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The Plough
(Web site http://www.theplough.netfirms.com/)
Vol. 4- No 17
Sunday 5th August 2007
E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) Editorial
2) Operation Helvetic Replaces Operations Banner
3) 1967-2007 Ireland-An Overview
Editorial
This edition, rather shorter than usual carries only two articles.
One is short on the so-called British withdrawal of troops. This
demilitarisation was part of the Good Friday Agreement and that
document is now exposed for the sham it was. PIRA disarmed and stood
down most of its volunteers. The British Army remains. MI5 are
strengthened and the British army and the Police now have more
draconian powers than they had during ‘the troubles’.
The second article is a speech delivered in Barcelona to
revolutionaries from around the world by an IRSP comrade. The Plough
welcomes any comments and thoughts on the speech. Now is the time
for socialist revolutionaries in Ireland to clearly outline the road
forward. Let the debate begin.
Operation Helvetic Replaces Operations Banner”
There are about 5,000 troops of the British Army stationed in the
North of Ireland spread across 10 British military bases. The
majority are involved in training for operations in other countries
including supporting the occupation forces in Iraqui. Others,
including - bomb disposal experts and helicopter crews among them
are part of Operation Helvetic, the new name for the Army's
supporting role in the province. Tuesday July 31st 2007 was the last
day of operation Banner that began in August 1969. Then, in
recognition of the dangers of the collapse of the local police
force, the RUC, in its war with the nationalist working class the
British Government sent in re-enforcement troops to join other
garrisons of the British Army in the six counties. British troops
occupied the streets and their PR people tried to create the
impression that they were there to divide local warring factions of
Protestants and catholics. They were not. They were there to stop
the collapse of their local allies the Stormont Unionist Government.
And now after forty years having persuaded the provisional
republican movement to join forces with the reactionary DUP and its
notorious leader Ian Paisley and run the six counties the British
can afford to take a back seat. But no one should be under any
illusions. They still run the six counties.
The Justice and Security Act (NI) of 2007 effective from 1st August
means that soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland have arrest powers
greater than in any other part of the UK tonight - even as their
role here officially diminishes. The legislation gives soldiers here
the power to stop and question anyone about their movements - and
hold them indefinitely until they answer. People refusing to
identify themselves or answer questions about their movements could
be subject to a £5,000 fine. The PSNI have also the same power –
powers that the British Cabinet rejected as unacceptable for police
in the rest of the UK. No one should be in any doubt that this
combined with the building of the largest MI5 station outside of
London and with MI5 taking overall responsibility for intelligence
gathering without being answerable to anyone but the British prime
minister that Britain is here for the long term. There will be no
united Ireland by 1916 despite the wishful thinking of the current
president of Sinn Fein (provisional wing)
1967-2007 Ireland-An Overview
Karl Marx on Ireland-
“I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the
English workers in favour of Fenianism (i.e. republicanism)…. I used
to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now
think it is inevitable, although after the separation of that may
come federation. (Nov 2nd 1867 letter to Engels.)
“—it is in the direct and absolute interest of the English working
class to get rid of the their present connection with Ireland.----
The English working class will never accomplish anything until it
has got rid of Ireland. The English reaction has its roots in the
subjugation of Ireland.” Dec 10th 1869 –On Britain. Moscow 1953
p501)
In January 1967 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA)
was set and thus began the whole process of events that people in
Ireland usually refer to as the “troubles” It is important to take
an overview of the last 40 years, study the mistakes, the wrong
assumptions, the errors and successes for the left during that time.
I will divide the period into three broad phases,
1) The democratic phase
2) The armed struggle
3) The reformist stage.
While I recognise this is a crude division it is a useful tool to
gain an overall picture of the last forty years and of course to
learn valuable lessons from that period of struggle.
In 1967 Ireland then as now was divided into two states. The
Northern Ireland state with its own local government under complete
unionist control discriminated against Catholics/Nationalists and
its local ruling class seeing themselves as firmly British and with
an economy firmly based on heavy industry directly linked to the
British economy. However that class became anxious following the
election of the British Labour Party to power in 1964. Sections of
the unionist party leadership recognised that they would have to
make some small reforms to satisfy democratic demands for reform.
They also recognised that relations were beginning to thaw between
the Irish Republic and Britain. This was due to the decisions by the
Irish bourgeoisie to abandon protectionism.
“ Foreign investment, particularly in exporting industries, was made
welcome. In 1956, new investors’ export-derived profits were made
tax-free for a fifteen-year period. Restrictions on foreign
ownership of industry were phased out, with full repeal in 1964.
Recognizing the importance of low-cost imports for the exporting
industries, tariff barriers began to be lowered. Still outside the
Common Market, Ireland entered into a free-trade agreement with the
UK in 1965.”
(Why Ireland Boomed James B. Burnham The Independent Review, v. VII,
n.4, Spring 2003, ISSN 1086-1653, pp. 537– 556.)
Indeed by 1973 both Britain and Ireland joined the EEC and this
marked a fundamental change in the relationships between the two
countries.
There was now an imperative to remove obstacles to better relations
between the two ruling class. The biggest cause of friction was the
situation in the north of Ireland. The largest parties in the Irish
Republic had their roots in the republican movement in the1920’s
resented partition and saw their role as guardians of the northern
nationalists, though’ mostly in a theoretical sense and rarely in
practical matters,
In Northern Ireland in local Government elections businesses had
multiple votes and only rate players were given the vote.
Discrimination was the norm both on the part of unionist business
and also state bodies. Supporters of the Unionist party were
rewarded for their loyalty to the state by the awarding of contract
s housing, jobs etc. Control was exercised through organisations
like the Orange Order, a reactionary body designed to create an all
class alliance that kept protestant workers apart from catholic
workers. But other sections of the ruling class saw no need for
change and in 1967 a ban was imposed on Republican Clubs leaving
republicans with no democratic means to express their republicanism.
This was at a time when the IRA was almost non-existent and
republicans were moving towards purely political activity.
Irish Republicanism was then going through major changes. Following
the total failure of the IRA campaign from 1956-61 the republican
movement had taken a left turn under the influence of people close
to the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Connolly Association
based in Britain. Despite much opposition from traditionalists and
volunteers strongly influenced by Catholicism the ‘leftists” had by
1967 control of the Republican movement. They appeared to be a
radical populist party campaigning on nationalist and social issues.
But of course appearances can be deceptive. Beneath the surface
there were all sorts of contradictions within Irish republicanism.
Strong nationalist tendencies existed and there was a pro catholic
tendency that saw Protestantism, Free Masonry and Judaism as enemies
to be feared. Against a background of the governing party of the 26
counties/ Southern Ireland, Fianna Fail, having abandoned the
nationalist protectionist policies introduced by its founder Eamon
de Valera in the 1930’s, Sinn Fein saw itself in the position as the
true guardians of Irish republicans and regarded the introduction of
Free Trade as both a capitulation to the forces of international
capitalism and also opening up the dreaded prospect of Communists
coming to Ireland to take up Irish jobs and threatening “our own
Christian way of life”
“-if we become members of the Community no restriction can be placed
on the entry to Ireland of Communists from Italy, France or any
other Common Market country” (Tomas Mac Giolla-Nation or
Province-Ireland and the Common Market {Dublin 1963}
But what the leadership of the republican movement failed to realise
was that the attempt to build an economy around protectionism was
always doomed to failure given the increasing internationalism of
capitalism.
