The limits of Republicanism

An Reabhloid - for a Workers Republic - Page 15

THIS SECTION OF THE JOURNAL IS OPEN TO SOCIALIST MILITANTS

OF ALL ORGANISATIONS AND NONE TO DISCUSS SOME OF THE

BASIC POLITICAL QUESTIONS OF THE IRISH REVOLUTION. OUR

FIRST CONTRIBUTOR IS PD MEMBER JOE CARTER .

THE LIMITS OF REPUBLICANISM

Next year will see the tenth anniversary of the accession to the leadership of Sinn Fein of the “left” around Gerry Adams. Propelled into this position by a mass struggle around H-Block, it promised a strategy to develop a new mass struggle that would drive out British imperialism; “There isan urgent need to build an all-Ireland movement which would be open to everyone committed to the principle and objective of Irish national self-determination. Such a movement must be open....a mass movement which will mobilise all progressive forces in this country and whose demands.... must therefore be social, economic and cultural as well as political just as the effects of partition are social, economic, cultural and political... The building of such a movement must be put on the agenda now” [Gerry Adams. “A Pathway to Peace” p77-78] This isn’t the first time the Republican movement openly acknowledged the need to build a mass movement. The signalling of the turn to the left in the organisation is often dated fromthe 1977 Bodenstown speech of Jimmy Drumm which called for; “The forging of the strong links between the Republican movementand the workers of Ireland and radical trade unionists will create an irrepressible mass movement..." Thirteen years after this speech such a movement is as dead as a fossil. Instead the struggle in the North against British ruleismoreand moreaslugging match between the IRA and the British and Loyalists. Elections allow nationalist workers to record a vote for Sinn Fein against imperialism but electoralism is just the highest form of “spectator politics”, not a break from it as the republican movement likes to believe.

A standard explanation of this situation beloved of the bourgeois press is that an increasingly unpolitical and brutal IRA military campaign has squeezed out any perspective of a strategy based on politics.

QUESTION

No-one could have any doubt that the killing of eight workers at Teebane makes it very difficult to work in the trade union movement, North or South, to win it to a mass movement that would oppose British rulc.

The question that must be put is- does the Republican movement mean what it says when it calls for building a mass movement? This is a legitimate question when one thinks of everything its armed wing does to make such a task more difficult.

Equally however it is also clear that such a strategy is part of the republican movements perspective. Ithas been repeated toooften foranyone to haveany doubts.

The contradiction between the military campaign and a sincere desire for a mass movement is therefore a real one. This contradiction between the IRA‘s military campaign and the republicans stated political strategy [which cannot at all be reduced to a desire for a mass movement] is the subject of never-ending propaganda by imperialism and its allies. The hypocrites whinge that you cannot be involved in “politics” and also in “violence”. Gerry Adams now claims in response that Sinn Fein does not support violence orthe IRA but simply understands why the IRA exists in thecircumstances of the North. Ineffect he is saying that the IRA has its strategy and the IRA has its own, they simply agree about the objective. Thus Sinn Fein can seek talks with the British or to build a mass movement and the IRA can engage in whatever form of military activity it thinks appropriate. Do we accept this, and does it explain how the objective of of building a mass movement has not been achieved?

DISHONEST

Itis purely and simply dishonest to pretend that the strategies of the IRA and Sinn Fein are different. If Sinn Fein does not support the military activity of the IRA then how does it think the British can be driven out? Does it think that electoralism and constituency activity will? Republican strategy can be summarised as follows: The IRA will wear down the British who will be forced to the negotiating table where they will negotiate their way out of Ireland. Britain is “ fast

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LURGAN AFTER

IRA ATTACK

running out of options”. Sinn Fein will lead the political movement which will help push the British out and will be involved in the negotiations which will see them go. In this strategy any mass movement plays a subordinate role to the military campaign of the IRA, the so-called cutting edge, and to the negotiators of Sinn Fein. Whatever the schemes of Sinn Fein any mass movement created would have an objective tendency to go beyond any subordinate role assigned to it by the Republicans. More importantly, even if in practice assigned a subservient role in the Republican movements strategy and activity, and even if its creation is made more difficult by the IRA's military campaign, what is not explained is the failure to achieve the beginnings of a mass movernent. Mass movements can not be created just by wanting them, or by passing resolutions, but at the same time there has been absolutely no progress or even a beginning to the creation of such a movement.

