The following is a text of an article written by Kevin McLoughlin and Laura Fitzgerald from the booklet Ireland’s Lost Revolution, produced by the Socialist Party on the centenary of the Easter 1916 Rising in 2016.
Around noon on Easter Monday 24 April 1916, James Connolly, with Patrick Pearse on his right and Joseph Plunkett on his left, led a combined force of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army (ICA) up Lower Abbey Street in Dublin on their way to the General Post Office (GPO) on O’Connell Street. Two members of the Military Council, which planned and led the Rising, Tom Clarke and Sean McDermott, had gone on ahead.
When Connolly, the Volunteers and the ICA, then known collectively as the Army of the Irish Republic, came alongside the Imperial Hotel (the site of what was Clery’s today), they stopped. Connolly then gave the order, “Left wheel; the GPO; charge!”1
The rebels charged and the GPO was occupied and secured. At the same time, a number of other buildings in Dublin city centre were also seized. A few minutes later Patrick Pearse read out the “Proclamation of the Republic” declaring an Irish Republic to a small crowd outside the GPO, many of whom were unclear as to what was happening. The Easter Rising had begun.
What unfolded was a dramatic and defiant five-day stand against British Imperialism and for Irish national independence. According to the Bureau of Military History, in total there were 2,558 rebel participants in the Rising, the bulk being involved in Dublin City. This included over 200 women. In the main the rebels came from the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the ICA, Cumman na mBan and Fianna Éireann.
The rebels went out against all the odds. James Connolly commented to trade unionist William O’Brien, just before leaving Liberty Hall for the GPO, “We are going out to be slaughtered.” O’Brien asked, “Is there no chance of success?”, “None whatever,” was Connolly’s chilling reply.2 This bravery, shown by the women, men and young people who took the fight to the seemingly all-powerful force of the British Empire, was extraordinary.
The fighting and aftermath
Heavily outnumbered by the British forces already in Ireland, rebels took up positions around the city centre including at Liberty Hall, the GPO, the Four Courts, the Mendicity Institution (on the south quays upriver from the Four Courts), the South Dublin Union / Marrowbone Lane (St. James’s Hospital today), City Hall, Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, the Royal College of Surgeons, St. Stephen’s Green and Boland’s Mill. The two other signatories to The Proclamation, Thomas McDonagh and Eamonn Ceannt, led the forces at Jacob’s and the South Dublin Union respectively.
The intention had been to establish a fortified and continuous ring in the city centre, but this wasn’t possible because of the limited numbers involved. They consciously took up locations where they could monitor and cover British army barracks, road routes and supply lines that might be used by Crown forces. Train tracks were blown up at a number of locations to disrupt supply lines and transport. There were some instances where rebels had to face down some opposition from locals who opposed the blockades and the erection of barricades. With reinforcements from Britain, by the end of the week there were twenty members of the Crown forces for every insurgent in the city.
In general, the policy deployed by the British military was to pulverise the different locations in the city centre with heavy artillery from field guns positioned at Phibsborough, Trinity College and on the gunboat Helga which came up the river Liffey. Heavy machine gunning was also deployed, which increased the number of causalities substantially. Direct assaults by troops on the occupied positions tended to take place following extensive bombardment and machine-gun fire. There was fierce fighting in a number of areas, among which Mount Street Bridge and North King Street justify special mention, but by Thursday the rebels had been significantly pushed back. While some pockets remained, essentially the GPO was isolated as the centre of resistance.
The events in Dublin were followed by limited engagements in some other parts of the country. In Fingal, in north county Dublin, around 60 Volunteers under the command of Thomas Ashe overran the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks at Swords, Donabate and Garristown, seizing weapons. The Fingal Battalion engaged in guerrilla tactics, a forerunner of what was to happen later during the War of Independence. On Friday they engaged in their most significant action when taking over the RIC barracks at Ashbourne, county Meath. As they were surrounding the barracks a new convoy of RIC arrived and a gun battle ensued for several hours that resulted in the surrender of the RIC and their arms.
On Tuesday, several hundred mobilised under Liam Mellows in Galway. They engaged in limited actions, being poorly armed, mainly in rural areas to the east of Galway city. Navy ships shelled their positions and troops were landed to pursue them. With little prospect of continuing the battle, they dispersed on Saturday morning.
In Enniscorthy, county Wexford, up to 200 Volunteers took over the town from Thursday to Sunday having been given direct orders by a Volunteer officer who had cycled all the way from Dublin. Their numbers increased over the days and they blockaded the town and sent a detachment that also occupied Ferns.
Over 1,000 Volunteers mustered in Cork on the Sunday, but after some days eventually dispersed without action being taken, to the annoyance of many of the Volunteers. They had received nine sets of contradictory orders from the different factions of the Irish Volunteer leadership in Dublin, and also came under pressure from the local Catholic clergy.
By Friday, the GPO in Dublin had become such an inferno that it also had to be abandoned. In the evacuation, James Connolly had to be carried on a stretcher made of sheets as he had been seriously wounded in the ankle and leg where a bullet was lodged. The rebels, including a number of the signatories to the Proclamation, made their way into the buildings opposite on Moore Street. This involved setting up a new headquarters at 16 Moore Street. There on Saturday they made the decision to surrender because they felt that they couldn’t achieve anything more, but also because they feared the possibility that British troops would attack the civilian population.
The order issued to the insurgents to surrender stated:
“In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at Headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the Commandants of the various districts in the City and Country will order their commands to lay down arms.”3
Pearse made the surrender to Brigadier-General Lowe at 3.45 pm on Saturday, 29 April at the corner of Moore Street and Parnell Street. However, it was Sunday before the word filtered through to all combatants, and all hostilities finally ended.
In total, 469 lay dead amid the devastated city centre. Sixty-six insurgents had been killed and 143 soldiers or police. Two hundred and sixty civilians were killed, overwhelmingly by the actions of the British forces, including some atrocities like the brutal shooting and bayoneting of 15 civilian men and boys in the North King Street area in the early hours of Saturday morning. Forty of those killed were under the age of 17, four of whom were rebels. Many thousands more were maimed or injured. Dublin lay in ruins from the force of the British bombardment and attack. It took years before the city streets and buildings would be restored, and even longer in the poor working-class districts.
There was not the type of instant and live communication we have now. However, the Rising still had a shocking effect and was seen as a very significant event both in Ireland and internationally. It featured on the front page of the New York Times for 14 consecutive days. It featured in the media of many countries, a key part of its significance being that it was a blow against Britain from its oldest colony while it was already overstretched by its involvement in the First World War. Most of the initial coverage took its line from the British media and establishment, though as time passed, alternative viewpoints made it through. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, one newspaper headline appeared saying, “Dublin Traitors”, but another headline paid tribute to the “Gallants of Dublin”. The Ghadr paper in India featured the headline ‘Bravo’ and commented “O Irish you kept your sword on high and did not show the white feather.”