Fianna Fail as the representative of the native bourgeoisie saw that
their future interests were tied in with those of international
capital. During the 1950’s over 800.000 emigrated, poverty and
unemployment were high and the republican movement ignored these
social evils and concentrated solely on an armed campaign in the
North. Indeed by 1967 the Southern ruling class had all but given up
on the national question seeing their future economic prospects tied
up with the European Economic Community and closer economic and
political ties with the United Kingdom.
In an effort to cultivate support the Republican movement, noting
the growing interest in socialism world wide in the sixties and
influenced both by the war in Vietnam and the developments of the
Cuban revolution, began to speak the language of socialism. Indeed
over a weekend a small number of the leadership of the IRA, without
a serious debate among its rank and file, simply declared that the
goal from now on was the establishment of a Socialist Republic.
This decision was not done for ideological reasons but was based
purely on pragmatism. However what should be noted and learnt from
that was that the socialist model the republican movement imported
lock stock and barrel was one based on the official communist
parties i.e. those loyal to the state bureaucracy in the USSR. It is
no coincidence that that was the model they choose because the
republican movement being heavily militaristic orientated saw the
Stalinist model as perfect. They could be no serious democratic
discussion within the organisation. The leadership saw themselves,
the army council of the IRA, as the de jure, the legitimate
Government of the Irish Republic, proclaimed in 1916 and endorsed by
the 1918 general election.
In practice the melding of Stalinist and militaristic control worked
well for the republican movement. Volunteers of the IRA were ordered
to join mass organisations, vote for named individuals and loyally
carry out what ever the leadership dictated. Those who dissented
were either labelled as right wing Catholics or Trotskyite wreckers.
Tomas MacGiolla, formerly on the right wing and President of Sinn
Fein wholeheartedly embraced the new direction. These shifts in
ideological orientation are characteristic of mainstream
republicanism.
“Sinn Fein began as a rightwing petty bourgeois organisation. In the
30’s the movement was socialist in name. In the forties it was
Corporatist and Vocationalist. By the sixties it had gone for
Socialism again in the seventies back to Corporatism before becoming
socialist again in 1982. But it has accomplished all these changes
in social outlook by remaining unchanged in its nature as the
militant wing of Irish nationalism.”(Page 255 “Irish Republicanism
and Socialism” Pat Walsh- Athol Books –June 1994)
During the armed conflict the provisional movement swung a number of
times from right to left and back again depending on circumstances
at the time. The republican leadership knew that adopting a leftist
stance would soak up the energy of the left and refurnish their
ranks as well as giving them international credibility with
revolutionary movements world wide. In 1967 despite the slow turn
towards a leftist orientation the then republican movement was
probably best defined by its emphasis on armed struggle, a rejection
of parliamentarianism and contempt for the ordinary non-republican
people. Of course there were exceptions to this and Seamus Costello,
later to found the Irish Republican Socialist Party, build up a
strong base for republicanism among ordinary working class people by
a militant class struggle in his local area of Bray in Southern
Ireland.
In 1967 within the wider left there was a growing interest in the
writings of James Connolly, Marxist and Republican and the 1916
leader of the Easter Rebellion stimulated by the 50th anniversary of
the 1916 rising. Even the servile and catholic conservative labour
party began to allow the word socialism within its ranks, even going
so far as to boast that the “Seventies will be socialist.”
It should be noted that the Irish Labour Party is not a mass party
of the working class but more a collection of constituency parties
based around the personality of the local elected members and
sharing a conservative social outlook.
In the North a strategy was developed by a loose alliance of
republicans communists and liberals to advocate a struggle for
democratic rights within the British Northern Ireland state. This
led to the foundation of the civil rights movement, (NICRA) which
brought thousands on to the streets in pursuit of democratic
reforms. First the democratic stage which would entail the struggle
for democracy in the North, then the growing over of that struggle
into the ending of partition and the establishment of a national
Government for the whole of the island. Then and only then would the
issue of socialism be raised. But in essence what this approach
amounted to was a demand for a capitalist Ireland and that certainly
held no appeal to pro-British protestant workers nor indeed for many
workers and unemployed people who had to emigrate from both parts of
Ireland in the sixties seventies and eighties due to the levels of
poverty and unemployment then existing. Remember, the so-called
Celtic Tiger only came into existence in the mid nineties.
But while republicans were involved in the civil rights struggle
they did not necessarily control it and more right wing republicans
regarded demands of British rights for British citizens as anathema
and un-republican. The approach by NICRA while an astute move
politically was based on a clearly separated two stages approach to
the whole national question in Ireland. It then found itself at a
loss when the inevitable happened and the narrow “democratic”
demands could not contain the wider democratic demand for a united
Ireland. But by that stage the leadership of the Republican Movement
had become so tied into the stagiest approach from a leftist stance
that they could not shift gear and the right wing republicans gained
the ascendancy by their militancy within nationalist areas.
Naturally there were other perspectives. The ideas of Trotsky began
to circulate more widely in the sixties and the radical student
movement the People’s Democracy was heavily influenced by
Trotskyism. Two separate key ideas evolved from the debates of that
time. One that a campaign for civil rights if it didn’t also
campaign for economic rights would alienate working class
protestants for whom the struggle for civil rights was in essence
simply a struggle for Catholics. Therefore if Catholics gained then
they, i.e. the protestant working class must lose out in the field
of jobs and housing. This line of argument argued strongly that
unless the whole issue of class was raised then the struggle would
inevitably end up in sectarian fighting. Unfortunately some groups
adopting that position then came to denigrate those who were
campaign for civil rights as sectarian. While on paper they paid lip
service to the struggle for democratic demands they never seriously
engaged in the democratic struggle retreating each time they spotted
possible sectarian issues rising. They failed to recognise that
Lenin following Marx himself saw that the vanguard needed to be in
the fore-front of all manifestations of discontent in society and
that included so called democratic demands.
“-a tribune of the people, able to react to every manifestation of
tyranny and oppression, no matter where it take place no matter what
stratum or class of the people it affects; he must be able to
generalise all these manifestations to produce a single picture of
police violence and capitalist exploitation; he must be able to take
advantage of every event however small in order to explain his
socialistic convictions and his democratic demands to all in order
to explain to all and everyone the world historic significance of
the proletariat’s struggle for existence.
“What is to be done” VI. Lenin. (Foreign Languages Press Peking 1978
page 100)
A separate but related outlook stated that a link needed to be made
between the struggle for civil rights, the class struggle and the
whole issue of Imperialism in Ireland. This line of thinking was
eventually to see the emergence of the Irish Republican Socialist
Party.
1/THE DEMOCRATIC STAGE
The democratic stage of the struggle lasted from 1967 until
approximately 1972. That stage was itself made up of three separate
stages.
Stage one -The Liberal stage- was when the key features of the NICRA
under the guidance of the Communist party was to lobby influential
people, influence the leaderships of the trade union movement and
seek the assistance of British Labour MPs. However against a
background of almost total indifference from the Unionist ruling
class pressure mounted and NICRA agreed to move up to stage two with
street protests.
Stage two- The street protests - changed everything. In full view of
the world media the local police the RUC, batoned protestors off the
street including the respectable members of the nationalist
population. This galvanised not only the student population but also
many within the nationalist working class population who had not as
yet seen, the relevance of the democratic phase of struggle to their
lives. They came in their hundreds then in their thousands on to the
streets as their justifiable anger at years of oppression boiled
over.
