Marxist Review: no. 1, October 1972

SUGIALISM

and the

RATIONA

QUESTION

Marxist Review is the theoretical journal cf the Revolutionary Marxist Group the Irish supporters of the Fourth International .

All comments and contributions which will be most welcome, should be sent to the Editor 58, Nth. Gt. Charles St. Dublin. Signed articles de not necessarily represent the views of the group.

MARKIST REVIEW

Theoretical Journal of the REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST GROW Ernest Mandel What is Trotskyism?, R.M.G. Document. Theses. on the National Ree ne Robert Dorn Permanent Revolution.

R.M.G. Dociment. Marxism and the National Question, James Conway. Trotsky on Ireland. ; ae HE The Labour movement delights in analysing and j is perpetually defining and re-defining its principles and objectives. The man or woman who has caught the spirtt of the Labour Movement, brings that spirit of analysis and definition into allhis or her public acts and expects at all tlmes to answer the call to define his or her position, JAMES CONNCLLY " WHAT IS OUR POLICY " WORKERS REPUBLIC. JAN,22 NOI6 .

a

EDITORIAL NOTE

ee ae ee The purpese of MARXIST REVIEW is to popularise the basic tenets of revolutionary marxism; to help encourage the use of scientific thought and contribute to the solution of fundamental problems fronting revolutionaries of every tendancy in Ireland teday.

Ag the reader will note, the recent issue deals mainly with the N&ticnal Questicn, and in future issues we intend pick cther inveresting and important subjects as the centre of our attention.

«WHAT 1S TROTSRVISM?

By Ernest Mandel (TSIS IS Tuk THAT OF A SPEGCH CY ERNEST MAIDEL, SECRETARY GF THE FOURTH INTER- NATIONAL, DELIVERED DURING A DEBATE WITH MOITTY JUMISTON, THE COMMUNIST PARTY of GREAT ERITAINS? Ci:TEF "EXPERT" ON TRUTSKYISH. TILE DEBATE WAS SIGNIFICAN.

Il THAT Tif STALINISTS HAVE BEEN FORCED TO DEBATE WITH A POLITICAL CURRENT WHICH THEY WAVE REPEATEDLY DECLARED TG LE DeAD AND IRRELEVANT).

The fact that Monty Jchnstene is here debating with me this evening on the problem of Trotskyism t day shovld in itself be considered evidence of what Trotskyism is nt. i amn-t ging to insult the intelligence of anyune present by saying that is is not counterrevolutionary or an agency vf fas¢gsm or ~ an agency “1 imperialism, sr any »f that nonsense. ir if-t.at were the case not only would this debate not take slace but many cther things witich have been happening in the world in the last few years would be inc umprehensible.

One thing Tretskyism is not is a defeated tendency in the international workers movement. It 1s nut a Menshevik-—tyne revisica-.f Marxism that has been crushed definitively, as was said in the S:viet dion in its fifteenth party congress in 1527; as was reneated by the unfortunate Nikita Sergeivitch Khrushchev at the twentieth party congress of the C.mmunist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956; as has been reneated sver and over again in innumerable publications under the control .f the stalinist bureaucracy. Because, if it were really a crushed, defeated, nonexistent, eliminated, Menshevik tendency, wny weuldanybody want t discuss with it? Why is Mont: Johnstone here debat— ing? Why is the Soviet bureaucracy after having crushed, destroyed, eliminated and vanquished this tendency, forty, thirty, twenty, and ten years ago, why are the spokesmen for these bureaverats t.day forced to write bovks, pamphlecs, and articles and keep coming back to this oreblem? Why have there been three er four new becks on ‘rotskyism published in the Soviet Union in tis last twelve months, if curs is a definitively defeated tendency” So I think that the first noint we ought to make this evening is to rerder historicil justice to the founder -f the Sed Army and t. the leader of the insurrection -f the .ctober revoluntion which initiated tha first victériocus working-class revoluticn in a whole country... On this ninetieth ainiversary of the birth .f Leon Trotsky, which coincides with the anniversay of the October revolution, the political movement he founded, the ideas he stoud fr, the programme he defended, live sstronger than ever in the world, There is today a vibrant youth movement; Thousands of young people are: caming t. Vrotskyism all cver the world, And that is the only reason Monty Johnst ne of the Commmist Party feels obliged to debate with us about ~rotskyism, that is the only reason why the S.viet bureaucracy has to put out a steady stream "nf speeches, palisilets, magazine articles and bovks on the subject of aretsk;.

Trotskyism t.day is mainly a y-uth movement, a movement of youth that is being built and expanded sm the five continents. For that very salte reason I am not going t- dwell in the least on the question that Monty Johnst ne is z_ing =

ts talk about quite a ist. What Trotsicy wrote or did-nut write ia 19.5, in 1512, in 1$17,; cr in 1816, For I want ts say irom the beginning that this is vretty irrelevant to the actualities of the comtemmorary revolutionary struggles Does amyone really think that 251,45. neonle vote for a Trntskyism Presidential canditate in France, does anyone really think that in Ceylon today a Trot—gkyist trade union leader leads tens of thousands of workers in big strikes does anyone really think that tens of thousands of people demonstrate benind banners which the whole of public opinion in Japan today calls Trotskyist, because cf what Trotsky wrote in 1907 cr 15127 The overwhelming majority of these people have not read what he wrote and are not interested in reading all that - this is a mistake on their vart, necause everybody should be interested in the history of the revolutionary ovement - but they rightly regard that as irrelevant to the main problem ynich we have tc understand and explain: What is the origin, what is the soot of the strength of world Trotslnyism today, why do thousands and thousands of people flock to its banner on a world scale, and why do the Soviet bureaucrats and Monty Johnstone, their British ssokesman, have to re-open a debate which they hoped had been finished with machine-gun bullets thirty or thirty-five years ago, in the peried of the infamous Moscow Trials?

I will give four basic reasons why the Trotskyist movement is stronger now than ever before; why thousands sf neonle are adhering to it throughout the world; why it has a bigger smsucrical, geographical and political .

axtension than ever before, even during the 1929s, while it was still a reniency inside the Communist parties and the Commmmist International.

The first reason has to do with a basic problem of the colonial revolution and the way forward for the underdeveloned, semicolonial countries. Stalinism and Stalinist parties, parties which call teluaselves Commmist, still gollew a Menshevik or semi-Menshevik policy. That is, they believe as the fa ssian Mensheviks believed, that because these countries are backward, because the industrial bourgeoisie has not yet come to political power, that the immediate strategic task for the working class and poor peasantry is some how to establish an alliance with this national bourgeoisie against imperialism and egainst feudal and semi-feudal forces. The ag or such an alliance would te to arrive at a coalition form of goverment - a “goverment of the four classes!’ as it was called in China from 1925.

to 1827 - a govermuent of the “National ~yont¥, or a regime of"National Democracy", as it was called in the new official programme of the Soviet Commmist Party. ; Experience has confirmed what Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution proclaimed as early as 1906, that there is no way out for amy underdeveloned colonial or semicolonial country along such a road; that any struggle that limits itself to fighting against rural feudal or semifeudal landlords, or foreign imperialism, while keeping the national bourgeoisie in »ower. whi le maintaining capitalist property relations intact, while refrainifg rom establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat allied to the poor peasantry, will inevitably leave these underdeweloped countries backward stagnating, exploited and suexploited by international & national capital- Such a policy will not be able to tear the millions populating these coun tries out of their age-old miseries. Experience has also taught a much mo re terrible lesson. Thousands and thousands of commmists in Brazil in 1964, in Iraq, in 1958, and 5 hundred thoudand Communists in Indonesia in 1965 had to pay with their lives for the illusion that it was possible,

a a A a eA SAS I desirable, or necessary to establish durable relationshins of coAlition & collaboration with bourgeois cr semibcurgecis pclitical forces. Such a su bordination & sacrifice of ind2»endaat mass struggle can cnly lead to cru shing defeat for the working class and the poor peasantry.

Trotskyism lives and grows, wins new members, attracts new tendencies and builds new parties in the underdeveloped ccuntries because it stands for this basic rule of revolution. There is nc possibility of acquiring reali national liberation, real indesendence from imperialism, without overthrowing the bourgeois class together with the agents of foreign imperialisa and the feudal and semifeudal landlords. There is no nossibility of liberating the people, peasants and workers, withcut establishing the dic tatorship cf the sroletariat allied with the nour peasantry, without crea ting a wrkers state. Only in those countries where this hanpened-China, Cuba, lliorth Vietnam, and it's happening now in Scuth Vietnamis there a way to social and economic progress. Wherever, through the responsability of the Commmist Parties following the Moscow line, which is Stalinist Menshevisa, taat has been prevented from happening, there have been defeats, misery, tears and blocdshed for the working peovle of those coun— tries. It is this contemporary reality, rather than quotations from 1607, 1917, en 1521, that has to be faced by atycne who wants to understand what is going on in this sector of the world revolution. Fer the Trotskyist move ment, for the revolutionary Marxists throughout the world, it was a mment cf great vindication when the leading idea cf the nermanent revolution-that the only read tc victory in a backward country is through a socialist reveluticn-— was taken cver by the Cuban revcluticnaries and proclaimed in the Second Declaration of Navan, after the first victoricus revolution in the Western Nenisnhere. This gave »reof that Leon Trotsky and the Fourth Internaticnal had been cne hundred ver cent cor rect in thkir strategic lins fur the mderdeveloned countries.

a ee re eee ten ph RSVOLUTIONARY RGAD The second reacn for the growth of Trotskyism on a world scale is that we stand ccitletely and uncenditicnally for the revolutionary road to socia lism in the industrializea imperialist countries as against the refurnist electoral road defended by the Cormmmist Parties in Western Bursze, Japan North America, Australia and lew Zealand. When we say that we follow the revoluticnary read, this dees not mean that we are wartisans of xutsclism or adventurism, that we think that a faw hundred yeczle here and a few hundred there can snatch power unexsectedly without anybody taking notice of it, in the advanced capitalist coumtries. There the bourgecisie revresents tretiendous powsr. it has political exmerience, it has the benefits of political tradition and sclitical continuity. Its rule over these countries does not depend simoly and sclaly wien its weanon of recression “its arsy and its police—but rather won the ideclogical and »clitical in fluence it still wields over a large wart of the xetty bourgeoisie and even aticong a part of the working class itsslf.

Gur clear and unccttsromising stand in favcr «f the revilutisnary read tc.

socialism essentially sivots arcund turee ncoints: Fisrtly, objective situations indesendent of the will and ecntrol cf any groun or party pericdically create prerevelutionary situaticus in industrialized, advanced countries. At these motents of revoluticnary mass upsurge these objective situations unavoidably lead t: larce-scale ticns of the working class such as general strikes and factory cecimaticns which cbvicusly go beyond the limits sf struggle for immediate ~ wage demands and working conditicns. The duty cf reveluticnary —arties

and groups representing threrevolutionary vanguard is to prepare themsel ves and the best working class militants to intervene during these hours days and weeks, for it is only through these periodic upsurges of the ma ss movement that the chance is presented to overthrow capitalist power.

You cannet overthrow capitalism gradually, you cannot abolish a bour geois army battalion by battalion, you cannot destroy the power of the bourgeoisie piece by piece. You can only accomplish these aims through the revolutionary mobilization of the msses, and revolutionary actions of this sort are not possible every day when “business as usual" prevails Revolutionary action is possible only during these prerevolutionary situ ations when the tension of the class relations is at its maximm and the class conflict is sharpest. A party, a vanguard and a class must be prepared to intervene at that juncture in a decisive manner in order to make a breakthrough toward the conquest fo power and a victorious socialist revolution. Secondly, if you want to develop a situation in which the working class wants to know what to do next, in which conditions for revolution are favorable, you must engage in prior propaganda, agitation, and action for transitional demands, especially for the key demand fer workers con trol of production, which crowns all other demands of the working class in its struggle for power in the industrialized cowmtries. To think that a working class which has been educated, day after day, month after month year after year, in nothing but immediate trade union demands and electcralpolitics will in some mystericus way suddenly become capable of revolu tionary consciousness and action in a revolutionary situation is to believe in magic or miracles.

Lenin said that the ABC of revolutionary policy and the duty cf a revolut ionary party is to conduct revolutionarg propaganda also in periods that are not yet revolutionary. Lenin said that this is precishty what makes the difference between a revoluticnmary and a reformist or centrist party.

Whén revolution drvgs break ont, many peopke smidenly discover their revo luticnary soul. But a revolutionary party has the constant duty to pronagandize for revolution even if the situation has not yet reachec the point of showdown betwean the classes. Its work in this respect can be an influential factor in acelerating revoluticnary consciousness.

Thirdly, we believe that the struggle for transitionnal Cemands, for those demands which cannot be incorporated or assictilated into the normal functioning of bourgeois society should mot be conducted solely by propagandistic means. Every opportunity should be taken to impel the working class inte Motion around such demands. They should be introducec into the ongoing daily struggle of the class by all avenues. Unless the workers acquire experience by fighting for these demands in partial struggles they will be unable te generalize their cutlock at the height of revolutionary intensity. Otherwise these demands will appear tw then as somthing that falls from the sky, that is imposed from without or advocated only by small minority groups I would like to ask Monty Johnstons how he squares the following quotqaticn from Lenin regarding the obligations cf a vanguard party with the course followed by the French Cotmmmist Party in May 1968. Lenin said: Will this situation last long; how ouch tore acute will it become? Will it lead tc revolution? This is scmething we do not know, and nobody can know. The answer can be orcvided cnly by the experience gained curing the development of revolutionary sentiment and the transition

to revoluticnary action by the advanced class, the — préletariat. There can be nc talk in this connecticn about “illusicns" or their repuciation, since no socialist has ever guaranteed that this war (and not the next one), that today!s revolutionary situation (4nd not tomorrow's) will procuce a revolution. What we are Ciscussing is the indisputable and funcamental duty cof all socialists-that of revealing to the masses the existence cf a revolutionary situation, explaining its scope and depth, arousing the proletariat's revolutionary conscicus ness and, revoluticnary determination, helping it to go over to revolutionary action, and forming, for that purpose, organisations suited to the revoluticnary situation. Just compare that quotation, which breathes the spirit of genuine Bolshevism, with the conduct of the Commmnist Parties of France, Italy, Greece, Belgium and other capitalist countries over the past twentyfive years( not tc go still further back to the prewar pericd), esnecially with the conduct of the French CP in May 1668, and you will understand both the fundamentally refornist character of these parties and why thousands of young rebels are achering to Trotskyism in these countries.

WOR ERS STATE

The third reason for the growth of Trotskyism today has to do with the crucial question of workers democracy. The main historical goal tc be attai ned in those countries that have already abolished capitalism is the instituticn of democratically centralized workers self-management in opposition to.the material privileges and the monopoly of political anc ecommic power wielced by the bureaucracy. The bureaucratic rulers are the cbject of hatred by thousands of youth, critically minded intellectuals, and advanced workers in these postcapitalist states. That was graphically evicenced during these few months in the Czechoslovakia of 1568 when these elements of the population had the chance tc speak cut, at least in part their real thoughts anc feelings.

The bureaucratic regimes in these countries are cone of the main reasons for the discrediting of the cause of socialism ih the industraalized West which deters mrmch larger nwabers of students, intellectuals, anc workers from cotting out wholeheartedly in favor of a socialist revpluticn anc communism. What I am referring tc is not a full-fledged sccialist society, that is to say, a society without any social differentiation, where commodity production and money relations have withered away. Such conditions cannot exist in any of the East European countries today and that is not what is invlved in our discussion of their political situaticn and problens.

What is both possible and urgently called for in the existing situation is what I call a political revolution, a set of changes in the superstructure of the system which would initiate cr fulfill the elementary demands of the Marxist and Leninist program on the nature of the dictatorshiy of the prole tariat, leading to the building of a socialist scciety. In none of the works by Marx and Engels will you find a single sentence, for example, which asserts that tha dictatorship of the proletariat means the monupoly of nower by a single party.

Nor will you find the slightest supnort for the abominable notion that the the dictatorshin of the »roletariat means the application cf a repressive censorship, not agains® nonexistent representatives of capitalism and landlorcism, but against the working class. These practices have been introduced anc implemented by Stalinism.

