Thoughts on the passing of an influential Scottish activist and historian
Willie Thompson's death marks something of an end of an era. He was for many years a prominent member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in Scotland.
Glasgow was the key location for much of his contribution, but it did not constitute the total. Throughout his life Willie remained a Shetlander and retained connections with Shetland. From his young years, however, Willie was developing a world view. In 1958 along with the late Dougie Bain, later a leading Democratic Left Scotland member, Willie attended the University of Aberdeen. On graduation, along with other comrades, they headed for Glasgow and joined the Communist Party, Willie going onto teacher training and a period of time working in the city's schools.
Following a move to Wigan, Willie returned to Glasgow and took up a teaching post in 1971 at the newly-established Technical College. He continued there when the institution became Glasgow Caledonian University. Willie's commitment to being a scholar, teacher and writer were matched by his commitment to the Communist Party.
His political activity included involvement with the Young Communist League (YCL) and acting as the Party's Scottish student organiser. In 1972, together with the Party’s former Industrial Organiser and one-time communist councillor for Clydebank, Finlay Hart, he published what was to be the best introduction to the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-In ever produced in a short pamphlet.
Willie was also a prominent member of the Communist Party Historians’ Group and editor of Scottish Marxist. In the 1980s he joined the editorial committee of Marxism Today .This involvement with Marxism Today played no small part in moving a large number of Scottish Party loyalists towards an understanding of Eurocommunism. Willie over his lifetime had examined and developed his views of communist politics, recalling, in his latter years, how at the University of Aberdeen his Marxism had been fundamentalist and ‘somewhat narrow’ (in his own words). This was to broaden with experience, but it gave him a good understanding of the different standpoints still adopted by some comrades who hadn’t made a similar shift in outlook.
Although his primary role became that of an intellectual voice in the CP, Willie was always willing to put his hand to whatever was demanded of him – becoming for example the election agent for Douglas Chalmers in the Govan by-election of 1988. Perhaps in retrospect this was not the best ‘fit’ for Willie - with some of his academic aphorisms used in the ‘shout-ups’ from the campaign car not totally in tune with the ‘argot’ of the streets of Govan.
In 1991 the Communist Party (CPGB) disbanded. In 1992, ever the historian, Willie produced a timely history of the Party, The Good Old Cause: British Communism 1920-1991. The book concludes with the last days of the Communist Party and the establishment of Democratic Left.
In a constructive critique of Tom Nairn which Willie published in the Contemporary Record history journal in 1992, Willie talked of Tom in terms that surely also marked his own political trajectory and beliefs held till the end: “He remained convinced of the ultimate viability of the Marxist ‘grand narrative’ but not in any dogmatic sense; displaying in this the Gramscian precept of ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will’”.
After his retirement from Glasgow Caledonian University in 2001, Willie moved to Sunderland and continued with his writing. Important amongst this was his last book Work, Sex, Power: forces that shaped our history (Pluto 2015). Willie continued to promote socialist perspectives and became an active and hard-working member of the Green Party.
One of Willie's last contributions to the CPGB tradition was to return once again to Glasgow to speak at the funeral of John Kay, long-time Industrial Organiser in Scotland. Willie was honoured to have been asked.
With the death of Willie, and of John, and of others who made a lifelong contribution to socialism and peace, it feels like an era is coming to an end. But as Willie Thompson would have reminded us, history continues.
Published July 2023.