1. The National Question and the Class Question¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter argues that the national question can only be judged by its class content and, crucially, by which class leads the national movement. Since the death of James Connolly, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements have dominated Irish nationalism, subordinating working-class interests to a mythical national unity. Two contradictory strands have existed within republicanism since 1916: a revolutionary-proletarian tendency, embodied by the Irish Citizen Army, and a bourgeois-dominated wing. The latter promotes a “theory of stages,” which postpones socialism until after reunification—a position Connolly had already discredited. Connolly insisted that the cause of Ireland and the cause of labour are inseparable.
The historical and theoretical context is provided by Lenin and Trotsky. Lenin repeatedly stressed the counter-revolutionary role of bourgeois-democratic Liberals, but until 1917 he did not believe Russian workers would take power before a socialist revolution in the West. Only Trotsky defended the perspective of permanent revolution before 1917, when Lenin adopted it in his April Theses. The October Revolution demonstrated its correctness. Trotsky generalised that in the modern epoch, only the working class could solve the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, including the national question, by taking power. This was confirmed in 1917 when the Russian proletariat took power in a backward, peasant country, joined forces with workers of formerly oppressed nationalities, and began socialist transformation. Once in power, the Russian proletariat solved the national question easily as a by-product of socialist revolution.
Connolly had explained that the Irish bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie could not solve the national question because of their ties to the British bourgeoisie; only the working class could, but only en route to socialist transformation. The chapter asserts that the Irish bourgeoisie, tied to British and US imperialism, cannot solve Ireland’s problems. Only the proletariat, leading the poor peasantry and urban poor, can carry out the necessary tasks through a permanent revolution—starting with bourgeois-democratic aims but proceeding immediately to socialist transformation, without being confined by borders or stages. The polemic is clear: any postponement of socialism in the name of national unity is a betrayal of Connolly’s legacy and a capitulation to bourgeois leadership.