The Life and Times of James Connolly

“The fact that it had its inception among men actually engaged in the work of trade
union organisation . . . and not in the theories of any political party . . . is the most
hopeful augury of the future.”
These ideas permeate the declaration of principles of the I.S.F. and are in turn linked
to another theory, namely that the victory of the working class is only possible after a
prolonged accumulation of economic power. What this meant concretely was best
explained in the April issue of The Harp:
“The first act of the workers will be through their economic organisations seizing the
organised industries; the last act the conquest of the political power.”
Connolly continued :
“In this the working class will, as they must, follow the lines traversed by the
capitalist revolution of Cromwellian England . . . the capitalist class had developed
their economic power before they raised the banner of political revolt.”
That one to whom the Communist Manifesto was so familiar could thus stand Marxism
on its head testified to the utter confusion reigning in the American movement. Marx
and Engels, it is true, distinguished stages in the development of working-class
consciousness. But while “all preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify
their already acquired status . . . the proletarians cannot become masters of the
productive forces of society except by abolishing their own previous mode of
appropriation.”
Hence the triumphant conclusion:
“The first step in the revolution of the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the
position of ruling class.” It will then “use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees
all capital from the bourgeoisie.”
Or as Marx put it elsewhere:
“The economic emancipation of the working class is therefore the great end to which
every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means.” 23
But to Connolly, at this stage of his evolution,
23 Author’s italics.
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