Armed siruggle, Revolution and the IRA

In order to aid debate we are taking | the unusual step of publishing an internal document by Joe Carter. The document is not P.D. policy, but it does reflect the general tone of our | internal discussion. We welcome comments from readers.

There is no example in history of a muling class voluntarily and peacefully ‘giving up its power, wealth and privileges. To believe that the capitalist class of any country would allow itself to be extinguished as a class without a struggle would be equivalent to believing in collective suicide. The taking of the wealth and power in society by any working class will only be done by force or at the very least the overwhelming threat of it.

### HISTORY

Thisis especially true of a country like Ireland whose whole history is one of imperialism ignoring popular demands and protests and retreating only with the threat and use of violence. This does not mean that the Irish Revolution need be particularly violent and bloody. Real revolution involving the vast majority of the population - the working class and rural workers - can use its strength of numbers and economic power to wrest power sometimes with comparatively little violence.

This was true in that most famous of revolutions - the Russian revolution of 1917, What is always bloody and violent is counter-tevolution which relies on suppressing the vast majority of society,something that can’bnly be done by fear backed up by force and violence. Again this is the history of 1917 and has been the historical lesson all through this century. It was the victorious and bloody counter- revolutions in Italy, Germany and Spain in the *20’s and ‘30's which made the absolute barbarity of the 2nd world war inevitable. Nomatter how peacefully the attempts toradically change society the capitalist class accepts no such niceties if threatened. That most democratic of Latin American countries, Chile, discovered in 1973 that peaceful revolution will be met with violent counter-revolution.

However in order to try to take power with the minimum of violence it is necessary for the working class to be prepared and able to use force. Only this way can it defer its enemies from using violence to protectits position. That is why Marxists continually explain the need to prepare for the use of force. We continually explain that all imperialist talk of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ will last only so long as we do not vote to take away their power and do not oppose their freedom to exploit us. We continually denounce those socialists who spread illusions in the ability of imperialism and its state machinery to be reformed into instruments of genuine workers power and control.

### IRELAND

On Ireland there are particular reasons for warning that thereal exercise of power by its people cannot be achieved without force. Britain’s history of domination is full of examples of violence from the Black and Tans to Bloody Sunday. Its capitalist allies both unionist and nationalist have long histories AN REABHLOID - Page.9.

of using repression, torture and murder to defend their two rotten little states. Many books have been written detailing imperialism’s bloody history, its determination and ruthlessness. We continually explain this history to the working class because it is the most important lesson it will have to learn in its siruggle for justice, democracy and freedom - for socialism.

### WORKING CLASS

We explain to the working class as a whole because it is they and only they who can wield the force necessary todefeat imperialism, destroy the capitalist system and defend a newly created workers state. Certainly in Ireland no ‘people’s army’ no matter how dedicated or professional will free either Ireland orits oppressed. As Marxists we are utterly convinced by history and reason that only the working class can free Ireland from national oppression. * The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour. They cannot be dissevered ‘.

This basic point is misunderstood or ignored by every other tendency on the Irish left. The working people of Ireland will free itself and its country by its own autonomous activity or it will never be free. In this activity it will have to use force. This is why we defend the right of the Irish people to take up arms against imperialism.

### REVOLUTION

So how does this inform Marxists view of the IRA’s armed struggle? They too defend the right of the Irish people to take up arms although what they usually mean is their own right to take up arms. Our concept of revolution is very different - for us the use of force is the political mobilisation of the mass of Irish workers under a revolutionary programme and leadership which uses their strength of numbers and economic power to seize state power from imperialism and capitalism, north and south. The mass demonstrations, occupations, strikes and insurrection which will be necessary breaks down the division “ mass struggle vs armed struggle’. Force and violence are simply weapons of the mass struggle. The precise methods and extent of the use of arms will be determined by the mass struggle. The ‘publican movement's concept of armed force has tailed and will continue to fail. If the political argument we advance does not convince the past 20 years of putting their strategy into practice should. Page 10 - AN REABHLOID. TERRORISM From such considerations Marxists will often define groups who use armed force as terrorist, however well intentioned we consider them, however sincere their attachment to the goal of socialism. This is true of smull groups in Western Europe such as the German Red Army Faction. This is not because we do not defend the right of German, French, Belgian or any other working class to take up arms - we do. It flows from our evaluation of these groups being proper and legitimate expressions of the working class struggle in their particular country. So itis the case in Ireland. Is the IRA a legitimate expression of the Irish people’s right to take up arms against imperialism? This is quite a separate question from the IRA's effectiveness or the consequences of its military campaign.

THE IRA For genuine Marxists there can be no doubt that at presentihe IRA is alegitimate expression of the Insh people’s night to take up arms, We thus refuse to denounce them as terrorists. The grounds on which we do this should be clear because they define the limits to our defence of the IRA as Freedom Fighters and our opposition to those who would denounce them as sectarian murderers etc.

There is a long historical continuity of those taking up arms representing (and from time to time acting as the focus for) the opposition to British rule shared by the majority of the Irish people. This continuity stretches from the United Irish men, to the Young Trelanders, Fenians, [RB and the IRA in its various forms during the 20th century. The present IRA is the latest of this long list. If itis illegitimate then so were these movements as well.

