William Gallacher

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William Gallacher

William (Willie) Gallacher (born December 25, 1881 in Paisley , † August 12, 1965 in Paisley) was a Scottish union official and communist . From 1935 to 1950 he was a member of the British Communist Party (CPGB) in the House of Commons .

origin

Gallacher was the son of an Irish father and a mother from the Scottish Highlands. After finishing school he worked as a fitter.

Union activities

In the years leading up to the outbreak of World War I, he rose in the Scottish trade union movement and soon became one of the leading figures in the west of the country. Gallagher became president of the Clyde Workers' Committee, a labor movement of industrial workers in the greater Glasgow area that opposed the Munitions of War Act 1915 , a law that required strict control over workers. After the end of the war, Gallacher advocated a 40-hour week . This demand was supported by both the Clyde Workers' Committee and the Glasgow Trades Council and was underlined by a strike that began in January 1919 . The British government feared a communist uprising and sent troops and tanks to Glasgow to crack down on the strikers. Gallacher was imprisoned again, this time for five months.

Party political activities

Before founding the Communist Party of Great Britain, Gallacher was a member of the Independent Labor Party , later the British Socialist Party . Gallacher played a key role in the founding of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920. In the years 1956–1963 he was chairman of the CPGB.

Parliamentary activities

Several times ( 1922 , 1923 , 1929 , 1931 ) Gallacher tried in vain to win a constituency in the general election. In 1935 he finally succeeded in this in the Scottish constituency of West Fife with 37.4% of the votes cast. He was able to defend this seat in the 1945 elections with 42.1% of the votes cast. In the 1950 elections, however, he was clearly defeated with only 21.6% compared to 54.8% of the votes cast by the challenger of the Labor Party .

Attitudes to individual issues

At first he opposed the tactics of close relations between the CPGB and the Labor Party proposed by the Comintern , but changed his mind after meeting Lenin in person . In 1936 he was one of the representatives of the British left who campaigned for the support of the Spanish Republic against Franco by the United Kingdom.

persecution

In his capacity as President of the Clyde Workers' Committee, Gallacher opposed British involvement in World War I and was jailed for six months in 1916 for an anti-war article he wrote in The Worker , the committee's magazine. On August 4, 1925, Gallacher and 11 other leading members of the CPGB were arrested for an alleged violation of the Munity Act of 1797 (mutiny) and sentenced to 12 months in prison.

Works

Gallacher wrote The Case for Communism in 1949 and his autobiography The Chosen Few in 1940 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gallacher's biography on the website spartacus-educational.com [1]
  2. ↑ Gallacher's biography on the website spartacus-educational.com [2]
  3. ↑ Election results of the constituency in the English language Wikipedia West Fife (UK Parliament constituency)
  4. ↑ Gallacher's biography on the website spartacus-educational.com [3]

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personal data
SURNAME Gallacher, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gallacher, William; Gallacher, Willie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician, member of the House of Commons and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Paisley
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1965
Place of death Paisley