Showing 753 results

are just a continuation of the fight that we fought in our days", and weeks before her death ten years later she proudly commented that "the unbroken tradition is saved by the Provos coming out against the border which cuts us off from six counties of our country." These immortal achievements of James Connolly in forging a leadership method characterised by complete reliance on the masses as masters, his internationalism and active resistance to imperialist war, his independent stand and achievements in united front politics and military affairs, and his ultimate triumph in saving the soul of Ireland -- its unbroken tradition of patriotic uprisings -- have led to his occupying a special place in the hearts of Irish patriots, so that all achievements of the Easter rising were closely associated by all those who participated in them with his name and those of Pearse, Clarke and the other leaders of the rising. This is further proof, if indeed further proof were needed, that the history of the revolutionary struggle of the working class is, in the words of Comrade Kim Jong Il, "a history of working-class leaders creating and developing revolutionary ideas, a history in which these ideas have been applied to transform the world." The Juche Idea crystall- ises the experience of the more advanced stage when socialism has consolidated its exercise of state power, and thus enables the experiences of Irish Republican and other revolutionary patriotic movements of the oppressed to be seen in the light of advanced science. The Irish people's aspirations for unity have focussed on the leadership of Tone, Emmet, Mitchel, Lalor, the Fenians, and James Connolly and the leaders of 1916. Where colonialism had succeeded 12

in suppressing or interrupting its leadership structures, the teachings and example of their leaders have sustained in popular tradition a seed- bed for the constant rebirth of the Phoenix of rebellion. The Juche Idea has for the first time in a scientific way approached this question of the revolutionary leadership and the succession to it as an independent and central question of revolu- tionary theory, and is thus of great encouragement to all oppressed peoples holding fast to their independent leadership traditions. It has been our privilege to participate in the historic introduction of these two great revolut- ionary traditions, the Korean and the Irish, through our programme of study of the works of James Connolly and the Juche Idea. Through this study we have come to see that it is through such deeper understanding and creative and productive interchange between such dynamic revolutionary traditions that the world revolutionary process will deepen and intensify under the banner of Chajusong/independence. This study programme has been the focus of our work in recent years, and we have resisted all attempts by the factionalist flunkeys to suppress it by whatever means. We are united as one in the firm conviction that our Connolly-Juche study programme will prove a focus for the emergence of a guiding revolutionary idea in this country, and we are determined to dev- elop and apply this idea to transform the world. As we confront this long road that lies ahead of us, we gladly acknowledge our inestimable debt to Comrade Kim Il Sung and to James Connolly for the encyclo- paedic legacy of their thought which enables us in this way to play our part in moving the wheels of history forward. As we look at the East Asian region today, we 13

salute the half-century leadership of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, and we heartily and warmly congratulate the Korean people on confronting, for the first time in the history of the world communist movement, the question of succession to the leadership of the revolution. Comrade Kim Jong Il has received the unanimous and enthusiastic endorsement of the Korean people as the successor to the leadership, and this people, which is the most independent-minded and politicised and working- classised people in history, is eagerly working to consolidate his leadership system in the stable conditions of dynamic socialist construction. We will continue eagerly to follow this original and significant process, and to study and propagate the Juche Idea. It will in turn strengthen our solidarity with Korean reunification to build this close personal bond with the leader of the rising generation who will, like Tone, Lalor and James Connolly before him, be facing the twists and turns of the struggle against imperialism in this difficult and dangerous period when imperialism is making its last desperate attempts to turn back the wheels of history and prevent the full dawn of the age of Chajusong/independence and peace. As adherents of Connollyism, therefore, we shall remain closely at the side of the Korean people, true to the principles of Chajusong/independence fought for since the dawn of man and culminating in the Juche Idea. We salute the author of the Juche Idea, Comrade Kim Il Sung, and look forward in confidence to the forthcoming period of the brilliant leadership of Comrade Kim Jong Il. Forward along the path of Connollyism and the Juche Idea ! 14

A SELECTION OF QUOTATIONS FROM THE WORKS OF JAMES CONNOLLY AND KIM JONG IL Compiled by H. Stephens. t e p THE MASSES ARE THE MASTERS OF REVOLUTION Kim Jong Il: The masses of the people are the masters of revolution and construction and the decisive factor in transforming nature and developing society. ... It is the masses that want the revolution and con- struction, and it is also the masses that carry them out. (OJI 15) The revolution is a struggle to meet the masses' desire for independence by enlisting their strength. It is a struggle of the masses to free themselves. (OJI 5 ) The masses are masters and the motive force of the revolution and possessors of inexhaustible creative talents and strength. Only when one depends on their creative talents and strength, will one be able to understand the objective world correctly, solve all problems to suit the reality, and transform nature and society successfully. (OJI 29) 15

The will and fighting power of people demonstr- ated in the revolutionary movement are also deter- mined by their ideological consciousness. The level of the willpower and strength demonstrated by the people is determined by their ideology. Only those who have a firm consciousness of inde- pendence will be able to take an indomitable atti- tude towards the revolution, actively participate in it with a strong will, and struggle to the end, overcoming all difficulties and trials. (OJI 33) James Connolly: O'Donovan Rossa represents to us a revolutionary movement the least aristocratic and the most pleb- eian that ever raised itself to national dignity in Ireland. It was a movement that resting upon the masses of people in Ireland, and drawing its inspirations from the hearts of that people, was successful in inspiring its followers with such a belief in their own ability to conquer and master the future, that it nerved them to conspire for a revolt against the British Empire at a time when that Empire was at peace with all the world. The mere conception of such a struggle, the stark naked fact that such a project was ever even mooted, in itself stamps as heroes all who cherished and suffered for it. (July 31 1915) Our fight of last year was not for added wages and reduction of hours; it was for an opportunity of building up in our midst men and women, a chance to develop nobility and grandeur of character for men and women, a time to realise the nobility of life, to study the history of Ireland, to study our rights as well as our duties; time to develop men and women for the coming crisis, so that they might take advantage of it when it came. (Sept 5 1914) 16

