partisan patriotic internationalist h hh h · 2020-05-18 · page 2. expolitation 2socialist voice...

Communist Party of IrelandPáirtí Cumannach na hÉireann

Partisan Patriotic InternationalistNumber 173 July 2019 €1.50

www.commmunistpartyofirerland.ie

Page 2 Housing for allPage 2 Water charges by stealth

Page 4 Repeal the IRAPage 6 Britain’s ruling classPage 6 Swiss women strikePage 8 Drugs: who benefits?

Page 8 The new scramble for Africa0 Republicanism and socialism

Page 12 Super-expolitationPage 14 The working class and art

Page 16 Kildare anti-fascist remembered

Socialist Voice

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Rotten potatoes and sea-weed, or evengrass, properly mixed, afford a verywholesome and nutritious food. All knowthat Irishmen can live upon anything, andthere is plenty of grass in the fieldthough the potato crop should fail.”—Adolphus Frederick Hanover, “Duke of Cambridge,” January 1846.

Repeal the IRA! page 4

Housing for all!Vulture funds have become passé,reports Laura Duggan. The latest fadtaking hold in the property market is thecuckoo fund—aptly named, as they pushthe individual or family buyer out of theirpotential nest. Page 2

EXPOLITATION

2 Socialist Voice July 2019

OFFICIALLY CALLED private rentedsector funds, they are institutionalinvestors backed by the likes of

large pension funds. They work by buyingup whole developments, such asapartment blocks, typically buying in cashand in bulk, elbowing out family buyersbefore letting out the same units to thesame families for a tidy rental fee.

The first investments of this typebegan in Ireland about 2013, onlybecoming of interest recently because oftheir unexpected growth. According to areport this year from Savills, between2012 and 2018 block purchasers bought9,291 units in Dublin—8 per cent of allthe residential properties that have beenpurchased. The majority of these cuckoofund purchases—almost 3,000 units—took place last year alone, with €1.1billion invested.

By the first of May there were 2,834proposed units between Dublin citycentre, Santry, and Dún Laoghaire—allplanned for rental investors only. Undernew design standards for apartmentsintroduced in March last year, developerswho opt for PRS-specific planningdesignation can benefit from “flexibility”on internal storage, unit sizes, unit mixand minimum car-parking provision—meaning they can make smaller

apartments, with lower requirements.It is now common also to include a

clause in these developments to ensurethat the block will remain in theownership of a single corporate entity forat least fifteen years. Institutionallandlords already hold approximately 4½per cent of all tenancies nationally,heavily concentrated in the principalrental areas, such as Dublin.

It must be noted that this carries withit the risk that these monopolies will beable to engage in price-fixing in high-demand areas and their peripheries,driving up rents as they wish.

One of these cuckoo funds, theAmerican firm Kennedy Wilson, is able tocharge an average of €2,049 per monthin Dublin—€300 more than in LosAngeles. Cuckoo funds are a lucrativemoney-spinner, with a high and quickreturn, making them particularlyappealing. Dublin being such a profitablemarket, it is one that these companiesare happy to expand within as the “rentalphilosophy” takes hold.

This “rental philosophy” has beentouted as the Irish finally updating theirattitude to property and embracing amore Continental approach. In reality thisattitude is little more than an atmosphereof desperation and shortage, one that is

being cultivated in a country where 1 in10 renters are paying 60 per cent of theirearnings in rent.

With growing homelessness (nowmore than 10,000 people in emergencyaccommodation in the 26 counties,4,401 of these in Dublin), longer housingwaiting-lists (in Dublin 31,196households), daft.ie advertising bunkbeds, and much worse, it’s small wonderthat renters are grateful to get anywhereat all, and are afraid to buck the trend.

This is where another housing fadmakes its entrance: “co-living.” NicheLiving has two such developmentsplanned in Rathmines and DúnLaoghaire, with a third at Cookstown,near Tallaght, just being refused planningpermission. Depending on your point ofview, co-living can be described as“campus living for the socially minded” ormodern bedsits with a shiny gloss.

Co-living bedspaces are marketedwith the language of socialconsciousness andenvironmentalism and promoted asa new, alternative way of living.

Those seeking to rent one of theseco-living spaces rent only a bedroom, or“bedspace,” as Niche Living terms them,

Water for allDan Taraghan

IN THE WAKE of the local and EUelections it was reported in the IrishTimes (10 June) that up to 70,000

households could be charged for wastingwater from next year. Charges could beas much as €500 for a household.

The proposal to charge for wastingwater has been made by Irish Water tothe Commission for the Regulation ofUtilities. This quango was set up in 1999as the Commission for Energy Regulationand was rebranded in 2017. The seniormanagement of the CRU seems to bemade up of people with a background inenergy markets and the privatisation andderegulation of utilities. There is nomention of any senior managers from the

trade union movement.The CRU’s web site talks of protecting

“customer interests” in relation to IrishWater. There is no mention of citizens’right to water. Consequently, it is highlylikely that the CRU will accede to IrishWater’s request.

Since water charges were suspendedfollowing widespread protests thatbrought thousands of workers onto thestreets, there has been a drip-drip feedof neo-liberal propaganda emanatingfrom the state broadcaster and othermedia in the form of asides during paneldiscussions such as “People in townsdon’t want to pay for water.” There isnever any clarification that workers donot want to pay twice for water, as theyalready pay through their taxes.

Needless to say, for some RTEbroadcasters who have set up a limitedcompany to channel their fee income theidea of paying taxes under PAYE is

probably a vague concept. Citizens’rights, and in particular having the rightto water, is probably an alien concept.

This plan to re-impose water chargesby stealth as a “charge for excessive useof water,” mar dhea, is a carefullythought out plan by the bourgeoisie. Theidea is to divide and weaken potentialopposition by portraying this as ameasure to stop “excessive use,”whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Without a doubt, the newly electedGreen Party councillors and MEPs will beenthusiastic for any of these measures,under the guise of conserving water.

It’s unlikely that Irish Water will be putunder any pressure to solve the leaking-pipe problem, where 50 per cent ofwater is lost at present, before there isany attempt to impose water charges ondomestic users. It is surely afundamental requirement that theinfrastructure be upgraded.

Socialist Voice July 2019 3

Co-living marketing is slick and stylish, but without it, co-livinglooks an awful lot like the despised family hubs.

with a fold-down bed, and with access tocommunal kitchen and laundry facilities.In Dún Laoghaire this communal kitchenwill be shared among forty-twobedspaces. Without the need forindividual cooking facilities, morebedspaces can be squashed onto thesame floor.

As co-living is supposedly intendedonly for short-term leasing, a fewmonths to a year, these units also havelower requirements for light and spacethan standard one-bed apartments, andlook more like hotel rooms than flats.Starting at €1,200 per month, thesespaces are far from affordable for themajority of workers and totally unsuitablefor those with children. With a shrinkingnumber of affordable apartments andhouses available, however, they maybecome the only option for many.