NO MILITARY SOLUTION

We believe this failure is crucial. Crucial because only a mass movement of all the oppressed led by the working class of all 32 counties and supported internationally by other such movements can defeat Britishrule. The IRA cannot. We are absolutely certain of that. Thereisno” military solution” for those fighting imperialism. The IRA, Sinn Fein and the nationalist workers from whom they derive their support do not have the strength or resources to wear down British imperialism and kick it out. Ireland, not least because ofits geographical position, is much too im portant to the British and western imperialism to be given independence without a strong state and a political settlement which could secure the country for imperialist exploitation in the future. There are no indigenous classes or forces strong enough to guarantee a settlement and provide the strong state. Britain has to stay.

The task of kicking it outis therefore an enormous one and this is reflected in the difficulties of creating a mass movement which is capable of doing it.

The Republican movement has underestimated this reality. Ireland may be a small and unimportant country in world terms, butits position off the coast of western Europe, its relatively advanced society and working class and its population spread over some of the most important imperialist countries makes it important to western imperialism. To Britain Ireland is vital. Political instability arising from any political radicalisation in Ireland could not fail to have an impact in many British cities such as London, Liverpool, Glasgow etc., with their large Irish-linked populations. However conservative Republicans might want their “revolution” to be, one capable of kicking

out the British in an overwhelming urban and working-class society could not fail to be radical and infectious. These are the stakes involved in the struggle to defeat British rule in the North.

POLITICAL RISKS

The present Republican activity is a military campaign capable of continuing for an extended period at higher or lower levels but without having any clear aim beyond that of its own survival. At the same time Sinn Fein asks to be involved in negotiations with the British and promises to take “political risks” at the negotiating table. Inflexibility in tactics but promising flexibility in principles (which is what must be meant by the phrase ‘political risks” - or else the phrase is meaningless) is the same flawed combination Irish Republicanism has always been guilty of.

Evenif Sinn Fein were to getinto negotiations with the British they are in no position to negotiate Britain out, but only in a position to help negotiate their own defeat. Just as the nature of their “political risks” is unexplained so such negotiations would, like previous ones, be conducted behind the backs of the people who had suffered and fought British rule.

For those in the Republican movement who describe themselves as socialists and who may have joined in the last ten years this analysis may be rejected. “We may have failed to build a mass movement but we are still the only people capable of doing it” may be their reply. Indeed we have already agreed that neither the activity of the IRA nor the subordinate role Sinn Fein attaches to the mass struggle is completely respon- An Reabhloid - for a Workers Republic - Page 17 may be exacerbated by the Republican Movements failure to realise the real need for such a movement, a need created by the nature of the task of removing British rule, but this again as we have said does not explain why even the beginnings of any real progress has not been achieved. As Marxists we argue that the reason for the failure is the political basis Republicans have forsuch amovement. The failure of their project hasits root in the political project and principles they seek it to represent. The failure of republican politics lies in these politics themselves. These politics in the last analysis also explain the priority given to the IRA and the marginal role assigned to the working class.

POLITICAL FAILURE

This means that even if, in the very unlikely event of such a movement erupting “spontaneously”, like the H-Block struggle forexample, orinanew formarising from Southern society, Republican politics would fail that movement. Socialists in the Republican movement should realise this and commit themsclves to fighting for a socialist programme as the only one capable of giving the necessary political leadership to a mass movement capable of ending British rule.

REPUBLICANISM

So whatare the republican politics which while atone moment recognises the need for mass struggle are incapable of creating it and giving it leadership?

Connolly described republicanism as a party; “whose members are united on no single point, and agree upon no single principle, except upon the use of International meeting of F.I. The International Executive Committee (IEC) of the Fourth International met in Europe earlier this year.

The IEC is the ruling body of the international between conferences and is composed of the leaderships of all the sympathising sections. John McAnulty of Peoples Democracy attended the meetings.

Discussions and reports included the Algerian coup, the defence of Cuba against a renewed imperialist onslaughtand growing support for our policies among other section of the PRT of Brazil. Plans were made for a co-ordinated drive against racism and fascism in Europe. A major left organisation in Sri Lanka applied to join the international.

The keynote discussion centred around developments in the former USSR. An international fund has been open to develop our work there and the second edition of a Russian language version of the magazine Imprekor had just been printed.

Much time was given to plans for building the organisation in the coming period and helping to build a broader reconsolidation of socialists as part of an international response to capitalist triumphalism. Peoples Democracy has agreed with the international leadership that a discussion on Ireland should be held this year, with representatives of the leadership coming to Ireland to see the repression here first-hand

An Reabhioid - for a Workers Republic - Page 18 ———— EEE ee physical force as the sole means of settling the dispute between the people of this country and the governing power of Britain!” The republican movement of Connolly's time is the same as that of today, as the present generation of republicans are determined to reaffirm; “The IRA which came into being in the bullet swept streets of Dublin in 1916 is the same IRA, fighting in the same cause, as that which confronts British rule in arms today.” (Republican News 29-3-91) In their new year messagein 1991 the IRA speltout the reason for their existence; “The IRA is in existence in response to a part of Ireland, and its people, being held by military force against the will of the vast majority of the Irish nation.

