RAMES CONNOLLY, who was born just over 100 years ago (1868), is recognised as one of Island's great revolutionaries and as one of the few great Marxists to emerge in these islands. One of the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916, he succeeded in transforming the Irish left from an impotent sect, into a significant force within the Irish revolutionary movement. With Big Jim Larkin, he helped to bring back to Ireland what Irish emi- stop Tone grants had created abroad - the industrial union - the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. 1913 found Connolly acting as lieutenant to Larkin in the General Strike (and lock- ployers' out) which raised the poorest of Dublin's poor from their knees, and transformed them into dignified, class-con- In a leading This strugglo gave Clemency birth to the Irish Citizens Army -'the first Red Army in modern Europe? as penin called it With the other European revolutionary movements, the Irish left suffered a setback at the outbreak of the First World War when the majority of the weakness working class rallied to the bourgeois governments and descrted internationalism. However, unlike the social demo: crat icaders in other countries, the leaders of Irish labour met the chal; lenge posed by the war, openly dei nounced it as an imperialist war and • lougnt against recruitment poncies. an Dęcember 1914, Larkin's * Irish Worker' was banned, just after he had left for the USA. Connolly took over the leadership of the movement. While never neglecting the struggle between the IGTWU and the Dublin Employers' Federation, Connolly set about the task of training the Citizens' Army. Liberty Hall, the facade flaunting the slogan We serve neither King nor Kaiser', became the focus of resistance to the British government and its Irish adnerents — the master clan and their subservient press. In May 1915, Conholly founded a new paper, "The Workers' Republic. While the labour leaders of Europe abandoned the policy of class struggle to support the war, this paper steadily reminded the working class of the need to struggle for their own emancipation. " In the long run' wrote Connolly, 'the free dom -of a nation is measured by the frecdom of its lowest class Th Irish left used every industrial dispute to increase the strength of Dublin's Red Army, until on 24 Apri 1916, they joined forces with the radical middie-class Irish Volunteers challenge the might of the British Hmoire on the harricades. The Volinteers did not rise as a body because of countermanding order from their Chief of Staff. Less than 1,000 came out in response to the orders of Pearse and Connolly. They fought for five days, but in the end, the insurrection was crushed by the British Army.
The end of the revolt led to a wholesale execution of the leaders by order of the British Cabinet, which included, course, representative of the Labour Party. In answer to protest against the apparently unending list of executions and a demand for their cesof the ringleaders 'be singled out and dealt with as they deserve.' On 12 May, the last two signatories of the Proclamation were executed by sation, Asquith stated that he intended crippled SEAN MACDIARMADA, bus conshootings. stage ductor, Left Republican Connolly was still alive. The next day trade unionist, met his the organ of the Irish bourgeoisie, the The wounded Connolly, "Irish Independent' owned by M stand, or ever sit upright. Murphy, chairman of the Dublin Em- strapped in a chair.
Federation and one the then stopped. principal targets of the 1913 Dublin For all this, it is the Connolly of 1916 strike, clamoured for Connolly's blood.
Wars rememore Lockedesaste article entitled "The Rising of 1916, was Plea, it wrote: — " When. however, we come to some of the ring- heroic revolutionary leaders, insugators and lomentors not Connolly played a leading role. yet dealt with, we must make an ex- the military failure of the insurrection ception to the clemency plea. If these was a signal not for acts of solidarity mèn are treated with too great leniency, with the they will take it as an indication of on Connolly for his part in it.
on the part of the govern- The conference of the British Indepenment and the consequences may not be dent Labour Party at Newcastle-uponThey may De even more Tyne that year, recorded its condemtruculent than ever and it is therefore nation of militarism, necessary that society should be pro- among the tected against their activity. weak- and the Irish Red Army. pess to such men at this stage may be Heavily chauvinist, then as now, the fatal: i. Let the worst of the worst party of British " socialism' was unable make a Marxist estimate of Easter Week. But even some spokesmen of the Zimmerwald Left took the position of the Republic that the insurrection was a 'putsch. firing squad. une …ine term "putsch " " Lenin wrote, " in the scientific sense of the word may and militant oe employed oniy when the attempt fate standing. at insurrection has revealed nothing too ill to but a circle of conspirators, or stupid was shot maniacs and when it has roused no The sympathy among the masses. blow delivered against the British imperialist bourgeoisie in Ireland has a more political signifilike the Cuban cance than blow of equal weight drama, in which dialectics of history are such that small Yet, nanons, powerless as an independent factor in the struggle against imperialism, play a part as one of the ferments, insurgents, but for attacks one of the bacilli, which facilitate the entry into the arena of the real power against imperialism, namely the socialist proletariat.
That was Connolly's perspective too. but included At the start of the war he had written, " Militarists' - Connolly ' Starting thus, Ireland may yet light La fire which will not burn out 'til the last capitalist bond and debenture will burn to ashes on the grave of the last Murphy war-lord? to use th In 1916 the Ultra-Left typified by the propagan Socialist Labour Partv in the US and meetings the Ir in England, regarded Connolly failure as a deserter from socialism to petty and Trin bourgeois nationalism. Today the failed sall tendencies typified by the Com- and cloitl munist Party, and the Socialist Labour Above al League who attack as dissenters those stand the who defend Cuban and Vietnamese 2 CHE revolutions with anything more than a working revolutionary rhetoric There is, and was a sharp contradiction knecht, I Trotsky, Connolly, and those who subscribe this ques that Vitra-Left view of society which mal on h reduces everything to the worker-ver- able to r sus-boss conflict for higher wages, who struggle, fact portray workers as mere ani- and betra mals. But there were no contradictions ot Conn between the revolutionary marxist tra- tablish 1 dition and Connolly's actions in 1916: tached st Both the Connolt subject nations as an element leading ject of a up and using the Ire and T revolution. recalled To defend Connolly is not to overlook tain: tha mistakes or the weakness of some changed; of his positions. In his polemic against Bebel on the question of women, he