The rise of Airbnb was the firstbeginning of landlords siphoning offresidences from the long-term rentalmarket to the more lucrative andexploitable realm of short-term leasing.Rental postings began to shrink in Dublinas short-term leasing exploded; and co-living is the next step. With theRathmines development at 104bedspaces and Dún Laoghaire at 208,this is co-living on a scale not previously

seen in Dublin.Co-living bedspaces are marketed

with the language of socialconsciousness and environmentalismand promoted as a new, alternative wayof living. But the push to accept co-livingisn’t for forming communities, saving theplanet, or developing social connections,any more than renting is for havingfreedom. The drive behind them is tonormalise the switch from tenant tocontract-holder, without any of the rightsor protections—meagre as they are—ofthose with conventional renting leases.

It’s all about applying pressure onrenters to accept lower and lowerstandards and security in housing forever-increasing rents. It’s aboutcommodifying the basic human need forshelter, and using that need to ruthlesslyexploit workers.

Co-living marketing is slick andstylish, but without it, co-living looks anawful lot like the despised family hubs.

The minister for housing, EoghanMurphy, has publicly spoken of hissupport for both cuckoo funds and co-living apartments. Both of these, he hasargued, are good for tenants, as they aresupplying a desperate need in themarket.

What he refuses to acknowledge is

how this need has been manufacturedand exploited by the ruling politicalparties, working in tandem with thelandlord and developer class. TheGovernment has been accused by theUnited Nations of facilitating the“financialisation of housing” throughpreferential tax laws and weak protectionfor tenants. This can hardly be surprisingwhen more than a fifth of the Dáil’s 158TDs are receiving income from propertiesthey own and are renting out.

According to Engineers Ireland, morethan 600,000 people are living in poorhousing conditions, with leaks, damp,and rot, while it is estimated that nearly2 million homes will require retrofittingwithin the next decade.

To solve this crisis we do not needinvestors playing with properties as profitdictates, or trendy new ways of livingthat force lower-earners to accept lowerstandards: what we need is universalpublic housing. It is only through everycitizen having the right to a home,rented for a set and fair percentage oftheir income, supplied by the state, thatwe can fight back against theintensifying forces of neo-liberalcapitalism and the total commodificationof our homes. H

It’s also unlikely that our esteemedpoliticians will do anything to stem thegrowth of Dublin by investing in townsoutside the Dublin area. Consequently,it’s more than likely that Irish Water willcontinue with its plan to take water fromthe Shannon rather than fix the pipes.

How has this situation come about?Following the virtual abolition of watercharges as a result of the protests, FineGael and Fianna Fáil entered into acoalition, the so-called confidence andsupply agreement of 2016. (Neitherparty wants to describe it as a coalition,because that would expose how littledemocracy exists here.) Under the termsof this agreement it was decided thatthere could be a charge for excessiveuse of water in order to comply with theEU’s Water Framework Directive. Bothparties refused to include the right towater and the public ownership of waterin the Constitution.

David Gibney, co-ordinator of

Right2Water, pointed out in a letter tothe Irish Times (15 June) that there is norequirement under the directive toimpose charges along the lines nowplanned. He went on to say that there isno evidence that there is “excessive” useof water by households: in facthouseholds use only 12 per cent oftreated water, as against 38 per cent byindustry.

Gibney makes the valid argument thatthe cost of administering Irish Water’splan would probably be greater than therevenue it would produce.

On top of this, the bottled-waterindustry is allowed to extract unlimitedamounts of water from the water table,free of charge. For the bourgeois parties,any idea of limiting capitalists’ rights inthe interests of the common good issacrilege and not to be evencontemplated.

This move to reintroduce watercharges by stealth, despite the

widespread democratic opposition, willbe possible because the protests thattook place in 2014 and 2015 did notproduce a swing to left-wing politiciansthat would give a voice to working-classdemands. The recent local and EUelections showed a low turnout aroundthe country. In effect, in manyconstituencies the working class did nothave an opportunity to vote for anycandidates other than representatives ofthe bourgeoisie.

The “left” in Ireland is now dividedinto at least six different parties, whereasthe bourgeoisie has two main parties,which maintain a phoney war as apretence for democratic debate. Theyachieve state power and rule on aneffective minority vote.

It is necessary that all means of legalcampaigns, including elections, are usedto develop the position of the workingclass in opposition to the currentdictatorship of the bourgeoisie. H

Falling union densityand the high ageprofile of themembership areserious concerns forunions. Majorchanges are neededto reverse this trendJimmy Doranreports

THE BIENNIAL delegate conferenceof the ICTU is being held in Dublinon 2, 3 and 4 July. It will debate

and formulate policy and goals formember-unions for the next couple ofyears.

When trade unions originated back inthe mid-1800s they were considered,and even referred to in law, as criminalconspiracies. Employers at the timewere openly hostile to sharing profitswith their workers. The advent of tradeunions eventually gave some power toworkers and weakened the position of

the employers, but they were notdefeated; and it was only through manyyears of struggle by organised workersthat gains were eventually made.

Times and terminology may havechanged, but relations betweenemployers and employees have not.Employers’ sole purpose is to maximisethe profit from employees’ labour.

Employers have learnt over time howto achieve this less controversially, butthe results are the same. Today,inequality is at a record level, with noend in sight. According to the CentralBank, the richest 10 per cent of Irish-resident financial asset-holders (thosewith shares, financial investments, ordeposits) now have €50 billion morethan at the peak in 2006. So “austerity”worked very well for them.

At the same time as this growinginequality and erosion of workingconditions, union density is at its lowest.And these two facts are related.

Little by little, the rules ofengagement were changed. The carrot-and-stick approach was used to lullworkers into a false sense of security.They are allowed to join unions—butemployers don’t have to recognise them.“Social partnership” was agreedbetween unions, the state, and

employers’ organisations. National payagreements were entered into. This ledto an end to negotiations on a company-by-company basis. This in turn led toless industrial action and fewer strikes.

The jewel in the crown was theIndustrial Relations Act (1990), whichtook large areas of control and decision-making away from unions and theirmembers and left them in the hands ofemployers and the courts. It alsobanned many of the tactics used byunions to achieve the gains won in thepast, such as secondary picketing,support strikes, sit-ins, political strikes,and a plethora of other methods thathad been successfully used in struggle.

The velvet war against union powerwas complete. Unions were no longer inthe front line of struggle but hadmorphed into a support service forworkers. This weakened the unions asthey became involved in cosy nationalnegotiations. They took their eye off theball as, bit by bit, working conditionswere eroded, inequality skyrocketed, andprecarious employment replaced thepermanent, pensionable jobs that hadbeen secured through years of sustainedunion struggle.

With short-term contracts, minimum-hours contracts, bogus self-employment,

LABOUR AND CAPITAL


Stop wage theft!

JIMMY DORAN

The National Minimum Wage(Protection of Employee Tips) Bill isa welcome development, as no

employer should be permitted to retaingratuities meant for workers.

It is a reflection of where we are as asociety, and where the balance of powerexists between employers and workers,that legislation is needed to stopemployers stealing this money fromthose it is intended for. The contempt inwhich the working class are held bysections of the ruling class is alsoexposed, as some politicians willactually vote against this bill, while

g

Abolish the Industrial Relations Act

and the “gig economy,” conditions havecome full circle. Employers have broughtworking conditions for the majority ofthose now entering the work force rightback to where they were when workersbegan to organise 150 years ago. Thepresent generation of workers have noexperience of radical union struggle andits victories.

