John Couzin – Seeker of Peace, Poet and Propagandist (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 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. 

John ran a blog (including radical map and local events list) under the pseudonym AnnArky for 20 years 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 played chess daily to a very high level and tried to start a club last year but ill health slowed him down as it did over the years from time to time.

John was known in the family as Jack but by his comrades as John.  He was born in 1934 before WW2 in the notorious Garngad Glasgow slums, so bad the City Council demolished it and renamed the area. The family moved to Balornock. 

Johns 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. He was a tall quiet boy, talented pianist and very keen on chess from aged 11.

He was evacuated out of Glasgow with his sisters to a farm, treated there like a son and remembers the joy he witnessed from the old horse, kicking and frolicking as it was let out to the grazing field on its last day of toil.

He refused University which the Miners’ Union would have paid for and instead took up an engineering study course followed by 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 also exposed to asbestos later developing pleural plaques and saw his best friend die of mesothelioma. He witnessed the drowning of his young friend Archie, a riveter who fell from ship scaffolding, an event which deeply disturbed him his whole life. He saw first hand government contracts and the waste of public money swishing around the Defence Industry by being employed to build ships that got decommissioned after their launch. 

He was refused a contract there and moved to Vickers where he soon realised the different pay structure of piecework was responsible for the backstabbing race to finish first for bonuses at the expense of health and safety. 

John left engineering and got a job selling round the doors in slum areas. He sold furniture, TVs and insurance, returning weekly to pick up the payments. He saw the worst things that haunted his mind, cold hungry unwashed children, families burning floorboards to heat and cook, babies sleeping on bundles of coats for a bed. 

He eventually left it and moved into shop retail as by now he had met Ann and they had two children, Brian and Corinne to support. He succeeded at retail working his way up to manager, breaking records for profits because by default he gained bonuses he needed to keep the family. They moved to Pollokshaws and he grew roses, the kids settled at school and made friends. He bought a boat which the whole family enjoyed. 

By the time he was in his 50’s they had left home and he joined Amnesty International which John regarded as a useful way to raise awareness and denounce injustices at the hands of the powerful everywhere. He was the Urgent Action Coordinator for Scotland, reading daily bulletins of torture victims and trying to promote these in the Scottish Press to establish support campaigns. After three years he found it too painful to read another one and he moved on to SACRO, volunteering to drive prisoner’s families for visits across Scotland. 

He retired from sales aged 59 and increased his time in the gym as well as his long distance road cycling regular 90 miles, with overnight stay and returning home the next day. In his 70’s he had established the AnnArky blog, he had completed the book Radical Glasgow selling it at book fairs, and he had started to produce the Anarchist Critic street paper which ran for 20 years from 2002-22. It was an anti-capitalist paper exposing the flaws and contradictions of Capitalists; multinational corporations, empires, clubs, States and Borders, IMF, European Central Bank, World Bank and Davos Economic Forum. The Anarchist Critic was anti-war, anti-authoritarian, anti–imperialist protest literature but not pacifist, as 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 Freedom (11 March 2006). 

His family was now expanded by Stathis his new son-in-law and Stavros and Stefania two lovely grandchildren. In 2005 he met Stasia a fellow activist and soulmate, and they very happily fell in together as a deeply loving couple for 20 years. In 2011 he co-founded with others the Spirit of Revolt Archives of Dissent, both online and publicly accessible at the Mitchell Library. 

John also tried to establish the return of May Day to Glasgow Green, the gathering place, execution site and historical location for voicing political agitation in Glasgow for hundreds of years. Over recent years the city council underinvested in the People’s Palace museum running it into closure and the March organisers have diluted May Day’s impact, rerouted it, dissociating it from the Glasgow Green site thereby actively diminishing the importance of the event, deeply significant to Anarchists. 

In January John’s son Brian died very suddenly which shook the whole family and broke his heart. 

John was an avid reader and poet throughout his life and produced 5 books of powerful poems now being translated into French. 

We are all grieving for John now, he may have left us but his work for Anarchism in Scotland raises our profile, legitimises our existence and paves the way for future generations to build upon as he had wished. 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. 

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/