The leadership of NICRA was now attracting the attention of the
nationalist middle class who had for so long avoided political
struggle. They now jumped on the bandwagon and attempted to draw the
struggle into purely reformist and peaceful avenues of protests
despite the continuing violence from the RUC and its supporters
within loyalist working class areas. Whipping up the fears of the
protestant working class was easy for the Unionist leadership for
the loyalist working class had the first pick of the jobs and
housing available to working class people. Many of them were
marginally better of than their catholic equivalents but of course
many were also worse of. However they saw themselves as having more
in common with their capitalist leaders than their fellow workers.
So while a political struggle began for control of the civil rights
struggle between conservative elements and the more militant and
more class orientated students/republicans and socialists the
democratic struggle movement into its third and final stage.
Stage three The mass struggle –This was when the political
consciousness of the nationalist working class reached its highest
level under the pressure of huge working class areas suffering
regular raids, being tear-gassed and the state in reducing
internment torture and brutality as part of its everyday weapons of
harassment.
People began to take control of their own areas, and established
free zones outside the control of the state forces. Inside these
free areas political discussion and debate between republicans and
socialists developed at a high theoretical level. However there was
also a struggle for control of these areas, which sometimes erupted
into intra-republican violence. Tensions had been caused by the
failure of the IRA in 1969 to defend nationalist areas when the RUC/B
Specials and loyalist mobs initiated a pogrom against the
nationalists leading to the largest movement of civilian populations
since the Second World War. Despite the fact that the few volunteers
to defend the nationalist areas where all members of the official
IRA and stayed loyal to that organisation, the newly formed
provisional IRA skilfully manipulated the facts to emerge as the
so-called defenders of the Nationalist population. Many working
class Catholics flocked to join them and many of these were
motivated by desires for sectarian revenge against the protestant
mobs that had attacked catholic areas.
Hence a bitter political and military struggle was to begin that
ultimately saw the end of the mass struggle which reached its peak
after the British occupation forces massacred 14 civilians
demonstrators in Derry on January 30th 1972 since called Bloody
Sunday. The effect of Bloody Sunday was to encourage recruitment to
the PIRA who seemed the more militant. They launched an economic
bombing campaign, which took a high toll of civilian casualties,
further alienated Protestants from republicanism and saw a downturn
in the mass struggle.
The guerrilla campaign also intensified loyalist reaction, which
took the form of individual murders of any Catholics. But it should
not be forgotten that any democratic advances for the northern
nationalists had always been met with by violent loyalist reaction.
The popular way of expressing this then, as now is best summarised
by the writing on the wall KAT (Kill all Taigs, ie catholics.)
Hundreds were killed from 1972 but the security forces of the state
which partially sponsored and trained these loyalist killers, denied
these were sectarian killings and called them “motiveless murders”
It is now clearly established that the British state endorsed the
murder campaign of the loyalists. British agents handed over files
of nationalists to loyalist murder gangs. They gave them guns. They
trained them and directed a terror campaign against the broad
nationalist /catholic population. And still today they refuse to
acknowledge their collusion. Irish republicans need take no lectures
from the British state on so called “terrorism”
2/THE ARMED STRUGGLE
The armed struggle
So by 1974 mass demonstrations had ended, provisional IRA continued
with its economic bombing campaign, the nationalist population was
at the receiving end of murder campaign led by loyalist para
militaries under the influence direction and control of the British
security forces and the RUC. This in turn led republicans down the
path of sectarian actions and it has to be admitted that all
republican organisations were guilty of this cardinal error.
Our own movement disillusioned by the ceasefire called by the
Official IRA and also by its turn towards reformist politics broke
from the IRA and established the IRSP and then two months later the
INLA.
We were now in that phase of struggle dominated by armed struggle.
Comrades and friends let me make my own personal position as clear
as I can. While I had doubts and hesitations about some tactics used
during the course of the struggle by both the IRA and the INLA I
supported that armed struggle. In the early phase of the democratic
struggle I along with many others practised non violence in demos
etc, I soon got fed up being beaten off the streets and seeing the
forces of reaction beating the shit of working class people. After
all it was Trotsky who wrote.
“We encounter violence everywhere ... we did not invent violence and
terrorism ... we are born in capitalist violence ... we live and die
in imperialist terrorism ... they are our "daily bread."
However armed resistance has a limited time line or else will become
counter-productive. Some republicans have elevated armed struggle as
the strategy to achieve their aims. They do not take account of the
prevailing conditions the mood of the masses nor the economic social
and political forces at play. By divorcing the armed struggle from
the mass struggle, by elevating armed struggle as the only way to
defeat Imperialism, Irish Republicanism failed. Elitism took hold.
(There is an elitism that arises in armed groups and one of our
Comrades, Ta Power did an excellent analysis of this in a seminal
document for the IRSP that began our long journey away from
militarism and back towards socialism.)
Not only were the mass of people within nationalist areas slowly
becoming disillusioned with the struggle itself as they were reduced
to the role of bit players only to be mobilised at the command of an
army council but many activists both in the military and political
field became demoralised. There was no attempt to link up the every
day struggles of the people with the overall anti –imperialist
struggle. Instead of turning towards the organised working class
north and south Provisional Republicanism found itself in a cul- de
-sac going nowhere. And in despair it reached towards the Churches
and the ruling classes in Britain and Ireland to rescues them from
the hole they were in.
The process of winding down the armed struggle and reaching a
settlement with Imperialism took a long time but on reflection it is
now clear that the provisional Republican leadership were in contact
with both British intelligence services and the British Government
even as IRA/INLA volunteers were dying on hunger strike for
political status in 1981.Rather than turning the massive support
that the hunger strikes engendered into a mass anti –imperialist
struggle Republicanism used that emotion to begin the long slow
steps towards parliamentarianism. At the same time the armed
struggle continued but apart from occasional spectacular successes
in military terms but was increasingly ineffective and counter
productive.
Armed struggle is not some romantic and heroic way of changing the
world. Forget the iconic images on student posters of Che. The
reality is different and brutal.
Tying an unarmed man with a large family, to a bomb in a truck and
making him drive it to a military establishment where the bomb
explodes! Walk up behind a policeman and blow his head off. Plant a
bomb in a restaurant that blows children apart. Order people from a
bus, ascertain their religion and then shoot the ones whose religion
you don’t like. Plant a device under a car not knowing if the
intended victim or his/her family will be in the car when the bomb
explodes.
Such actions, while having devastating consequences on the victims
also have consequences on the volunteers who carried them out. Long
years of imprisonment, the alienated children the broken marriages,
the broken lives, alcoholism and all for what??? For sharing power
in a Northern state with Ian Paisley as First Minister, and
administering British rule.
It can be argued that republican violence was a legitimate political
response to state violence. When the INLA killed a leading Tory I
personally felt that was a legitimate exercise for it took pressure
of besieged nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. But as a
long-term solution to the problems of the working class that is not
the way forward because
“the capitalist state does not base itself on government ministers
and cannot be eliminated with them. The classes it serves will
always find new people; the mechanism remains intact and continues
to function”
(“Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism” Leon Trotsky 1940)
No socialist, no Marxist no human who cares for the future of
humankind and the planet we live on, can afford to be a pacifist.
There are times when only violence is a justifiable response to
injustice. But there is also a time to call a halt to armed
resistance if it proves counter productive. We cannot afford to
allow righteous anger to dictate our actions. Yes, we can emphasise
with the victims of state violence, we can understand the anger of
the oppressed, and we can share in the frustrations of the
dispossessed. But we have a historic duty to not bow down to the
emotions of the moment. We have a duty, as working class militants
to provide clear analysis of the situation, provide the theoretical
understanding of the events happening and give leadership to our
class both in theory and deed.