It’s time for the trade unionmovement to go back to basics. Weneed to fight precarious workingconditions, as our predecessors did.These battles will not be won in theboard room but on the shop floor.

For workers to tip the balance ofpower away from employers, the 1990act has to be abolished so as to giveworkers power over when and wherethey take action.

But there is nothing like povertywages and poor working conditions toradicalise workers. History has a habit ofrepeating itself, and we must learn fromit. Four unions have passed motions attheir delegate conference calling for the1990 act to be abolished: Mandate,Connect, Fórsa, and Unite.

The narrative has developed that theright to union access, union recognitionand full collective bargaining will solve allour problems. These rights are certainlynecessary for workers to tip the balanceof power in their favour. We also needweapons to fight with, and that weaponis the right to strike, when and where

workers choose to—not at a time thatbest suits employers.

Profit is the goal of employers. Ifunions have the power to hit theirpockets by not allowing them to preparein advance through excessive noticeperiods and endless court injunctions,they will have to take notice ofdemands. The threat alone will forcethem to take notice.

Working conditions are not the onlything that is destroying the lives ofworking people. The crisis in housingand in the health service and theslashing of all state services havepushed living standards back to levelsnot seen for fifty years. Back in the1970s unions successfully calledworkers out onto the streets to demandtax reform. That was when union densitywas high, before the 1990 act, whenunions could strike for political reasonsand had the confidence to do so.

Unions need to lead from the front:to be seen to be confident, strong, and

willing to fight for their members, andnot only on pay but on all aspects ofworkers’ lives. We cannot do this unlesswe have the power to do so. Unionrecognition on its own is useless if ourhands are tied behind our backs bylegislation.

Politicians have abandoned ordinaryworking people. It’s up to the tradeunion movement to fight for decency inworkers’ lives, along with better payand conditions, to end the crisis inhousing and the health service, to bringan end to precarious employment.Then, once again, workers will be proudto wear their union badge, as theywere when Larkin and Connolly instilledpride, hope and confidence in theworking class.

An extra 1 per cent in a pay dealhelps workers. Abolishing theIndustrial Relations Act will empowerthem.

Unions will have to become radicalor become redundant. H

It’s time for the trade union movement to go back to basics. We need to fight precarious working conditions, as our predecessors did.


Fringe meetingWednesday 3 July, 1:15 p.m.Pearse Centre (27 Pearse Street, Dublin)Speakers include John Douglas (Mandate), Gareth Murphy (Financial Services Union)

Organised by the Trade Union Left Forum

others have to be lobbied and put underpressure to vote for it. Occasionally thepoliticians are forced into a compromiseand have to vote against their own classinterest.

We cannot accept the culture wherethe kindness or whims of customers isused as a method of subsidising low pay,as is the norm in other countries, suchas the United States, where tips areconsidered a part of wages.

The tourism industry has some of thelowest pay rates and poorest workingconditions in the country, with themajority of employees on the minimumwage and minimum-hours contracts. It isimportant that these rates are increasedand employment conditions improved toreflect the massive profits made byrestaurants and hotels.

Tips should never be seen as asubstitute for proper rates of payand proper conditions.

The theft of tips by employers isonly a symptom of the exploitation ofworkers who are already some of themost exploited in the country. The workthat has been done by CommunitiesAgainst Low Pay in supporting thesevulnerable young workers is to becommended. These workers shouldgain confidence from the solidarityaction taken by CALP and know theyare not on their own and that theirexploitation has been noticed.

The next step in building on theirstrength and public support is for theworkers themselves to get organised,join a union, and hit the employerswhere it really hurts: their profits. They

need to ballot for strike action and toplace permanent pickets on therestaurants until such time as theirdemands are conceded.

After all, they are not looking foranything above what they deserve: afair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Andif customers feel happy with theservice they provide and give them agratuity, they are giving it to the staffand not to supplement the profits ofthe business.

Rogue employers, such as the IvyRestaurant in Dawson Street, Dublin(part of an English chain), need to beexposed for what they are. The best waythat customers can support the workersis by not going to restaurants that stealemployees’ tips; by going there you aresupporting this practice. H

Workers’ rights v. anti-union legislation

Tommy McKearney

IN SPITE of lurid headlines about hisprivate life, Boris Johnson remains theman most likely to be Britain’s next

prime minister.Tousled hair, pompous accent,

indiscreet and bullying behaviour, not tomention taking part in egregious self-promoting photo opportunities—yetnothing appears to damage his popularity

among the Tory faithful. There is often,though, a perception beyond theConservative Party membership that“Bojo,” as he is sometimes called, issomething of a clown and therefore not tobe taken seriously.

Any such reading would be a mistake.It’s worth keeping in mind that a similardismissive assessment was made ofDonald Trump during his campaign for thepresidency of the United States in 2016.

The reality is that neither man is a jester,nor indeed a completely free agent:instead they are the personification ofunderlying trends in their respectivecountries—trends that we in Ireland ignoreat our peril.

The global economic centre of gravityis slowly shifting away from the UnitedStates and its European allies and movingeastwards, towards China and its partnersin Russia, Iran, and elsewhere. Thehegemony exercised for so long bywestern states is undergoing a challenge,and their position as the axis of worldpower is no longer as permanent as itonce was. As a consequence, we are nowseeing the aggressive behaviour of US-ledimperialism towards those states theyconsider competitors.

Little surprise, therefore, when we seethe slavish and uncritical support given byBritain to the foreign policy of what BorisJohnson calls “our number 1 ally, theUSA.” Just think too of how thosecontesting the Tory party leadership viedwith each other to condemn JeremyCorbyn when, understandably, he askedlast month for credible evidence that Iranhad attacked oil tankers in the Gulf ofOman.

It is reasonable to assume, in the lightof this, that a significant section of theBritish ruling class deem its self-interest tobe best served by an ever-closer alliancewith the United States rather than theEuropean Union. And, just as in NorthAmerica, elements within British societyare happy to have this still somewhatdisguised agenda promoted on the backof a populist wave, much of which results


Laura Duggan

ON 14 JUNE women throughoutSwitzerland took to the streetsin a national women’s strike. It

took place to coincide withnegotiations at the InternationalLabour Conference in Geneva oninternational rules for tackling violenceand harassment at work.

Among their national demands inSwitzerland, women called for equalpay, investment in the care sector,recognition of the real value of unpaidwomen’s work at home and in thecommunity, and zero tolerance of

Swiss women strike

POLITICS

No real differencesamong the Britishruling class

One thing we can be quite certain of is that the Irish ruling classwill not do the right thing and reject imperialism, in whateverguise it assumes.


gender-based violence.In the wake of #MeToo, which

highlighted the global scale of theviolence and harassment that womanendure, these women also demandedeffective measures to prevent bothpsychological and physicalharassment.

While both women and menexperience violence and harassment inwork, unequal status and powerrelations in society result in womenbeing more exposed to violence andharassment. Gender-based violenceremains one of the most toleratedviolations of workers’ human rights.

