A leader of Ireland’s Revolutionary Workers Groups, a precursor to the Communist Party, on the first wave of resistance by the Irish working class, north and south, to the international economic crisis as the Great Depression spread over the capitalist world.
‘Increasing Struggles of the Irish Workers’ by Jim Hale from International Press Correspondence, Vol. 12 No. 56. December 15, 1932.
(Dublin). For six weeks the Castlecomer miners (Co Kilkenny) have fought the coal bosses for an increase in the miserable scale of wages paid them. Their strike has now ended in a victory for the workers. The bosses were forced to grant an increase of 1d per ton to the drawers. This fight has been a great triumph for militant rank and file leadership.
This struggle very clearly exposed the reactionary role of the Trade Union officials. The Dublin Trades Union Council refused to grant any help to the miners while the leading Trade Unions were very noticeable by their inactivity.
On the other hand solidarity of the rank and file of the organised workers with the miners was demonstrated by the action of Dublin No. 1. Branch of the Irish Woodworkers Union, which undertook to levy themselves while the strike lasted and collections were taken at many Dublin factories.
The rank and file leadership of the strike and the solidarity of the workers and the poor farmers with the striking miners has been able to defeat the bosses in spite of the fact that the whole capitalist press and the reformist Trade Union leaders were with the coal owners.
The Irish railwaymen are now preparing for strike action. The Award of the Railway Wages Board which seeks to impose drastic cuts on the already meagre pay of the rail workers has been rejected by the men. The Dublin Council of the National Union of Railwaymen composed of 52 branches with a membership of 5,000 has called for strike action for midnight December 11th. The other unions involved have also had meetings at which the rank and file displayed their determination to resist any attempt to impose a cut. By the wonderful solidarity and the fact that strike committees have already been set up by the men the Trade Union Officials have been forced to go more to the “Left”. The workers in the subsidiary companies, namely, Irish Omnibus Company and Wallis Carriers have pledged themselves to stand by the rail workers in the forthcoming struggle.
The growing militancy of the workers and working farmers as shown in the great Belfast fight last October, in the many strikes now actually in progress or pending, the rapid organisation of the unemployed, who have just held a most successful National Convention, and the many important concessions won by them in many towns and the growing strength and influence of the Irish Revolutionary Workers Groups has resulted in a terrific barrage from press and pulpit against communism. The Bishops have issued pastorals in which they announce that anyone having connection with communism cannot remain in the Church. Militant workers are victimised in and out of work. At the instigation of the Clergy workers who attended the National Conference of the Revolutionary Workers Groups were evicted and thrown on the roadside. Here in a country where there is so much about the “Sanctity of the Home” homes are broken up and home life denied to militants of the working class.
Every religious denomination without exception, every bourgeois and petty bourgeois political party and even the recently formed White Army has been granted the use of the Public Hall in the Mansion House, Dublin, whenever they required it. But the meeting advertised by the Irish Revolutionary workers Groups to be held in the Mansion House in Commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the Russian Revolution was banned by the Lord Mayor who cancelled the meeting. In spite of the ban a mass meeting was held outside the Mansion House.
Councillor Jim Larkin (Jun) moved a vote of censure on the Lord Mayor for his refusal of the Mansion House at the meeting of the Council on Monday 5th December. The motion was defeated by 28 votes to 2. The opposition was composed of a solid block of the Conservatives, Fianna Fail and Labour Party. One of the members of the Labour Party who voted against the motion was P.T. Daly who has recently been to the Soviet Union on a delegation.
When in the Soviet Union, Daly called for a closer connection between the Irish workers and the workers of the Soviet Union, but in Ireland Daly lines himself up with the class enemy and attempts to prevent any working class connection between the two countries.
With the break up of capitalism all pretence at democracy is dropped. In Cork where a public meeting of the unemployed was to take place the clergy mobilised the members of the various religious societies in order to “prevent a communist meeting.” One worker who was suspected of being a communist received a severe beating. These incidents occur in a country where the President “guarantees” free speech for all.
It is significant that every religious and capitalist paper now features the “menace of communism” daily as the principle item. The growing membership and formation of new groups of the Irish Revolutionary Workers Groups added to the fact that a definite decision has been taken by the workers to launch the Communist Party of Ireland in February has struck fear and terror into the hearts of the capitalist class with the results as stated.
Ireland is no exception to any other country. Neither are the Irish workers any different from the workers in other lands. The growing white terror in Ireland will have the same results as in Poland, Germany and elsewhere and that will be a strong mass Communist Party leading the workers in alliance with the poor farmers to a complete overthrow of the present degrading system and the establishment of the Workers’ State.
London, December 11.
A postponement of the Irish rail strike, due to start tonight, is now assured, by reason of the Free State Government having offered a subsidy of four months’ duration to the railway companies equivalent to the saving that would have been effected by the imposition of the 10 per cent wage-cut demanded. The railway unions have expressed the hope that the Government of Northern Ireland will fall into line on this matter and that the companies will accept it.
International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” 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. Inprecorr’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 Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly. Inprecorr is 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/1932/v12n56-dec-15-1932-Inprecor-op.pdf
