A Portrait
of James Connolly III: Connolly's Democratic Views
James T Farrell, New International No. 14, 1948
Writing about Dublin in the early twentieth century in The Reconquest
of Ireland, James Connolly declared:
‘It
is, indeed, strange that the people of a nation which has known
indomitable
determination in its struggle for possession of
the
mere machinery of government should exhibit so little capacity
to breathe a civic soul into such portions of the machinery
as they
had already brought under their control.’ 1
This quotation
is but one of many which could be taken from Connolly's writings
in order to suggest the thoroughgoing character of his
democratic views. It was Connolly, the Socialist, who explained
and developed
democratic views perhaps more fully than any Irish political
figure of his time. A working-class and trade-union leader, Connolly
brought
democratic ideas of leadership and democratic conceptions of
a rank and file into the Irish rebellion.
The difference between the Fenian Brotherhood of the nineteenth
century and the Irish Citizen Army would indicate this. The former
was organized
along the lines of a secret society, and the reins of control
were centered in the leadership. When the Fenians were ready
to strike
a blow the leadership hesitated in making a decision; the Fenians
missed their opportunity and disappeared from history. 2
We have already noted that before the Irish Citizen Army went
through with the Easter Rebellion, Connolly gave every member
an opportunity
to decide on whether to go along in the struggle or drop out.
The Irish Citizen Army, despite its democracy, disappeared from
history
as did the Fenians. But it left an addition to the legacy of
the Fenians and to the entire tradition of the Irish national
rebellion – a
legacy of democracy in thought and practice.
At the present time many socialists think of democracy mainly
in relationship to a democratic party organization and to
the ideal
of developing a democratic internal life in left party organizations
and movements. This is important. But democratic socialist
thinking should require a broader interest, and at the same time
it should
dictate a concern with those small practical details of organizing
life which are now viewed in a routine manner, if not with
outright cynicism. Social-ism should sponsor ideas of a genuine
civic
consciousness which is preached but not practiced in our
own time. Connolly's
remarks in the above quotation reveal his own sense of civic
consciousness – of
municipal patriotism, if one will.
At the beginning of this essay [see earlier articles], I spoke
of the recurrent division in the history of the Irish national
revolution,
a division on the question: Does the political or the social
question come first? Connolly, as we know, belonged to the tradition
of
Irish rebels who stressed the social question. But his stress
was not made
merely in large and broad terms. He drew conclusions from his
social position which he applied in small matters as well as
in large
ones. His ideas on civic consciousness derived from his social
views. They
were expressions of his socialist position.
Connolly valued all rights and liberties too sincerely to want
to see them wasted. He observed that after the Irish had
gained democratic
rights in municipal affairs, they did not use these rights;
they demonstrated a lack of civic consciousness. Wanting national
sovereignty, they were badly utilizing the voting rights
which
they had already
gained. And Connolly's discussion and criticism here served
as a means for an illuminating socialist discussion of democracy.
Connolly, let me repeat, was most thoroughgoing in his democratic
thoughts and ideas. Thus, in writing of ‘the function of public
bodies as a governing factor in Irish municipal politics,’ Connolly
emphasized that these functions of public bodies should be seen and
used not merely as offensive political weapons to be won from an
enemy, but also as ‘effective tools to be used in the upbuilding
of a healthier social edifice in which to give effect to the needs
of the citizens for associative aids to their individual development
and culture.’ It is a commonplace to remind readers
that Marx's real starting point was the ideal of a society
which would permit
the fullest and freest development of the human personality.
Such an ideal was central in the mind of James Connolly.
He would use
every democratic gain as a means of contributing toward the
development and culture of the Irish people. All political
action was a means
to be used in creating a freer society in which the individual
could live and develop in dignity. During the First World
War he wrote:
‘We believe
that in times of peace we should work along the lines of peace
to strengthen the nation, and we believe that whatever
strengthens and elevates the working class strengthens the nation.
But we also
believe that in times of war we should act as in war. We despise,
entirely loathe and despise, all the mouthings
and
mouthers about war who infest Ireland in times of peace,
just as we despise
and loathe all the cantings about caution and restraint
to which the same people treat us in times of war.’ 3
Connolly did
not see violence as an end, nor did he love violence as some
rebel spirits seem
to love it. Likewise,
he did not see
power as an end in itself. He visioned a nation, a society,
a world in
which men and women, living with dignity, would be healthier
than they are, better fed, better educated, more cooperative.