The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Kremlin bureaucracy not cnly violated “te sovereignity and independance of a small naticn and a fraternal and aluied workers state. It was equally criminal in cther respects.

ls identified the suppression of cemocartic rights such as freedom of expres son for workers, students, anc intellectuals, with the name cf commmmisn by tating away from the Czechoslovakian workers the rights they had regained setween January anc August 1568 to vote independently om resolutions, tc save then published in their trade union journals, to criticize the governcent if they cisaggeed with its policies and to criticize the managers of their factories. “ese were not ver# extensive rights anc they were a far cry from the full- “edged socialist democ. acy they were entitled ts and striving for. Lenin in &ezre_ancd Revolution says that under the dictatorship of proletariat the woxers should have a thousand-fcld more freecom cf self-expression and sei- organization than they enjceyed under bourgeois democracy.

pehertheless, even this elemetary right was taken away and hundreds of dousancs af soldiers were sent into Czechoslovak Socialist Republic for that grzose. That was a shateful disgrace. That is why we Trotskyists first have « reestablish what Marxism and Leninism really stand for, because the crimes $talinism have so distorded their true content in the minds of many workers socialist democaacy invelves far ture than the self-evident right cf the worser: to free expression without state censcrship cr penalties. Socialist Demosry teans the self-management cf the working class cn a cerwcratieally cen- +erhized basis. It means that the workers should run the factcries not cnly s¢ »ndividual anc senarate units, but the economy as a whole. This requires -3z2 subordimation cf the naticnal planning authorities to the congress of <rkers councils. It means that the mass of the working class actually exergeg the power and determines through its discussions and cecisicns how 4e annual national income shall be divided between the cconsurmtion and +e accumulation funds, that is, between what is used up and enjoyed for smediate needs, and what is set aside and reinvested for future growth.

~Aithout the possession and exercise wf such rights the working class dces net really rule, whatever complinents the official propagandists may offer tc aonsole it for its lack or loss cf power. It is because the Trotskyist program “st consistently advocates such democratic rule of the workers that it is yound to win more forces in the Soviet Unicn and East Eurone, where the underiring trends of development are more and more directed toward a political rewlution by the masses against the arbitrariness cf the bureaucratic autocracy.

THTERNATIONALISM

FINALLY, Trotskyism is most noteworthy today for its uncompromising internationalism. After August ISI4 and still more after Uctober ISI7, Lenin and the Bolsheviks set about to revive the principles and the instrument cf internationalism which had been trammled upon by the prowar and pro-imperalist social democratic leaders. One of the most bitter fruits of the anti-Marxist theory of socialism in one country, which Stalin originated and imposed on world Commmnism from 1924 cn, was the violaticn anc betrayal cf the international sclidarity cf the working-elass struggle. This flouting cf inter-

nationalism culminated in the scuttling of the Commnist Internaticnal by Stalin in 1943 as a favour to Churchill and Roosevelt.

| Now the leaders and followers of international Stalinism dre begining .to taste some more of these bitter fruits,which result from subordinating the welfare of the workers movement to the narrow and selfish dictates of the Kremlin bureaucracy. They see the appaling spectacle of the two largest workers states in the world at each others throats, and even hinting at the possibilities of hostilities between each cther. This situation has cone about not because either the Soviet or the Chinese masses willed it, but because it is a logical consegence cf the despicable: petty bourgeois nationalist yendencies and outlocks that guide the bureaucratic strata at the head of these countries today.

The Soviet leaders have gone so far as to- encourage and allow so-called commumist journalists to talk about "the yellow peril" and to depict the Chinese pecple as misled by a "new Genghis Khans" and as a"menace to civilisaticn". The fact that such utterly reactionary and racist utterances ~~ come from a government anc a party that still calls themselves communist shows the degree of degeneration to which these organisations have succumed, At the hight cf its power, Stalinism boasted cf the monclithic character of of the world Commmmist movement which was bound together by ideological terror and enforced conformity. Now all that is passed. The last Moscow conference of the "World Communist Parties" demonstrated how far cisintegr— ation has proceeded, There are hardly two Commmmist parties which have any measure of autcnomy today that think alike and nursue the same line.

They contend against cone another and harbour all scrts of divergent tendencies and factions. Ome can count up to fifteen different “Comumist" tendencies on a world scale. The Stalinists used to deride the Trotskyist movement in the past for being ridden by incessant facticnalism and splits. They are silent on this score nowadays - and for good reason! None of the splits among the Trotskyists has bean cmonarable to the gigantic fissures that have opened up in the internaticnal Communist movement and keep widening from year to year. Confronted with the tremendous centralized power of the innerialist counterrevolution in the world arena, the youth and the revolutionaries en all continents keenly feel the need for an equivalent centralization of their own forces. They cannot believe that the polycentrism and decentralization that characterize world Stalinism: - where the revoluticnary movement and the working class in each country is left to its cwn devices and no one is concerned with the international interests and aims of the struggle for socialism - is ideal. They cannot believe this because it runs counter to the most urgent needs of the struggle of the working masses and to the traditions of Marxism and Leninism.

They were movec to respond so powerfully te Che Guevara's famous appeal for "two, three, many Vietnams' because it corresponded to their inner most urge for an international coordination of their anticolcnialist, anti-imperialist, anticapitalist efforts. Che's final message was essentially a call for some central leadership for the world revelution.

This explains why the idea cf the Fourth International as a new revol— utionary working-class organization carrying on the best traditions of

a Marxism, which sc many dismissed as unreal and utopian, is capturing the mincs and stirring the imagination of thousands cf young people all over the globe. The socialist revolution cannct advance and certainly cannct triumph cn a world scale without the resurgence of the need for a new revolutionary international impressing itself on the conscicusness of sericus fighters for a new world: The international we want to build and are building will be centralized, but it will not be bureaucratically centralized. It was the bureaucratic centralism of the Stalinist tyne, that fake centralism which had nothing in commen with Lenin's conceptions vf organizing the working-class vanguard, which spawned the disintegrated anc . reacticnary tendencies at work in the world Communist mvenent tocay. History will prove that deman obstacle but the indispensable vehicle for elaborating a programme and implementing united action against the class eneny. these, then, are the four pillars of Trotskyism today: the theory and practice of the permanent revolution, the revolutionary road to sccialisn through working-class revolution fer socialist democracy in the Societ bloc and China, and proletarian internationalism. The fourth Internaticnal is a growing force on all of the continents because its fundamental ideas express the objective requirements of the world revolutionary process and carry on the ideas cf Leninism, cf sccialism and communism in cur epoch,

q —_— a ain pro ses on the . | twe Liy eu = rd] Dy National Question iz at The followin: Theses was sdooted by the 2G st its founding conference, feb. opr 1972). we the 4. he begis of soliticel questions is not to se found trzutolosically in ah the wey wen think, but in the wsy sen live. Thus the content of the notional ye question develops 2long with the social relsticns of production. The Asser= it tion of notions] unification nid gelf determinstion wos originelly ue rd = from the sourveoisie, in the epoch of progressive cenitelisn, where cousodity 22: sroduction strove to defeet feudolisn. Consodity production, by cefinition Pe: requires e acrket, Generelised com odity or ocuetion, cepitslisn, thus nece- Ed -iteted the unification of tist market ond its politice 1 consolidetion. To secure this is the sp BS task of the bourgeois revolution. Implicit in it 4" fa ack r “ tr EF is the solution of the «crarien problen wits cevitclism, lend, lebdour, power end themesns of adacts n beceme couwiodities. In feudalism, the socisl sur- fe plus is expropriated =nd consumed oy cless, ‘These socisl relations ust be * overthrown :nd the land secomes productive capitel - ownership is tus troansferred snd canitalist accumuletion is | allowed. De 2, In the esssult on feudelisa, the revolutionsry cless le 45 other oppressed of clesses since by itself it is too weak to chellenge the stete, The uneven tc develovment of cepitalisa Lescs to adveonced productive forces nenetr, ting @ ae feuiel stste - thus in Russia! in 1914 enterorises eunloying » “ver 1,000 or worzers cownrised 41.4°° of the industriel sector, the compere ‘ble figure in ov the US wes 17.0... 5 8 consequence a string working cless rises to ‘challenge oi the feudel state, ‘The position of the bourgeoisie is t.erefore we k, for to nz defect feudalism it requires the wort:in; cless vut wiere Cromwell could smash ic the .evellers, tie working class, vrovided it cen ~ain the susport of peesantry re Bt cen gussh the bourgeoisie. The latter, apprehending the dynenic of revolution re abrogetes its revoluticnsry role. ‘he proletcsrian, in achieving the t2sks of i: b.urceois proletcorien cen only consolidate them by asking the revulution per~ menent by =pssing directly on to the socieplist rev. lution. 6.

es 3. The Irish Nationel question must be seen in the context of coloniclism and SJ impericlisn - the low of uneven end combined a6 Re EnE oper.ting both he internally and externally to it. ‘The 1798 Rebellion merked the end of boury- ai eoisie es a revolutionery force. Its defeat ley in pert to the process which ie gave birth to it. Colonizlism ied cree ted a sectorian division within the le peasentry snd other claeses, wiich strengthened OSritish Rule. In the North pe Zast, the Ulster Custom preve 2iled hereby iaprovesents carried out by the we tenants benefitted them. There were lon, leases erented after the illiamite ee srs and these gave e measure of security. Whe rest of Irelend was in the scrip] ir of rac’: rent. Landlords often absent, screwed the peasentry leaving them the j Ve b=rest subsitence. This was enforced by 3ritish military coercion. ‘hus here te the netionel question was closely linked to l=nd znd to the destruction of the de feudsl institutions of oppression. th

iO al ig= Bsed ae eh amntry Pion te grip he ere the Since the peasantry is aot. > revolutionery clesa in itself leadership uust be provided wy snother cless. This the United Irishuen fziled to do. Popul:ticon ifowth end the ecnsequent nrescure on the icnad led to bitter competition between the frotestcais and Catholics, due to,the l:tter's eccevtence. of lower divin; ateudcrds,. The caste differentiction beceme institutionalised in the Toundins of the trenuge Lodte in 1795. Its recctionsry velue wes evorecisted by the rulinzs clege ine its supores :ion of the '98 retellion, thus further Stren thening the divisions.

~, .The United cpap en.» -d been Presbyteri-ns in the Vorth-,:st predowinsntly boursecis but with the bio you xd tion of tie urben srtisens. Coleniclisn which ned split the pessentry by. dif:erin-= ioné@ tenure, hed given. virth, throuch vhe develon ent of capitsliem, to sew clesses which threctened to si-sh it.

“he Ulster Gustom brd been cruciol to tie rise ef the linen industru. It hed permit'ec sufficient sccusul tion to allow = rural wnufscture to flourish.

it benefitted from tae narotected British RETeet as a teriff: free. sccess to it. iwaye constricting its expension wea the leck of credit fecilities, jolutesiock, bi aes eve. which illustrated the titfielties of copitelist secunul-tion, uniter coloni+l] concitions. Nevertheléss this development, surelLled ay the cotton. industry srovide sufficient elses besie for leunching f revolution against the Grit-sh occunction, With the eruschin, of the 'S6 the bourgeoisie us a whole renounced cuy reveluticasry role. ‘ne course cf yae Jrench revolution wos greotly disturbing te them cnd from then on tiey a confined their politic Ianits. *cLivity to reforn within jritish conztitionsi we 5 De The peascutry es @ class is stomised in reletion to production ond the ferket. fith the loss of bourcecis leadersiin enc, until, the Lotter »scrt of the 19th. century, without 2 wortting class one, the petseptry wes uncbie to ecauieve the tasks of the bourseois revolution, ihe basis of tue seething euscontent in the most of Ireland wes the systes of lend tenure. The destruction cf feulal institutions, «a2 tius elso the soluticn of the n-tionel question expresses the linits of the pesssnt movement, The consciousness of the sovesent jeined from the Uni ed irishmen but could not trascend its nation=1 bose, ie@s could not by itself ccieve es secislist.one., OUrceniset+ joncily, its forus were sinil, rly limited - they were conspiretorizl, es their militery function deusnded, but iaplicit in this wes the cbendenwent of tie politics! struggle. his is correctly illus:rsted by the fevelopuent of the

TRA.

6. Throughout the 19th century, the Morth-¢esr a intsined its cenitealist growth. his was illustre.ed in the growth of wenufecturing towns, the uost significant ef waich was Selfsst, .t the tine SE the Unicniits vopuletion hed been 20,000 by 1841 it wes 70,000 by 1861 it wes 119,000. The coning of steem power in 1825 spelt doom for domestic m*nufscture in its full form. The ¥aaine threw meny off the lend but the poese ite euigretion increcssed the wage levels of the wecvers, m-kin, stees vower core econonic. By 1659 Irelend surpessed +ngl2ad in the nuaber of spindles in linen senufecture, By 1866 there were over 10,000 power looms. These teaded to be concentrated in the Worth Bast’, by tha itiddle of the 19th century 1/3rd of the sills in Irelend were fs or deer Gelfzst, wiich eecounted for over + totel »sroduction. ‘Thus the orth s2st developed a thorough inlustrisl capitalism. Inetecd of wishine to concolidste the home m-rket the bourgeoisie in industry de-ended on the iuperislist markets of Sritsin. hie developed throug: the coloni:1 link during the rise of the linen beck, itself beosed on the consequences of colonislisn, = oy a -* 7a

“ith roel: rent predonin ting in Irelond the hone .Yket wos of dubious value, esueciclly considering the dominent form of l-nd tenture. This illustretes well the re-ction-ry ncoture of the imperislist stege of copitelisu, its disinterest in builcin,, o bslcneed structure for the econony. This, ¢lthoush the most odvenced stage of capitelisu wes to be found in the Worth gout, it wes not 2 procressive form ond the leyer of the veurgecisie bssed upon it could ot be exnected to even attempt the tesks of the bourgeois revolution.

ie 4th the rise of industriel conitalism the Cren,e Crder = naced snother ‘peo t leen beckwords. ven before the fecine tension especiplly in Delfest built up repidly between Frotestent ond C-tholic leyers of the working clese.

4835 uerked the beginnins of serious sect-ricn riots sud these procezded with oninous recul- rity. vert [rom the obvious (end continusl) short term cdaventege — im 190; dershi hers, h pol: conte: hice. tions polit Trist aced 3 iallybeen of 3 avlit workin: cless the Uren e Crider developed oan explicitly politicel side * function. The letter pert of the 19th cen ury witnessed the re-erlergence of aved the Irish bourgeoisie in »oliticel lesdership. Hoving defocted its landlord Bue @ section, it could sopee] to the peesontry en. thereby use this considerseble ir co: socinl force to Jevend concessions from Dritein. Such a. sovement (or rother, fered as will be shown, the plebien Republicen movenent thet threetened continuolly cs.

to seize the initistive from it) wes obviously antetonistic to the north-eestern ten 2: industriel leyer of the bourseoisie who required > sure Union with Hritein, ond end f wiose surplus velue wes ensured by sectsrian discrinin:tion thet would be = sep thresteaed by cn Irish Parliament in Dublin. Thus, the Cronge Crder becrne a tie li re-l weapon agoinst the developing procressive novenent continuing thereby, its end wi link with its sure resctiontry origins. Tris’ ge Lf: 8. The Sost-Fanine Irish notion=] bourseoisie wos uinly of the “sonboen" leyer (service -né distributive with some sell, ucinly «grieculturel besed nufecturer: Thus It menesed to utilise the asrsrian interest end (helped by the post 1070 decline subj in rurel property velues) even to sssuete it. It wes, es @ntislly, e compredor p te: cless based msinly on usury, there it wes industriel like its northern opposite kille numbers, it wes dependent on Sritein or its iuperiel scpiicts, It wee thoroughly fin refornist, interested only in consuwa7 ting ite power nolitice ly by schieving H E of: | iYome Rule’: its control of the (st present, British-run) strte mochine. It rreol wos Getholic sectorion: from 1882, tie Church pluyed en intesrel role in its to t politic:1 orgenis tion, :n@ in turn, this aid not encesr it to the Northern Sug Protestants. 3uch e ¢loss covld not carry out the tesks tracitionelly ©s o- ewhet cioted with “its revolution, In 1914, it secented bet only its liuited ein ormsl of ‘“ieme Rule“ but the sertition of its ccuntry.

