[HN Gopher] The First Soviet in Ireland
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The First Soviet in Ireland
Author : pepys
Score : 58 points
Date : 2021-09-07 07:06 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historytoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historytoday.com)
| ploika wrote:
| It wasn't a Soviet but the 1913 Dublin Lockout probably deserves
| a mention too. It was a bitter dispute that involved about 15,000
| workers and lasted around 5 months. It's arguably the most
| significant industrial dispute in Irish history, and many of the
| speakers mentioned in the poster in the article would have taken
| part in it.
| netcan wrote:
| Another, perhaps more notable example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_Soviet
| duxup wrote:
| I think a lot of political things we sort of fall into based on a
| handful if desires, needs, gripes and other things ... and it's
| less an embracing of all things that ideology as much as a few
| things that at the time we feel strongly about and there it is,
| an ideology or political figure, or something that seems to speak
| to it.
|
| If we agree with or even want most of what they offer, may or may
| not be the case.
| Normille wrote:
| Love the flashing sidebar advert. It's like the 1980s never
| happened.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| Fun historical fact: the Netherlands didn't recognize the USSR
| until 1942- after strong pressure from the US of all places.
| arethuza wrote:
| The enemy of my enemy is my friend - or as Churchill put it:
|
| _" If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable
| reference to the devil in the House of Commons."_
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| And Stalin's comment on allying with the US and Britain to
| win World War II: "It is permissible to walk with the devil
| to the end of the bridge."
| hef19898 wrote:
| Good to have clear priorities.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| _In retrospect, the brief Irish flirtation with the Soviet Union
| seems both inevitable and doomed. A small state trying to
| establish itself must look for potential allies wherever it can;
| but the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nationalist Ireland and the
| forcibly atheist internationalist USSR were not lasting
| partners._
|
| Quite the understatement here.
| jackpirate wrote:
| What's the difference between Ireland and Cuba? Both are small
| countries dominated by a nearby power and both are highly
| Catholic. Yet somehow Cuba managed to make it work with the
| Soviets. It's true there's differences between the countries
| (Cuba wasn't _quite_ as Catholic as Ireland), but I don 't see
| how TFA's comment is a forgone conclusion the way you do.
| gusfoo wrote:
| > Yet somehow Cuba managed to make it work with the Soviets.
|
| They were (the Cubans) passionate believers in the cause. A
| lot of cold-war accounts from the other side of the Iron
| Curtain mention how their passion was unmatched in the SSR
| countries.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| In that case I feel like there's probably so many differences
| it'd be hard to pin it on exactly one thing.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| In 1919 essentially the entire world was at war with the
| USSR, they couldn't provide Ireland meaningful support. By 59
| they were stable and able to work with other countries.
|
| Plus, the USSR was never that successful at embracing
| atheism, which should be obvious as thr Russian Orthodox
| church remains a strong force. Around 1920 was the about the
| most hostile period to religion.
|
| Making this about religion seems forced to me. Even the
| article just throws that line in as a closing statement
| despite none of the article really discussing religion.
| salemh wrote:
| >never that successful at embracing atheism The USSR
| certainly tried however, to tune of millions dead and
| created its own religion with the veneration of Lenin and
| Stalin as cults of personality.
|
| For those interested, here is a timeline of that period
| compiled by the Russia Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
| (those fleeing persecution).
|
| https://www.rocorstudies.org/2019/10/25/timeline-of-the-
| orth... _In 1917, there were 51,450 Orthodox Churches. 20
| years later, only 500 were left._ In 1917, one month after
| taking power, the Bolsheviks: declared all land to be
| controlled by their committees, including church property,
| all education institutions were handed to the state, all
| financial aid severed to religious institutions was
| severed, and separation of school and church and state and
| church was declared. * 100 's of thousands mass executed
| during the Red Terror
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| I'm not sure it's purely a matter of Soviet support at the
| time, since you had home grown revolutions break out all
| over Germany and Hungary with various degrees of success. I
| think in the end there's just no real Marxist/Communist
| tradition or movement in Ireland to latch onto the moment
| with.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > In 1919 essentially the entire world was at war with the
| USSR
|
| Not sure that was true. Europe was pretty busy with the
| aftermath of WWI (and to a large extent, Germany supported
| Lenin getting back into Russia in the hopes that he would
| instigate a revolution there that would take Russia out of
| the war). US had supported Kerensky's government, was anti-
| Bolshevik and withheld diplomatic recognition until 1933,
| but was hardly "at war" with the USSR.
| fsagx wrote:
| Surely, it must have seemed so to the Soviets. Allied
| forces landed in many locations and the Czechs occupied a
| long strip through the middle. Wiki gives these numbers:
|
| 1,500 French and British troops originally landed in
| Arkhangelsk 14,378 British troops in North Russia 1,800
| British troops in Siberia 50,000 Romanian troops
| belonging to the 6th Romanian Corps under General Ioan
| Istrate, in Bessarabia. 23,351 Greeks, who withdrew after
| three months (part of I Army Corps under Maj. Gen.
