Why Did the LEADERSHIP of the Powerful ITGWU Reject the Connolly Position on Partition and Call a Strike in Support of the Treaty?
Leave a comment21/05/2020 by socialistfight
More excellent analyses.
Disaster Followed: ITGWU 5,000 Members in 1916,- 120,000 in 1920-21, -15000 in 1929
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The Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC and Labour Party) including the ITGWU organised a general strike in April 1922 against the threat of armed action by Republicans to set aside the partitioning Treaty and to defend the 32-county All-Ireland Parliament, first elected in 1918. The strike was supported by the Free State Government , many employers, the Catholic Church and the right-wing Irish Independent newspaper. The ITUC claimed that the strike was against “militarism”. Larkin had not returned from the United States at this time.
Just two years earlier in April 1920, The ITUC called a massive and successful general strike in support of republican hunger-strikers. In the course of the two-day strike, local strike-committees seized control of several towns. These “town soviets” were an expression of the depth of popular support for the struggle for…
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