The Cedar Lounge Revolution

James Connolly Memorial Lecture 2010 June 23, 2010

Many thanks to the Communist Party of Ireland for forwarding the following:

We have just published the 2010 James Connolly Memorial Lecture, delivered by Andrew Murray, Chair, Stop the War Coalition, London and a member of the Editorial Advisory Broad of quarterly Communist Review published by the Communist Party of Britain. It is we feel an important contribution to the debate on the left not just here in Ireland but of interest to left activists in these islands.

To quote from Andrew’s paper “The world crisis also urges on us a revival of the socialist movement worldwide. That is still more challenging after all the triumphs and dis- appointments of the twentieth century. Yet it remains the fact that the case for socialism rests ninety per cent on the shortcomings of capitalism, now on lurid display. The revival of interest in the works of Karl Marx is a welcome consequence. In rebuilding a mass socialist movement, Connolly has much to teach us too, both in his determination to spread the message among the working class itself and in the course of his own personal struggle of ideological self-emancipation from sectarianism, in his case represented by the now-forgotten doctrines of DeLeonism, the leader whose arid and sectarian reading of Marx considerably retarded the development of socialism in the USA, where Connolly lived for many year.”

The pamphlet is available from Connolly Books, 43 East Essex St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. Price €2-50 postage free within Ireland.