A report on the 1933 (re)founding of the Irish Communist Party with James Larkin Jr.’s opening speech, a run down of its delegates, and the meeting’s Manifesto.

‘Ireland Launches its Communist Party’ by Aodh Mac Manus from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 13 No. 26. June 16, 1933.

Ireland, which in its centuries’ old struggle against England has never hauled down its flag, which has given many great figures to the world liberation movement and which in turn has always received inspiration and assistance from other insurrectionary struggles, has taken its place in the international movement of the revolutionary working class. On June 3 and 4 the inaugural congress was held in Dublin to launch the Communist Party of Ireland.

Forty-five delegates, representing Belfast, Donegal, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Longford, and Dublin city and county, were present. The social composition was as follows: Railwaymen 2, building trades 9, engineers 4, textile mill workers , printing trades 2, farmers and rural labourers 2, unemployed 5, and miscellaneous 15.

The date and place of the congress were not announced publicly in order to prevent victimization of the provincial delegates. But it was in no way an illegal meeting; the campaign was conducted as widely as possible and scores of Dublin workers- Party and non-Party- assisted in the technical preparations. Jim Larkin, jun., who presided at the first session, welcomed the delegates in the name of the National Committee of the Revolutionary Workers’ Groups.

“We meet,” he said, “to bring into being the General Staff of the whole struggle of the Irish workers and working farmers. The Congress is of significance not only to the Irish working class but to the workers and peasants throughout the Empire who are struggling against British imperialism. We have in Ireland great traditions of revolutionary struggle, but until now the Irish working class has not had the necessary revolutionary leadership which only the Communist International and the Communist Party of Ireland can give. We meet to-day to build that leadership, Our Party has the historic duty of leading the working class of Ireland in the development of the struggle for national emancipation and the socialist revolution. In all the revolutionary national battles the working class has played a foremost part, but· in all these the working class was unable to separate itself from the bourgeois and petty bourgeois leadership of the national movement. The historic background for our inaugural congress is the age-long struggle of the Irish people, which is pregnant with lessons for the working class and Communists of Ireland. The utmost need in the struggles today is for a resolute rank-and-file leadership of the struggles and the creation of a mass Communist Party. The absence of the Party in the railway strike, in the Belfast unemployed struggles, in effect lead to the inability of the revolutionary movement to organize these struggles and to connect the many isolated struggles taking place all over the country. The Gastlecomer miners’ victory was a magnificent example of the fight which the workers can develop against capitalism. Despite the efforts of the whole forces of the church and the reformist union officials on behalf of the mineowner, the miners secured their demands. The railway strike on the surface afforded greater possibilities of success. Here a strong trade union and a strong section of the Irish working class were defeated and wage cuts and dismissals carried through. The difference lay in the fact that the conduct of the latter strike was in the hands of the reformist officials, who led the strike to defeat. Leadership is a vital· need in Ireland. Our Party is being formed at a crucial time. The capitalist system the world over is breaking down. The bourgeoisie are resorting to fascism and war. Social democracy is being exposed before the masses; in Germany its once great Party lies prostrate before Hitler. The Irish Communist Party is born in a period of wars and revolutions. Marxism-Leninism alone can lead the Irish masses out of national and social bondage to the· socialist society for which James Connolly fought.”

Resolutions of greeting were sent to the Communist International, the Communist Parties of America, Britain, and Germany and to Tom Mooney. A further resolution demanded the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Ireland.

The principal item of discussion was a manifesto to be issued from the Congress to all working men and women in Ireland and to all fighters for national liberation. Sean Murray, who was given an ovation by the delegates, in introducing this, said:

“The Congress was a living proof that a Society of United Irishmen could be formed to-day; the workers present from the four corners of Ireland had broken through all sectarian bigotry and racial animosity and in the Communist Party of Ireland were launching the United Irishmen of the 20th century.

“The aim of the Irish Communist Party was an independent Irish Republic under the rule of the Irish working class and working farmers. To achieve this the political and economic power of the Irish capitalists must be broken through the class struggle of the Irish workers and working farmers.

“The Irish Communist Party would follow in the footsteps of James Connolly and his teacher, Karl Marx, described in ‘Labour in Irish History,’ Connolly’s monumental work, as ‘the greatest. of modern thinkers and first of scientific socialists.’ The goal of Connolly- The Workers’ Republic- was already achieved in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.

“The Fianna Fail Government’s claim to have an alternative to imperialism on the one side. and Communism on the other was being shattered by the economic crisis. The railwaymen, teachers, civil servants, and unemployed now know on what basis the new social order of Fianna Fail is to be reared. The Fianna Fail Government can solve neither the national or the economic problems facing the Irish people.”

