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I wrote this some years back, but various revisionists and pro-imperialists, including ones claiming to be left-wing, still meddle the nonsense. In the early 1900s the national question affected every movement for social change in Ireland. For the labour movement, particularly those who sought to lead it in a revolutionary direction, the national question posed the greatest challenge. If the goal of the working class, in the view of the revolutionaries, was a social revolution and the establishment of a workers’ republic, how should the political question of British rule in Ireland be approached? Was the road forward for the workers in Ireland, a colonial possession of an imperial power, the same as that in Britain? What was the relationship between economic and political issues? Was the job of revolutionaries simply to provide an analysis of capitalism and/or counsel workers to be more militant in struggling for better wages and conditions? Was a working class-based or, at least, working class-led, revolution possible? Given the weakness of the working class – due to the historical underdevelopment of capitalism in Ireland and the sectarian divisions which stemmed from this underdevelopment – were there other social forces which could be drawn to the workers’ side in a struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society? The response of Irish revolutionary socialists at the time, above all James Connolly, has been a point of debate ever since. In particular, the rise of historical revisionism has led to the resurrection of the theme that Connolly abandoned. . . full at: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/the-easter-rising-and-the-blood-sacrifice/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