The Rising was also a major talking point among the international workers’ and socialist movements. Both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, who were to co-lead the epoch-changing Russian Revolution 18 months later, defended the Rising against often scathing criticism from the right and sections of the revolutionary left. The former pointed out that upheavals in colonial countries were inevitable. Lenin castigated those who dismissed the Rising as a ‘putsch’, a word, he said, that could only be used if “nothing but a circle of conspirators or stupid maniacs were involved”, which he said was clearly not the case. In the same article, he wrote:
“It is the misfortune of the Irish that they rose prematurely before the European revolt of the working class had had time to mature.”4
A distorted legacy
In the run up to and during the official state events to mark the 100th anniversary of the Rising, unlike previous occasions such as the 75th anniversary commemorations in 1991, the establishment were united and fulsome in their praise of the Rising and the role of the seven signatories to The Proclamation. Some “official” banners around the city linked the leaders of the Rising to other figures that the establishment considered to be national heroes, including the likes of Daniel O’Connell, Henry Grattan and John Redmond.
The caretaker government of Fine Gael and Labour (the anniversary took place after the election but before a new government was formed) tried to reflect in and benefit from the strong public appreciation that exists for those who fought in 1916. People are still affected by the willingness displayed by the rebels to fight and to make personal sacrifices for a just cause, but the establishment failed in its attempt to bolster its own support and standing by trying to wrap themselves in the green flag.
James Connolly was a key figure in the Rising. Considering what he said about the role that Daniel O’Connell played in Irish history and about O’Connell’s antipathy towards the working classes, Connolly would hardly appreciate being associated with O’Connell or the other so-called national leaders that the establishment wheeled out in 2016. But Connolly is also different to the other leaders of the Rising itself. While some of the official material and at some of the events it was mentioned that Connolly was a socialist and trade union leader, this was rarely much more than a footnote. In the main Connolly was presented as a nationalist leader. Likewise, the Starry Plough flag, which originated as a symbol of workers’ struggle and social change when designed for the ICA, featured quite widely during the anniversary, being raised officially in many places but also by ordinary people themselves. However, it was clear there was little understanding of the flag’s origin, and unfortunately, it is seen as another republican symbol.
It suits the powers-that-be to obscure the working-class and radical roots of many who were involved in the Rising. The middle-class background of most of the Volunteer and IRB leaders is well-known. However, the vast bulk of the participants were working class, many with radical and left-wing sympathies. Research based on a sample of 316 individuals involved in the Rising, comprising 44 women and 272 men, found that the insurgents were overwhelmingly urban skilled workers.
According to Saothar 41, Journal of the Irish Labour History Society:
“Some 22% of the men and 44% of the women were professionals, although at the lower end of the scale. Most of these were Post Office workers, professional students, teachers, journalists or civil servants. Some… 54% of the overall sample were engaged in industrial occupations, and were mostly skilled workers. Just over 20% were shop assistants, apprentices or trainees, the rest were skilled tradesmen (printers, blacksmiths, painters, fitters, tailors, plumbers, carpenters, machinists etc). About 16% of the sample were engaged in commercial or conveyance occupations, mostly employed as commercial clerks or travellers, railwaymen, carters and or skilled dockworkers.”5
Connolly & the national question
James Connolly was Commandant General of the Dublin Division, Army of the Irish Republic and Vice President of the “Republic” declared in the Proclamation. When he continued his duties in the GPO after being wounded, Pearse, technically the most senior leader of the Rising, commented that Connolly remained “still the guiding brain of our resistance.” However, Connolly was also the most dynamic force pushing for and ensuring that a rising actually happened.
James Connolly was a Marxist and believed in the necessity of socialist change in Ireland and internationally. Connolly himself accurately described the important but also limited goal behind the Rising in his last statement written on 9 May 1916, just three days before his execution:
“We were out to break the connection of this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. We believe that the call we then issued to the people of Ireland was a nobler call, in a holier cause, than any other call issued to them during this war.”
The national question and the emergence of the working class as an organised force were the key and interconnected factors that dominated early twentieth-century Ireland. The cornerstone of the national question was the oppression of the mass of people in Ireland by British Imperialism and capitalism: nationally, socially and politically. In addition, people were also cruelly exploited by Irish capitalists and landlords. However, there was also a significant religious division among working-class people. This division between Protestant and Catholic was originally connected to the plantation policy by English governments in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and their age-old tactic of divide and rule. British Imperialism stoked up religious division among ordinary people when it suited as a ploy to split the opposition they faced, all the better to rule and exploit Ireland and the people themselves.
By the early 20th century, the revolutionary national movement of the 1798 United Irishmen Rebellion or the more plebeian movements of Robert Emmett, and to a certain extent the Fenians, were but a distant memory. Generally, the Irish nationalist movement, dominated by the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) led by John Redmond, had become conservative and Catholic in character. This meant that for many in the North-East, particularly Protestants whose livelihoods were intimately connected to the economy of Britain and the industrial centres of Scotland and North-West England, there were suspicions of the nationalist movement and serious concerns about what Irish independence or Home Rule would actually mean for them. They feared that they could become economically disadvantaged and a discriminated-against minority as the IPP primarily represented the interests of the southern Catholic capitalist class.
The emergence of the Irish working-class movement (which by its nature tended to unite Protestant and Catholic workers around their common material interests as workers) onto the scene of history posed a potential solution to this division and national conundrum. As shown in previous chapter, James Connolly felt this development marked a critical change and held the view that British Imperialism could be defeated, but only if the new working-class movement, both Protestant and Catholic, led a mass struggle against capitalism and British Imperialism for socialist change. Unlike before, now a force existed that could potentially unite the mass of people under a banner for national freedom precisely because it also promised to break with capitalist exploitation and offered a real future.
For Connolly, the national struggle had become synonymous with the working-class struggle for socialist change. He viewed the fight against national oppression and for Irish independence as clearly very important and progressive, but also realised that it was limited. He often poured scorn on “patriots” and nationalists, and just a few years before the Rising he famously dismissed any “independence” that maintained capitalism as not worth fighting for.
In Workshop Talks, published in 1909, he wrote,
“After Ireland is free, says the patriot who won’t touch socialism, we will protect all classes, and if you won’t pay your rent you will be evicted same as now. But the evicting party, under command of the sheriff, will wear green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning you out on the roadside will be stamped with the arms of the Irish Republic. Now, isn’t that worth fighting for?”
Connolly’s approach was to adopt positions, including on the national question, based on a belief in the working class as the force for change. As Connolly often expressed his views in quite stark terms, the contrast between his views here and then his alliance with the IRB only a few years later is also quite striking. The basis of this change can be found in developments in 1914 that had a profound effect on Connolly’s outlook.
