Robert ‘Bobby’ Lynn, Glasgow anarchist and community activist.

Robert ‘Bobby’ Lynn, Glasgow anarchist and community activist.

"Born in the Calton, in the heart of Glasgow, in 1924 Robert Lynn (about whom Matt McGinn wrote one of his wonderful songs — 'Bobby Lynn's Shebeen' — in Ross Street) was educated at St. Mungo's Academy. Leaving school at 14 years of age he took up a shipyard engineering apprenticeship in Yarrows and became actively involved in the class struggle to improve wages and conditions there - a battle that had to be fought and refought in ensuing years. During the war years he was swept up in the maelstrom of political activity in the British shipyard and engineering industries. In 1943 the Tyneside strike — which saw Jock Haston and Roy Tearso imprisoned — quickly spread to the Clyde where many shipyards, including Yarrows where 'Bobby' worked, were brought to a halt.

During WWII, the influential shop stewards' committees were dominated by the Communist Party, but their policy of subordinating workers' interests to those of the Soviet Union drew a withering fire from anarchists, Trotskyists and other anti-Stalinist socialists alike, an experience that had a profound effect on Robert, and it was then he began to nurture Bakuninist ideas and the industrial strategy of syndicalism.

In post-war Glasgow Robert's influence in shipbuilding became increasingly irritating to both employers and CP-led union officials, and he was "blacklisted" with the complicity of both. Unable to work he joined the Merchant Navy as an engineering officer and spent some years seeing the world and its peoples, devouring libraries and absorbing the ideas of syndicalism and Stirnerism (Max Stirner's Conscious Egoist).

Returning to Glasgow in the early fifties he threw himself into politics, marriage and trade union activity and was an active member of the Glasgow Anarchist Group, which at the time consisted of Frank Leach, Jimmy Raeside and Eddie Shaw, well-respected names in local and international anarchist circles. As George Woodcock said: The Glasgow Anarchist Group is the only group in the world where the egocentric philosophies of Max Stirner took root and were given popular expression. The anarchists held an open workers forum in Renfrew Street, Glasgow where anarchists, CPGB, nationalists and Trotskyists debated - sometimes physically. In an open air arena ordinary working class men and women discussed, passionately, the ideas of Feurbuch, Clara Zetkin, Bakunin, Kropotkin and many, many others. Robert Lynn revelled in this, what he called the University of Life.

In the late fifties, with the death of Raeside and the departure abroad of of Leach and Shaw, the Glasgow Anarchist Group disintegrated and the task of reorganisation was left to Robert. This he did by immersing himself in his local community of the Calton. He and Jean, his constant companion, became well-known, well-respected and to many — myself included — well-loved characters.

Robert returned to industry and worked at Howden's engineering plant in Glasgow's South Side where he promoted his ideas of syndicalism and libertarianism. Sadly, thanks to trade union officials who immediately recognised the threat to their power, Robert's views did not meet with any great success. However it was the Glasgow Anarchist Group of the sixties and early seventies which proved the most fruitful for Robert's ideas; a massive blossoming of literature and direct action exploded on the scene. The publication of pamphlets such as Practical Anarchy and Why Vote?, all bearing Robert's signature, appeared and were avidly read by many people who, being disillusioned with political parties of all shades, were becoming increasingly attracted to the ideas of anarchism. Robert initiated a great number of events, especially the Glasgow Anarchist Summer School which attracted libertarian socialists from all over Britain.

His death (on August 16 1996) was a shock to his family (Jean and daughters Jean, Joan and Betty), his many friends and comrades, and even to his political opponents. He was generous to a fault and although he did not suffer fools gladly he rarely had a bad word to say about anyone, even the worst of us. Loved deeply, missed sadly. "

Stuart Christie, July 2011

Stuart Christie