revolutionary communist 2 - may 1975

8/8/2019 Revolutionary Communist 2 - May 1975

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.......r,nrn all phrases aboutd "humane" justiceis in the direct andthe English

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Revolutionllr'\' Lowunmi.st is therheoretica 1journal of theRevolutionary Communist Group.r J is published quarterly byReG Publications Ltd.

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Number Two May'1975

ContentsEditorialPositions of the RevolutionaryCommunist Group

3 Britain and the Irish Revolution20 The Question of the 'International

Frank RichardsDiscussion Article

41 The Labour Party, the BEe and IrelandAshley Heath and James WoodReviews

46 History of the Bolshevik Party(G. E. Zinoviev)48 Housework under Capitalism(Wally Secornbe)50 Disaster in Chile


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Editorial

In the early morning hours of M arch 1 9th 1 975 troops weresent in to clear the 'backlog of rubbish ' Jeft by the nine-week old dustcart drivers strike in G lasgow . This straightforward case of using troops in a strike breaking capacityis immedia rely recognisab le as a serious threat [0 th e H rinshworking -class. The Scottish TUe delegation, involved intalk s w ith the G lasgow C orporation, announced that it was'a bsolutely opposed to the use of the m ilitary under anycircumstances'. Unfortunately . the use of troops in thenorth of Ireland has not brought about a sim i lar andequally quick response. A nd yet, if the entire B ritish A rmywas mobilised , if the whole of the Rhine A rmy was b roughtback from Germany and troops w ere recalled from else-where and appeared on the streets of the towns and citiesof B ritain, the concentration of troops, in term s of sold iersper civ ilian, would be :1 th ird of what it is now in the northof Ireland . W hether the troops are being used as strikebreakers under the guise of protecting the population from'health hazards' in G lasgow , or as the armed force ofB rrtish imperialism maintaining 'social order' in the northof Ireland , their role is objectively the same. They areprotecting the interests of the B ritish ruling class.'B ritain and the lrish Revolution' locates the presen t crisisin Ireland w ith in the changing face of continued B ritishdomination. It shows how the B ritish ruling class canadvance no policy on the Irish question which w ill offer ita way out of the present situa tion , p rovid i ng a guaranteedlong term future for the Irish as a whole, yet ty ing it asorve unit to B ritish interests. The need of the B ritish rulingclass for a stab le Ire land in th e face of the grow ing socialcrisis at home cannot be realised . There is no permanentsolution in lreland which does not pose the destruction ofimperialism , of the ruling class in Ireland and B ritain. Inth is sense there is a direct connec t ion between the presenceof th e troops in G lasgow and their role in the north ofIreland.M any on the Left are only too eager to write about theseObVIOllS points on the role of the troops. However. theircontributions often remain on the Journalistic level. TheV ietnam Solidarity C ampaign brought a hundred thousand

on to th e streets of London. The successes of (he Troop,O ut M ovement (TOM ) have so far been limited ttl mcbilisations of less than 5,000. Why i, th is so? Much IS due tothe chauvinism deep ly rooted in the B ritISh work ing-cla-,smovement. However a g reat deal is also tilt responsibilityof the B rit ish revolu tionary left. Dom inated by an econo-rnistic concep tion of pol iucs, the B ritish left ref usc, to takethe struggle agarnvr chauvinism into the worki ng-c lass, Th eTOM i, still being mainly bu ilt by the srnaf lest revoluilon-ary group ings and a small number of 'independents". TIeIargcr groups have appeared In force on ly on dernonstralions, and insisted on full speaking rights for themselves ~while usurp ing those of smaller groups doing thl' hard / 'groundwork 10 burld TOM at branch level. A t a recentdelegate conference of TOM , the ReG had nlOI-C of Ihmembers, who were elected a~ delegate , (rom branches.and present, than the [S and IMG together, yet the ReGha s so far been refused "peaking rights for the Apri] 6t hdemonstration. The IS and IM G both have speakers. It i,th is k ind of political rnunipulauon by the left grCllI[1" an dthe leader sh ip of TO M wh ich w ill p revent the bur) ding ofa mas, an t i-impcria list movement in th i, country: 1\,'0movem ent wh ich den ies iht l1 L '1 l \h c rs t he riuh t to d ctc rrn in ri ts o r i cn ta ti on wi l l hL 'g il l 10 root lI,e lf h!-m ly In th e workmg-class, The larger left grnt .:ps v . ill not be f creed to Jo thebaSIC ground work to build TOM if their demands tL1 havethe main speak e rx at dernonstra uons are quick ly concededat the expense of smaller g roups of revol utionarres actua Ilybuild ing TOM . They must be [arced to do th is work or hepoliticalt ex posed . No gr o up can clai m to be r evoluuona rvw ith ou t p artic ip atin g proctic allv in build ing a ma, anti-imperialist movement on the quest ion of (3rltl


