Is the 1916 Proclamation good enough today?

page 6

IS THE 1916 PROCLAMATION

GOOD ENOUGH TODAY?

This year many organisations have been celebrating the 1916 rising. For many it was celebrated as history, at most remembered but certainly not repeated. However for others it represents the beginning or renewal of a task still uncompleted the removal of British imperialism. For many republicans and socialists the 1916 Proclamation is still the point of reference and programme for the lrish struggle for freedom. Being true to the sacrifice of 1916 still ranks asa test of today’s struggle and of its leaders. The obvious reason for this is that the Proclamation outlined the main task facing the Irish people and helped ignite the greatest ever struggle for national self- determination in Ireland's long history. It represented a programme all those who desired an independent Ireland could unite on, from Connolly marxists to bourgeois nationalists.

For a successful revolution the key unity required was between the peasantry and the working class, with the latter in the leadership. As Connolly made clear only the working class remained as “the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedorr in Ireland’, Thus Connolly urged his Irish Citizen Army during the Rising: ‘In the event of victory, hold on to your rifles. Those with whom we are fighting may cease before our goal is reached.

We are for economic and social as well as political liberty’.

LABOUR MUST WAIT?

The class antagonisms that lay behind this statement were glossed over and obscured in the proclamation. The key need for working class leadership of the struggle was not addressed and not understood either by republicans or the leaders of the labour movement. The republican policy during the Tan war and civil war was summed up by De Valera’s statement that ‘Labour must wait! The claims of working people and their independent organisation and leadership were to wait until Irish freedom was achieved, The attitude of the Jeaders of the labour movement was in practice just as bad. They stood aside from the national liberation struggle and held back struggles which did take place. After the 1922 election the Irish Labour Party became the official opposition and in effect pro-Treaty, dooming it to minority support ever since.

Despite this lack of leadership the working class and rural poor did take part in the revolution, Land was seized from the landlords, creameries and mines were seized, Limerick workers took over the town and ran it for themselves, and a one day general strike was called to prevent conscription jnic the British Army.

However, like many revolutions before and since, the working poor did the fighting and the representatives of capitalism did the leading. L.R.A. land courts gave land back to the landlord: and denounced the land seizures as‘a grave menace to the republic. The mind of the people was being diverted from the struggle for freedom by a class_war...’ Unlike Conpolly the republicans saw political liberty as something completely divorced from social and economic liberty.

Neither pro nor anti Treaty republicans saw the necessity of working class leadership - in fact their leaders were positively opposed toit Each simply represented a different part of the Irish capitalist class getting the workers to do the fighting and dying for them. The pro-Treatyites represented those large ranchers and capitalists tied most closely to trade with Britain and the anti-Treatyites the would-be capitalists who were concerned to develop an Irish manufacturing capitalism. In the Joe Carter end neither was prepared to take on imperialism and the repub licans who were isolated and without a policy of fighting in the labour movement for it to take up the struggle; without a policy which could offer an alternative to the ‘republicanism’ of Fianna Fail. The Jessons learnt by Connolly were forgotten , if ever learnt in the first place: ‘Having learned from history that all bourgeois movements end in compromise, that the bourgeois revolutionaries of today become the conservatives of tomorrow, the Irish socialists refuse to deny or to lose their identity with those who only half under stand the problem of liberty. They seek only the alliance and friendship of those hearts who, loving liberty for its own sake, are not afraid to follow its banner when it is uplifted by the hands of the working class who have most need of it’.

The acceptance of partition and the policies pursued by the new Cumann na nGaedhael (Fine Gael) government in Dublin showed the correctness of Connolly's vision, The trappings of empire such as the oath of allegiance the the English king continued and the Catholic Church's reactionary teachings, especially in relation to women, came to predominate in social legislation. The economic policies of the new government were indistinguishable from those pursued under British rule. Free trade continued to allow big ranchers to export to Britain and money flowed out of the country in land annuities (payments by Irish farmers to the British government who had previously bought out the landlords) and through the complete dominance of the City of London over Irish capital. A leading official in the Department of Finance wrote in 1923: ‘The banks are largely influenced by opinion in London where they Keep their reserves, their floating balances and practically all their investment’. Again Connolly’s marxism was able to explain that despite nominal independence the 26 Counties was still dominated by imperialism: ‘Lf you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the Green Flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organi sation of the socialist republic your efforts would be in vain.

