Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/25

 British Empire. The crushing of the Republicans can only result in firmly establishing an imperialist terrorist Government, which will not hesitate to attack the Irish working class movement with the same brutal weapons upon the first signs of an advance to power or to better conditions. This being undeniably so, the action of the majority of the Labour Party, headed by Johnson, in supporting the executions, is the most criminal betrayal that these traitors to the working class have yet perpetrated, particularly so, when even the most reactionary Irish capitalist organ that called aloud for the blood of Connolly in 1916, deprecates this action of the Government.

The Comintern warns the working class of Ireland against these betrayals of the ideals of Connolly and Larkin, and points out to the Irish workers and peasants that the only road out of this Free State terrorism and imperialist oppression lies through an organised and co-ordinated struggle in the political and industrial as well as the military field. The struggle with arms alone, if not supplemented and reinforced by political and industrial action, will inevitably fail. To win success the masses must be mobilised against the Free State, and this can only be done on the basis of the social programme of the Communist Party of Ireland.

The C.I. sends fraternal greetings to the struggling Irish national revolutionaries, and feels that they will soon tread the only path that leads to real freedom, the path of Communism. The C.I. will assist all efforts to organise the struggle to combat this terror, and to help the Irish workers and peasants to victory.

Long live the Irish national struggle for independence!

Long live the Workers' Republic of Ireland!

Long live the Communist International!

Dear Comrades,—We follow your movements with great interest. You meet in a dark hour to show to the German working class how to free itself from misery and destitution. The capitalist offensive grows more acute from day to day. Its chief attack is now directed against the eight-hour day. The social-democratic leaders and the trade union bureaucrats are supporting this attack actively and passively. They sabotage every defensive action of the proletariat, and do not even scruple to split the trade unions in the interest of the capitalists.