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The .Revolutionary Communist GE,OUp is not a member ofthe Fourth lillte,r.nat.iOujBI and as part of the Revolutionaryop,Po5dlion was expelled from the International: Socialists,a gmup with Ii.ttle l,r,Wiillion of internationalism. The onlybasis fflT an International is a principled unity around aninternational programme. One of the first t'asks of ourgroup is. therefore, to assess the existing organisationswhich claim to carry forward the traditions of the FourthInternational to see if there is a basis for unity. 'TheQuestion of the International' begins the process of astruggle for a p rin cip le d ' ideological unity'. 11 looks at thehistory of the Trotskyist movement with al[ the advantagesof roday's starling porru. It examines that history with theunderstanding that an awarcnesx of the end of the post-warboom brings to the movement. It critically assesses thehistorical development of the Trotskyist movement in con-di t ions much mo re fa voura bl e to revol uti onaries tha n thatexperienced by the movement during the years of the post-war boom, While we do not overlook th e heroic qualitiesof ma ny of (hose who fought all their lives, in difficultconditions, to preserve the rr adiuons of revolutionarymarx ism, nevertheless It is our duty to ruthlessly exposetheir inadequacies. The i


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Irish. British revolutionar ies cannot afford to Jet thesearguments about Ireland go' unchallenged. The buildingof aJ Troops Out Movement is the only concrete wayin which the British bourgeoisie can be challenged on thisiSsue. It is also (he only practical expression of solidaritywith the struggle of the Ir'ish for sell-determination.The British bourgeoisie has proved incapable of resolvingthe [ri ,h questi on. Th e u Ij]flnish ed nat ion a I revel ut ion, thepresent division between protestants and catholics cannotbe solved by the gimmicks of the various Brit ish govern-ments. At th e lime of writing. the British \olwiQ~r' inIreland has run into the latest form of ils essentls] contra-diction. The ceasefire has been accompanied by an in-creased campaign of IOyil,Ui~tsectarian assassinat ions, TheConvention, now only weeks away" witll take place in acontext that remains unchanged in its essentials. Therecan be no reconciliation between the British desire for astable' power sharjng: solution and the instability inherentin the British created historical divisions. The root problemis British irmperialisrn itself, and it is only through thedestruction of British capital's irnperialist relation withIreland that the 'Irish question' can begin to be resolved.The unfinished national revolutionThe problem in Ire lan d is the unfinished national r evolu-tion, insofar as Its political and economic aspects are con-cerned. But because iI is still uncompleted in the lo~eserrtperiod - the era of imperialism and monopoly capitalism- it is beyond the capacity of the national bourgeoisie,and has become part of the tasks of the socialist revolu-tion. The development of Irish capitalism and an indcpen-dent Irish bourgeoisie was strangled by the dominantBritish capitalism as a result of the uneven developmentof cap talism in the two countries. The development of theeconomy and social classes was entirely dependent onBritain, and this meant a stunting of their development,which is at the roots of the division in Ireland. The mainpolitical ex pression of the inability of rbe Irish bourgeoisieto achieve mdependence is its inability to unite the nation.When the Irish bourgeois revolution. under the leadershipof the Presbyterian middle class in the north, was defeatedin 1798, the way was paved no t only for the erosion ofany basis economically of an independent capital ist class,but also tor the ~filumph of religious sectarianism in thenOl[lh. Up 10 the end of the eighteenth century the nation-alist stronghold was the north. because the embryonicca pitz lisrn there was more developed and consequentlymore ambitious than in the south. This itself was a productof the English conquest; in the north. the British hadpursued during the seventeenth century a policy of settlingplanters, mostly from Scotland, who were granted con-cessions in order to bold the land against the native Irish.The Ulster Custom provided for security of Lenore andcorrrpensarion for improvements, which laid the basis fordomestic industry, manufacture and capital accumulationin the north. !n the south, the development of a merchantclass based on independent small-holding tenants w.a~barred by the Ei:T1;lish l andlords, under whom tenants wereliabie to instant "victi


