litical movement." On the contrary, the Transport Workers' movement formed the basis for the creation of the Irish Labor Party, and was at the same time the most active factor in the national revolutionary movement for liberation.
The general strike of the Dublin workers in 1913 marked the brilliant climax of the trade union mass movement which was thus created.
The Union with the Peasantry.
Just as Connolly was convinced of the necessity of the leadership of the working class, so too he realized that its fate was inseparably involved with that of the peasantry, with whom union must be established if national and social liberation were to be attained. He stood for the Leninist interpretation of this alliance both in theory and in practice. Since the Irish question, at least until the beginning of this century, fundamentally revolved around the question, "Who possesses the land and governs?" he took as starting point the understanding of the Irish struggle for freedom.
During the 700 years of British rule the Irish peasantry, which had hitherto owned and tilled the land on the basis of a kind of clan kinship, had been robbed of their land with the most fearful cruelty. The land was given to the British conquerors and their supporters and servants. The peasants were driven away and physically destroyed by wars, hunger and terror, or remained as tenant farmers. In this way, the peasants came to live as tenants on that same ground which in reality belonged to them, and at the same time were obliged to pay the landlords scandalously high rents. The result was misery amongst the peasants, which was hard to distinguish from chronic famine. Ireland produced and exported large quantities of corn, hut the peasants mainly existed on potatoes.
Every bad potato harvest made a big change for the worse in the condition of the peasantry. In 1845–1849,
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