England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through the whole army of commercial-industrial institutions she has planted in the country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would rule you to your ruin’.

CAPITALIST *“REPUBLICANISM’

Irish working people had never accepted the sell out of the Treaty and it had only been imposed on them through civil war, repression and the demoralisation caused by war weariness and lack of an alternative. For years the alternative that was posed was the renewal of the armed strugele:a ‘second round’ against the Free State and the British. However after endless hours of slow re-organisation, drilling and training by the LR.A. the ‘second round’ seemed no nearer. In 1926 De Valera split and formed Fianna Fail. For many genuine rank and file republicans and for most working people it was realised that political action was needed and simple reliance on the armed struggle was leading nowhere.

Unfortunately the politics offered by Fianna Fail were the

politics of the national bourgeoisie. When Fianna Fail entered the government tariffs (taxes) on imported goods were established and laws limiting foreign ownership of Irish industry were enacted, New industries were set up in construction, shoe, soap, furniture, textiles, confectionary and food processing and at first it seemed to be successful, During the 1930s industrial employment rose by nearly 40% and output by 50%.

Beside these economic policies which lead to the “economic war’ with Britain Fianna Fail, electedon the slogan ‘on to the Republic’, promised to solve the democratic tasks which had Governor General, the oath of allegiance, the payment of the land annuities, repression was reduced and republican prisoners released. Even to many in the I.R.A, it looked as if De Valera would achieve what the R.A. had failed to do, establish an All Ireland Republic. Many left it and joined Fianna Fail which quickly gained the allegiance of the majority of Irish workers,

AN ALTERNATIVE?

Neither the republicans nor the labour movement had a class analysis which would have shown that Fianna Fail would fail because no capitalist solution was possible to the struggle for national liberation. The LR.A. clung to the belief in armed struggle which because it was not regarded as possible in the 26 Counties after Fianna Fail came to power meant that the idea of revolution in the 26 Counties was effectively abandoned abandoned. Since then the Republican Movement has had ambiguous attitude to the national bourgeoisie and the institutions of the southern state. While realising it has sold out it hasn't offered any strategy for destroying it in the same unambiguous way it has for destroying the northern state. This does not mean advocating armed struggle in the south; what was and still is needed is a political alternative which recognises Fianna Fail, every bit of it, as capitalist and that only a working class socialist movement can offer an alternative. In the “30s only a minority of the Republican Movement addressed this question through the short lived Republican Congress. Its leaders recognised that the only hope was in the labour movement overcoming its abandonment of the struggle for a Republic. Unfortunately the labour movement was still lead by people who claimed that such a struggle was a reactionary nationalist one just as many ‘socialists’ today such as the Workers Party or Militant claim that the fight is now one for socialism pure and simple. Connolly long ago had the answer to such simple arguments: Sn Easter Rising barricade page 7 “Of course some of our socialist friends, especially those who have never got beyond the ABC of the question, will remind me that even in a republic the worker is exploited, as for instance in France and the United States. Therefore they argue, we cannot be republicans. To this I reply: the countries mentioned have only capitalism to deal with. We have capitalism and a monarchy..." Thus in Ireland we not only have capitalism but national oppression as well. One cannot be solved without the other.

RETURN TO OPEN IMPERIALISM

This is why Fianna Fail failed to break the stranglehold of imp erialism not only in the 6 Counties but in the 26 as well. By 1958 its economic nationalism was reversed. From 1951 to 1958 industrial employment had fallen from 228,000 to 210,000. This growth in unemployment led to massive emigration and a decline in the 26 County population. In 1954 a book could be written called “The Vanishing Irish’ which postulated the ‘fading away of the once great and populous nation of Ireland’. No greater condemnation of bourgeois nationalism could possibly be imagined, [t is useful to look at the reason for this failure in order to explain why there is no capitalist solution to the problem of real national independence; no capitalist road to the ideals of 1916. Despite the tariffs and lrish owned industry policy, no attempt was made to contro] the massive amount of banking capital which continued to be invested in the London money market, To overcome restrictive laws British firms simply set up branch factories in Ireland and none were ever prosecuted for not really being Irish. No attempt was made to build a capital goods sector (the sector which produces machines whict which then make consumer goods) and state intervention was limited to the minimum. The policy of Fianna Fail actually increased the ‘thousand economic strings in the shape of investments binding them to English capitalism’ which Connol Connolly saw as the root of Irish capitalism's inevitable failure to break with Britain. To control the outflow of capital, the exploitation of British firms and create a capital goods sector would have meant mass ive state intervention, a massive investment programme which ignored short term profit. In other words breaking from capitalism and establishing socialism.

