186a, Clapham High Street, London S.W.4.
[illegible] never recovered from Khrushchov's speech [illegible] has done a little to keep the flame alight but [illegible] Vyshinsky or Stalin.
May 18th's NEWSLETTER sees the first attempt of [illegible] James Connolly, leads to total failure.
Possibly, to get the knack, he should have started with someone who, by some obvious indiscretion or blunder, afforded a head start — for instance the man who accused Castro of murdering Che Guevara and has never retracted. In fact I deliberately scanned the three following issues to see if there would be an editorial disassociation, or an indication that the paper had been indulging in some unaccustomed levity, but in vain. Obviously, therefore, this mind-rotting garbage must be a serious attempt to assess Connolly's achievements.
Let us patiently go through the errors in this article, if for no other reason than the fact that as long ago as 1867 Marx was carefully studying the Irish question and came to the conclusion that it was the key to the revolution in Britain. So for British marxists a correct interpretation of Irish history is a debt we owe to our own history.
Comrade Cochan correctly assesses the rottenness of most of the Irish bourgeois nationalists, but in suggesting that Connolly was their prisoner and that the Easter rising was no more than an adventure he is dead wrong.
Far from tagging along with the nationalists it was Connolly who was the most energetic in pressing for the rising. William O'Brien his fellow veteran of the I.T.G.W.U. records "Connolly insisted that if the organised workers were to pledge their support...the Irish Volunteers should be also pledged to back that policy with military support..." (1) and in an early October 1915 issue of THE IRISH WORKER Connolly wrote: "The Volunteers must realise...that there is but one effective weapon - the appeal of the Revolutionist" (1)
Because of his stand, and the fact that the Citizen Army was a force independent of bourgeois nationalists, he succeeded in holding a section of the Irish Volunteers to the path of insurrection when the leaders of the majority deserted. The military strategy of the rising and the very successful street fighting methods were drafted by Connolly.
Was the Easter rising "in effect an adventure"? Lenin's characterisation of Radek who called it, "nothing more or less than a putsch," is appropriate here, "a doctrinaire who is totally incapable of envisaging a social revolution as a living phenomenon." (2)
As Cochan points out, Connolly did not understand the theory of permanent revolution, and thought of the Irish Revolution as being a series of stages, but that he held this mistaken concept is no reflection on him. He died, after all, 16 [illegible] was unable to learn from the achievements of the [illegible] important task of the Irish workers was to defeat British imperialism, and so he took action, with no illusions about immediate success, or even his [illegible] made a tremendous contribution to the experience of the struggle for socialism, besides showing the most inspiring heroism. As Lenin said, "It is only in premature, individual, sporadic and therefore unsuccessful revolutionary movements that the masses gain experience, acquire knowledge, gather strength and get to know their real leaders".
However, Cochan has not neglected one important factor of any character assassination attempt - the "Big Lie." According to this myopic bungler "When the green flag was raised over Liberty Hall Connolly...went even beyond nationalism to racialism."
Such a charge made against ANY adherent of the socialist movement is extremely grave, and to make it lightly is a disservice to the movement. To make it against Connolly, a man who fought in 3 countries to build the working class movement, who built up the first independent workers' militia, and thus contributed valuable experience to the Red Guards in the Russian Revolution and who laid down his life in armed struggle against imperialism, shows such squalid contempt for truth that it is difficult to grasp the fact that it is not a joke. What is the evidence? a single quote: "(The decision) will, we are sure, send a thrill through the hearts of every true Irish man and woman, and send the red blood coursing fiercely along the veins of every lover of the race."
This passage, admittedly rather purple - expresses Connolly's love of the Irish people and his solidarity with their struggle against imperialism - emotional as well as intellectual and physical. It has nothing remotely in common with the sentiments of a South African "Broederbond" or a Mississippi policeman or British Powellite. In fact, it is not racialism at all, as anyone outside the inverted world of the NEWSLETTER knows.
But what is the purpose of all this distortion and mudslinging? Is it, as the writer claims, "to explain his important achievements and failures to workers in a revolutionary constructive way."? For this some respect for truth would be required - in fact the reason is contained in a passage near the end, "The Socialist Labour League, the British section of the Fourth International (sic), provides the important lessons needed the building of an Irish section."
With due modesty the S.L.L. steps forward to fulfil the tasks in which the "racialist" Connolly [illegible]. It is a measure of their political stature that [illegible]. Connolly was a great revolutionary. No one can oust him from his place in history, when the Irish workers have done finally with capitalism they will acknowledge that their victory was impossible without his example, and they will always remember their debt to him. They will not owe anything to the Socialist Labour League.
Fraternally
Bob Purdie
(1) "[illegible] Years of Liberty Hall" I.T.G.W.U. [illegible]
(2) Lenin, [illegible] National Policy [illegible] Progress Publishers, Moscow.