According to statistics, 35 per cent ofwomen over the age of fifteen haveexperienced sexual or physical violenceat home, in their communities, or inthe place of work.

Higher rates are consistentlyrecorded in transport, health andsocial care, hotels and restaurants,the media and entertainment,agriculture, and in domestic work.Violence and harassment at work cancome from managers, supervisors,fellow-workers, and customers.Abusive work-place practices alsocontribute to work-related stress,which is now at a record level.

Progress towards gender equalityhas stagnated over the past decade,and today the number of women whohave experienced violence andharassment stands at 818 million.

However, women are responding,and over the past twenty-four monthsthey have led historic mobilisationsaround the world.

From the extension of paidmaternity leave in the Philippines tonew legal measures to protect workersfrom the misuse of non-disclosureagreements in Britain, women andtheir unions have achieved realprogress in the world of work. H

from genuine grievances within working-class communities.

So what might we expect from BorisJohnson if he occupies 10 DowningStreet? And what might be thesignificance of his premiership forIreland?

In the first instance, there is everylikelihood that he will be forced toimplement Brexit on 31 October;otherwise his credibility would beirretrievably damaged, if not altogetherdestroyed. Moreover, failure to deliveron his promise to leave the EU wouldprobably split the Conservatives, andpossibly allow Nigel Farage’s new partyto form the official opposition followingthe inevitable general election. Worsestill from the point of view of the rulingclass would be the possibility of agovernment headed by Jeremy Corbyn.

In the event of a no-deal Brexit,economic instability in Britain, if notoutright turmoil, would be practicallyunavoidable, in the short run at least.The financial sector would experiencedestabilising turbulence, investmentwould surely slow down, and someindustries would leave and moveoverseas.

While there is an unimpeachablecase to be made for a socialist-ledbreak with the European Union, thebenefits of such a departure wouldrequire some time before being realised,and then only if directed by a left-winggovernment.

To offset criticism and to retainpower Johnson and his supporterswould have few options other than

playing the populist card. Cue a seriesof crude domestic policies designed toappease readers of the Daily Telegraphand the Sun. Migrants, trade unionists,welfare recipients, feminists, climate-change activists and other bêtes noiresof the reactionary right would bedesignated for particular attention.

Don’t think either that Ireland, northor south, would be unaffected in thiscase. What steps might a Johnsongovernment take in order to retain thesupport of the DUP in the House ofCommons? What would his relationshipwith Dublin be like when the Dáilobjects to the absence of a “backstop”?A little bit of Paddy-bashing might evenbe popular with his grass roots.

It is impossible to predict what otherstrategies he might adopt; but war—thegreat fall-back of prime ministers indifficulty—cannot be ruled out. Whatwould be the response from theGovernment in Dublin in the event of amajor conflict involving British supportfor an American offensive? What thenwould be its reaction to the movementof US soldiers through Shannon Airport?What if the powerful American-owneddigital corporations based in and nearDublin were facilitating a cyber-attackon infrastructure targeted by thePentagon? How would the Taoiseachrespond to questions from those beingattacked about Ireland’s so-calledneutrality?

Such a scenario raises still moreprofound questions for the Republic’srelationship with imperialism and itsbed-fellow, free-market capitalism. The

26 Counties’ ruling class will agoniselong and hard over such a dilemma.Should they stay with the EuropeanUnion and its more selective support forNATO, or simply throw their lot incompletely with Britain and the UnitedStates? Either option would involve acost for the southern privileged class;and they will undoubtedly attempt toremain affiliated with both if possible.

One thing we can be quite certain ofis that the Irish ruling class will not dothe right thing and reject imperialism, inwhatever guise it assumes. It isimportant, therefore, that anti-imperialist Ireland takes notice of thesedevelopments and continues working toovercome their detrimental impact.Quite simply, we must bring togetherthose forces willing and capable ofestablishing an independent sovereignrepublic throughout the entire country.

Finally, let’s dispel any notion thatthis analysis will be fundamentallyaltered should Jeremy Hunt succeed indisplacing Boris Johnson. He, after all,was the person who led the verbalonslaught on Corbyn’s demand forcredible evidence about the Gulf attack,while insisting that no other state ornon-state actor apart form Iran couldpossibly have been responsible. Heended his tirade by claiming that Corbyn“can never bring himself to back Britishallies, British intelligence, or Britishinterests.”

As the saying goes about Britain’simperial ruling class, there are oftendistinctions between them but seldomany real difference.


Graham Harrington

IT IS OFTEN claimed that the “War onDrugs” has failed, and that inresponse the use of illegal drugs

should be permitted.There are several serious issues with

this thesis, the first being the questionof what evidence exists that there hasbeen a “war on drugs.” In fact the

evidence suggests the opposite: thatwhat has existed since the 1960s hasbeen a war of drugs, used against theworking class, in the service ofmonopoly capitalism. For instance,after the NATO-led invasion ofAfghanistan—the world’s leadingproducer of opium—drug productionincreased 16-fold.

Another example is Colombia, after

the United States launched its “PlanColombia,” ostensibly to target cocaineproduction but in reality targeting theFARC. Given the forced displacement ofColombian peasants and the neo-liberalreforms, many of those in poor ruralareas were forced to engage in cocaproduction as the easiest way tosurvive, which meant that drugproduction increased. Outside the areascontrolled by leftist guerrillas, theconditions of these workers is abysmal,with many working under armed guardby right-wing paramilitaries, whodepend on drug income for theircampaigns of assassination againsttrade unionists and social leadersthroughout Colombia.

The use of drugs is not just aforeign-policy weapon of the UnitedStates but also a domestic one. TheUnited States consumes half the drugsproduced on the planet, with more thantwo-thirds of its prisoners servingsentences for drug-related offences,the majority being Black Americans.

As well as being a source of

CAPITALISM

Niall Farrell

FAILING TO SEE the irony, theGovernment and Fianna Fáilvoted—on World Refugee Day, of all

days!—to send fourteen members of thearmy’s Ranger Wing (Ireland’s SAS) towar in Mali.

The minister for defence, Paul Kehoe,told the Dáil that the country was avictim of “terrorism,” and we must playour part.

Mali is not just some poor countryplagued by “terrorism.” It’s worse: it’s apoor country plagued by imperialism.

The nineteenth-century scramble forAfrica by the “great powers” carved upthat continent into artificial states andspheres of influence, causing drasticdivisions and consequences for tribalpeoples that have been compounded byimpoverishment and discrimination.

Mali is the tenth-poorest country inthe world; but the Tuareg people innorthern Mali, thanks to governmentdiscrimination, are even poorer. Inneighbouring Niger their tribal folk’s fateis similar: super-exploited in the uraniummines, a vital source of France’s nuclearenergy programme. This was the main

The new scramble for Africa

Drugs: Who benefits

immense profit for the prison-industrialcomplex, it is also a tactic for keepingthe most subversive elements pacified.As part of the “COINTELPRO” policiesfor attacking the Black Panthers, drugswere flooded into black communities,with the police turning a blind eye andleaving those communities to becomeinfested with drugs as a result ofdeliberate under-development and alack of sustainable employment.

