. The old Communist Party banned platforms, but was awash with factions. If platforms were abolished, this would represent a political step backwards. It would then be a short step to a more repressive internal regime and probably lead to expulsions. It would represent a move back to the discredited old-style parties. When a party grows, different political groupings are bound to arise. I think it would be a step forward if the CPS or CPB joined the SSP as platforms. The rights we had in the pre-split SSP were healthy, but were abused by certain Platforms. It may be necessary to define those rights and duties more clearly.

Allan Armstrong interviews socialist activist and poet, Jim Aitken, about his life, politics and works.

Could you please give us some background information about your life?

I was born and raised in Edinburgh. My mother was from Wick, one of a family of six. She left Wick to work in service in London. She never saw the city because she was working all the time. She met my father in North Berwick. He was one of eight children raised in Edinburgh. His family originally came from Dublin. I consider myself a mongrel. I feel Celtic, it is part of my roots.

My mother was a member of the Labour Party, whilst my father was chair of the local branch of the old UPW, the posties’ union for 27 years. Uncles and aunts were members of the Communist Party. My aunt, Gertie McManus, was a stalwart of the Edinburgh Trades Council, as a delegate from USDAW, the shopworkers’ union. She was behind the moves to get the James Connolly plaque put up in the Cowgate.

I was brought up in a wider, literate, working class, socialist culture, which has largely disappeared today. It seemed natural to be a socialist and republican. When I rebelled as a teenager, it just pushed me further Left.

How did your interest in literature come about?

There were plenty of books in the house. There was also an atlas and I collected stamps. These all helped to arouse my interest in the wider world. This all contributed to my internationalism. I went to Portobello High School. I was fortunate that this was the period when comprehensive schools provided a real opportunity for working class kids. The teachers were committed to the comprehensive ideal, and some of my English teachers, in particular, provided me with good leads. I read Beckett in my sixth year. This led me to a whole lot of interesting existentialist writing, for example, Sartre, Camus and Kafka.

When I left school I worked for two years. I began to write poetry. I met Norman McCaig, along with Michael MacDairmid and Deidre Chapman in Milnes Bar. I became a friend of Norman’s and read my poetry to him at his flat. He did a lot to encourage me. When Norman got the readership at Stirling University I decided I would go there to study. I studied literature, fine art, philosophy and religious studies. I had some of my poetry published in the university magazine and did some readings there.

Somebody else who has had a great and continuing influence on me is Hugh MacDairmid. I recently read Revolutionary Art of the Future produced by John Manson, who was interviewed in your last issue.

How were your politics developing at this time?

I didn’t join any political party, although I went to some meetings organised by the Communist Party at the University. John Reid was the President of Stirling NUS at the time! I was more interested in particular campaigns and issues like Vietnam, Anti-Apartheid and CND.

Why did you decide to become an English teacher?

I decided that since I had personally benefited from the comprehensive system, I wanted to offer something to working class kids from a similar background. My love of English is tied up with the openings on the world which literature provides.

I taught briefly in Stirling, but since then, I have been teaching in Edinburgh. The English department I joined was a really good place, where, once again the teachers were committed to the comprehensive ideal. However, there was still the authoritarianism symbolised by the use of the belt.

Things really changed for the worse under Thatcher. She was a class warrior determined that her class should win out. She was vicious. Mass unemployment was used to discipline the working class. The schooling system was remoulded to better fit the economic system. There were fewer and fewer possibilities for real education, as everything was subordinated to continuous assessments. O grades became Standard Grades; Highers became Revised Highers (revised again and again) as more finely graded assessment procedures were imposed, to control both student and teacher.

English teachers were at the centre of the resistance to all this. I became a member of Scottish Association of Teachers of Language and Literature (SATOLL). The late Tony McManus was the inspiration behind this. Many of those involved, like Tony, were themselves writers and artists. We had a considerable impact. I had articles published in The Scotsman and The Herald.

