James Connolly
Edited by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh
p.30Home Thrusts
1 July 1899
Peace, blessed Peace!
The Peace Conference summoned by the Czar of Russia is now sitting at the Hague – and the Czar is busy using military force to suppress the constitution of Finland.
Peace, blessed Peace! Britain prepares for war with the Transvaal in the interests of the capitalist speculators who desire to exploit that territory.
p.31Peace, blessed Peace! The United States troops are busily engaged in massacring the Filippinos; looting their towns and burning whatever they cannot carry off.
Peace, blessed Peace! Lock out in Berlin, lock out in Paris, lock out in Scotland, lock out in Dublin, lock out of workers by the masters, desirous of reducing their wage slaves to subjection.
Peace, blessed Peace! The Peace Conference is sitting at the Hague – and the Prince of Hades enjoys the joke. When nations go to war the women and children are exempted from molestation by the contending forces, but in the industrial struggle – the CLASS WAR – it is the sufferings of the women and children upon which the capitalist class depends to defeat and subdue us.
You see, it works out in this fashion. There is no antagonism between the workmen and those by whom Labour is employed (eh, Mr McCarron) but when the masters desire to provide their wives or daughters with some fresh luxury – a dainty diamond bracelet or a Continental trip – then the workers are called upon to submit to a reduction of wages—
Just to show their friendly feelings and their humble Christian spirit.
Sad to say, the workers most inconsiderately refuse. Some foolish idea about the duty of providing the necessaries of life for their own wives and children gets into their heads, and as a result of this little difference of opinion there is a lock out.
A lock out! You know what that means. It means that the master class as its weapon against the workers uses the powers of slow and maddening STARVATION. It means that your master in order to defeat you, takes the food from your table, the clothes from your body, the coals from your fires, that he condemns you, as far as in him lies, to hunger and misery, and that he calculates, with a fiendish ferocity, that you will submit to his terms rather than see those dear to you perish for lack of proper nourishment.
That is a lock out. During the lock out the masters want for nothing, the workers are in want of everything. A fair fight? Hem.
At the ballot box the master would only count as one against his workers; their force could, if properly used, ensure the triumph of Labour as certainly as on the industrial plane the power of the master's purse will nearly always win.
Yet it is upon the industrial field alone that the workers prefer to fight.
p.32In the workshop they fight the masters – at the ballot box they elect the master or his lackeys to rule them.
Yet it is the men elected at the ballot box who make the laws which govern the fight in the workshop.
When will the workers learn that the political power they could wield as an organised body is the greatest weapon in their hands, that the field of politics is the only field upon which the workers can win emancipation from the domination of capital?
In other words, when will the workers copy the masters who, not content with their tremendous economic power, unceasingly strive to secure every atom of political power in order to entrench their class in its position of supremacy.
Let the workers organise to seize political power; let them remember that all industrial institutions can be moulded responsive to the will of the class wielding the governmental power, and, so remembering, let them direct their energies toward the only object worth striving for, viz, to wrest the private ownership and control of industry from the hands of a robber class, and prepare the ground for the harvest of freedom – the Socialist Republic.
Then we shall have peace. Not the peace of imperial hypocrites, military bullies, lying diplomats and commercial pirates, nor yet the peace of beaten slaves, but the peace of a free people, paying tribute to no exploiter, fully masters of their own destiny.
Peace, blessed Peace?
SPAILPÍN.
Document details
The TEI Header
File description
Title statement
Title (uniform): Home Thrusts [1 July 1899]
Author: James Connolly
Editor: Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh
Responsibility statement
Electronic edition compiled by: Benjamin Hazard
proof corrections by: Aisling Byrne
Funded by: University College, Cork, via the Writers of Ireland Project
Edition statement
2. Second draft.
Extent: 1890 words
Publication statement
Publisher: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College Cork
Address: College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt
Date: 2006
Date: 2010
Distributor: CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
CELT document ID: E900002-011
Availability: Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.The text is here reproduced with kind permission of the editor.
Source description
Edition
- Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh (ed.), James Connolly: The Lost Writings (London 1997).
Selected further reading
- James Connolly and William Walker, The Connolly-Walker controversy on socialist unity in Ireland (Dublin 1911, repr. Cork 1986).
- Robert Lynd, James Connolly: an appreciation, to James Connolly, Collected works (2 vols, October 1916, repr. Dublin 1987) i, pp. 495-507.
- Lambert McKenna, The social teachings of James Connolly (Dublin 1920).
- Desmond Ryan, James Connolly: his life, work and writings (Dublin 1924).
- G. Schüller, James Connolly and Irish freedom: a marxist analysis (Chicago 1926, repr. Cork 1974).
- Noelle Davis, Connolly of Ireland: patriot and socialist (Carnarvon 1946).
- Richard Michael Fox, James Connolly: the forerunner (Tralee 1946).
- Desmond Ryan, Socialism and nationalism: a selection from the writings of James Connolly (Dublin 1948).
- Desmond Ryan, 'James Connolly', in J. W. Boyle (ed.), Leaders and workers (Cork 1960, repr. 1978).
- C. Desmond Greaves, The life and times of James Connolly (London 1961, repr. Berlin 1976).
- François Bédarida, Le socialisme et la nation: James Connolly et l'Irlande (Paris 1965).
- Joseph Deasy, James Connolly: his life and teachings (Dublin 1966).
- James Connolly, Press poisoners in Ireland and other articles (Belfast 1968).
- James Connolly, Yellow unions in Ireland and other articles (Belfast 1968).
