Page:Schüller - Jim Connolly and Irish Freedom (1926).djvu/32

 the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie had not yet been overcome (the war to a finish can bring that about, at present it has not gone so far); proletarian movements are still very weak in imperialist states."

"The misfortune of the Irish lay in the fact that their rising was untimely, since the rising of the European proletariat was NOT YET ripe. Capitalism is not so harmoniously constructed that separate sources of risings can suddenly unite without failure of overthrow. On the contrary, the difference in time, the difference and dissimilarity in the place of the risings act as a guarantee for the greatness and depth of the joint movement; it is only by untimely, partially and consequently unsuccessful attempts at revolutionary risings that the masses will again experience, learn, assemble their forces, recognize their true leaders, the Socialist proletarians, and thereby prepare the joint attack; just as isolated strikes, town and national demonstrations, mutinies in the army, peasant risings, etc., prepared the general attack in 1905."

Lenin's prophetic word was fulfilled. The Easter rising marked the beginning of a new epoch. The rising and the persecutions accomplished in a few weeks what the propaganda of years had failed to do: the ideas of the extreme revolutionary groups and their methods were supported by the masses.* The revolutionaries realized that the only way to liberate Ireland was through a revolutionary struggle, and they won over practically the whole mass of the Irish people to this program.

Then came the years of the widespread partisan war, 1919–1921, which stand without parallel in the history of revolutionary struggles, in which the Irish Republic, created at Easter, 1916, was actually thrust on British imperialism. In the end the British government had to climb down in order not to lose everything. In 1921 Ireland was made a Free State with Dominion rights like