I was also quite heavily involved in the Edinburgh Local Association of the EIS. I was on the Local Executive, alongside other left-wingers from Rank & File Teachers. I chaired the English subject section. The Edinburgh LA was to give its support to various initiatives, like SATOLL’s Sense and Worth and, more recently, the pamphlet of anti-war poetry, Magistri Pro Pace, written by Scottish Federation of Socialist Teacher members, Allan Crosbie, Annie McCrae, Andrew McGeever, Linda Richardson and myself.

How did your politics develop through this period?

When Thatcher came to power I joined the Communist Party. This is where I believed I would find the best criticism of capitalism. Somewhat mistakenly, this is where I also thought the fightback against Thatcher would begin, because of the CP’s strength in the big industrial unions. But the big debate, which was taking place inside the CP, was which way forward – the working class or the new social movements. I was with the industrial working class-based wing. However, just when the wider labour movement needed the CP, it was tearing itself apart.

Since internationalism was so important to me I continued to be active in a number of campaigns. These included Liberation (originally set up by Fenner Brockway), the Britain-Vietnam Association, Anti-Apartheid and Latin America Solidarity.

When the CP folded, I became a member of the Midlothian Peace Forum (I was living in Penicuik at the time), which combined CND, Peace groups and Anti-Apartheid. The leading figure was David Smith, a local Labour councillor, and also a committed socialist. We invited Canon Kenyon Wright of the Scottish Constitutional Convention to address one of our Burns Suppers. Scottish self-determination was becoming an important issue, under the hammer blows of Thatcher. Scottish devolution eventually came about as a response to Thatcher’s attacks.

This was also a great period of Scottish cultural renaissance. When political options run out, cultural renaissance can reach the parts that politics can not reach. World class writers such as Alistair Gray and James Kelman came to the fore. The artists, Ken Currie, Steven Conroy and Steven Campbell had a major impact.

When the EIS leadership accommodated to the Tories, and then to New Labour, they slowly strangled the teachers’ union as a vehicle of resistance, I dropped out of LA activity. I used the time to do a two year course at Edinburgh University, on Scottish Cultural Studies, led by Murdo Macdonald, followed by a two year course on European Studies. I also took a considerable interest in Latin American writers, particularly Jorge Luis Borges (despite his right wing politics) and Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes. When I finally published my book of poetry, Glory, in 2001, I included an essay on Borges.

So let’s go on to your books of poetry. Was Glory your first to be published?

No, back in 1993, I had published Twelve Poems for Mikolaj. Mikolaj Januszewicz was a close friend of mine, when I lived in Midlothian. He had just died. Mikolaj was a remarkable person and a Communist in several European parties. As a Belorussian Communist he had fought with the Partisans in the Second World War, before moving to France to fight with the Maquis. After the war he moved to London, then Midlothian, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was a member of the old CPGB.

Glory was published in 2001. It was dedicated to my children and to the Irish granny I had never met. It included poetry I had written over many years. It deals with major political events in the world, but also with my own internal life and cultural interests, My most recent book, Neptunes’s Staff & Other Formations, follows this format too. It has been the most successful in terms of sales. This book has gone to a second edition and raised money for CND.

The book launch was very successful too. Sixth year students produced a musical accompaniment to the poem, Leroy’s Rapping Lament, which links events in Baghdad and Falluja with New Orleans. Teachers and students also made a film with images from these places.

I have always tried to have my work sponsored through wider labour movement bodies and campaigns. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq led to my writing of From the Front Line of Terror in 2002, and Another Line of Terror in 2003, and my contributions to Magistri Pro Pace in 2006. This was also dedicated to Tony McManus. The Herald printed a double page selection. My other recent book of poetry, Celta Arabica, 2004, was written with the Palestinian writer Ghazi Hussein. These were all written under the auspices of the Anti-War Movement.

Palestine is obviously very important to you. How did you become involved?