The Irish Transport and General Worker's Union ... found the labourers of Ireland on their knees, and has striven to raise them to the erect position of manhood; it found them with all the vices of slavery in their souls, and it strove to eradicate these vices and replace them with some of the virtues of free men; it found them with no other weapons of defence than the arts of the liar, the lickspittle, and the toady, and it combined them and taught them to abhor those arts and rely proudly on the defensive power of combination; it, in short, found a class in whom seven centuries of social outlawry had added fresh degradations upon the burden it bore as the members of a nation suff- ering from the cumulative effects of seven centuries of national bondage, and out of this class ... has created an army of intelligent self-reliant men, abhoring the old arts of the toady, the lickspittle, and the crawler and trusting alone to the disci- plined use of their power to labour or to withdraw their labour to assert and maintain their right as men. The Irish Transport and General Workers' Union found that before its advent the working class of Dublin had been taught by all the educational agencies of the country, by all the social influ- ences of their masters, that this world was created for the special benefit of the various sections of the master class, that kings and lords and capital- ists were of value; that even flunkeys, toadies, lickspittles and poodle dogs had an honoured place in the sheme of the universe, but that there was neither honour, credit, nor consideration to the man or woman who toils to maintain them all. (Aug 30 1913) These labourers dared to straighten their bent backs, and looking in the faces of their rulers 17

and employers dared to express the will to be free. (Nov 18 1914) Labour in Ireland tends to become more and more self-reliant, and in its self-reliance it discovers its strength. Out of such strong self-reliance it develops a magnetism, which will draw to it more and more support from all the adherents of all the causes which in their entirety make for a regener- ated Ireland. (Dec 1915) None so fitted to break the chains as they who wear them, none so well equipped to decide what is a fetter. (Dec 1915) The only true prophets are they who carve out the future which they announce. (Dec 1915) THE QUESTION OF LEADERSHIP METHOD IN REVOLUTIONARY THEORY Kim Jong Il: All revolutionary movements are conscious move- ments. A revolutionary movement begins with awakening people to an advanced idea and emerges victorious on the strength of the masses of the people who are armed with the advanced idea. (OJI 31) The communists who struggle for the freedom and happiness of the people, lead the revolution to victory and fulfil their noble mission by awakening people ideologically and making them conscious and encouraging them to undertake the struggle of their own accord. (OJI 35) Kimilsungism raised the new question of the method of leadership in the revolutionary theory 18

It is not the will of the majority which ultim- ately prevails; that which ultimately prevails is the ideal of the noblest of each generation. Happy indeed that race and generation in which the ideal of the noblest and the will of the majority unite. (March 18 1916) There are times in history when we realise that it is easier to convert a multitude than it ordin- arily is to convert an individual; when indeed ideas seem to seize upon the masses as contra- distinguished by ordinary times when individuals slowly seize ideas. The propagandist toils on for decades in seeming failure and ignominy, when sud- denly some great event takes place in accord with the principles he has been advocating, and immedi- ately he finds that the seed he has been sowing is springing up in plants that are covering the earth. (Feb 9 1914) IRELAND'S REPUBLICAN LEADERS AS EMBODIERS OF IRISH PATRIOTISM AND INTERNATIONALISM James Connolly: Wolfe Tone was abreast of the revolutionary thought of his day, as are the Socialist Republicans of our day. He saw clearly, as we see, that a dom- inion as rooted in any country as British dominion in Ireland can only be dislodged by a revolutionary impulse in line with the development of the entire epoch. ... He, by voice and pen, inculcated the republican principles of the French Revolution and counselled his countrymen to embark the national movement on the crest of that revolutionary wave... High up in the topmost niches of the temple a liberated human race will erect to the heroes 20

and martyrs who have watered the tree of liberty with the blood of their body and the sweat of their intellect, ... a grateful Irish people will carve the name of our precursor, Theobald Wolfe Tone. (Aug 13 1898) We are told to imitate Wolfe Tone, but the greatness of Wolfe Tone lay in the fact that he imitated nobody. The needs of his time called for a man able to shake from his mind the intellectual fetters of the past, and to unite in his own person the hopes of the new revolutionary faith and the ancient aspirations of an oppressed people. (Aug 5 1899) In Ireland at that time there were not only two nations divided into Catholics and non-Catholics, but each of those two nations in turn was divided into other two, the rich and the poor. ... The times were propitious for a union of the two democracies of Ireland. ... To accomplish this union and make it a living force in the life of the nation, there was required the activity of a revolutionist with statesmanship enough to find a common point upon which the two elements could unite, and some great event dramatic enough in its character to arrest the attention of all and fire them with a common feeling. The first, the man, revolutionist and statesman, was found in the person of Theobald Wolfe Tone, and the second, the event, in the French Revolution. (Nov 1910) All students who have investigated the matter are as one in conceding that Emmet's conspiracy was more of a working class character than its pre- decessors. ... Such were the domestic materials upon which the conspiracy of Emmet rested -- working class elements 21