Arthur MacManus

Arthur MacManus

Arthur MacManus (1889–1927) was a Scottish trade unionist and communist politician.

Quotes

• They may crush us, but they will never crush our principles; rather will they by crushing us intensify the determination of those who come after us to follow on in our steps, undaunted and courageous until the dawn of the great day when “All shall be better than well.”
  • What Conscription Really Means, The Worker, (1916)

• The hour is rapidly arriving when every man and woman of our class will have to make a great decision. We shall have to choose whether capitalism with all its attendant miseries and horrors is to remain enthroned here in Britain, or whether we intend to be free indeed. We shall have to choose whether we really believe in the application of the right of self-determination for all nations, or whether, for generations yet to come, we prefer to remain the tools of Imperialism, and the slaves of profit.
  • Fourteen Points, Halifax Division of the Socialist Labour Party, (1918)

• The tragedy of the War is now to be followed by the greater tragedy of peace. The ostensible plea for the War as a struggle for the freedom of small nations now becomes clear as a War of Imperialism. The War for the so-called democratisation of Germany has now turned into a War for the crushing of the rising working class of Europe.
  • Fourteen Points, Halifax Division of the Socialist Labour Party, (1918)

• Written right across every page of human history is the declaration that no people can be free so long as the private ownership of the means of production and distribution endures.
  • The League of Peoples, National Labour Press, (1918)

• Our comrades in Russia are stretching out their arms, beseeching assistance, and this way lies real assistance. They are standing upright in the full dignity and strength of their newly-won freedom, imploring us to rise from our knees and stand erect, side by side with them and shoulder to shoulder—forming the only League of Nations capable of preventing war and ensuring peace: the League of International Working-Class Solidarity, bound and knit together by the bond of comradeship, and not commercial and profit-seeking interest.
  • A Call, The Socialist, (November 1918)

• The working-class, generally, is slowly beginning to realise, the true value of solidarity and are gradually becoming aware of the fact that their interests, whether they be railwaymen, dockers, engineers, or miners, are indissolubly wrapped up with one another, and that they stand or fall as a class.
  • Miners! Down Tools!, Communist Party of Great Britain, (October 14, 1920)

• Capitalism may hold the working class subjection by the strength of its might and power, but capitalism will never do it with the willing consent and acquiescence of that working class. Always and under all circumstance, will there be found fresh voices, growing not only in volume, but in numbers, raised to protest against this enslavement, and the rigour of the oppression will determine always the vigour of the protest.
  • The Vendetta, Communist Party of Great Britain, (March 21, 1921)

Quotes about MacManus

• He attended the Anti-Imperialist Conference at Brussels, having come straight from mass agitation at the docks in various ports. Within a few days after the Brussels Conference comes the news of his death. He thus died in harness, a good comrade, an energetic fighter—living, working and fighting under the banner of the Communist International. He will not be forgotten, nor will his work cease, for it was a part of the struggle of the working class for freedom.
  • Arthur MacManus by J.T.Murphy, (March 30, 1927)
    • excerpt from MacManus' obituary