During the 1980s the US waragainst the Sandinistas in Nicaraguaallowed the CIA to facilitate the Contrasin trafficking drugs, in the fullknowledge that their destination wouldbe black working-class communities inthe United States.

The demand for the legalisation ofdrugs is a blanket slogan that fails toproperly understand the complexities ofthe issue, and can even be used foroutright reactionary, neo-liberal results,regardless of the intentions of thosecalling for it.

Drug-trafficking is a major capitalistenterprise, the second-largest in the

world, even ahead of oil. Were narcoticsto be made legal, the massiveinternational monopolies would in factfind it to be a formality. Given theirimmense economic power, it followsthat they also have immense politicalpower. Throughout Latin America andAsia, drug barons find that the lawmeans little to them, with some evenhaving success in taking the next stepup from bribing law-makers tobecoming law-makers themselves, as inthe case of Pablo Escobar. Legalisationwould only give them the means tobecome as corrupt as their allies in thelegal pharmaceutical industry.

Ultimately, legalisation wouldinevitably lead to an increase in drug-taking and the normalising of drugs.Consumption would overwhelmingly becentred on the imperialist core, with anextremely exploitative dependence forthose in the Global South who areforced to produce them, instead ofmore sustainable and ethical projects.After cannabis was legalised in someparts of the United States, arrests

relating to drug crime actuallyincreased, tripling in Washington andincreasing by 26 per cent in Colorado.

As is always the case undercapitalism, someone is making a profit.Altria, the parent company of thetobacco giant Philip Morris, hasinvested more than $2 billion in thefledgling cannabis industry. Their paidpromotion of studies extolling thevirtues of cannabis has a closeresemblance to the campaigns thosecompanies carried out at the turn of thecentury to promote cigarettes as beingharmless.

The use of drugs, including alcohol,only pacifies resistance to capitalism. Itis a barrier to working-class struggle andthe strengthening of workers’ power. It isa victory for individualism in its worstform. Rather than relying on drugs toallow our people to scrape a living undercapitalism, revolutionaries shouldinstead be working to smash the systemand in so doing break the source ofpeople’s dependence on drugs.

Then again, maybe that’s the point? H

Mali is not just some poor country plagued by “terrorism.” It’s worse: it’s a poor country plagued by imperialism.


reason why France sent a significantmilitary force to Mali when the discontentburst into rebellion.

This uprising was exacerbated by theWest’s overthrow of Gadaffi’s Libya in2011. Well-armed Libyan Tuareg soldiersfled from the insurgency in Libya andjoined forces with their brethren in Mali.A year later these rebels were to besuperseded by a more powerful jihadiforce.

In February 2013 the Frenchintervened, and by 2015 a peaceagreement with Tuareg forces had beenagreed. France also engineered themilitary support of the “G5 Sahel,” fiveformer colonies in the Sahel-Saharanregion: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger,Mauritania, and Chad. An estimated18,000 foreign troops are in Mali today.

The intervention in Mali is showingclear similarities to the Afghan war. It waspossible to wrest northern Mali from thecontrol of jihadi militias, as it was totemporarily put an end to Taliban controlin 2001. Nevertheless interventionforces—the United NationsMultidimensional Integrated StabilisationMission in Mali—which include a largeGerman contingent as well as the French

“anti-terrorist” Opération Barkhaneforce—are regularly under attack.

Also, serious acts of violence arehappening in central Mali. Here thePuelh, mostly shepherds, have constantlysuffered state oppression. A growingnumber of the Puelh have risen upagainst the discrimination and as a resulthave been the victims of massacres.

A United Nations report in 2018accused Malian troops of havingcommitted regular massacres; and sincelate 2016 these forces have allegedlycarried out “extrajudicial killings,”arbitrary arrests, torture, and theenforced disappearance of men accusedof supporting Islamist armed militias.These are the very same soldiers who arebeing trained under an EU trainingmission, which includes Irish, British andGerman military trainers.

None of this information wasforthcoming in the Dáil. Instead theminister hypocritically spoke of Malineeding to return to “civilian rule,”ignoring the fact that the forces that Irishsoldiers have been training since 2013are the very ones that overthrew thedemocratically elected president in2012.

It is within this bellicose maelstromthat the Irish special forces will join theGerman army contingent to carry out“reconnaissance” missions,presumably targeting villages or specificareas for drone attacks. That is notpeacekeeping, that is war, and ablatant breach of our neutrality.

Besides, this war is unlikely tosucceed. In November 2017 theInternational Crisis Group, a pro-western think tank, stated that thisregional conflict can be solved only ifthe deep-seated socio-economiccauses are dealt with. And while theMalian people are poor, their countryand region are rich in naturalresources.

However, a military strategy is thepreferred EU option, and especially forGermany, as it expands its operationsin Africa. This dovetails nicely with theEU’s “permanent structured co-operation” (PESCO) and thedevelopment of an EU army.

You can rest assured that ourpolitical and military elite won’t allow atrivial matter such as Irish neutrality toget in the way of rubbing shoulderswith their betters. H

BY ANY relevant psephologicalindices, it is absolutely clear thatSinn Féin did exceedingly

poorly—perhaps disastrously—in therecent local and European elections;and the results have clearly precipitatedsome reflective introspection by variousparty members.

For example, a defeated Sinn Féincandidate in Dublin, Lynn Boylan, hascalled for dialogue and co-operationwith other “left-wing parties” in future,arguing that competition for votes hadhanded seats to Fianna Fáil and Fine

Gael. She claimed: “I am a republican,I am a united Irelander, but I am a leftwing activist.” Indeed she went on toclaim: “That’s how we were able to stopwater charges—it’s because the leftcame together and worked together.”

Let’s just leave aside Sinn Féin’sspecific role in the campaign againstwater charges, which is contentious,and concentrate on the more significantideological proposition about Sinn Féinand its relationship with “the left.”

Over the years the Provisionalmovement has undoubtedly flirted with

socialism as an ideology. Forexample, the original Éire Nuaprogramme articulated by theProvisionals had a reasonably well-defined social component, with the

emphasis on a more equitable anddecentralised distribution of resources.By the late 1970s, under a new“Northern” leadership, this trend wasaccentuated. This was perhaps mostvividly expressed in Jimmy Drumm’sspeech of 1977 (apparently written byAdams et al.) which stressed the needfor social liberation and the importanceof standing in solidarity with workersagainst British colonial rule and the“fascist” Free State. (The speech also,incidentally, rejected a reformedStormont and power-sharing.)

In this period Adams not onlycriticised capitalism, he was fond ofquoting Connolly, while Sinn Féinexplicitly identified itself with the ANC,PLO, and Sandinistas. Somecommentators even detected theinfluence of Marxism; and though thiswas hugely exaggerated, there was asense in which Sinn Féin identifieditself as an integral part of a global“left” movement. It undoubtedlyestablished its radical credentialsthrough community work and activismin working-class areas.

