Guy Aldred This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk

   gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/7/2008   Last Visited: 2/7/2008

   Guy Aldred

2. 2. www.anarchyisorder.org

   www.anarchyisorder.org/CD%234/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/1/1987   Last Visited: 1/18/2008

   MB: I knew that Guy (Aldred) had a group in little rooms in Clarenden St...
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   JTC: Guy Aldred came to Glasgow in 1912... The anarchist movement in London had three elements: one was Stepniak, one was Kropotkin, the other was Bakunin. Stepniak had shot a policeman in St.Petersburg and fled to London - he belonged to the old Russian Narodniks, who believed in propaganda by deed, in shooting officials and they believed that the State has a social contract with the people and when it fails to fulfil that contract, the common people are in a state of nature and can declare war. That was the beginning of the theory of propaganda by deed in Russia. The other stream was Kropotkin who believed that we are dominated by the State and he gave a historical analysis of the State and that we should get back to a pre-state condition of a society run by communes. But the third person was Bakunin who from a philosophical point of view came through Hegel and he believed that we had to destroy authority. Guy developed that point of view in the Freedom Press, but then felt that they were too theoretical, Sunday afternoon anarchists, so he and another founded a paper called the "Voice of Labour", to carry the fight into the factories. After 3 or 4 months Guy realised that it you do that it runs along trade-union and amelioration lines; what we need is education - so he formed the Communist Propaganda Groups - these were to educate, the other to agitate.
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   There was a careerist element and Guy fought against payment of members, and this took on the form of an anti-parliamentary faction. Guy was invited to speak in Glasgow in 1912 by a splendid organisation called the Clarion Scouts. It had all kinds of things to interest young people - camera clubs, bicycle clubs, etc. Youngsters used to get on their bikes and cycle through the villages and they had a secret sign when they passed each other (one said "hoops", the other said "spurs"). They formed their first organisation in Glasgow in 1898, I think, and would help any left-wing organisation - they helped the ILP, they helped the anarchists - they were not sectarian. They invited Guy Aldred to speak in the Pavilion Theatre in 1912. There were no microphones in those days and the theatre was filled, but he was such a success that he came back again and again, and in the end made Glasgow his native city and formed his own Communist Propaganda Group. He was running "The Spur" which had a good circulation and was well known in the movement. When the war came Guy went off to jail but his paper was carried on by Rose Witcop, his free-love companion.
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   Guy was quite in favour of the Russian revolution when it took place and spoke favourably of Lenin, even although he knew him to be a statist. He thought that, under the conditions in Russia, Lenin was doing all he could do, until he discovered that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were persecuting the anarchists in Russia and when the 2nd Congress of the Communist International took place and Lenin declared distinctly that anti-parliamentarians were not to be allowed in the Communist International. He denounced left-wingism in Britain; he said it was infantile, you must capture that organisation which has the attention of the working class, the Labour Party, so the Communist Party was founded in 1921 with a programe of capturing the Labour Party and trying to capture parliament. Opposing that, Guy reconstituted his Propaganda Groups but in time called it the ANTI-PARLIAMENTARIAN Propaganda Groups; he had a paper called The Spur. The new group wanted its own paper, and called it the Red Commune, which had a program of anti-parliamentism. Guy said , Let's take a leaf out of the book of the Sinn Feiners, who made use of the ballot box in 1918 by standing for every seat they could capture. Guy said "There's what to do, let the workers say, 'We are the disinherited'; let us use their ballot boxes and let us pledge ourselves not to go into parliament but stay in Scotland until there's enough of us to form a quorum.
   ...
   Guy at this time had changed his group to the United Socialist Movement, because when the Labour Party fell apart in 1931 and formed the National Government, Guy said "We don't have to be anti-parliamentary; history has proven it" and said to his anti-parliamentary comrades, who had their headquarters in Great Western Rd.in Bakunin House: "You're crushing socialism to reach anti-parliamentarism - let's try to get united and assume parliament is dead". The ILP and the left had left the Labour Party because of the National Government and (this is coming into my own area) Fenner Brockway said "Let us form a united movement and use parliament only as a sounding-board for the workers' demands". Guy said: "Let's forget past antagonisms and join with the ILP, the Trotskyists" (the American Left Opposition groups). So at this point, the Spanish Civil War, Guy had the USM; there was still a APCF under Willie MacDougall; but when the anarchists came on the scene again the anti-pantys (as they called them) and the anarchists joined to fight the Spanish Revolution. They adopted Emma Goldmann as a hero, and Guy was opposed to that, because Emma Goldmann was at that time promoting culture and literature in America and was doing this with various literati and had forgotten about her anarchism and was now coming back.
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   They called USM Guy's group,with this justification, that Guy was an outstanding person ... MB: Guy was the group ... JTC: ...
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   Jenny Patrick (Guy Aldred's companion) says Frank was so indestructible, you couldn't knock him down, but you could knock him out on his feet and he'd still be fighting!
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   Guy used to say there were 7, but two which seem to come to the fore now and again were anarchism and egotism, that is Max Stirner's "Ego and His Own" in which an anarchist was an individual and a multiplicity of anarchists were a concourse of individuals, and these individuals had to find some common denominator in running society, but these individuals were all persons in their own right.
   ...
   Q: Can we explore the situation in the 1940s with these three different movements: Guy Aldred's USM, the Anarchist Group, Willie MacDougall's group.
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   Guy Aldred had his own printing press, but it was the one time there was a really strong anarchist group in Glasgow - did you never think of doing your own paper?
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   CB: I can recognise that Raeside was a great speaker and can hold an audience for hours; I can recognise that Guy was a great speaker, but I never looked up to them, never treated them as personalities, though they had charisma or anything like that.

3. 3. Red Clydeside: Guy Aldred

   gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/21/2004   Last Visited: 9/9/2005

   Guy Aldred
   
   Guy Aldred was an anarchist and communist who believed that socialism was a fundamentally libertarian phenomenon. Although English by birth he moved to Glasgow in 1912 and established the Glasgow Anarchist Group. Politically, Aldred engaged in such diverse causes as that of Indian independence, the distribution of birth control literature, and anti-war and anti-conscription agitation during both world wars. At various points between 1910 and his death in 1963, Guy Aldred edited five Glasgow based anarchist periodicals.
   
   Image thumbnail Anarchist - Communist magazine entitled 'The Commune - An Organ of His Majesty's Communist Opposition' edited by Guy Aldred and published in May 1924.
   
   Cover of booklet entitled 'Jail Jottings' by Richard Carlile, edited and compiled by Guy Aldred, famous Glasgow anarchist.
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   Portrait photograph of Guy Aldred taken during his first visit to Glasgow in 1912. Although English by birth, Aldred settled in Glasgow and set up the anarchist-communist publishers The Bakunin Press.
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   Cover of booklet entitled 'Communism and religion' by Guy Aldred.