During this period, the working class gave some support to the radical movement, loosely connected groups of reformers, led by the lower middle class, who took their inspiration from the French Revolution. One of these groups, the 'Friends of the People', campaigned for the extension of the right to vote, and such apparently innocuous activities earned one member, Thomas Muir, a sentence of 14 years' transportation to Australia.

Strike
In 1820, the radicals called for a national strike and an insurrection to ''show the world that we are determined to be free'. At least 60,000 workers downed tools for a week, and one group set off for the Carron Ironworks to seize arms. The government was, however, well prepared. It slammed radical leaders into prison and a heavy military presence kept control of the streets. The strike fizzled out and three leading radicals, all weavers, were later executed.

The Chartists
The 1832 Scottish Reform Act extended the franchise to include a large proportion of the middle class and thereafter political radicalism assumed a more distinctive working-class character, though its ideals still harked back to the American and French revolutions. In the 1840s, the Chartists led the campaign for working-class political rights by sending massive petitions to Parliament and organizing huge demonstrations. When Parliament rejected the petitions, the more determined Chartists - the 'physical-force men' - urged insurrection. This call to arms was not taken up by the Scottish working class, however, and support for the Chartists fell away. The insurrectionary phase of Scottish labour was over.

Socialism
During the next 30 years, as Scotland's economy prospered, skilled workers organized themselves into craft unions, such as the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, dedicated to negotiating improvements for their members within the status quo. Politically, the trade unions gave their allegiance to the Liberal Party, but the first major crack in the Liberal- union alliance came in 1888, when Keir Hardie left the Liberals to form the Scottish Socialist Party, which was later merged with the Independent Labour Party, founded in Bradford in 1893. Scottish socialism as represented by the ILP was ethical rather than Marxist in orientation, owing a great deal to the Kirk background of many of its members. But electoral progress was slow, partly because the Roman Catholic priesthood consistently preached against socialism.

Revolution?
In the early years of the 20th century, two small Marxist groups established themselves on Clydeside: the Socialist Labour Party, which concentrated on workplace militancy, and the party-political British Socialist Party, whose most famous member was the Marxist lecturer John MacLean. During World War I, the local organizers of the SLP gained considerable influence by playing on the fears of the skilled workers, who felt their status was being undermined by the employment of unskilled workers. After the war, the influence of the shop stewards culminated in a massive campaign for the forty-hour working week. The strikes and demonstrations of the campaign, including one of 100,000 people in St George's Square in Glasgow, panicked the government into sending in the troops. But this was no Bolshevik Revolution; as Manny Shinwell, the seamen's leader and future Labour Party politician, observed: "[The troops] had nothing much to do but chat to the local people and drink their cups of tea". The rank-and-file may have had little interest in revolution, but many of the activists did go on to become leaders within the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain.

Westminster
The ILP, by then an affiliated part of the socialist Labour Party, made its electoral breakthrough in 1922, when it sent 29 Scottish MPs to Westminster. They set out with high hopes of social progress and reform, aspirations that were dashed, like trade union militancy, by the 1930s Depression. At the 1945 general election, Labour won forty seats in Scotland and, in more recent times, the party has dominated Scottish politics with its gradual eclipse of the Scottish Conservatives. In 1955 the Conservatives held 36 Scottish seats; by 1995 they had just ten, and by 1997 none at all.

Self-government
The ILP MPs of the 1920s combined their socialism with a brand of Scottish nationalism. In 1924, for instance, the MP James Maxton had declared his intentions to 'make English-ridden, capitalist-ridden Scotland into the Scottish socialist Commonwealth'. The Labour Party maintained an official policy of self-government for Scotland, endorsing home rule in 1945 and 1947, but these endorsements were made with less and less enthusiasm. In 1958, Labour abandoned the commitment altogether and adopted a unionist vision of Scotland, much to the chagrin of many Scottish activists.

Nationalism
In 1971, Upper Clyde Shipbuilders stood on the brink of closure, its demise symbolizing the failure of traditional Labour politicians to revive Scotland's industrial base, which had resumed its decline after the end of World War II. In the event, UCS was partly saved by the work-in organized by two Communist shop stewards, Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie. After 14 months, the work-in finally succeeded in winning government support to keep part of the shipyard open, and Scots saw the broadly based campaign waged on its behalf as a national issue - Scottish industries set against an indifferent London government. Many socialist Scots, like James Jack, General Secretary of the Scottish TUC, moved towards some form of nationalism. Twenty-one years later, the closure of the steelworks at Ravenscraig in Motherwell revived many of the same emotions.