A Revolutionary Moment?
There remains a lively debate on the left, over whether the Red Clydeside movement constituted a revolutionary opportunity for the working class, though on the face of it, it would appear that the revolutionary potential of the Clydeside working class has been exaggerated. Firstly, excepting Maclean, none of the labour leaders developed a class analysis of the war, nor did they seriously consider threatening the power and authority of the state. Furthermore, it was the behaviour of those conducting the war, not the war itself that provoked opposition within the labour movement. The Independent Labour Party's May Day Manifesto of 1918 makes this very clear in calling for A Living Wage for all and Justice for our Soldiers and their Dependants. Moreover, the massive demand for fighting men meant that few Glaswegian families escaped personal loss of some kind. To undermine the war effort was to risk alienating the working class, which many labour leaders were unwilling to do-–besides Maxton, Gallacher and Maclean.
William Gallacher, who would later become a Communist MP claimed that whilst the leaders of the rally were not seeking revolution, in hindsight they should have been. He claimed that they should have marched to the Maryhill barracks and tried to persuade the troops stationed there to come out on the protesters' side.
The trade union leaders who had organized the meeting were arrested. Most were acquitted, although both Gallacher and Manny Shinwell were put in jail for their activities that day, Shinwell also being charged with inflammatory speech the week before on James Watt Street in the city's docks, in an episode that later erupted into a race riot...
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