Part 8 - DW63 DB101 003 008

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However it may be for others, for us of the Citizen Army there is but one ideal an Ireland ruled, and owned, by Irish men and women, sovereign and independent from the centre to the sea, and flying its own flag outward over all the oceans. (Oct 30 1915) We can only hope to carry our flag to victory by securing the aid of all those workers everywhere who desire to see an effective force carrying the green flag of an Irish regiment whilst unconditionally under the red flag of the proletarian army. (July 4 1914) The Irish Volunteers of our time have that great quality the want of which betrayed their predecessors. That quality is: complete faith in their own country, complete confidence in her destiny to be a nation, and complete reliance upon the power of Ireland to survive all the shocks an adverse fate may bring upon her. (Jan 8 1916) We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. We believed that the call we then issued to the people of Ireland, was a nobler call, in a holier cause, than any call issued to them during this war, having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe. Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence, in any one generation of Irishmen, of even a respectable minority, ready to die to affirm that truth, makes that Government for ever a usurpation and a crime against human progress. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be. (May 9 1916) THE WORKING CLASS PARTY IS THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE REVOLUTION The working-class party is the general staff of the revolution, and the leader of the working class is the foremost leader of the revolution. How the masses are awakened to consciousness and organised in a revolutionary way, and how they perform their revolutionary duties and historical mission, depend on whether or not they are given correct leadership by the party and the leader. (OJI 18) Only such a party that strikes its roots deep among the masses and enjoys their support and trust and that knows how to organise and mobilise them, can demonstrate an invincible might and discharge its mission as the General Staff of the revolution and the political leader of the popular masses. (WPK 26) The forces of our enemies were united and wielded with all the precision and relentlessness with which the general staff of an army would wield the battalions and brigades which formed the component parts of that army, but the battalions and brigades of the army of labour when engaged in battle had no efficient general staff to guide and direct the whole army to the salvation of its individual units; and, worse still, had none of that esprit-de-corps which on the military battle- field would make the desertion of any section to its fate an unthinkable course to the officers of the divisions not engaged. (Feb 9 1914) 7

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