Communists, Russia, and the Ira, 1920–1923

Historical Journal

Volumn 46, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 115-131

  Connor, Emmet O ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84999198157     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X02002868     Document Type: Article

References (102)

1. Workers' Republic, 28 Jan. 1922. Tone, founder of the United Irishmen in 1791, made the celebrated comment in 1796.
2. Mike Milotte, Communism in modern Ireland: the pursuit of the workers' republic since 1916 (Dublin, 1984), is written from a Trotskyist perspective.
3. Henry Patterson, The politics of illusion: republicanism and socialism in modern Ireland (London, 1989), pp. 16–25
4. Richard English, Radicals and the republic: socialist republicanism in the Irish Free State, 1925–1937 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 52–65.
5. For examples of British propaganda see Richard Dawson, Red terror and green (London, 1920)
6. British Parliamentary Papers, Intercourse between Bolshevism and Sinn Féin, Cmd 1326 (London, 1921).
7. Thomas Darragh [Roddy Connolly], ‘Revolutionary Ireland and communism’, Communist International, June-July 1920.
8. Milotte, Communism, pp. 36–48. No more was heard of the Workers' Communist Party after the second world congress.
9. Stephen White, ‘Ireland, Russia, communism, post-communism’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 8 (1997), pp. 155–161.
10. Bulletin for delegates to the second congress of the Communist International, 5 July, 16 July 1920, RGASPI, MSS 489/1/54–33/34.
11. The Communist International in Lenin's time: workers of the world and oppressed peoples unite! Proceedings and documents of the second congress, 1920 (New York, 1991), pp. 248–249.
12. Walter Kendall, The revolutionary movement in Britain, 1900–1921: the origins of British communism (London, 1969), p. 255.
13. J. Anthony Gaughan, Thomas Johnson, 1872–1963: first leader of the Labour Party in Dáil Éireann (Dublin, 1980), p. 153
14. Johnson to W. N. Ewer, 21 May 1921, RGASPI, MS 495/89/9–3
15. for McCartan in Russia see reports on Russia from mission, Feb.-June 1921, National Library of Ireland (NLI), McCartan papers, MS 17682.
16. Voice of Labour, 9 Feb. 1918
17. Gaughan, Johnson, p. 442.
18. Patrick McCartan, With de Valera in America (Dublin, 1932), pp. 2–3.
19. Undated document, without a rubric, 1920, RGASPI, MS 495/89/3–24
20. Arthur Mitchell, Revolutionary government in Ireland: Dáil Éireann, 1919–1922 (Dublin, 1995), pp. 189–192
21. Dáil Éireann papers, National Archives of Ireland (NAI), MS DE 2/119.
22. Aino Kuusinen, Before and after Stalin: a personal account of Soviet Russia from the 1920s to the 1960s (London, 1964), p. 51, recalls Chicherin as vehemently opposed to Comintern involvement with illegal activities abroad.
23. Report to Kobietsky for the ECCI, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/10–2/4a
24. report on the work of the Irish Communist Groups, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/2–30/33
25. report of the CPI to the ECCI, Oct. 1921 to Oct. 1922, RGASPI, MS 495/89/16–44.
26. Éamon O Ciosáin, An t-Éireannach, 1934–1937: Nuachtán Sóisialach Gaeltachta (Dublin, 1993), pp. 67–70, 117.
27. The IRA had an established contact with Major Hassenhauer of the Orgesh, a secret right wing organization. Brian P. Murphy, John Chartres: mystery man of the treaty (Dublin, 1995), pp. 48–49.
28. Report on the work of the Irish Communist Groups, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/2–30/33
29. Mac Neill [pseudonym of Beaumont] to Rakosi, 3 Sept. 1921, RGASPI, MS 495/89/8–2
30. F. E. Smith to Rakosi, 3 Dec. 1921, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/8–40/41.
31. Emmet O Connor, ‘Waterford and IRA gun-running, 1917–1922’, Decies: Journal of the Waterford Archaeological Historical and Society, 57 (2001), pp. 181–193.
32. Milotte, Communism, pp. 45–46.
33. Workers' Republic, 29 Oct., 17 Dec. 1921.
34. Workers' Republic., 16 Sept., 21 Oct. 1921.
35. CPI to the ECCI, 9 Nov. 1923, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/8–5/12.
36. Report of the CPI to the ECCI, Oct. 1921 to Oct. 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/16–40/145.
37. Workers' Republic, 17 Dec. 1921.
38. Gaughan, Johnson, pp. 191–192.
39. Report of the CPI to the ECCI, Oct. 1921 to Oct. 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/16–40/145.
40. For industrial unrest see Emmet O Connor, Syndicalism in Ireland, 1917–1923 (Cork, 1988), pp. 96–167.
41. Milotte, Communism, pp. 55–57.
42. Report of the CPI to the ECCI, Oct. 1921 to Oct. 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/16–40/145.
43. Florence O'Donoghue, No other law: the story of Liam Lynch and the Irish Republican Army, 1916–1923 (Dublin, 1954), pp. 334–335
44. Dorothy Macardle, The Irish republic (London, 1968), pp. 614–618.
45. Report to the Comintern on the Irish party,R.Connolly, Berlin, 12 Apr. 1922, RGASPI,MSS 5/3/ 581–9/17.
46. The IRA had a paper strength of 112,650 in July 1921, and enlistment increased after the truce. O'Donoghue, No other law, p. 334. However,it is estimated that only 3,000 to 5,000 volunteers were active during the War of Independence, with another 50,000 involved in some secondary or marginal way.