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dependent working class, the weakness and dependenceof the bourgeoisie - pre-empted a revolutionary overthrowof imperialism. It was no longer possible ln Ireland inthe nineteenth century, because of the domination ofBritain, for the bourgeoisie to unite all classes under thebanner of national liberat ion. TIle bourgoisie could notbecome independent and at the same t ime maintain itspower over the Jower classes in Ireland. To unleash theagrarian movement against Britain would have meantclass suicide for the nascent Irish bourgeoisie; but thereexisted no sizeable urban proletariat capable of taking overthe lead ersh ip of the peasant movement. Parnell wasforced by the logic of h is class position both to take overthe agrarian movement and to lead it into the arms ofthe Gla dstonian Liberals.The 'solution' of (he land problem in no way implied achoking off of nationalist discontent, but may in facthave aggravated it. 1ihc embryonic Catholic bourgeoisiesaw the p ~ @ ant homesteads, artisan dwellings and work-places, supplied with commodities produced, undersuperior technological conditions, by British industry.Only tar iff barriers could protect emerging southern capitalfrom the merciless onslaught of British competition. Butto capitalism in the north, dependent as it was on exportconnections and raw material imports, protectionism wouldhave spelt ruin.For the British bourgeoisie there was an ideological prob-lem. Many saw, .llike Connolly. that Britain could stillrule a dominion Ireland 'through her financiers, throughthe whole army of commercial and individualist institu-tions she has planted in this country' ~The Times editorial of Aprl] 30tiJ 1914 stated:'There are some defeats more honourable than victory andwe place the preservation of the internal peace of these realmsand the salvation of th e Empire from disaster above the C:Hl'"of single Par liament for the United Kingdom.'But reactionary elements, mainly in the Tory Panty, clungto the traditional links of blood and religion. Bonar Law,leader of the Tory Party, said in 1914:'there lire things stronger than parliamentary majorities .. , Ican imagine DO length of' resistance to whid; Ulster can goin which I should not be prepared to support them.' 5Although the Tories shifted ground rapidly, the more ad-vanced sections of the British bourgeoisie proved unableto defeat tITleideological backwardness that prevailed par-ticularly under pressure from the Ulster Volunteer Force(UVF) and an Army that refused to march against them.The Tan war was thus inevitable, and it ended only whenopinion in Britain had sufficiently shifted as a result ofthe war to one of support for dominion status for Ireland,or, as it transpired, part of Ireland.Throughout the war, British propaganda wavered betweenportravrng the Irish struggle as pro-German or pro-Bolshe-vik. But as Lloyd George himself remarked in 1920:' ... we should make a great mistake ... if we came to theconclusion that Sinn Fein is purely a Bolshevik conspiracyagainst Great Britilin. It is deeper than that. It is an oldfriend which breaks out now and again in Ireland: "Within Ireland, there was never any doubt that the strugglewas not in bet 'Bolshevik', The struggle between nativecapital and workers was never posed in a real senseprecisely because the ills of ca pitalism were identifiedwith those of foreign capitalism.

