Part 14 - DW63 DB101 003 014

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revolutionary violence of reaction with revolutionary violence, and always meet the imperialist moves of aggression and war in full preparedness. (OJI 50) The signal of war ought also to have been the signal for rebellion. ... When the bugles sounded the first note for actual war, their notes should have been taken as the tocsin for social revolution. (March 1915) Should the working class of Europe, rather than slaughter each other for the benefit of kings and financiers, proceed tomorrow to erect barricades all over Europe, to break up bridges and destroy the transport service that war might be abolished, we should be perfectly justified in following such a glorious example and contributing our aid to the final dethronement of the vulture classes that rule and rob the world. ... We must consider at once whether it will not be our duty to refuse to allow agricultural produce to leave Ireland until provision is made for the Irish working class. Let us not shrink from the consequences. This may mean more than a transport strike, it may mean armed battling in the streets to keep in this country the food for our people. But whatever it may mean it must not be shrunk from. It is the immediately feasible policy of the working-class democracy, the answer to all the weaklings who in this crisis of our country's history stand helpless and bewildered crying for guidance, when they are not hastening to betray her. Starting thus, Ireland may yet set the torch to a European conflagration that will not burn out until the last throne and the last capitalist bond and debenture will be shrivelled on the funeral pyre of the last war lord. (Aug 8 1914) Believing as I do that any action would be justified which would put a stop to this colossal crime now being perpetrated, I feel compelled to express the hope that ere long we may read of the paralysing of the internal transport service on the continent, even should the act of paralysing necessitate the erection of socialist barricades and acts of rioting by socialist soldiers and sailors, as happened in Russia in 1905. Even an unsuccessful attempt at social revolution by force of arms, following the paralysis of the economic life of militarism, would be less disastrous to the socialist cause than the fact of socialists allowing themselves to be used in the slaughter of their brothers in the cause. A great continental uprising of the working class would stop the war; a universal protest at public meetings will not save a single life from being wantonly slaughtered. (Aug 15 1914) If ever you shoulder a rifle, let it be for Ireland. ... You have been told you are not strong, that you have no rifles. Revolutions do not start with rifles; start first and get your rifles after. Our curse is our belief in our weakness. We are not weak, we are strong. Make up your mind to strike before your opportunity goes. (Sept 5 1914) The independent elements are everywhere asserting themselves, and there has already developed a fierce fight to prevent the Irish Volunteers being — as Mr. Redmond intended — handed over to the War Office. Up to the time of writing, the Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers has stood firm. They have refused the offer of the War Office to supply officers to the Irish Volunteers, and insisted upon being officered by men of their own choosing under their own control, and they have stated that they prefer to buy and own their own arms rather than get them from Lord Kitchener and know that they are subject to his recall. ... It is feared that ... the British Government would commandeer the foodstuffs of Ireland... It is determined on all hands that should this be done resistance will be offered, and the export of this food fought against even to the extent of armed resistance. (Sept 5 1914) 13

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