The autumn months have seen a flurry of activity from communists up and down the country as our comrades got stuck into an ‘Autumn Offensive’ to build the forces of revolutionary communism. We intervened at Freshers’ Weeks on eight different college campuses where we met an incredible response, selling 117 copies of the Revolutionary Communist paper in just one week!
We followed this up by organising a number of meetings on an array of topics from the fundamentals of Marxism to world events, such as Palestine and the trade war, attended by several dozens across the country. We also took part in a number of protests including the caretaker and secretary strike, the emergency demonstrations called after Israel’s attack on the flotilla, and the enormous national Palestine demonstration in Dublin.
From these busy two months more than 30 new revolutionaries have joined the forces of the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland, almost 40 percent growth, which has paved the way for us to fight to reach our target of 80 organised communists by the end of the year!
Generation revolution
Most students now entering university were born in 2007. Their whole life has been one long crisis, from the 2008 crash, to the debt crisis and austerity that followed it, the environmental crisis, Brexit, Covid lockdowns, the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, and more.
Being told their whole lives if they study hard and go to college they can secure a good future, now a looming economic crisis, the ever-deepening housing crisis and the existential threat of the climate catastrophe have shattered those illusions and left in their place a certainty that their lives will be worse than their parents’.
All of this has had an enormous impact on the consciousness of young people, and against the stormy backdrop of world events – the beginning of the ‘Gen-Z’ revolutions in Indonesia and Nepal, the assassination of high-profile Trump supporter Charlie Kirk, the ‘Block Everything’ movement in France, and above all Israel’s continued genocide in Gaza – comrades met hundreds of people who were desperate for a revolutionary alternative.
Across the country we were able to tap into this mood.
In Maynooth University just four comrades were able to get 17 people to a meeting on ‘Why you should be a communist?’
At the University of Limerick the comrades were swarmed with a line forming in front of our table of students who wanted to speak to us. Often we were addressing groups of five or six students at once. In the end the comrades had to stay an extra hour longer than expected because of the constant influx of engagement from the freshers.
Everywhere we were met with a similar response. In every interaction we encountered questions about Gaza, the far right, is revolution possible, why capitalism is in crisis, how to unite Ireland and more. Nowhere can young people find answers to these burning questions, only through a firm understanding of Marxism and the perspectives for world revolution can we inspire students and young workers with an optimistic perspective for what we can do to fight back.
Indeed one of the key lessons from our recruitment campaign is that theory is at the centre of everything we do – it forms the foundations on top of which we can build the revolutionary organisation. Where we are equipped with the correct perspectives and with Marxist theory, we are able to sink roots and build the RCI.
Because of this we have seen solid growth everywhere we intervened. In Belfast we grew from six to seventeen, in Limerick two to eight, in both cities we’ve established new branches! Kildare saw growth from four to seven comrades. In Dublin we recruited twelve new members across our branches, laying the foundations for a new one there as well. In Carlow we established our first Marxist student society in the 26 counties and recruited a new member.
Build the RCI
While Ireland has not yet been caught up in the mass movements we’ve seen across the globe, the same mood of anger which created them exists here as well. What is needed is a revolutionary party to express that mood and fight for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of a communist society.
Our autumn offensive was aimed at finding and training up the initial cadres of such a party and our communist school of anti-imperialism was the pinnacle of this. Over 60 communists met for a day packed with discussions of orthodox Marxist theory to train up a new layer of Bolsheviks in the ideas we need to change the world.
Comrade Andrea wrapped up the school with a quote from Lenin:
“We are the party of the future, and the future belongs to the youth. We are a party of innovators, and it is always the youth that most eagerly follows the innovators. We are a party that is waging a self-sacrificing struggle against the old rottenness, and youth is always the first to undertake a self-sacrificing struggle.”
We call on all revolutionary workers and youth to join us in building this party!