In 1994 the then leader of our movement Gino Gallagher outlined
clearly the republican socialist position, in a speech to students,
“That is why in the light of the Ceasefires and the so called peace
process the Republican Socialist Movement took a conscious decision
to take no action that could be construed as endangering that
process. Indeed we opened many avenues of communications with others
in order from our viewpoint to make more widely known the socialist
perspective of our movement. But let me say that whilst we are not
prepared to endanger the current process we have no love for it. We
remain to be convinced and I doubt if we could ever be convinced, of
the genuine intent of the British Government. We doubt if after all
the flag waving and displays of chauvinism that we have seen
recently and will see tomorrow- (USA President Clinton in Belfast)
the position of the working class, apart from the absence of
political violence, will have in essence changed. Unemployment, low
wages, ghettoised housing, class ridden education systems,
extremities of wealth and poverty, and people divided by religion
and poisoned by prejudice; these things will remain. And they will
remain we believe no matter how many meetings take place between the
representatives of Irish Capitalism and British Imperialism. Major
or Bruton will not solve the fundamental problems of the peoples of
these isles.”
Two years later Gino was murdered by agents of the British state who
had infiltrated our movement. But his analysis 13 years on is still
valid. Taking that analysis as our guide our movement convinced the
INLA to declare a ceasefire in 1998 and it why today we try to
convince other republicans that the only road to travel is the
socialist road.
3/ THE REFORMIST STAGE
The provisional leadership used the armed struggle during the
eighties and nineties to wring some political concessions from the
British Government as it prepared to move into the reformist stage.
The electoral success Sin Fein achieved following the hunger strikes
in 81 convinced the Adams leadership of Sinn Fein that the creation
of a nationalist broad front with middle class nationalists in the
North and with the Southern Ruling class was the best way forward to
advance nationalist demands. Gone was the radical phase of the early
eighties, gone went references to socialism and in place of anti
–imperialist demands for a united Ireland the slogan of the day
became “equality.”
The provisional republican movement were now preparing to settle for
equality for Irish nationalists within the British state. And so
began the Adams Hume talks, negotiations with the Irish Government
and eventually talks with the British Government that led to the
1994/1997 ceasefires, the Good Friday Agreement, the Saint Andrews
Agreement and now a devolved Northern Ireland Assembly firmly
committed to a neo liberal economy programme. To achieve this, the
provisional movement, decommissioned their weapons, recognised the
British claim to rule the North of Ireland, dismantled their army
and are now involved in running the police force.
It has to be clearly stated that this is not a victory for
Republicanism. It is certainly not a victory for socialism. The
republican armed struggle has been clearly defeated. A united
Ireland is now further away than it was in 1967. The divisions
between Catholic and Protestant workers have never been wider.
Vicious sectarian attacks still take place. Working class
communities are separated by so-called peace walls most of which
have gone up since the ending of the armed conflict.
Sectarianism is institutionalised in the six county state. And all
the while the speculators move in buy up property and charge
exorbitant rents to working class families who are now priced out of
the home ownership market. The British Prime Minister wants to
reduce the minimum wage in the north and the local administration is
preparing to impose massive water charges, rate increases and
continues the policy of dismantling public utilities and selling
them off to private industry.
This all against a background of growing economic instability, not
only nationally but worldwide. The economy in the rest of Ireland
while has been buoyant for the past fourteen years has begun to run
out of steam. The building trade which helped spark off the
so-called Celtic Tiger is facing a slow down and is likely to see
35,000 jobs lost in the sector over the next 18 months, according to
Davy Stockbrokers. All the signs indicate that there will be a
downturn in the economy. That downturn will have its biggest impact
on working class families. It will have little effect on the 33, 000
millionaires.
“According to Davy, housing completions will start to fall between
now and the end of the year and unemployment will creep up to 5 per
cent by the end of 2007 before reaching 6 per cent by the end of
2008” (Irish Times Tuesday 24th July 2007).”
During the armed struggle Republicans, except for a brief period
ignored social and economy issues even when unemployment and poverty
gripped huge numbers of workers. Instead they became preoccupied by
both the armed struggle and “our community”. (I.e. nationalist areas
from which the armed struggle was based) Many republicans were also
antagonistic to the trade union movement, which was seen by them as
pro-British.
If Irish republicanism is not to become irrelevant then we argue it
must become socialist as well. The armed struggle is over. The last
time I counted there were 6 IRA’s. (Provisional IRA, Real IRA,
Continuity IRA, Oglaigh na Eireann, Official IRA (ORM) and Official
IRA (WP) and numerous organisations all claiming to be republicans
or and socialists. That of course is a ridiculous situation and
serves the Irish working class badly. Instead of all this nonsense
as to who are the real republicans and socialists, those who are
serious about changing Irish society need to get back to basics-the
basics of Socialism-the basics of Marxism.
I make no claim that the IRSP is the perfect vehicle to carry on the
revolutionary struggle in Ireland. It is far from perfect. But it
has a revolutionary tradition; a firm base in the nationalist
working class a correct analysis of the current political process in
Ireland an internationalist perspective and an ability to learn from
mistakes. Twenty-one years ago Ta Power, later to be assassinated,
wrote a powerful document analysing our movement. He pointed out the
way forward and his words are as relevant today as they were then.
If every republican socialist, inside or outside, our own
organisation followed Ta’s advice then we would have a credible
revolutionary organisation with growing influence inside the working
class movement.
“A revolutionary party must have a revolutionary ideology, an
ideology that enables us to analyse the world, the motive force at
work in the world, and plan a campaign based on the analysis.
A campaign that is consistent, principled, and bold in its
implementation, maxims as a guide to action is an ideology; it
represents the historical interests of the working class, which
through the medium of a revolutionary party, aims to overthrow the
capitalist order and begin the construction of communism. “
However there are day-to-day tasks that need to addressed now. We
need to stand shoulder with the workers in the public sectors, north
and south that are coming under attack from cuts in their services.
We need to campaign for a massive increase in social housing. We
need to stand against all manifestations of sectarianism. We need to
highlight the continuing injustice of partition and the plight of
political prisoners wherever they are We need to take up each and
“every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it
take place no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects”
Forty years on from the beginning of the civil rights struggle with
the national question still unresolved we face a new situation. The
left in Ireland is weak, divided and riddled with political
sectarianism. Republicanism is defeated and also bitterly divided.
It is clear that the approaches used by both republicans and
socialists over the past forty years have failed to make any
significant advances within the working class movement. We need to
learn the lessons and remember the words of Ta Power
We must be vigilant that we don't sink into the morass of
sectarianism, mixing, pettiness etc. We must not get involved in
unprincipled slanging matches etc, into positions that are
sectarian, anti-revolutionary, morally damaging, that give succour
to the enemy and that confuse and divide the working class.
Marx, Lenin, etc. confronted all fundamentals in a courageous,
merciless, ruthless manner. Why do we fail to do so? Is it inherent
in us? Are we up to this task? Do we lack the courage and maturity
to do this? Are we amateurs and not professionals? We know the
lessons of history, we know the mistakes, and we either act
accordingly or collapse. Salvation lies in clarity and the courage
to implement change!
Comrades, that approach is the way forward for the Irish left.
