The Workers Party of Scotland or Workers Party of Scotland (Marxist-Leninist) was a small

anti-revisionist Anti-revisionism is a position within Marxism–Leninism which emerged in the 1950s in opposition to the reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Where Khrushchev pursued an interpretation that differed from his predecessor Joseph Stalin, ...

Marxist-Leninist political party formed in 1966 and based in

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 ...

History

The Workers Party of Scotland (

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishme ...

) was formed in October 1966, by seven members of the Scottish branch of the

Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity was a small British Marxist-Leninist group that left the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1963. CDRCU was led by Michael McCreery, the son of General Sir Richard McCreery. CDRCU was sympathet ...

, including party chairman Tom Murray, a veteran of the

International Brigades The International Brigades ( es, Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed f ...

. The party campaigned for

Scottish independence Scottish independence ( gd, Neo-eisimeileachd na h-Alba; sco, Scots unthirldom) is the idea of Scotland as a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom, and refers to the political movement that is campaigning to bring it about. S ...

and took part in elections, including the 1969

Gorbals The Gorbals is an area in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, on the south bank of the River Clyde. By the late 19th century, it had become densely populated; rural migrants and immigrants were attracted by the new industries and employment opportun ...

by-election, when they came last behind the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

. They published a long-term journal ''Scottish Vanguard'' and others including ''Red Clydesider'' and ''Dundee and Tayside Vanguard''. Membership of the party declined in the course of the late 70s and the group became moribund with the death of Tom Murray in 1983. In 1972, founder and Gorbals electoral candidate

Matt Lygate Matthew (Matt) Lygate (26 December 1938 – 10 January 2012) was a Scottish Marxist revolutionary, political activist, tailor, poet, artist and founder of the Workers Party of Scotland. Convicted of bank robbery in 1972, he served the longest eve ...

and fellow WPS(ML) member Colin Lawson were convicted (along with two non-members) for armed robbery of the

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) and Ulster Bank ...

, having been arrested the previous year following a tip off. The WPS (ML) released a statement that Lygate's group acted without authorisation although their purported aim had been to raise money for party funds. Lygate received the longest prison sentence in Scottish legal history for a non-violent crime, receiving 24 years and serving 11. They were originally to be prosecuted for treason, the first case since John Maclean, but the charges were later dropped to bank robbery. After Lygate's release from prison, he appeared in Glasgow to announce the relaunch of the party as the Workers Party of Scotland, stating that there were now 30 to 40 members. They produced leaflets against the

poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments fr ...

References

*Peter Barberis, John McHugh and Mike Tyldesley, ''Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organisations'', A&C Black, 2000 *Peter Shipley, ''Revolutionaries in Modern Britain'', Bodley Head, 1976

External links

YouTube video where George Galloway speaks about the party

Defunct political parties in Scotland Workers Party of Scotland Political parties established in 1967 Defunct communist parties in the United Kingdom {{Scotland-party-stub