Bhe: a1 Tha teske of the bourgeois revelution left over from the United Irishmen were neck i tokep up by the st:illed workers of tie towns, In on undeveloped agrerisn i. ~@ society, this leyer of te werking cless retained considereble strength snd 1971 confidence. However, without 2 conscious proleterist to stinul-te it, it could [oth not develop « consciousness in excess of t’oce cromoed by the bourgeoisie softer é#sngthi the Fenine.s Its demands were no sore tien tose thet would strentthen ite men- )Csthi bers. Politicelly, it veered botween the Dlsnquist terrorism of the Irish 2, cn Republicsn Erotherhood ond the reformisa of its aost srticul te and lo ical boursecis politics (the buildin; of Irish incustry by teriffs, ° mercontile m-rine, etc.) Dut he vent further; is conscious ain wes to strengthen Irish cecpitalisn. ecordinsly, on tue one hend, he ottecked the strikin), Dublin workers in 1913. Doth these facts contributed toworde clienstins his sup orters® tocli: into fenianinn,

1907 (cfter o series of folse sterts) 2 third ¢leisent e.peared for the ership of the Irish bourgeois revolution, This wes tust of the unslilled ers, meny of whom beran to be trouped «round Lerkin's ITGWU, But it wos .; h politicelly rew end socially stomised. This cen be seen with reference contenporcry Russie, ere the venguard of the working cless was eriployed fuse industrial fectories. This escisted t!e growth of revolutionsry orgentions cs the exverience of the prolet:rist wos o distinctly sociel one, ond politicol content of its econoviic strugsles coul2 be dewonstrated cleorly.

irish working class, wes without such industriel edvence - except in the fcec north east. Its vanzuerd wes euong the trensvort workers, e¢ less Be fislly-devcloped grouping that those in industry. The Irish working cless pth been unable te develop Leninist orcenis-tions.

eid 1cs@ ¢lsses were the peasants: themselves not only etomised, but i iced increcsinyly with the »rocess of the lan@ reforn. The Lerger persants @ ®ssocictedc incres ingly wi'h their forwer lendlor’s, prospering through ir co-ope stive creeueries., The sseller peosents (msinly in the west) Ds fered from problems of lenc hunger sn2 were less able to buy out their lrendly ts. .md over 911 wes the wethods used to buy out the latter: the cnnuity Stern ften of tenant purchese,originslly countervosed to the treditionel Yepubliceon ond poi for land rotionelisstion, heir heir to feucalism-coul2 only be ended e sepsrete Irish Porliement. -n2 t is in itself would only be the beginnink ) fac land astionclisotion of the Lonf Lesgue of 1879, though by 1914, this its fne wos weekened as a result of the British Lend cts. Until -fter 1916, Irish pecsentry os a whole, with the excention of some smell tenents in pe farm sreas, wes sotisfied to follow the ronmbeenmen ss it h-d since 1880, Thus in the ectual Irish bourseois revolution, no cless wes oble objectively subjectively to cchicve ths sims of such o struzele. Up to 1916 the leaderp tiereof wea headed by = comlition of the tiovesents of the skilled end billed workers. \fter Connolly's murder, his epigones led the subjectively min: class organisations out of the Jer of iIncevendence into the socialist - of building the workers' econoiic power witiin the politicel power of the geoisie. This left the netty bourgeoisie to .rthur Griffith end threouch +o the gombeen tien. Helved by the supsort of the peasantry which it goeined ough supvoerted agitation ez2inst ¢ongection, it could push the gonbeennen ewhst further tian they wished, but in prectice, it couldn't sain nore than oruisl parlienentory seperction: Soorstat Ziresnn insteod of Hunecn Rule.

Fe whe north east, the economically most sadvenced section of the Irish bourgeoisie re mec its beck finally and decisively on the Irish bourceois nationsl revolum. Cn the one houd, the cetivities in Belfest of arlin in 1907, Connolly 1917 ond the lesiters of the Selfest Generol strike in 1919 united Protestant ule Cetholic workers all Jetermined the Ulster Protestent bourgeoisie to ter engthen the secterien divisions in its workin: clsss. Cn the other hend, eo— C-tholic n-ture of the bourgeois lesCership of the Irish n ional ravolu- , “nd its cewend for teriffs, however, formzl zeve more iuwedi.te recsons the Protestent caxitelists founling of = sencrate stcte of liorShern Ireland, seant the institions!ising of the division in the working eloss (through gy of tie populetion 2s Cotholic: = perm:nent but futile threcst, The mse Locge become en integral port of the ruling »v-rty of the aew stcte, Fters ther substanticting its ideolosy.

oe

Similerly, the subsequent .n;lo-Irish Tra ty 2nd tie nilitery suppression of he opyosition to it signalled the gonbeen ten's victory, not over the British but over the vigorous, though lesiderless, Irish working class ond pescentry.

The jseorstat Sireann wao gore than the 1914 settlenent, but itself, only euourh to split the Republicons cnough to defect the irreconciloble wing thereof (end then econonicelly the trede unions) without trouble - first. ‘The Governnent ¢ sa0rstet sireenn accepted os Free Trade policy, in contrediction to the treditionsl zits of the petty bourgeois ertisons whose movenent its founders hod been sble to subvert. Notional unity lsy far beyond it = And, es ever the gonbeen mens’ sovernzient lesnt heavily on the Catholic Church, t:us further justifying Orenge denuncistions of “Rome Rule", ..nd the workers who clone coul’ fulfill the tasks of astionel and ogrericn revolutions were divided end deuoralised. 10, The world capitelist depression of the thirties. Ceveloped the contradiction within Irish society. The working cless could not teke advantece of then, The victory of the Finnnea Foil Perty in 1932 wes besed on the socicl unrest enong the snoll peasants, The victorious Prrty implemented the economic policies of the young Griffity, es the Cosgreve Perty (Cusienn ne n@sel) hed failed totally to do, The ending of the lend ennuities to aritein bergen protectionist ph-se in Ireland's tenufecture.

The oltvenced capitelist leyers retali-tec by attempting e union with fescisu as it wes precisely thiseection which structurally required access to the Dritish tiorket. O'Duffy's Slueshirts were drewn up eczinst the Republicans, os the cles.es they represented were. Lesdership ascin provéd the erucicl weekness, ihe IR failed to trenscend its oilitery structure and develop politically. ‘Thus between tie antogonist clesses De Velere wes allowed to crowl on to the Bonepartist throme. The recdicol renublicen wing was pleyed egeinst C'Suffy. The differsion which wes achieved tended to blunt the ¢less conflict, Sonaportism cen only exist in times of sherp class conflict and thus the st7ge is soon reached when the norty in power, h=ving schieved a Wecsure of stavility must then choose its class base, De Valera wes true to the trecition of Bonspsrtist grave digvers, The Coal-Cattle Pect was signed in 1955. in Belfast, tie gononic crisis coubined with zsovernment erregance, nonaged to texporarily unite the worl.ing cless. IRA end t's fought shoulder to shoulder defending Shenkill end Fells essinst the forces of the crown. Wh-t should be noted is not the breaking of the ireuge ideology, but its onsging resilience.

There were sectarien riots in 1955, directly induced by the Stormont Government.

The profougd ccononic ond social crises hod revesled thotthe lend cna n-tion-1 questions were still conerote, The.f-ilure of ony visable revolutionery lesdership to materialise hed allowed senublicanism to be channeled into the Fionne Feil Party. Its strength, however, con be geuged by the defe-t of the Blueshirts, cven though de Volere conceded, In the lorth, the survival of the state dllustreted the durobility of the secterion institutions end thus of the ideology 11. The IRA compsign 1956-62 illustrotes the linitotions of o purely military orgenication. The relztion between the political conscivusness of its cless bose cnc thé militery structure is an erbitrery ond non dislectical ones The Republican ceoucunity community wes not mobilised end defest wes the only con- ¢lusion, 7 Te. =o! ere sol The enc thi he

SES

col eh: fir ric Lr The bri Bet Ops thi 44, not ret i, 2 noe whi

PTL

The nen Fpl Bs upo

n of ditish Crys énourh (end lent ¢ Pedi od er ye Fs | fe eitctio The Hong es of ally i Se a] ao per be be. nnent. arp bagt hl derhake istate Golocy rad iy The thoory of the IRA wee b-sicolly on ideclist diversion of.the acterielist tc Lleetic = the fish were Breaded on nish pround, In revoluticn ry theory, aiLit ry tsctics only override noliticcl @dircctives when the stoge of civil Wer is re ched, It is not nilitery action which brings sbout the civil wor, but the politiesl strutsle which ciffarentistes the cless structure into its antagonittic sections, Cnly in tive tine of sharp.closs strugzle does the Wilitery perspective prevsil, =nd cvyen then it is within strict politicsl linits, In controdicting thi- the IRA illustrated its petty bourgeois (per sent ond ortisen) consviretoriel origins.

12, The originel acterisl base for the netinsl question, lend, hed been eroded in pecordonce to the lew of ecpitclist secumul tion. There bee been a_drastic snc continuing fell in the number euploysd in the cgricultural section’, Tho solution of the lend question wes foun! in sossive enicrotion from the Lend, There hos been © progressive incresse in the weight of the incustriel sector onc thus of the proletecrict, especislly in the 26 counties. whe conclusion fm this is thet the besis of the n-tionol question is no longer to be found in the lend. In the seme wey, wit! the development ofucrpitelism, indeve ent skilled workers, from whom the Republicen Moveneat drew its most ective uembers wos stecdily driven out of business end proleterionised, This wes 5 quentotive rither then 2 qurlitetive vrocess, further, tis wistble basis for old Republiecn belicfs = the continued survivel of cn indesentent Irish Industrious ecpitclism was elinin ted the development of t'ct copit lism in proctice cnt its inability to trow ce on. indenenden: forces. 73. ‘Tho @ecl-r-tion in 1965 of Free Urrode between the 26 counties .cnd Britcin (efter 10 yeors of “open house" te foreign industries) m-rked the buricl of "“npogressive e>pitelisn, nd ite frilure to resist iopericzlism. The 26 counties hice been wsimiloted within the Jritish economic structure end its chcorocter is of neo coloniclisn, sntry. into the Common iicrket. will see the further ceclins of Irish ticnufreture. ny contre] over tho economy thirt the rich bourgeois hos will inere*sinsly be surrendered to internztioncl erpital, irvedy Free Trode hos helped tewrrds lorge redundsnecies cud high uneiiployuent The troditionel renedy of eciigrstion hen beén restricted by the rccestion’ in the Eritish economy. The Sritis: bourgecisie therefure wis: to-consummcte the bourgeois revolution in Irelonc by introducing the ceioerstic.. norms. of the Orsote Order ond prevented in the e riy 20th ccatury. The inplenentotion: of this would ensure the first oper-tion of consercicl. relotionss 14, The bourgeois demotrstic de:on’s of the Civil Jichts ! evenent were met, net with concessions, but with the violence of tie dote. The notional question returaen forcefully to the politicol sceno with the C-thelie section of tho N.Irelcnd working closs niliteatly Nepublicen., The Northern ruling closes hes no Lloimer chy etononic ned ef the ittserinlist morket of Britein. The. sectors “eas reqnuiced this ct the beginnins of the century icve dec ined substcnticlly ani the tcia, developaint hee been in the sttrection of intern‘: tioncl. eonitel, The intertst of th: Pulin: ¢l-sa tins ciss in Cawecrc:cy. dowever,, the govern= ment of MN, Irelend, iteelf is ci expression of soctzricnism in ite constitutionclising of the Cringe Order. 4. thorouchly recction-ry structure is tous criled upon to Uniertcke progressive treks, i.e. the grentvins of democrccy.

The dunkers of Gernmeny were instrumentel in the develonnent of conitealisn thus trenscending the contrediction between feulcslisn 2nd copitelisnm, f[lowever, the oncslogy is lost in the cxec of Ireland, There if no prosressive capitclisa, end there ere ne feudsl relstionc te bresk = the axisting sociscl reletions are thoroughly cepitelist. Thus the tock o. the ruling cl7sa is eo purely political one. But to dismoentle the state of Northern Ireland, which the renovel of the Creuge Urder from the institution would cuount to, would to the ideology upon which they rule. Seing determined, the Protestent leyers of the NH. Irelond working closo exists in 2 priviloced position vis « vie-the Cothelic l-yers, Tuis is the concrete expression of tha Oren e ideclosy. The forces of >rotucti n, slow es they hare noved, ‘have outstripped the suger structure. It wos the prinit tive response of the strte to the Civil Rights cgitction which insured its ese-lction to corded struggie. The TRA was positioned within the Cotholic. lz=yers. of the workin clceos, This strencthened the (ronge ideolory in 26 .uch 2s ib, mode it explicit. The cropnies were to lice cown, Thus tie rulin; cleas of I, Irelsnud -ad its usnipul-tor, Jritish Imperiolisn were IPsced with the choice = either smesh the b-sis of stcte by exorcising the Cronge Order or suppress the Cotholic lryers on! then reform, There hes been on historicsl tendency for the tronge Lodge to casune a dynamic of its own. If the bourgeoisie sbdicste control the conditions would f-vour vory strong recetion, ith the Brit’ sh -ymy being incre sin ly used os 2 political wespon of Stormont the choice taken has becone clecr, Sither involves a controciction: the «zotive behind cny politics] sction of the iritish is to ensure cless stability, ond both the courses onen to it roquire 2: powerful me military involvement, 15. (9) The incompleteness of the bourgeois revolution hos led to politicsl contredictions which re bscel upon the n-tionsl question, (b) iictionel unity, the introduction of bourgeois=cenocrotic nore require the sueshing of the Gronve ideology, which is instition:-lised in the Northern Gtcte, cond (though this uty be leso of ¢ tesk) of destroying the confesnionsl noture of the 26 County RNenublic, (¢) The only close conable of this is the wo king closs ss noither section of the Irish bourgeoisie is ceptable of mobilicing sufficient force without contradicting the closs interest motiv-ting it, (a) The socislist revelution e-nnot levelop without the Protestont lcoyers of the working closs, but its inclusion first requires the festructicon of its ideolory. : (e) As pert of the tsk the Cotholic sectorisnisa of the 26 County Republic must be exposed end denounced st gvery turn. This is porticuleorly necess ry in thst there it 3 resl denger thot 25 the notionol atruggle dcvelops the bourreoisie of the Republic will try to divert it into introverted aAenophobic and Catholic sectariscn lines, 16, Our togks therefore sre to extend politicsl ond astionel solidsrity to those forces whith cre ottenpting to crush the Stormont stete, This is sost vigorously undertoken by the Provisional Lit, This orgsnaisction p rticul rly suffers from the historicel] linitations of the petty bourgeois conspirstori:l Eroups Th in

It is essenticlly non-politioal - which eons thst is is open to influence from non-Socizlist, or even onti-Sociclist forces. Its linitstions sre shown by its opposition to sureeding the nstionel struggle into the 26 Counties, as exemplified most concretely by its =c¢tion (or rother, in-ction) in the Republic curing the weck -fter the Derry ouriterc, Gorcinor Place is ‘ore cerrect on’ the’ oll-Irish n-ture “of the etruscle, byt its tencency is to depead on the seoceful struetle = north 2nd south, This is shown moat glerdngly in Morthdérn Irel-tnd for waich the United Tristinzn is still cslling on Sritish Imperiobism to impletient > Sill of Rights, The politicel persvective of both wings of the Republicon Movement is bound to l--c into - blind alley. (i) (The dliusions ofthe Provo lesdership in ficnno Foil seni ticir.refugsl to link the struggle North ent douth, {ii}. The Reforuist politics of the Cfficiorl, Leedership ms ‘expressed in their strves ticory, unicruines the b sis for » victoricus solution to the a tioncl* cucstion Tt wust be politicelly on) seciclly deepened onc tede totel. The Six County stotelet, must be surshed ond the strugzle linked north, cnd s uth in fcee of eriuge oppositions 4 i Therefore we should supiort; the Civil 2esistonce Comupeien in Herthern Irélond in tortnern Ireland insofor es it ig:s- ] (2) boesed on the lenocrotic street cotoitteés of the uctionslist comaumity; (b) becked by the nilitent Esvin Street Sepublicens; (c) b cked elso by the socislist People's Denocracy: (This 2ves net exclude our supyort for the prouressive struggles of other froups puch’ oe TICK, VICTERY VO ‘Tihs! SAIC STRUGGLE = iSOLIDARITY Ith THE IRA —— a a SLASH Tay Of HGR Se Te pardetreprandrclr Fe Sr Sik ae SPR DD TEE STRUGGLE | NORTE! 0p J. UTe hteidica ode du Rhaghte: | tae Bae LC me FCH 2, oo LAR. SOCTAL TST E

FCA. JGRLD 300 L313

sae ce mee a

GF. -BURGPY

eed (Note: It mey seem o bit ebstract just saying thrt the working cl-ss is the only class cepeble of thieving the tosks of the bourgeois revclution, Unfortunotely,.tuere is little wore concrete to soy due to the politiccl development. of the cless. Its strongest (thouzh only prrticl) expression is in the Nepublicon J.ovesent. The Provos oper-te in > politicol vocuun and tie "Stickies" accept reform content to sllow the bourgeois deuocrats to power. on the becks of workers; Thus the orientstion to the Nationel ‘luestion.is precisely to ad-velop the politico] ccnsciousness of the working class, to cttenpt to drow the strugsle from its present blind flley. In the 6 Counties it is of vital importance, while in the 26 Counties = much fiore brocd jecul-r Secislist,opprosach is likely to be nore successful. Nesdless te say the conclusions will be the sane.