Setbacks and growing dismay
The last of the workers involved in the great Dublin Lockout didn’t return to work until March 1914, such was their defiance. In an immediate sense the outcome of the Lockout was a cruel defeat. Those workers who could went back to work on the basis of having to leave the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU). Others were blacklisted into even worse poverty. The bosses had the whip in hand and used it to intensify exploitation. On a deeper level, however, the nature of the struggle that had been waged served to transform attitudes and establish a fighting tradition deep in the psyche of the emerging working class. In the years that followed this re-emerged with a vengeance and helped tip the balance in favour of the workers.
While the bosses had won this round, they were also horrified by the resistance that the working class had displayed to their attacks and starvation tactics during the Lockout. It wasn’t fully apparent at the time but the battle had actually loosened their tight grip on power. When circumstances allowed, starting in 1916, not only did the ITGWU recover quite dramatically, it was also clear that a deep class hatred of the bosses had taken root, along with support for militant tactics and solidarity action among workers.
Nevertheless, in 1914, the outcome felt like a cruel and bitter defeat. The working class had given so much, and could have won if only the leadership of the British Trade Union Congress had lifted its finger to organise some solidarity action. Many in the ranks were more than willing, but when the leadership of the British unions refused to support solidarity action at the TUC congress in December 1913, the die was cast for the workers in Dublin. Connolly was deeply affected by this betrayal. The lack of broad solidarity action was solely the responsibility of the leaders of the TUC, and Connolly’s bitterness towards them was completely understandable. However, it is likely that Connolly was also disappointed that the ranks didn’t prove capable of challenging and overturning the role of the union bureaucracy.
In his biography of Connolly, C. Desmond Greaves cites that in the summer of 1915 Connolly, in an ironic tone, congratulated the working class of Wales for “waking up” in regard to a successful struggle they had undertaken. However, Connolly’s words show that by then he had developed an overly negative assessment:
“We fear they are crying out too late; the master class are now in possession of such impressive powers as they have not possessed for three-quarters of a century.”6
In another article in the Workers’ Republic in September 1915, he said that the British working class were, “the most easily fooled working class in the world.”7
In such trying circumstances, it can be extremely difficult to maintain a balanced understanding and perspective. Connolly was clearly fearful of what the future held, and he undoubtedly went back and forth in his own mind on many issues. For instance, there are examples of articles where he displays an incredible sensitivity as to how economic conditions could force men who had fought during the Lockout to sign up to the British Army. However, in an article from February 1916 Connolly wrote, “For the sake of the Separation Allowance thousands of Irish men, women and young girls have become accomplices of the British Government in this threatened crime (further denial of Irish freedom and rights) against the true men and women of Ireland.”8
The actual setbacks for the working class and the TUC’s betrayal also clearly undermined Connolly’s confidence in the capability of the working class to be the decisive force for change. As the general secretary of the ITGWU, Connolly organised and fought as best as he could, day in and day out, to defend the rights of the working class, right up to the eve of the Rising itself. Clearly, he began to question if major class battles and a struggle for socialist change were off the agenda for a historic period.
While the consequences of the Lockout’s defeat were still unfolding in 1914, the whole of Europe was gripped by a new crisis. On 28 June, the Austrian royal prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot and killed in Sarajevo. In just over a month, like the proverbial bolt from the blue, the world was at war. Before the First World War would finish, 70 million people would be mobilised and more than 16 million would be killed. It was the outbreak of the world war and the refusal of the international socialist movement to resist it that had the biggest effect on Connolly and led him to become very fearful of what the future held.
Outbreak of war & betrayal
The existence of webs of military alliances involving the different powers in Europe facilitated the mushrooming of tensions between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand into an international conflict. However, the war didn’t happen by accident or just because of the assassination of a lesser royal.
The First World War was an imperialist conflict fought in the context of increased capitalist economic competition, the saturation of markets and stagnation. In the main it was between British and emerging German Imperialism to see which one would get the “right” to dominate and further exploit the other nations of Europe and their respective colonies. The extensive military alliances and the fact that arms spending had increased in Europe by 50% since 1908 illustrate how economic and military tensions had been building for years.
With a small number of honourable exceptions, including Connolly and the Bolsheviks in Russia, the international socialist movement, instead of opposing the inter-imperialist war, shamefully supported the ruling classes of their own nations in the conflict and endorsed the fighting between workers from different countries in the interests of the imperialists. The anti-war resolutions of international socialist congresses in Stuttgart in 1907, Copenhagen in 1910 and Basle in 1912 all came to nothing. This betrayal by the parties of the Socialist International and the European trade union movement was as much of a body blow to Connolly as the outbreak of war itself. Connolly’s deep fears for what the world war could lead to brought him to the conclusion that he had to dedicate himself wholly to do all he could in Ireland to oppose it and British Imperialism’s war effort.
Connolly feared that the war would see the slaughter not just of the working class on an industrial scale, but also of the flower of the European socialist movement, and therefore set the struggle back for many, many years. He also feared that Britain would win the war and believed that the result would be a decisive strengthening of British Imperialism and heightened exploitation by it of the markets and resources of other countries, including a further consolidation of its rule and domination of Ireland, i.e. a new reactionary phase of capitalist dominance.
The war was a serious defeat for the working-class and socialist movements. It dwarfed the defeat in the Lockout, but at the same time, it reinforced the negative sentiments or perspectives that Connolly had formed as a result of it. While publicly continuing to argue for class struggle and socialist change, increasingly Connolly’s actions indicated that he believed that the prospects for a working-class movement against the war had “receded out of sight.”9
In a sense, Connolly was a victim of his own hopes in revolutionary syndicalism. He was knocked when there wasn’t widespread industrial action from below throughout Europe against the war, given the anti-war resolutions and manifestos and the substantial support in different countries for “revolutionary unionism” (syndicalism) which supported the idea “that when the bugles sounded the first note for actual war, their notes should have been taken as the tocsin for social revolution.”10
Wars, along with revolutions, are the most momentous and profound events that can occur. They affect every aspect of society. Pre-existing resolutions, unless backed up by a strong and living movement that acts as a leadership to the working class, were never going to be enough to withstand the drive of the different capitalist powers towards war. Manufactured pretexts to justify the war, like defending the rights of small nations, the whipping up of jingoism and the support of the population for the ordinary soldiers of their own country in a conflict, are real issues that would have to be countered and fought anew regardless of past resolutions.
The war showed that the parties of the Socialist International had degenerated from revolutionary internationalism to reconciliation with capitalism and its wars. Over a period of years, the main socialist parties became increasingly incorporated into the capitalist establishment and state, and in practice had a reformist outlook. In reality, it would have been extremely difficult to prevent a war that was materially rooted in the economic contradictions of capitalism at the time. But there wasn’t a strong enough revolutionary movement or party in any European country that was capable of successfully standing against the momentum for war and the sell-out of social democracy.