Palestine is the Left’s ‘Vietnam’ for today. Palestinians are the conscience of the world today, as the Jews once were. When I met Ghazi, who originally lived in Syria, as part of the Palestinian diaspora, he said that the Palestinians were at the bottom of the barrel in the Arab countries too. This is why they are at the forefront of all the struggles against injustice.

The idea of organising poetry readings came in response to the fire-bombing of the Annandale Street mosque by racists in 2001. It was decided to hold a solidarity meeting in the damaged mosque. Tom Leonard, Liz Lochead, Aonghas MacNeacail, and others, all agreed to read their poetry. It was so successful over 40 people had to be turned away. When ever have you heard of people being turned away from poetry readings!

This led to further events being held annually as an alternative Remembrance Day. It was at one of these events that I first met Ghazi. He had written the play One Hour Before Sunrise, about imprisonment and torture in Syria. We agreed to write and publish Celt Arabica. We have become close friends.

How did your politics develop during this period?

If Thatcher’s 1979 election victory prompted me to join the CP, then the Iraq war prompted me to join the SSP. The Scottish dimension of politics is important. However, I also joined the SWP, for the same reason I had earlier joined the CP. It provided the best critique of capitalism, especially in its new virulent imperialist phase. The anti-war, anti imperialist movement is very important to me.

Now that there has been an SNP victory in the election to the Scottish Parliament, I believe it is the job of the Left in Scotland to take on the same job, pushing the SNP, that the old CP once did, pushing the Labour Party. I’m involved in Solidarity and the SWP. We believe such pressure can influence events.

People voted SNP to punish Labour over the war, privatisation and social neglect. So far, Salmond hasn’t really put a foot wrong. When, however, the SNP members, in the Edinburgh City Council coalition, initially backed the 22 school closures, Left pressure, organising the strike and other protests, was able to force them to back down. Salmond probably also pressured them, since his eyes are on the next election, so he wants to remain popular.

My main political activity, though, remains with the anti-war movement and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. Back in the 1970’s I had supported Palestinian Medical Aid, when it was the only organisation of any sort providing support for the Palestinians. Edinburgh now has a very active Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, which has brought prominent speakers from all over the world. They have done a great deal to raise the level of debate in this city.

The Palestinian issue prompted your first foray into play writing. How did this come about?

This arose because of the opportunity provided by the Edinburgh Festival in 2006. There is a close link between Scotland and Palestine. Arthur Balfour, the UK Foreign Secretary who wrote the original Declaration in 1917, promising Palestine to the Jewish people, lived at Whittinghame, outside Haddington, in East Lothian. Scotland has to know of its participation in British imperialism.

Due to the considerable confusion surrounding present day events in Palestine, many people just see the conflict as a war between two tribes. I wanted to get back to the source. This was British imperial sponsorship of Zionism, which then represented a small minority in the worldwide Jewish community.

This is why I wrote From Haddington to Palestine. The play imagines the ghost of Balfour confronting a present day Palestinian at Whittinghame. The actors were all activists from the Edinburgh branch of the Palestinian Soldarity campaign. The Theatre Workshop helped with the direction. It was well received by the Palestinians living in Scotland.

Your most recent book of poetry draws from your trips to Ireland and the Highlands.

This reflects my love of these two places. I visit both regularly. Joyce and Beckett are my favourite authors. One contemporary author whose writings I enjoy is Niall Williams – a sort of Irish magic-realism. I also enjoy Seamus Heaney’s poetry. The Highlander, Neil Gunn, is one of my favourite Scottish authors, whilst Sorley Maclean’s poetry is up there with Macdairmid’s. I support anything to keep the Gaelic language going.

My poem, A Drink in Doolin, is set in Gus O’Connors Bar in County Clare. It is a cultural magnet for Celts from all over the world. The Leith-born singer, Dick Gaughan, another socialist, also with Irish and Highland parents, has produced a TV programme, set in the same pub, showcasing folk music with common Irish and Scottish roots.

