Part 015 - PAMPHLET 036 015

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1 JC ed od Jer 25 en ne T of Jar a- er a m- 1- 26 11. This line was based on much the same considerations which led Lenin and the Bolsheviks to realise that "the develop- ment of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in the vari- ous countries. It cannot be otherwise under the commodity production system. From this it flows irrefutably that soc- ialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all count- ries. It will achieve victory first in one or several coun- tries, while the others will remain bourgeois or pre-bourge-- ois for some time" (Lenin in "the War Programme of the Prol- etarian Revolution", 1916) - as opposed to Trotsky's nebul- ous and counter-revolutionary theory of so-called "permanent revolution" which claimed that "it would be hopeless to think...that...a revolutionary Russia could hold out in the face of a conservative Europe" (Trotsky "The Year 1917"). Thus MacLean stated in his Gorbals election address of 23 November 1923 just before his death, "Russia could not produce the World Revolution. Neither can we in the Gorbals, in Scotland, in Great Britain. Before England is ready I am sure the next war will be on us. I therefore consider that Scotland's wisest policy is to declare for a Republic in Scotland, so that the youths of Scotland will not be forced out to die for England's markets. I accordingly stand out as a Scottish Republican candidate, feeling sure that if Scotland had to elect a Parliament to sit in Glasgow it would vote for a working class parliament. Such a Parlia- ment would have to use the might of the workers to force the land and the means of production in Scotland out of the grasp of the brutal few who control them, and place them at the full disposal of the community. The Social Revolution is possible sooner in Scotland than in England...Scottish separation is part of the process of England's imperial dis- integration and is a help towards the ultimate triumph of the workers of the world". MacLean, like the Bolsheviks made tactical use of the bourgeois elections but, like the Irish revolutionary nat- ionalists, said that if elected to the Westminster parlia- ment he would not go there but would stay in Scotland to lead the workers in establishing their own independent gov- ernment. Lenin's advice at the time was to support Labour "as the rope supports a hanged man". Similarly MacLean said in his Kinning Park election address of 1921 - "The Revolu- tion can be helped by Labour voting itself into power". He was not a parliamentarian but favoured the soviet form of