Fascist Origins Of

Labour Party with Fine Gael a party which opposed to working class rights, However, tse when, to quote Trotsky, they “find themselves formed the Army Comrades Association — the lay resort distinguished from the military strategy "©"-Political, anti-Communist and for the Fascism is one of the twentieth century's most important and misunderstood reactionary political forces. The Fourth the third International proved its incompetence by its failure to understand it. and from this its failure to Jead the German workers to oppose Nazism successfully. This double blunder resulted in the murder of millions of Jews and the Second World War, In Ireland, this confusion is well expressed in the rhetoric of the various reformist groups that compose the “Left Alternative” particularly Sinn Fein (Gardiner Place) who denounce Kevin St. Sinn Fein as Fascist. That the latter has committed acts of unprincipled sectarianism against the Officials does not justify a self-styled Marxist body distorting theory to suit its case. This appears even less justified when it is remembered that the first to make this accusation was the common enemey of all Republicans: Conor Cruise O'Brien, As a final ironic twist, O’Brien made the same accusation against Fianna Fail to justify the currently revived coalition between his began far closer to Fascism than any Republican group.

But was Fine Gael fascist? Whenever its unsavoury beginnings are exposed in any bourgeout nespaper, defenders proctaim that its mass para-military organisation — the Blueshirts — was simply created to defend freedom of speech against Republican attacks, This tremendous lie has gained credence even amongst self proclaimed “Socialist Republicans’, But if Fine Gael was not a fully developed fascist party, it tried hard enough, To recognise that, it is necessary first to understand what Fascism is, It is not simply a matter of brutal sectarian behaviour, nor a policy of breaching the formalities of bourgeous democracy. Its claim to power is based on material conditions, It is the. weapon of last resort that the capitalists unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery” and can no longer allow workers the luxury of their own organisations, More especially it is a political af counter-revolutionary Putschism (operated by the Colonels in Greece) by the mobilising of the masses of the petty bourgeois and of the lumpen proletariat to support the capitalists’ aims when the workers parties have failed to move quickly enough to assert their hegemony. A fascist Party isan organisation, literally, of Pare-military, rather than military scabs, By this definition, Sinn Fein (Kevin Street) is not Fascist; though ideologically petty-bourgeois, it is not Fine Gael in its Blueshirt period failed to develop its fascism, only because the Irish bourgeoisie did not need such a program, The Pro-Treaty cause had a permanent tendency that way, Its victory in the Civil War was accompanied by a social counter-revolution, in which the bosses increased their profits at the workers’ expense, In January 1922, real wages were higher than ever before: by January 1924, they were lower than they had been ten years previously (after the 1913 Dublin Lock-out) The chief forces in this counter attack were the National (Saorstat) Army and its allies, the armed bands of rural stabs, the “Farmers Freedom Forces”, dust under ten years later, veterans of the Saorstat Army and ex-members and the sons of members of the Farmers Freedom Forces original Blueshirt association — to oppose, slow down and, perhaps, reverse the policies now being initiated by Fianna Fail, In its original Manifesto (August 1932) it declared itself at once (Saorstat) Constitution, A year later, when it merged with the constitutional parties of compradorian capitalism (W. T. Cosgrave's Cumann na Gael and the large farmers’ National Centre Party) to form Fine Gael, thi established ona programme including demane for P.A., the establishment of vocational corporations with statutory powers over the nation’s “economic life" and the abolition of local councils, Six months later, the new part} Published a “Labour Policy”. This demanded legal ban on strikes and lock outs {a typical fe Piece of formal evenhandedness; where the workers can't strike, the bosses don't need to lock them out), It was spiced with demogogic attacks on trade union leaders (who werk, witl all their.feultg, more responsible to their membership than the Blueshirts).

Allied to the Saorstat’s second largest part the Blueshirts seemed to be a real threat that could be defeated only through a confrontatic But objective conditions were against them, Though supported by big business and ranche: and, on the other hand, by lumpenproletarian such as Dublin's Animal Gang, it had little sup from fascism’'s traditional mass base, the petty bourgeoisie, This was not attracted to its polit because it tended to be satisfied with Fianna Fail's industrial expansionism. Naturally, tha workers tended to be instinctively hostile and showed it, Fine Gael failed to make the major

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The Blueshirts’ U.C.D, Branch in its early day (April 1933): Top centre left is Thomas of the Supreme Court. Next to him (top cent right) is his brother Michael Joseph O"Higgin Fine Gael Seanad Leader. Once a fascist... ,