As the official commemoration of the 1916 centenary unfolds it is becoming clear that it is an assault on the rising and on the very idea of an Irish revolution.

It is hardly surprising that Irish capitalism is opposed to revolution or that it remains too weak and cowardly to launch a direct attack. In a long tale of historical revisionism it tries to drown 1916 in cultural relativism. The rebels' politics are equivalent to those of constitutional nationalism, unionism and imperialism. Searching for meaning in history, they argue, is pointless.

This revisionism is countered by historical fact - an attempt is made to portray the Irish in the British army as supporters of war—in fact the Irish made up 2% of British military in WWW1 but received 8% of court martial death sentences. 

This offensive gains weight given the disarray of the opposition. Sinn Fein simultaneously try to claim the mantle of the revolution while applying exactly the same historical revisionism to their own capitulation to imperialism. The socialists are divided. Some try to seize their fragment of the true cross, others cannot disguise their repudiation of the rising.

The only genuine celebration of the rising is the informal celebration in working class communities. There it is accompanied by a wry understanding of the central point .- the rising was defeated and we ruled by the victors.

The rising was defeated, but class struggle went on. It survived to force a withdrawal of the British force from part of the island, counter-revolution, oppression by a sectarian state in the North and a confessional state in the South, and more recently a settlement that seems to ensure permanent partition.

The Easter rising was situated in a time of wars and revolution. Workers were thrown back by the betrayal of a reformist leadership and slaughtered in the trenches but the victory of the Bolshevick revolution lit a beacon of hope.

Today we live in an era defined by the collapse of the USSR. Social Democracy quickly made the trip from reform to reaction. They and their counterparts in the trade union bureaucracy implement the austerity offensive on behalf of capitalism. Former leaders of national liberation movements join "peace processes" that turn out to be simply capitulation. The retreat affects the socialist groups, who move back from revolution to reform and build "broad parties" filled with the parliamentary idiocy of imagining that the capitalist state can be used against capitalism.

In Ireland, the role of Dublin castle has been taken by the Troika. Irish capitalism fulfils its traditional role as agent for imperialism. Sinn Fein pose as a left party while implementing savage austerity in the North, where they have also adapted to institutional sectarianism, sponsored by the state.

In the recent election leaders of the main union call for the return of the austerity coalition. The Labour Party, mediating the bureaucracies collaboration with the right, is obliteratad.

The socialists and the left of the union bureaucracy pin their hopes on a left government, closing their eyes to the fate of the Greek government and to the nature of Sinn Fein, who would be the major component of such a government.

The opportunity presented by the Rising, the opportunity of revolution, remains open. Imperialism is spreading war everywhere. Europe, many of its constituent states, the global economy, are all in crisis. The most open barbarism is carried out.

However many processes are reaching their limit. Endless war has not brought victory. Endless austerity has not brought sustainable recovery. Further offensives must be aimed directly at the heart of the working class and risk provoking a direct confrontation. Young people are mobilising and declaring for socialism, while the stopgaps of reform and of broad parties have proved insufficient.

The gravediggers of the Rising have commemorated the centenary by smashing a spade over its memory and commemorating Redmond, the British, the UVF - anything but the spirit of the Irish revolution. That is because popular sentiment remains deeply attached to this beacon of hope.

The embers of revolution are still glowing within the Irish working class. Irish capitalists should tread carefully.