Review: Kieran Allen, The Politics of James Connolly

Shaun Doherty

James Connolly that he had to subordinate any socialist ambitions to the primacy of the struggle for national independence and fi- nally, the view of Austin Morgan and others who sought to repudiate his anti-imperialism and give pre-eminence to his work as a trade union organiser. Allen demonstrates beyond any dispute that Connolly’s writings, his commitment to freeing Ireland from British imperialism and his understanding of the centrality of working class, place him in the revolutionary Marxist tradition. It is in- teresting to remember that the book was first published before the 1998 Good Fri- day Agreement and the ensuing ‘peace pro- cess’ with its establishment of power-sharing in the North and before the collapse of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ and the imposition of austerity Kieran Allen, The Politics of James Connolly, Pluto Press, politics in the South. Its analysis has stood 2016. £13.00 the test of time and is even more relevant to today’s political situation. This is particu- larly true given the transformation of Sinn The timely re-publication of Kieran Al- Féin from militant republicanism to consti- lan’s The Politics of James Connolly, first tutional nationalism, which has led it to take published twenty six years ago in 1990, contradictory political positions either side should be read alongside his recent 1916: of the border. Ireland’s Revolutionary Tradition. The in- tervening years have demanded that we con- Connolly has suffered the fate of those tinue to review Connolly’s legacy and mea- who are vilified during their lifetimes as dan- sure it against changing political circum- gerous threats to the establishment only to stances. In doing so we can affirm Connolly be turned into harmless icons after their as the pre-eminent Irish revolutionary Marx- deaths. This is particularly true of the ver- ist, despite continuing attempts to appropri- sion that is happy to name railway stations ate him for a range of competing traditions. after him and to herald his role in 1916 as The thrust of Allen’s earlier political biog- a patriot. It coincides with the conserva- raphy was to challenge this appropriation of tive counter revolution of 1923 and its af- his legacy, while his more recent book chal- termath described vividly in Allen’s latter lenges prevailing assessments of the Easter book as ‘A most Conservative Country.’ It Rising and identifies it as the harbinger of is a version that seeks to either expunge the revolutionary upheavals in the years that Connolly’s Marxism or to render it harm- followed leading to partial independence in less as a form of guild socialism or mild 1921. Connolly’s role in this process was piv- social reformism. It also emphasises Con- otal. nolly’s Catholicism, even to the point of his In his introduction to the political biog- biographer Owen Dudley Edwards arguing raphy Allen identifies three competing ver- that he perceived essential interdependence sions of Connolly. Firstly, the sanitised view of socialism and Catholicism and was ‘one of of him as an Irish patriot and Catholic apol- the best and most enlightened apologist the ogist; secondly, the view epitomised in C. Catholic church has seen since the industrial Desmond Greaves The Life and Times of revolution’ (O.Dudley Edwards James Con-

80 nolly: The Mind of an Activist). This as- far to argue that Connolly ceased to be a so- sessment was clearly in tune with a country cialist in 1914 and instead threw his lot in where the social conservatism of Archbishop with militant republicanism. Charles John McQuaid had been wedded to There were weaknesses in Connolly’s the conservative nationalism of Eamon De analysis as Allen has consistently pointed Valera. out. In particular, the mistaken notion To some extent this unconvincing version that militant republicans would automati- of Connolly was effectively repudiated by the cally be drawn towards socialist politics af- Greaves’ biography. Informed by the politics ter national liberation had been achieved of the Communist Party it does give a more and as a result he failed to establish a last- detailed account of Connolly as a lifelong ing independent socialist organisation, but activist and working class organiser, but is the trajectory of Connolly’s life and polit- hamstrung by its adherence to one particu- ical commitment is a manifestation of the lar version of the stages theory of national tension between his lifelong commitment to liberation: namely that there should be an working class struggle and its centrality to alliance between the working class and pro- the fight for national liberation. He argued gressive sections of the bourgeoisie in order that an all-class alliance based on ‘nation- to fight for national liberation and that so- hood’ would fail to break the stranglehold cial demands should be postponed until after of Britain. The tension is not just theoreti- this had been achieved. This view was taken cal. The historical developments during the one stage further by Peter Beresford Ellis in last three years of his life shaped his attitude his preface to the 1985 edition of The His- considerably, but it’s worth giving a brief tory of the Irish Working Class who wrote, summary of the years prior to that. From ’In Ireland today as in previous centuries, 1898 he had been a socialist and trade union the mainspring of socialism is in the national organiser in Scotland; in 1896 he moved to struggle.’ Allen argues conclusively that far Ireland and formed the Irish Socialist Re- from Connolly subscribing to this view, in publican Party; in 1903 he moved to the US his most famous work Labour in Irish His- where he became involved with the Social- tory he had argued exactly the opposite. In ist Labour Party and subsequently became an argument that in many ways pre-figures an organiser for the International Workers of Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, the World; finally he returned to Ireland in Connolly asserts that Nationalists like Sars- 1910.In 1911 he became the organiser for the field, Grattan and O’Connell all feared the Irish Transport and General Workers Union masses more than the British rule because and then its General Secretary in 1913. The they threatened their own class position and great Dublin lock-out of that year proved to material wealth and power. As a result, they be a watershed with a ruthless employers’ of- could never deliver what they claimed to fensive against Connolly’s attempt to extend stand for and consequently ‘...only the work- the unionisation of the workers: an offensive ing class remain as the incorruptible inheri- that led to the defeat of the union. The sol- tors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.’ idarity of rank and file workers in Britain The third version of Connolly espoused was outweighed by the capitulation of their by Morgan and other apologists for the union leaderships and the TUC backed cam- British State- Bew, Patterson and Gibbon paign of scabbing. An embittered Connolly in The State in Modern Ireland - criticised described it as the ‘sordid betrayal of our him for linking working class struggle to holiest hopes.’ the struggle for independence and went so This defeat was followed in 1914 by the far as to assert that the effects of imperi- outbreak of the First World War. Connolly alism in any classical sense on Irish affairs was in the small minority of the interna- was slight. Their political motives were to tional socialist organisations in opposing the distance themselves from any resistance to war and the ITGWU campaigned against the state in Northern Ireland after the Civil conscription. He believed the war presented Rights Movement of 1968. Morgan went so revolutionaries with an opportunity, partic-

