Today marks the 254th birthday of Scotland’s most venerated poet and radical, Robert (Rabbie) Burns, a man whose works still resonate over two centuries after his death. The importance of Burns is such that his legacy has been claimed by nationalists, socialists, liberals, and even conservatives down through the years, with the latter in particular seeking to de-radicalise the Bard by reducing him to a benign historical artefact or quaint, reductive symbol of Scottishness like Tartan or shortbread.

But make no mistake Burns was a man with the heart of a radical beating inside his chest. A product of the Enlightenment, the internationalism and emancipatory ideals heralded by the French Revolution and prior to that the American Revolution produced within him a fierce devotion to freedom, republicanism, and the suffering of the poor and downtrodden. Indeed his works resound with solidarity and sympathy for the poor, of which he was a product himself. He was an early example of what Gramsci described as an ‘organic intellectual’, using his talent and fierce intelligence in the service of the people rather than himself and/or the establishment of the day. He was a revolutionary.

The radical history of Scotland is largely a hidden history. The United Scotsmen, The Friends of the People, Thomas Muir – Robert Burns lived and breathed this radical period in Scottish and European history and maintained his belief in a new age of emancipation and radical democracy right up to his death in 1796.

Kevin Williamson of Bella Caledonia provides an informative analysis of Burns’s radicalism, while one of his most famous works – A Man’s a Man For A’ That – is required reading.

A Man’s a Man for A’ That  (1795)

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that.
Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an’ a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man’s a Man for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;
The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that;
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that:
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His ribband, star, an’ a’ that:
The man o’ independent mind
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that;
But an honest man’s abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities an’ a’ that;
The pith o’ sense, an’ pride o’ worth,
Are higher rank than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.