Fennell's Third Reich

a new ireland or ...

FENNELL’'S THIRD REICH ?

(The following article is an analysis by Robert Dorn of some dangerous political trends in the Provisionals based on Desmond Fennell's pamphlet - Build the Third Republic) Mr. Desmond Fennell expresses a tendency in Provisional Republican thinking. It is one that will have little direct effect unless other, more progressive, tendencies fail to achieve their aims. However, that it can still be accepted in Irish Republicanism (Kevin Street variety) is symptomatic of the continuing theoretical weakness of Republicanism (itself based on the inadequacy of its material base). Im turn, this is given material political expression in the current set backs that the groups in the movement are suffering. They may unless there are major changes, lead to the defeat of Republicanism and the turning of its cadres to the author of this pamphlet.

Frou cheir point of view this would be a mistake, It would mean a breach wth everything that they now support, as certainly as acceptance of the Articles of Agreement did for an earlier generation. Although he has since weakened, it was Mr. Fennell, rather than the B.I.C.0., who began the current propaganda about the "Two Nations in Ireland."

In this pamphlet, his attitude to Republicanism is exposed in the first article where he quotes approvingly, with an apparent sense of incongruity, Liam Mellows (who opposed the Articles of Agreement) and Michael Collins (who signed them). The quotation from Collins is from Collins! post - Treaty book!

But what is Mr. Fennell's political faith and what is wrong with it?

It is worth asking this question because his writings make explicit and codify many of the assumptions held by would-be Irish political theorists. Basically, "Fennellism" is a form of Fascism. This may seen a strong thing to say especially at a time when the concept is ssed far too often as a sort of a bludgeon for one's opponents. Nonetheless it can be easily shown, In essence, Fascism represents the organisation of the demoralised petty-bourgeoisie against the working class in theinterests of imperialism, Mr, Fennell's aim is to mobilise the West against the East of Ireland. It is purely coincidental, of course, that most of the workers, and the strength of the trade unions happen to be in the East and that the West is a stronghold of petty-bourgeois (small farmers and gombeenmen) economics and, even more, ideology. Nonetheless, the trend of such a view is inevitable. So we find in various places throughout the pamphlet, it is expressed:-

=5+ I "Class inequality arises between the metropolitan region and other regions in regard to money incomes, availability of employment, access to cultural facilities and to mass media platforms. The basic human right to live and work within one's own society and region is secured for the inhabitants of the metropolitan region and denied to many citizens born elsewhere" (P,12 present reviewer's emphasis).

In the light of Mao's broader and correct analysis, the identity of interest between urban workers and capitalists becomes evident. So does the clash of interest between the provincial towns and cities and the metropolitan region. As for the fight going on in t he workers!’ name for "Worker control" and all that, we can now gee what this is, when its all boiled down: Th rochial st le of one metropolitan i ainst another for the metropolit ils. Just how remote this sontest is from the real interests of rural society is exemplified by the “ate of the peasants in Russia after the Revolution, Small wonder that dao, a peasant himself, (111) rejected Stalin's advice on how to make the Chinese Revolution." (PP,14-15) "Measured in terms of average money incomes, social power and access to cultural facilities, the upper class in Ireland today are the inhabitants or the five-county Dublin region. Measured in the same terms, most of Munster and South Leinster are middle-class and the inhabitants of Connacht, South and West Ulster and several other counties are lowclass people. In other words, the inhabitants of the greater part of the Republic belong to this lowest class" P.29.

we. Fennell's essential hestility to the need of organised labour were made even more specific in an article ('Concern of Another Kind? sunday Press 25th October 1970) which is not republished in the gpllection reviewed but which is quoted here, nonetheless as being relevant <o its author's views. (The subject is Mr. George Colley's plans to freeze wages) :itwhen trade unions are rich or when alternative employment is readily available, the strike is an expremely coercive influence on pay rates.