81 ularly in Ireland to strike a blow against the reference to extracts from Connolly’s writ- biggest imperial power in the world: ing to prove that his attitudes to religion were a fatal flaw. Starting thus Ireland may yet set Indeed, there is ample evidence in a torch to a European conflagra- Labour, Religion and Nationality of Con- tion that will not burn out until nolly challenging the interference of the the last throne and last capitalist church in the world of politics. In his debenture will be shrivelled on polemic against the Jesuit priest Father the funeral pyre of the last war- Kane who in his Lenten discourses had lord. railed against the socialist movement and denounced it as ‘mob rule’, Connolly ‘turned Out of the carnage of war and the defeat the words round in his mouth’ in a marvel- of the working class he became increasingly lous polemic. drawn to the idea of armed revolt against Britain in alliance with the forces of nation- There was a time stretching for alism. In order to follow this through he more than 1,000 years when the formed an alliance between his Irish Citizens mob was without power or in- Army and the National Irish Volunteers that fluence, when the entire power led to his central role in the armed uprising of the world was concentrated in of 1916. the hands of the kings, the no- Allen’s political biography gives an in- bles and the hierarchy. That was valuable and detailed account of this tra- the bleakest period of human his- jectory and at the core of it is the idea of tory... Then the mob started history and the actors in it as part of a dy- on its upward march to power-a namic process not a series of static events. power only to be realised in the The book deals in detail with all the stages socialist republic. In the course in Connolly’s political journey and whilst of its upward march the mob has recognising the towering role that Connolly transformed and humanised the had played in Irish working class history world. It has abolished religious it avoids hagiography and includes detailed persecution and imposed tolera- discussion of areas in his thought and politi- tion on bigots of all creeds; it has cal practice that merit more critical analysis. established the value of human For example, in the complex relationship life... there is not in history a that Connolly had with religion Allen dis- record of any movement for abol- tinguishes between his scathing attacks on ishing torture, preventing war, the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and establishing popular suffrage, or his residual belief that there was no intrinsic shortening the hours of labour incompatibility between religion and social- led by the hierarchy... All hail ist politics. He felt that if the clergy con- to the mob, the incarnation of fined themselves to the sphere of religious progress. concerns and kept out of politics, socialists could deal with the latter. He concluded As a polemicist in the daily struggle for that ‘the most consistent socialist or syndi- worker’s rights Connolly did not shy away calist may be as Catholic as the Pope if he from criticising the role of the church and is so minded.’ There was a clear contradic- its representatives when they acted as ideo- tion between his commitment to a ‘materi- logues for oppression and exploitation. alist’ analysis of the world and a belief that Allen applies the same degree of balance there were aspects of nature unfathomable to his criticism of Connolly’s view of politi- to humans and these were the phenomena cal organisation and his relationship with re- that religion could address. In engaging with publicanism. The crucial factor here is to be this critical analysis, however, Allen keeps a able to see the bigger picture, to keep a sense sense of proportion and avoids the myopic of perspective. In doing so Allen is able to scholasticism of those who make selective acknowledge and affirm the crucial role that

82 Connolly played in the struggle for social- class attempt to render him a harmless fig- ism and opposition to imperial oppression. ure of the past. Today’s struggles in Ireland This is particularly important today when against austerity, women’s oppression and we celebrate the anniversary of the Easter anti-immigrant racism owe an immeasurable Rising and Allen’s 1916: Irelands Revolu- debt to the real legacy of Connolly. I would tionary Tradition provides the same level of strongly recommend everyone engaged with consistency and dispassionate analysis as his these struggles to take advantage of the re- earlier biography. In achieving that over- publication of Allen’s political biography to all perspective of Connolly’s contribution we arm themselves with the lessons of history are able to see his continuing relevance to the and Connolly’s role within it as a revolu- struggles of today and the need to continue tionary Marxist of distinction. to challenge the false narratives and ruling

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