The British would readily agree to this but the Irish capitalist class cannot be so forthright without undermining their own historical legitimacy. So they try to say there is a difference between today's IRA and the ‘good old IRA’ of the Tan war. They are wrong. This is not just because they both did or do very much the same sort of things (something the southern establishment would try to hide or deny) nor even because of the continuity of activists who maintained allegiance to the republican struggle from the IRA under Collins to the ‘provos’ of today. It is because they are the same movement, the same ideals and the same programme succinctly put today

The IRA were a defence against the B Specials as “Brits Out’.

They now have tiny support in the majority of the country but the Brits are no longer in the 26 counties in the direct sense of an occupying army. Inthe north where the Brits do tramp the streets, through many peoples homes and over many peoples faces the IRA does have substantial popular support. This is measured not just in the vote for Sinn Fein but in the wider legitimacy (if not clear cut support) which it has in the nationalist community.

Although Sinn Fein gets only around 10% of the vote in the 6 counties occupied directly by Britain this is a Statistic which can explain only the role the IRA can play in terms of the balance of forces involved in the struggle, its defensive or offensive nature.

That SF gets one-third of the nationalist vote, that the IRA has seen thousands of young working class militants go through its ranks and that it can still today, despite such a powerful enemy, recruit young people and maintain itself is the true indication of its nature. It maintains a popular base which in more senses than one presents it from being a terrorist organisation.

LIMITS However such support and even active participation should not be confused with the revolutionary self activity which we have described above. The basis of the IRA’s armed struggle is ghettoised, now as never before in the last 20 years. Its support is isolated as never before from the mass of Insh workers especially in the south. Even its supporters in the ghettos of Belfast or Derry often do no more than vote, buy Republican News and go to the occasional march. This is still a long way from making areal revolution. Our attitude to the armed struggle of the IRA is determined by how it helps to advance the struggle to mobilise the majority of Insh workers to make this real socialist revolution.

MARXIST VIEW OF REVOLUTION In order to make a revolution the working class must want to make one. They must be organised to do it and they must be mobilised in activity to carry it out. In other words they must be educated, organised and mobilised. They will be educated by those who propagandise and agitate for socialist revolution but most of all they will be educated through their own experience of struggle. They will learn through their own struggles on the streets and in their workplaces that the Immediate problems to which they seek answers or the wider political issues which affect them can only be solved through anew society which they control. Both these aspects - of those agitating for socialism and the real struggles which workers engage in and from which they learn are necessary for the coming together of the working class and the project of a socialist revolution.

Of course it is not enough for workers to want socialism they must find the best ways of organising to fight for it and the best ways of using their organisation. Again both their own experience and the experience of socialist revolutionanes who have the lessons of past revolutions are necessary.

All these tasks are brought together and codified in a revolutionary programme. It is this programme which seems to mobilise the maximum number of workers in defence of their own interests leading AN REABHLOID - Page II.

them to realise their ultimate interestis in fighting for asocialist revolution. At the same time it defines the way in which this fight will be conducted, it is a programme of activity and not primarily a list of demands.

This is why Marxists spend so much time analysing what the present situation is, what the central issues are which confront the working class, what its Tesponse is and what struggles it is spontaneously involved in. How can revolutionaries raise the consciousness of workers by deepening and extending their struggles? In short how can revolutionaries educate, organise and mobilise the working class to fight for a socialist revolution?

THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN The question then isdoes the IRA’s military campaign help to educate, organise and mobilise the majority of workers to fight for revolution?

We believe the answer is that it doesn’t.

Before we explain this we should be clear about one thing. The IRA has arisen almost spontaneously as The remains of Bombay Strect after being torched by loyalists Page 12? - AN REABHLOID, a result of the struggle of the nationalist working class in the north. It is not an artificial imposition on the struggle. It arose as a result of the need todefend the nationalist working class from imperialism and loyalism, a need which remains, which will continue to remain and a major reason why the IRA continues to have popular support.

But we now have to ask how the IRA defends nationalist workers or the working class movement today? It certainly cannot defend nationalists from loyalist assassins. It cannot defend nationalist areas from the Brits or RUC and its actions more often provoke massive repression from the British army. Indeed at times its actions are deliberately designed to provoke such repressions. The Brighton bomb was justified by Danny Morrison in precisely these terms, as if more repression will lead to more resistance. This conception is one that can only be called terrorist.

More generally the military campaign is now used as a cover for all sorts of British political and military offensives against which the military campaign itself provides no defence. What stops the British from

another Bloody Sunday or a Tiananmin Square is the potential for mass mobilisation against them which exists both north and south (not to mention international protest) if it did try such an adventure, Itis certainly not fear of a military response from the IRA. Again it is the mass struggle or the potential to unleash one which is decisive. What logically follows is that defence of the anti-imperialist stru ggle today means strengthening this political defence.