Our aim is Irish unity and democracy...”

Gerry Adams has stated the aimof Sinn Fein in exactly the same terms; “Sinn Fein remains convinced that the basis for peace in Ireland must be national self-determination and an Irish national democracy.” (Republican News 17-1- 91) “Our primary objective is for national liberation... the type of social order which is required in Ireland is one which is politically a democracy and economically a democracy also.”

SOCIALISM?

And Socialism? Irish republicanism is not a term which defines a system of society in the way that socialism does. In our case it refers to the aim of securing national independence in its broadest sense.” (Gerry Adams; “The Politics of Irish Freedom” p.131) “Socialism includes and is a stage in advance of republicanism”.

This means that; “In Ireland until partition is got rid of and a united Ireland established, being genuinely left wing is to be an out - and - out republican”.

In other words national self-determination first and then socialism. This is because: “Connolly held that national revolution (was) the prerequisite of the socialist revolution.” (The politics of Irish Freedom p. 136) These quotes from the republican movement itself adequately and succinctly sum up the republican movement's programme. How does the socialist programme advocated by Irish Marxists stand in relation to it?

MARXIST PROGRAMME

we are obviously for democracy - democracy not just within society but between societies, between nations, Thedemand for equality and democracy means that we support the demand of oppressed nations to self-determination. We demand this because we recognise that just as black and white, men and women,

‘An Reabhloid - for a Workers Republic - Page 19 democracy so to must this be the case with the workers of different nations. They cannot unite on the basis of ignoring or minimising the privileges or oppression which exist between sections of the working class. Of course there are many so-called Marxists who call for “workers unity” or “a socialist federation of Britain and Ireland” but completely step over the hard fact that workers unity nationally and internationally can only come about froma previous fight for complete equality. Catholic and Protestant workers in the North cannot unite unless there is joint agreement to confront head-on the discrimination and sectarianism which overwhelmingly hits Catholic workers and the marginal privileges that Protestant workers have derived from this sectarianism. Workers unity on any other basis is a sham.

So it is with any “socialist federation of Britain and Ircland”. To raise this demand now is to cover existing inequalities and oppression in the present relationship between the two countries, National selfdetermination is the remedy for this unequal relationship. In fighting for this we will also seek the maximum unity of the workers of Ireland and Britain and ofthe whole of Europe - but then the unity will clearly be one of equals. Marxists therefore support the right of Ireland to selfdetermination but itis already clear that we do so not because it is an end in itself but because it isa means toagreater end - the unity of Irish and British workers.

Gerry Adams has said that; “The correct socialist attitude to Ircland must be an internationalist one”. True, but his is not a socialist attitude since he talks only of socialists being separatists. We are scparatists only to establish unity on a more lasting basis. The socialist attitude is internationalist but Gerry Adams approach shows that the republican attitude is not.

For him national independence is the objective where for us it is merely the means to one.

MARXISM

Marxists recognise another limit to democracy which republicans do not. There is no such thing asa party or programme which stands above classes and does not have a class character. There is no such thing as “democracy” in the abstract. In every struggle between the capitalist class and the working class socialists support the interests of the workers even at the expense of the “democratic rights” of the capitalists.

Is the demand for national self-determination a demand of the workers or of the capitalists? As faras the gramme of the working class, the demand that expresses the interests of the working classis the slogan; “Workers of the world Unite!”

The working class demand is to remove all obstacles to its unity in international relations and to demand the unity and solidarity of nations. In the coming referendum on Maastricht to be held in the 26counties the socialist attitude will be to oppose capitalist unification in favour of a “Socialist United States of Europe!” Clearly then the demand for national selfdetermination and independence is not a workers demand - it is and has always been regarded by the socialist movement asa demand of the bourgeoisie. It is a bourgeois demand even if it is not supported by the bourgeoisie, as itis notin Ireland. This is because its realisation is not only compatible with the survival of capitalism but politically it has only arisen as a result of the growth of capitalism;

FREEDOM

“Throughout the world, the period of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism has been linked up with national movements The national state is the form most suited to present-day conditions. (i.c. capitalist, civilised, economically progressive conditions, as distinguished from mediaeval, pre-capitalist etc.), it is the form in which the state can best fulfil its tasks (i-ethe task of securing the freest, widest and speeciest development of capitalism”. (Lenin, The right of Nations to self-determination).