Permanent Revolution fo make the proletarian revolution one needs the revolutionary party, but equally, the purpose of such a party is to make the revolution. To oppose the two tasks as is done by on the one hand, the sectarians, and on the other, the hard-line Castroites, is, in itself, wrong. The party is strenathened by envclvement in revolution and, more importantly, the revolution itself is likely to be carried td success only by the party.

These truisms probably accepted by all sections of the Irish left that have pretensions to being followers of Lenin- from the BICO to tendencies in Sinn Fein(Gardiner Place). But it is the question of how to interpret this idea in practice that divides these groupings. All are agreed that the revoluticnary party must base itself on something called "Dialectical Materialism" but what this mans an revolutionary practice, is a ause for dissensicn.

The Revolutionary Marxist Group is a Trotskyist group. As such it holds that Dialectical Materialism finds its expression in the strategy cf Permanent Revolution and that accordingly, the organization to carry it out is a party of international revolution. Against it, on the one hand are those whe insist, dogmatically, that the revolution will be in "two, cistinct stages"(cr, cften, more than two stages). On the other hand are the ultra-left economists who insist, equally dogmatically, on a "One Stage" theory of struggle on purely proletarian issues, leaving the tasks asscciated with the bourgecis revolution to the bourgecisie!

As against these, the Permanent Revolution is less easy to formulate- which is why so many have failed tc carry it cut. Its basic tenet is not so much to ignore the stages as to avoid being hypnotized by them. Its practitioner insists ob utilising the energies of all classes and of activists in all causes that can help the proletariat towards state power, but, at the sane time, he never forgets that the purpose of the exercise is that the proletariat take this state power. In its turn this seizure of power must be no less than a step towards the world-wide classless stateless society. Such a reccgnition means a constant refusal to allow the given situation to consclidate, except where it cannot be avoided cr where few developments towards a revoluticnary situation. As its title implies,, Permanent or, more correctly, uninterrupted Revoluticn means working to establish and maintain a revolutionary situation.

However, this is rather different from the Stalinites'slander that it means seeing revolutionary situations where there are none. The Trotskyist knows well enough Lenin's definition of such a situation: one in which the mass ef the people want a change and in which the government cannot continue in the same way. However, unlike the Stalinite, he turns his energies to help achieve this desirable pusiticn, wilike the Stalinite, he uses every opportunity towards this(as Lenin pointed cut the very bourgecis case cf the wrongfully condemned Captain Dreyfus was one such), and, unlike the Stalinite, he struggles to force through the revolution "in permanence"tc the end. But all this is still, very schematic. To understand! the Permanent Revoluticn, it is mecessary to relate its operation-or the failure t. operate it- to the concrete historical situaticnS in which its practiticners (cr betrayers) found themselves.

a —————————e es

HISTORICAL ORIGINS

As a concept it dates back to the Communist Manifesto. However it was inherent in the situations of bourgeois revolution going back to the Reformation. In 1536, the Reformers tock power in the German diocese of Munster. However, it scon became clear that the situation resulting was not to be stabilised as it had been elsewhere in Germany. The Anabaptist artisans rose up after the Luthe an bourgeoisie, seized control and proclaimed the Kingdon of Christ on Earth. This wes quite different from previous peasant-based risings. These were limited in taeir aims either to bourgeois eee Ane ending, or reduction, of Feudal tues, etc.) or to a return to a previous Golden Age. The workers of Munster spoke for the future and were i pot ee more ferociously than the revolting peasants, when their rising failed. Of course, it is not necessary to explain why it had to fail, or why such succeeding precursors cof Permanent Fevolution as the Levellers struggle in the British bourgeois revolution or Jacques Roux cr Gracchus Baboeuf's struggles in that of France had to fail.

it is encugh to say that each of these represents a development in the | consciousness of the revolutionaries concerned from Protestant mysticism co. petty pacha Socialist nationalism. Again, it is worth noticing ancther strand of the theory in embryo; all these outbursts were part of international proletarian struggles.

A‘cor Baboeuf the decisive revoluticnary role, aided by the growth cf the proletariat mcved tc that class, and, with it, along with the formmlaticn cf Malectical Materialism, went the formulation of the stratezy of Permanent fevelution. In each case, the criginal exponents were Karl Marx & Friedrich ingels. tn section IV of their Manifesto of the Commmist Party,the first Conmmmist thectiticians present briefly the basics of the strategy. There are, firstly, the working of the proletariat for the bourgeois -revoluticn as an entity independant and critical of the revolutionary bourgeoisie and purely as a neans of building up their own strength vis-a-vis that bourgeoisie for their own, proletarian, revolution. Secondly, there is the international aim of world revolution that is to be achieved through the victory of the revoluticn, in this case, in Germany.

Of course, the Comaunist Manifesto was written in a revolutionary situation that proved to be abortive. On the one hand the German priletariat(the mst developed on the European sub-continent at the time) was still not developed encugh to take the lead in the struggle for state power. On the cther hand, it was long encugh for its bourgeoisie to avoid fighting tod actively for sole state power and to compromise in its struggle with the landlord class against which it was supposed to fight. On this basis, and helped by an eoxno mic boom, reaction was able to establish itself firmly.

However, before its strength had been made clear, Marx & Engels expanded and developed the strategic theory of Permanent Revolution in their irst Address Centr written in March, 1850, This document was, of course, a call to erms ina struggle that was not te: be imiediately- joined. Nonothchesa, 66 ydars later Beriedrich Engels was to commend it as a guide to action "on the occasion of the next European upheaval now due."

The First Address( the Second was, by the way, merely a more detailed account of the international situation) was not simply written at the end of a period

of bourgeois revolution. It was written after the revolution had achieved its shief aim; the bourgeoisie held state power. On the other hand, it was not able to do anything with it(though, as Bismark was to show, it could still do more thin similar bourgecisies in the era of the "Highest stage of Capitalism"). Accordingly the tasks associated with the bourgecis revolution were taken up by a petty-bourgecis opposition to the successful bourgeoisie. This “Democratic Party" gained some support among the morebackward workers and sought to gain mere support by the offer cf reforms in working class conditions. Thus it hoped to cause the class to desert and avoid the Communist League. This tendency was complemented by a Syndicalist-Economist movement under cne Stephan Born, which concent#zated mainly cn economic issues and trade union crganization. While Born's movement was smashed, after 1850, his activities had and helped weaken the German Workers vis-a-vis the "Demccratic Party". Thus, the tendencies in and of the working-class against which Marxism has always been opposed had akready appeared. Thus, too, the First Address is, in part, the description cf the alternative strategy to thcse of the petty-bourgecis tendencies.

This strategy consists firstly in simply maintaining intact an alternative politival and military leadership cf the working-class during the petty-bcurgevis denceratic stage of the revolution. Secondly it consists in that leader ship preventing the victors of that part of the struggle from consolidating their power against the workers. Tc tlt extent, the workers'leaders cust igncre all petty-bcurgecis appeals for unity and assert their separate indentity and the extreme actions and specific, separate demands of their class.

They must put themselves one jump ahead cf the petty-bourgecisie democrats (no consideration here of the cry that they might isolate themselves from the workers). And, finally, they might antivgipate the aid given their cause by a French proletarian revolution and act, accordingly, as part of an European strugele. The work concludes with ‘the actual words cf a battle cry for the League, "The Permanent Revolutioni"™ The strategy of Permanent Revolution as seen by Marx & Engels is significant, more generally, for wo things: it is, in the literal sense cf the word,.a strategy of two stages(or, indeed, three; before, during and after the petty bourgeois revolution). But the point is that it refers tc these stages acccrding to their objective nature, rather than according tc the tasks set themsel ves by the petty bourgecis revolutionaries. For the Central Cormittee cf the Communist League, the petty bourgeois seizure of state power was simply to be related to the seizure of state power by the workers, Whether the petty bourgeois Democrats ever, actually, carried out any of their proposals was nct sc much unlikely as irrelevant. The workers were, basically, not interested in the petty bourgecis revolatien., except insofar as it weakened the political and social order to help them to power. : It is partucularly important to notice this for one reason, the development pictted for the Permanent Revoluticn in Germany was very like that actually carried cut by the process in Russia, 67 years later.

But, in the meantine, the revolutionary promise that the Communist League had been in March, 1850 was wiped cut by the objective facts befcre the year was out. The League split between the Marxists and the Ultra-Leftists who accepted the Utcpian beliefs of the petty bourgecis revolutionaries in the revoluticna-

ry possibilities of the situation, In two years both factions had been liquidated, 7 For more than 50 years, there was little development of the strategy of Permanent Revolution beyond the framework described by Marx & Engels. This was not because the period was uneventful. On the contrary, it saw the rise and fall of the First Internaticnal and the rise of the Second. It saw the Paris Commune, or the World?

s first working class government. It saw the building of several industrial sta-tes of mass working-class parties paying lip-service to Marxist politics. It saw in ether countries smaller parties paying such lip-service. The two last points deserve more mention.

VWnile Marxism affected the proletariat of many lands, it was misunderstood by the their leaders in many cases. In particular,the strategy cf Permanent Revolution was confused by those who might be expected, on their claims, tc understand it. In Germany,the Sccial Democratic Party was founded in 1875 by a fusion of the actual Marxists with the group founded by Ferdinand Lassalle. Lasselle had understood the strategy so little that he was prepared to offer his services an¢ those of his followers to the right-wing bourgeois Chancellor of Prussia, otto von Bismarck. While this tendency was attacked by the Marxists, there was 3 long period of persecution, followed by one of consolidation and legal gctivity all within the context of the relatively peaceful expansion of the sew German imperialism. This lead many Social Democrats to doubt the need for seyoluticn ,let alone Permanent Revolution.

_RELAND AND CONNOLLY.

imong the small, non-industerial, where Marxism appeared on a relatively small scale, was Ireland. Marx and Engels had given critical support to the Fenians and had backed the struggle of the Irish for self-determination and independence, tanc reform and tariffs. However, they did not believe that any Revolution could wor« in Ireland until Britain had been forced, either by constitutional means, or br embarrassment during an imperialist war, to surrender to its colony some form eo: self-government. Permanent Revolution certainly could not be carried out, either, until the peasants had been emancipated.

jut, towards the end of Engel‘'s life, the conditions for Socialism in Ireland began so appear more hopeful. The growth of foreign competition in agricultural goods reduced the value of land and justified the state's subsidiaries of the peasant's purvaase of his own land. The Irish bourgeoisie interpreted self-government as iyone Rule" (for the control of government patronage in Ireland). The Revolutioary Netionalist Fenian Movement (always an organisation of the skilled workers) began «9 split, some of its members drifting into Socialism. In 1896 James Connolly set up his Irish Socialist Republican Party and began the struggle against the bourgeois sencencies in the Irish working-class. In practice, he put his tiny group at the nead of nationalist agitations such as that against the Jubilee of "The Famine Queen’ Victoria, and that commemorating the national bourgeois rising of the United Irishmen in 1898. The undeveloped nature of the Irish working-class enabled the bourg- 2ois politicians to outflank him after 1900 and he emigrated in 1903. However, the development of the industrial organisation of unskilled labour gave him a basis ‘rom which he could develop his strategy and he returned in 1910, His strategy is important because he was one of the first to realise that not only would the workers be unwise to allow the capitalists to carry cut the tasks associated with their evolution, but that such tasks could no longer be carried out by the capitalists, in the period of developing imperialism,

For, while the development-of the Working Class Movement had proceeded, sco too had that of the capitalism, The bourgeoisie became increasingly cosmopolitan and, increasingly contracted. Industrial and finance capital began to merge, with finance capital taking the dominant role. In this way, the remaining progressive functions of the industrial capitalists and their parties were eliminated the petty bourgeoisie became less able to carry out progressive tasks by themselves, As against this, there was a general growth of the proletariat both in numbers and in consciousness and, outside Europe the growth of national feeling against the exploitation stimulated by the new, imperialist, trusts. The bourgeoisie could mo longer play a progressive role in practice. Its principal tasks had to be taken over by the workers, This was particulary true of Russia, where the contradictions of capitalism in its imperialist form were more extreme than elsewhere. Industry had been established over a smal] part cf the country, but it had developed to a higher technical degree than elsewhere, a larger proportion of Russian industries employed over 1,000 workers than in other countries, At the same time, the bourgeoisie that presided cver this development was weak, unable to stand up by itself either to the landlords and international cartels on the cne hand or to ifg own workers on the other. Thus absolutism still dominated and the serfs were liberated only on terms satisfactory to the landlords. The bourgeois revolution and its tasks had yet to be achieved, The bourgecisie was unable to carry them out.

Yet the proletariat was stronger and better disciplined than in the more advanced capitalist states. In these circumstances, a Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, affiliated tc the Second International was formed in 1898, It soon divided along the lines previously distinguished: between the Marxists no aimed at creating a vanguard party to seize state powey, and the Economists, cr Mensheviks, with their emphasis on the economic struggle of the workers as the means of raising the latter's consciousness. These facts mst be kept in mind when cansidering the development of thecry on the subject of Permanent Revolution. It has suited the interests of Lenin epigones to portray his writings at the time of the defeated Russian democratic revolution of 1905 as being directed against Trotsky?’s perfection of the strategy. The facts are rather different. In Lenin's Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Demccratic Revolution, Trogsky is mentioned only twice: in foctnotes added after the event.

The brunt of the attack falls on the minority (Menshevik) wing of the RSDCP in general and, in particular on its prominent ideclczist A Martynov (Incidentally, Martyncv became subsequently, and after service in one of the counter-revolutionary governments of the Russian Civil War, a loyal follower of J V Stalin). As a result of their econonmism and their downgrading of the political struggle, Mensheviks had cormitted themselves to accepting the claims of the Liberal bourgeoisie as to its ability to achieve the full democratic programme associated with its revolution.

As a result, they took an abstentionist line towards the state power that would be needed to carry out such reforns,

THE TACTICS OF THE RU REVOLUTIO

In reply to this attitude, Lenin wrote his Two Tactics. This is a pamphlet that requires the Marxist technique in reading it. It is a positive'fools gold nine of quotations to be torn from their context in the use of incorrect ideologists Perhaps more than anything else, Lenin wrote, it has to be read as a whole, its parts related to each other and to the totality. In particular, "The Resolution on a Provisional Revolutionary Government" towards the defence of which Lenin directs most of the pamphlet cannot be understood properly without his analysis of the situation in which it was passed and his explanation of what it means,

to Sore in the =] ition facts cratic nt. tn Yy donary result to ution. Hd Sional government. The Resoluticn is to the effect that, to achieve the aims of the democratic revolution, a revolutionary provisional government will have to be established.

Social democratg night hold office under such a Government, although under the strict control of their Pdrty. In any case, such participation would be sclely for the purpose of obtaining all reforms of the democratic revoluticn. This might seem to be a revision of Marx and Engels’ Address, But it is based on Lenin's class analysis: his recognition of the treachery of the bourgesis leaders of the revolution arising out of their class position. Accordingly only the proletariat and the rural petty bourgeoisie (the peasantry) can carry cut the revolution's programme, For Lenin, the revolution under the leadership of the objectively democratic classes cannot go beyond the minimum reforms of the Social Democratic programme.

I¢ cannct be a Socialist Revolution. However, he does point out that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry is only an intermediate stage and he does not estimate how long it will last. However, his expectation (surprising for the author of a work that would be used by advocates cf "Socialism in a Single Country") is that the revolution will be helped to its socialist stage most likely by setting off revolutions of the larger proletariats of Europe.

He does not go into these matters very deeply. He does not answer Trotsky's objections to them, mainly because at the time of his writing, Trotsky had not presented them formally. When Trotsky did finally produce his work Results and Prospects as a prisoner of the counter-revokation, it was as the result of two years consideration. His pamphlet is considerably more finished than the essentially polemical Two Stages He is able to eget points that Lenin prepared to reiterate as being of littleimportance. In these circumstances, he points out the two significant facts that Lenin had ignored. (Again, neither of them, concerned directly, the f alist § which they both agreed Trotsky's analysis brings out, firstly, the role of the peasantry in the revolution as being, necessarily subordinate to that of the proletariat (due to its fragmented individualist nature). Secondly, and partly arising from this, he insists on the counter-revolutionary nature of any attempt to limit the revolution to its democratic stege or tc prevent its development into a Socialist dictatorship.

He points out the very real possibilities of crisis facing a "democratic dictatorship" which has not moved to limit drastically capitalist property relations, For example how can one of the traditional minimum demands of social democracy, the eight hour day be enforced except through nationalising industries?