However, there was always another,more pragmatic and opportunisticdimension to Sinn Féin strategy. Thiscould be detected during and after theHunger Strike, when the process ofpoliticisation sought to reconfigure SinnFéin as an electoral force. It wasconfirmed in a very personal way to one

OPINION


Provisional Sinn Féin,republicanism, andsocialismEddie O’Neill and Mark Hayes

Paul Doran

THE RECENT CPI national school on21–23 June began with the nationalchairperson giving a good

introduction, which was followed by abrief talk on Irish history, with a differentslant on the roles played by the state andits allies the church and its sycophanticfollowers. Questions were posed to theaudience about how we can change thetide of political discourse and aboutrecent phenomena, such as Does therole of Greta Thunberg teach usanything?

Next was a talk, attentively listened

to, by two stalwarts of our party on theall-Ireland nature of our struggle:Contemporary challenges: Partition,Brexit, the EU, and the border poll.

Comrades were keen to get into theirdiscussion groups to dissect the opinionsheard, and this was brought back to themeeting. Fascinating stuff!

On Saturday afternoon we discussedthe class structure of Irish society. Who arethe ruling class, north and south? How arethey linked to imperialism? The comradepresenting this topic was well preparedwith various visual images that caught ourimagination and the questions that are atthe core of our basic understanding of all

CPI summer school:An assessment

of the writers of this article when aletter was smuggled out of Albanyprison in 1983 (written by Eddie O’Neilland Ray McLaughlin, and signed byother Republican prisoners). Thismissive explicitly addressed “the left”and urged all comrades to showsolidarity with the Irish revolution whilecalling for a “broad front” of leftprogressive forces to form a commonplatform against imperialism.

The correspondence was completelydisregarded by the Republicanleadership at the time. The writing wason the wall: Sinn Féin was movingtowards conventional constitutionalpolitics. It eventually came to see itselfas the natural repository for middle-class Catholic votes and positioneditself as the successor to the SDLP asthe primary representative of the“Nationalist” community.

In relation to the north, Sinn Féineventually adopted the diplomaticstrategy of “pan-nationalism,” whichnot only led to the so-called “peaceprocess” but meant succumbing to apolitical process that was inevitablydominated by bourgeois nationalistelements in Dublin, the SDLP, and the“Irish lobby” in the United States.

In effect, the diplomatic strategydrew Republicans into a procedurewhose dynamic they could noteffectively control. In the process, notonly was Sinn Féin’s tenuous link tosocialism abandoned but long-cherished Republican ideals weredumped by the wayside. This was mostgraphically reflected in the grotesquespectre of Jonathan Powell editing the

speeches of Sinn Féin negotiators inDowning Street, and “Republicans”bending the knee to British royalty.

Sinn Féin had become co-opted bya state it was once committed todestroying. Moreover, it was preparedto administer an agreement thateffectively reinforced sectariancategories, because identity politicswas hard-wired into the Good FridayAgreement.

When Sinn Féin talks about“equality” now it relates to notions ofinter-communal equivalence in asqualid sectarian scramble for limitedresources, rather than a more equalredistribution of material outcomes inorder to reduce obscene levels ofdisparity in wealth. In the north, SinnFéin power-sharing has meantsubordinating itself to a neo-liberalagenda. This has led to the partyendorsing cuts in welfare, supportingPFI, and facilitating a reduction incorporation tax, at direct cost to theblock grant.

In effect, concessions have beenmade to the most egregious aspects ofthe capitalist system. The Provos,always anxious to evade the epithet of“sticky,” have been perfectly happy toemulate the “stoops.”

These observations are made not tolament the turning away fromparamilitary tactics but to highlight thefact that the leadership of theRepublican movement have actuallymade momentous choices at criticalmoments during the course of the so-called “troubles”—and they have madesignificant strategic errors. Rather than

engaging in an inclusive debate withthose activists at the cutting edge ofthe armed struggle, the leadershipopted to back itself into negotiationswith the bitterest of political enemies.

Compromise with the mostreactionary representatives of Loyalism,Unionism and the British Establishmentwas always likely to end badly; and wenow have a situation where it’s noteven clear that Sinn Féin arerepublican, let alone socialist. GerryAdams said recently that a unitedIreland should not be something rushedinto, while the party leader, Mary LouMcDonald, has confirmed that shewould be willing to talk to anyone inpost-election negotiations, because“that’s what grown-ups do.”

And here we can see the essence ofthe problem: principles cast adrift withthe most vacuous of sound-bites.

In effect, in the hands of theProvisionals, Republicanism hasbecome a multi-purpose ideologyemployed to lubricate the wheels of anelectoral machine that is in the serviceof cynical, careerist politicians. SinnFéin wanted working-class supportwithout the more onerous task ofrewarding them for their efforts, andthey were punished at the polls.

There are lessons here, but there islittle evidence that the leadership ofSinn Féin is capable of learning them.The most basic lesson is this: the ideaof socialism without nationalsovereignty may be an illusion, butindependence without socialism isn’tworth crossing the street for. H

Compromise with the most reactionary representatives ofLoyalism, Unionism and the British Establishment was alwayslikely to end badly.


that is wrong in this state.After tea an outline of the party’s

history was brief and yet extremelyinteresting, and I, and others, wantedmore of it.

The social evening was extremelyenjoyable, and stories heard, serioustopics discussed and yarns were relived,with the odd hangover the next morningall part and parcel.

Sunday morning, and “Building aLeninist party” was a most interestingtalk. Socialism is a science to be learnt,and organisation is crucial, along withtheory. These are core elements in ourthinking. We are people in struggle and

have no time for those Marxist academicssitting in the high towers of academiapontificating to all and sundry.

Our personal behaviour is important,and the new media were touched upon,and a particular remark caught thiswriter’s attention: “You don't own yourown image rights,” and must know whatdemocratic centralism is.

The health service was dealt withnext, and comrades were given the rawfacts of the continued privatisation in theSix Counties and the ruinous healthsystem in the 26 Counties.

One of the highlights of the weekendwas the talk on the environment: “Saving

the planet”—a riveting talk that caughtthe imagination of many of the comradespresent, with a list of further readinggiven to follow up.

Youth and ideology was the nexttheme, with the role of the ConnollyYouth Movement in awakening the youthfrom their slumber well outlined, withdescriptions of their various campaignsand steadily increasing membership. Thespeaker gave us all hope as we left thesummer school for the four corners ofIreland after a brilliant weekend along theRiver Blackwater.

My thanks to all who arranged andparticipated. H

THE UNITED STATES has beenplaying the role of the world’seconomic bully. So far it has

imposed sanctions against Afghanistan,Belarus, Burma, Burundi, CentralAfrican Republic, China, DemocraticRepublic of Congo, Crimea, Cuba,Cyprus, Eritrea, Haïti, Iran, Iraq, NorthKorea, Lebanon, Libya, Russia,Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria,Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen, andZimbabwe.

But if unilateral harassment hasproved ineffective in achievingconventional geopolitical objectives,why does the United States insist onbullying Venezuela and Iran?

A glance at the political economy ofinternational oil markets—an industryused as a battlefield for furthering theaims of war—provides an insight intothe seemingly irrational realm towardswhich Donald Trump has been leadingUS foreign policy.

Energy-independence requiresmanipulating marketsAs international markets are highlyspeculative, many people believe thatprice trends cannot be manipulated; butthat is not true. When energycommodities and strategic raw materialsare involved, the United States does notsit back as a patient price-taker butprefers to throw the dice as a price-maker.