(A Speech delivered in Barcelona Wednesday August 1st 2007-07-30 to
a gathering of Marxists from around the world by Gerry Ruddy, a
member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party)
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The Plough
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Vol. 4- No 17
Sunday 5th August 2007
E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party
1) Editorial
2) Operation Helvetic Replaces Operations Banner
3) 1967-2007 Ireland-An Overview
Editorial
This edition, rather shorter than usual carries only two articles.
One is short on the so-called British withdrawal of troops. This
demilitarisation was part of the Good Friday Agreement and that
document is now exposed for the sham it was. PIRA disarmed and stood
down most of its volunteers. The British Army remains. MI5 are
strengthened and the British army and the Police now have more
draconian powers than they had during ‘the troubles’.
The second article is a speech delivered in Barcelona to
revolutionaries from around the world by an IRSP comrade. The Plough
welcomes any comments and thoughts on the speech. Now is the time
for socialist revolutionaries in Ireland to clearly outline the road
forward. Let the debate begin.
Operation Helvetic Replaces Operations Banner”
There are about 5,000 troops of the British Army stationed in the
North of Ireland spread across 10 British military bases. The
majority are involved in training for operations in other countries
including supporting the occupation forces in Iraqui. Others,
including - bomb disposal experts and helicopter crews among them
are part of Operation Helvetic, the new name for the Army's
supporting role in the province. Tuesday July 31st 2007 was the last
day of operation Banner that began in August 1969. Then, in
recognition of the dangers of the collapse of the local police
force, the RUC, in its war with the nationalist working class the
British Government sent in re-enforcement troops to join other
garrisons of the British Army in the six counties. British troops
occupied the streets and their PR people tried to create the
impression that they were there to divide local warring factions of
Protestants and catholics. They were not. They were there to stop
the collapse of their local allies the Stormont Unionist Government.
And now after forty years having persuaded the provisional
republican movement to join forces with the reactionary DUP and its
notorious leader Ian Paisley and run the six counties the British
can afford to take a back seat. But no one should be under any
illusions. They still run the six counties.
The Justice and Security Act (NI) of 2007 effective from 1st August
means that soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland have arrest powers
greater than in any other part of the UK tonight - even as their
role here officially diminishes. The legislation gives soldiers here
the power to stop and question anyone about their movements - and
hold them indefinitely until they answer. People refusing to
identify themselves or answer questions about their movements could
be subject to a £5,000 fine. The PSNI have also the same power –
powers that the British Cabinet rejected as unacceptable for police
in the rest of the UK. No one should be in any doubt that this
combined with the building of the largest MI5 station outside of
London and with MI5 taking overall responsibility for intelligence
gathering without being answerable to anyone but the British prime
minister that Britain is here for the long term. There will be no
united Ireland by 1916 despite the wishful thinking of the current
president of Sinn Fein (provisional wing)
1967-2007 Ireland-An Overview
Karl Marx on Ireland-
“I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the
English workers in favour of Fenianism (i.e. republicanism)…. I used
to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now
think it is inevitable, although after the separation of that may
come federation. (Nov 2nd 1867 letter to Engels.)
“—it is in the direct and absolute interest of the English working
class to get rid of the their present connection with Ireland.----
The English working class will never accomplish anything until it
has got rid of Ireland. The English reaction has its roots in the
subjugation of Ireland.” Dec 10th 1869 –On Britain. Moscow 1953
p501)
In January 1967 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
(NICRA) was set and thus began the whole process of events that
people in Ireland usually refer to as the “troubles” It is important
to take an overview of the last 40 years, study the mistakes, the
wrong assumptions, the errors and successes for the left during that
time. I will divide the period into three broad phases,
1) The democratic phase
2) The armed struggle
3) The reformist stage.
While I recognise this is a crude division it is a useful tool to
gain an overall picture of the last forty years and of course to
learn valuable lessons from that period of struggle.
In 1967 Ireland then as now was divided into two states. The
Northern Ireland state with its own local government under complete
unionist control discriminated against Catholics/Nationalists and
its local ruling class seeing themselves as firmly British and with
an economy firmly based on heavy industry directly linked to the
British economy. However that class became anxious following the
election of the British Labour Party to power in 1964. Sections of
the unionist party leadership recognised that they would have to
make some small reforms to satisfy democratic demands for reform.
They also recognised that relations were beginning to thaw between
the Irish Republic and Britain. This was due to the decisions by the
Irish bourgeoisie to abandon protectionism.
“ Foreign investment, particularly in exporting industries, was made
welcome. In 1956, new investors’ export-derived profits were made
tax-free for a fifteen-year period. Restrictions on foreign
ownership of industry were phased out, with full repeal in 1964.
Recognizing the importance of low-cost imports for the exporting
industries, tariff barriers began to be lowered. Still outside the
Common Market, Ireland entered into a free-trade agreement with the
UK in 1965.”
(Why Ireland Boomed James B. Burnham The Independent Review, v. VII,
n.4, Spring 2003, ISSN 1086-1653, pp. 537– 556.)
Indeed by 1973 both Britain and Ireland joined the EEC and this
marked a fundamental change in the relationships between the two
countries.
There was now an imperative to remove obstacles to better relations
between the two ruling class. The biggest cause of friction was the
situation in the north of Ireland. The largest parties in the Irish
Republic had their roots in the republican movement in the1920’s
resented partition and saw their role as guardians of the northern
nationalists, though’ mostly in a theoretical sense and rarely in
practical matters,
In Northern Ireland in local Government elections businesses had
multiple votes and only rate players were given the vote.
Discrimination was the norm both on the part of unionist business
and also state bodies. Supporters of the Unionist party were
rewarded for their loyalty to the state by the awarding of contract
s housing, jobs etc. Control was exercised through organisations
like the Orange Order, a reactionary body designed to create an all
class alliance that kept protestant workers apart from catholic
workers. But other sections of the ruling class saw no need for
change and in 1967 a ban was imposed on Republican Clubs leaving
republicans with no democratic means to express their republicanism.
This was at a time when the IRA was almost non-existent and
republicans were moving towards purely political activity.
Irish Republicanism was then going through major changes. Following
the total failure of the IRA campaign from 1956-61 the republican
movement had taken a left turn under the influence of people close
to the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Connolly Association
based in Britain. Despite much opposition from traditionalists and
volunteers strongly influenced by Catholicism the ‘leftists” had by
1967 control of the Republican movement. They appeared to be a
radical populist party campaigning on nationalist and social issues.
But of course appearances can be deceptive. Beneath the surface
there were all sorts of contradictions within Irish republicanism.
Strong nationalist tendencies existed and there was a pro catholic
tendency that saw Protestantism, Free Masonry and Judaism as enemies
to be feared. Against a background of the governing party of the 26
counties/ Southern Ireland, Fianna Fail, having abandoned the
nationalist protectionist policies introduced by its founder Eamon
de Valera in the 1930’s, Sinn Fein saw itself in the position as the
true guardians of Irish republicans and regarded the introduction of
Free Trade as both a capitulation to the forces of international
capitalism and also opening up the dreaded prospect of Communists
coming to Ireland to take up Irish jobs and threatening “our own
Christian way of life”
“-if we become members of the Community no restriction can be placed
on the entry to Ireland of Communists from Italy, France or any
other Common Market country” (Tomas Mac Giolla-Nation or
Province-Ireland and the Common Market {Dublin 1963}
But what the leadership of the republican movement failed to realise
was that the attempt to build an economy around protectionism was
always doomed to failure given the increasing internationalism of
capitalism.
