“No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.”

—  James Connolly

Songs of Freedom by Irish Authors (1907) Introduction. Revolutionary Song https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1907/xx/revsong.htm

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James Connolly17
Irish republican and socialist leader 1868–1916

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