The Politics of James Connolly

by Kieran Allen

James Connolly, the founder of the Marxist movement in Ireland, is firmly in the pantheon of nationalist heroes, yet his ideas are rarely discussed and still less understood. Often they have been distorted to justify particular political positions, and his name has been adopted by both Fianna Fáil and its Republican opponents, Sinn Féin.

Conservative Irish nationalists and the Church have also claimed Connolly as their own, and in doing so have gone to great lengths to downplay his commitment to international socialism. And the Irish left has struggled over many years to resolve the dilemma of Connolly's nationalism.

This book makes no attempt to claim Connolly for a particular tradition. Instead, Kieran Allen focuses on Connolly's revolutionary strategy, his struggle against the British Empire and his overall conception of socialism based on workers' democracy. At the same time, the book reveals the flaws that have so persistently dogged the Irish left and contributed to its failures.

Connolly's contribution to the international labour movement should not be underestimated. The Politics of James Connolly argues that his anti-imperialist message is now more than ever of relevance to the Irish left, particularly those sections who persist in ignoring it at their peril.

Genres: Ireland, Biography, History, Politics

206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

Reviews

[Bill Crane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good examination (sometimes felt like a cross examination) of James Connolly and his legacy from a socialist perspective. Allen does a fantastic job of placing Connolly in his context as a renegade from Second International Marxism, who cast his net wide (towards De Leon, syndicalism, etc) but never really found a political home. He also makes a strong case that the key weakness of Connolly's politics was his failing at arguably the central task of Irish socialists in his era, namely a class analysis of Irish Republicanism. This and his participation in the Easter Revolt left open the field for anyone from De Valera to the current crop of Republican Socialist revolutionaries to claim his legacy.

Overall I really liked it, but would drop points for Allen's somewhat dismissive attitude toward the pull of Irish nationalism on the working class, as well as teleology inflected by the worst of the SWP's tradition-- that Connolly, like Luxemburg, just failed to realize that his proper task was building a Leninist party avant la lettre, etc. Hence, 4 stars.

[Dan Sharber · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was pretty good. on reflection it seems like it really just tore apart pretty much all of connolly' politics but it doesn't come across this way. it seems a very fair assessment of the problems with his politics as well as the specific conditions both locally and within the international socialist movement which gave rise to those politics. if you are new to connolly this is very much worth reading.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Irish far-left is quite fascinating by comparison its more well known counterparts in Russia, China, Cuba, and Vietnam. While those Marxist movements have an unnerving tradition of deep authoritarianism and anti-democratic tendencies, the Irish radical socialists have married themselves to the greater Irish Republican struggle.

This traces back to James Connolly, the father of the far-left in Ireland and a hero of the otherwise nationalist republican 1916 Rising. Connolly is the first syndicalist I have studied in depth, and his tradition seems more tied to the doomed idealism of the Spanish Republic than to that of Lenin or Mao. Connolly was, if anything, more radically democratic and anti-authoritarian than those to his right. Many of his quotes seem like they would go hand in hand with the likes of Thomas Jefferson, which makes him a fascinating contrast to the authoritarianism Marxism is so well known for.

Now that all said, this book does suffer from the ideological lens of the author. Allen is, if anything, more left-wing than Connolly. Thus, much of Allen's critiques of Connolly suggest that Connolly was too moderate and too open. Allen is also deeply critical of the Irish Republican movements of the day, despite the fact that they too were by and large progressive. Take the Land League, for example. I'm quite left-wing by American standards, so the fact that I felt conservative reading some of the author's comments should be telling.

Nonetheless, this book does well at presenting, contextualizing, and analyzing Connolly's views. Given that Connolly was such a fascinating figure, this makes it well worth a read.

[Emily Davies (libraryofcalliope) · Rating 5 out of 5]

𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮, 𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘴𝘰 𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘺𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘵.
—
This was a fascinating exploration of the Marxist and Irish Republican, James Connolly (1868-1916), examining both his actions and his writings to consider and evaluate his politics. Allen considers Connolly from many angles, from the more conservative religious nationalist perspective to socialist and Marxist perspectives and considers how his legacy has been co-opted to fit different narratives. He analyses the impact of Connolly's religion on the evolution of his thought as well as his travels through different branches of radical socialism, trying to find a party that represented him. Both Connolly's nationalism and Marxism are represented as two sides of the same coin, and Allen provides an interesting analysis of his frustration with both the more conservative Irish nationalists and the emerging British Labour Party, both of whom had common fights with Connolly but also missed the fuller picture. Connolly is a figure that represents incredibly different things to different people, and this book explores and gives context to different positions and different organisations he belonged to in his lifetime. It was a great book for learning more about Connolly and was written engagingly and understandably.