Connolly was undoubtedly shaken by these developments, and he resolved relatively quickly that his hopes and perspective for social revolution against war were not going to materialise. Notwithstanding that, he felt it was imperative that the war be challenged but he also knew there was little basis for a mass revolt from the working-class movement at that time.
He was correct to be open to co-operation with the Irish Volunteers and the IRB in resisting Britain’s war effort, including organising against recruitment drives and the threat of conscription. However, so desperate was Connolly to resist the war that he was also open to having an alliance with the IRB for the purpose of an insurrection against British Imperialism’s war effort. Connolly’s preference was for a rising that had a mass working-class and socialist character, but as he didn’t believe that was possible, he was prepared to look elsewhere in order to maximise the impact of a rising. As the months passed and the horrors of the war became even more apparent, his resolve for some form of rising only intensified.
War: “the midwife of revolution”
Sadly, Connolly was isolated from the other revolutionaries internationally who also stood out against the war. The Bolsheviks in Russia led by Lenin were as desperate as Connolly to strike a blow against the imperialist war, but they were capable of collectively analysing developments. Their assessment led them to the view that mass opposition to the war would develop that would not only create the basis to stop the war but would also produce revolutionary uprisings.
In the summer of 1915 Lenin wrote a pamphlet entitled Socialism and War. In it he outlined the following assessment of perspective and tactics:
“The war has undoubtedly created a most acute crisis and has increased the distress of the masses to an incredible degree. The reactionary character of this war, and the shameless lies told by the bourgeoisie of all countries in covering up their predatory aims with “national” ideology, are inevitably creating, on the basis of an objectively revolutionary situation, revolutionary moods among the masses. It is our duty to help the masses to become conscious of these moods, to deepen and formulate them. This task is correctly expressed only by the slogan: convert the imperialist war into civil war; and all consistently waged class struggles during the war, all seriously conducted “mass action” tactics inevitably lead to this. It is impossible to foretell whether a powerful revolutionary movement will flare up during the first or the second war of the great powers, whether during or after it; in any case, our bounden duty is systematically and undeviatingly to work precisely in this direction.”11
With these powerful words Lenin embraced the negative features in the situation but put them in the more fundamental and general context of the crisis that capitalism was facing. Lenin and the Bolsheviks understood the dangers contained in the war but they also understood that the war – as it was linked to an organic crisis in capitalism internationally – was also likely to create a series of revolutionary opportunities.
There was no guarantee as to when this might happen. Lenin held out that there was a possibility that the current conflict could cease quite quickly, but only to be replaced by another one soon enough. However, what is clear is that he and the Bolsheviks understood that the war posed serious dangers for capitalism too and that it was likely that there would be movements against the war and the conditions that the war was creating in the relatively near future. Crucially, Lenin insisted that, even if it wasn’t clear when such movements might occur, it was vital that revolutionaries stood their ground, stuck to their principles and prepared for such mass working-class radicalisation and revolts, as that would be the only way to ensure the success of the socialist revolution. This would in turn be the only way to stop capitalist wars and really transform the lives of the working class, the small farmers and the poor. As it turned out, on the basis of this perspective and careful preparation, in a little over two years the Russian working class, led by the Bolshevik Party, took power and that revolution and its impact globally was key to the ending of the First World War itself.
It is extremely unfortunate that Connolly was isolated internationally and didn’t have direct contact with the likes of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, as perhaps their analysis and position may have had an impact on him and helped to correct the mistake he made in mainly seeing the dangers and not the revolutionary opportunities that the war would ultimately bring. That mistake in analysis and perspective in turn led Connolly to put all his energies into one defiant act, the Rising.
History was to prove that the mass radicalisation and struggle that the Bolsheviks believed would happen also developed in Ireland, particularly between 1917 and 1920, something which Connolly didn’t think likely or possible. In a sense, even within Ireland, Connolly was isolated in that he didn’t benefit from having a genuinely Marxist organisation or party, similar to the Bolsheviks, where the issues could be debated and clarified in order to formulate the clearest perspectives and best strategies and tactics.
The Irish Volunteers split
The Irish Volunteers were established in 1913 on the initiative of members of the IRB, who saw in the rise of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1912 a chance to launch a broad military movement in the South in response. The outbreak of the war caused a split in the Irish Volunteers in September 1914. During that summer, John Redmond, leader of the IPP, used his position of influence to issue an ultimatum that whoever he nominated must be incorporated into the executive of the Irish Volunteers. Most of the members of the IRB, which was working inside the Volunteers in a clandestine fashion, opposed this but the ultimatum was acceded to by the executive of the Volunteers, which had a broader and more moderate composition. This put the IRB at a serious disadvantage and tensions rose.
The actual split came about because Redmond came out in favour of the British war effort and acted as a recruiting-agent for the British Army. Of the estimated 150,000 members of the Volunteers, the vast bulk went with Redmond and became known as the National Volunteers. Just over 13,000 opposed Redmond’s policy and stayed with the Irish Volunteers, which was led by prominent academic and moderate nationalist Eoin MacNeill. The IRB had control of many vital positions in the new Irish Volunteers.
Less than a month after the war was declared, leaders of the IRB decided in principle that there should be a rising during the war, if two conditions pertained. These were that Britain tried to impose conscription on Ireland and that German troops would be involved in a rising.
While the IRB secretly took senior and influential positions, they also allowed more moderate elements, like MacNeill, to take the public leading positions. Formally MacNeill was President of the organisation. With their secretive tactics they hoped to operate unhindered behind the scenes to connect with and influence others in the Volunteers. They hoped to be able to use their positions to get the Volunteers to participate in an armed uprising at the right time, regardless of what view MacNeill as leader adopted or what other moderates might say or do.
Connolly agitates for action
Connolly became general secretary of the ITGWU just before Larkin left for America on 24 October 1914 – for what was to be a fundraising tour but turned out to be a visit that lasted seven years! While Connolly engaged in a reorganisation of the union and remained very involved in industrial affairs, he increasingly homed in on the need for an armed rising.
Initial connections between Connolly and members of the IRB developed in September 1914. His relations with the IRB / Volunteers over the next year and a half went through the gamut of possible relations– suspicious, supportive, critical, hostile, encouraging, contemptuous and friendly – depending on the time and what he considered to be their attitude to a rising. Resolved that there had to be a rising against the capitalist war– against British Imperialism and its war effort – and with the knowledge that the trade union and socialist movement was not a likely support base for such an initiative, Connolly consciously elevated the issues around national freedom and identity in his propaganda and agitation in order to win support for a rising.