### IRA STRATEGY

In a way the IRA recognises that the nature of its role has changed since the days it was rebuilt to defend nationalist areas from the loyalists, RUC and Brits. It now claims to be on the offensive in a long war which will demoralise imperialism into a negotiated withdrawal from Ireland. This is the central strategy of the Republican Movement and has been fora lon £ time now. Asan IRA statement put it in August last year © We will, through inflicting continuous and unsustainable losses, break the will of the British government to stay in our country’. (R.N. 28/9/89)

There is no conception here of the need for a programme which relates to workers own struggles throughout Ireland and which seems, as we have said, to educate, organise and mobilise as many workers as possible to achieve their own liberation. Political strategy, in so far as it exists, is added on to this central strategy of the military campaign and is more often electoralist, reformist and opportunist. Winning elections, ‘screwing the system’ and proposed deals with the SDLP and Fianna Fail are as a result of failure to put the working out of a revolutionary socialist programme at the heart of the whole movement and its activity.

Instead of acting to boost the confidence of the masses and stimulating them intoactivity the military campaign represents a major barrier to the involvement of the masses in the struggle for their own liberation. It serves to isolate the republican vanguard from the mass of Irish workers whose involvement, not to mention leadership, is vital. The armed struggle in the north addresses neither the concems of southern workers nor provides an example of the methods of struggle they should follow, Republicans are fond of pointing out that the armed struggle is not an issue when they canvass in elections in the south. They fail to notice that this is precisely the sign of their irrelevancy.

The military campaign in the north does of course indicate that the 6 counties is nota normal society. It continually shows that a problem exists. The ability of the IRA tocontinue against overwhelming odds is a boost to Republican morale.and the in genuity of the IRA’s volunteers does act as a headache to Britsin’s apparatus of repression. None of these factors however are any way near being decisive for the struggle.

The military campaign does not help define or demonstrate what the problem is but has been tumed around to represent the problem itself. The ever widening extension of legitimate targets does nothing to bring victory nearer but serves only to give ammunition to British propagandists and confuse the sympathetic. More and more often tragic mistakes demoralise republicans instead of boosting them . These tragedies are aresult of the tremendous pressure Britain can now put on the military campaign. The mistakes are inevitable while the conception of an offensive military campaign continues. They will continue to hide imperialism’s weaknesses and that of its native collaborators.

The whole idea of an offensive military campaign based on the nationalist population of the six counties against an overwhelmingly superior enemy is a nonsense. The ever widening list of legitimate targets and the extension of the campaign to Britain and the continent are attempts toevade and cover this reality. Only the mass mobilisation of the Irish working class not just in the 6 but in the 26 counties is capable of putting the struggle on the offensive, putting the question of British withdrawal and workers power on the agenda. Butas we have said this is not the aim of the IRA’s military campaign.

### POLITICAL

Of course more sophisticated republicans will claim that the IRA’s campaign is a political one with a political objective. By such definitions they might try to wash criticism away but it is a claim which is empty of any context. No political strategies behind the campaign save that of demoralising Britain. Unfortunately the IR A does not have the resources to demoralise a still powerful imperialism. No intermediate political objectives are put by the campaign by which to gauge its success - save that ‘normality’ has not been achieved. If the classic conception of “armed propaganda’ is used then the results of the campaign are more often bad propaganda.

AN REABHLOID - Page. 13.

Mass action by women broke the British curfew of the Falls Road. ~~ & Real ] .

In reality much of the military campaign is justified not on political grounds but on purely military or at best economic ones. The latter has been used to explain the commercial bombing campaign. The bombing of the cross-border rail link is justified in military terms....,.’ These attacks are part of a military strategy aimed at forcing the British army out of its fixed position and border bunkers’. It ‘is one of a number of occasional tactics which we have employed and will continue to employ for military advantage’.

The extension of the concept of legitimate targets to include workers whose job brings them into contact with the British army or RUC is justified on military grounds but is a political disaster. It is the very opposite of a campaign to identify the British ‘security’ apparatus as an enemy of the working class and gives powerful ammunition to the pro-imperialist leadership of the trade union movements who wish to maintain their cosy collaboration with the British and Free States.

Preaking the potential power of the trade union aovernent from its bureaucratic leaders is an absolutely central task of revolutionaries in Ireland today. Yet how does the military campaign even address this question never mind begin to give an answer to it. This is but one example of many where Page 14 - AN REABHLOID. the problems facing those who seek revolutionary change will find in the IRA’s armed struggle only barriers and obstacles.

### CONCLUSION

From the foregoing analysis we reject those who would denounce the IRA as terrorist and will politically defend them against every such charge. But we must alsoconclude thatno political confidence can be placed in the republican leadership. It cannot successfully lead the struggle for national independence and workers power and we believe that it will not turn itself into an organisation which can. For most republicans the present armed campaign is an article of faith and we all know that faith is impervious to reason. We are convinced however that now as never before there are more and more republican militants who will read our arguments and will at least be prepared to engage in debate with them. They hold the key to the present struggle breaking out of the impasse it has reached. This responsibility entails a duty to address the debate openly and honestly.

Joe Carter

An Open Letter to the Socialist Workers Movement.