It forges pay above the level which is justified by production and sales." WWhen nay is forced up in this manner, supply and demand no longer determine prices. Even if demand falls, prices have to rise. Even if supply increases, prices cannot fall. Commodities are no 1 onger riced by a free market, but by the coercion of production costs."

[tied dere lee the man who wrote this had the nerve to denounce the Catholic magazine SLANT as not being Marxist enough, a fair comment but coming from hin?!) "Since the maintenance men's strike, both these coercion forces have been cperating to an extreme degree. But probed (sic) deeper, behind the inflationary pay increases, to the motivations which forced them

ie through, Consider the scramble for more money over the past two years as a whole. Was freedom at work then?

"Qvite well-off people were setting the pace, Remember this Republic is the sixteenth richest country in the world. Most of the groups claiming large increases and striking or threatening to strike were already earning,on. one count or another, at least twenty pounds a week, and many of the claimants were earning much more......"

",...eeThe Government has not introduced coercion. It has merely inseeted some coercion to reason and survival into a situation which was giaracterised by © 101 1 and suicide " .eeeeeL00k the next time when top trade union officials who (sic) appear on television, Listen to their predictable parrot-talk. Note the permanent grievance carefully nurtured in their professionally underdog voices. And recall that these men are very powerful, widely experienced and well-to-do."

Qf course, that article is uncharacteristic: not because there are other articles than can be quoted to set against it, but because Mr.

Fennell is careful not to write very mucb on industrial issues. What zppears in this collection gives the reader an idea of the ideclogy saat he uses both as a smokescreen and as a possible incentive for the mvement that (he hopes) will achieve his aims, Like all fascist .jgzologies, it is a gerry-built piece of work. Thus in his articles ‘wo Ways to Develope Industry" (P.P. 34-35) he can compare favourably se Spanish rule of the Basques to Dublin rule of Cavan and Monaghan hereas in "Who Wants a Pluralist Ireland?" he is more correct in denouncing Franco's government. In order to justify his threme he is vady to misrepresent completely the thoughts of Marx, Mao, Guevara snd even, poor old Noel Browne (hf Paisleyite Liberal" - P.29), It is wust as well perhaps, that he doesn't seem to have heard of Trotsky.

Insofar as it has any intellectual form "Fennellism" is essentially -dealistic and ultra-clerical. His reference and reliance on, Mao is justified by a masterly piece of shuffling:- James Connolly learnt from Marx while remaining an Irish Republican, a Catholic, a Gaelic revivalist and a free-thinking man. Connacht has enabled me to learn from Mao in the same manner” P, -15, Sut there is a gifference between James Connolly's acceptance of Marx and Mr. Fennell's of Mac. Comrade Connolly accepted Marx’ political method and analysis totally, even if he did accept catholicism for his private use (and it is doubtful if he even did this.)n Mr. Fennell merely uses Mao (and Guevara) to give a left veneer to his interpretations of the Papal encyclicals. His:political analysis is wholly idealist and overwhelmingly Catholic:-

a ne ee —————————— t,,....The Primary motivation of the Easter Rising was not political or economic but humanist (sic) and moral. It hoped to set in motion a redemptive process, in the image of Calvary, which would lead to the resurrection cf man in Lreland to his full human stature." (6 -6) ".....eNo human republic - no Irish Republic of man = can be built without the light of Jesug Christ." (P. - 27) " It goes without saying that virtually every institution characterising Irish life today is derived from Britain, and especially from England, though there is some American influence too, The only major exception I can think of is our Catholicism and all that goes with it. Sunday Mass, Saturday ecofessions, rcsary beads, priests and nuns in the streets, parish missions, recruitment lectures for the foreign missions, first communion dresses, vecple blessing themselves and so on™ - P, 40, Basing his analysis uncn such assumptions, it is easy for Mr, Fennell te declare (in an interesting expression cf the'Two Stage'Theory) :james Connolly, the socialist, put the political aim before the eccnomic aim, Every true radical must of necessity do the same because the distributjon cf eccnemic power and cultural facilities, and the effective ness of so-called ‘social Welfare’, ultimately decided by the distribution of governmental power.