If before Connolly had indicated that the national and labour questions where synonymous, in a way which incorporated the national question into the struggle for socialism, he was now inclined to pose it the other way around. This was not because he had suddenly changed his actual position – putting the achievement of national liberation above the goal of socialist change – but because he reasoned that in the circumstances, such an approach would solicit more possible recruits for a rising. He also directly targeted agitation towards the ranks of the Volunteers and the IRB against undue delaying and for a stand being made. In fact he engaged in a continuous public polemic against the inaction and conservatism of the Irish Volunteer and IRB leaders and encouraged the ranks to challenge it. This sometimes created deep hostility and consternation among the leaders of the Volunteers and IRB. Connolly also went about convincing the Irish Citizens Army and some others in the unions of the need to make an alliance with the more militant sections of nationalism in order to prepare a rising.
The Irish Volunteers held a congress on 25 October 1914. At least on the surface it seemed from this conference that they adopted a more hesitant and cautious approach from what leaders of the IRB had initially indicated. The secrecy under which the IRB operated meant it was difficult to be clear of exactly where they stood, as opposed to the Volunteers and MacNeill. Tensions between Connolly and the nationalist movement intensified, as he was impatient, but also because he feared they might be pulling back from the idea of a rising at all.
State repression in December intensified, and this hit the publication of both socialist and nationalist newspapers. The Irish Neutrality League, a new public propaganda banner in which the IRB, Connolly, and some others in the unions co-operated, wasn’t able to function under the repression, and it lapsed. As 1915 dawned and then as it wore on, to Connolly, it didn’t seem as if the IRB / Volunteers were making serious preparations for a rising. In fact, a Military Council had been established in May to look into and plan a possible rising.
When the old Fenian, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, died in New York at the end of June 1915, Tom Clarke (who was an essential organiser of the Rising in the IRB) insisted that his body be sent back to Ireland as he saw that this could be used to help ferment support for an action. Connolly and the ICA co-operated in the preparations for the funeral and in the parade and celebrations on the day itself. At the same time, Connolly used the occasion to try to maximise the pressure on all the leaders of the IRB/Volunteers. He remained suspicious of the intentions of the IRB in part because they continued to allow Eoin MacNeill, who didn’t support a rising, to remain unchallenged as the Volunteers’ leader.
On 31 July 1915, Connolly wrote in the Workers’ Republic:
“O’Donovan Rossa represents to us a revolutionary movement the least aristocratic and the most plebeian that ever raised itself to national dignity in Ireland…magnificent must have been the courage, splendid the idealism of the men and women who with the awful horror of the famine of Black ’47, and inglorious ’48, still in their minds were yet capable of rising to the spiritual level of challenging the power of England in 1865 or 1867. They were giants in those days! Are we pigmies in these?”
At another time, commenting on the Volunteers’ leaders, Connolly likened them to people who, “all their lives sung the glories of the revolution, when it rose up before them, they ran away appalled.”12
The ICA & Volunteers
Later in 1915 and reflecting his concerns and impatience, Connolly made it known that he was prepared to lead the ICA out on its own if the Volunteers continued to dither. Clearly this was in part designed to maximise the pressure on the Volunteers and IRB, but it couldn’t have been considered to be an idle threat either, given Connolly’s desperation. In the Workers’ Republic of 30 October 1915 he wrote:
“The Irish Citizens Army will only co-operate in a forward movement. The moment that forward movement ceases it reserves to itself the right to set out of the alignment, and advance by itself if needs be, in an effort to plant the banner of freedom one reach further towards its goal.”
Connolly had called on all those who were not willing to be active and to drill to step back from the ICA in order to allow those who were prepared to be active to step forward. Then, in late 1915, it is reported that Connolly discussed individually with each member of the ICA as to whether they were prepared to engage in an armed rising as just the ICA, without the Irish Volunteers. That he received universally positive responses illustrates that his propaganda and agitation had been successful, but also spoke of the force of his personality and his authority within the ICA.
Some of the key leaders in the IRB wanted and were pushing for a rising too. However, as far as Connolly was concerned, there was hesitation and a lack of sureness and seriousness. He exerted huge pressure on the IRB over an extended period of time, and on 16 January 1916, the Supreme Council of the IRB made the decision to hold a rising on a specific date in the coming months, regardless of whether their previously stated conditions existed or not. Three days later, on 19 January 1916, they urgently requested an immediate and secret meeting with Connolly. No one in the ITGWU or from Connolly’s family knew where he was; he had simply disappeared. That was the start of the famous three days of discussions during which the plans for a rising were outlined and discussed with Connolly. He re-emerged late on Saturday evening, having come to an agreement with the IRB. A rising would be held on 23 April, i.e. Easter Sunday 1916.
Regarding his three days of unscheduled absence, Connolly said little. He did, however, comment that it represented a “terrible mental struggle” for him.13 It wouldn’t really make sense that Connolly would have struggled over the idea of joint action with the Volunteers, as that is what he had been trying to goad them into for over a year. It is more likely that before he agreed to the plan and the date, he reflected on whether he could wait another three months, but perhaps particularly on whether he could trust the IRB / Volunteers to actually follow through or would they delay or get cold feet and put it off.
He is likely to have also reflected on how many of the 13,000 members of the Volunteers the IRB would actually deliver. Connolly was open about his desire for a rising; he agitated and recruited for it quite openly. The IRB took the opposite approach. They kept their plans secret from the Volunteers. Pearse, as Director of the Military Organisation, would issue orders for parading and manoeuvres to take place over the Easter holiday weekend. Then, when whatever number of the Volunteers turned out on the evening of Easter Sunday, they would be informed that it wasn’t a parade or a drill but was, in fact, an actual rising.
This approach meant that considerable uncertainty would exist right up until the last minute as to the numbers that may be involved, which in turn could materially affect exactly how the rising might go – how long it could withstand the British military. While the IRB had dropped the conditions they had felt necessary for a rising, on their behalf, Roger Casement was in negotiations with the German state in order to get some support. A shipment of arms and ammunition was agreed and scheduled to arrive off the west coast just before the time of the rising.
What Connolly really stood for
In 1916 Connolly continued to put forward a class and socialist viewpoint, but this was increasingly interspersed with appeals for people to rise up that were centred on the need for Irish freedom alone, even more than a year previously. Often the same articles or speeches contained contradictory points or comments, for example stating the importance of the independence of the working-class movement while quickly advocating an alliance with nationalism. There is no doubt that Connolly and his anti-capitalist and socialist argumentation had a considerable impact on a number of the leaders and members of the IRB, pushing them some way towards the left. Others in the IRB, including some of the key leaders of the Rising, remained economically and socially conservative.
Over an extended period Connolly made statements and arguments that served to imply that Irish nationalism or an Ireland, free from Britain’s political control, would be innately pro-working class. This was in stark contrast to the general position he put forward over many years in which he showed the serious limitations of nationalism. In an article entitled “Economic Conscription” in the Workers’ Republic just before Christmas 1915 he stated:
“We cannot conceive of a free Ireland with a subject working class; we cannot conceive of a subject Ireland with a free working class. But we can conceive of a free Ireland with a working class guaranteed the power of freely and peacefully working out its own salvation.”