Delegates from other parts of. the country–engineers from Cork, Dublin factory workers, working farmers with a patch of land in Connaught, shipyard workers and mill girls from Ulster, men with years of heroic service in the Irish Republican Army followed in the discussion hammering out the problems with which they were faced in building the mass party of the Irish workers. After extensive discussion the manifesto was adopted unanimously.

“The hour of Ireland’s final liberation draws near,” it states.

“At the present time, when the world economic crisis is ruining hundreds of millions of workers and peasant farmers and reducing them to paupers, when unprecedented revolutionary forces are maturing in all countries, when the whole world is entering into a new period of wars and revolutions- this is the very time when Ireland obtains mighty international allies such as it never had before in all its history.

“The 1921 betrayal was no accident of individual leaders being bought or bribed by the British. It was the inevitable outcome of a struggle in which the leadership was in the hands of a class who feared that the triumph of the national independence movement would not halt at national separation, but would develop into a social revolution, resulting in the overthrow of the Irish capitalist class and the establishment of an Irish Workers’ and Farmers’ Socialist Republic.

“The Fianna Fail Government is utilising the revolutionary upsurge of the Irish masses for the purpose of securing economic and fiscal advantages for the capitalists, and, politically, to remove the more nakedly imperialist features of the Treaty of surrender, such as the Oath of Allegiance.

“The national struggle against Britain is being directed by the Fianna Fail Party along the lines of compromise, capitulation and betrayal.

“The rich revolutionary experience oi the Irish people’s fight for liberation from the English yoke gives the lesson that Irish capitalists always betrayed the independence movement for its own selfish class interests. The entire history of the national struggle under the leadership of the Irish capitalists is one of bargains with the English, obtaining concessions at the expense of the people’s movement for national freedom. Only an alliance of the proletariat and the peasants can produce sufficient power for the victory of the revolution.

“The class interests of the proletariat drive it further than the national independence of Ireland to the social emancipation of the toiling masses, to socialism. For the proletariat the national liberation of Ireland is an inevitable task which it will carry out on the way to socialism.

“Between the national and social liberation of the toiling masses of Ireland there is no contradiction, as is usually claimed by bourgeois politicians. On the contrary, it is just because the chief task of the proletariat is socialism that it is capable of carrying the national fight with England to a finish.

“The Irish working class will carry the national independence struggle to the end, attaching to itself the masses of peasant farmers so as to crush the power of the British imperialists and paralyse the unreliability of the Irish capitalist class. The Irish proletariat will bring about a socialist revolution, attaching to itself the masses of semi-proletarian elements in the population, so as to break the power of resistance of the capitalists and overcome the unreliability of the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie.

“At the head of the peasants for an independent Ireland, at the head of all the toilers and exploited for a Workers’ Republic, for the dictatorship of the proletariat- such is the historic task given to the Irish working class by the whole of the present alignment of class forces in Ireland and the position of the Irish national independence movement as an integral part of the international revolution.

“The Irish proletariat can carry out these historic tasks only by standing out as a political force, creating a revolutionary workers’ party- the Irish Communist Party -independent of the political parties of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.

“No other class but the proletariat and no other party but the. Communist Party can bring about the national and social liberation of the Irish People.”

The resolution on the political situation outlined the tasks of the Party as follows:

“(a) To organise the mass struggle against British imperialism and for the unity and independence of the country.

”(b) To organise the struggle of the workers and working farmers against wage cuts and dismissals, for work or full maintenance, for social insurance and the extension of relief and against the Craigavon imperialists and the national-reformist Fianna Fail government.

“(c) To fight for free speech and the freedom of the streets, press and organisation of the Communist Party of Ireland and all national and working-class organisations.

“(d) To establish fraternal relations between the Irish workers and the British workers and the peoples of the Empire in common struggle against British imperialism. To establish fraternal relations with the workers in the Soviet Union and to spread the truth about the Workers’ Republic of the U.S.S.R. To mobilise the workers in the fight against fascism and against participation in new wars of imperialist plundering.”

The motion to apply for affiliation to the Communist International as a separate section was greeted with applause and carried unanimously.

The Congress decided to send a special message to the I.R.A., hailing their struggle for national freedom, and urging Volunteers to become members of the Communist Party also.

“To the masses for the building of a powerful Communist Party of Ireland! “ This is the slogan which the delegates have taken back to their areas.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecor’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecor, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly. The ECCI also published the magazine ‘Communist International’ edited by Zinoviev and Karl Radek from 1919 until 1926 monthly in German, French, Russian, and English. Unlike, Inprecor, CI contained long-form articles by the leading figures of the International as well as proceedings, statements, and notices of the Comintern. No complete run of Communist International is available in English. Both were largely published outside of Soviet territory, with Communist International printed in London, to facilitate distribution and both were major contributors to the Communist press in the U.S. Communist International and Inprecor are an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1933/v13n26-jun-16-1933-Inprecor-op.pdf