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4 unusual facts about Willie Gallacher


Charles Black Milne

This was normally Labour country, he did well to win it in narrowly in the National Government landslide of 1931, but lost it to Willie Gallacher of the Communist Party in 1935.

Willie Gallacher

Whilst revolution was the furthest thing from the minds of the trade union leaders of the day, Gallacher later claimed that they should have marched to the barracks in the Maryhill district of the city and encouraged the Scottish troops there to leave them and join the workers against the government.

Gallacher lost his West Fife seat to Labour at the 1950 General Election coming third behind the National Liberal candidate, but remained in politics and served as President of the CPGB from 1956 to 1963.

The Coalition government greatly overreacted to the strike, thinking that a Bolshevik insurrection was about to begin on Clydeside, and sent British Army troops and tanks onto the streets of Glasgow to control the situation.



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