| Konstantinos Nider, comprising 2nd and 13th Infantry
| Divisions, in the Crimea, and around Odessa and Kherson)
| 15,000 French also in the Southern Russia Intervention
| 40,000 British troops in the Caucasus region by January
| 1919 13,000 Americans (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok
| regions) 11,500 Estonians in northwestern Russia 2,500
| Italians in the Arkhangelsk region and Siberia 1,300
| Italians in the Murmansk region. 150 Australians (mostly
| in the Arkhangelsk regions) 950 British troops in Trans-
| Caspia 70,000+ Japanese soldiers in the Eastern region
| 4,192 Canadians in Siberia, 600 Canadians in Arkhangelsk
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_
| Rus...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >and to a large extend, Germany supported Lenin getting
| back into Russia in the hopes that he would instigate a
| revolution there that would take Russia out of the war
|
| That German Empire fell after WWI, and was replaced by
| the Weimar Republic which itself did little against the
| Reds itself but a large assortment of now unemployed
| German soldiers did join the fight.
|
| The Allied Powers on the other hand, formally supported
| the White's and launched invasions into Russia. No matter
| how active they actually were in the war, the hostility
| would have prevented any Soviet interference in Ireland.
| dmurray wrote:
| Agreed. The Easter Rising, and the cause of Irish
| nationalism generally, weren't anywhere near as linked to
| Catholicism as this article makes out. It's much more
| correct to see it as a class struggle or a revolution
| against a colonial power, depending on your view (the
| ruling class were closely linked to Britain).
|
| Prominent 1916-era nationalists like Childers and
| Markievicz were Protestants. Connolly was a hardcore
| socialist who would have embraced Marxist atheism. The
| Church didn't generally support the Rising, partly because
| it feared socialism. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic
| doesn't mention the Church, or even, remarkably for the
| era, God. Most importantly, perhaps, the Penal laws
| suppressing the practice of Catholicism were just a memory
| at that stage. Irish people were oppressed because they
| were Irish, not because they were Catholic.
|
| I don't want to completely discount the link between
| Catholic and Irish identity - fostered by Pearse and then
| de Valera among others. But to emphasize it here smacks of
| an understanding of Ireland that comes mainly from
| late-20th-century international news and conflict in the
| North 'between Catholics and Protestants'.
|
| Edit: I'm less familiar with the Russian revolutions, but
| my layman's understanding is that the class struggle was
| more important there too than imposing atheism. In Russia,
| the Church was part of the dominant power structure that
| had to be deposed: in Ireland it wasn't. It's not so hard
| then to align the movements.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| I think we need to decide if we're talking about a
| communist revolution resulting from the turmoil
| engendered by the Easter Rising/Irish War of
| Independence/Irish Civil War, or imagining the later
| 1920s Irish Free State succumbing to a communist
| revolution, since I was sort of assuming the latter in
| this thread.
| s_dev wrote:
| I recall an anecdote about 1916 Easter Rising leaders
| traveling to Russia to gain military support but were
| refuted on the grounds that "because they hadn't killed the
| Bishops" they weren't serious about a Revolution.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| That anecdote doesn't make sense. The Easter Rising was a
| fairly short ordeal, Tsarist Russia never would have
| provided military support to an allies insurrection, and
| the internal Russian revolutionaries had very little
| support to offer.
| rurai wrote:
| It was the IRA in 1925 reaching out to the Soviets for
| monetary support to continue on an armed struggle
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| So looking it up based on that, the source is Tim Pat
| Coogan, born 1935, and the USSR did make a deal with the
| IRA.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Desperation for Cuba. Cuba had terrible relations with
| everyone except the Soviet Union. Ireland had good relations
| with everyone except the UK. In particular the US was
| supportive of Ireland.
| smcl wrote:
| Yep, and to be honest even the UK (shitty as we were to
| Ireland throughout history) didn't have a complete economic
| blockade of Ireland during its early years, like the USA
| did on Cuba.
| kencausey wrote:
| The blockade did not predate Soviet involvement in Cuba.
| smcl wrote:
| I didn't say it did? Remember, we're discussing why Cuba
| ended up so closely allied to the Soviet Union - not what
| started _everything_. If you really want to pull that
| thread the "Soviet involvement" in Cuba started after
| the revolution when the US rebuffed Castro's attempts to
| reach out and meet with Eisenhower. There were of course
| many contributing factors that caused Cuba and the USSR
| to end up so close, but I think it's safe to say the
| ongoing blockade set everything in stone and all but
| guaranteed it until the latter's collapse (barring a
| brief period where JFK appeared to favour rapproachement
| with Cuba before his assassination).
| rurai wrote:
| There was no economic "blockade" until 1932, after the
| Irish government refused to pay land annuities to the
| British government and a rise of protectionist policies.