- Peter McKevitt, James Connolly (Dublin 1969).
- Owen Dudley Edwards, The mind of an activist: James Connolly (Dublin 1981).
- Derry Kelleher, Quotations from James Connolly: an anthology in three parts (2 vols Drogheda 1972).
- Peter Berresford Ellis (ed.), James Connolly: selected writings edited with an introduction by P. Berresford Ellis (Harmondsworth 1973).
- Samuel Levenson, James Connolly: a biography (London 1973).
- James Connolly, Ireland upon the dissecting table: James Connolly on Ulster and Partition (Cork 1975).
- Nora Connolly O'Brien, James Connolly: portrait of a rebel father (Dublin 1975).
- E. Strauss, Irish nationalism and British democracy (Westport CT 1975).
- Bernard Ransom, Connolly's Marxism (London 1980).
- Communist Party of Ireland, Breaking the chains: selected writings of James Connolly on women (Belfast 1981).
- Ruth Dudley Edwards, James Connolly (Dublin 1981).
- Brian Kelly, James Connolly and the fight for an Irish Workers' Republic (Cleveland, OH 1982).
- John F. Murphy, Implications of the Irish past: the socialist ideology of James Connolly from an historical perspective (unpubl. MA thesis, University of North Carolina at Charlotte 1983).
- Anthony Lake, James Connolly: the development of his political ideology (unpubl. MA thesis, NUI Cork 1984).
- Frederick Ryan, Socialism, democracy and the Church (Dublin 1984). With reviews of Connolly's 'Labour in Irish History' and Jaures' 'Studies in socialism'.
- Connolly: the Polish aspects: a review of James Connolly's political and spiritual affinity with Józef Pilsudski, leader of the Polish Socialist Party, organiser of the Polish legions and founder of the Polish state (Belfast 1985).
- X. T. Zagladina, James Connolly (Moscow 1985).
- James Connolly and Daniel De Leon, The Connolly-De Leon Controversy: On wages, marriage and the Church (London 1986).
- David Howell, A Lost Left: three studies in socialism and nationalism (Chicago 1986).
- Priscilla Metscher, Republicanism and socialism in Ireland: a study of the relationship of politics and ideology from the United Irishmen to James Connolly, Bremer Beiträge zur Literatur- und Ideologiegeschichte 2 (Frankfurt-am-Main 1986).
- Michael O'Riordan, General introduction, to James Connolly, Collected works (2 vols Dublin 1987) i, pp. ix-xvii.
- Cathal O'Shannon, Introduction, to James Connolly, Collected works (2 vols Dublin 1987) i, 11-16
- Austen Morgan, James Connolly: a political biography (Manchester 1988).
- Helen Clark, Sing a rebel song: the story of James Connolly, born Edinburgh 1868, executed Dublin 1916 (Edinburgh 1989).
- Kieran Allen, The politics of James Connolly (London 1990).
- Andy Johnston, James Larraggy and Edward McWilliams, Connolly: a Marxist analysis (Dublin 1990).
- Lambert McKenna, The social teachings of James Connolly, by Lambert McKenna, ed. Thomas J. Morrissey (Dublin 1991).
- Donnacha Ní Gabhann, The reality of Connolly: 1868-1916 (Dublin 1993).
- William K. Anderson, James Connolly and the Irish left (Dublin 1994).
- Proinsias Mac Aonghusa, What Connolly said: James Connolly's writings (Dublin 1994).
- James L. Hyland, James Connolly: life and times (Dundalk 1997).
- William McMullen, With James Connolly in Belfast (Belfast 2001).
- Donal Nevin, James Connolly: a full life (Dublin 2005).
Connolly, James (1997). ‘Home Thrusts [1 July 1899]’. In: James Connolly: The Lost Writings. Ed. by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh. London: Pluto, pp. 30–32.
You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:
@incollection{E900002-011,
author = {James Connolly},
title = {Home Thrusts [1 July 1899]},
editor = {Aindrias Ó~Cathasaigh},
booktitle = {James Connolly: The Lost Writings},
publisher = {Pluto},
address = {London},
date = {1997},
pages = {30–32}
}
Encoding description
Project description: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts
Sampling declarations
the whole essay.
Editorial declarations
Correction: Text has been proof-read twice and parsed using SGMLS.
Normalization: The electronic text represents the edited text. Italicized or capitalized sections of the text are tagged emph.
Quotation: There are no quotations.
Hyphenation: Soft hyphens are silently removed. When a hyphenated word (and subsequent punctuation mark) crosses a page-break, this break is marked after the completion of the word (and punctuation mark).
Segmentation: div0=the whole text; div1=the essay. Page-breaks are marked pb n="".
Standard values: Dates are standardized in the ISO form yyyy-mm-dd.
Interpretation: Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged.
Reference declaration
A canonical reference to a location in this text should be made using “essay”, eg essay .
Profile description
Creation: by James Connolly
Date: 1899
Language usage
- The text is in English. (en)
Keywords: political; essay; prose; 19c
Revision description
(Most recent first)
- 2010-04-20: Conversion script run; header updated; new wordcount made; file parsed. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
- 2008-08-29: File validated. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
- 2008-07-30: Keywords added. (ed. Ruth Murphy)
- 2006-01-12: File proofed (2), structural and content markup applied to text and header compiled. (ed. Benjamin Hazard)
- 2005-10-12: File proofed (1). (ed. Aisling Byrne, Dublin)
- 2005-09-10: Text scanned. (data capture Benjamin Hazard)