With the wrrtmgs of Sinn Fein leaders such as Pearse orCoil ins stressing their opposition to the effects of imperial-ism, and hinting at reformist solutions in terms of co-operatives and enlightened education, it would have re -quired a revolutionary socialist current of some standingto ensure that Sinn Fein were challenged with a workingclass programme providing an independent policy. In theabsence of this it is not at all surprising that Irish Labour,as a party, abdicated from the central national struggle.At the 19(6 ITUC and LP Conference, delegates stood fora minute'S silence (or those who had died in the Risingand Ihose killed in action in France. In the 1918 GeneralElection the Labour Party decided to stand down to allowthe people to express their support for self-determination.instead of challenging the bourgeois nationa lists with avigorous working class alternative. The National Executiveof the LP stated:'the Irish Labour Party is the only party which i.1Ilwcpared tosacrifice party interests in the interests of (he nation in thisimportant crisis."The rapid numerical growth of the organised labour move-ment went hand in hand with a process of burcaucratisa-tion as the trade unions became more and more divorcedfrom the national struggle. However, the working classdid play a role m the national struggle, influenced atleast in part by the October Revolution, Strikes organisedagainst the threat of conscription and against the importa-tion and transport of British arms involved tens of thous-ands in action. But the working class was not strongenough to displace the bourgeois leadership, partly as aresult of the absence of large scale peasant revolts. AsTrotsky remarks:'If it ls assumed that the social antagonisms between theproletariat and the peasant masses will prevent the proletariatfrom placing itself at the head of the latter. and that theproletariat by itself is not strong enough to gain vidory-('hen one must necessarily draw the conclusion that there isno victory at all in store for OUf revolution.' 8On some issues, the developing consciousness of theworkers carne into direct conf ict with the bourgeois-dominated Duil. as for instance on the soviet-style occu-pations of workplaces, or 00 land redistribution wherethe Sinn Fein ibml courts arbitrated in favour of the land-lords in most cases, sometimes Even using the IRA tosmash the occupations.Tt is clear, then, that the fusion of the national st ruggleand the socialist struggle did not rake place. On the onehand, so-called socialists such as Will.iam Walker, leaderof tne Belfast section of the Independent Labour Party,wanted the labour movement integrated with the Britishmovement and the national question buried. In a polemicwith Walker, Connolly wrote:

4. 'Socialism and Nationalism', Selected Writings (5W) (Pen-guin, (973), p 124.5. Quoted in F S L Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine (Fon-tana, London, t974), p 30J.6. The Timc~, 3 t /7 /1920, Parliamentary Report.7. Quoted in P Bcrresford Ellis, A History 01 the Irish Work-ing Class (Gollancz, London, 1972), p 240.

8, Speech to 'he 1907 Congress, quoted in Perm anent Revo-lution, p 217.

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'The Socialist Part v of Ireland considers itself the only Inter-national Party ill Ireland, since it s conception of International-ism is that of a free federation of free peoples, whereas thatof the Belfas t branches of the lLP seems scarcely dist inguish-able from I rn pe r i ali xm . the merging of subjugated peoples inthe political system of their conquerors.' ,-On the other hand. bourgeois nationalism viewed Labouras natural fodder for the national resistance to Britam,the reward being a change of exploiters from foreign tonative. Griffith, theoretical mentor of Sinn Fein. took ahard anti-union line. and de Valera revealed his positionin this staternen t :'In a free Ireland . Labour has a better chance than itwould have in a cap iralist England.' r nThe working class was handed over politically to thebourgeoisie and for rha ( reason the national revolutioncould not be completed.The dominant role of bourgeois leaders necessarily impliedthat the revolution would be turned aside as SOOl) ;,., itcame up against the question of property and class reolations. But long bef or e that barrier was reached, theright wing of the bourgeoisie had capitulated 1 0 Br u is hpressure and agreed to diluted independence for southernI r cland, an arrangement that abandoned half a millionnationalists 10 their f'at e at the hands of the UVF. nowturned into an arm of st:J.te repression in (he form of theBSpecials. During this period hundreds of Catholics wereslaughtered, bombed out of their homes and driven fromtheir work places, B etw CC(1 June 1920 and June 1922,23_000 Catholics were nnde homeless. Nearly 5,000 Cath-olics were forced out of the Belfast shipyards. which tothis day remain a Protestant stronghold. These eventsproved an accurate indication of the future character ofProresraru Ulster.It IS against this background that the civil war must beseen. It was not a straight left/right conflict. bur never-theless those prepared to compromise were those whohad most to gain from the limited political xettlctr.entand the continuation of economic ties with Britain - pre-dominantly the large, land-owning bourgeoisie.The combined forces of this element, the Church, theBrursh and the Loyalists ensured the defeat of the r e-publican forces within months, Liam Meilowcs writingfr orn prison before hi s execution by a Fr ee State firingsquad, summed up the position of the working class inthese words:'The official Labour Movement has descr tcd the people forthe fleshpots of the empire. The Free State Government'sattitude towards st rik irig postal workers makes clear what itsattitude towards workers generally will be.' IIReacuon had set in in both parts of divided Ireland. Trot-,ky', words echo across the history pages:

. the struggle for national liberation will produce onlyvery part:,,1 results, results directed en! irely against the work-ing m asses .' I ~The largest sect ion of the defeated republicans formedthe petu-bourccois Flanna F,\II party in 1926. The rest ofrhe republican movement - now the IRA and Sinn Ftin- became the focus for lefr-wmg developments, the slumpof 1929 producing a whole series of radical offshoots andfronts.Fianna Farl with its distr ibutionist rrogramme attractedn 1

to . Q uoted in B erre sford Ellis, P 246.II. Quoted in ibid, p 262_12 Permanent Revolution, p 256.I_I. Ir ish Labour Party, Second A nnual Report (Dublin. 1932) ,p 63.14. Lyons, p 62l.15. The Third internauonol A i ter Lenin (Pathfinder Press,

New York, J 970), p 47.


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lating all commodity Imports and exports by the state.Unregulated trade, whether Of not tariffs intervene, canonly benefit the capitalist. Genuine protection hom im-perialism could only have been put into practiee by astate run by the working class. The monopoly of foreigntrade - along with a process of expropriation of. industryby the workers' state-would have meant Ithir! snrce pro'ducers could only trade with other countries through thestate, they would be forced to accept Its prices, whichwould be fixed so as to divert a surplus away from privateaccumulation. to the state. Such :3 ! policy could not havebeen irnolemented by any capitalist regime, and itselfcould mot of course have survived Indefinirelv without 'ilmextension of the socialist revolution to other countries.But protection was no alternative : it was simply a holdlngoperation, and it resulted in the decline in the 19'50.5\v_i"icm. necessitated an about-turn In economic policy.The problem in Ireland remains the unfinished nationalrevolurion. Only the working class can destroy partitionand lead a united Ireland to genuine independence. Themain task is to express politically the unity of the strugglefor socialism and the struggle for national liberation .. tJ"liYtilthe twentieth century, the national revolution was impos-sible because a powerful working class free from Orangeideology and capable of hegemonising the forces struggl'ingagainst imperialism. did not exist, and the bourgeoisiewas [00 weak and dependent on Britain to carry it through,Since partition, the economic and social struggles of theworking class have taken place entirely separated fromthe national struggle. But at the roots of the workingclass tradition in Ireland is the fusion of these struggles.The [fish labour movement was born in its own rightat the same time as the nationalist rraduion of this cen-tury was established, the .i?"Cri"odof Larkin and Connolly.The organisation of the u'j:fiskiUed workers at tl~e end ofthe nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth cen-turies took place in Ireland with the formation of theIrish Transport and General Workers' UniDl1J in 1909,when Larkin broke with. the British executive of theNational Union of Dock Labourers. Until then the Irishtrade unions had existed merely as adjuncts of the Britishlabour movement. The first great struggle of the TTGWU,the Dublin lock-out in 1913, produced the Irish CitizenArmy - Lenin called it the first Red Army in Europe- and a movement of the republican left towards theworking class. The nationalist' revival and the newly-bornlabour movement coincided in 1916 . As the historianClarkson put it:'Ir rsh labour was 10 receive ill blood its baptism as all integralpart of the National movemcru.' ,.Trotsky agreed:' ... the "national revolution", even in Ireland, in practicehas become an uprising of the workers' "1916 is the apotheosis of that part of the repub lican trad -ition which is inherited by the working class. As Clarksonsaid later, the Rising 'was the first time in Irish historythat the workers had not been mere pawns in tbe gameof revolutionists', that through Connolly and the IrishCitizen Army. it had 'shared in the normat]on of the reopublican creed. ' '8Because 00 movement had been built committed to thepolitics represented by James Connolly, 1916 left behind

