John Maclean: Hero of the Red Clydeside

Henry Bell

‘I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot’ – John Maclean, Speech from the Dock, 1918. Feared by the government, adored by workers, celebrated by Lenin and Trotsky; the head of British Military Intelligence called John Maclean ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’. This new biography explores the events that shaped the life of a momentous man – from the Great War and the Great Unrest, to the Rent Strike and the Russian Revolution. It examines his work as an organiser and educator, his imprisonment and hunger strike, and how he became the early hero of radical Scottish Independence.