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It's been 100 years since thousands of striking workers rallied in George Square in protest for a 40-hour work week.

January 31, 1919 has gone down in Glasgow's labour history as Bloody Friday – a day which ended in the worst scenes of civic violence the country has ever seen.

Led by union leaders, up to 60,000 gathered in the heart of the city to hear the council's response to their demands to cut their contracted hours – an allow demobilised troops to come home and find jobs.

Through the war, shipyards employed thousands who worked 57-hour weeks, yet were living in poverty, so they soon became a breeding ground for radical politics and discontent.

With the growth of the Labour movement, workers in the nation's heavy industries had been demanding better pay and conditions, using their collective bargaining power.

How a peaceful demonstration descended into such chaos is disputed. Some reports state police took issue with a striker raising a red flag. But it's more widely believed to be the result of a run-in between a striking worker and a soldier on a tram which had halted by the Square – either spilling onto the road or engulfed in the mayhem which followed. Baton-wielding police charged the waiting crowds and strikers furiously fought back - with scores left battered and bloodied on the ground.

Union leaders Willie Gallacher and David Kirkwood were also seen being physically attacked by officers. They were later arrested and charged with incitement to riot.

As trouble raged around him, the Sheriff began to read the Riot Act – a rarely used declaration which would require people to move from the area or face arrest. Needless to say, his words fell on deaf ears.

At least fifty-three were injured that day. Police and workers nursed their wounds alongside each other in the corridors of the City Chambers as ambulances pulled into the rear of the building to avoid the violence spreading through adjacent streets.

Clashes between retreating police and protesters were reported to have spread as far back as Glasgow Green. Many workers – some of whom had recently returned home from the trenches – also fought using their fists, hand rails and hurled bottles at police from a lorry filled with aerated water, which was also being used as a barricade.

James Phillips, Senior Lecturer in Social History at Glasgow University, told Glasgow Live: "With Scotland coming out of World War One, it was a very different society from now. Tens of thousands of men who had served in the army, been exposed to physical conflict.

"Pushing, shoving and kicking was not considered to be violent when measured against the organised killing on the Western Front. There was a bit of physical force and intimidation, but they hadn't set off to attack buildings and police.

"They were occupying George Square in a symbolic way this is the big civic political centre of the city, saying 'We have a right to be here to express our demands.' It was the police and legal authorities that tried to push the strikers out the square. There was violence, but it wasn't instigated by the protesters."

As the battles waged below, strike leaders were brought by police onto the Chambers' balcony to quell the disorder and ask their men to move away from the city centre. Flanked by hundreds of ex-serviceman and led by a piper, workers lined up in orderly fashion and walked to the Green for a meeting, though the men eventually trailed off home, exhausted by the fighting.

Disorder continued through that night. Five arrests were made after men seized the opportunity to loot shops on Gordon Street. Trams were vandalised. In a run-in with strikers at Saltmarket, two police officers were stripped of their uniforms and let loose semi-naked. Eventually, the riots ceased and an eerie calm descended on the city.

But it wasn't over yet. At the request of the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, tanks and 10,000 armed troops were deployed the next day from four Scottish regiments and two English regiments as the government feared a workers' revolution. Soldiers were confined at Maryhill barracks, for fear of them siding with their fellow countrymen.

Phillips said: "The authorities were certainly troubled by what they perceived as a potential Communist uprising.

"People were asking questions about the democracy – who's here making decisions, what kind of society is that? How should our resources be organised and divided?

"Should the world be about sharing and cooperating? They were challenging the rights of the elite to hold the sources – to prevent people from taking part in decisions about their daily lives.

"On one hand there was this big heavy exciting political atmosphere, but on the other hand, they were fairly basic demands for changes in working hours."

The City Chambers were turned into a fortress – looming over the ruined gardens, broken fences and smashed glass now strewn across George Square. Barbed wire was rolled out and armed soldiers stormed the streets, guarding power stations and other infrastructure sites from damage. Machine guns were placed on the roof of the Post Office. Dozens of lorries were dispatched following the call, with tanks stationed at the cattle market in Bellgrove Street.

The strike began to fragment the following month as a reduced 47-hour week had been negotiated. Men streamed back into work, vindicated, knowing they had given their all for the cause. Soldiers and tanks were withdrawn from Glasgow and the City Chambers became a municipal building again.

But, while many felt they had won over the establishment, many of the strike leaders viewed the new contracts as a short-term victory which failed to seriously challenge the role of the employers.

Willie Gallacher summed it all up afterwards: "We had forgotten we were revolutionary leaders of the working class. Revolt was seething everywhere, especially in the army. We had within our hands the possibility of giving actual expression and leadership to it, but it never entered our heads to do so. We were carrying on a strike when we ought to have been making a revolution."

Check out Glasgow 1919: The Rise of Red Clydeside from Biteback Publishing or buy When the Clyde Ran Red: A Social History of Red Clydeside on Wordery.