in Ireland. After lobbying the Secretary for Labor for a deportation order, which was granted, he was arrested and charged with being an alien activist. He was then taken to the British consulate where he was given a passport to travel by ship first to the United Kingdom and then to Ireland. Although Larkin had hoped to have been allowed to travel to Germany, Austria and Russia on business matters, this request was denied. On 21 April, he boarded a ship bound for Southampton and left America for good. Return to Ireland - communist activity and split in Irish trade union movement Upon his return to Ireland in April 1923, Larkin received a hero's welcome and immediately set about touring the country, meeting trade union members and appealing for an end to the Irish Civil War. However, he soon found himself at variance with William O'Brien, who, in Larkin's absence, had become the leading figure in the ITGWU and the Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress. Larkin was still officially general secretary of the ITGWU. The ITGWU leaders (Thomas Foran, William O'Brien, Thomas Kennedy: all colleagues of Larkin during the Lockout) sued him. The bitterness of the court case between the former organisers of the 1913 Lockout would last over 20 years. Formation of the Irish Worker League and involvement with Soviet Union Larkin agreed with British and Soviet communists to take on the leadership of communism in Ireland and, in September 1923, Larkin formed the Irish Worker League (IWL), which was soon afterwards recognised by The Communist International (Comintern; a Soviet Union controlled international organisation that advocated world communism) as the Irish section of the world communist movement. The IWL enrolled 500 members on its inauguration and, following the death of Lenin on 21 January 1924, Larkin led a march of 6,000 people to mourn his passing. In March 1924, Larkin lost his battle for control of the ITWGU and, in May, the army prevented his followers from seizing Liberty Hall. In June 1924, Larkin attended the Comintern congress in Moscow and was elected to its Executive Committee. The League's most prominent activity in its first year was to raise funds for imprisoned members of the Anti-Treaty IRA. During Larkin's absence from Ireland at the 1924 Comintern Congress in Moscow (and apparently against his instructions), his brother Peter took his supporters out of the ITGWU, forming the Workers'