Communist Politics in Ireland 1916–1945

Mike Milotte’s clear and meticulous reconstruction of Irish communism in the 1920s leaves no stone unturned. He reassesses the communist movement and its key figures in light of previously overlooked or misinterpreted material from the Comintern archives.

During the revolutionary era, Roddy Connolly’s Communist Party engaged in bank robberies and gun-running for the IRA, while the 20-year-old Connolly struggled to maintain control. In a later period of retreat, James Larkin refused to submit to the ‘imperialistic’ British Communist Party or follow the dictates of Moscow’s Stalinist bureaucracy, resisting its policies and practices on instinct.