Since my regular visits to Skye, I have also made friends with, of all people, an Edinburgh banker, who originally hails from Uig. The Uig Banker shows the redemptive capabilities of the awesome scenery of Skye, away from crazy, crowded Liverpool Street.

The cover of your book has a plug by the well-known Marxist literary critic, Terry Eagleton. How do you know him?

I don’t know Terry Eagleton well, but I wrote to him. I was taken with Eagleton’s idea of extending the language of the Left. This does not mean a return to religion, but a turn to ontology, or our reason to exist. He points out that the “Left is at home with imperial power and guerrilla warfare, but embarrassed on the whole by the thought of death, evil, sacrifice or the sublime.” Even if you have a socialist revolution tomorrow, people will still have to confront the ontological and existential situation. You can’t ignore religion. It has been part of all human cultures. I am interested in Buddhism and Islam because I am interested in the world. This interest comes from my socialism.

Jim Aitken’s poems are a delightful combination of lyrical delicacy and political toughness, Terry Eagleton

The Republic of the Imagination

In August 2006, Allan Armstrong interviewed the literary critic and poet John Manson about his life and works

Could you please give us some background information about your life?

I was born on a croft on the coast of the Pentland Firth in 1932. My mother was widowed in 1941. Within that year, 1941-2, she lost her husband, my father, and his brother, who lived with us (both to pneumonia), and her own brother, a wireless operator, whose ship was torpedoed. She worked until 1968 with no pension, except the old age pension at 60.

In 1950 I went to Aberdeen University to study English Literature and Language and completed the first three years. In the winter term of 1952-3, I attended David Murison’s Extra-Mural lectures on Scottish Literature and must have heard of Hugh MacDiarmid’s work there for the first time. At the same time I became interested in Franz Kafka and have followed the two strands of Scottish and European (and World) literature ever since. At the same time, or perhaps a little later, I began to read articles from a Marxist point of view, although I wasn’t living in class-conscious circumstances. I started to do some writing. This was the period of the Korean War, the colonial repression in Malaya and Kenya, and the suspension of the constitution in British Guiana.

At home in the summer of 1953 I began to have a partial breakdown of health (psychosomatic) – no hospitalization – and this went on for a few years. In 1955 my mother and I moved to a smaller place in Sutherland and I recovered my health there to a large extent. For the first time, I felt free from pressure. Later I qualified as a primary teacher and taught in Fife, Edinburgh and Dumfries and Galloway.

I began to read widely in literature. Of the novels I read at that time, I expect the works of Maxim Gorky and Mikhail Sholokhov would most stand rereading. I also read the trilogies of Konstantin Fedin and Alexei Tolstoy. When Dr. Zhivago, Lolita and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich were published I read these as well. MacDiarmid published some of the Zhivago lyrics in The Voice of Scotland and introduced a selection of Pasternak’s work in a translation by his sister, Lydia Pasternak Slater (she moved to Britain before the Second World War).

The poets I read at that time were Christo Botev, the national poet of Bulgaria, in Paul Eluard’s French translation; Nicola Vaptsarov, also Bulgarian, who was shot by the Fascists; Martin Carter of (then) British Guiana, whose Collected Poems and Selected Prose, University of Hunger, was published in early 2006; and Nazim Hikmet, who is now regarded as the major poet of Turkey in the last century. I also became aware of Louis Aragon’s poetry in 1956, through his weekly paper, Les Lettres Francaises; and then read two of his 6 volume series, Les Communistes, and other novels in French. I still have a copy of a letter from Collet’s, listing eight volumes of Antonio Gramsci in Italian. Some of the other writers in whom I became interested at this time will emerge during my answers. I read the early works of Alan Sillitoe and Arnold Wesker, nearly all Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, and at least one each of John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Erskine Caldwell and James T. Farrell.

How would you describe yourself in political terms?

A non-Party Socialist, since the dissolution of the CPGB

What do you see as the significance of the literary side of politics?

