Jack Leckie

John Villiers Leckie was a Scottish communist activist.

Leckie was born in Scotland, into an Irish family. He became interested in anarchism and industrial unionism, and travelled to the United States, where he joined the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1920, The Socialist described him as "an ardent antiparliamentarian, who breathes dynamite, and talks red armies".

Leckie returned to Scotland and joined the Socialist Labour Party (SLP). The SLP was central to the Clyde Defence Committee, and Leckie was elected as the committee's secretary. With other leading figures from the committee, including John Maclean, in 1920, he founded the Communist Labour Party (CLP), and was elected as its chairman. This was intended to be a Scottish communist party, opposed to participation in Parliament and joint work with the Labour Party.

According to Graham Stevenson, Leckie attended the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern, although he does not appear in the official list of delegates. Either way, he was convinced of the need for communists in Great Britain to unite in a single communist party and to participate in elections, and also accepted that it would seek affiliation to the Labour Party. As a result, he championed the merger of the CLP into the new Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), which was completed at a unity conference early in 1921.

Later in 1921, Leckie became interested in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the potential of creating a workers' army in Scotland. He brought over a captain from the IRA and began drilling volunteers in eastern Fife, although this project was abandoned when he was called away by the CPGB to organise workers in Coventry. There, he was centrally involved in supporting engineers during the lock-out, and became the leading figure in the Coventry Unemployed Workers' Movement, who planned to stand him in the 1922 general election. The CPGB initially backed his candidature, and Leckie campaigned in the city, but in August, the CPGB withdrew its support in the interests of unity with the Labour Party, and Leckie stood down.

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