Fianna Fail as the representative of the native bourgeoisie saw that
their future interests were tied in with those of international
capital. During the 1950’s over 800.000 emigrated, poverty and
unemployment were high and the republican movement ignored these
social evils and concentrated solely on an armed campaign in the
North. Indeed by 1967 the Southern ruling class had all but given up
on the national question seeing their future economic prospects tied
up with the European Economic Community and closer economic and
political ties with the United Kingdom.
In an effort to cultivate support the Republican movement, noting
the growing interest in socialism world wide in the sixties and
influenced both by the war in Vietnam and the developments of the
Cuban revolution, began to speak the language of socialism. Indeed
over a weekend a small number of the leadership of the IRA, without
a serious debate among its rank and file, simply declared that the
goal from now on was the establishment of a Socialist Republic.
This decision was not done for ideological reasons but was based
purely on pragmatism. However what should be noted and learnt from
that was that the socialist model the republican movement imported
lock stock and barrel was one based on the official communist
parties i.e. those loyal to the state bureaucracy in the USSR. It is
no coincidence that that was the model they choose because the
republican movement being heavily militaristic orientated saw the
Stalinist model as perfect. They could be no serious democratic
discussion within the organisation. The leadership saw themselves,
the army council of the IRA, as the de jure, the legitimate
Government of the Irish Republic, proclaimed in 1916 and endorsed by
the 1918 general election.
In practice the melding of Stalinist and militaristic control worked
well for the republican movement. Volunteers of the IRA were ordered
to join mass organisations, vote for named individuals and loyally
carry out what ever the leadership dictated. Those who dissented
were either labelled as right wing Catholics or Trotskyite wreckers.
Tomas MacGiolla, formerly on the right wing and President of Sinn
Fein wholeheartedly embraced the new direction. These shifts in
ideological orientation are characteristic of mainstream
republicanism.
“Sinn Fein began as a rightwing petty bourgeois organisation. In the
30’s the movement was socialist in name. In the forties it was
Corporatist and Vocationalist. By the sixties it had gone for
Socialism again in the seventies back to Corporatism before becoming
socialist again in 1982. But it has accomplished all these changes
in social outlook by remaining unchanged in its nature as the
militant wing of Irish nationalism.”(Page 255 “Irish Republicanism
and Socialism” Pat Walsh- Athol Books –June 1994)
During the armed conflict the provisional movement swung a number of
times from right to left and back again depending on circumstances
at the time. The republican leadership knew that adopting a leftist
stance would soak up the energy of the left and refurnish their
ranks as well as giving them international credibility with
revolutionary movements world wide. In 1967 despite the slow turn
towards a leftist orientation the then republican movement was
probably best defined by its emphasis on armed struggle, a rejection
of parliamentarianism and contempt for the ordinary non-republican
people. Of course there were exceptions to this and Seamus Costello,
later to found the Irish Republican Socialist Party, build up a
strong base for republicanism among ordinary working class people by
a militant class struggle in his local area of Bray in Southern
Ireland.
In 1967 within the wider left there was a growing interest in the
writings of James Connolly, Marxist and Republican and the 1916
leader of the Easter Rebellion stimulated by the 50th anniversary of
the 1916 rising. Even the servile and catholic conservative labour
party began to allow the word socialism within its ranks, even going
so far as to boast that the “Seventies will be socialist.”
It should be noted that the Irish Labour Party is not a mass party
of the working class but more a collection of constituency parties
based around the personality of the local elected members and
sharing a conservative social outlook.
In the North a strategy was developed by a loose alliance of
republicans communists and liberals to advocate a struggle for
democratic rights within the British Northern Ireland state. This
led to the foundation of the civil rights movement, (NICRA) which
brought thousands on to the streets in pursuit of democratic
reforms. First the democratic stage which would entail the struggle
for democracy in the North, then the growing over of that struggle
into the ending of partition and the establishment of a national
Government for the whole of the island. Then and only then would the
issue of socialism be raised. But in essence what this approach
amounted to was a demand for a capitalist Ireland and that certainly
held no appeal to pro-British protestant workers nor indeed for many
workers and unemployed people who had to emigrate from both parts of
Ireland in the sixties seventies and eighties due to the levels of
poverty and unemployment then existing. Remember, the so-called
Celtic Tiger only came into existence in the mid nineties.
But while republicans were involved in the civil rights struggle
they did not necessarily control it and more right wing republicans
regarded demands of British rights for British citizens as anathema
and un-republican. The approach by NICRA while an astute move
politically was based on a clearly separated two stages approach to
the whole national question in Ireland. It then found itself at a
loss when the inevitable happened and the narrow “democratic”
demands could not contain the wider democratic demand for a united
Ireland. But by that stage the leadership of the Republican Movement
had become so tied into the stagiest approach from a leftist stance
that they could not shift gear and the right wing republicans gained
the ascendancy by their militancy within nationalist areas.
Naturally there were other perspectives. The ideas of Trotsky began
to circulate more widely in the sixties and the radical student
movement the People’s Democracy was heavily influenced by
Trotskyism. Two separate key ideas evolved from the debates of that
time. One that a campaign for civil rights if it didn’t also
campaign for economic rights would alienate working class
protestants for whom the struggle for civil rights was in essence
simply a struggle for Catholics. Therefore if Catholics gained then
they, i.e. the protestant working class must lose out in the field
of jobs and housing. This line of argument argued strongly that
unless the whole issue of class was raised then the struggle would
inevitably end up in sectarian fighting. Unfortunately some groups
adopting that position then came to denigrate those who were
campaign for civil rights as sectarian. While on paper they paid lip
service to the struggle for democratic demands they never seriously
engaged in the democratic struggle retreating each time they spotted
possible sectarian issues rising. They failed to recognise that
Lenin following Marx himself saw that the vanguard needed to be in
the fore-front of all manifestations of discontent in society and
that included so called democratic demands.
“-a tribune of the people, able to react to every manifestation of
tyranny and oppression, no matter where it take place no matter what
stratum or class of the people it affects; he must be able to
generalise all these manifestations to produce a single picture of
police violence and capitalist exploitation; he must be able to take
advantage of every event however small in order to explain his
socialistic convictions and his democratic demands to all in order
to explain to all and everyone the world historic significance of
the proletariat’s struggle for existence.
“What is to be done” VI. Lenin. (Foreign Languages Press Peking 1978
page 100)
A separate but related outlook stated that a link needed to be made
between the struggle for civil rights, the class struggle and the
whole issue of Imperialism in Ireland. This line of thinking was
eventually to see the emergence of the Irish Republican Socialist
Party.
1/THE DEMOCRATIC STAGE
The democratic stage of the struggle lasted from 1967 until
approximately 1972. That stage was itself made up of three separate
stages.
Stage one -The Liberal stage- was when the key features of the NICRA
under the guidance of the Communist party was to lobby influential
people, influence the leaderships of the trade union movement and
seek the assistance of British Labour MPs. However against a
background of almost total indifference from the Unionist ruling
class pressure mounted and NICRA agreed to move up to stage two with
street protests.
Stage two- The street protests - changed everything. In full view of
the world media the local police the RUC, batoned protestors off the
street including the respectable members of the nationalist
population. This galvanised not only the student population but also
many within the nationalist working class population who had not as
yet seen, the relevance of the democratic phase of struggle to their
lives. They came in their hundreds then in their thousands on to the
streets as their justifiable anger at years of oppression boiled
over.