Between 2006 and 2014, whenChina’s economic boom was increasingthe demand for internationalcommodities, structural changesoccurred that, ironically, favoured theUnited States a few years later.

Firstly, high oil prices allowed thefracking industry to become a financiallyviable option. This in turn helped theUnited States to gradually overcome thedependence it had experienced for thirtyyears and that made it the world’slargest oil importer in 2016, with avoracious appetite of about 12 millionbarrels per day.

In December 2018, for the first timein seventy-five years, the United Statesbecame a net oil exporter, thanks to“thousands of wells producing from thePermian region of Texas and New Mexicoto Bakken in North Dakota and Marcellusin Pennsylvania,” according to a report inthe Los Angeles Times. In the words ofMichael Lynch, president of StrategicEnergy and Economic Research Inc., “Weare becoming the dominant power in theworld.”

Trump is reaping the fruit of energy-independence, a condition he did notcontribute to at all.

This abundance of energy is fragile,however, because maintaining it dependson keeping oil prices as high as possible.To force this to happen, therefore,anything that threatens to diminish globaloil supplies is actually good for the United

States, including the blockade ofVenezuelan and Iranian exports.

And that’s not all . . .While the United States now has

enough oil to be able to export some ofits reserves, Trump’s homeland can’tsatisfy the world’s energy demandscompletely. This opens up businessopportunities for Saudi Arabia and otherallies, which can also benefit fromeconomic sanctions against Venezuelaand Iran.

Before April 2018, when the UnitedStates began applying a new round ofsanctions, Iran was OPEC’s second-largest producer, exporting almost 3million barrels per day. Since then,however, its oil production has beenreduced by more than 1 million barrels.

In Venezuela, US foreign policy hasachieved a similar result: betweenFebruary 2018 and January 2019Venezuela’s average oil output droppedfrom 1.5 million barrels per day to 1.1million, not much more than half itsproduction in 2006.

These combined results have triggereda trend towards the contraction of globaloil supplies, which could be worsened ifthe Libyan civil war adds another cut of1.2 million barrels per day in the nearfuture.

Nevertheless, the oil market’s invisiblehand is not enough to ensure those highprices the United States desperatelyneeds, as global supply essentially meets

The spoils ofeconomic warJuan Fernando Teran of teleSUR

on how the United States and Saudi Arabia

profit from sanctions on Venezuela and Iran

CAPITALISM


The US budget deficit is how much more the government spends than it receives in revenue annually.


global demand, moving about 99½million barrels per day, according to theInternational Energy Agency.

This won’t change on its own: globaleconomic growth will not easily lead to anew boom in demand for oil. On thecontrary, factors such as Brexit and theUS trade war against China could reducegrowth prospects all over the world.

In this context, where the demand foroil remains more or less fixed, puttingVenezuela and Iran out of businesschanges the share of the pie eachcountry gets. And, of course, only thelucky ones get to continue enjoying theirslice of the oil markets. Among these isSaudi Arabia, a country that will be ableto capture more clients and expand its oiloutput without violating its OPECcommitments.

Oil prices have already responded toAmerica’s politically motivated supplyshortages. The average spot price forcrude oil rose from $56 per barrel inJanuary to $67 per barrel in May, anincrease of 16 per cent. This would nothave been possible without the sanctionsthat prevented Venezuela from sellingmore than half its production in February.

The international average oil price willmost probably remain below $100 perbarrel, but today’s unstable equilibriumprices are enough to keep Americancompanies in the fossil-fuel business, athome and abroad.

One of the short-term costs of thismanoeuvre could be price volatility.However, it seems that the Trumpgovernment has assimilated such aneventuality; global stability hasn’t everbeen one of America’s foreign policypriorities.

Looking at it pragmatically, thenegative consequences of harassingVenezuela and Iran are outweighed by avery lucrative reward: 2 million barrels ofoil per day. As Reuters commented on 5May, the United States now removesabout 2 million barrels per day from theworld’s supply, through sanctions on theIranian and Venezuelan oil industries. Butit hopes that soaring American oilproduction—now at a record 12 millionbarrels per day—will keep global marketswell supplied, and hold prices down.

The political manipulation of supplyand demand is a risky rent-seekinggame. And this is where Trump’s

personality could play an important role.He is not a risk-averse player; and so farhe seems unconcerned with thecollateral damage arising from hiseconomic warfare. One of these is thatsanctions “will help oil producersbecause the prices will go up, andRussia will be one of the mostsignificant oil producers,” according toRobert Malley, former Middle Eastadviser to Barack Obama, as reportedby the Novosti press agency.

We are no longer living in that “goodold world” in which US geopolitics werefor ensuring the flow of cheap naturalresources from the closest friendlyprovider. Hence, ironically, a regionalproduction crisis near US territory couldbe good for the United States in themedium term, as Giancarlo Elia Valoriwrote in Geostrategic, adding that “theUS is entirely in favour of an increase inthe oil barrel price—and hence indirectlyin favour of tension in Venezuela.”

Trump opens war fronts everywhere,which wouldn’t seem to make senseunless they were a distraction. Butthey’re not.

The rise of China as a global powerhas been silently transforming theinternational monetary system, anotherelement triggering the United Statesinto endless economic bullying.

Since the abandonment of the goldstandard in 1971, the US dollar is notlinked to any assets, becoming a fiatcurrency. In such cases only a country’soutput could back the currency in thelong run. But what happens whenmonetary expansion occurs faster thanincreases in productivity?

Bringing new meaning to the motto“In God we trust,” coined so long ago,the dollar’s value depends on itscapacity to remain an internationalreserve currency—that is, a currencythat other countries hold as part of theirforeign-exchange reserves and use intheir international transactions.

In a world where economic agentsdon’t ask the Federal Reserve to converttheir notes into gold, or any otherphysical asset, trust is the only thingkeeping the United States upright. As aresult, the dollar has remained a mightycurrency, because most internationaltransactions are traded in US dollars.

On 30 January, in fact, the US

national security adviser, John Bolton,revealed very little when he blatantlyadmitted that the attempted coup inVenezuela was really about grasping foroil resources. But in reality, aggressionby the United States hides somethingmuch more than that.

If the dollar stops being the world’smost traded currency, the United Stateswill not be able to issue the notes itneeds to finance an almost fifty-yeargovernment deficit, which rose from$666 billion in 2017 to $779 billion in2018.

The US budget deficit is how muchmore the government spends than itreceives in revenue annually. The deficitin the US budget for the fiscal year 2020is expected to be $1.1 trillion. This is thebiggest deficit since 2012. Trump hasramped up the deficit to pay for recordlevels of military spending.

The dollar losing status as the world’spreferred currency would give the UnitedStates problems in paying for imports inan economy where its lack ofinternational competitiveness hasproduced a trade deficit since 1976,which widened to $50 billion in March.

Last but not least, if the dollar stopsbeing almighty the United States willhave a very difficult time maintainingitself as a world-class economy, as itsgovernment debt exceeded $22 trillion inFebruary. This is more than 76 per centof what the country is able to produce inone year. Nevertheless, this is most likelyto get worse: the debt-to-GDP ratio willrise to 150 per cent by 2049, accordingto the Congressional Budget Office.