A government that tried to enforce the eight-hour day ( as the democratic dictatorship must do or lose its proletarian support) without nationalisations would face economic blackmail (lockouts, boycotts, etc.) from the employers, These two findings are backed by considerable historical and political analysis of the nature and developnent of the bourgeoisie both in Russia in particular, and internationally, in general. In particular, in an analysis of the democratic revolutions of 1848, he distinguishes four groups besides the bourgeoisie, that might have taken the leadership of the democratic struggle: the proletariat and the peasantry, plus the two sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie that class proper (the artisan and the intellectual democrats (mainly the students). Like Lenin he writes off the role of both these groups last named in the Russian revolution - correctly as it proved. The significance of these groups will be seen in relation to Ireland, The great weakness of Results and Prospects is its author's avoidance of the role of the Bolshevik Party, Eleven years after the publication of Results and Prospects Russia rose again in the February (March) Revolution of 1917. A provisional government was established, but so, too, as in 1905 though an a broader scale was an alternative network of Workers! Councils, or "Soviets". The Mensheviks, believing in the ability of the bourgeoisie to carry out its progressive role preached the subordination of the soviets to the provi-

The Bolsheviks were less certain. Many cf those who had stayed in Russia nctably G B Kamenev, but including J V Stalin, supported the Menshevik line. They pointed out that the tasks cf the bourgecis revolution (most notably in the sphere of agarian reform) hac not been achieved. Accordingly, was not it the duty of Bolsheviks to enter the Provisicnal Govermaent, to. push it to the left and te carry cut agarian and constituticnal reforms? They considered that the Provisional Government cculc be forced tc drup its bouregois ministers and become "the Dictatcr ship of Proletariat and Peasantry, i.e. the first stage cof the revolution.

On his trip tc Russia from Switzerland, Lenin dencunced this view in his April Theses. lere he explains the concrete situation to his party, warning then against toc rigcrous an acherence to outwarn revolutionary formulae, He pointed cut that a situation of dual aiwer existed in Russia; that, because cf the failure cf the proletariat tc push through the recent February Revolution the bourgecisie had been able to usurp state power through its Provisional Government However, it had been unable ts prevent the establishment cf the Demecratic Dictatorshin cf the Proletariat and the Peasantry. What had happened was that it had limited a potential Socialist Revolution to just stich an crder, Its organs now ¢xisted in the fourm cf the Soviets. The task of revoluticnaries was tc assert this Dictatcrshin against that of the beurgesisie. Only by doing sc, could they carry cut the tasks asseciated traditionally with the revolution cf the bhourgesisie which could not achieve them itself.

To this policy, Lenin won the Bolshevik Party, On the basis of this, Trotsky joined the Party. In Octcber (Ncvember) 1917, the Demcratic Dictatorship sf Proletariat and Peasantry cverthrew that cf the bourgecisic, uncon which Lenin announced the Bolsheviks! intention .f establishing the Sccialist Order, The "DemocraticDictatcrship" could cnly exist under "Dual Power", With the triumph of the Dictatcrship of the Proletariat albeit backed by the Peasantry, Russia was, in fact, a Socialist State; it lcoked tc the developing international revolution ts establish a Sicialist Scocicty, THs STAUGGLE If IRELAND In the meantine, in Ireland, the revolution was being lost. As in Russia, the ourgecisie cculd not carry cut the tasks of its revolution: the industrial bcurgecisie had acclimatizec itself to the status quo of the British market and was nct interested in national independence for Ireland. The very numercus gonbeen (cr "usuricus") bourgecisie had little interast in much beyond "Hone Rule" cor the transfer of control of the Irish State bureaucracy tc its own class. The larger and medium peasantry had been quietened by its "yurchase' ct its own land. In practice, the leadership of the national democratic revcluticn passed to the working class alcng with the artisans and, particularly, the "intellectual Demcrats". In the background was the smaller peasantry, but in 1916, it was nct directly represented.

Of these classes, only the workers could provide consistent leadershin cf the national struggle, such as woulc mean its continuance ints the establishment of a Workers? Republic and Internaticnal Socialism, The leader of the Citizen Army, the specifically working class furce in the Rising in 1516, Janes Connolly, certainly had such a nerspective,

stably winted if 3 carry | il Govatcr = nted I nent Cn But like Trotsky-until1917, anc like Rosa Luxenburg until even later, he did not know how to crganise to achieve this. He did vaguely see the Citizen Arny as a future centre of preletarian struggle even against his comrades in the naticnal ficht. Even so he did not encourage its expansicn vis-a-vis the petty bourgecis Irish Volunteers. Indeed there is evidence that he may even have discouraged A He was in organisation theory, a Syndicalist, a developed type of Economist. For hin, the industrial union, the ITGWU could build up workers! power within the shell of the bourgecis state, perhaps even regard’ess of the political situation. This ottinism was shared by all the advanced elements of the Irish working class. It was the product of that class lack of development: cof its lack of an industrial base. comparable tc that of Russia: cf the late development of its industrial organisation, Ant su, cnce Connclly was murdered, there were no cadres able tc taks his place.

Scientific socialist went into suspended animation. The Syndicalism of the | remaining leaders of Irish Labour was far more pronounced than that of Connolly.

“hey carried it into the full range of political strategy. Again, they adopted 5 "two Stage" strategy summarised in the formula: "First the Republic, then the Yorkers? Republic". They gave formal, if often useful support to the struggle for the former. Their main energies were given to building the industrial organigeticn that, they thoucht, cculd alone secure the latter, Without working-class leadership, and with the enthusiastic suppcrt cf such as Arthur Griffith, the petty bourgeois Republican leaders ac~epted the influence o/ Unicnist and "Home Rule" businessmen. Such people aot their reward when cae struggle against Britain was stopped, rather than escalated (which would - tave meant far reaching Socialist por aeaay in 1921, They accepted readily and ‘consciously, a compromise agreement, tae rank and file Republicans were mainly working class (cr small peasant), they eecognised that the new'Saorstat Eireann” was.not (even in name) the Republic for which they had fought. The ccuntry was partiticned: the hegemony of the ting of England was recognised. They tried to hold up the betrayal. The result wat Civil War. In it, because of leaders who mostly shared the petty bourgeois ovélook of their Treatyite cpponents, the Republicans were smashed, gut this was merely the political shadow of the current economic struggle that was groceeding between Irish employers and their workers. While the leaders of the ‘ormer were united behind the Saorstat, the leaders of the latter were divided.

Yany had already taken a more active Republican lime than their leaders and had, secordingly, entered conscicusly petty bourgeois (or like Joseph McGrath) pure yourgeois, Saorstat politics. Those who remained divided as working class bodies on the Treaty. The majority declared that it was neutral on the issue, but in fact, it accepted that it had sclved the national problem, It soon revealed itself as openly reformist and concentrated increasingly on the results cf Sacrstat elections. This was the Irish Labour Party. The other, minority group, the Communist Party of Ireland, continued to apply what amounted to a tailist line towards the petty bourgeois Anti-Treatyites. Neither group tried to escalate the national struggle into a social struggle. Accordingly, the Irish workingclass was disarmed and then suffered the greatest defeat in its history.

SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY v, THE REVOLUTION In turn, this was just one, rinti orale. event in the overall defeat of the world working class in the early 1920's - outside Russia. Even in Russia, the isclaticn of the world's first workers’ state resulting from its comrades?

defeat elsewhere enccuraged a regime of scarcity. This meant that the governing

— ee ee bureaucrats of the state were able to gain a definite advantage over the workers | and peasants themselves. They thus had a vested interest in keeping Russia isoplated. They found their spokesman in the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unicon: J V Stalin., Stalin's attack on the fully Ls sgoea 9 theory of Permanent Revolution was initially published in his Foy jinism during the Spring of 1925. It was put forward as part of a political faction fight with Trotsky, as his rival for the succession to Lenin, To discredit Trotsky, he had to destroy his (and, of course eventually Lenin's) strategy. Accordingly, Stalin began to praise"Leninism"~ but a selective “Leninism": literally the "Leninismof before 1917 as if not Results and Prospects, but April Theses had never been written. The immediate theoretical result of this was merely greater confusion. The questions of the relationship of proletariat and peasantry and of the bourgecis revolution that Lenin and Trotsky had answered, were raised, again, as if no such answer had been given. But the full development cf Stalinist isteology came several months later, in the Autumn of 1924. In the Foundations, Stalin had recognised the international nature of the struggle for Socialism, Now, he turned the emphasis in a direction to help the interests cf his friends, the bureaucrats, far more, He began to announce the possibility cf building a Socialist scciety in one country. This was not new in itself. The Social Democratic Parties that, in 1914 accepted the leadership cf their national bourgecisies in the First World War were, expressing their beliefs in this, in a very practical way. Stalin did not write much to expand this idea, perhaps because it could not bear development. However, in one important matter Stalinism departed from the Social-Chauvinisms of the Mendersons and the Eberts. Unlike their Chauvinisms,it represented the interests of a Labour bourgeoisie in an established Workers! State. This did not make it altogether superior tc its predecessors, In one matter Stalinism cutdid them, Stalin killed more Communists than either Menderson (one cf Connolly's killers) or Ebert, the murderer of-Kar] Liebnecht and Rosa Luxenburg.

But what was involved in the adherence of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union towards "Socialism in One Country"? In the first place, it meant that, as Socialism could thus be achieved, the forces of the Communist Parties cf the World, the Communist International had tc give this joh pricrity. The Commnist Parties were discouraged from seeking state power for fear of rocking their national boats and causing their national governments to attack the USSR.

This was not done deliberately. Dependence on the unvarnished line of the Two Tactics provided theoretical justification for the strategies that the national Communist Parties followed. Thus the idea "Demccratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry" justified the subservience of the Communist Party of China to Chiang Kai Shek's Kuomintang until Chiang was ready to turn cn it and to exterminate it. Even more significant was the use of the confusion as to the bourgeois revolution. Lenin made clear in April Theses that, once the bourgecisie had taken power, its actual revoluticn was at an end. The proletariat now had to begin to overthrow the new regime, The new, Stalinite line that developed was one cf support for the bourgecisie until "its" revolution was completed, To attempt to achieve power for the proletariat was cut of the question. That class (a wry, and unacknowledged, gesture to Trotsky, here) would try to act irresponsibly, to force the revolution into its Sccialist atage, thus alienating the peasantry.

This view was the justificaticn fcr the refusals tc advance on the part cf the Commmist Parties of Spain (in 1536), Greece (1944) and Vietnam (in 1945), all of whom paid in blood fur their nistakes.

Incidentally, the "Two Stage" theory did not exhaust Stalin's inventiveness.

It is worth noticing (especially when we consider the fuss made about the nctcricus WYorthern Irish Bill of Rights") that for under-developed countries, notably China, he developed a Three Stage Theory. This was not just "First the Republic; then the Workers' Republic, but "First the Democratic Republic; then the non-colonial Republic; and only then, the Workers! Republic".

Against Trotskyism, the Stalinites levelled the charges: (1) That it ignored the clear difference between bourgeois and socialist revolutions. (2) That it excluded the peasantry from its calculations, accordingly.

(3) hat it underestimated the power of the Western-European proletariat not at this time tu take power (Stalin was less than interested in it iging that) but to pressurise its bourgeoisie not to attack Russia.

(4) That it denied the ability of the Russian proletariat tc achieve "§cclalism in One Country", Trctskr replied tc these charges in 1928 in the swamary cf his theory Permanent Revoluti-n, He p@inted out, at first, three main points: that the democratic tasks of the bourgesis revolutions in the underdeveloped countries led directly co the dictatorship cf the proletariat: that permanent revoluticn meant that fcr che imperialist age, a constantly fluctuating social and political situation, end that to achieve the Sccialist society, the naticnal revoluticn had to be con tinued on tc the international sphere. At the end of his pamphlet, he expanded these noints into 14 statements. Shorn of the polemic, these stressed again, the roints menticned, as to the “Permanent Uninterrupted" character of the Sevoluticn.

They stressed alsc.to the sbordinate but in colonial countries, necessary role of the peasantry tc the proletariat in the struggle to achieve the national and agrarian reforms. They stated the necessity for a Cormmmist Party to lead the proletariat to power and pcintec cut that the laws of the combined and uneven development meant that there was nv class cr country that could be written cff cr its objective conditions as ripe for the proletariat to take state power...

This last thesis of Trotsky has been abundantly justified in the history cf the Sceialist Revolution, Since he published his statement, China, Vietnam, Kcrea Yugoslavia, Albania, Cuba: none of these would be considered ripe fcr prcletarian revoluticn by Stalin's Comintern of the 1920's.

But what of the cther points. There is certainly nc reason tc believe that a Socialist Scciety can be achieved in one country, as long as the proletariat has achieved state nower. Stalin declared that it had been done in 1936 and he promptly massacred his old comrades in case they might disagree. Even sv, his achievement is very little compared tec Cuba's curmunal (and free) services.

On the point cf the Ccrmunist Party, Cuba stands as evidence that this is not always necessary. Nonetheless, it is ver) twch the exception that prcves the rule,

| all — cee The real query comes on the criginal point. How far (if at all) is the Democrati Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry a possible (let alone a necessary stage in the Proletarian Revolution? It has often been assumed by the Maoists that the role of Mac Tse Tung during the War of Liberation against Japan arcunte!

to a similar role to that of the Soviets during the period of Dual Power in 1917, Hence, it is argued that Lenin's concept of "the Democratic Dictatorship" is a ormal and necessary stage as part cof a "Dual Power" situation preparatory to full Proletarian Dictatorship.

This is, of course, an improvement cf normal Stalinite theory - just as Nacism has been able to ignore much cf the worst crudities cf Stalinism. Nonetheless, there are objections to it, Four example, it does not altogether account for the ecurse cf the revclutions in Yugcslavia, or in Cuba, It might be arfued, tov, that the Masite view is’ excessively schematic: that there is no guarantee the "Dual Power" situation, as both Mac and Lenin found, dces not provide a sure passage towards towards the Proletarian Dictatorship (though this is a weak argunent, a sophisticated Macite would point out, correctly that there is no suri way to Workers! rower). Finally, there is the sorewhat nit-picking pcint that in China during its War cf Liberation there was not "Dual" but "Treble Power", there being three govermients claiming cuntrol cf China: that cf Mac, that of Chiang anc that cf the Quisling, Wang. This is not really so academic, for cof, course, Mac was (formally) in Coalition with Chiang and the "Dual Power" that existed was, strictly, as between the Chiang regime, of one area of which Mao wes in control and the Japanese and their suppert. And the Chiang-Mao relaticnship was no More the "Democratic Dictaturship" than the previcus Kucmintangcommunist combination cf the 1920's, Above all, even in the Communist held areas the Democratic forms of the 3-Party Goverments concealed the reality: that actua power was in the hand's of Mao's Pecple's Liberation Arny, But the most telling charge yet to be made by history as well as by Macites and Fequistas - against Trotsky!s Strategy of Permanent Revolution. Does not the victory of the essentially peasant - based struggles of China and of Cuba prove that, in his insistence on the subordinate role cf the peasantry, Trctsky was, after all underestimating the peasants? There is something in this, but it is not very much, Certainly, Trotsky did nct imagine that the zroletariat could com to power from such a rural: basis as Maw and Castre used. Nonetheless as has been shown he carefully ruled cut excessive emphais on the objective situation in a = country. And while there was, bo dount, an element of substitutionism on the process, there can be no doubt that, in composition and ideclogy the CPC and in composition alone, the Castro Foco were working class bodies, representing the leadership of the Proletariat over the peasantry. It should however be recognise that the peasants cf China and of Cuba (as of elsewhere in the "Thirc World") wen at a lower stage cf liberaticn than those of Russia. Though nct proletarians, their potential was closer to that of proletarians than was their opposite number in Russia or, certainly the developed capitalist countries.

PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN IRELAND

(And this brings the paper to Ireland and to the perspectives for Permanent Revol~ ution here.) Certainly it can be agreed that what will achieve the Workers’ State will only be described by Diplomatishts as the Distatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry. In Northern Ireland, it is only Gardiner Place and Pearse Strat that

weratil sary ists icunted 1 1917.) is a e | cist | less, or the My the re k mo sure | that er", Por r of, hat a aticn= areas | t actual hopes to limit the struggle to democratic aims. Except in certain areas, the rural population has been liberated far enough to be no longer an inherently revolutionary force. Certainly their support will be needed and may even be of crucial importance in the coming struggle for working class power.

