John Couzin [1934-2025]

Anarchist, activist, writer and family guy, John Couzin, died at home in Glasgow, Scotland in his partner’s arms,  aged almost 91. 

Active in Glasgow, and deeply interested in Social History, John was angry that many struggles and individuals are excluded from mainstream history. He understood that the lack of preservation of Anarchist history played to the power of the State and was easily exploited by other political parties,  because it was also the denial of our existence.  

John started to gather names and events, produced the online Strugglepedia wiki and researched Clydeside Anarchists in his book Radical Glasgow which led to the setting up of the Radical Glasgow History Project. Eventually he was the main driver behind the co founded Spirit of Revolt Archives of Dissent and uploaded almost all of it online. For 20 years he ran a blog (including radical map and local events list) under the pseudonym AnnArky f reaching around 2 million hits. The blog lent itself to a free, street-paper format, thus the birth of the Anarchist Critic. He founded Voline Press under which he self published his 5 poetry books. 

John also played chess daily to a very high level and tried to start a club only last year but ill health slowed him down, as it did over the years from time to time. In the family he was known as Jack but always John by his comrades.  He was born in 1934 before WW2, in the notorious Garngad slums of Glasgow. It was so bad the City Council demolished it and renamed the area. The family moved to Balornock. His father William was a coal miner and mother Lizzie mostly a factory worker. He had two older sisters, Sadie and Margaret, and a younger sister, Betty. It was a deeply loving and supportive family. 

John was tall, a quiet boy, and a talented pianist and keen chess player from the age of 11. During the 1939-45 war he was evacuated out of Glasgow with his sisters to a farm, and there treated like a son. He always remembered the joy he witnessed in one old horse, kicking and frolicking as it was let out to the grazing field on its last day of toil. He refused the chance to go to university which the Miners’ Union had offered to sponsor. Instead he took a study course on engineering, followed by an apprenticeship at the Fairfield’s Shipyard. 

He enjoyed his time, discovered Anarchist ideas and was vocal and active there, taking part in the Apprentices strike 1952. He was exposed to asbestos like so many shipyard workers, later developing pleural plaques himself, saw his best friend  die of Mesothelioma. He also witnessed the drowning of his pal Archie, an apprentice riveter who fell from ship scaffolding. This was an event which deeply disturbed him throughout his life. He saw first hand Government contracts and the waste of public money swishing around the Defence Industry, used to build ships that were decommissioned soon after their launch. His activism around the shipyards ended with him being refused an employment contract. He found a job at Vickers. He soon realised that the different pay structure on piecework was responsible for the backstabbing race among the work force to finish first for bonuses, and that only came at the expence of health and safety. 

John left engineering and got a job selling round the doors in the poorest areas. He sold furniture, televisions and insurance, returning weekly to pick up the payments. He saw the worst things, overcrowded ‘sardine’ flats; cold and hungry children, unwashed, with nothiong; families burning floorboards to heat and cook, babies sleeping on bundles of coats for a bed. These things haunted his mind. Eventually he left and moved into shop retail . By then he had met Ann and they had two children, Brian and Corinne, to support. He succeeded in retail, worked his way up to manager, breaking records for profits which earned the bonus payments necessary to keep the family going. He had charge of an independent record shop, grew roses, bought a wee boat for the kids to enjoy. He also wrote classical music concert reviews for his local pape, in Pollokshields. 

In his 50’s John joined Amnesty International which he regarded as a useful way to raise awareness and denounce injustice. He became the Urgent Action Coordinator for Scotland, reading daily bulletins of torture victims and trying to promote and report on the information in the Scottish Press, which helped establish support campaigns. After three years he found it too painful to read these daily bulletins and he moved on to SACRO. He did voluntary work there for ten years, drivcing prisoners’ families on visits across Scotland. 

John retired from sales aged 59. He increased his time in the gym as well as his other great interest which was long distance road cycling. He did regular 90 mile trips, with overnight stay and returning home the next day. The activism didn’t stop. By the time he was into his 70s he had established the AnnArky blog, and completed the book Radical Glasgow, selling it at book fairs. He produced the Anarchist Critic street-paper which ran for 20 years from 2002-22, exposing the flaws and contradictions of the capitalist system; highlighting multinational corporations, empires, clubs, states and borders; the IMF, European Central Bank, the World Bank and Davos Economic Forum. 

The Anarchist Critic was anti-war, anti-authoritarian, anti–imperialist protest literature but it was not pacifist. John believed self-defence is an immutable right. He was a very well known face in Glasgow giving out his paper. His Depleted Uranium feature was published in the Freedom issue of 11 March 2006. By now his family was extended by Stathis, his new son-in-law and grandchildren Stavros and Stefania. In 2005 he met Stasia a fellow activist and soulmate, and they fell in together as a deeply loving couple for 20 years. In 2011 he and his friends and comrades co-founded the Spirit of Revolt Archives of Dissent, both online and publicly accessible at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. 

John has been to the fore in establishing the return of May Day to Glasgow Green, the gathering place, execution site and historical location for voicing political agitation and Free Speech for hundreds of years. In recent times the authorities have repurposed the ‘Green as a private event space. Its historic visibility has been attacked, and the annual May Day march and celebrations rerouted away, running the People’s Palace Museum into closure, diminishing and denying the richness, and impact of working class struggle. 

In January John’s son Brian died suddenly, a tragedy which shook the whole family. Given John’s own health issues he hadn’t an ounce of strength left in him to bear the deep loss, and it broke his heart. 

Throughout his life John was an avid reader and a poet in his own right. He produced five powerful books of poems now being translated into French. He was a kind and a generous person, with endless energy in his commitment to spreading Anarchist ideas. Although he embraced online organisation and activism, his personal commitment was to street stalls and public paper distribution, and that never waned. 

We are all grieving for John now. His work for the Anarchist vision in Scotland has help greatly in raising our profile, and legitimising our existence and this paves the way for future generations which was John’s own wish, something to build upon. Educate, agitate and organise! That was John. His big-hearted love for everyone has left a deep impression upon us all and the memory of John Couzin’s own spirit of revolt will forever remain a source of inspiration in our lives. 

“Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize! “

Stasia Rice, 17/03/25 

John Couzin, 22/03/34 – 11/03/25

Links

Radical Glasgow: http://radicalglasgow.me.uk/  
Spirit of Revolt Archives of dissent https://spiritofrevolt.info/Strugglepedia http://strugglepedia.co.uk/