than to the WUI. Under pressure from Comintern to operate as a political party or risk losing affiliation, Larkin fielded three candidates at the September 1927 Irish general election; himself, his son James Larkin Jnr, and WUI President John Lawlor. Larkin ran in Dublin North and, in circumstances that surprised many, was elected, becoming the first and only communist to be elected to Dáil Éireann. However, as a result of a libel award won against him by William O'Brien, which he had refused to pay, he was an undischarged bankrupt and could not take up his seat. Between November of that year and March 1928, six students including Larkin's son James Larkin Jnr were sent to Moscow to attend the International Lenin School. In February 1928, Larkin made what would be his penultimate visit to Moscow for the ninth plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. Here he departed from his usual subject matter. His public speeches in Russia were usually and almost exclusively centred on the need for trade union solidarity and largely avoided comment on communist politics. However, he now delivered a lecture on 'Ireland, trade unions and the peasantry' at the Moscow Soviet, and asked the audience to support Josef Stalin. He also endorsed the Comintern line that the Communist Party of Great Britain should adopt a hostile rather than fraternal attitude towards the British Labour Party as well as denouncing the CPGB's refusal to back the removal of British unions from Ireland and their record on trade unions in general. Before leaving, Larkin warned Solomon Lozovsky (General Secretary of Profintern) that the WUI executive wanted to break with Profintern unless their promises were made good. Relations between Larkin and Moscow would ultimately continue to strain, despite occasional apparent promise, and, in the time building up to the 1930s, the final break was fast approaching. In 1929, in a letter to Moscow, Larkin announced his retirement from active political work. However, he asked that the Irish at the Lenin School be supported, noting that James Jnr was 'his own man and an earnest communist'. Larkin would, in fact, continue to be politically active for all of his life and used the League as a political platform into the 1930s. He did, however, sever ties with Profintern, declaring that they had not given the WUI proper financial support and accusing Lozovsky of intriguing against him. In