during which agrarian unrest and arbitrary expropriation by the peasants took place.
According to Connolly, Co-operation was one of the most important forms of joint work between peasants and workers. Larkin couched his and Connolly's program thus: To organize the workers into unions according to industry, to join them together into one political unit and at the same time to unite the agricultural workers with the urban workers through Co-operation.
As we will see from the quotation given below, Connolly went still further. To his mind Co-operatives did not only constitute contact between workers and peasants but also provided the possibility of a joint Labor Party (as we would say today a Farmer-Labor Party).
His genius penetrated still further. He understood that the Co-operatives provided the only way of transforming agriculture under conditions of private ownership to Socialism and after the overthrow of capitalism the Co-operatives would act as a means by which the conflict between town and country would be overcome, and both would be joined together in a unified Socialist economy. And Connolly emphasizes:
"If to that combination of agriculturalists and urban laborers we have just hinted at, as a possibility of co-operation upon the economic field, we add the further possible development of an understanding upon the political field between these two groups of co-operators we begin to realize the great and fundamental change now slowly maturing in our midst … Then when to the easily organized laborers of the towns is added the staying power of the peasantry, and when representatives appear in the Halls of Legislature voicing their combined demands, the Party of Labor which will thus manifest itself will speak with a prophetic voice when it proclaims its ideal of a regenerated Ireland re-conquered for its common people.
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