Jack Villiers Leckie (born 3 May 1887) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

communist activist.Jack Villiers Leckie in ''Connecticut, Federal Naturalization Records, 1790–1996''

Early life

Leckie was born in Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland, into an Irish family.Graham Stevenson,
Leckie Jack
, ''Compendium of Communist Biography'' He became interested in

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...

and

industrial unionism Industrial unionism is a trade union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of skill or trade, thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in ...

, and travelled to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, arriving in New York City on 14 October 1914, where he joined the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines genera ...

. He apparently became a U.S. citizen in Connecticut in 1916, and described himself as a machinist. He moved to Chicago shortly after. He returned to the UK in 1918. In 1920, '' The Socialist'' described him as "an ardent antiparliamentarian, who breathes dynamite, and talks red armies".

Political activism

Leckie returned to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and joined the Socialist Labour Party (SLP). The SLP was central to the Clyde Defence Committee, and Leckie was elected as the committee's secretary. With other leading figures from the committee, including John Maclean, in 1920, he founded the Communist Labour Party (CLP), and was elected as its chairman. This was intended to be a Scottish communist party, opposed to participation in Parliament and joint work with the Labour Party. According to Graham Stevenson, Leckie attended the

2nd World Congress of the Comintern The 2nd World Congress of the Communist International was a gathering of approximately 220 voting and non-voting representatives of Communist and revolutionary socialist political parties from around the world, held in Petrograd and Moscow from J ...

, although he does not appear in the official list of delegates. Either way, he was convinced of the need for communists in Great Britain to unite in a single communist party and to participate in elections, and also accepted that it would seek affiliation to the Labour Party. As a result, he championed the merger of the CLP into the new

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

(CPGB), which was completed at a unity conference early in 1921. Later in 1921, Leckie became interested in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the potential of creating a workers' army in Scotland. He brought over a captain from the IRA and began drilling volunteers in eastern Fife, although this project was abandoned when he was called away by the CPGB to organise workers in Coventry. There, he was centrally involved in supporting engineers during the lock-out, and became the leading figure in the Coventry Unemployed Workers' Movement, who planned to stand him in the 1922 general election. The CPGB initially backed his candidature, and Leckie campaigned in the city, but in August, the CPGB withdrew its support in the interests of unity with the Labour Party, and Leckie stood down. Leckie attended the

4th World Congress of the Comintern The 4th World Congress of the Communist International was an assembly of delegates to the Communist International held in Petrograd and Moscow, Soviet Russia, between November 5 and December 5, 1922. A total of 343 voting delegates from 58 countr ...

, serving as a member of the Presidium. The Congress deputised him to investigate conditions in the

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...

under the Franco-Belgian occupation, and then served as the CPGB's representative to the Comintern at its headquarters in Berlin. During his time there, he was given permission to attend the central committee of the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

. In 1925, Leckie was sent back to the UK to become the British secretary of Workers International Relief, a CPGB-led organisation, with a brief to move it from a focus on funding welfare to a more combative role. Leckie hoped to return to Germany, but the run-up to the UK general strike and the imprisonment of much of the party's leadership meant that he could not be spared. The CPGB hoped to run Leckie as a candidate in the

1928 Linlithgowshire by-election The 1928 Linlithgowshire by-election was held on 4 April 1928. The by-election was held due to the death of the incumbent Conservative MP, James Kidd. It was won by the Labour candidate Emanuel Shinwell Emanuel Shinwell, Baron Shinwell, (18 ...

, but eventually decided against it, due to a lack of funds. However, he did contest Dunfermline Burghs (UK Parliament constituency), Dunfermline Burghs at the 1929 United Kingdom general election, 1929 general election, where he took 6.5% of the vote and was not elected.Alan Campbell, ''The Scottish Miners, 1874–1939: Trade unions and politics'', p.392 He remained active in the CPGB for a few more years, making the news when he was arrested during a textile workers' dispute in West Yorkshire in 1930.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leckie, Jack 1887 births Year of death missing Communist Party of Great Britain members Industrial Workers of the World members Scottish anarchists Scottish people of Irish descent Socialist Labour Party (UK, 1903) members People from Maybole British emigrants to the United States