Kalifornia
29th January 2011, 12:47
I decieded to type from a book I am reading Marx's views on Irish Nationalism and Liberation for anyone learning.
On Irish Nationalism
Lenin makes the same point in respect of the Irish question.
... let us return to the Question of Ireland.
Marx's position on this question is most clearly expressed in the following extracts from his letters:
"I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the English workers in favour of Fenianism ... I used to think the seperation of Ireland from England impossible.
I now think it inevitable, although after the seperation there may come federation." (This is what Marx wrote to Engels on November 2, 1867.)
In his letter of November 30 of the same year he added:
"... What shall we advise the English Workers? In my opinion they must make repeal of the Union [Ireland with England, ie., the seperation of Ireland from England] (in short, the affair of 1783 only democratised and adapted to the conditions of the time) an article of their pronun-ziamento.
This is the only legal and therefore only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be admitted in the programme of an English party.
Eperience must show later wether a mere personal union can continue to subsist between the two countries...
"... What the Irish need is:
"1) Self Government and independence from England;
"2) An agrarian revolution..."
Marx attached great importance to the Irish question and delivered hour and a half lectures on this subject at the German Workers' Union (letter of December 17, 1867).
In a letter Dated November 20, 1868, Engels spoke of "the hatred towards the Irish found among the English Workers", and almost a year later (October 24, 1869), returning to this subject He wrote:
"Il n 'y a qu 'un pas (it is only one step) from Ireland to Russia....
Irish history shows what a misfortune it is for one Nation to have subjagated another.
All the abominations of the English have their orogin in the Irish pale.
I have still to plough my way through the Cromwellian period, but this much seems certain to me, that things would have taken another turn in England. too, but for the neccessity of military rule in Ireland and the creation of a new aristocracy there."
Let us note, in passing, Marx's letter to Engels of August 18, 1869:
"The Polish Workers in Posen have brought a strike to a victorious end with the help of their colleagues in Berlin.
This struggle against Monsieur Le Capital-even in the lower form of the strike-is a more serious way of getting rid of national prejudices than peace declamations from the lips of bourgeois Gentlemen."
The policy on the Irish question pursued by Marx in the International may have been seen from the following:
On November 18, 1869, Marx wrote to Engels that Hehad spoken for an hour and a quater at the council of the International on the question of the attitude of the British Ministry to the Irish Amnesty, and had proposed the following resolution:
"Resolved, that in his reply to the Irish demands for the release of the imprisoned Irish patriots Mr. Gladstone deliberately insults the Irish Nation;
"that he clogs political amnesty with conditions alike degrading to the victims of misgovernment and the people they belong to;
"that having, in the teeth of his responsible position, publicly and enthusiastically cheered the American slaveholders' rebellion, he now steps in to preach to the Irish people the doctrine of passive obedience;
"That his whole proceedings with reference to the Irish Amnesty question are the true and genuine offspring of that policy of conquest by the fiery denunciation of which Mr. Gladstone ousted his Tory rivals from office;
"that the General Council of the International Working-men's Association express their admiration of the spirited, firm and high-souled manner in which the Irish people carry on their Amnesty movement;
"that this resolution be communicated to all the branches of, and workingmen's bodies connected with, the International workingmen's Association in Europe and America."
On Irish Nationalism
Lenin makes the same point in respect of the Irish question.
... let us return to the Question of Ireland.
Marx's position on this question is most clearly expressed in the following extracts from his letters:
"I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the English workers in favour of Fenianism ... I used to think the seperation of Ireland from England impossible.
I now think it inevitable, although after the seperation there may come federation." (This is what Marx wrote to Engels on November 2, 1867.)
In his letter of November 30 of the same year he added:
"... What shall we advise the English Workers? In my opinion they must make repeal of the Union [Ireland with England, ie., the seperation of Ireland from England] (in short, the affair of 1783 only democratised and adapted to the conditions of the time) an article of their pronun-ziamento.
This is the only legal and therefore only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be admitted in the programme of an English party.
Eperience must show later wether a mere personal union can continue to subsist between the two countries...
"... What the Irish need is:
"1) Self Government and independence from England;
"2) An agrarian revolution..."
Marx attached great importance to the Irish question and delivered hour and a half lectures on this subject at the German Workers' Union (letter of December 17, 1867).
In a letter Dated November 20, 1868, Engels spoke of "the hatred towards the Irish found among the English Workers", and almost a year later (October 24, 1869), returning to this subject He wrote:
"Il n 'y a qu 'un pas (it is only one step) from Ireland to Russia....
Irish history shows what a misfortune it is for one Nation to have subjagated another.
All the abominations of the English have their orogin in the Irish pale.
I have still to plough my way through the Cromwellian period, but this much seems certain to me, that things would have taken another turn in England. too, but for the neccessity of military rule in Ireland and the creation of a new aristocracy there."
Let us note, in passing, Marx's letter to Engels of August 18, 1869:
"The Polish Workers in Posen have brought a strike to a victorious end with the help of their colleagues in Berlin.
This struggle against Monsieur Le Capital-even in the lower form of the strike-is a more serious way of getting rid of national prejudices than peace declamations from the lips of bourgeois Gentlemen."
The policy on the Irish question pursued by Marx in the International may have been seen from the following:
On November 18, 1869, Marx wrote to Engels that Hehad spoken for an hour and a quater at the council of the International on the question of the attitude of the British Ministry to the Irish Amnesty, and had proposed the following resolution:
"Resolved, that in his reply to the Irish demands for the release of the imprisoned Irish patriots Mr. Gladstone deliberately insults the Irish Nation;
"that he clogs political amnesty with conditions alike degrading to the victims of misgovernment and the people they belong to;
"that having, in the teeth of his responsible position, publicly and enthusiastically cheered the American slaveholders' rebellion, he now steps in to preach to the Irish people the doctrine of passive obedience;
"That his whole proceedings with reference to the Irish Amnesty question are the true and genuine offspring of that policy of conquest by the fiery denunciation of which Mr. Gladstone ousted his Tory rivals from office;
"that the General Council of the International Working-men's Association express their admiration of the spirited, firm and high-souled manner in which the Irish people carry on their Amnesty movement;
"that this resolution be communicated to all the branches of, and workingmen's bodies connected with, the International workingmen's Association in Europe and America."