Politics is part of the public life of the times and it should be recreated as an important aspect of culture.

You see 1991 as forming a break in a certain period of literary politics. Why is this?

1991 witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It’s the end of an era in that sense, but not the end of other Communist Parties. It’s much more difficult to say how this affects the literary side of politics. The Portuguese Communist, Jose Saramago, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, for example.

You see Hugh MacDiarmid as the most important literary figure in Scotland in the 20th century. Why is this?

MacDiarmid was a great lyrical and satirical poet and he was also a national regenerator through his anti-imperialist writing. He had enormous influence on other people, mostly when they were young and this influence extended to the worlds of art, music, history, language, philosophy, politics and economics as well as imaginative literature. He made the greatest single-handed contribution to ensure that Scotland would not be, as in the line from Tom Buchan’s poem, a one-way street to the coup of the mind. He wrote instead:

For freedom means that a lad or lass
In Cupar or elsewhaur yet
May alter the haill o’ human thocht
Mair than Christ’s altered it

I never set een on a lad or a lass
But I wonder gin he or she
Wi’ a word or deed’ll suddenly dae
An impossibility.

(Complete Poems, 1, pp. 257-8, Hugh MacDairmid, Manchester, 1993.)

MacDiarmid was at the centre of a number of political and literary controversies:

• a. His alleged Scottish fascist past
• b. The ‘bomb London’ poem from the Second World War(On the Imminent Destruction of London, in The Revolutionary Art of the Future – Rediscovered poems by Hugh MacDairmid, edited by John Manson, DorianGrieve and Alan Riach, Manchester, 2003.)
• c. His ‘flytings’ with Hamish Henderson and Ewan MacColl.

What are your views on these particular issues?

• MacDiarmid was never a Fascist in the sense of a supporter of a right-wing dictatorship; he didn’t belong to a Fascist group, for example. A study of his article in The Scottish Nation (1923), Programme for a Scottish Fascism, shows that he saw ‘a Scottish Fascism’ as Nationalist –
  

  ‘Scotland First’ for us as it was ‘Italy First’ for them’ – and Socialist – ‘… a Scottish Nationalist Socialism … will restore an atmosphere in which the fine, distinctive traits and tendencies of Scottish character which have withered in the foul air of our contemporary chaos, will once more revive.’

  He thought that …Fascism in Italy must incline to the Left. He also quoted The Fascist Movement in Italian Life where Pietro Gorgolini says that,

  Fascism understands the immense social importance of land, hence it condemns absentee and unproductive possession, which leaves vast tracts of land uncultivated that could be highly productive.

  (Hugh MacDiarmid: Selected Prose, pp. 34-8, Alan Riach, editor, Manchester, 2000.)

  Obviously, MacDiarmid thought this kind of ‘fascism’ could be applied to the Scottish Highlands but he failed to give weight to the fact that the Peasant Leagues were being broken up in Italy at this time. At the time MacDiarmid wrote the article he was a member of the Scottish Home Rule Association, the ILP and the No-More-War Movement through the League of Nations. He was also becoming interested in Social Credit.

  Similarly, MacDiarmid took ideas from Wyndham Lewis’s book on Hitler (1931) which seemed to chime with his own.

  Hitler’s ‘Nazis’ wear their socialism with precisely the difference which post-socialist Scottish nationalists must adopt. Class-consciousness is anathema to them, and in contradistinction to it they set up the principle of race consciousness.

  (The Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Gaelic Idea in Essays of Hugh MacDiarmid, Duncan Glen, editor, London, 1969.)

  He takes over the concept of ‘Blutsgefuhl’ or ‘blood feeling’. He equates Hitler’s attacks on ‘Leihkapital’ (loan capital) with Major Douglas’s (the main advocate of Social Credit). MacDiarmid was very impulsive and often wrote reviews and articles in great haste. MacDiarmid was certainly deceived by Hitler as a man in 1932-3.

