Paul Gillespie: 1916 was the start of a century of Ireland’s influence on British imperial history
Counterfactual speculation about the timing of the Rising puts 1916 into its proper international context as a huge stimulus of political change in Europe and the world
An image of Sackville Street (now O’Connell St) and the River Liffey at Eden Quay. Photograph: PA/PA Wire
A blow delivered against the British imperialist bourgeoisie in Ireland is a hundred times more significant than a blow of equal weight in Africa or Asia. The dialectics of history are such that small nations, powerless as an independent factor in the struggle against imperialism, play a part as one of the ferments, one of the bacilli, which facilitate the entry into the area of the real power against imperialism, namely the socialist proletariat. . . The misfortune of the Irish is that they rose prematurely, when the European revolt of the proletariat had not yet matured.
Lenin’s acute analysis of 1916 was penned in October of that year, rejecting accounts of the Rising as a putsch in continental socialist and mainstream papers. Lenin fundamentally disagreed, arguing that Irish nationalism enjoyed widespread popular support in its struggle against British imperial power and its strategic closeness to the centres of that power gave it an additional leverage. He went on to say “capitalism is not so harmoniously built that the various springs of rebellion can of themselves merge at one effort without reverses and defeats”.