Mike Milotte’s indispensible study of Irish communism in the early twentieth century leaves no stone unturned.
The book offers a clear and meticulous reconstruction of Irish communism in the 1920s, reassessing the movement and its key figures in light of previously overlooked or misinterpreted material from the Comintern archives. Milotte follows a wide range of characters who shaped Irish communism in this period. During the revolutionary era, Roddy Connolly’s Communist Party robbed banks to fund its activities, and 20-year-old Connolly engaged in gun-running for the IRA while struggling to maintain control of his fractious party. 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.
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“This is an outstanding piece of scholarship and a superb addition to communist historiography. Milotte’s meticulous demonstration of the decisive power of the Comintern over its national sections challenges the interpretations of those historians who have revised this relationship. He fills in many historical gaps and paints the most detailed picture we have of a movement in Ireland that may have been tiny in size but punched above its weight politically.”
—Charlie McGuire, Saothar: Journal of Irish Labour History
“Mike Milotte has written a masterful book on Irish communism. The first volume, a fully integrated and comprehensive history from 1916 to 1928, is a most judicious acquisition for the reader of Irish history. Virtually no organ has been left unmolested by his fastidious application and surgical analysis, an analysis which slices open the corpse of Irish communism, greedily consumes its sanguine contents, and seamlessly stitches the whole back together. We are presented with a delicious plate of sweetmeats, garnished with Green and predominately Red foliage.”
—Gerry Watts, History Ireland