The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was an international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism, and which was led and controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress in 1920 to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state". The Comintern was preceded by the dissolution of the Second International in 1916.
The Labour Party is a centre-left and social-democratic political party in the Republic of Ireland. Founded on 28 May 1912 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, by James Connolly, James Larkin, and William O'Brien as the political wing of the Irish Trades Union Congress, it describes itself as a "democratic socialist party" in its constitution.
William Z. Foster was a radical American labor organizer and Communist politician, whose career included serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1945 to 1957. He was previously a member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, leading the drive to organize the packinghouse industry during World War I and the steel strike of 1919.
James Larkin, sometimes known as Jim Larkin or Big Jim, was an Irish republican, socialist and trade union leader. He was one of the founders of the Irish Labour Party along with James Connolly and William O'Brien, and later the founder of the Irish Worker League, as well as the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) and the Workers' Union of Ireland. Along with Connolly and Jack White, he was also a founder of the Irish Citizen Army. Larkin was a leading figure in the Syndicalist movement.
The Communist Party of Ireland is an all-Ireland Marxist–Leninist communist party, founded in 1933 and re-founded in 1970. It rarely contests elections and has never had electoral success. The party is a member of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.
The Peasant International, known most commonly by its Russian abbreviation Krestintern (Крестинтерн), was an international peasants' organization formed by the Communist International (Comintern) in October 1923. The organization attempted to achieve united front relations with radical peasant parties in Eastern Europe and Asia, without lasting success. After failing to make headway with important initiatives in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and China in the 1920s, the organization was placed on hiatus at the end of the decade. The so-called Red Peasant International was formally dissolved in 1939.
The National Labour Party was an Irish political party active between 1944 and 1950. It was founded in 1944 from a rebel faction of the Labour Party, inspired by the intransigence of the incumbent leadership of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) against the majority of the party on the basis that communists had infiltrated Labour at the turn of the 1940s.
The Red International of Labor Unions, commonly known as the Profintern, was an international body established by the Communist International (Comintern) with the aim of coordinating communist activities within trade unions. Formally established in 1921, the Profintern aimed to act as a counterweight to the influence of the so-called "Amsterdam International", the social-democratic International Federation of Trade Unions, an organization which the Comintern branded as "class-collaborationist" and as an impediment to revolution. After entering a period of decline in the middle 1930s, the Profintern was finally dissolved in 1937 with the advent of Comintern's "Popular Front" policy.
The Irish Workers' League (1948–1962) and Irish Workers' Party (1962–1970) were names used by the communist party in the Republic of Ireland.
William O'Brien was a politician and trade unionist in Ireland. While rarely dominating the political spotlight, O'Brien was incredibly powerful and influential behind the scenes, maintaining a firm grip over Ireland's trade unions for many decades. Besides his leadership in the trade unions, O'Brien was a founder, alongside James Larkin and James Connolly, of the Labour Party of Ireland. In later years a rift formed between Larkin and O'Brien that would last the rest of their lives and often divide the labour movement in Ireland.
The Labour Party has been part of the political scene in Ireland throughout the state's existence. Although never attracting majority support, it has repeatedly participated in coalition governments. The party was established in 1912 by James Connolly, James Larkin, and William O'Brien and others as the political wing of the Irish Trades Union Congress. It intended to participate in a Dublin Parliament that would follow passage of the Home Rule Act 1914, which was suspended on the outbreak of World War I. Connolly was executed following the Easter Rising in 1916, and was succeeded as leader by Thomas Johnson. The party stood aside from the elections of 1918 and 1921, but despite divisions over acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty it took approximately 20% of the vote in the 1922 elections, initially forming the main opposition party in the Dáil Éireann (parliament) of the Irish Free State. Farm labourers already influenced by D.D. Sheehan's Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA) factions were absorbed into urban-based unions, which contributed significantly to the expansion of the Irish trade union movement after the First World War. For much of the 20th century, the Irish Labour Party derived the majority of its Dáil strength from TDs who were relatively un-ideological and independent-minded, and were supported by agricultural labourers.
The Worker's Party of Ireland (WPI) was a communist party in Ireland. It was founded in 1926 by former members of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) and other communists. Among its members were Roddy Connolly, who served as party leader, Nora Connolly, Tom Lyng, the trade unionist P. T. Daly, Walter Carpenter Jnr, and Jack White. Many of the members had been active in Jim Larkin's Irish Worker League, and the party attempted to affiliate with the Communist International in place of the IWL.
Anarchism in Ireland has its roots in the stateless organisation of the túatha in Gaelic Ireland. It first began to emerge from the libertarian socialist tendencies within the Irish republican movement, with anarchist individuals and organisations sprouting out of the resurgent socialist movement during the 1880s, particularly gaining prominence during the time of the Dublin Socialist League.
James Larkin Jnr was an Irish Labour Party politician and trade union official.
The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) was a regional subdivision of the Red International of Labor Unions, the trade union organization associated with the Communist International. Established in Hankow, China, in May 1927, the PPTUS attempted to coordinate communist activity in the organized labor movement of China and the Pacific basin, including particularly Japan, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and the United States.
Patrick Thomas Daly, known as P. T. Daly was an Irish trade unionist and politician.
Revolutionary Workers' Groups (RWG) were left wing groups in Ireland officially founded in 1930 with the objective of creating a Revolutionary Workers' Party. Formed initially as the Preparatory Committee for the Formation of a Workers’ Revolutionary Party, it changed its name in November 1930. It was helped to be established by Bob Stewart and Tom Bell from the Communist Party of Great Britain and Comintern. In 1933 they disbanded and established the Communist Party of Ireland. By 1935 Tommy Geehan was a leading member of the party.
The Irish Worker's Voice is an official newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI). The paper is published weekly on and off by the various guises under which the Communist party of Ireland was constituted. The first issue was on the 4th of April 1931 initially published by the Revolutionary Workers' Groups and edited by Tom Bell, the paper was relaunched when the W. T. Cosgrave government fell in March 1932, with Brian O'Neill as editor. The paper became the publication of the Communist Party of Ireland founded in 1933. The paper was named the Irish Workers' Voice to distinguish it from Jim Larkin's The Irish Worker. The Irish Worker along with other left wing and republican newspapers were banned in Northern Ireland in 1940.
The Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI) was a small political party in Ireland associated with James Connolly.
Captain James Robert "Jack" White, DSO (1879–1946) was an Irish republican and libertarian socialist. After colonial service in the British military, he entered Irish politics in 1913 working with Roger Casement in Ulster to detach fellow Protestants from Unionism as it armed to resist Irish Home Rule, and with James Connolly to defend the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union in the great Dublin lock-out. White rallied to the defence of those condemned for the 1916 Easter Rising, but the combination of his socialism and anti-clericalism placed him at odds with the principal currents of Irish republicanism. Until experience of Republican Spain in 1936 convinced him of the anarchist critique of the party-state, he associated with a succession of communist-aligned groups. His last public appearance was in 1945, at an Orange Hall in his home town of Broughshane, County Antrim, where he proposed himself as a "republican socialist" candidate in the upcoming United Kingdom general election.