But it is true that the role of the small farmers, even in the national struggle, will be (and is) relatively small. But this is not new. The main force of the said struggle has 1arely been the peasantry, but rather, the ed Irish ing class. At crucial times (as in the years after small farmers have been won to the Repulbican movement by its espousal of specific agrarian reforms, nonetheless until the defeat of the workers in 1923 - 1924 the moVement itself survived in urban rather than rural areas.

The fact is that the bourgeois style agrarian reforms that destroyed feudalism in Ireland are one aspect of the unusual Irish situation that is not tc be changed. Ireland is a neo-colonial country which has developed many features of the west European (or, rather, North Atlantic) democracies. The feudal question no longer exists. Emigration has prevented the appearance of the sort of shanty towns that exist on the suburbs of the cities of the Third World. Emigration and the decipline of the Catholic Church in a rural and industrially only semi-developed state have enabled the bourgeoisie to maintain a parliamentary democracy, As the world capitalist crisis deepens, the last two facts will be weakened. Emigration is already stopping and, despite the efforts of the Irish bourgeoisie, a reviied national mwyement of some potency is threatening (however slightly, as yet) the stability of the 26 County State. Of course, the farmers (especially the smaller ones) are going to be hurt, too but on the one hand their crisis will be overcome, subjectively as well as objectively, only by Socialist means, and on the other hand their bourgeois status, however miserable, makes it difficult for them to accept such means for liberation. And, as a further complication, there is another potentially revolutionary element in the petty bourgeoisie: as the crisis develops, more of Trotsky's strategy of intellectual democrats will find themselves either unemployed or under-employed.

Much talk and writing has been spent arguing as to whether the situation from which the revolution will spring (and is, indeed, preparing to spring) will correspond to the classic formula that Trotsky finalised in 1928. In arguing on the subject, comrades are concentrating on the forms, the dogma, of revolution in an unMarxist fashion. Certainly, the small farmer class will not be the centre of national insurrection. Certainly, its liberation can, now, only come in a Socialist form- the capitalist formula being now exhausted. Neither of these facts mean that the Socialist struggle will not develop from the present bourgeois, national, struggle nor that the proletariat will be able to seize power by itself without aid from the subordinate classes (it is, in reading Permanent Revolution, worth remembering that Trotsky was answering the specific charge that he had neglected the peasantry in under-developed lands) The forms change; the reality goes on.

What can be said is that the present national revolution can only be achieved if it is forced over into the Socialist Revolution: that if it is not so forced the situation at its end will be worse than at its beginning. There can be no successful perspective based on limiting demands inmediately to a "Northern Irish Bill of Rights" which can only stultify consciousness when it should be developed and thus limit even the response to its inevitable

sell-out. It can be said, too, ‘that the small farmers aid will be needed to bring the revolution to success, If can alsc be recognised that elements of the intelligentsia, who feel threatened by the growing retreat of the Government into superstition and anachronistic dictatorship and its reply to the national struggle will have their part tc play.

But such interests can only be led by the proletariat, itself led ty a Vanguard Party. The total result will not be exactly what Leon Trotsky wrote in the Epilogue to Permanent Revolution; it will include the realities of the strategy concerted: the bourgecis/petty bourgeois strukgle growing over into the Socialist one, ae of the powers of intermediate classes between capitalists and workers (he stipulated usually but not always the peasantry alone) to help in the struggle and finally the struggles?

further growing over into the international sphere, In Ireland, as elsewhere, the revolution will be permanent, or uninterrupted, or it will be nothing, : TROTSKY ON IRELAND, (contd.)

bourgeoisie canable of canitalising on it, has veered steadily to the left under pressure from the syndicalist traditions.

If we are able to annreciate the relaticnshin between syndicalism and nationalism in Irish wor'ing class consciousness, then we can easily see how meaningless it is to sn2al: about climinating either one or both clements of that consciousness. Of course they must be negated. But negation must be under-stood in the Marxist sense and net in the formal motanhysical sense cf Lane and his B.1.C.0. colleagues. We " must not only negate but also sublate the negation" says Engels. Syndicalism and nationalism must be negated nct simply by dismissing then frm cur minds bet by giving them a higher unity in the theory and practice of Marzisn. Conclusi> It is not accidental that the axisupon which the B.I.C.0. ravolves consists of, at one end, the comprador Two Nations Theory and at the other end, Anti- Trotsicyism. For five years the B,I.C.0. has stuffed its journ@l19 with " critiques " and " analysis " on both these subjects. To justify their reformism on the j natisnal question they have been forced to slander and distort Trotshyism which alone gives a coherent revolutionary persnective in the struggle for national liberation. We offer this simmle truth to those who genuinely believe that Trots!yism is synonymous with cosmonolitanism and ultra-leftisn.

We also take the opportunity to thank the B.1.C.0. for publishing Trotsky's 1516 article accompanied with a nerfect example of Stalinist " objective " and " stientific " analysis 1 = ee

ati In the following article we piece tugether from varicus sources the Marxist | vositicn on the National questicn).

Scientific Socialism - Marxism - is international in scope, both in its sims and in the cbjective circwustances for achieving them. This does not mean that a revoluticn can only be successful if it is carried cut at cne moment on an international scale. Leon Trotsky has been, most often, reported inaccurately as arguing this. However, he made his positicn to the contrary quite dear:- | MWe had a socialist revolution in the Soviet Union. I participated in it.

The Socialist revolution signifies the Scizure of power by a revolutionary class, by the proletariat. Of course, it cannot be accomplished sinmltaneously in every country, Some historic time is given for every country by its conditions. A socialist revolution is not only possible but inevitable in every country, What I affirm is that it is impossible to construct a hOW socialist society in the environment of a capitalist world."

tOn the Eve of World War 11! - Interview 23.7.'39, from Writines of Leon as Trotsky (1938 - 1935), New York, 1969 Merit Publishers.

an ation" Subsequently Tretsky reinforced this statement :ssing tice "Help comes to him who helps himself, Werkers mst develop the revolutionary struggie in every country, colonial or imperialist, where favourable conditions have deen established and through this set an example for the workers of other countries. Only initiative and activity, resoluteness and boldness can pists give reality to the call “Workers of the world, unite!"

oe * Manifesto on the Imperialist War and the Proletarian Revolution - 1946.

What proletarian internationalism does mean is that socialist revolutionaries in each country strive against developing nationalist tendencies in their working classes into policies complete in themselves, or into spheres where Lenin, the great authority on this, wrote in "Critical Remarks on the National Question", "Marxism cannot be reconciled with naticnalism, be it even of the 'most just’ purest, most inspired and civilised brand. In place of all forms of nationalism Marxism advances internaticnalism, the amalgamation cof all nations in the higher unity, a unity that is growing before our eyes with every Mile of railway line that is built, with every internaticnal trust, and every workers! association that is formed (an asscciation that is international in its economic activities as well as in its ideas and aims).

"The principle of nationality is historically inevitable in bourgecis society and, taking this society into due account, the Marxist fully recognises

——— i sc ee = = the historic legitimacy of national movements. But to prevent this recognition from becoming an apclogia cf nationalism, it must be strictly limited to what is progressive in such mvements, in order that this recognition may nct lead to bourgecis idealogy cbscuring proletarian consciousness.

"The awakening cf the masses fmufeudal lethargy, and their struggle against all national oppression, for the sovereignity of the people, of the naticn are progressive. Hence, it is the Marxist'ts Bounden duty to stand for the most resolute and consistent democratism on all aspects of themational question. This task is largely a negative one But this is the limit the proletariat can go tc in supporting naticnalism,for beyond that begins the "positive? activity «f the bourgecisie striving tc fortify naticnalisn, "Tc throw off the feudal yoke, all naticnal opsressicn, and all privileges enjoyed by any particular naticn cr language, is the imperative duty of the prcletariat as a democratic farce, and is certainly in the interests of the proletarian class struggle, which is obscured and retarded by bickering on the naticnal question. But te go beyond these strictly limited and definite historical limits in helping bcurgecis naticnalism, means betraying the »roletariat and siding with the bourgecisie. There is a border-line here, which is often very slight..."

"Questions of National Policy and Proletarian Internaticnalisn" PP 27-28 Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1567, Later, in his article, "The Right of Naticns to Self-Determination" he deals with this matter acain:- "The proletariat....while recognising equality and equal rights to a naticnal state....values above all and places foremost the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and assesses any national demand, any national separation, from the angle of the workers' class struggle....

And:- “The International's resclution reproduces the most essential and fundamental propositions in this point cf view; on the one hand, the absolutely direct, unequivocal recognition of the full right of all nations to self-determination, on the other hand, the equally unambiguous appeal to the workers for international unity in their class struggle." ‘ And for James Connolly:- “Under Socialism, states, territories cr provinces will exist only as geogranhical expressions, and have no existence as sources of governmental power, though they may be seats of administrative bodies."

"Socialism Made Easy", p.40, Plough Book Service, 1971.

What does this mean in practice ? Connolly never defined his concent of a nation,(In practice, he seems tc have confused "natiorl'with "race"), Lenin accepted, indeed he may even have inspired, J.V. Stalin's definition:- " A historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a cormmnity of

culture....like every other historical vhenomenon (it) is subject tc the law of change, has its history, its beginning and end," Tais cannot develon before the rise of capitalism. As Lenin remarked:- "Throughout the world, the period cf final victory for capitalism cver feudalism has been linked up with naticnal movements, Fcr the complete victory of ccrmodity production, the bourgecisie must capture the home narket, and there must be pvlitically united territc ries whcse populaticn speak a single language, with all obstacles tc the develcoment cof that Language and tc its caonsclidation in literature eliminated. Therein is the economic foundation cf national mvements. Language is the nest irpc-rtant means of human interccuurse, Unity and unirmeded develonment oj Language are the mest important conditicns for genuinely free and extensive commerce on a scale ccrmensurate with modern capitalism, for a free and broad grouping cf the population in all its various classes gd, lastly, for the establishment of a close ccnnecticn between the rarket and each and every proprietor, big er little, and between the yer. 'Therefure, the tendency of every national mcvenent is towards the fornsrion cf national states, under which these requirements of modern capalism are best satisfied. The mest profound eccnomic factors drive «wards this goal, and therefore, for the whole of Western Europe, nay, or the entire civilised world, the naticnal state is typical and normal or the capitalist period. (Lenin, op.cit. PP 46 - 47.)

Sut economic differences - the law of combined and uneven development men that all nations dc not appear at the same morient in time. To quote Stalin arain:nme British, French, Germans, Italians and cthers formed themselves intc nstions at the time cf the victcricus advance of canitalism and its -riutiph cver feudal disunity.

"fat the formation cf nations in these instances at the same time signified their conversicn intc independent national states. The British, French and other maticns are, at the same time, British, French, etc., states. Ireland, which did not particinate in this process does not alter the general picture.

‘Matters proceeded somewhat differently in Eastern Eurene. While in. the West the nations developed intc states, in the East multi-national states were formed, each consisting of several nationalities. Such are Austria, Hungary and Russia. In Austria, the Germans proved to be politically the rost developed, and they took it upon thenselves tu amalgamate the Austrian nationalities into a state. In Hungary, the best adapted for state organisation were the Magyars - the kernal of the Hungarian Nationaliticsand it was they who united Hungary. In Russia, the role cf welder of nationalities was assumed by the Great Russians, who were headed by an aristocratic military bureaucracy, which had been historically fcrmed and was powerful and well-organised, Such was the case in the East, and this peculiar method of formation of states could take place only where feudalism had not yet been eliminated, where canitalisn was feebly develoned,

——— where the natichalities which had been fc reed inte the backereund had not yet been able to consclidate thenselvés economically into integrated nations. Wut canitalism als. began te devel.» in the Eastern states. Trade and ~eans of ccrrmmication were developing. Large tows were s>ringing up.

The naticns were beecming eccurically consclidated. Canitalisn, erupting into the tranquil life -f the ~usted naticnalities, was arcusing then and stirring them ints activn. The develomie:t of the press and the theatre, the activity .f the Reichstat (Austria) and «f the Duna (Russia) were helsing t. strengiten Inaticonal sentients!, The intelligentsia that had arisen was being imbued with "the nati nal idea! and was acting in the saw directisa. Wwaut the vusted Aaticns, aroused tc independent life, could m longer shane therselves int. indesendent national states, they enesuntered tie suyerful resistance of the ruling strata uf the dcninant nations, which had leng age assumed the c-ntrol or the state. They were too late!

In this way the Czechs, Poles, etc., ford thoriselves int: naticns in Austria; The Croats, etc., in Sungary, the Letts, the Lithuaaians, Ulrainians, Gecrgians, Anericans, etc., in Russian. What had been an excertion in Western Survve (Ireland) became the rule in the Zast.

iIn the West, Ireland responded tu its exeesticnal j siticn by a naticnal a rovenent. In the Zast, the awakened nativns were bound to resocnd in the soine fashicn.” Similerly, in Asia, national dasands were rade after the annearance tf the West Burcyean naticn-state.

Wfhe revolutions in Aussia, Persia, Turkey and China, the Balkan wars such is the chain of world events -5 cur seri.d in vur 'Orient'. And caly a blind maa eculd fail tc see in this chain of events the awakening «f 4 wile series «f bouurge.is-demeratic national mvenents which strive t- create naticnally indenendent and maticnally unif-rm states" - Lebin op.cit 7.56. The sticmlus for the Asiatic naticnal nm venents and for the subsequent struggles that they had to fight was net the erowth cf canitalis=: within a rmlti-nation stete, but, <f cturse, the devel-pment -f the ca italisn .f established naticnal cazitalist states ints imerialism., As Lenin wrote in his analysis of tiis Snuencmena:- FF wie characteristic feature .f the >serioc under review is the final partiticn cf the gicbe - final, not in the sense that a revartiticn is imssible, on the contrary, renartiticns are yssible and inevitable - but in the sense that the col<nial-sulicy f the casitalist c.untrics has curmleted the seizure cf the uieccu, jied territirics cn cur slaact™.

mperialis;, tue Wighest Staze of Cajitalisn 7.90, Forsign Languages “ress, reking, 1565.

The reasins fr this are sim le ‘ig yrincizal feature -f the Latent stare of cazitalism is the d:minaticn of remnelist ecmbines cf the big canitalists. These sun xclies are mst firclly established when all the s.urees .f raw materials are cantured by one gYrtun, and we have seen with wnat zeal the internaticnal cazitalist combines exert every cffurt tu make it ins-ssible for their rivals t compete with Kai by buying up, fcr exmrle, irn cre fields, cil Sued etc., Cclinial >:ssessicn alcne gives the mono aclies c.Iplete guarantes aroinst all c: Hedtieoriefes in the struggle with cormetitcrs, including the contingency that the latter will defend themselves by moans cf a law establishing a state miunpily., The cure cajitalism is devel ned, the mre stronely the shortage +f raw materials is felt, tho ore intense the ccm netitica and the hunt fr scurces .f raw materials throughout the whicle Wi oe the mere desnerate is the struggle f.r the acquisition <f culenies" = 7.88 i?inanes canital is interested mt cnly in the already discovered s_urces .f raw Gaterials but alse in p tential scurces, because present-day technical devel stent is extrenely racic, the land which is useless tcday may be made fertile t_murrow if new methods are axplied (t. devise these new Methods a big bank can equis a snecial emediti- n .f engineers, azricultural oxserts cic. and if larse aunts of canital are javested. ‘This als; avalies to »rusvecting fir “rtinerals, tu. new nethcds of working up ani utilizing raw materials, etc., etc. ~ Mence the inevitable strivins .f finance canital t. enlarge its ecuncmic territury and even its territ.ry in seneral, In tie same way that the trusts cazitalize their arunerty et tw cr tliree tines its valuc, takinz ints accuunt its '>.tential' (and nit aresent) mrvfits and the further esults cf mom sLy, so finance eapital strives in 7eneral t. scize the larrest sussible amcunt .f land of all kinds in ‘all laces, and by every Deans, takine int. aceccunt teutial scurces .f raw materials and fearing t+ be left-behind in Th. the fierce struggle for the last scrajs of undivided territiry, ur fcr the recorniticn of those that have aiiesdy been divie 10d.

Whe int Drag sursued in expcrting caszital alss give immetus t. the conquest <f cc lonies, fur in the cil-nial mrket it is easier tz exploy tmoncpolist metiids (and eemeties they are the cnly methids that can be empl ae t. clininate ccmetiticn, t sain: sure uf contracts t: secure the necessary ccnnecticns, éte. — Ibid 2.?. ss-160 ® This »orvcess was described, aie ,» by Levn Tr:tsky in his article "The lation and the Zecn:my", (This was dentunced by Lenin fur its fra but a30 ecntent is relevant.) | = France and Germany in the nast sericd apr ached a tyne .f naticn state.

si m teans cid this srevent their -licy at ¢ aes, nut their >resent nlans tu expand their esnective fr.aticrs t. the Rhine and the S.ime.

