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The Democratic Programme of 1919

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  • 18-02-2015 11:33am
    #1
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭


    Would people consider this a Socialist/Marxist document? If so would you consider the semi-recognized Irish Republic of 1919 - 21 a socialist state? After all the only country to recognize it was the Soviet Union.

    It's a strange taught the most conservative (probably) leader in this states history Dev was the Pres of a Marxist state.


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    #2
    Jolly Red Giant
    Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    DarkyHughes wrote: »
    Would people consider this a Socialist/Marxist document? If so would you consider the semi-recognized Irish Republic of 1919 - 21 a socialist state? After all the only country to recognize it was the Soviet Union.

    It's a strange taught the most conservative (probably) leader in this states history Dev was the Pres of a Marxist state.

    The Democratic Programme was a left-wing document. SF had no option but to support it because of the rise in support for socialist ideas at the time but never had any intention of implementing it. As today - the representatives of the Irish elites were experts at breaking their promises.

    And no - Ireland was not a Marxist or socialist state. SF and the IRA spent a considerable amount of time and effort attacking the workers movement and socialist ideas - ably abetted by the Irish Catholic establishment, the media and the church hierarchy.


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    #3
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    The time the "German Plot" was made up by the RIC (or maybe DMP) to arrest Sinn Fein members was that around the time Germany had a communist government after a uprising with the likes of Rosa Luxemberg?


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    #4
    PopePalpatine
    Registered Users Posts: 11,844 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    No, if I recall correctly Luxemberg's uprising was shortly after WWI, the German Plot was in May 1918.


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    #5
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,671 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    My understanding based on recent readings of books such as the Long Shadow or 1919 was that given the international volatility of the time, that the ideological underpinings of most European states were in flux to some extent. So terms such as democratic & republican were being used as part of the terms of discussion, from everything from Finland's Whites to Hungarian Reads. So at least in Irish terms enough sanity remain to touch based with the institutional underpinings of the society instead of seeking to create a year zero.


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    #6
    IrishWelshCelt
    Registered Users Posts: 317 ✭✭IrishWelshCelt


    The democratic programme was mainly drafted by a labour party man who's name currently escapes me. Labour at the stage were still very much in the Connelly mould.


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    #7
    Jolly Red Giant
    Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    PopePalpatine wrote: »
    No, if I recall correctly Luxemberg's uprising was shortly after WWI, the German Plot was in May 1918.
    The Sparticist Uprising occurred in January 1919

    The Bavarian Soviet government existed from November 1918 - May 1919

    The Ruhr Uprising occurred in March 1920

    The Red Week occurred in Holland in November 1918

    The Hungarian Soviet republic existed from March 1919 - August 1919

    The Slovak Soviet republic existed from June 1919- July 1919

    The Bienno Rosso Uprising occurred in Italy 1919-1920

    The Albona Republic existed from March 1921 - April 1921

    The September Uprising occurred in Bulgaria in 1923

    Soviet Republics were established in many Eastern European countries in 1918 - long before the establishment of the USSR


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    #8
    Jolly Red Giant
    Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    IrishWelshCelt wrote: »
    The democratic programme was mainly drafted by a labour party man who's name currently escapes me. Labour at the stage were still very much in the Connelly mould.
    The programme was drafted by Tom Johnson - it was edited by Sean T O'Kelly to remove some of the more left-wing elements of it. Sepcifically removed was the following statement -
    “The Republic will aim at the elimination of the class in society which lives upon the wealth produced by the workers of the nation but gives no useful social service in return and in the process of accomplishment will bring freedom to all who have hitherto been caught in the toils of economic servitude.”

    (Johnson was good at talking the talk but studiously avoided walking the walk).


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    #9
    DavidRamsay99
    Registered Users Posts: 521 ✭✭✭DavidRamsay99


    It was drafted with the help of Thomas Johnson of the Labour Party prior to the 1918 general election in return that Labour would not campaign and take votes from Sinn Féin.

    The reason it was never implemented is simple - the core demographic that made up the ranks of the IRA which split into both pro- and anti-Treaty factions in 1922 were the devoutly Catholic sons of middle class farmers who had no intention of adopting socialism.


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    #10
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    i was just reading about the ICA & when it was reorganized in 1914 Sean O'Casey wrote constitution which in it said
    "the ownership of Ireland, moral and material, is vested of right in the people of Ireland" and to "sink all difference of birth property and creed under the common name of the Irish people"

    There was a lot of left-wing rhetoric written around this time period.

    This type of talk, the mentioning of the "Irish people" in the !916 Proclamation, the Declaration of Independence, The Democratic Programme & lots of other types of documents during 1913/14 - 1923 almost of the Irish people in some sort of mythical way almost saintly like. A huge army of saints that would drive the British out & live in a Republic that looks after the interests of the 99% only governing for them & not the 1%.


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    #11
    DarkyHughes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,393 ✭✭✭DarkyHughes


    Jolly Red Giant wrote: »
    The programme was drafted by Tom Johnson - it was edited by Sean T O'Kelly to remove some of the more left-wing elements of it. Sepcifically removed was the following statement -



    (Johnson was good at talking the talk but studiously avoided walking the walk).


    O'Kelly fought on the Free State side in the civil war didn't he?


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    #12
    Maoltuile
    Registered Users Posts: 634 ✭✭✭Maoltuile


    DarkyHughes wrote: »
    O'Kelly fought on the Free State side in the civil war didn't he?

    Hardly. Séan T O'Kelly was interned during the Civil War as an Anti-Treatyite, and was afterwards a Fianna Fáil TD, minister and eventually President of Ireland.

    A number of the most committed and radical Irish republicans (and therefore most likely to be executed or killed) were also left-wingers. Excepting the obvious example of the ICA, among the men Pearse and Ceannt were reckoned by a number of their comrades to be more left-wing. And as for the women, the feminist/suffragist element in CnmB & the ICA inclined to that political persuasion.


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    #13
    I swindled the NSA
    Closed Accounts Posts: 150 ✭✭I swindled the NSA


    Jolly Red Giant wrote: »
    The Sparticist Uprising occurred in January 1919
    .......The September Uprising occurred in Bulgaria in 1923

    Soviet Republics were established in many Eastern European countries in 1918 - long before the establishment of the USSR

    Not forgetting the "Limerick Soviet" (April 1919)


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