Utopian Impulse in the Irish Revolution: A Case Study of the 1918-23 Irish Soviets
Désir utopique dans l'Irlande révolutionnaire : Étude de cas des soviets irlandais (1918-23)
Résumé
During the 1916-1923 Revolution, Ireland underwent considerable social turmoil, in both industrial and agrarian fields. But while the socioeconomic dimension of the Irish revolution has received academic recognition for several decades, many historians have nonetheless tended to downplay its historical significance. This not least because it did not give rise to any radical social change in the new Irish Free State, despite the emergence of an alternative organizational method, named "soviet" after the council movement that sprang up in the 1917 Russian Revolution. The present article, therefore, sets out to somewhat qualify the relevance of such analysis. In so doing, it will determine to what extent the resort to the self-managed soviets was the expression of what Ernest Bloch defined as "utopian impulse", how the latter impacted the Irish revolutionary movement, and why it was eventually stifled, thus contributing to the establishment of a conservative state in Independent Ireland.
Domaines
Sciences de l'Homme et Société
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