47. Mitchell, Revolutionary government, p. 275.
48. The IRA numbered almost 13,800 volunteers in August 1924. IRA executive report, Moss Twomey papers, 10 Aug. 1924, University College, Dublin, Archives (UCDA), MS P69/180(25).
49. Borodin to the ECCI, interview with delegates from the Irish party, 15 July 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/13–6/23
50. McLay to the ECCI, 31 Aug. 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/12–39/46.
51. C. Desmond Greaves, Liam Mellows and the Irish revolution (London, 1988), pp. 313–314.
52. Anglo-American Colonial Group of the ECCI, minutes, 10 May 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/72/ 2–85/95.
53. To the workers and peasants of Ireland, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/104–102/105
54. appeal to the Irish workers, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/1–21/24.
55. Workers' Republic, 1 July 1922.
56. Workers' Republic., 17 June 1922.
57. Department of the Taoiseach files, NAI, MS S482.
58. J. T. Murphy, New Horizons (London, 1941), pp. 88–89.
59. Borodin to the ECCI, interview with delegates from the Irish party, 15 July 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/13–6/23.
60. Report of the CPI to the ECCI, Oct. 1921 to Oct. 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/16–40/145.
61. Milotte, Communism, pp. 59–61
62. Greaves, Mellows, p. 359.
63. Murphy, New Horizons, pp. 184–6. Murphy uncertainly recalls one of the IRA chiefs as Michael Mallin and says he kept insisting he was a soldier and not a politician. Mallin was a Citizen Army commandant, executed in May 1916. Murphy does not name the other man. It is possible that he confused Mallin with Ernie O'Malley, who had his headquarters in August 1922 in the house of a Catholic curate in a Dublin suburb.
64. Untitled report, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/13–83/84.
65. Connolly to Luise, 22 Aug. 1922, RGASPI, MS 495/89/12–36. Luise, an official of the German party, acted as a liaison between the CPI and Moscow.
66. ECCI to CPI, 19 Sept. 1922, saying ‘Comrade RC is here representing your party’, RGASPI, MS 495/89/12–53.
67. Murphy to the Comintern, 12 Dec. 1922, RGASPI, MS 495/89/11–15.
68. Murphy, New Horizons, p. 186.
69. UCDA, Sighle Humphreys papers, 12 Aug. 1922, P106/1964. I am obliged to Brian Hanley for this reference.
70. Greaves, Mellows, pp. 362–369
71. English, Radicals and the republic, p. 53.
72. Robert Briscoe, For the life of me (London, 1958), pp. 183–184
73. Greaves, Mellows, p. 374.
74. Report of the CPI to the ECCI, Oct. 1921 to Oct. 1922, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/16–40/145
75. Workers' Republic, 28 Oct. to 18 Nov. 1922.
76. Ernie O'Malley papers, O'Malley to Lynch, 3 Sept. 1922, UCDA, MS P17/a/56
77. O'Malley to Lynch, 24 Sept. 1922, UCDA, MS P17a/57.
78. Ernie O'Malley papers, letters, Sept. 1922, UCDA, MS P17a/159
79. Greaves, Mellows, p. 374.
80. Frank Aiken papers, executive meeting, 16–17 October 1922, minutes, UCDA, MS P104/1262(2)- P104/1262(9).
81. Seán MacEntee papers,‘Notes on communismin Saorstát Éireann’,UCDA,MS P67/523(5), p. 9.
82. Workers' Republic, 6 Jan. 1923
83. McLay to Luise, report on the situation in Ireland, 26 June 1924, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/27–10/14.
84. Murphy to the Comintern, 12 Dec. 1922, RGASPI, MS 495/89/11–15.
85. Workers' Republic, 6–20 Jan. 1923.
86. White and O'Leary to the ECCI, 26 Feb. 1923, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/22–35/38.
87. Report of the first annual congress of the CPI, 20–1 Jan. 1923, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/21–1/5. Twenty-three members attended the congress, another twelve were in prison, fourteen were with the IRA, and a further fifteen apologized for non-attendance.
88. Resolution endorsing the Comintern directive of policy … passed by the CPI, RGASPI, MS 495/ 89/21–1
89. resolution of the presidium of the ECCI on the Irish question, RGASPI, MSS 495/38/7–235/236.
90. White and O'Leary to the ECCI, 26 Feb. 1923, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/22–35/38.
91. A. B. F. White and J. J. O'Leary to Luise, 18 Feb. 1923, RGASPI, MS 495/89/22–2.
92. Workers' Republic, 9 June 1923.
93. Report by MacManus and the politbureau of the CPGB, 11 Oct. 1923, RGASPI, MSS 495/38/ 7–236/241.
94. CPI report from George McLay, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/22–74/76.
95. Emmet O Connor, ‘Jim Larkin and the Communist Internationals, 1923–1929’, Irish Historical Studies, 31 (May 1999), pp. 357–372.
96. Kevin McDermott and Jeremy Agnew, The Comintern: a history of international communism from Lenin to Stalin (London, 1996), p. xx.
97. Kuusinen, Before and after Stalin, p. 51
98. Raymond W. Leonard, Secret soldiers of the revolution: Soviet military intelligence, 1918–1933 (Westport, CT, 1999), pp. 99–100.
99. CPI, report to Oct. 1923 from Apr. 1923, RGASPI, MSS 495/89/22–74/76.
100. For critiques of social republicanism see Patterson, The politics of illusion, pp. 26–68
101. English, Radicals and the republic, passim.
102. For communism and the IRA after 1923 see O Connor, ‘Jim Larkin’, passim.