Renegades From Marxism

/ inescapable fact — the sectarian nature of the North of Ireland statelet. | Given the sectarian nature of Northern . society it would be utopian to expect any | struggle with a democratic dynamic to rise step by step until the general public unaerstood the need for armed struggle to attain its ultimate ends. The development of revolution in the North of Ireland is resisted not merely by a narrow bourgeois elite but by an entire people who have transcended class interests (in the political sphere) to protect certain mutural privileges. A state resting on such a wide concensus has no need to conciliate democratic upsurges. it can afford to crush any mass movement at an early stage. Right from the beginning the Unionist statelet attempted to beat the Civil Rights movement off the streets. When the Catholic population resisted, the Unionist statelet mobilised more and more of its forces — first the RUC (almost exclusively Protestant), then the B-Specials (exclusively Protestant) and finally the British Army and the reactionary Orange mobs.

Thus it was inevitable that the armed resistance among the Catholic would begin before the Civil Rights campaign had mobilised the entire Catholic community, not to mention the entire working class. The Unionist statelet was bound to create a confrontation before anything like that could be accomplished. In fact the armed struggle was spontaneously launched under severe provocation in August 1969 by the Catholic workers in Derry and Belfast. In view of the sectarian divisions of Northern society it was essential that once the armed struggle reached the primitive stage of barricades and petrol bombs.that it should be systematically organised. : Unfortunately the Irish left failed to realise this. A naive hope persisted that things would revert to their old state and the peaceful civil rights campaign could continue to gain momentum. When thé Left failed the Catholic working class, the Catholic workers by-passed the Left and made an effort to fashion their own military defence. For example in the Strand area and Ardoyne, which subsequently became storm« centres of the struggle in Belfast, local residents THE PLOUGH — PAGE 4 THE PLOUGH PAGE 8 The Catholic population adopted the Provos as a local defence force and the Provos to a large extent transformed themseives into such an organisation. In this respect it is interesting to note that when the |RA split, the majority of the leaders of the Belfast Battalion staff went with the Officials while the officers of nine of the eleven local companies followed the Provisionals. In other words it was the grass-roots leaderships of the IRA and not a remote elite or some clique of fanatics totally divorced from reality, who formed the backbone of the Provos and enabled them to fulfil the role of neighbourhood militias Even when the Provos gained a position of pre-eminence in the Catholic community they did not immediately force the pace of the struggle. On the contrary, all the evidence seems to indicate that they tempered the spontaneous desire for retaliation by the more advanced sections of the Catholic minority, with patience. In the summer of 1970 the Catholic ghettoes were subjected to tremendous provocation by Orange mobs and tt2 youth in particular were anxious to fight back. Despite allegations by the British Army it was the Provos who prevented a premature action. As the Loyalists and British Army increased their intimidation and harassment of the Catholic minority. rioting broke out recurrently. The British army of course accused the Provos of being behind the unrest but as the ‘Sunday Times Insight Team’ (who certainly had no vested interest in portraying the Provos in a favourable light) reported:.“The Provisional IRA was present . . . but trying to STOP the rioting”. And the Insight Team quotes the pro-Unionist ‘Belfast Telegraph’ of saying: “Even when the crunch came Catholic vigilantes continued to appeal for a return to sanity and were caught in the no-man’s-land between the mob and the soldiers”. And, adds the Insight Team “They (the vigilantes) were, largely, IRA men of both persuasions”. Free State. machinations of individuals. thousand. that a guerilla war in either Britain which resulted in 40,000 deaths or a guerilla war in the South resulting in 2,000 deaths, would have on the relationship between classes and the political institutions mediating these relationships. Yet, in proportionate terms, the armed struggle in the North has exactly the same dimension as these hypothetical guerrilla wars in Britain or the When this comparison is kept in mind any attempt to dismiss the armed struggle as an artificial imposition, outside the class struggle skillfully worked at by a small clique of fanatics is seen to be nonsense. The armed struggle is a mighty fact of life which must be explained by the movement of society itself and not the Of course, all this is not to say that the dimension of the struggle automatically gives an accurate reflection of its real social foundations. To get a clear picture of the scope of mass support for, and participation in, the armed Struggle, concrete facts are necessary.

For the time being these can only be guessed at. For instance, up to two thousand Catholics have been interned, ascused of being members of the IRA. It can safely be assumed that for every one interned another two or three went free. At the height of the armed resistance therefore it is reasonable to estimate the membership of the Provo-IRA at around five This figure is only a guess but it can be cross-checked with other sources. J. Bowyer Bell, referred to above, wrote that “During the period from July 1970 until January 1971 the Provo strength in Belfast passed one thousand and was somewhat less than in the rest of the Province ‘the North)’. Accordingly, even before internment, Bowyer Bells puts the Provo membership at about two and a half thousand. It is not unreasonable to assume that following internment, when the military campaign went into top gear, the Provo membership doubled and

received it has been argued that it did nothing but harm. To a large degree, this accusation rests on the assumption that the Provos alienated the Protestant working class. This argument does not hold water because the Protestant working class was alienated long before the Provos came into existence. There had been major reactionary Loyalist mobilisations and bloody assaults on the Catholic population as far back as August "69.

