The following is the
text of a leaflet that dates from 1949, and was produced by the Dublin
Socialist Group for distribution at events organised in the city to commemorate
the 33rd anniversary of the execution of James Connolly. The socialists who
made up the Dublin Socialist Group later helped form the World Socialist Party
of Ireland.
FELLOW-WORKERS! TRADE
UNIONISTS!
May the 15th, 1949 – thirty-three years after his death
which you now commemorate, and less than thirty-three days after the roar of
guns ushered in “The Republic of Ireland”. What relationship is there between
these two events? That is the question which, on this day, it is only fitting
that you should ask yourselves. Once a year you can march through the streets
in your thousands to commemorate his death yet every other day of the year your
actions – your very ideas – are, apparently, in violent conflict with all that
the man lived for. Is that an unwarranted assumption? Emphatically, we reply:
NO. The truth remains the truth, however unpalatable it may be.
We have not the least desire to advance any claim to James
Connolly, nor do we consider ourselves the especial inheritors of all of his
ideas. But to-day, when everybody acclaims him and sings his praise, we think
it very necessary to re-state the simple but vital fact, namely, that JAMES
CONNOLLY WAS OF THE WORKING CLASS. His ideas are not, and never will be, the
sole preserve, nor in the custody, of any particular section BUT THE WORKING
CLASS. Here it is as well to recall – when many are clamouring to bask in the
light of the but recently-discovered glory of Connolly – that his ideas were
vehemently denounced, and his very person attacked, by the representatives of
those interests who, to-day, so anxiously press their claim to his name. We
would not be so much concerned at this were it not for the fact that the
workers have been “taken in” by these spurious claims. You, fellow-workers,
have been duped; for you have supported political parties which have acted in
the interests of any and every class in and out of this county but the working
class. And you have supported them and placed them in power mainly on the
strength of their nationalism and Republicanism. You, who now march to-day in
memory of James Connolly, have you forgotten his “Labour in Irish History”?
Have you forgotten the thoughts he put on paper in order that you might the
better be able to wage your struggle against a social system which condemns you
to poverty and insecurity? We think you have forgotten. At the cost of
remembering the symbolic moment of his death in a national struggle you’ve
forgotten the toiling years of his life on behalf of the working class. Connolly
didn’t struggle, and write and speak, and organise, in order that the workers
might adhere to this or that Republican constitutional formula; no, not for
that. There was no James Connolly if such a man did not desire and work to
change the world, not its paper constitutions.
And you, fellow-workers, who, in your Trade Unions and
political parties stoutly maintain that you strive to follow in his footsteps,
do you direct your efforts towards changing the world? Evidence that you do is
certainly very much lacking; for on every occasion you’ve entered the
polling-booth you’ve either returned you out-going set of masters or merely
changed them for a new set. Not yet have you evinced any great desire to get
rid of the master class AS A WHOLE. And that, simply, is what is meant by
“changing the world”.
FELLOW-WORKERS!
As you may march, as
you may stand at the meeting-place, to-day, why not summarise your present
position in your own mind – after twenty-seven years of native government, and
after twenty-seven days of “The Republic of Ireland”? Line up your wage-packet
(assuming you’re not one of “the 75,000”) alongside the cost-of-living figure:
which is higher? Dwell a little on the plight of the thousands “living” in the
tenements – that is, of course, if you happen to be blessed (!) with a suburban
(!!) “working class house”. Recall the thousands who are unemployed (if you’re
not one of them, of course), and remember they’re the ever-present threat of
capitalism which hangs over your head – you may join their ranks to-morrow.
Again, tuberculosis and other medically-classified poverty diseases are
capitalism’s constant threat to the health and happiness of your children. And
topping these and the other social evils you know only too well the experience is
the threat of another capitalist war – yes, another, and promising to be
everything (and much more) that all the previous wars of history weren’t
together.
That is the real world you live in. Say – if you wish – that
you reside in a portion of that world known as “The Republic of Ireland”. So
what? Does that alter your position one bit? Of course not. And that world,
reflected in the capitalist system of that country and the conditions of the
Irish working class, surely deserves to go. And it will go WHEN THE WORKING
CLASS WILLS IT. If James Connolly can be said to have left a message for the
working class, it is this: THE WORKING CLASS MUST ACHIEVE ITS EMANCIPATION
ITSELF AND IT CAN ONLY DO SO THROUGH THE ABOLITION OF THE CAPITALIST SOCIAL
SYSTEM.
We are not given to lip-service, and much (judicious)
quoting of Connolly, but the following, we think, is by no means out of place,
and we especially commend it, on this particular occasion, to those who – to
put it bluntly – have made a good thing out of such practices.
“Ireland as distinct
from her people is nothing to me; and the man who is bubbling over with love
and enthusiasm for ‘Ireland’ and yet can pass unmoved through our streets and
witness all the wrong and suffering and the shame and the degradation wrought
upon the people of Ireland: aye, wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women
without burning to end it, is a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he
loves that combination of chemical elements he is pleased to call ‘Ireland’”.
'The Coming Generation' 1900
Fellow-workers, there is but one way to really commemorate
Connolly, and all those – whoever and wherever they may been – who have fought
and died for and on behalf of the world’s workers, and that is by striving to
abolish capitalism and establish SOCIALISM, THE COMMON OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC
CONTROL OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION (the factories, mills, mines, railways,
etc.), BY AND IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WHOLE OF THE COMMUNITY WITHOUT ANY
DISTINCTION WHATSOEVER. By devoting your time and energy to the achieving of
such an aim you will be truly commemorating Connolly and all those of his kind
every day.
THE DUBLIN SOCIALIST
GROUP
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