Harry McShane

Who was Harry McShane?

Harry McShane was a Scottish socialist, and a close colleague of John Maclean. Born into a Roman Catholic family, he became a Marxist. Involved in the anti-war movement during the First World War, after the conflict ended he was part of the Tramp Trust Unlimited, formed by Maclean to propagandise and campaign for a minimum wage and a six hour day, amongst other socialist policies.

He was a member of the British Socialist Party, like Maclean, but chose to join the Communist Party of Great Britain when it was formed in 1920 rather than follow Maclean into the Scottish Workers Republican Party. McShane stated of the SRWP, that they "had some queer people that I didn’t like – they had never been to John’s economics classes, they knew nothing about socialism or revolutionary work. Even if I had not joined the Communist Party I could never have joined with that crowd".

A firm supporter of the Soviet Union, McShane visited Russia in 1932. He was shocked by some of the things he saw there, particularly the working conditions in a coal mine in the Donbas region, which he described as being like something from the previous century.