Later in the same article, he wrote, This comment (and the fact that Connolly ensured that the Starry Plough flag of socialism flew over William Martin Murphy’s Imperial Hotel during the Rising itself) shows that he maintained his basic position, but tellingly this statement was not made publicly, just to the ICA. However, some in the ICA and the ITGWU had issues with the evolution of Connolly’s political position, his alliance with the IRB and his willingness to participate in a rising on the basis that he did. In Emmet O’Connor’s Big Jim Larkin biography, it is reported that in late 1915 from America, aware of the possibility of a rising, Larkin sent a message to Connolly “not to move.” Activist and playwright Sean O’Casey also resigned from the ICA because he was opposed to the connection with the IRB, the Volunteers and nationalism. “nationalists realise that the real progress of the nation towards freedom must be measured by the progress of its most subject class.
The reason Connolly put forward such argumentation has been explained earlier, but it is still a mistaken approach. Instead of raising people’s consciousness about what needs to be done to actually achieve real change, such an approach can cause confusion and create illusions in forces that don’t represent the working class, and who can quickly turn and begin attacking the interests of working-class people. Previous to this, Connolly would oppose and fight national oppression but would also criticise “patriots” and nationalists. He did this because he thought Home Rule or an independent state was likely at some point and so these criticisms were a warning to the working class that the struggle must continue.
In contrast, in the period before the Rising he was trying to agitate on issues of nationality and was willing to bend the stick because he felt that that was the best way to increase the numbers involved in a rising, given that class struggle and the working class movement was at such a low ebb. That Connolly, in reality, did not believe an independent state was a possible outcome from the coming rising, also probably meant that he felt freer to forgo warnings about the dangers of nationalism. C. Desmond Greaves reports that a week before the Rising, after a lecture on street fighting and in the context of informing the members of the ICA of the Rising, Connolly said:
“The odds are a thousand to one against us. If we win, we’ll be great heroes, but if we lose we’ll be the greatest scoundrels the country has ever produced. In the event of victory, hold on to your rifles, as those with whom we are fighting may stop before our goal is reached. We are out for economic as well as political liberty.” 14
This comment (and the fact that Connolly ensured that the Starry Plough flag of socialism flew over William Martin Murphy’s Imperial Hotel during the Rising itself) shows that he maintained his basic position, but tellingly, this statement was not made publicly, just to the ICA. However, some in the ICA and the ITGWU had issues with the evolution of Connolly’s political position, his alliance with the IRB and his willingness to participate in a rising on the basis that he did. In Emmet O’Connor’s Big Jim Larkin biography, it is reported that in late 1915 from America, aware of the possibility of a rising, Larkin sent a message to Connolly “not to move.” Activist and playwright Sean O’Casey also resigned from the ICA because he was opposed to the connection with the IRB, the Volunteers and nationalism.
In April 1916, the plan to raise the green flag over Liberty Hall in the weeks before the Rising wasn’t initially accepted in the ITGWU.15 It was opposed strongly at a meeting that resulted in a second meeting. There the opposition continued even though Connolly indicated that he would resign as general secretary of the union if agreement couldn’t be reached. Ultimately, a break was called in the meeting that allowed for some private discussion and this resulted in the objection being withdrawn.
It is one thing to recognise that a stand against British Imperialism and for Irish freedom was progressive and a step forward. It is another thing to put your name to a document that, in the case of the Proclamation, you know is likely to become an important and historic document but which has no class or socialist analysis or content.
Some see the Proclamation as an aspirational document but it all depends on your interpretation and where you are coming from. Ordinary people may see it as a promise of democratic rights and equality. It implies there is no class division or different class interests when it calls for the “establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland.” But while it aspires to the “common good”, there is nothing in it that would have challenged the existing model of private ownership of wealth. Given that private ownership inevitably leads to gross inequality, the people who would benefit most from the vagueness in the Proclamation would be the already-existing rich and powerful, who Connolly had previously criticised mercilessly.
Although Connolly had a lifetime of socialist activity behind him, including often publicly-stated socialist aims and objectives, this did not suffice in explaining to the wider working class his role and that of the ICA going into and during the Rising. It was a significant mistake that Connolly and the ICA did not produce and then disseminate their own public statement and programme during the Rising on the independent interests and goals of the working class and the need for socialist change. This lack of clarity and confusion has allowed all sorts of political forces that are in reality opposed to Connolly’s socialism to claim his mantle and distort his role.
Plans for the Rising go awry
In order to manoeuvre Volunteer President and Chief of Staff Eoin MacNeill to go along with the rising when it was to be publicly declared, a Sinn Féin member of Dublin Corporation read out a document at a meeting on Monday, 17 April, that he said had come from Dublin Castle. This document said that the British Administration in Dublin was about to launch a major crackdown against the Volunteers, including arrests. This document, which some commentators say was likely the work of Military Council member Joseph Plunkett, may actually have raised the suspicions of MacNeill and other moderates, like Bulmer Hobson, who was actually a leading member of the IRB but didn’t agree with the idea of a rising.
However, when the word came through that the boat, The Aud, with the German arms shipment, had been scuttled by its captain as it was about to be apprehended by the Royal Navy, MacNeill changed his position again. On the night before the Rising was due to take place he sent orders around the country cancelling all mobilisations for the weekend. He also took out ads in Sunday papers to the same effect. In the course of the exchanges, Pearse confirmed their fears. MacNeill then issued a countermanding order, cancelling all parades and manoeuvres for the coming Easter weekend that Pearse had already called. IRB leaders discussed with MacNeill and appealed to him, on the basis that a rising was going to go ahead in any case, not to act in a way that diminished it. He agreed to withdraw his countermand and so it seemed the plan was back in place.
Amid this chaos, the Military Council who had planned the Rising met in Liberty Hall on Sunday morning. They made the decision that the Rising would still go ahead. Instead of the original plan of 6.30pm on Sunday evening, it would now begin at noon on Monday 24 April, less than a day’s delay. They attempted to get word out as widely as possible, but in the circumstances, mixed messages and confusion were inevitable.
It was fortunate that they didn’t delay any longer. They would undoubtedly have been moved against as at 10.30am, Under-Secretary for Ireland, Sir Matthew Nathan, cabled the following message to Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell in London: “In view of the definite association of Irish Volunteers with the Enemy now established I agree with the Lord Lieutenant that leaders should be arrested and interned in England. Can this be proceeded with subject to concurrence of the Law Officers, Military authorities and Home office?”16 If the Military Council had delayed even a few hours, their plans are likely to have been completely cut across.