The economic U-turn in 1958 was the first confession that 'reland while it remained capitalist could only hope for more dependence and exploitation by imperialism. That this policy was initiated by the ‘republicans’ of Fianna Fail shows that no

page 8 | Larkin, in a characteristic pose, addresses a labour gathering in O’Connell Street following his return from America in 1923 section of Irish capitalists has any alternative to bowing before imperialism. The U-turn involved the scrapping of tariffs and any laws impeding trade between Ireland and the rest of the world. It meant encouraging multinational investment in Ireland through large grants and tax incentives and the promise of a skilled, low paid and compliant workforce. Finally it also meant joining the EEC and the increasing compromising of the 26 Counties’ neutrality. At first this strategy seemed to offer some hope, Manufactu ring exports on which the whole strategy was based rose by an average of 16% during the 1960s increasing from 74% of Gross Domestic Product in 1963 to 25% in 1978. Employment in the new foreign owned industries rose from 58,000 to 80,200 between 1973 and 1980, Living standards rose; GNP per person rose from 55% of the UK level in 1951 to 72% in 1970. All this coincided with what many observers saw as the liberalisation of Irish society and a weakening of the power of the church.

CAPITALIST CRISIS

Today however such illusions have long since gone. Like earlier policies this particular capitalist strategy has failed. Unemployment in the 26 Counties is increasing and now stands at nearly 20%, one of the highest in the EEC. Income tax has doubled since the early “70s and 80% of all taxes are paid by workers, This ata time when public services are being cut and when Ireland has the greatest proportion of poor in the EEC - 25% living below the official poverty line. This is a figure that can only increase as the various governments have attempted to hold down wages as inflation roars ahead, On top of this is a major attack on democratic rights, for example the Offences against the State Act and the Criminal Justice Act. Under pressure from Britain more and more money is pumped into ‘defending’ a border the constitution doesn't even recognise and in attacking long established freedoms such as freedom for political refugees from extradition, jury trials and free speech. Nor finally can much of acase be made for the ‘tiberalisation’ of Irish society. Reactionary values are once again on the offensive - the anti-abortion referendum, the ‘Kerry Babies’ case and the superstitious nonsense of ‘moving statues’ are all recent proof to the contrary.

No doubt both Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and even Labour will be paying lip service to 1916, its leaders and ideals but they have proved themselves totally incapable, in fact opposed, to its message. “The right of the people of Ireland to the owner ship of Ireland’ is a joke beside the multinational rape of Irish workers. Ina situation where 5% of the population owns three quarters of the private wealth the call of the proclamatior to — all the children of the nation equally’ is very hollow indee

‘OLD WINE - NEW BOTTLES’

Yet almost astonishingly these parties which have collabora ted in creating the misery, exploitation and repression that exists in much of Ireland today have the cheek to get together and propose a ‘Forum for a New Ireland’! One might be forgiven for remarking that if this is what they've made of the old Ireland heaven help us from what they’ve got lined up in the new one. In reality the lrish bourgeoisie have through the New Ireland Forum created their own proclamation, one that repudiates the democratic demands of national reunification, supports the loyalist veto and promises nothing but repression for those who fight back against the continuing exploitation by imperialism and its native supporters.