Radical politics worthy of the name are concerned primarily with political power and its distribution throughout the State. Only secondarily are they concerned with economic and ‘social welfare!

issues." - BP. 13. In other words, the eccnomic system doesn't matter: what is important is the form cf Government. That this form is merely the ultinate expression of the existing economic system is dismissed by Mr. Fennell (or, perhaps, more accurately, never considered by him.) For him, the trouble with Ireland is over centrallised goverment. In article .after article, he puts forward pleas for greater powers for the local Irish regicns. All this would be fair enough, but the forms of idealism are insufficient to justify his arguments when they are placed in the reality of Ireland tday, In Particular, two questions must be asked. Firstly, if Ireland is too over-centrallised for effective or benevolent Government, what interests are keeping it that way? Secondly, how is the Government tc be reformed, seeing as how those nations quoted by Mr.

Fennell that have not maintained their local gcvernments intact from the middle ages have only been decentrallised as a result of revolution cr military annihilation? The way in which Mr. Fennell choses tc answer these questions ig the give away for his politics as exposed at the beginning of this review. For him, Ireland is kept over—centrallised by the machinations cf the metropolitan region (all the classes therein) and de-centrallisation will be achieved only by 4 revolution of the

petty-bourgeoisie of the west against the east. Since such a revolution can, in historical practice, only be based on either the capitalists or the workers and since it is clear that Mr. Fennell is opposed to the majority of the workers, it is obvious that he locks to Fascism as his motivating force. Of course, in practice, Fascism cannot achieve what he says he wants.

Indeed, the very idea of Fascism leading to greater de-centralisation is ludicrous. Nonethesess, both the Italian and the Less-successful - Franch Fascists pat in their programmes (not, of course, their practice) calls for greater devolution of government powers. For the Fascist, any theories however irrelevant are serviceable. More than most ideclogies, Fascism needs to be examined for what it is rather than for what it claims to be. But it will be cbjected that Mr. Fennell and his views are cf little consequence in Ireland today. He is associated with the Republican Movenent (Kevin Street) at a time when either that movement drops such as he or goes under, Most neople can see through his pretence.

Such assumptions are dangerous. That Mr. Fennell has any influence in Kevin Street at all says something about the intellectual barrenness cf the Irish left since Connolly. His views often express, albeit distertedly, -the illusions that have beset that left and, indeed, the petty-bourgeois thecries that have taken root in it and in political left wings elsewhere. His views, can ultimately, only handicap the Irish National liberation stuuggle. And, cf course, this is as it should be as it is only through the defeat of that struggle that he is likely to get any real political power as cpposed to backdoor influence through Kevin Street or its "Dail Connachta’, Each of these pcints can be elaborated, though the first one dcesn't have tc be, That Mr. Fennell can be allcwed to take any role (let alone a leading role) in an assembly aimed formally at creating a dual power situation cver a province cf Ireland exposes the failure of the Kevin Street leadership as much as its failure to develop a political strategy in Northern Ireland that as as effective as its military strategy. For Fennell makes no appeal to the workers and only the workers can carry out the successful national revolution in Ireland by bringing it over into a socialist struggle. (It must be said, tood that his influence in some Connacht Cummainn of Gardiner Place is stronger than one would like to believe).

Secondly, not only are Mr. Fennell's confusions as to the nature of "class" and of "imperialism" traditional errors of the petty-bourgecis left, but he has incorporated more trendy illusions into his thinking.

In his introduction ts the pamphlet he calls for a People's Republic quite in the tradition of the Stalinites (but, also, it is wrth remembering of Hitler: his Third Reich was also termed a "People's Republic"). In his belief in the acceptability of religion as a cultural aspect cf nationality, he is merely expressing an important (contd.p34)