The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.
James ConnollyRead
If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle., unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs
Interpretation
What this quote means
True independence requires a fundamental change in society's structure, not just the removal of foreign powers.
James Connolly argues that merely ousting the English Army from Dublin does not guarantee freedom for Ireland. He stresses the necessity of establishing a Socialist Republic with a well-organized structure that challenges not only oppressive foreign rule but also the existing capitalist and landlord systems that maintain inequality, thus stressing that without systemic change, the struggle for independence is futile.
Themes
IndependenceSocialismIrelandOppressionCapitalismRevolution
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the need for social reforms after political changes.
More from James Connolly
All quotes βThe Irish Republic must be made a word to conjure with - a rallying point for the disaffected, a haven for the oppressed, a point of departure for the socialist, enthusiastic in the cause of human freedom.
James ConnollyRead
If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.
James ConnollyRead
Whoop it up for liberty! After Ireland is free, says the patriot who won't touch socialism, we will protect all classes, and if you won't pay your rent you will be evicted same as now. But the evicting party, under command of the sheriff, will wear green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning you out on the roadside will be stamped with the arms of the Irish Republic. Now, isn't that worth fighting for?
James ConnollyRead
There can be no perfect Europe in which Ireland is denied even the least of its national rights.
James ConnollyRead
Irish tory employers hid[e] their sweatshops behind orange flags, and Irish home rule landlords us[e] the green sunburst of Erin to cloak their rack-renting in the festering slums of our Irish towns.
James ConnollyRead
Similar quotes
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism has been by way of medicine....If you don't do this, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in American when men were free.
Ronald ReaganRead
Any time, every time, you can damn the Prime Minister and so long as it is not a lie and a criminal lie, nothing happens to you. You can say a lot of things. You can write books about him, damning him. So long as it is not a libel, go ahead.
Lee Kuan YewRead
...the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things... They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
Karl MarxRead
The Cold War did end in the victory of one side and in the defeat of the other. This reality cannot be denied, despite the understandable sensitivities that such a conclusion provokes among the tenderhearted in the West and some of the former leaders of the defeated side.
Zbigniew BrzezinskiRead
In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti - France and the United States - combined to back a military coup and send President Aristide off to Africa. The U.S. denies him permission to return to the entire region.
Noam ChomskyRead
If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.
Will RogersRead