This vision was neither Utopian nor millennial. He would
not compromise with the principles on which this vision,
this ultimate
aim, was
based. But he would not, at the same time, scorn any
immediate rights and advantages that could be gained.
Immediate democratic
gains were
means toward greater gains; and they could also become
tools for trying to lift the cultural level of the people
immediately.
In
times of peace, he did not scorn means of peace in order
to talk of weapons
of war which he did not yet possess.
Thus, ideas of civic consciousness and municipal patriotism
were no mere platitudes to him. They were integral
in his broader
social and human attitudes which embodied a clear
conception of social
responsibility. Thus he wrote that ‘We require
in Ireland to grasp the fact that the act of voting
at the ballot box is the one act in which
we get the opportunity to give expression to the
soul of the race.... The ballot box is the vehicle
of expression of our social consciousness.’
Like almost all, if not all, great revolutionaries, Connolly
was an educator. And he saw in the practices of democracy
a means of
educating the people. In effect, his political teaching
on democracy served as a way of preparing the people
for the exercise of power.
Just as he studied revolutions of the past and wrote
articles on these in order to teach Irish workingmen
how to prepare
for the
rising which came in 1916, so at an earlier period
he tried to teach the
Irish masses how to exercise democratic rights, how
to use these rights in order to provide for and improve
the conditions of
their own welfare.
He knew too well the price of liberty to be cynical about
any liberties which had already been won. Thus, he wrote
in The Re-Conquest
of
Ireland:
‘Assuredly
it was within the realm of probability that a people suffering
under the smart of intolerable conditions caused
by a misuse of political power and social privilege should at the first opportunity
set itself
to the task of sweeping away such conditions by
a public-spirited use of their newly-acquired control of
municipal powers’.
4
But such
did not happen when the Irish gained democratic rights.
‘If
today the cities and towns of Ireland are a reproach to the
land and a glaring evidence of the incapacity of the
municipal rulers of the country, the responsibility for the failure lies largely
with
those who in the past had control of the political
education of the Irish masses and failed to prepare them for the intelligent
exercise
of those public powers for which they were
taught to clamor’.
5
And need
we emphasize that observations of such a character lead to
the basic conclusion
which
Connolly repeated
over and over
again – labor
must take the lead in the Irish struggle.
In April, 1916, shortly before the Easter
Rebellion, he declared: ‘The
cause of Labor is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the
cause of labor.’ 6 And
that cause was one to bring dignity into
human life. The general welfare, the
dignity of man, this was
the cause of socialism. It was at the
same time the cause of democracy. The
democratic tradition of the French Revolution,
which was inherited
by predecessors of Connolly, Tone, Emmet,
the Young Irelanders of '48, Lalor and
Davitt, was absorbed by Connolly.
And no matter what aspect of Connolly's social
and political thinking we take, we see
how it was always admirably
consistent. However,
his was not the formal consistency of
a sectarian who disdains all struggles for immediate
gains on the ground
that such
gains will
not necessarily mean socialism; nor was
it the consistency of a critical theoretician
who was
never forced to act,
to take
decisions
involving
the greatest risks. It was the consistency
of a dedicated and devoted man who had
committed himself
to go the long,
hard and
dangerous
road that is demanded of all who want
men really to be free.
At the same time we can see, in Connolly's
consistency, his love of the people.
Connolly's indignation
always flared when he learned
of injustice, of indignities heaped on
the people. And his was an indignation different
in quality
from that
of some contemporary
Marxists whose greatest anger seems to
come when they discover a
theoretical error in the writings of
an adversary. Unlike Connolly's, theirs is an indignation
of self-love. It
has contributed toward
poisoning the streams of modern socialist
thought. Connolly's consistency is a
consistency
based
on love, on a realization
of common identity
between himself and the workers whom
he led. It is this feeling of common identity which
further motivates his
conception of
democracy.
1 Connolly, Labour in Ireland.
pp.249 Back
2 Farrell’s Note: See Recollections
of an Irish Rebel: The Fenian Movement, by John Devoy (New York: CP Young Co.,
1929) for
an account of the Fenians, their internal
life, and their organizational character. Back
3 Quoted in Fox, James
Connolly: The Forerunner,
p.242 Back
4 Connolly, Labour in Ireland. pp.252-53 Back
5 Ibid., p.253 Back
6 Quoted in Fox, James Connolly: The
Forerunner, p.219 Back
|
|
