Understanding De Valera

The political relevance of De Valera was emphasised by the refusal of the present government to do more than make the barest formalities suitable to the interment of a President. Not only did Cosgrave find himself unable to say anything of the man whose mantle he inherits, embarassing though the fact of this inheritance. is, but a large part of the radjo commemoration was given over to the senile ravings of De Valera’s old rival, John A. Costello, mainly forthe propagandation of Costello's assertion that “he has left nothing of permanent value’. (Just what Costello will be supposed to have left when he departs, im his turn, it will be interesting to learn from the commentators).

This characteristic meanness is compounded by the inability of those who genuinely do admice de Volera to explain their position comvincingly. Lynch for example concentrated (as befiting the ideologist of “standing idly by” whilst Derry burnt) on the fact that “when (Dev) saw that the continuance of the struggle in arms was unwise in the national interest, he, for fifty years in elected office, espoused peace throughout the land and reconciliation between all Irish méenand women.” Also mentioned by other panegyrists were his leadership of, for the period, a relatively progressive economic policy in the nineteen thirties, and, of course, his maintenance of Irish neutrality during the Second World War. All this tends to reinforce the Costello thesis.

What really prevents the admirers of De Valera from giving o detailed appreciation of their hero is precisely the fact mentioned above. The continuing relevance of the politics associated with him are ever more embarrassing to them than to his detractors. For nearly fourteen years, Fianna Fail had had him locked up safely in the Phoenix Park whilst his. successors tried desperately to piece together 2 programme that would proceed from the point reached before him. The party failed; it may be caved from political limbo by the failure of the national coalition but even if it returns to power it will be in nearly all respects imprisoned in the social straightiacket that is associated with its first leader.

Dev's role The central fact about the career of De Valero is that he was the figurehead under whom the Insh national revolution was advanced to the furthest point compatible with its bourgeois character and wo further. This is not.so say that different demands of the struggle for Irish independence that had to be jettisoned in De Valera’s time cannot be refurbished at a later date. Already the economic collapse of the British economy has been followed by a number of kites hinting at breaking the connection between the Irish Purr and the British pound, [t is also possible, though less immedistey likely, that the question of national unification could be solved within an imperialist context. What is certain, however, is that for such changes to take place in such a manner, they will have to be taken individually, over a number of decades, and based as much, or even more, on outside factors (e.g. the decline of Britain), as on internal factors.

It was under the leadership of De Valera that Ireland went “this far and no further”, There can be no doubt that he was history's first choice for this task. He was helped by the theoretical vagueness that is a crucail part of Republicanism a3 well as by the failure of the Irish Labour Movement to fill Connolly's place at the left of the national forces. Nonetheless it was his own peculiar talent for hair splitting allied to his prestige as the supposedly most senior surviving Commandant of the 1916 Rising (the rightful claimant to this title was the Tréeatyite Michsel Staines) that enabled him to use this vagueness to the utmost and keep the Socialists ina state of permanent isolation.

Ai no time were his gifts shown better than in the period where they seemed to have failed him: after the drafting of the Treaty and before the Civil War. Basically, the problem was one af finding « formula to bring the mass of the tank and file Republican militants to accept the hegemony of British imperialism and thus liquidate any possible revolutionary opposition to it.

De Valera's famous Documents 2 and 3 were each designed to do this by the formula of “External Association” between the Republic and the Empire. However a majority of Dail Fireann was prepared to accept something les than these and far less than the aspirations of the freedom fighters, Under the leadership of Collins and Griffith, it voted for the Treaty to avoid “immediate and terrible war". In the event they got just that: a civil war, and blamed De Valera for siding with their opponents and those of the Treaty. Dev's “achievements”

Nonetheless, by doing this, Dev ensured that a relatively conservative wing would be maintained within Republicanism so that, after the War had ended in inevitable defeat for it, this wing would come to the top both of of the movement and of the twenty six county state. His party, Fianna Fail, was better suited to the counter revolutionary period than his “Documents” had been; its policy combined moderate social reforms, a formally Republican thetoric and a realistic appreciation of the possibilities of seizing state power. Against it, in the Republican movement were, on the one hand, the hard line Republicans who could not admit defeat, and, on the other the Socialist wing which Was prepared to agree with Fianna Fail's tactics, and which was accordingly used by it and then discarded.

Fianna Fail-was able to act os a more radical government, It was able to carry the Irish national revolution further than it might have done, This was because of the depression, which first highlighted the weaknesses in the Treatyite Policies and forced Fianna Fail to actually carry out its proposals for protection of potential and developing Irish industries, and which enabled it to surive an economic war with Britain over certain outstanding points of the Treaty settlement without backing down on the precise points involved (though they didn't exhaust the remaining objective [rish national demands by any means). With the surrender in 1938 of Britain's 26 county naval bases, her recognition of De Valera’s “Documentary” relationship with her and her renunciation of financial claims outstanding in exchange for a lump sum, the tole of progressive capitalism in [reland was completely exhausted, Fianna Fail and De Valera settled down to a period of maintenance of the status quo, buttressed, as always in Irish struggle after every defeat and compromise for the anti-colonial struggle, by new, in this case constitutional, concessions to the Catholic Church By international even international bourgeois standards, de Valera's achievements were not impressive. Nonetheless, what he did was the most that any Irish bourgeois politician could do or will ever do, The sheer mediocrity of the leaders of Irish capitalist politics to-day reflects the fact that its operators are working by rules laid down by another, De Valera’s lice will not be seen again.

Praise be.

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