In December 1884, such important figures in England’s budding socialist movement as William Morris, Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling, E. Belfort Bax, and John L. Mahon, among others, broke with the Social Democratic Federation led by H. M. Hyndman and formed the Socialist League. One of the key disputes leading to the break arose in relation to Hyndman’s then scarcely concealed jingoism and strong support for the British Empire.
The immediate issue in this regard was the British government’s sending of General Charles Gordon to Khartoum in the Sudan, supposedly to evacuate civilians and troops after the Sudanese defeat in 1883 of the Egyptian expeditionary force, led by British General William Hicks. Imperial Britain had recently gained colonial control over Egypt, following the latter’s defeat in the Anglo-Egyptian War, and were then seeking to extend their rule to Sudan, which had for decades been subject to Egypt (at that time itself an imperial subject of the Ottoman Empire)
April 19 – The Manifesto: A Critical Reflection
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April 23 – Execution of the Hostages
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Socialism, nationalism and Ireland
Before and during the Second International there were many different approaches to the questions of socialism and nationalism. In Ireland James Connolly banked on nationalists taking a positive attitude towards the cause of labour. In his next article Marc Mulholland will look at Ireland’s conservative revolution
The liberal republicanism coming out of the French Revolution had generally aimed for a radical reconfiguration of Europe’s boundaries. The old dynastic states, jerry-built constructions assembled by conquest and inheritance, should be replaced by ‘nation states’, which would meld together pan-class ‘communities of fate’, built upon common language, ethnicity and historical experience.