|
| In reality the reason Ireland didn't face any sanctions
| immediately after "independence" was because it was
| mostly token independence where the economy was still
| heavily intertwined with Britain and little industrial
| development took place. This was maintained between 1923
| and 1932 as the status quo benefitted the large ranchers
| and middlemen whose side won the civil war.
| smcl wrote:
| Right so Ireland had nine-year period after independence
| before this happened and even then it was resolved six
| (admittedly painful) years later. The US embargo on Cuba
| is _still_ in place.
| rurai wrote:
| There were two very different dynamics.
|
| A Cuban wealthy elite became exiles in Miami, and a
| strong political force in their own right to put pressure
| on the government to keep the embargo in place. That
| coupled with the domino theory that the US foreign policy
| followed at the time they couldn't allow a successful
| post-colonial country exist peacefully outside of their
| sphere of influence. After the embargo had been in place
| for so long America only can lose by removing it unless
| they get some market access concessions from Cuba in
| return.
|
| In Ireland's case the UK needed Ireland as a supply of
| livestock to feed their population so while the autarky
| hurt the Irish economy most people were poor farmers
| anyway so it didn't make a whole pile of difference while
| in the UK a rise in beef prices hurt their emerging
| middle class. Overall the amount of money involved was
| relatively small and since the Irish central bank was
| still linked to the Bank of England, Irish fiscal policy
| could still be tangentially controlled by UK monetary
| policy to keep trade flowing, without having to resort to
| physical force.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Quite the understatement here.
|
| I just think its plain wrong. See, Cuba.
|
| Leninism and its descendants are specifically adapted from
| Marxism for pre-capitalist states, and have only ever worked in
| such places, which Ireland at the time was not, despite being
| less well developed than, say, England.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| I think we're in agreement here?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I'm saying that ascribing the failure of Ireland to find
| the USSR a confortable partner to it being "overwhelmingly
| Roman Catholic nationalist" rather than "too far along in
| capitalist development" is error, not understatement.
| sb057 wrote:
| I'm not quite sure that's the best equivalence. The political
| status quo (generally accepted by the populace) before the
| Russian Revolution was also extremely religiously conservative
| and nationalist.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| The Irish Free State wasn't as economically backwards as
| Cuba, there was no single strongman at that time for the
| Irish populace to hate, and there was no well organized and
| large communist party to be in opposition. EDIT: And after
| the exodus of Protestants from the south, not a lot of
| minority groups in the new Irish Free State either.
| [deleted]
| rmchugh wrote:
| It's nonsensical in my opinion. There is no reference to
| relations between the "Soviet" and Soviet Russia. The only
| connection is the name.
| rurai wrote:
| Soviet, here, just means a "workers council" rather than the
| bureaucratic state the term is usually associated with
| cat199 wrote:
| according to 5 minutes of wikipedia research:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_Soviet
| On Friday 11 April a meeting of the United Trades and Labour
| Council, to which Byrne had been a delegate, took
| place. At that meeting Irish Transport and General
| Workers' Union (ITGWU) representative Sean Dowling
| proposed that the trade unions take over Town Hall and have
| meetings there, but the proposal was not voted on.[5] On
| Saturday 12 April the ITGWU workers in the Cleeve's
| factory in Lansdowne voted to go on strike. On Sunday
| 13 April, after a twelve-hour discussion and lobbying
| of the delegates by workers, a general strike was called
| by the city's United Trades and Labour Council.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Transport_and_General_Wo.
| .. The union was founded by James Larkin in
| January 1909 as a general union.[1][2] Initially
| drawing its membership from branches of the
| Liverpool-based National Union of Dock Labourers, from which
| Larkin had been expelled, it grew to include workers
| in a range of industries. The ITGWU logo was the Red
| Hand of Ulster, which is synonymous with ancient
| Gaelic Ulster.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Larkin
| James Larkin (28 January 1874 - 30 January 1947), sometimes
| known as Jim Larkin, was an Irish republican,
| socialist and trade union leader. He was one of the
| founders of the Irish Labour Party along with James Connolly
| and William O'Brien, and later the founder of the Irish
| Worker League (a communist party which was recognised
| by the Comintern as the Irish section of the world
| communist movement), as well as the Irish Transport
| and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) and the Workers' Union of
| Ireland (the two unions later merged to become SIPTU,
| Ireland's largest trade union). Along with Connolly
| and Jack White, he was also a founder of the Irish
| Citizen Army (ICA; a paramilitary group which was integral to
| both the Dublin lock-out and the Easter Rising).
| Larkin was a leading figure in the Syndicalist
| movement.[3]
|
| So a strike instigated by a union founded by syndicalist who
| also founded revolutionary unions endorsed by the cominform,
| who was yet to pivot to the NEP and still advocating global
| union based insurrection to trigger socialist revolution.
|
| Doesn't mean the proto-SU planned this activity particularly,
| but claiming 'no connection' when people involved were part
| of global revolutionary activity directly connected to groups
| descending from the internationale and associated with the
| cominform is also just as tenuous if not moreso.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
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