THE DAY THE TANKS ROLLED INTO GLASGOW
Winston Churchill feared the Red Clydesiders would start a revolution in George Square
SURROUNDED by fistpumping communists, an undercover British bobby does his best not to look conspicuous as he takes a shorthand note of the alarming oratory coming from the stage.
The speaker is Scotsman David Ramsay, who has just told his audience that he is proud to call himself a Bolshevik.
He continues: ‘We Bolsheviks are prepared to throw our whole energies and risk everything to bring about revolution in this country at the earliest possible moment. We want you to go back to the workshops and create a spirit of ferment and discontent amongst the workpeople.’
Urging his audience not to be ‘too squeamish’ in its dismissal of the ‘master class’, he concludes: ‘In order to bring about the downfall of capitalism I am prepared to use every means, from the bomb to the ballot box.’
Five days l ater, six army tanks appeared on the streets of Glasgow to disperse a riotous mob which the coalition government believed was hellbent on staging a Bolshevik insurrection.
The year was 1919; the Russians had just had their revolution, resulting in the birth of communism and the removal of the country’s royal household. Was the same now about to happen in Britain?
This week, almost a century after they were first created, the MI5 files on the key players agitating for revolution in the UK have been made available online for the first time. They show many of the prime movers were Scotsmen – communist sympathisers whose radicalism took root on ‘Red Clydeside’, where the labour movements were among the most militant in the country.
But they were more than just hard Left sympathisers. Many were spies, acting on behalf of the newly-formed Soviet republic.
The detailed files shed light on the fascinating cast of radicals and revolutionaries which tested an intelligence agency in its infancy. They also reveal the distinctly low-tech methods used to gather vital information in this pre-Bond era when gizmos from Q were thin on the ground.
It was the founding father of the service, Colonel Sir Vernon Kell – known as K – who was head of MI5 when dossiers were first compiled on figures such as David Ramsay, James Messer and William Gallacher, one of the most notorious radicals of his day, who went on to become a communist MP.
Many of the dossiers remained live for decades – into the 1940s and 1950s – until the target of surveillance either died or took against the Communist Party.
MI5 was not only concerned the men were trying to spark a revolution. It also strongly suspected them of being involved in espionage – either military, economic or industrial.
The security service discovered some of them were working for a shadowy figure called Jacob Kirchenstein, alias Johnny Walker, an official of the Arcos Steamship Company and a member of the Russian Trade Delegation in London. He was also the leader of a political network in Britain, gathering intelligence for Russia.
According to one MI5 report in the files on Glasgow man James Messer, Kirchenstein was ‘one of the most important political agents of the Soviet Government’.
The report continues: ‘A few months ago, information was obtained that he [Kirchenstein] was interested in the activities of one JM Messer, formerly a member of the Shop Stewards movement and now closely connected with the Communist Party of Great Britain. Messer was to come to London from Glasgow to organise a branch of the Party engaged in specially secret work, “the nature of which could not be communicated in writing”.
‘Since his arrival in London, there is evidence that he has met Kirchenstein, who is evidently very interested in his activities.’
Messer was ostensibly a transport engineer for a firm called Russian Oil
Products. But his MI5 file describes him as a ‘notorious and dangerous revolutionary’. It adds: ‘During the last three years Messer has been under observation as a member of the Soviet espionage system here.’
THE file states that ‘certain trusted’ members of the Communist Party or the Old Shop Stewards would feed their findings to a ‘central authority’ who, would pass the information to the Soviet contact. Messer was this central authority – and Kirchenstein his contact. Little wonder that MI5 was soon in touch with the Postmaster General with an order to intercept Messer’s mail.
It was Winston Churchill who had introduced a system of Home Office Warrants (HOWs) which authorised the interception of all the correspondence of suspects.
One report in Messer’s file suggests HOWs were MI5’s only way of watching Messer and Kirchenstein. An agent wrote: ‘I am particularly anxious that neither Kirchenstein and his associates nor Messer’s group should be disturbed in any way. Otherwise the work of months and even years may be rendered useless.’
But, in an age before listening devices, telephone taps and hidden cameras, the MI5 surveillance operation was hardly exhaustive.
Nor can the dearth of gadgetry have made life easy for PC Arthur Davies, the policeman tasked with infiltrating the communist meeting in Croydon, South London, where David Ramsay was speaking. In a note to his superiors, the officer explains why his report is lacking a shorthand note of what a later speaker had to say: ‘By this time the hall was almost empty, and I considered it unadvisable to take a shorthand note of his speech.’
Nevertheless, the War Office – at the ti me headed by Winston Churchill – was most interested in what the police constable was able to report of Ramsay’s rabble-rousing speech. As a result, it sent word that it would be ‘highly desirable’ for him to be prosecuted.
Ramsay was arrested and jailed for six months. Later he was given the role of Scottish Organiser of the Communist Party. He remained under constant and extensive surveillance by the secret intelligence agencies at least until 1945. It is doubtful whether anything Ramsay said in Croydon that night prompted the riots in Glasgow several days later – but his speech could well have informed Churchill’s decision to send in the tanks.
Almost a century l ater, the episode remains the only time a British government has deployed tanks to quell civil unrest – and, at the ti me, i t was seen as an over-reaction.
However, the MI5 files reveal the country may have been closer to a Bolshevik uprising than many thought. Revolution was in the air and the security services knew it.
The riot came on January 31, 1919, at a rally organised by the Clyde Workers Committee (CWC) and the Glasgow Trades Council, whose members were striking in support of the demand for a 40-hour week. In a heartbeat, the protest turned violent and destructive.
In all, 10,000 troops, many armed with machine guns, occupied the streets while a 4.5 inch Howitzer field gun was positioned at the City Chambers in George Square. The cattle market in the Gallowgate was turned into a tank depot.
The situation was considered so delicate that Churchill confined the local regiment to its barracks in Maryhill, fearing the Glasgow troops would sympathise with the strikers.
CENTRAL to the action in what became known as The Battle of George Square was life-long communist Willie Gallacher, whose MI5 file positively bulges. As one of the leading figures on the CWC journal The Worker, Gallacher had already done time after being prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act for an article criticising the war.
Now he was about to do another five months behind bars. MI5 paid close attention when he was tried along with future Defence Minister Manny Shinwell and ten others for inciting a riot.
According t o one r eport in Gallacher’s file, the mob consisted of ‘20,000 evil- disposed persons’ which ‘did assemble in George Square and acting of common impulse, did conduct itself in a violent, riotous and tumultuous manner, forcibly stop tram cars and smash windows of tram cars and shops and commit assault, the assaulted persons including the sheriff of Lanarkshire and officers of the Glasgow police force.’
From then on, Gallacher was a marked man. For years his mail was seen by MI5 and, even after he became an MP in 1935, a close watch was kept on his movements.
Appearances across the country were watched by the police and a report of what was said would land on Kell’s desk. Intelligence kept tabs on his overseas travel – particularly the several trips he made to Moscow.
But, while t hey knew t hat Gallacher was in touch with both James Messer and David Ramsay and that he had links with Russian Oil Products, hard evidence that he was a spy proved elusive.
Gallacher and his cohorts never achieved their dream of a communist republic.
But, in the 1919 riot that nearly became a revolution, they came close enough to ensure the lifelong interest of M15. Only now, with the publication of those yellowing papers, does it become clear how and why Big Brother was breathing down their necks.