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Comment by boomboomsubban | Hacker News Reader

In 1919 essentially the entire world was at war with the USSR, they couldn't provide Ireland meaningful support. By 59 they were stable and able to work with other countries.

Plus, the USSR was never that successful at embracing atheism, which should be obvious as thr Russian Orthodox church remains a strong force. Around 1920 was the about the most hostile period to religion.

Making this about religion seems forced to me. Even the article just throws that line in as a closing statement despite none of the article really discussing religion.

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Agreed. The Easter Rising, and the cause of Irish nationalism generally, weren't anywhere near as linked to Catholicism as this article makes out. It's much more correct to see it as a class struggle or a revolution against a colonial power, depending on your view (the ruling class were closely linked to Britain).

Prominent 1916-era nationalists like Childers and Markievicz were Protestants. Connolly was a hardcore socialist who would have embraced Marxist atheism. The Church didn't generally support the Rising, partly because it feared socialism. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic doesn't mention the Church, or even, remarkably for the era, God. Most importantly, perhaps, the Penal laws suppressing the practice of Catholicism were just a memory at that stage. Irish people were oppressed because they were Irish, not because they were Catholic.

I don't want to completely discount the link between Catholic and Irish identity - fostered by Pearse and then de Valera among others. But to emphasize it here smacks of an understanding of Ireland that comes mainly from late-20th-century international news and conflict in the North 'between Catholics and Protestants'.

Edit: I'm less familiar with the Russian revolutions, but my layman's understanding is that the class struggle was more important there too than imposing atheism. In Russia, the Church was part of the dominant power structure that had to be deposed: in Ireland it wasn't. It's not so hard then to align the movements.

I think we need to decide if we're talking about a communist revolution resulting from the turmoil engendered by the Easter Rising/Irish War of Independence/Irish Civil War, or imagining the later 1920s Irish Free State succumbing to a communist revolution, since I was sort of assuming the latter in this thread.

It depends a lot on the era. A lot happened in 5, 10 years. 1916 was a far more edgy group than those who actually gained power and popularity later.

Once Irish independence became the political issue, the country did divide along religious lines. Those didn't necessarily contradict cultural or class lines, but religious background was and is a very solid predictor of nationalist-unionist preferences IRL.

De Valera, his support base & his politics was the powerhouse it was for a reason. Partition was catholic-protestant. Actual class politics and politics generally was absolutely catholic-protestant. The majority of the population was religious. Those things played a big part in the real politics of the following decades. They didn't matter as much in 1916, when the whole country wasn't involved yet.

I recall an anecdote about 1916 Easter Rising leaders traveling to Russia to gain military support but were refuted on the grounds that "because they hadn't killed the Bishops" they weren't serious about a Revolution.

That anecdote doesn't make sense. The Easter Rising was a fairly short ordeal, Tsarist Russia never would have provided military support to an allies insurrection, and the internal Russian revolutionaries had very little support to offer.

It was the IRA in 1925 reaching out to the Soviets for monetary support to continue on an armed struggle

So looking it up based on that, the source is Tim Pat Coogan, born 1935, and the USSR did make a deal with the IRA.

> In 1919 essentially the entire world was at war with the USSR

Not sure that was true. Europe was pretty busy with the aftermath of WWI (and to a large extent, Germany supported Lenin getting back into Russia in the hopes that he would instigate a revolution there that would take Russia out of the war). US had supported Kerensky's government, was anti-Bolshevik and withheld diplomatic recognition until 1933, but was hardly "at war" with the USSR.

>and to a large extend, Germany supported Lenin getting back into Russia in the hopes that he would instigate a revolution there that would take Russia out of the war

That German Empire fell after WWI, and was replaced by the Weimar Republic which itself did little against the Reds itself but a large assortment of now unemployed German soldiers did join the fight.

The Allied Powers on the other hand, formally supported the White's and launched invasions into Russia. No matter how active they actually were in the war, the hostility would have prevented any Soviet interference in Ireland.

Surely, it must have seemed so to the Soviets. Allied forces landed in many locations and the Czechs occupied a long strip through the middle. Wiki gives these numbers:

1,500 French and British troops originally landed in Arkhangelsk 14,378 British troops in North Russia 1,800 British troops in Siberia 50,000 Romanian troops belonging to the 6th Romanian Corps under General Ioan Istrate, in Bessarabia. 23,351 Greeks, who withdrew after three months (part of I Army Corps under Maj. Gen. Konstantinos Nider, comprising 2nd and 13th Infantry Divisions, in the Crimea, and around Odessa and Kherson) 15,000 French also in the Southern Russia Intervention 40,000 British troops in the Caucasus region by January 1919 13,000 Americans (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions) 11,500 Estonians in northwestern Russia 2,500 Italians in the Arkhangelsk region and Siberia 1,300 Italians in the Murmansk region. 150 Australians (mostly in the Arkhangelsk regions) 950 British troops in Trans-Caspia 70,000+ Japanese soldiers in the Eastern region 4,192 Canadians in Siberia, 600 Canadians in Arkhangelsk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Rus...

>never that successful at embracing atheism The USSR certainly tried however, to tune of millions dead and created its own religion with the veneration of Lenin and Stalin as cults of personality.

For those interested, here is a timeline of that period compiled by the Russia Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (those fleeing persecution).

https://www.rocorstudies.org/2019/10/25/timeline-of-the-orth... In 1917, there were 51,450 Orthodox Churches. 20 years later, only 500 were left. In 1917, one month after taking power, the Bolsheviks: declared all land to be controlled by their committees, including church property, all education institutions were handed to the state, all financial aid severed to religious institutions was severed, and separation of school and church and state and church was declared. * 100's of thousands mass executed during the Red Terror

I agree that its forced, with 100 years of hindsight.

ATT though, political-religious stuff was a major deal. Irish republicanism succeeded by delineating dividers across all the major lines. Republican-Monarchist, Nationalist-Unionist, Gaelic-English, Catholic-Protestant, Class, etc.

Not everyone fit into all or even most categories, just like there were always upper class socialists... but that was still the way lines were drawn.

Atheism was, IMO, the least populist pillar of that era's communism. I think you can make that argument anywhere, including Russia.

I'm not sure it's purely a matter of Soviet support at the time, since you had home grown revolutions break out all over Germany and Hungary with various degrees of success. I think in the end there's just no real Marxist/Communist tradition or movement in Ireland to latch onto the moment with.

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