அயர்லாந்துப் பிரச்சனையில் கார்ல் மார்க்ஸின் தீர்ப்பே இலங்கைப் பிரச்சனையில் தமிழர்க்கு தீர்வு: தமிழீழம்!

V. I. Lenin

THE BRITISH LIBERALS AND IRELAND

Karl Marx, who had been living in London for over fifteen years, followed the struggle of the Irish with great interest and sympathy. He wrote to Frederick Engels on November 2, 1867:

 "I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the English workers in favour of Fenianism. . . . I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable, although after the separation there may come federation. . . ." Reverting to the same subject in a letter dated November 30th of the same year, Marx wrote: "The question now is, what shall we advise the English workers? In my opinion they must make the repeal of the Union [the abolition of the union with Ireland] (in short, the affair of 1783, only democratised and adapted to the conditions of the time) an article of their pronunziamento. This is the only legal and therefore only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be admitted in the programme of an English [workers'] party."[89] And Marx went on to show that what the Irish needed was Home Rule and independence of Britain, an agrarian revolution and tariffs against Britain.

Such was the programme proposed to the British workers by Marx, in the interests of Irish freedom, of accelerating the social development and freedom of the British workers; because the British workers could not become free so long as they helped to keep another nation in slavery (or even allowed it)

From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,  Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964 Vol. 20, Full Article pp. 148-51. Above Quotation page 150
Source: From Marx to Mao