  Here are some quotations from his Free Man articles At the Sign of the Thistle:

  In view of the recent discussion in Scotland of the necessity of militant action, readers should carefully weigh what [the poet] Mr [John] Gawsworth says:-[Hitler] is as much a prophet as Mahomet, Mussolini, or Lenin, but he is an armed prophet’.
  (23/6/32)

  Compare the mental calibre of the members of the Scottish Development Council with men like De Valera in Ireland, Hitler in Germany, Gandhi in India.
  (9/7/32) The SDC had been formed in 1931.

  … it is just this vital force, this resourcefulness and colour which attracts me in Hitler as, say, against the utter nullity of Sir Robert Horne or the horrible local preacherism, writ large, of Ramsay MacDonald.
  (3/9/32)

  I agree with Hitler in one thing – probably the only thing in which I do agree with him at all – and that is his doctrine that action must not negate propaganda.
  (4/11/33)

• b. MacDiarmid saw London as metropolitan city, the centre of empire.
• c. MacDiarmids ‘flytings’ with Hamish Henderson were public. Ewan MacColl records his private discussions in his autobiography, Journeyman. MacColl writes:

  So why had he chosen to single out the folk revival as a special target for his venom? Because of the kailyard, the nineteenth century parochialism which had poisoned Scots literature and condemned it to a debilitated existence in the cabbage patch. MacDiarmid had rescued it and, with the help of a talented band of devotees, restored it to its proper role. And now it was being threatened again by vandals calling themselves folk-singers, by a movement which had within it seeds which, if allowed to germinate, would produce such a crop of weeds that the kailyard would triumph again. MacDiarmid’s fears were not entirely unfounded.
  (Journeyman, an autobiography by Ewan MacColl, pp. 284-5, Ewan MacColl, London, 1990.)

  Macdiarmid had positives as well as negatives. He drew attention to modern epics such as Pablo Neruda’s Canto General and Hikmet’s Human Landscapes.

Could you explain how you came to persuade MacDiarmid to fully publish his Third Hymn to Lenin?

On my first visit to Macdiarmid’s house, Brownsbank, in February 1955 I asked him if it had been published in full (one-third had already been published in Lucky Poet). I saw he made a mental note and he published it in the next issue of The Voice of Scotland in April. Almost fifty years later I discovered that it was originally written as part of The Red Lion project (in the mid-Thirties) and that he then realised that it could be regarded as a ‘third hymn’ – but it wasn’t directly conceived as a ‘hymn to Lenin’ like the first and second hymns. Although it does address Lenin in parts of the poem it is more of a ferocious attack on the housing conditions in Glasgow and on the modes of thought which allowed these conditions to exist.

How did you discover the material which formed the basis for The Revolutionary Art of the Future – rediscovered poems by Hugh MacDiarmid?

In 1990 the National Library of Scotland purchased (for £250,000) the archive of material which Kulgin Duval and Colin Hamilton had been buying from him in his lifetime. An American University would have paid double. This has been classified into 246 folders and notebooks. As soon as I opened one of these I realised that some important poems had remained unpublished through lack of opportunities at particular times.

Other people had realised this before but perhaps I made a more thorough search than they did and recorded them in typescript. I had made several (more limited) discoveries of uncollected and unpublished poetry and prose on previous occasions, e.g. From Work in Progress in Penguin (1970), now retitled Kinsfolk, and the eight stories in Annals of the Five Senses(1999).

Your house contains many photographs and maps of places associated with MacDiarmid. Do you see ‘place’ as being important in his work?

Yes. Langholm, his birthplace; Whalsay, where he lived in the 1930’s; and also Liverpool and London. In Liverpool he wrote the poems in the abcbdd stanza (with the truncated sixth line) which he didn’t use before or after, when he was thinking back to Langholm; and in London he began The Red Lion project perhaps because he joined the CP there in August 1934 and had also just read Allen Hutt’s pamphlet Crisis on Clydeside.