All this has been concretised in the Anglo-Irish Agreement with the open collaboration of the southern bourgeoisie in Britain’s attempt to put down the anti-imperialist struggle of catholic workers in the north, The green capitalists have now taken upon themselves the responsibility for all the ugly and repressive aspects of the sectarian state in the north without actually having the power to knock off even some of its rough edges. The bickering between Fianna Fail and the Coalition indicates not differences over whether such collaboration is necessary but simply the fear in Fianna Fail that the whole project is too weak to last and mav leave all capitalism's rep-

resentatives in Ireland exposed when it fails.

This is precisely the task which is set before the workingclass today, to bring down the Agreement and expose the capitalist and pro-capitalist parties who have supported it. To do this however we need an alternative which can act in very much the same way as the 1916 proclamation acted, as a declaration of the key tasks, a political programme and a call to action.

It is appropriate that as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the rising we examine whether it is adequate for today. As we have already shown it glossed over the question of classes inside Ireland and this lack of clarity has lead to the many fail ures since of those who have sought to finish its task, Today's programme must ruthlessly expose and defeat not just British imperialism but also Irish capitalism. This much has clearly changed since the proclamation was written but it is not all.

= « i The failure of the 1916 struggle to clearly show the class struggle that was also necessary not only reflected Connolly's weakness in not building a workers’ party that could have fought for it, especially after his death. It also reflected the transitional period in which the struggle took place. Throughout the 19th century the class content of the national struggle was one of the Irish peasantry struggling for land against British landlords. The various pieces of land legislation, for example in 1881, 1891 and 1903 and the developing workers’ struggles throughout Ireland in the first decade of the 20th century, culminating in the 1913 Dublin lock-out, signalled that the class content of the national struggle was changing from one based on the peasantry to one based on the workers.

As Connolly put it: ‘The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour. They cannot be dissevered’

GROWTH OF WORKING CLASS

Unfortunately at the time of the rising the Irish working class was a small minority of the Irish population and much of it was that section who had lined themselves up in support of imperialism, the protestant workers in the north. Membership of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union was only 5,000 at the time of the rising. Unable to impose its leadership on the struggle and, after the death of Connolly, without revolutionary leadership itself it was unable to challenge the bourgeois leadership of the struggle with results we have seen.

However, as the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky declared at the time ‘the historical role of the Irish proletariat is only beginning’. In 1922 trade union membership was 189,000. Today it stands at over half a million, Half the workforce is unionised, a higher proportion than in Britain, France, Holland and Germany. Many young people have left the land to seek jobs in the towns and cities and over the last 30 years the rural population has almost halved, Even those who remain to work on the land find their farm too small and have to work in a factory as well. Today nearly half the 26 County population lives in or near Dublin. Thus Ireland has undergone a real industrialisation which has changed the character of Irish society and the requirements of the struggle needed to change it. The vast majority of Irish people no longer as in 1916 work on the land. Over 30% now work in industry, 50% in service industries and only one in five directly in agriculture. The latter is of course substantially higher than in any developed capitalist society but lower than in Spain, Portugal or Greece, This is a radically different class structure to that found in most third world states. In India only 13% work in industry, El Salvador 22% and in pre-revolutionary Nicaragua it was between 15 to 18%. Even among the most industrialised third world countries the proportion working in industry is lower than in Ireland; in Mexico 26%, Argentina 28% and Brazil 24%.

Thus despite the importance of agriculture to the Irish economy and the importance of the oppression and exploitation of small farmers the key task facing the struggle for national liberation and socialism is not an alliance between workers and page 9 peasantry as in 1916 but uniting the Irish working class itself.

