Statement of then presidential William Z. Foster, whose father James was a Fenian born in County Carlow who fled to the U.S. after 1867’s failed uprising, addressed to Irish America on events in Belfast where unity of unemployed Catholic and Protestant workers developed during the Great Depression. The city which had seen so many anti-Catholic pogroms and communal rioting, in October, 1932 saw armed Catholic and Protestant workers fighting together against the Northern state, in part organized by the Revolutionary Workers Groups, to become the Communist Party of Ireland.

‘Heroic Battles in Belfast’ by William Z. Foster from The Daily Worker. Vol. 9 No. 248. October 17, 1932.

U.S. Bosses for Imperialist Gains at Expense of Irish Masses

The Workers of U.S. Must Support Battle of Irish Masses for Better Wages, Relief and National Liberation–Labor Party of Great Britain, Colleagues of Norman Thomas, Betray Irish’ National Liberation Struggle

DEMAND TROOPS BE WITHDRAWN

Protest Murder of Jobless Fighters

William Z. Foster, presidential candidate of the Communist Party, under doctor’s care with a severe attack of angina pectoris, has issued the following statement to the press in connection with the determined struggle of the Belfast workers against starvation wages and unemployment relief and their heroic battles with the armed forces of British imperialism mobilized to crush their resistance.

“The advent of thousands of unemployed and employed workers in the North of Ireland into sharp class battles with the employers, the Ulster police and British troops is one of the most important developments of the crisis and the rise of the class struggle throughout the world. In America only the Communist Party organizes support for the revolutionary struggles of the Irish masses.

“The unbearable conditions of the workers and peasants in both the North and South afford the sharpest contrast between the constantly improving conditions and the rising social and cultural level of the oppressed nationalities freed by the Russian revolution and now advancing side by side with the Russian working-class to Socialist society.

“Mass unemployment in Ireland is in sharp contrast with the abolition of unemployment in the Soviet Union.

“The millions of workers of Irish birth and descent in the United States must be organized for support of the battle of the Irish masses for better wages and working conditions and for national liberation.

“The Wall Street rulers of America are no friends of the Irish workers and peasants. They try to use the heroic struggles of the Irish workers and peasants to further their own imperialist interests at the expense of the Irish masses, the British working class and American workers. The Labor Party of Great Britain and its leaders like Henderson, the colleagues of Norman Thomas, are the bitterest foes of Irish liberation as they are of liberation of the masses in India.

“The mobilization of Irish American workers for support of the liberation struggle in Ireland will be carried out successfully only if it is part of the fight against the entire program of hunger, war of American imperialism. The attempts now being made by American capitalism and its agents in the ranks of the working-class to make the Issue of Irish liberation one of support for its sharpening conflicts with Great Britain and for attacks on the Soviet Union, its special appeals through its hangers-on of the professional Irishman type attached to the capitalist parties are designed to rally Irish American workers to its reactionary program, must be exposed on a wide scale.

“Ireland has been divided in two parts both of which are held in subjection. Britain maintains garrisons and naval bases in Ireland, as Lloyd George has stated plainly, to further its conquest and imperialist war aims. The struggle of the Irish masses for liberation is consequently of the utmost importance for the American working-class and the world’s working class in bringing into the clear light of the day the war purposes of imperialism in connection with the mass struggle against imperialist war.

“The solidarity of all American workers with the Irish workers and peasants is a vital necessity. I urge the immediate calling of representative mass conferences, the holding mass meetings to demand the withdrawal of all British troops from Ireland, the organization of financial support for the Irish Workers Revolutionary Groups and their paper, “The Workers Voice” in the most energetic manner we must proceed to the organization of mass support for complete independence of the British empire, Ireland, under a workers and farmers government and the unification of the country under such a government.

“In the course of organizing this movement we must expose the betrayal of the revolutionary liberation struggle of the Irish workers and peasants by agents of Irish and American capitalism and drive them out of the ranks of the workers who revere and carry on the fighting traditions of James Connolly, now borne forward by the Irish Workers Revolutionary Groups and the heroic class battles in which they take a leading part.”

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n248-NY-oct-17-1932-DW-LOC.pdf