Scott Lyall’s book, Hugh MacDiarmid’s Poetry of Politics and Place was published last year by Edinburgh University Press.

You have also located unpublished Lewis Grassic Gibbon writings in your researches.

Gibbon signed a contract with Faber to write a biography of William Wallace. He never completed it, but I found the first ten pages in the National Library of Scotland. Gibbon presents Wallace, At the head of a force that bore the significant title of the ‘Army of the Commons of Scotland’ and that after his defeat at Falkirk, not again, tell on tale, did the Commons of Scotland gather to battle under their ain folk till the Covenanting times.(William Wallace – Knight of Scotland, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, with introduction Braveheart in Kinraddie by John Manson, in Cencrastus, no. 61.)

In an important literary/political debate in the 1930’s Lewis Grassic Gibbon and James Barke seemed to reject a Scottish national identity. Yet MacDairmid later claimed that Gibbon had become a supporter of a Scottish Workers Republic. What is your view of this?

MacDiarmid may have drawn this impression from his last meeting with Gibbon in Welwyn Garden City in September 1934 but there is no evidence for it in Gibbon’s writing. Less than five months later he was dead.

You have spent some time recently working on James Barke. What do you see his significance was/is in the literary side of politics?

I think The Land of the Leal remains an important popular novel. Major Operation should also be republished though it is spoiled a bit by speeches like MacKelvie’s on materialism (in the context of the novel).

Jim White, a long time member of the Communist Party, has claimed James Barke was a Party member. Why do you dispute this?

Jim only had Bill Cowe’s word for it. I’ve rehearsed the evidence in my essay, Did James Barke join the Communist Party? (Communist History Network Newsletter, 19, 2006, published by Politics section, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, M13 9PL, website)

Why do you think James Barke was a member of the Freemasons?

I’ve no evidence here. Maybe it was the Burns connection? He was also a member of the Boys Brigade 1920-22 and spoke warmly of the Brigade in an article in 1956 (among other organisations).

Sorley MacLean doesn’t appear to have figured as much as MacDiarmid, Barke or Gibbon in your work on the literary side of politics. Is there a reason for this?

The reason is that I have no Gaelic and am therefore dependent on translations of his work. I’ve read his poems and his prose collection Ris a’ Bhruthaich (1985) and Joy Hendry and Raymond Ross’s Critical Essays (1986), the interviews he gave, and I’ve also heard him reading.

You have translated several European writers, particularly from the ‘God That Failed’ tradition, e.g. the Italian, Ignazio Silone; from dissident communists, like Victor Serge; and you have been interested in and sympathetic to non-Communists like the Icelander, Halldor Laxness. Why do you draw from these traditions?

A misunderstanding here. I’ve only translated one letter of Silone from Italian and though I’ve translated two books and a number of articles by Victor Serge I only became aware of him in the 1970s. But I’ve certainly been reading and rereading Silone from time to time since the late Fifties initially because he recreated the life of peasant societies and later because he reveals the debates within the minds of some of his leading characters with regard to the Communist Party.

The poets from whom I have translated the most are Pablo Neruda (Chile), Louis Aragon (France), and Paul Eluard (France)- Communists, though Eluard wasout of the Party for a decade,roughly 1932 to 1942. They had lifelong careers as authors and wrote intensely personal as well as political poetry – Resistance poetry in the case of Aragon and Eluard, anti-Franco and anti- Yankee poetry in the case of Neruda. Another poet I have translated, Cesar Vallejo (Peru), was also a Communist. But I’ve also translated from poets whose political positions cannot be so easily identified, e.g., Eugenio Montale (Italian), Constantine Cavafy (Greek), Manuel Bandeira (Brazilian), Henri Michaux (Belgian), whose work appears in my pamphlets.

