James Connolly and the Irish Left
By W.K. Anderson
Irish Academic Press in association with National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University
$39.95
Reviewed by Bernie Brian
This book is not an account of the life of the Irish socialist, James Connolly (1868-1916). You would still have to read C. Desmond Greaves for that. But in the course of Anderson's book we do get a feel for some of the qualities of the man that made him such a hard act to follow. For example, in an 1899 letter to Lillie Reynolds, Connolly informed his fiancee that he might have to miss his honeymoon because he would be organising a strike for shorter hours.
Anderson's book is divided into two sections. First, he outlines Connolly's practical and theoretical contributions to the socialist, labour and nationalist movements of Ireland. His contribution is analysed under the themes: the women's movement; religion; socialism and nationalism; the revolutionary party; political violence and insurrection; and revolution.
The second section then uses these same themes to analyse the impact of Connolly's ideas on post-1916 Irish politics.
The central message is that Connolly was irreplaceable, and with his death at the hands of a British firing squad, the Irish nationalist, labour and socialist movements suffered an immeasurable loss. One of the sad ironies of Irish history is that while the uprising of 1916 was the spark that ignited the struggle that forced England to the negotiating table, it also resulted in the death of one of the few Irish leaders who really understood the way England ruled.
Connolly argued that even if the green flag is flying over Dublin, England will still rule through its landlords, financiers and industrialists. To Connolly, the Irish would not be free until they had established a socialist republic. And this, according to Anderson, is Connolly's "greatest and most enduring legacy" to the Irish left.
The biggest danger to Connolly's vision was to leave the task of national liberation to the very classes that benefit from the exploitation of Irish labour. Connolly saw that the natural position for Irish labour was at the head of the national movement, and the latter years of his life were dedicated to this task.
For example, Anderson reveals that Connolly's trade union defence guard, the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), had a larger proportion of its members involved in the 1916 uprising than did the Irish Volunteers. It is also no coincidence that the headquarters of the ICA and the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (Connolly was general secretary of the ITGWU), Liberty Hall, was a particular target of British artillery in the days following the rising.
Yet after Connolly's execution, the labour movement retreated, leaving the nationalist movement dominated by middle-class revolutionaries. Rather than stand at the forefront of the nationalist movement, the post-Connolly labour movement sat on the fence so as not to upset its numerically large and industrially strong loyalist membership in Belfast.
In the years following the rising, the relationship between the labour movement and sections of the Irish nationalist movement were tense. This situation could not be blamed entirely on the labour movement: Anderson mentions a number of incidents in which the IRA was used to suppress strikes by rural workers.
If Connolly had failings, it was his inability to construct a party that was capable of continuing his work after his death. This is not to suggest that Connolly did not try. Much of his life was spent trying to organise a disciplined, well-organised and uncompromising revolutionary party, but his experiences were not positive. By the time of his death, he was primarily a syndicalist, investing all his energies in organisations like the ICA and the ITGWU — Ireland's answer to the One Big Union — although Connolly continued to argue the need for such a party.
Connolly was also very much ahead of his time in his active support for the women's movement. He wrote in 1915, "In its march towards freedom, the working class of Ireland must cheer on the efforts of those women who, feeling on their souls and bodies the fetters of the ages, have arisen to strike them off".
While Anderson's discussion of Connolly's legacy focuses on the 1920s and 1930s and does not deal with contemporary Ireland, it leaves the reader with a greater understanding of the forces and people that have shaped modern Ireland. It is a must for anybody interested in Irish history and also includes an excellent and extensive bibliography.