An indesendent Nungary, Schemia ur ?.land will, in exactly the samc way, seel: an cutlet t. the sea by means cf te viclati_n cf the rishts .f _ther mticus, as Iraly is seeking to du at the exense .f the Serbs and as the Serbs themselves arc seelting at the exzense .f the Albanians, Nati:nal eonLOraey is awakened by capitalism which strives t) weld as many element s of naticns as »cssible int: one ecco nurbe unit. But it is this very capitalism which strives evarywhere it sets down rects tu omand

eS — ———— the linits cf the internal rarket as widely as ~ossible, ts create as many fav-urable cutlets as possible t. the world market, t. impse its d.iimti.n ver rogicns with an arrarian tron: cf econumy, The nati_nal princinle is for national canitalisn neither an abs. re idea nr the final cr: wing f the edifice. It is cnly the spring) ward fur a new lean - in the direast ncf world dutinaticn. At the sresont iba _£ devele aient, theo nati_nal idea anpears as a banner of struggle against feudalisn, particulargi barbarisn or freign military accressivn. In the lung tern, by creating self-suificient psychul.cy <f hati_nal epuisn, it becites itself a t.:1 f canitalist enslavement f wealcer nativns: an indissensable t..1 uf imperialist barbarism’, - ashe Sliv. 3.7.115.

With these facts in wind: Where is every sign that itmerialis: will leave its successcr, Sccialisn, a heritare #34 a dermmcratic frontiers, a number of annex aticns in Eurve and in cther parts cf the world. Is it tu be suppusec that vict risus s.cialisn, restoring anc iimlexenting full demcracy all aline the line, will refrain fr.m domcratically desarcating state frontiers anc ignore the sympathies uf the s pulaticn? - Lenin, Questi-ns _f Mati_nal 7 licy and Prcoietarian Interraticnalisn ?.?, 126 - 126 In fact, the Socialist must chovse between nations. In the Wirlc Wars _f the Twentieth century, the leadinz sarticipants (apart, by its Sucialisn, fre: 1 the U.S.5.R. in the Second teri¢ 1 lar) were all struggling equally as ysoresssrs (as Trotsky > inted ty abive). t, at the sane tine, there were mticns such as the Irish, the Arabs and the Chinese (and, indeed, many of the cnppresscr nations that had the misfortune to be occupied such as France) wicse structeles were on a different level: they were cosressed nati.ns strucgling acainst imerialisn (in the first cases) and t: cormlete the tasks of their b.urce is reviluticns. Such struggles had tc be sunperted. WLinitaticn cf freeden cf mvenent, cisfranchisement, suppressicn cf lanzuage, restriction of schucls anc cther forms .7 repressicn affect the workers m less, if mct tore, than the bsurzecisie, Such a state .f affairs can cnly serve t. retard the free develusment cf the intellectual furces ef the orcletariat of subject naticus. There can be m sm ssibility cf a full develuwment .f the intellectual faculties f the Tartar cr Jewisl worker if he is not allcwed t: use his native lancuace at neetings and lectures, and if his scho.ls are cl.sed d:wn.

| "But the policy .f naticnal repressi-n is canzer_us tu. the cause of the orcletariat als. cn anther accsunt. It diverts the attention cf large strata of the soyulaticn from sccial questicns, questicns .2 the class struggle, t. naticnal questicns, questicns tecmmmn! t. the srcletariat and the boursecisie., And this creates a favourable soil fur lying pri sacanda regarding ‘harcunay .f interests’, f.r sl.ssing -ver the class interests sf the »rletariat and for the intellectual cnalavermnat cf the workers cf all natisnalities. If a cunsiderable sruzurtin cf the Polish workers are still in intellectual bondage t. the bourgecis nati_aalists, if they still stand al«:f from the international labour movement, it is chiefly because the age-lene anti-Polish sclicy -f thets:wers that

oe! .creates the suik for, and hinders the atiancivaticn of the workers frin this bondape. . put the a licy «of resressicn cves nut stu» hefe, It nt. infrequently asses froma 'systen! fc cd5ressiin t. a 'systeat cf incitine naticns asainst each other, t: a System! of sassacres and pogroms. Of course, the latter is mt everywhere and always p.ssible, but where it is scssible - in the absence cf elementary civil rizots - it frequently assuuecs hu rrifying vropyrticns and threatens ta drow the cause «f amity f the workers in blucd and tears. The Caucasus ax. S uth Russia furnish: — nut us examsles "Divide ani rulet - such .is the purnise of the nulicy f inciting maticns against ach other, And where such 4 »olicy succeeds ‘ij is a tremendcus evil fur the =rcletariat and a sericus ubstacle t.

a the work <-f uniting the workers cf all the naticnalities in the state.

"But the workers aro interested in the e.:mlete ammlcamaticn uf all ‘their g.tiraces int. a singe internaticnal. arny, in their seedy and final.

enancivaticn frm intellectual subjecti.n t. the burse isie, and in the full ant free cevel.-uent :f the intellectual forces -f their lathers, whatever the nation t. which they. belong. ' tthe w.rkers therefur c-mbat and will e.ntinue te eumbat . slicy Jf nati.nal copressicn in all its, furus, subtle or crude, as alsu the sclicy of inciting naticns ‘against each other in all its firme", Thus Stalin (Marzisn anc the Haticnal Questi:n). Lenin is equally defin te: "Ty their fear of playing int. the hands uf the bource is nati.nalism -f onpressed natiun,s »ecple play int. the hands nit merely of the buurzecisiec hat of the reacticnary natilnalisa cf the suoressur naticn” Lein eCit.

510, + “NIf we co. mt want tc betray sccialisi we (MUST) support every revoltagainst our chief enemy, the bourgeoisie of the big states, provided it is not the revolt of a reactionaty class. By refusing to support the revolt of annexed regions we become objectively, annexationists. It is precisely in the ‘era of imperialism’, which is the era of nascent social revolution, that the proletariat will today give especially vigorous support to any revolt of the annexed regions so that tomorrow, or simultaneously, it may attack the bourgepisie of the 'great' power that is weakened by the revolt."

Ibid. p.137 "In my writings on the national question I have already said that an abstract presentation of the question of nationalism in general is of no use at all.

A distinction must necessarily be made between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and that of an oppressed nation, the nationalism of a: big nation, the nationalism of a small nation" ; Ibid.p.168 And Trotsky agrees: "Social Democracy stands always and everywhere for the interests of ‘economic development and opposes all political measures capable of holding it back, However, it understamds economic development, not as a self-sufficient, extra-social, productive -technical process, but as a basis for the develppment

of human society into its class groupings, with a national political superstructure, etc. This viewpoint leads in the last analysis, not to insuring for local or national capitalism success over the capitalism of other places and countries, but to insuring the historic progress and systematic growth of mar's power over nature.

The class struggle of the proletariat itself is the most important factor ensuring the further development of the productive forces - by leading them out of the imperjialist blind alley into the broad arena of socialism. A state of nationalities and national groups, which exists through force (Russia and Austria are examples) may, without doubt for a certain time, develop the productive forces by creating for them a broader internal market. But, by generating the bitter struggle of national groups for influence on the state power, or by working "separatist! tendencies - that is the struggle for separation from that power - such a state paralyses the class struggle of the proletariat as the most important force of economic and general historic progress. The workers are deeply interested in the elimination of all artificial frontiers and barriers, in the greatest possible extension of a free area of development. But they cannot buy this aim for a kind of price which, above all disorganises their own historic movement, and thus weakens and lays low the most important force in contemperary society", - The Nation and the Economy - I On this basis both Lenin and Trotsky could approve the Easter Rising. Lenin approved on several occasions the participation of Socialists in national struggles.

"K Keutsky... opposed Rosa Luxenburg and proved that her materialism was extremely fone-sided'., according to Kautsky, the International could not at the time make the independence of Poland a point in its programme; but the Polish Socialists were fully entitled to put forward such a demand. Even the socialists! point of view it was undoubtedly a mistake to ignore the tasks of national liberation in a situation where ae oppression existed" - Lenin Op.Cit. p.82 (Emphasis added by present author, "The working class should be the last to make a fetish of the national question, since the development of capitalism does not necessarily awaken all nations, to independent life. But to brush aside the mass national movements once they have started, and to refuse the support what is progressive in them means in effect, pandering to nationalistic prejudices, that is recognising ‘one's* own nation! as a model nation or, we would add, one possessing the exclusive privilege of forming a state." - Ibid. p.87 "We would be very poor revclutionaries if, in the proletariat's great war of liberation for socialism, we did nct know how to utilise every popular movement’ against eve single disaster imperialism brings in order tc intensify and extend the crisis", Ibid p.162 To defeat the reactionary tendencies that exist in the national claims of even an oppressed nation, Lenin declared:- "A Social Democrat from a small nation must emphasise in his agitation the second word of cur general formula: ‘voluntary integration’ of nations. He may, without failing in his duties as an internationalist, be in favour of both the political independence of his nation and its integration with the neighbouring state of x,y,z, etc, But in all cases he must fight against small nation narrow mindedness, seclusion and isclaticn, consider the whole and the general, subordinate the particular to the general interest." Ibid. p.152

pit ion nt beration . Ibid as hout ¥y%5 aclusion the In his 1915 article quoted above, Trotsky put furward the call for a United States of Eurcpe tc encourage internaticnalism on the part cf the national movements of the workers. Connolly can be seen not to have opposed this line (as some have claimed he did); he made it clear that the Irish national revolt was but the beginning of a European Secialist one: - “Ireland may yet set the torch to a Evroepeen con?lorration that will not burn cut until the last throne and the Jast capitalist t-n> and debenture will be shrivelled con the funeral pyre of the last war lord”, = Lich Worker 8th August 1914 In the second place, the revolutioaary socialist in the cppressed country has a duty to maintain the democratic nature of that country’s national struggle.

“The proletariat demands a democracy that rules out the forcible retention of any one of the nations within the bounds of the state. 'In order nct to infringe on the right to self-determination, therefore, we are duty bound tc vote for the right of the seceding region to decide the question itself”, Lenin Op.Cit. p.9 "The right to secession presupposes the settlement of the question by a parliament (Diet, referendum, etc.) of the seceding region, not by a central parliament."

Ibid. p.100 "By transferring canitalism into socialism the proletariat creates the possibility of abolishing national cppression; the possibility becomes reality tonly? - tonly!

with the establishment of full democracy in all spheres, including the delineation of state frontiers in accordance with the ‘sympathies? of the population, including complete freedom to secede. And this, in turn, will serve as a basis for developing the practical elemination of even the slightest national friction and the least naticnal mistrust, for an accelerated drawing together and fusion of nations that will be cc: pleted when the state withcrs away.” p.130 "Tne national programme of working class democracy is: absolutely no privileges for any one nation or any cone language; the solution of the problem of the political selfdetermination of nations, that is, their Separation as states by completely free, derieratic methods; the promilcation of a law for the whole state by virtue of which any measure (rural, urban or cormrimal, etc., etc.) introducing any privileges of any kind for one of the nations and miiitating against the equality of mations or the rights cof a national minority, shall be declared illegal and ineffective, and any citizen of the state shall have the right to demand that such a measure be annulled as unconstitutiona and that those who attempt to put it into effect be punished." p.1l5 Accordingly :- "The bourgecise nationalism of any cppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditicnally Support. At the same time we strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards nationa exclusiveness, we fight against the tendency of the Polish bourgecis to cppress the Jews, etc., etc."p.62

| In the last resort applicaticn of the principles « cf self-determination are denendent on the Marxist analysis of the specific circumstances of their spheres of action. - There can be no question of the Marxists of any country drawing up their national programme without taking into account all these general histcrical and concrete state conditions". - Lenin Ibid p 52 "The several demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not an absolute but only a small part of the general democratic (now general socialist) world movenent. In individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole: if so so, it must be rejected. It is pcssible that the republican movement in one country may be .

merely an instrument of the clerical or financial monarchist intrigues cf other countries: if so, we must not support this particular concrete movement, but it wuld bé ridiculous to delete the demand for a republic from the prograrme of international Social-Detwcracy on these grounds." Ibid. p.146 "Nc derecratic demand can fail tc give rise to abuses, unless the specific is subordinated tc the general; we are not cbliged to support either tany' struggle for indenendence for ‘any? republican or anti-clerical movement.

Secondly, no formula for the struggle against national cppressicn can fail tc suffer from the same 'shortcoming’, - Ibid. p.154

- | JROTSKY ON IRELAND

A Reply to the IRISH COMMUNIST No, 80 en ss A The Stalinists anc their friends have always attemted ti. cevict tue i Trotskyists as (1) cost. sclitans whe make m, distinctivn between advanced and backward countries (2) as ultra-leftists wie are unable t cumprehenc» the rele -f nun-nreoletarian classes, or +f seeing the distincticn between t lie maticnal and s-cial tasks, in a rev.luticn. What has annvyed these yecple, whetser they be in the Commmist farty, the Macists and Stalinist sects, oF Hanging om t.. their nesiticn in the Gificial's leadershiz by the skin cf their testh, is that ia concrete reality the Trotskyists have given the lie t this characature. Se instead «f raticnal wclemic they rescrt tz abuse. A number of ill-term-ered cutbursts have aysearea in that dowdy, suber, journal, . ta2 irish Sccialist, wile in the United Irisitaan, waica 18 uncemccratically cintrilled by trendy, Soin 9 Murehy, whe nas felliw trendy, anne Uarris wh. dbubts the sussibility +f achieving sucialism in Ireland at all, writing feverishly tc expose the cunfusicns aad oystificaticns Lis cf Trotskyisu, woich she adaits the necple are not even aware 1 Svea ‘Advance! locses its usual cums«sure at the mere renticning cf tha wird Mr: tskyisn!, fut the list would not be ccmplete withcut menticning the vanzuard anti-lrctskyists, the Eritisli and Irish Cctumnist Urganisaticn. Their latest flash cf sique has been exsressed by Jack Lane, "At the oresent tiae" he writes. in ilc.8) cf the FICu's thecretical jcurnal,‘irisi “mmunist", "Trotskyisa is a vicifercvus sunperter «f the Cathclic Taticnalists' offensive against the Protestant nation, The different tro tskyist, crganisaticns are c-mmeting with each ctler as to which +f shen can give most effective suwimert to this camaign®, Sut unlike waeir fellew critics the DICu dissense with acclitical name calling and éress-uy their criticisms in pseud--scientific, =bjective, hrasecl: gy.

T3 HATIONAL RSVOLUTIVE

Lane, in his article "The Haticnal qesticn in S uthern Ireland - Trotsky on Ireland" attem,ts tu c.unters.se the views exsressea by froteky 10 a siece he wrvte cn the 1416 uyrising, tc the -yisiticns eid by Tretskyists tucay, In the orccess, lane is freed tw uisreyresent anc. distur¢ waat Trotsky werte.

ue begins by saying "What is west <byivus in this article is Trutsiy{s underestimation «f tus struggle .f the naticnai movement, his view beinz that the wacle thing was fading away, since the land questicn Aad bean svived".

This conclusion is based on a nassaze in Trctsky where he says “Sie >istcrical basis fur naticnal ravyluticn, even in backward Ireiaad, has been swest away by agrarian refcras, All irctsicy is saying ere is that the histcrical basis cf the naticnal revcluti-n and not the naticnal revoluticn as such hac been eroded by the extrene class cifferentiatica brought about even in baclhwarc ccwmitries, by the senetration of iter ialisi, In cther wires, while the tasks cf the naticnal revolutixn ronain, tne histurical agent «f these tasks, the burgs.isie and ett; bourgecisie, are wmable to acecitmlish thea, either hecavse they are tcc

dependent on immerialism or because of the liberating effect this would have cn th® working class. In the enceh of imserialism, paradoxical as it may seem, the working class becomes responsible for carrying cut the tasks of the bourgeoisie and leading the national revcluticn to victory.

Thus Trotsky concluded "The ‘national revolution! even in Ireland, has in »ractice become an unrising of the-workers."

