Come Here To Me!

Harry Pollitt (1890-1960)

To be a communist in the Ireland of the 1930s was tough work. Clerical denunciation was fierce, and so too was the media. To the Irish Independent in 1933, it was simple: the “Russianisation” of this country had to be prevented, as “communism must be treated as a deadly and soul destroying peril.”

Condemnation from the pulpit or the newsstand was one thing, but physical confrontation was another thing entirely. In March 1933, over three nights, Connolly House on Great Strand Street was besieged by a mob whipped into a frenzy by a Jesuit preacher in the Pro Cathedral, who told them that “here in this holy Catholic city of Dublin, these vile creatures of Communism are within our midst.”

While Irish communists got a hard time of it, particular scorn was reserved for those visiting the country. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) frequently sent representatives to Dublin in the 1920s and 30s, often to address public gatherings.  The visit of Harry Pollitt, General Secretary of the CPGB, was enough to instigate a riot in Rathmines in January 1936.

Pollitt had become General Secretary of the party in 1929.  Born into a working class family in Greater Manchester in 1890, his mother had been a member of the Independent Labour Party of Keir Hardie, and as a young man he joined Sylvia Pankhurst’s Worker’s Socialist Federation. He was a very capable leader,  however the CPGB (like its Irish equivalent) was ultimately accountable to the Comintern, and the control of Moscow.

Irish Times, 13 January 1936

A public speech by Harry Pollitt on 11 January 1936 was, rather unsurprisingly, the target of protest. On that occasion, the Catholic Young Men’s Society (CYMS) were the instigators of opposition, but in the Dublin of the 1930s there were any number of groups who could be behind such scenes. The Saint Patrick’s Anti-Communist League and the Irish Christian Front were just two of the anti-communist bodies operating in the city.

Coming prepared, the CYMS gathered outside Rathmines Town Hall long before the meeting began, with banners proclaiming that ‘Dublin Rejects Communism’ and ‘For Faith and Fatherland’. Their leaflets warned that “prominent communists from overseas are assisting the local propagandists to convey the message of Moscow to Catholic Ireland.”

What is remarkable about the meeting, before even getting into the violence, was the number of people who came to hear Pollitt. The Irish Times reported that “four or five hundred people” were in the room. Before the meeting had even begun in earnest, the Irish Independent  reported that “scuffles and free fights took place, and chairs, pokers and sticks were freely used as weapons.” It was reported that:

The fight was waged fiercely in the  hall, and in the attack chairs were used by the ejectors. One chair came flying through a side door to the lecture hall, but was caught in its flight.The objectors were eventually driven by force of rushes to the outside door when the Gardai came on the scene.

Politt did speak in Rathmines, not allowing the chaos to interfere in the business of the day, and likewise Jim Larkin Jr. spoke before the crowd. The organisers promised that “this was the first of a series of meetings proposed to be held to which they proposed to bring over to Dublin men and women who represented the best thought in Europe.” This was met by boos, and when one young lad at the back of the hall seized to moment to stand upon a chair and “make an appeal to the Catholics present”, it didn’t take long for him to end up on his arse and the trouble to begin again.

Irish Independent report, 13 January 1936.

The organisers did keep their word, and a few short months later the visit of CPGB MP Willie Gallacher was enough to inspire even worse scenes of violence. Marching to Glasnevin Cemetery in an Easter Week commemoration, Gallacher and other communists were subjected to repeated attack. On that occasion, Roddy Connolly, son of  James, was left bleeding from a head wound. One of those attacked on that occasion was Captain Jack White, a founding member of the Irish Citizen Army. He blamed it all on “Catholic Actionists.”

Pollitt remained on as General Secretary of the CPGB until September 1939, when he was forced to resign from the position for welcoming Britain’s declaration of war on Fascist Germany.  This, of course, was at odds with the Hitler-Stalin Pact, but when the Fascists invaded Soviet Russia in 1941 the tune changed, and Pollitt was reinstated. He remained a supporter of Stalin, even after he was denounced by Khruschev. It has been written that “he never quite believed Khrushchev, whom he saw as a small man attacking his hero Stalin, and the bust of Stalin in the living room of his small north London home stayed there, defiantly, until Pollitt died”.

Pollitt passed away at the age of 69 in 1960. In 1971, the Soviet navy named a ship in his honour, and on the tenth anniversary of his death, a commemorative stamp was issued in the Soviet Union. It is perhaps fair to say that Pollitt was more popular in Russia than Rathmines.