William O’Brien witnessed the final preparations at Liberty Hall just before the Rising on Easter Monday morning:
“When I arrived there about 10 am all was bustle and excitement. Large numbers of Volunteers and Citizen Army men were continually passing in and out. Quantities of ammunition and bombs were been taken out of the premises and loaded into cars and trucks…I went downstairs to get my bicycle. I found difficulty in getting it out owing to the large number passing out through the front door. While I waited an opportunity Connolly passed down the stairs and shook hands without speaking. As I cycled across Abbey Street I saw the Irish Republican troops breaking the windows of “Kelly’s for Bikes,” and dragging bicycles and motor cycles across the street to form a barricade…The fight was on.”17
The effects of the countermanding order
Clearly, the countermand from MacNeill and the confusion had an effect on the numbers who were mobilised on Easter Monday. Reports indicate that in advance, some of the IRB thought they might possibly get more than half of the Volunteers to be actively involved in the Rising. It’s impossible to know, if there hadn’t been a countermanding order, how many of those who turned up on the drills would then have stayed when informed it was an actual rising. The IRB had a relatively strong position in the Volunteers, but there were also others in the leadership of the Volunteers and the IRB who were more moderate and favoured waiting to see what might come out of a post-war peace settlement. When a rising was declared, without doubt, there would have been some form of open dispute. The number of insurgents did increase in the course of the Rising, but not dramatically.
As mentioned earlier, the engagements outside of Dublin were limited. In the midst of all the confusion of order and counter-order, sisters Laura and Agnes Daly, who were from Limerick but in Dublin, were asked by Pearse to deliver a message directly to the Volunteer officers in Limerick asking them to rise.18 This was duly delivered on Monday morning. However, because the arms from The Aud were lost and the numbers of mobilised Volunteers had by then shrunk to 76, the officers in Limerick concluded that there was no possibility of joining the fight.
Laura and her other sister, Nora, were determined to join the fight themselves and so started out again for Dublin. With difficulty, they arrived in Dublin at around 10.30 pm on Tuesday night. They eventually got to the GPO close to midnight. A decision was made in the GPO that, as both sisters were well-known to the Volunteers in Limerick and Cork, they should go again immediately to both cities in another attempt to get both areas to rise. Laura Daly went to Limerick but didn’t have any success. In Cork, Nora Daly met with Thomas MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney and gave them the message. There the Volunteers met but didn’t make the decision to fight. The news from Munster was met with understandable disappointment in Dublin.
The lack of Volunteers or members of the public joining the Rising in significant numbers and the decisions taken by the Volunteers in Limerick and Cork, despite renewed and direct appeals from Dublin, are in some way a comment on the broader mood in the country and how the Rising was viewed. If MacNeill hadn’t found out about the plan and hadn’t been able to issue the countermanding order in advance, clearly significantly more would have gotten involved. If more than half the Volunteers had actually participated, that could have meant that the resistance continued for a longer period. However, even in that situation, it is very unlikely that it would have qualitatively altered the outcome of the conflict itself. To have any real chance of victory, the rising would have had to provoke mass and active support in society, particularly from the working class.
Initially, the most common reaction to the rising seems to have been surprise and shock. Those who generally supported the achievement of independence by force of arms would have been either strongly supportive of the Rising or at least sympathetic to the rebels. There were reports that in the more downtrodden working-class parts of Dublin, where the rebels fought, they received more support. In more middle-class or upper-class areas, such as around St. Stephen’s Green, where the ICA’s Michael Mallin led an ICA detachment, the rebels faced sharp hostility.
In the north-east of the country, containing the majority of the Protestant population, the opposition was even stronger. Prominent Volunteers and trade unionists who were Protestant were involved, but they were a small minority, and for the vast bulk of Protestants, the Rising was viewed as nationalist in character. They wouldn’t really have been able to detect a working-class or socialist content in it or its objectives that may have caused some to pause and consider it in a different light. It would also have been seen by some as an attack on those from the North and the South who were fighting in the World War – a sentiment that would have been deepened by the rebels’ link-up with the German state.
A blow against Imperialism internationally
While understanding and taking full account of differing attitudes to the Rising, it is very important to also recognise the objective impact that the 1916 Rising had in Ireland, in Britain and globally. In the era of Imperialism, where advanced capitalist countries intervened economically, politically and militarily across the globe, the exploitation of the working masses and of the colonial nations was intensifying. Far from diminishing in relevancy, as some in the socialist movement at the time mistakenly thought, the national question was gaining renewed importance.
The war, supposedly being fought by Britain and the Allied forces for the rights of small nations, such as Belgium (which actually had its own colonies), was in fact about the exact opposite. It was an inter-imperialist war that included the aim of further enslaving small nations and colonies. In this situation the Easter Rising helped expose the lie at the heart of the war effort of British imperialism. If Britain really respected the different peoples of the world and were a force for the defence of national freedoms and small nations, then why, in its oldest colony, were people taking up arms against them to assert their national rights?.
Britain was the dominant imperialist power at the time and for people all over the world who suffered under its brutal exploitation and suppression, the Rising gave them a boost and increased their confidence to struggle. There is no doubt that national independence movements in many countries got an impetus from the Rising. CLR James, the socialist historian and journalist, said of the Rising that “Easter week was the herald of the Irish revolution and the first blow struck against imperialism during the war at a time when the revolutionary movement in Europe seemed sunk in apathy.” The Rising had an impact on the oppressed nations of Eastern Europe, in India, particularly in Bengal, as well as in Egypt and many other countries in Africa. It also had a significant impact on a young Ho Chi Minh, who lived in London and Paris around this time. He supported and was impressed by the Rising, which clearly influenced him when he went back to Vietnam.
The Rising also served to undermine the prestige of the ruling class which in turn impacted on class relations and balance of forces in Britain itself, giving an impetus to working class struggle and raising consciousness. The response to the Rising and the role of British Imperialism in Ireland generally became significant issues in the labour and trade union movement and among the working class throughout Britain. On the other hand, the leaders of the British Labour Party, who supported the war, condemned the Rising and shamefully some even cheered in Parliament at the news of the executions of the leaders. While British Imperialism was able to impose partition in 1922 to save itself from the danger of social revolution with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, that was to open up a crack in the façade of the Empire which was to became much deeper in the decades ahead.
In Ireland, the Rising complicated the situation in the North-East and accentuated the differences between Protestant and Catholic working class people and between the north and south of the country. Clearly this division was a very significant challenge but one which the labour and trade union movement could have successfully addressed if it fought for a socialist solution to the national question.
The Rising shook society in the South from top to bottom. It challenged the authority of British rule, whose response made its own position in Ireland even more difficult. It is possible that if Britain had responded to the Rising in a more considered and careful manner (rather than unleashing war and the jackboot of suppression) there may not have been the same explosion of national sentiment and radicalisation in society. Without a rising, like many other countries, Ireland was set for turbulent and revolutionary times in any case because of the effects of the war, the dramatic effects of the socialist revolution in Russia and the organic crisis of capitalism.
However, in general, the Rising was a very significant event which had an important impact and signposted the closing of one period and opening up a new situation. What was to come over the next years was an unprecedented revolutionary period in Irish history which contained momentous events, mass mobilisations of the working class and the potential to defeat British imperialism and capitalism.
