The real John Maclean
The Glasgow socialist John Maclean (1879-1923) devoted most of his adult life to the overthrow of capitalism. He joined the avowedly Marxist Social Democratic Federation around 1902-3, and remained a member of the SDF and its successor organisations, the Social Democratic Party and the British Socialist Party, up until 1920, the year in which the BSP provided the basis for the launch of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In contrast not only to the jingoism of H.M.Hyndman and other BSP leaders but also to the equivocal response of the centre grouping around E.C.Fairchild, Maclean...