The leadership of NICRA was now attracting the attention of the
nationalist middle class who had for so long avoided political
struggle. They now jumped on the bandwagon and attempted to draw the
struggle into purely reformist and peaceful avenues of protests
despite the continuing violence from the RUC and its supporters
within loyalist working class areas. Whipping up the fears of the
protestant working class was easy for the Unionist leadership for
the loyalist working class had the first pick of the jobs and
housing available to working class people. Many of them were
marginally better of than their catholic equivalents but of course
many were also worse of. However they saw themselves as having more
in common with their capitalist leaders than their fellow workers.
So while a political struggle began for control of the civil rights
struggle between conservative elements and the more militant and
more class orientated students/republicans and socialists the
democratic struggle movement into its third and final stage.
Stage three The mass struggle –This was when the political
consciousness of the nationalist working class reached its highest
level under the pressure of huge working class areas suffering
regular raids, being tear-gassed and the state in reducing
internment torture and brutality as part of its everyday weapons of
harassment.
People began to take control of their own areas, and established
free zones outside the control of the state forces. Inside these
free areas political discussion and debate between republicans and
socialists developed at a high theoretical level. However there was
also a struggle for control of these areas, which sometimes erupted
into intra-republican violence. Tensions had been caused by the
failure of the IRA in 1969 to defend nationalist areas when the
RUC/B Specials and loyalist mobs initiated a pogrom against the
nationalists leading to the largest movement of civilian populations
since the Second World War. Despite the fact that the few volunteers
to defend the nationalist areas where all members of the official
IRA and stayed loyal to that organisation, the newly formed
provisional IRA skilfully manipulated the facts to emerge as the
so-called defenders of the Nationalist population. Many working
class Catholics flocked to join them and many of these were
motivated by desires for sectarian revenge against the protestant
mobs that had attacked catholic areas.
Hence a bitter political and military struggle was to begin that
ultimately saw the end of the mass struggle which reached its peak
after the British occupation forces massacred 14 civilians
demonstrators in Derry on January 30th 1972 since called Bloody
Sunday. The effect of Bloody Sunday was to encourage recruitment to
the PIRA who seemed the more militant. They launched an economic
bombing campaign, which took a high toll of civilian casualties,
further alienated Protestants from republicanism and saw a downturn
in the mass struggle.
The guerrilla campaign also intensified loyalist reaction, which
took the form of individual murders of any Catholics. But it should
not be forgotten that any democratic advances for the northern
nationalists had always been met with by violent loyalist reaction.
The popular way of expressing this then, as now is best summarised
by the writing on the wall KAT (Kill all Taigs, ie catholics.)
Hundreds were killed from 1972 but the security forces of the state
which partially sponsored and trained these loyalist killers, denied
these were sectarian killings and called them “motiveless murders”
It is now clearly established that the British state endorsed the
murder campaign of the loyalists. British agents handed over files
of nationalists to loyalist murder gangs. They gave them guns. They
trained them and directed a terror campaign against the broad
nationalist /catholic population. And still today they refuse to
acknowledge their collusion. Irish republicans need take no lectures
from the British state on so called “terrorism”
2/THE ARMED STRUGGLE
The armed struggle
So by 1974 mass demonstrations had ended, provisional IRA continued
with its economic bombing campaign, the nationalist population was
at the receiving end of murder campaign led by loyalist para
militaries under the influence direction and control of the British
security forces and the RUC. This in turn led republicans down the
path of sectarian actions and it has to be admitted that all
republican organisations were guilty of this cardinal error.
Our own movement disillusioned by the ceasefire called by the
Official IRA and also by its turn towards reformist politics broke
from the IRA and established the IRSP and then two months later the
INLA.
We were now in that phase of struggle dominated by armed struggle.
Comrades and friends let me make my own personal position as clear
as I can. While I had doubts and hesitations about some tactics used
during the course of the struggle by both the IRA and the INLA I
supported that armed struggle. In the early phase of the democratic
struggle I along with many others practised non violence in demos
etc, I soon got fed up being beaten off the streets and seeing the
forces of reaction beating the shit of working class people. After
all it was Trotsky who wrote.
“We encounter violence everywhere ... we did not invent violence and
terrorism ... we are born in capitalist violence ... we live and die
in imperialist terrorism ... they are our "daily bread."
However armed resistance has a limited time line or else will become
counter-productive. Some republicans have elevated armed struggle as
the strategy to achieve their aims. They do not take account of the
prevailing conditions the mood of the masses nor the economic social
and political forces at play. By divorcing the armed struggle from
the mass struggle, by elevating armed struggle as the only way to
defeat Imperialism, Irish Republicanism failed. Elitism took hold.
(There is an elitism that arises in armed groups and one of our
Comrades, Ta Power did an excellent analysis of this in a seminal
document for the IRSP that began our long journey away from
militarism and back towards socialism.)
Not only were the mass of people within nationalist areas slowly
becoming disillusioned with the struggle itself as they were reduced
to the role of bit players only to be mobilised at the command of an
army council but many activists both in the military and political
field became demoralised. There was no attempt to link up the every
day struggles of the people with the overall anti –imperialist
struggle. Instead of turning towards the organised working class
north and south Provisional Republicanism found itself in a cul- de
-sac going nowhere. And in despair it reached towards the Churches
and the ruling classes in Britain and Ireland to rescues them from
the hole they were in.
The process of winding down the armed struggle and reaching a
settlement with Imperialism took a long time but on reflection it is
now clear that the provisional Republican leadership were in contact
with both British intelligence services and the British Government
even as IRA/INLA volunteers were dying on hunger strike for
political status in 1981.Rather than turning the massive support
that the hunger strikes engendered into a mass anti –imperialist
struggle Republicanism used that emotion to begin the long slow
steps towards parliamentarianism. At the same time the armed
struggle continued but apart from occasional spectacular successes
in military terms but was increasingly ineffective and counter
productive.
Armed struggle is not some romantic and heroic way of changing the
world. Forget the iconic images on student posters of Che. The
reality is different and brutal.
Tying an unarmed man with a large family, to a bomb in a truck and
making him drive it to a military establishment where the bomb
explodes! Walk up behind a policeman and blow his head off. Plant a
bomb in a restaurant that blows children apart. Order people from a
bus, ascertain their religion and then shoot the ones whose religion
you don’t like. Plant a device under a car not knowing if the
intended victim or his/her family will be in the car when the bomb
explodes.
Such actions, while having devastating consequences on the victims
also have consequences on the volunteers who carried them out. Long
years of imprisonment, the alienated children the broken marriages,
the broken lives, alcoholism and all for what??? For sharing power
in a Northern state with Ian Paisley as First Minister, and
administering British rule.
It can be argued that republican violence was a legitimate political
response to state violence. When the INLA killed a leading Tory I
personally felt that was a legitimate exercise for it took pressure
of besieged nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. But as a
long-term solution to the problems of the working class that is not
the way forward because
“the capitalist state does not base itself on government ministers
and cannot be eliminated with them. The classes it serves will
always find new people; the mechanism remains intact and continues
to function”
(“Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism” Leon Trotsky 1940)
No socialist, no Marxist no human who cares for the future of
humankind and the planet we live on, can afford to be a pacifist.
There are times when only violence is a justifiable response to
injustice. But there is also a time to call a halt to armed
resistance if it proves counter productive. We cannot afford to
allow righteous anger to dictate our actions. Yes, we can emphasise
with the victims of state violence, we can understand the anger of
the oppressed, and we can share in the frustrations of the
dispossessed. But we have a historic duty to not bow down to the
emotions of the moment. We have a duty, as working class militants
to provide clear analysis of the situation, provide the theoretical
understanding of the events happening and give leadership to our
class both in theory and deed.