Another argument is that the armed resistance at most stalled the Protestant back-lash but did nothing to help the Catholic working class to develop its struggle for democratic rights and ultimately the struggle for socialism.

While the military campaign has certainly had major political limitations a completely negative assessment of it would be wrong. As has been pointed out above, even the British army was prepared to admit that at least s quarter of the Catholic population was actively helping the [RA — hiding them out, storing arms and munitions, lending their homes for training etc. A quarter of the Catholic population amounts to 125,000 people. So many people do not actively support an armed struggle unless the armed struggle helps them in some way to achieve their urgent political aims.

In the North the immediate aim of the Catholic population was to mobilise to fight for basic democratic rights. This entailed a fundamental challenge to the very existence of the Northern statelet. The question is, therefore, did the Provo campaign aid the fight to accomplish these aims?

The answer to this question must be an emphatic YES. The most important achievement of the Provos was not that they protected the Catholic population. In this, their success was by no means complete. Their most outstanding victory wes that they shifted the axis of struggle firmly onto the streets and theretry under the control of the people themselves. !t was this achievement which gave the struggle of the Catholic workers all the power and trust necessary to bring down Stormont.

The imporance of this achiew ment should not be underestimated. While the SDP was prepered to ride the tide of mass protest, they succeeded in making Stormont the real bargaining-counter of Northern politics. Their aim in doing so wes, naturally, to keep the reigns of cc ntroi tightly in the hands of the Catholic middle-class.

But the Provo campaign cory Jetely out-flanked them. By degree, the mass base b silt up by Hume, Cooper and Curry in the early Civil Rights agitation wes crumbling under them. In July ‘71 the SDLP was no longer really an effective nolitical force in the North. The pressure of the Provos combined tactice of sniping, bombing and rioting, eventually forced the SDLP to consider withdrawing from authority. In other words the armed struggle of the Provos must be judged as an essential and integral part of a maturing situation of dual-power in the North.

Weakness of the armed resistance The Provo militants have fought an effective and courageous campaign. But the reason the above facts are focussed upon is not to flatter the, not to denegrate their opponents on the Left, nor even to provide an answer to the slenders of British imperialism and its native clients. The reason that the positive aspects of the Provos campaign needs to be stressed is that it is the only wey to make the weaknesses of thet campaign stand out The primary weakness of the Provo campaign iS that it is a spontaneous reflex of the immediate feelings and aspirations in the Catholic ghettos. it iS this above al! thet has shaped the nature of the armed resistance. The bornbing campaign, apart from its military objectives of tieing down the British army outside Catholic areas and smashing the morale of the armed Loyalist groups, is marked by definite social hallmarks which reflect the position of the Catholic population way against them. Right etc. leadership. within the Northern statelet. For instance, the direction of the campaign against the shopping centres and the big stores reflects the exclusion of the Catholic workers from the modern “consumer society” that has developed since the Second World War. Or again, the bombing and arson of factories reflects the high rate of unemployment among Catholic workers, the fact that employment is used in a sectarian While the ability of the Provos to atune themselves to the urgent feelings and aspirations of the Catholic minority has been a great source of strength it has also been a source of frustration. The problem is that the outlook of the Catholic community is very volatile and can shift within very short periods from Left to This problem arises from the social structure of the Catholic minority in the North.

Firstly, there is no real capitalist class in the Catholic community — just a petty bourgeoisie which has historically been unable to create a unified ideoloty or provide stable political Secondly, in most capitalist countries it is the responsibility it was the Provos who were isolated.

A more important example in the sudden turn which occurred following the abolition of Stormont. In a sense this was an enormous victory for the Catholic population, one which the Provos played a major role in achieving. It might have been expected that it would have been followed by a major political upsurge in the Catholic ghettos benefitting the Provos almost exclusively. What happened however was'the exact opposite — a lull in the mass struggle and a Strengthening of the influence of the Catholic middle-class in the form of the SDLP.

The failure of the Provos to develop any deep political analysis of the situation in the North has left them at the mercy of such developments. When the wave that has carried them onwards and upwards recedes the Provos never stop to think but fight on as if everything remained the same. This kind of blind tenacity is admirable, but when it leads to isolation it is also self-defeating.

The political weakness is well examplified ir