National and social liberation
While recognising the generally progressive character and impact of the Rising, it is absolutely correct to show also its limitations and problems. The most tragic consequence of the Rising was the death of James Connolly himself.
Connolly was and still remains a towering figure, the greatest representative and fighter that working-class people in Ireland ever had. His death was a tragedy because, in contrast to what he had expected, the years 1917 to 1920 saw an unprecedented revolutionary period open up, one of mass struggle and radicalisation. Instead of being victorious, this movement went down to defeat and partition. In 1922, the working class was divided like never before. The consequences of that defeat have been felt by every generation since.
If James Connolly had been alive during those revolutionary years, there is every chance that a mass socialist movement and party could have been built– precisely what was missing but also what was necessary for a revolution to be brought to a victorious conclusion, as demonstrated by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917. Connolly would have been immensely affected by the revolution that swept the Tsarist bulwark aside and would have watched closely the progress of the Russian workers. Support for socialist change, including for the October Revolution in Russia, was widespread and growing. Tragically, Connolly’s desperation to strike a blow against the Empire and war and his determination to organise a rising, no matter what, and its bloody defeat meant that at the time of the greatest potential for revolutionary change in Ireland, the Irish working class was without its greatest leader and organiser.
Even if Connolly participated in the Rising, but had put forward a programme that showed the need for an independent mass movement of the working class and outlined that only a socialist struggle against British Imperialism could really transform the lives of ordinary people and achieve national independence, that would have established a powerful policy around which a revolutionary party could have cohered in the years immediately after the Rising.
With such a programme the potential to unite the working class, Protestant and Catholic, against the attempts by British Imperialism to divide and rule would have increased enormously and with that the possibility of achieving a socialist solution to the national question. Putting forward his own working-class and socialist programme during the Rising would also have cut across the ongoing attempts to turn him into a sanitized nationalist icon.
The opening of a new period
Connolly’s mistake in not putting forward his own programme in 1916 flowed from the mistaken analysis and perspective he developed in 1914-1915. Whereas Lenin and the Bolsheviks knew that the war would bring terrible catastrophes, they also understood it would be the midwife of social revolution. If Connolly had an inkling that Ireland and Europe would be gripped by a profound radicalisation and revolution, with the prospect of socialism hovering over the entire continent before the war would end, while still fighting for national freedom, it is highly unlikely he would have thrown everything into a rising with such limited goals and prospects.
Having a perspective and then a programme of action to achieve it are completely connected. In turn, both are connected to the need for a party. The purpose of a party is to fight for and build support for a set of ideas and policies, a programme. If Connolly and others had built a defined and developed Marxist party, even if numerically small, he would have benefitted from the discussions and the debates within the organisation and may have drawn a different assessment of the war and what it might lead to.
If, as was entirely possible, the IRB / Volunteers or sections of them were intent on holding a rising in the context of the world war, such a party would clearly have had to consider what attitude it would take to it. The importance of the national struggle could have meant that it would have decided to critically support such a rising; that is, recognising that a stand against imperialism is justified but putting forward its criticisms and ideas as to what was really necessary to defeat British imperialism and capitalism. It may even have decided that some of its ranks would be involved in the rising on that clear political position. In that way the socialists could demonstrate their support for national liberation but do that in the context of fighting for the unity of Protestant and Catholic working class people and a socialist Ireland, where the rights and futures of all would be guaranteed.
Lenin’s writings on the Rising constituted a defence of it against criticism. Trotsky’s comments on 1916 were very perceptive and went more into what the future held for Ireland. It is clear that he had a sense of the revolutionary potential that was about to come. At the start of July 1916 he wrote:
“The young Irish working class, taking shape in an atmosphere saturated with the heroic recollections of national rebellions, and clashing with the egoistic, narrow-minded, imperial arrogance of British trade unionism, naturally swing between nationalism and syndicalism, ever ready to unite these two concepts in their revolutionary consciousness. It attracts the young intelligentsia and individual nationalist enthusiasts, who, in their turn, supply the movement with a preponderance of the green flag over the red. In this way, the ‘national revolution’, even in Ireland, in practice has become an uprising of workers… But the historical role of the Irish proletariat is only beginning. Already into this uprising – under an archaic banner – it has injected its class resentment against militarism and imperialism. That resentment from now on will not subside.”19
Here Trotsky touched on the idea that in countries where capitalism developed late, the traditional task of resolving the national question can only be carried out by the working class as it fights for socialist change. Such ideas and perspectives were completely in line with what Connolly argued for in his landmark book Labour in Irish History, written in 1910.
In the years 1914 to 1916, the motivation for James Connolly’s actions was his unquenchable desire to fight imperialism and his desperation to try to save the working class from slaughtering itself in the millions. The course of action he took wasn’t easy; he never compromised with the capitalist system or the powerful; nor did he sell out to enrich himself like so many of the leaders of the labour and trade union movement have done for years. The greatest tribute we can pay to Connolly is to look seriously at his life, his ideas and at his approach to 1916 and fully learn the lessons from this crucial time. We do this to ensure that this time we achieve the real revolutionary change that the working class and youth desperately need.
Notes
1 Piaras F. Mac Lochlainn, Last Words: Letters And Statements Of The Leaders Executed After The Rising At Easter 1916(Dublin 1971) p. 2 J.L Hyland, James Connolly, (Dublin 1997), p.52 3 “The 1916 Rising: Personalities and perspectives”, http://www.nli.ie/1916/exhibition/en/ 4 V.I. Lenin, “The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up”, Lenin Collected Works, Volume 22, pp. 320-360 5 Eve Morrison, “Class, Gender & Occupation Among the Bureau of Military History Witnesses & Ernie O’Malley Interviewees Who Were ‘Out’ in 1916”, Saothar 41 (2016) 6 C. Desmond Greaves, The Life and Times of James Connolly, (London, 1972) p.374 7 James Connolly, “God Help the Poor Irish”, Workers’Republic, 1915 8 James Connolly, “Notes on the Front”, Workers’Republic,1916 9 James Connolly, “Revolutionary Unionism and War”, 1915 10 Ibid 11 V.I. Lenin, Socialism and War: The Attitude of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party Towards the War, 1915, 12 James Connolly, “Ireland – Disaffected Or Revolutionary”, Workers’Republic,1915 13 Greaves, p.390 14 Greaves, p. 403 15 Greaves, p. 402 16 Telegraph to Birrell, 70 Elm Park Rd. London. April 24, 1916. Nathan Papers, MS 476, Bodleian Library, Oxford University 17 Introduction written by William O’Brien to Desmond Ryan (ed.) Labour and Easter Week (Dublin, 1966) 18 Ruth Taillon, The Women of 1916 (Dublin 1996) p.42-44 19 L. Trotsky, “On the Events in Dublin”, Nashe Slovo, 1916