The rise of national movements is associated with the fight to get rid of the feudal system with its multiplicity of principalities, customs barriers, legal systems, local currencies, and undemocratic distinctions and privileges associated with various ranks of society. It it place are unified states where each individual is regarded as equal before the law and which sees the subordination of religion to the state instead of the state to religion. This is why Irish nationalism and republicanism was born out the would-be capitalists of Belfast whosought separation from Britain, the removal of sectarian, discriminatory laws and the complete separation of a minority church from the state system. The united Irishmen and Irish nationalism conforms completely to the Marxist understanding of national movements and their role. Of course the United Irishmen were defeated and Ireland's bourgeoisie became either Unionist or “Home Rule”. Nationalism in its most ‘radical variant, republicanism, became the property of Ireland's middle classes who continued to combine

An Reabhloid - for a Workers Republic - Page 20 the search for an independent capitalist state with the winning of the other bourgeois freedoms which lack of independence helped to deny e.g. an end to religious discrimination. The fact that the demand for national self-determination is a bourgeois demand does not mean that the working class or socialists should not support it. We have already explained that socialism can only come through the struggle for and achievement of the fullest democracy. Socialists should lead the battle of democracy precisely to stop it being led by nationalists even of the most radical variety. Gerry Adams therefore gets it absolutely wrong when he says that; “the true socialist will be an active supporter of the republican character of the national independence movement”. (The Politics of Irish Freedom, p.135) since Gerry Adams says socialist demands which “have no possibility of being achieved until real independence is won” should not be adopted he is really saying that until the British are kicked out socialists should not be socialists (except in their heads perhaps) but should be republicans. In fact he says that; “Tn Ireland, until partition is got rid of and a united Ireland established, being genuinely left wing is to be an out-and -out republican”’ What ts most wrong with this is not that socialists should stop being socialists, something that put so baldly no doubt Gerry Adams would reject himself, but the idea that the struggle for national self-determination and democracy should “naturally” be led by republicans, indeed is a “republican” struggle.

“WIN THE BATTLE FOR DEMOCRACY"

Marxists reject this. As we have said national self-determination isa question of democracy. The socialist programme is notless democratic than the republican one, itis more democratic. Marx instructed socialists to “win the battle for democracy”, not surrender it to radical nationalists. It should hardly need said that socialists do not lead the battle for democracy and that republicans do, but in no sense do we accept this as natural and we openly say to republicans that we would rather it was the other way round because socialism is more democratic than republicanism.

Let's give some concrete Irish example to show this.

Republicans as well as socialists demand an end to sectarian privilege on the part of Protestant workers and for equality. Unless you are a socialist however you are offering Protestant workers nothing more than equality of misery. This leads some socialists to should not because Protestant workers cannotbe won to a socialism that shifts around awkward questions of democracy. But republicans have a problem as well. What is the point of asking Protestant workers to remove sectarian privilege if you cannot also place immediately on the agenda the fight for the only economic system that will destroy poverty, unemployment ete. - Le. socialism? For us the point of getting Protestant workers torenounce sectarian privileges is precisely in order to unite them with Catholic workers in a fight for socialism.

Two more topical examples. A recent report on the North’seducationsystem showed that Catholicschools were underfunded by the British government compared to state/Protestant schools. Sinn Fein has demanded greater funding of Catholic schools. Socialists do not support the biased allocation of educational resources, but we also do not support the state, even the imperialist state, handing citizen's money out to religious schools. Consistent democrats call for the separation of church and state, in schools, hospitalsand all state agencies. We demand this North and South. In the debate over funding for Catholic schools Tepublicans have refused to raise this basic democratic demand. The last example is no small one either. It affects over half the population. It has recently been highlighted by the opening of a Brook centre in Belfast whose aim among others is to give confidential sex advice and counselling to young people After months of silence Sinn Fein eventually expressed “support with reservations” butannounced again its policy of opposition to a women’s right to choose an abortion of an unwanted pregnancy. No-one should be in any doubt that the “right tochoose” isa fundamental democratic right all the more important in a majority Catholic country. The witchunt of a 14 year old rape victim shows that this is an issue that will continue to confrontrepublicansand that their policy of opposition to a women’s right to choose while supporting the nght of Irish women to go to Britain for abortion is just part of the same hypocrisy characteristic of the rest of Catholic Ireland. The fight for consistent democracy is in many ways no less difficult among Catholic workers than among Protestant workers.

Republicans believe that national democracy is the key toother freedoms, butas these examples show the links are not automatic and republicans themselves have failed fully to make them. They also believe that because Ireland suffers from national oppression nationalists should lead the fight against that oppression. Contrary to first appearances there is nothing automatic or logical about this at all. As we have shown the programme of socialism is more democratic than the most radical nationalism.

JOE CARTER.