This in fact, is the same conclusion which Connelly arrived at a few years earlier when he srceved in his beck, Labour in Irish History, that” “the working class alone remains as the inccrruptable inheritors of the fight for freedum in Ireland”. Even the strategical slogan formulated by Connelly tc exoress the new dynamic of the national struggle, the Workers Renublic, differed in no way from the slegan cf Scviet Pcuwer advance by Trotsky. Trotskyism has always recognized the imscrtance cf national revoluticn, .

but unlike the Gtalinists at one extreme and the mere naticnalists ) at the other, it has seen it as a class issue; as an issue which can be used t) bring the working class to power LHiITi! ON KARL RADSI AND "RSACTIONARY" REVOLUTIONS Sensing that his criticisms cf Trotsky are strained and misdirected, lane tries to transfer Lenin's criticisms of Marl Radek ts Trotsky to reinforce his arguement. tie claims that frutsiy's view (see bot. of para.)

which lead him (Gadek) to dismiss it (1516) as a sutch"*, Then Trotsky is dewclished with the help of a few hammer blcuws from Lenin which | were criginally directed at Radek. Unfortunately fur Lane, Trotsky!s and Radek's views on the national questicn were not “exactly the same’.

Radek’never accepted the theory of Permanent Revolution, and although he supported Trotskyis struggle against the Soviet bureaucracy, he eventually broke from Trotslyy on srecisely this questicn. Indeed it was Radek's attack (from the Stalinist viewscint) on the Permanent Revelutica which oroveked Trotsky into writing his famus defence cf this thecry. (insert: cn the national revolution “is exactly the same as . Earl Rade: which lead ....ste.) | But there is a snecific reason behind Lanes! efforts to introduce Radek ints the discussion, ile wishes tc use Lenin's attaclk cn Radex to srovs that “Lenin sbvisusly did not regard the (1615) Rising as urcgress, we, as anti-inmerialist in itself’, As far as Lane is concerned the =rcegressive side of the 1516 utrising consisted sclely in the fact that “The rebellicn cccured at a sarticular time in the international situation that mace it of use tc the nroletarian revoluticn" nc be adds later that In any cther context cr in any cther situation, a 1S16 - tyse uorising would have no interest in the working class as it would only oremte nationalism and maticnal conflict". All these muazing relevaticns, are but apart cf the DIC attemst tc rewrite Listcry in otder to make it Fit in with the Two Nations dcgaa, in view of some cf the cther bizarre nositions cf the EICO it cumes as nt sururise that they shuuld try tc establish that even Lenin had taken a stand against “bourgecis catholic Nationalism] Se let us take a brief Iock at what Len the qnesticns : What was his evaluation in actually wrote, leening in mind cf the tbjective content of the

uorising itself, and whether cr act ne cbjected t. it on the grounds that it nreceted “"maticnal cenflict” and “naticnalisc’.

It is true that Lenin saw the international significance +f the 1516 wirising. "A blew delivered against the s.wer cf the English imerialist bourgecisie by a rebellica in Ireland he wecte “is a hundred times mre significant chan a bluw cf equal f:rce delivered in Africa cr Asia" (Questions cf National ect and Preletarian internaticnalism 5151).

Eut it is alse clear that he recognized the intrinsically revoluticnary character cf the rebeliicn. In sarticular he saw its anti-immerialist nature, and viewed it.as the latest climax of the generations cld struggle apainst British immerial dsiiinatien. Fer example, Le writes, "The centuriz¢ :ld Irish naticnal mcvement, having ~assed through varicus stages and combinati-ns <f class interests +s. Manifested a in street fighting conducted by a section «f the urban setty burgecisie and a section cf the workers after a ling ~ericd of mass ag itatic n, denenstraticns swioressicn cf newscaners, etc. Who ever calls such a rebellicn a *-wisch?

is either a hardened reacticnary, wr a doctrinaire hevelessly incapable .f envisaging a social revelutica as a living =henvmn", (ibid =160).

Secondly, the fact that the usrising cccured under an “archaic flag and articulated its feelinz in naticnalist terms, cid not srevent Lenin fren judging it as cbiectivaly oregressive, Indeed, he usec this articular article en Ireland t. ecmbat the n:tica cf sure revolutions. ie exslained That any Tass mo verent inevitably brings the aetty beursecigia anc backward workers within its cumass ,'and just as inevitably will they bring ints the mevenent their eh ia oat & their reacticnary fantasies, their weaknesses and errers’ but nontheless the struzzle is directed arainst canitalisn. It is the duty of revoluticnaries ti take advantage of such tuvenients anc “ex>ress (the) <bj-ctivetruth <f (this) variegated and dise rdant, “«tely and epewancty fraguented, mass struggle", anc in this way advance the Sarch tcuwarcs stat 2 suwer. Ts ascribe to Lénin the view that revolutions anc =ass strugeles Waiich dc mt express themselves in clear larsist terms are reactionary is satent falsificatiin.

in the ctntext cf the struggle’ in the Six Counties, the lessta .f Lenin's article cculd still be learned by some of tcdays self =r. fessed reveluticnaries., The eee shase of the ficht fer aacasnal liberation Seyler the views sf Lenin. Bekind the baciwardness and ore judices of & Pte | community in the Siz: (unties lies the «bjettive reality of their gemine social, ecencmic and =¢litical disccntent, That is way it is wrong t: ccnterscse the entire revelutivnary varicist - orograciie tc the ¢n=scing struggle or cot cut of that strezle as the sectari ans ds.

It is the duty cf Maricists t. merge with the naintrust cf the wiserge ode and become the ctnscicus articulater cf the unconscivus Prete TRUTGI AUD CASS isNTS ST SURZ Une must acuire Lane?s serwzlessness (a less charitable ersen would cali it tnit-vicking!) in attaching Trotsly's every second word. Tuis meth.c leads Lane ints absurd scsitions wiere be is furced t wake pross ever sijlificaticns. This is warticularly s- _ ne criticizes ‘rotsky for the importance which he attaches t.Caseuentts s-—-called “aval thecries - Ruger Casenentis co aeitin tie Cathclic

llativnists was not his naval thetries which were uot taken sericusly by then Casement, it would seem had only the value «f a sascst, and feumared with any -f the cther leaders he was an eccentric and represanted nc sccial forces within the Cathclic naticn'’, The credence waich Peo Wig in Casenent's writing theref:re testifies tc his simerficiality. 7 On the contrary, all that Lane has written testifies cnly tc his own superficality and particularly to the fact that he is cbviously not acquanted with Casement's views. Accordingly he is hardly in position to judge Trotsky's accessment of them. The very fact that Casement was arrested, tried and executed, despite the dramatic sensation which the whole affair »rovcked is evidence that : the British did not ccnsifer him as a simple eccentric. In their estimation he | was at least as dangerous as the rest of the naticnalist leaders and that is why he met the same fate as they.

To understand why the British treated Casement sc severly, one must realise what his views represented. They were not the pathe tic "Naval theories" which Lane imagines them to be.

Ireland's geogranhical »osition had for long becn a resource of worry to britain.

The nossibility that some hostile nower might use Ireland as a base for action against England was a major consideration in the Tudors! decision to conquer and subdue the country. Speaking of Elizabeth's policy, Beckett, who is by nc means prone to eccentricities, writes that "nothing but the risk of leaving an ovening for Spanish intrigue would induce her to face the cost of campaigns in the more remote parts of the country" (The making of modern Ireland, nage 20) and later he says of the conquest “" The motive behind this expansion was essentially defensive, for it was inspired by fear of Snain'(ibid.p.20) In successive epochs, during the periods of primitive capital accumulation, merchantile capitalism, and even uy to the present imperialist stage (as nrcven by the elaborate »lans of both the British and Germans, fcr the invasicn «sf Ireland during the last war), the strategie military,nosition of Ireland had always tc be bent in mind. The rev: lutionary naticnal m vement was als* well aware sf this fact and endavoured tr turn it to their advantage.

Fr-m this awarness was f-rmilated the maxim "England's foe is cur friend". This maxim became enshined as a basic tenet of the revoluticnary naticnal ide: l«gy.

The United Irishmen attemmted «. forge links with the French; the Fenians with the Americans; the Vlunteers with the Maiser, and the IfA with Hitler.

It was this asvect «f Irish naticnalisg, based on very real and -bjective c’ rcumstances, which Casement made his own and articulated better | than ther natccnalist leader of his generaticn. But Casement did mre than this: we nuanced the theme and gave it extra dimension. In his hands it was transfor med from being a surely military- ge: gravhical matter into a nelitical, 2conomic cconsiderati:n °f the highest «rder.

Casement, like Lenin (see qucte abcve) saw that Ireland was not a threat tc Britain merely because of its location and military inmortance, but more inmortantly because cf the eccnomic interdevendence of buth countriczs.

Hie realised that the indenendence »f Ireland would be a severe blew, struc..

right at the heart cf the daire, carable cf racking it tc its foundations.

“Ne took advantage of every *osortunity ty convince continental Zurc eans, es-ecially the Germans, that the liberaticn of Ireland, was the only hone they had in competing with, and challanging, the mighty suveriority of the Eritish.

"The British Sapire is founded not upon the British Bible, cr the British Dréadnought, but upon Ireland" said Casament "The Empire which began uwnon an island ravaged, sacled and plundered shall end upon an island which whether it proceeded from the very genius of the soil er the influence of the stars, or that Almighty God had not Ret appointed of her reformation, or that He reserveth her in this unquiet state still for some secret scourge which shall by her come untc England it is hard to be known but yet much to be feared" (The Keener of the Seas - Aug. 1911 - wes : ). Casement understood that the oppressicn of Ireland was the secret of Britain's greatness - "To subdue that ocean-closing and western island and to exploit its resources its people and above all, its position, to the sole advantage of the eastern island has been the set aim of every English government from the days of Yeary V111" (ibid) But tha continentals were to their own detriment, unaware of the secret scurce of Britain's nower, "The vital inmortance of Ireland to Europe" he continued “is not and has not been understood by any European stateeman. Tr them it has not been a Eurenean island, a vital and necessary element, but an anpendage of England, an idand beyond an island, a mere georgranhical exmression in the titles of the ccnqueror” (ibid) As we have said Casement snent most of his time and energy trying to convi nce the Zuropeans that a British Empire without Ireland was impossible and tht this would be to their own great advantage. “Detach Ireland from the man of the British Exmire” he exhorted them "and restore it to the man of Europe and that day England resumes her native proporticns and Eurone assumes its rightful stature in the empire of the werld (ibid). Later he warned the Germans that any purely military defeat of Britain would benefit them little unless Ireland was granted self-determination. "Tc leave a defeated England still in the full possession of Ireland" he warned "would be not te settle the question of German equal rights at sea or in world affairs, but merely to nostnone the settlement to a second and possibly far greater encounter". (The Balance of Power, Sept. 1912) These ideas marked a very real advance in nationalist thinking and the British government were painfully aware of this. They were confronted by an eminent spokesman who had discovered their Achilles heel. "The vital importance of Ireland to England is understcod but never proclaimed by Pritish spckesmen".Casement had noticed. Now he had pledged | his life and cast himself in the mle of “traitor” in order to expose Britain's weakness to her enemies, that Ireland might win her freedom.

This was Casement's contribution to the Irish national movement. Both he and the Sritish were aware of it, and it was for this that he payed with his life. It is in the context of this understanding of Casement that we must examine Trotslys assessment of his writings. When Lane informs us that it was not specifically military considerations which brought about the agrarian reforms and the Gladstone {lome Rule bill, he is not saying anything which Casement or Trotsky did not already understand. It is because Lane is not familiar with Casement's nosition that he misinterprets what Trotsky means when he speaks of the "Military-immerialist" premise

premise of Gladstone's agrarian and Home Rule »olicy. Trotsky, taking un Casement's train of thought, was refering not merely to the geographical relationshin between Ireland and Britain, but also to the more important economic and nolitical relationshin. As far as Trotsky was concerned, a military occunation of Ireland by a power hostile to Britain would be devastating not only in military terms, but also in terms of Britain's position on the world market. It was to forestall any alliance between the Irish gombeen and the Petty-bourgeoisie and such a hostile mower, and to prevent a complete and revolutionary separation which would undermine the stability of the Empire, that the British bourgeoisie accelerated the political liquidation of the Anglc Irish aristocracy. On the most immncrtant idea in Trotsky's article, Lane is forced to make a concessicn. Trotsky's description of the Irish working class consciousness swinging between nationalism and syndicalism, he grudgingly admits "is fairly accurate". But then he tries to negate this by chiding Trotsky for not indicating how these two asnects of consciousness, or at least the nationalist aspect, could be transcended.

The way Lane poses the question shows that he misunderstands the basic oroblem involved. Such a misconcention is common to the Irish Left, whether would be Trotskyist, Stalinist or Republican, it is worth dwelling on it for a few moments, We must begin by disnensing with the eclectic approach of seeing Syndicalism and Nationalism as senarate and unrelated ' polar on»esites which exclude each other. In fact they form a Dialectical contradiction and find their unity in the immediacy ef British :mmerialism dominaticn of Ireland. Let us, then, trace -the origins of the two immediate terms Syndicalism and nationalism and show hew they find their unity.

Syndicalism is a general phencmencn exmerienced in many countries narticularly those with a large agricultural sector and a large concentration ~f industry. These twin economic factors work together to the Syndicalist censcinusness. Firstly, the agricultural sector under capitalism ensures the steady flow of workers fresh from the land ints the factories. Here the lives of these worlers are discinlined and regimented in a tormenting and agonizing way.

Secondly, the lack of industrial concentration hinders the development of a unified movement which can challenge the power of the capitalist society as a whole. In this way the factory is made the centre of everything : on the one hand it becomes an scbject of hatred and on the other hand it becomes the major arena of political struggle y because cf the inability of the class to confront the might cf the capitalist state. It is not surprising that Ireland, whith such an ecomny should have produced its own syndicalist movement. But in most countries Syndicalism was only a phase through which workers passed. This in turn was due to the fact that the economies of these countries were only passing through a stage of their evoluticn towards

it Guore vanced tanltalis sys ST. 7 he has been unable to advance past this stage of development. Due to imperialist domination a stagnant extensive agricultural sector side by side with a capital intensive export orientated, consumer goods industrial sector, continues tc characterise the Irish ecanomy., As long as British imperialism continues -to dominate Ipeland, this economic structure is bound to remain more cr less constant, and the Irish working class will spontaneously gravitate towards syndicalism, Working class nationalism stems from the same basic economic factors.

Nationalism was not particular to the generation of 1516, At all times the workers have been the vanguard of the national movement.

As early as 1798 before class differentiation had gone very far, it was the artisans, the future working class who were the strong driving ferce of the insurrection. Scme years later, Emmet built his "consyiracy” through the weavers unions in the Liberties.

The Young Irelanders spread their organisation through the Chartist Clubs, and the Fenians found the large-store assistants and building workers foremst among their ranks.

Clearly itwas no abstract and mystical love of an equally abstract and mystical "Mother Ireland" which was at the root of this.

Rather the workers were instinctively aware that it was the dcmination of Ireland by British imperialism which prevented the growth af a healthy economy which would add te the strenght, secial, political and econcmic of the workers; they were instinctively aware that it was the domination of British imperialism which caused unemployment, emigration, low wages and bad social conditions in general, Thus while British imperialism continues tc abort the growth of the productive forces in Ireland, an important aspect of Irish working class consciousness is bound to be expressed in Nationalist terns. The latest nhase of the national struggle shows how these apnarently mitually exclusive asnects of conscicusness shoot from the same root.

Following the attemnt te developa native Irish capitalism Fianna Fail was forced to abandon Sinn-Feinism and seek the aid of foreign, mainly British canital. The influx cf capital which cecured raised the organic commosition of capital and the rate of exploitation. Almost immediatly a massive strike wave which has not receeded at the present time, was set in motion. This strike wave has been characterised by unofficial action sumathy strikes, sabotage and factcry sit-ins but has found no exoression in the growth cf Marxism. In short, the response of the working class to the sudden rise in exploitation was to a lesser or greater degree within the general syndicalist framework.

At the same time this influx of capital brought Ireland much more within the orbit of British imperialism, laying the basis for a second “act of Union” and a federal scluticn to the border problem, The nossibility of a forthright integraticn of Ireland into the United Kingdom and a settlement of nartition at the expense of the oppressed Catholic minority in the Six Counties, has given a new lease of life to Irish nationalism, which because there is practically no national »s.+-(continued under Article on the Permanent Revoluticn).

>* i

| THE

REVOLUTIONARY

MARXIST GROUP

Revohrtionary socialist orgenmaton in son danty wath Fourth saternananat | am interested in getimg mec infarmaion | aboyttbe ANG

NAMIE

ADDRESS

) -GCOURA TION |

Send to The Secretary; AMG: 58, Worth Great Charles Street, Dublin.

PLOUGH BOOK SERVICE

Books include: Introduction to Logic of Marxism: George Novack Price £0.62 fetroduction to Marxist Economics: Emest Mandel Price E0.37'4 What is Trotsteyitm ?- Ernest Mandel Pree £0,209, 58, North Graat Charins Street, Dublin.