In 1994 the then leader of our movement Gino Gallagher outlined
clearly the republican socialist position, in a speech to students,
“That is why in the light of the Ceasefires and the so called peace
process the Republican Socialist Movement took a conscious decision
to take no action that could be construed as endangering that
process. Indeed we opened many avenues of communications with others
in order from our viewpoint to make more widely known the socialist
perspective of our movement. But let me say that whilst we are not
prepared to endanger the current process we have no love for it. We
remain to be convinced and I doubt if we could ever be convinced, of
the genuine intent of the British Government. We doubt if after all
the flag waving and displays of chauvinism that we have seen
recently and will see tomorrow- (USA President Clinton in Belfast)
the position of the working class, apart from the absence of
political violence, will have in essence changed. Unemployment, low
wages, ghettoised housing, class ridden education systems,
extremities of wealth and poverty, and people divided by religion
and poisoned by prejudice; these things will remain. And they will
remain we believe no matter how many meetings take place between the
representatives of Irish Capitalism and British Imperialism. Major
or Bruton will not solve the fundamental problems of the peoples of
these isles.”
Two years later Gino was murdered by agents of the British state who
had infiltrated our movement. But his analysis 13 years on is still
valid. Taking that analysis as our guide our movement convinced the
INLA to declare a ceasefire in 1998 and it why today we try to
convince other republicans that the only road to travel is the
socialist road.
3/ THE REFORMIST STAGE
The provisional leadership used the armed struggle during the
eighties and nineties to wring some political concessions from the
British Government as it prepared to move into the reformist stage.
The electoral success Sin Fein achieved following the hunger strikes
in 81 convinced the Adams leadership of Sinn Fein that the creation
of a nationalist broad front with middle class nationalists in the
North and with the Southern Ruling class was the best way forward to
advance nationalist demands. Gone was the radical phase of the early
eighties, gone went references to socialism and in place of anti
–imperialist demands for a united Ireland the slogan of the day
became “equality.”
The provisional republican movement were now preparing to settle for
equality for Irish nationalists within the British state. And so
began the Adams Hume talks, negotiations with the Irish Government
and eventually talks with the British Government that led to the
1994/1997 ceasefires, the Good Friday Agreement, the Saint Andrews
Agreement and now a devolved Northern Ireland Assembly firmly
committed to a neo liberal economy programme. To achieve this, the
provisional movement, decommissioned their weapons, recognised the
British claim to rule the North of Ireland, dismantled their army
and are now involved in running the police force.
It has to be clearly stated that this is not a victory for
Republicanism. It is certainly not a victory for socialism. The
republican armed struggle has been clearly defeated. A united
Ireland is now further away than it was in 1967. The divisions
between Catholic and Protestant workers have never been wider.
Vicious sectarian attacks still take place. Working class
communities are separated by so-called peace walls most of which
have gone up since the ending of the armed conflict.
Sectarianism is institutionalised in the six county state. And all
the while the speculators move in buy up property and charge
exorbitant rents to working class families who are now priced out of
the home ownership market. The British Prime Minister wants to
reduce the minimum wage in the north and the local administration is
preparing to impose massive water charges, rate increases and
continues the policy of dismantling public utilities and selling
them off to private industry.
This all against a background of growing economic instability, not
only nationally but worldwide. The economy in the rest of Ireland
while has been buoyant for the past fourteen years has begun to run
out of steam. The building trade which helped spark off the
so-called Celtic Tiger is facing a slow down and is likely to see
35,000 jobs lost in the sector over the next 18 months, according to
Davy Stockbrokers. All the signs indicate that there will be a
downturn in the economy. That downturn will have its biggest impact
on working class families. It will have little effect on the 33, 000
millionaires.
“According to Davy, housing completions will start to fall between
now and the end of the year and unemployment will creep up to 5 per
cent by the end of 2007 before reaching 6 per cent by the end of
2008” (Irish Times Tuesday 24th July 2007).”
During the armed struggle Republicans, except for a brief period
ignored social and economy issues even when unemployment and poverty
gripped huge numbers of workers. Instead they became preoccupied by
both the armed struggle and “our community”. (I.e. nationalist areas
from which the armed struggle was based) Many republicans were also
antagonistic to the trade union movement, which was seen by them as
pro-British.
If Irish republicanism is not to become irrelevant then we argue it
must become socialist as well. The armed struggle is over. The last
time I counted there were 6 IRA’s. (Provisional IRA, Real IRA,
Continuity IRA, Oglaigh na Eireann, Official IRA (ORM) and Official
IRA (WP) and numerous organisations all claiming to be republicans
or and socialists. That of course is a ridiculous situation and
serves the Irish working class badly. Instead of all this nonsense
as to who are the real republicans and socialists, those who are
serious about changing Irish society need to get back to basics-the
basics of Socialism-the basics of Marxism.
I make no claim that the IRSP is the perfect vehicle to carry on the
revolutionary struggle in Ireland. It is far from perfect. But it
has a revolutionary tradition; a firm base in the nationalist
working class a correct analysis of the current political process in
Ireland an internationalist perspective and an ability to learn from
mistakes. Twenty-one years ago Ta Power, later to be assassinated,
wrote a powerful document analysing our movement. He pointed out the
way forward and his words are as relevant today as they were then.
If every republican socialist, inside or outside, our own
organisation followed Ta’s advice then we would have a credible
revolutionary organisation with growing influence inside the working
class movement.
“A revolutionary party must have a revolutionary ideology, an
ideology that enables us to analyse the world, the motive force at
work in the world, and plan a campaign based on the analysis.
A campaign that is consistent, principled, and bold in its
implementation, maxims as a guide to action is an ideology; it
represents the historical interests of the working class, which
through the medium of a revolutionary party, aims to overthrow the
capitalist order and begin the construction of communism. “
However there are day-to-day tasks that need to addressed now. We
need to stand shoulder with the workers in the public sectors, north
and south that are coming under attack from cuts in their services.
We need to campaign for a massive increase in social housing. We
need to stand against all manifestations of sectarianism. We need to
highlight the continuing injustice of partition and the plight of
political prisoners wherever they are We need to take up each and
“every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it
take place no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects”
Forty years on from the beginning of the civil rights struggle with
the national question still unresolved we face a new situation. The
left in Ireland is weak, divided and riddled with political
sectarianism. Republicanism is defeated and also bitterly divided.
It is clear that the approaches used by both republicans and
socialists over the past forty years have failed to make any
significant advances within the working class movement. We need to
learn the lessons and remember the words of Ta Power
We must be vigilant that we don't sink into the morass of
sectarianism, mixing, pettiness etc. We must not get involved in
unprincipled slanging matches etc, into positions that are
sectarian, anti-revolutionary, morally damaging, that give succour
to the enemy and that confuse and divide the working class.
Marx, Lenin, etc. confronted all fundamentals in a courageous,
merciless, ruthless manner. Why do we fail to do so? Is it inherent
in us? Are we up to this task? Do we lack the courage and maturity
to do this? Are we amateurs and not professionals? We know the
lessons of history, we know the mistakes, and we either act
accordingly or collapse. Salvation lies in clarity and the courage
to implement change!
Comrades, that approach is the way forward for the Irish left.
(A Speech delivered in Barcelona Wednesday August 1st 2007-07-30 to
a gathering of Marxists from around the world by Gerry Ruddy, a
member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party)
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