On November 30, 1923 the great socialist agitator John Maclean died in Glasgow at the early age of 44. His health had been ground down by years of poverty and abuse in British prisons. Maclean was jailed several times for his opposition to World War I, and was sentenced to three years' hard labour in 1916 for making statements "likely to cause mutiny, sedition and disaffection amongst the civil population, and to impede the production, repair and transport of war material".
In 1918, public agitation forced the authorities to release Maclean, but in the same year he was sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the notorious Peterhead prison.
It was at this trial that he made his most famous speech from the dock during which he stated: "No human being on the face of the earth, no government, is going to take from me my right to speak, my right to protest against wrong, my right to everything that is for the benefit of mankind. I am not here, then as the accused: I am here as the accuser of capitalism, dripping with blood from head to foot."
Along with Lenin, Trotsky and others, Maclean was appointed an honorary president of the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in 1918, and he was also appointed Bolshevik Consul for Scotland.
From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005.
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