Besides preventing Venezuela andIran from exporting their naturalresources, the United States is activelyseeking to avoid the collapse of thedollar, an inevitability in the next fewyears, as the history of previous empireshas shown. This is why the Trumpgovernment is prone to fighting againstthe use of barter, virtual currencies, orother alternative international paymentmethods.

Sanctions are not whimsicalexpressions of this president: they aretools used to retain hegemonic power ina multipolar world no longer willing totolerate such an aspiration. At the coreof US bullying is not ideologicaldisagreement but economic decline. H


ACONSTANT feature of any newsprogramme in the capitalist worldis “Business News” and reports

from the stock markets. Those who toilto create the profits are always absentfrom the story.

This is particularly apparent to me,because I grew up in the GermanDemocratic Republic, and at schooleven our literature books alwaysincluded paintings with a working-classor socialist subject matter. Some ofthese left an indelible impression onme, so much so that I still think ofthem and occasionally look at themeven all these decades later.

One of these paintings is GustaveCourbet’s paintings The Stone-Breakers.

Courbet painted The Stone-Breakersin his home town of Ornans, in eastern

France, in 1849. He was thirty yearsold. Marx and Engels had published theCommunist Manifesto the previousyear, which stated as its openingfanfare: “The history of all hithertoexisting society is the history of classstruggles,” and “Society as a whole ismore and more splitting up into twogreat hostile camps, into two greatclasses directly facing each other—Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” This is thedefining insight of the middle of thenineteenth century.

The Stone-Breakers depicts tworoadside labourers, in almost life-size:170 × 240 cm (67 × 94 in.). Thelabourers take up the greater part of thepicture, emphasising the fact that theyare the central figures and protagonists.

With the very recent proletarian

uprisings of 1848, Courbet’s focus onthe common people was radical. Thisimage of two men, one only starting outin a life of hard labour and the othertowards its end, expresses unrelentinghardship. Despite their arduous toil,these men just barely survive. Theirclothes are badly torn and patched.

The colours in which they arepainted blend with their place of work;the palette is dominated by shades ofgrey, bleached blues, earthy whites andbrowns. Rough brush-strokes translatethe coarseness of the men’s clothingand their surroundings into tangiblereality. There is no attempt to “beautify”the image by giving it a polishedappearance, as would have been thepainterly norm in Courbet’s time. This isa radical departure in theme and form.

VISUAL ARTS

The working class becomes the subject of art

Jenny Farrell on the 200th anniversary of Gustave Courbet


The older man’s red stripedwaistcoat, near the centre of the picture,stands out. It is a statement of dignityand suggests the colour of the workingclass. Apart from that, however,combined with his white shirt and bluesocks, this worker subtly displays thecolours of the Tricolour, the French flagas it emerged in the Revolution of 1789.These colours once represented liberty,equality, and fraternity; what have theycome to mean sixty years later in thisbleached and torn form? This is withoutdoubt a deliberate irony on the part ofCourbet, especially as the colours adornthe older man, aged about seventy,according to Courbet. Courbet’sgrandfather had been a sans-culotte(militant revolutionary) in 1789.

The two figures are etched sharply

against a dark background, themselvesthrowing shadows that nearly merge withthat of the low hill. Only in the upperright corner of the picture is there apatch of blue sky. The maturity of thecorn behind them indicates earlysummer, as does the heat of the blazingsun. A large pot and a single spoondirectly beside their place of work tells usthat their whole life revolves around theirlabour. It also suggests that they arerelated. They eat on the side of the road;there is no private space.

We cannot make out the face ofeither man. The older man’s face is inprofile, but only the lower part of it isvisible under the straw hat, which casts ashadow over it. The younger man, liftingthe broken stones, has his back turned.By not showing the faces clearly, Courbetfocuses the viewer on the labour and itsconditions, not appealing for sympathybut for insight, in almost Brechtian de-individualisation, preventing unreflectiveemotional involvement.

Courbet uses a similar technique inhis great painting of women at work, TheWinnowers.Here too, earthy reds, off-whites and blue dominate the palette. Asin The Stone-Breakers, the central figureis adorned in red—here much more

obviously so. Again, faces are eitherturned away, as in the main figure,looking down, or obscured by shadow,preventing eye contact with the viewerand thereby individualisation.

Once more the workers are shown atwork, in the work-place, surrounded bythe product of their work. And once againwe see the lunch vessel in the picture,here at the centre back, with a ladle, andanother one beside the sacks. The pots,plate, bowls and sacks echo the shapeof the sieve, held up by the central figurein an energetic movement that contrastswith the more weary impression of thewoman on her left. This tool is at thecentre of the picture.

As in The Stone-Breakers, theworkers toil in close proximity, but thereis little connection or communicationbetween them. All focus is on the labour.The unity of the composition is achievedby earthy colours, underlining thecharacters’ relationship with the soil, andby the many elliptical or round shapesuniting them.

In The Stone-Breakers the older man’spowerful hands stand out. His very strengthand repetitive action, his less fluid, almostmechanised appearance, suggests amachine, and labourers as machines.Despite his age, he radiates strengthand purpose. He is a force to be reckonedwith. There is a great sense of dignity.

The younger man seems to bestruggling more under the weight of thestone. He is newer to the job, not asmechanised in his movements. Hisclothes are even more ragged, his dustyshoes in tatters. Yet both figures possessa powerful physical presence, which isproduced by the sun shining on them,light flowing round their bodies.

These two men express the lifelongtoil of the working class and its condition.Their anonymity allows us to generalise.There is no sentimentality, and noidealisation. The artist conveys hissympathy for the workers, their dignity,and his disgust for a system that thriveson such poverty and exploitation.

Gustave Courbet was one of the firstpainters to make the life of workers thesubject of realistic art. The Stone-Breakers, the first of his great realisticworks, was destroyed in the bombing ofDresden in 1945. H

Gustave Courbet was one of the first painters to make the life of workers the subject of realistic art.

PREVIOUS PAGE The Stone-Breakers(1849, since destroyed)ABOVE The Winnowers (1855)(Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes)LEFT Self portrait with pipe (1848-1849)

Kildare anti-fascistrememberedOn Saturday 22 June, Christy Mooreunveiled a plaque to the socialistrepublican Frank Conroy, a Kildare mankilled in 1936 while fighting with theInternational Brigades in the Spanish waragainst fascism.

The plaque, presented to Kilcullen

Heritage Centre by the Friends of theInternational Brigades (Ireland), is a twinof a plaque presented to the towncouncil of Lopera in April 2016.

More than a hundred people packedinto the centre to hear the historianJames Durney speak on the life of FrankConroy, who was born on 25 February1914 in Kilcullen, Co. Kildare.

Christy sang his song “Viva la QuintaBrigada” and was joined on stage by the

Kilcullen Choir to give an incredibleperformance of “Ride On” and “NancySpain.”

On 16 December 2012 the FrankConroy Committee held its firstcommemoration for this young Irishrevolutionary who had conveniently beenairbrushed from history by theestablishment. Today the InternationalBrigader Frank Conroy is as well knownas the Kildare Fenian John Devoy. H


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