WOMEN

Capitalism and national oppression deliberately creates divi sions within the working class to enable it to rule effectively and without serious challenge. In every country a major division is between women and men and Ireland is no exception except that imperialism has intensified women’s oppression, Both north and south it is among the most reactionary forces including the protestant and catholic churches which it has relied upon to uphold the status quo, imposing upon women their morals and their ideas about what role women should play in society. The results are that women are pushed into the home to feed and service the predominantly male workforce at no expense to the state or employers. Only around 30% of the workforce are women, not much more than it was 70 years ago, less than 5% are married women, Both these figures are among the lowest in the EEC, On top of this those who do work are usually in low paid, low status, low skilled and often part time employment, earning on average only about two-thirds of the average male wage. No struggle claiming to be for freedom can ignore these facts and the growth of a women’s movement means that increasingly women themselves are making sure they aren't ignored. Sixty years ago most women worked on farms or a3 domestic servants and there were only 15-20,000 women trade unionists. Today 35% of trade unionists are women, over 100,000. By and large however the trade union movement has failed to fight for the specific rights of women, for example only 4% of trade union officials are women. It is clear that a a effort is needed to put women’s demands at the top of the agenda; an effort that can only be spearheaded by women themselves. That is why socialists and republicans must support the autonomous organisation of women and see it as a vital ally in the struggle for national liberation and socialism. Without women’s liberation neither will be achieved, That is why we should also reject the condemnations of many ‘socialists’ who see the women’s movement as only ‘middle class feminists’. The very existence of the women’s movement shows that the problems they have raised have not and will not be solved as a simple by-product of the struggle for socialism.

THE PROTESTANTS

However, it is the divide between protestant and catholic workers which is seen by many as the greatest obstacle to national liberation and socialism in Ireland and a question not directly addressed by the 1916 rising. It is absolutely vital to understand the nature of the problem because many organisations have failed to do so and have been effectively lost to the struggle against imperialism and for socialism.

Some like the Workers Party have pointed to the unity over trade union issues which have occurred but have then capitulated to loyalism when it comes to raising political demands, Their support for a return to Stormont rule and for the sectarian RUC is the end of a long road begun with genuine concer to come to grips with a real problem.

Others, such as ‘Militant’, have attempted to build on trade union unity by calling for a party of labour and for socialism.

They ignore uncomfortable facts such as that if such a party was to be really representative of the majority of protestant workers, as opposed to a minority of trade union activists, it would be as flawed by bigotry and sectarianism as the old Northern Ireland Labour Party, Their claim that ‘socialism’ will unite workers is a tautology. To have socialism you need a united working class but as we know the working class is divided. To argue that socialism is the solution to the division simply gets back to the problem again. It is a vicious circle which is lost sight of beneath the sloganising.

The problem has been that unity over trade union issues has shattered when faced with political questions. A correct policy regarding protestant workers needs to start with 2 correct analvsis however uncomfortable the facts are. This was certainly

IRISH TRAsstp Came RS (Ee ORT We >

IRISH TRADE UNIONISTS TODAY

the approach of Connolly: ‘Let the truth be told, however ugly. Here the Orange working class are slaves in spirit because they have been reared up among a people whose conditions of servitude were more slavish than their own. In Catholic Ireland the working class are rebels in spirit and democratic in feeling because for hundreds of years they have found no class as lowly paid or badly treat ed as themselves. At one time in the industrial world of Great Britain and Ireland the skilled labourer looked down with contempt upon the unskilled and bitterly resented his attempt to get his children taught any of the skilled trades; the feeling of the Orangemen of Ireland toward the Catholics is but a glort fied representation on a big stage of the same unworthy motives’, The protestants originated as a settler colonial population with a status and range of privileges enforced by law. Although this colonial system has braken down long ago the most reactionary elements of loyalism have attempted to maintain it; for example through the sectarian riots in the 19th and 20th centuries. To a certain extent they have succeeded as can be seen in the near total dominance of protestant workers in certain industries They have been most successful however in maintaining their monopoly of political power especially their one party Stormont government which lasted over 60 years. This explains their otherwise irrational opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and why the only consistent democratic policy is total opposition to loyalism and rejection of the loyalist veto.

This does not mean a revolution in Ireland can be made against the-protestant working class - 20% of the whole Lrish proletariat. It does mean that loyalism must be demoralised, disorganised and destroyed, No struggle can ignore this task or pretend it won't be necessary. It is completely utopian to believe that socialist propaganda can be more powerful than literally centuries of material privileges. Almost as unrealistic is the belief that the catholic working class confined to the north can by itself offer protestant-catholic unity. It is too weak and small to break protestant workers from the alliance with their bosses and imperialism. The only force with both ~~ L : Pee A the power and interest in winning any section of the protestant working class is the majority of nationalist workers in the south sou th.

KEY DIVIDE

This brings us to the key division inside the working class.

