Part 12 - DW63 DB101 003 012

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On these lines of argument I have fought for the establishment of a Labour Party in Ireland, for the separate political organisation of the Irish workers and for the separate economic and industrial organisation of the Irish workers on a more revolutionary basis than was usual in England and Scotland. ... In doing this, in carrying on such a propaganda, I have been continually subject to misrepresentation and even abuse. I have been told that I was no internationalist, that I was preaching hatred of England, that I was a disruptor. In vain for me to insist that the usual mistake of the Englishman, viz., that he understood Irish problems better than the Irish did themselves, applied quite as strongly to British socialists as to the British ruling class, and that therefore the Irish socialists should work out their own policy and create their own literature, and that we must expect to be misunderstood until we could compel recognition by our own strength. (April 18 1914) REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE Such armed forces must embrace the sons and daughters of the working people. An army whose men and commanding officers come from among the workers, peasants and other working people, can guarantee unity between the army and the people, and between superiors and subordinates, and become a truly self- reliant people's army which safeguards national independence and revolutionary achievements and serves the people. (OJI 51) The decisive factor for victory in war does not consist in weapons or techniques, but in the high political enthusiasm and revolutionary devotion of the army and popular masses who are conscious of the justice of their cause. A noble revolutionary spirit to fight for the freedom and liberation of the people, boundless loyalty to the party and the leader, a peerless self-sacrificing spirit and mass heroism which are expressed in willingly giving up one's youth and life for the sake of the country and revolution, revolutionary comradeship between men and officers, their inseparable links with the people, and voluntary military discipline - these are politico- ideological superiority peculiar to a people's army, a revolutionary army. As the history of revolutionary wars shows, a revolutionary army which is in firm politico-ideological readiness, though armed with inferior weapons, can fight and defeat an enemy equipped with the latest arms. Indeed, politico-ideological superiority is the essential merit of revolutionary armed forces and the source of their invincibility. It is imperative, therefore, to knit the army closely from a politico- ideological point of view and steadily raise its politico-ideological level and ensure that imperialist armies of aggression are defeated by the strength of the politico-ideological superiority of the revolutionary people's armed forces. (OJI 52-53) It means a complete overhauling and remodelling of all the training and instruction hitherto given to those corps. It means that the corps shall be taught how to act and fight when acting against an enemy equipped with superior weapons, instead of all teaching being based upon the ideas of British military text books which always presume an equality of weapons, or even a superiority upon the British side. It means that much that has been taught will be worse than useless if acted upon, as such teaching presupposed that the corps receiving instructions were to form part of a regular army in the field, an army properly supported and reinforced by complete arms of the service. The resistance to the Militia Ballot Act must of necessity take the form of insurrectionary warfare, if the resisters are determined to fight in Ireland for Ireland, instead of on the Continent for England. Such insurrectionary warfare would be conducted upon lines and under conditions for which text books made no provision. In short, it means barricades in the streets, guerrilla warfare in the country. 11

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