Again I’ve read and reread Laxness since the late fifties, initially Independent People, about Icelandic crofters, and Salka Valka, about fishing communities (along with the Latvian, Vilis Lacis’s A Fisherman’s Son). I have read Max Frisch (Swiss), whose novels deal with questions of identity and who was also a great dramatist; Elias Canetti, Nobel prize-winner (1981), for his threevolume autobiography; Andre Malraux (France), for his novels of the political life of the Thirties; Albert Camus (France), for his stories and his posthumously published novel, The First Man, involving the search for his roots (Nobel prize-winner 1957); many of the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (France), and more recently, the novels of the recently deceased Pramoeda Ananta Toer, who spent many years in the Indonesian gulag.

What attracted you, in particular, to Victor Serge, who has been part of the anarchist and Trotskyist tradition in the past?

I was first attracted to Serge in the 1970s through his novels, of which six have been translated into English (and one is currently being translated – Les Annees Sans Pardon. It was through Serge’s literary and historical works that I first became aware of the Left Opposition in the Communist Party; and this led to a much slighter knowledge of other Oppositionist novelists like Panait Istrati (Roumania) and Charles Plisnier (Belgium).

Why do you think there has been a resurgence of interest in Victor Serge recently?

I think Serge appeals because of his probity. But this doesn’t mean that I think he was right about all the positions he took up, particularly after the Second World War where he preferred the semi-dictatorship of the right to the Communist government which would have been in power if the ELAS-EAM hadn’t been defeated by our own forces (Carnets, p. 158, Victor Serge, Arles, 1985.). Recently I’ve heard that the well-known American essayist, the late Susan Sontag, wrote a preface to Serge’s The Case of Comrade Tulayev.

You are not just a literary critic and translator but also a poet. How important is this to you?

It is important to express my feelings but most of my poems are occasional rather than constructed to a theme. It’s only after they’re written that I begin to see the themes.

Why do you see the land as so important in a Scotland that has become very urbanised?

Simply my own experience.

I’ve lived the life and done the work. And it was also the experience of my forebears on both sides.

You have had a working relationship with the writer, David Craig. How did this develop?

I met David at Aberdeen University in 1951. In On The Crofters’ Trail (1990) which is dedicated to me as ‘poet and crofter’, David writes that … our discussions of literature and history have been incessant ever since.

How much influence have the places you have lived had upon you?

Caithness negative (as explained), Sutherland positive (my adopted county] West Fife positive, modern industry (then) and historical background, Edinburgh positive for its libraries and galleries.

You wrote to Emancipation & Liberation, in response to the article, Beyond Bayonets and Broadswords, which was trying to retrieve the revolutionary roots of Scottish Presbyterianism’s left wing. What prompted you to contribute to the wider discussion on Jacobites or Covenanters?

This was purely a literary interest, since the article made mention of MacDairmid’s literary use of the ‘white rose’. (Beyond Bayonets and Broadswords, Allan Armstrong, Emancipation & Liberation no. 5/6, and letter by John Manson, Emancipation & Liberation, no. 10.)

What is your view of the impact of Scottish Presbyterianism on society after your early experiences?

I found the impact of the particular brand of Presbyterianism with which I came into contact (when I was powerless myself) as harmful and repressive. I try to express this in my poem, To An Unconceived Child. Ian Macpherson’s Shepherd’s Calendar (1931) comes closest to my own experience. The author, Tom MacDonald (Fionn MacColla) called it nay-saying.(10 At the Sign of the Clenched Fist, p. 185, Fionn MacColla, Edinburgh, 1967.)

What literary projects are you currently involved in?

I’ve reconstructed the manuscript of Mature Art, which MacDiarmid hoped to publish with the Obelisk Press in Paris (before its occupation in 1940). After that he withdrew, and sometimes adapted, sections of the poem which he included in In Memoriam James Joyce (1955) and The Kind of Poetry I Want (1961). The poem has never been published in full and some parts remain unpublished. I’ve also found the plan of The Red Lion, but not all the parts.

A major project has been making a selection from the letters to MacDiarmid in the National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh University Library, which may well number fifteen thousand.