The division between northem and southern workers whose identity of interest in fighting imperialism has been hidden by the seeming independence of the 26 County state. While southern workers desire unity they do not see it as an immed?

ate question or one that they have to solve.

To overcome this however means overcoming nol a geographical division but a political divide which predates partition.

It is the division in Irish working class tradition between those who have claimed that economic and social demands are the aim of the labour movement and those who claim that the Irish working class must concentrate on ending national oppression as a precondition of freedom from class oppression.

The industrialisation of Ireland has undoubtedly increased the weight of specifically working class or economic demands in the struggle. Unemployment, taxation, cuts in welfare are abviously greater problems facing greater numbers now than they were in 1916. In addition the very young population because it is sited on the edge of Europe tends to compare its standard of living not with third world countries but with the imperialist countries in Western Europe. The continuing exis tence of bourgeois democratic freedoms such as the right to organise in trade unions and openly revolutionary political parties tends to reinforce the view of the ‘economistic’ left that Ireland is somehow not much different from Britain or France and that the revolution here will or should look much like theirs. In the north there is obviously less justification for such a view. Massive repression and a continuing armed struggle indicate that Ireland is not the same as other West European countries. Even in the south it is not true that the national question has disappeared. The 26 Counties remains dominated by imperialism.

THE KEY TASK

Nearly half the 1,000 biggest companies in the 26 Counties are foreign owned and the working class is more and more dependent on them foremployment. Even those successful Irish companies prefer to invest abroad rather than in Ireland.

Most importantly Irish finance is still dominated by imperial ism which means that Ireland is even more dominated than many third world countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Hong Kong where some native finance capital has been created. The stranglehold which imperialism has is indicated by the 26 Counties’ enormous debt - 128% of Gross National Product and greater per head than Argentina, Mexico or Brazil which are constantly in the news because of their debt problem.

What this means can be demonstrated by the fact that between 1983 and 1984 £1 billion was added to the foreign debt through the rise in price of the dollar without one single thing having happened in Ireland. This is enough to pay for the running of the Department of Health including paying the wages of the 60,000 people who work for it. It is thus impo impossible to seek to answer the questions raised by cuts in services without pointing out that the money saved from the cuts will go straight into the hands of foreign bankers. It is impossible without bringing out the question of imperialism, This is essentially a political question and not one of economics which is why the ‘economistic’ tradition fails to deal with the fundamental problem. Even in its most ‘radical’ form the Militant Tendency’s advocacy of sweeping nationalisations as almost the equivalent of socialism - fails to confront the question of political power. This is how Connolly explained it: ‘State ownership and control is not necessarily socialist - if it were, then the army and the navy, the police, the judges, the gaolers, the informers and hangmen would all be socialist functionaries as they are all state officials- but the ownership by the state of all the lands and material for labour, combined page 11 with the cooperative control by the workers of such land and materials, would be socialist ... To the cry of the middle-class reformers, ‘Make this or that the property of the government’, we reply - ‘yes, in proportion as the workers are ready to make the government their property.’

This is why the demand and fight for a United Ireland remains the most revolutionary struggle to take place today.

It challenges not only the system of rule of imperialism but also of the native capitalists. The anti-imperialist struggle threatens not just the 6 County state but also the 26 County state which is why the bourgeois political parties in the south have been so keen to collaborate with Britain through the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It is why the national question remains at the heart of the struggle for socialism.

= * = The 1916 Proclamation has acted as the programme for the Irish revolution for a long time. That is why it is reprinted so often and the rising commemorated so consciously. For the Republican Movement the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916 still needs to be established.

As this article has argued such a republic will never be estab lished unless it is first and foremost a Workers’ Republic. To fight for this needs the development of a new programme around which anti-imperialists and class conscious workers can unite, Such a programme cannot be mere statements of policy promising all sorts of good things after the revolution.

Instead it must seek to mobilise and organise workers now to fight for anti-imperialist and socialist solutions to the immediate problems facing workers, Our struggle now must show the sort of society we wish to create in the future.

Finally this means not winning workers to the struggle but them and their organisations becoming its leadership. It is therefore not that ‘the workers are necessary for the revolution, but the revolution for the workers’, INTERNATi@NAL

WEIS X03 LACE VLE W

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