BBC Scotland have just shown An Anarchist's Story, a drama documentary about Ethel MacDonald – the Bellshill Girl Anarchist – a member of Guy Aldred's United Socialist Movement who became the English-language radio voice of the CNT in Barcelona shortly before the notorious May days.
The programme featured nicely-produced dramatic vignettes interspersed with stock footage and comments by Noam Chomsky, Mike Gonzalez (Hispanic Studies professor at Glasgow University and one of the main Cliffites within the Scottish Socialist Party) and Willy Maley (English Literature Professor at Glasgow and author of the play From the Calton to Catalonia).
I'm not quite ready to offer an in-depth critique but I was disappointed that there was nothing "new" in the programme. However, I suppose it served a purpose as an introduction to the subject and might send a few people looking in the right direction.
I also felt that other than Chomsky's limited contribution, there was no attempt at an appreciation of anarchism and that, in places, I sensed the Scottish left trying to claim an anarchist as their own!
One clip – ostensibly from the marches of the 1930s – seemed to linger unduly long on a banner of the "Scottish Socialist Party" (then a nonentity). And then there was Gonzalez…even after all these years, I am still astonished at the mirror-like veneer of amiability these Cliffites can affect as they spit their poison.
My final gripe is that they didn't mention John T Caldwell – the fourth person shown in Aldred's office – who I believe just passed away late last year, aged 95. I think I noticed a credit at the bottom of the list of thanks…
I can't help but think that if they'd done it a few years earlier we might even have had Bookchin and Caldwell as actual contributors.
For anyone who didn't see it, there are some clips here: http://www.spanishcivilwarfilm.com/clips/index.html
I'll probably come back to this subject…