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Another, perhaps more notable example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_Soviet
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.
Fun historical fact: the Netherlands didn't recognize the USSR until 1942- after strong pressure from the US of all places.
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."
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."
Good to have clear priorities.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It depends a lot on the era. A lot happened in 5, 10 years. 1916 was a far more edgy group than those who actually gained power and popularity later.
Once Irish independence became the political issue, the country did divide along religious lines. Those didn't necessarily contradict cultural or class lines, but religious background was and is a very solid predictor of nationalist-unionist preferences IRL.
De Valera, his support base & his politics was the powerhouse it was for a reason. Partition was catholic-protestant. Actual class politics and politics generally was absolutely catholic-protestant. The majority of the population was religious. Those things played a big part in the real politics of the following decades. They didn't matter as much in 1916, when the whole country wasn't involved yet.
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.
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.
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.
It was the IRA in 1925 reaching out to the Soviets for monetary support to continue on an armed struggle
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.
> 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.
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...
>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.
>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
I agree that its forced, with 100 years of hindsight.
ATT though, political-religious stuff was a major deal. Irish republicanism succeeded by delineating dividers across all the major lines. Republican-Monarchist, Nationalist-Unionist, Gaelic-English, Catholic-Protestant, Class, etc.
Not everyone fit into all or even most categories, just like there were always upper class socialists... but that was still the way lines were drawn.
Atheism was, IMO, the least populist pillar of that era's communism. I think you can make that argument anywhere, including Russia.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The blockade did not predate Soviet involvement in Cuba.
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).
>> somehow Cuba managed to make it work with the Soviets
History is complicated, but cuba is a caution tale as much as it is existence proof. Being Soviet-allied near the US during and after all that conflict hasn't been a smooth ride for Cuba.
Secular ideologies did come into with religious and traditionalist ones regardless.
> 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.
In that case I feel like there's probably so many differences it'd be hard to pin it on exactly one thing.
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.
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.
It's nonsensical in my opinion. There is no reference to relations between the "Soviet" and Soviet Russia. The only connection is the name.
Soviet, here, just means a "workers council" rather than the bureaucratic state the term is usually associated with
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.
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.
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]
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.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
> 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.
I think we're in agreement here?
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.
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.
Love the flashing sidebar advert. It's like the 1980s never happened.