no movement which embodied them. Connolly's closes!associate - William O'Brien - was to lead the ITGWUfirmly to the right, and Labour away from the natioualstruggle. But 19 t 6 was one of the essential roots of theworking class movement in Ireland, and stands as thekey to its hlluIe.The changing face of lmperialismThe world has changed since the interwar period. Theneed for a solution (0 the question of the Irish nation hasbeen forced to the surface again in quit-e different con-ditions. 'The economic experience of the post-war periodhas transformed Ireland both north and south of the bor-der. The expansion of the world economy and the growthin the role of the state have bad far reaching consequen-ces. In the south. these factors were responsible for anexpansion of the work ing class, while sowing the seedsof inflation and unemployment. In the north. they havehelped to strengthen the grip of the Loyalist ideology overthe protestant section of the working class, while enor-mously increasing the tensions within the Unionist bloc.Britain has witnessed a decline in the economic importanceof the Unionist bourgeoisie, while its continuing politicalpresence prevents Britain from achievi rJg a rarionahsationof its reb.tionship with the whole of Ireland.The general expansion of the world economy in the post-war period erra bled Europe to enjoy a growth in production .and in general standards of living. Alter the war thesouth of Ireland initially enjoyed some' of "the advantagesof Marshall. Aid, and agriculture benefited to some extentIII the early post-war years due t()-world agricultural short-ages. However, by the mid-fifiid it became clear that theeconomy bad n ot f'u nd am en ta l ly a.1rered in the protect io nera. Although wages were low by European standards.profits were low as well. Lack of dom estic investm entruled out an y increase in relative surplus value. whileease of em igration effectively limited an y increase in abso-lute surplus value - eg through wage cuts, to . this wayimperialism manifested itself in the drawing off of labourand of capital, mainly to Britain. The only way to counterthis within a capitalist framework was for the state. tosubsidise capital out of loans and hope that relative sur-plus value could be increased sufficiently to allow for aperi ad of ra pid accum ula tion.Balance of payments deficits, the minimal rate of growth,and above all stagnation in agriculture with consequentthreats to employment forced the Irish bourgeoisie tochange course. This Wi)S spell out in the first Programmefor Economic Ex pans ion . published in 1958. Agriculturewas 1 0 become more export orientated, the emphasis beingSWitched from tillage to grassland. In industry, protectionwas to be abandoned, foreign capital to be wooed, whilecertain state aid would be granted to Irish industries,This domestic policy was followed by a series of inter-national initiatives: the decision 'to jojn GATT in 1960,the a pplica ti on to join the EEC in 1961, an d the Anglo.

"6. J 0 Clarkson, Labour arid Natlonalism in Ireland (Colurn-b"i~ Ul1i~1'.'rsily-,192:5) , P 2 88 .t7. 'The Easter Rising', op cit.t8. Op cit:

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Irish Free Trade Area agreement signed in 1965. toThis strategy had an early and rapid success. This wasdue not so much to the strategy itself, as to the conditionsexisting in the world economy when the change of coursewas made. Under the conditions of accelerated capital ac-cumulation prevailing in the late fifties and early sixties,there was a growing internationalisation of capital. Capitalcontinued its expansion and entered many underdevelopedareas of the world. What was new about this form offoreign investment was that it was not limited to rawmaterials extraction, but also took the form of industrialproduction in the shape of final stage processing andassembly plants. Taiwan and Mexico are two well-knownexamples: Ireland shared in the benefits of this develop-ment in this period.The importance of this is that the new investment hasnot given Ireland any independent industrial base of itsown, or fostered thc growth of Irish capital. As a recentOECD report comments;'the system of incentives evolved by the IDA has brought intoIreland the latter phases of production controlled by foreignenterprises whose main manufacturing bases are abroad. Thishas meant that industrial output has had a particularly highimport content, and taking import content together with thecase of profits expatriation, a situation has almost certainlyarisen where the gains in balance of payments have been muchless than appear from export figures as such.... because a large number of grant-aided firms are subsidi-aries carrying out final stage production on the manufacturedintermediates of foreign parent enterprises, the linkage effectof investment by grant-aided firms has been weak. It has no/generated much secondary investment.' 2"The growth of foreign investment in Ireland has continueduntil recently because of the growing overaccurnulationof capital within the major imperialist nations, but as therecession gathers force even this source of capital willbegin to dry up, and Ireland will be left to weather thecrisis on its own rather feeble resources.It is true, however, that the immediate benefits of thisstrategy were impressive by comparison with the previousperiod. The economy boomed: industrial employmentgrew from 257,000 in J961 to 328,000 in 1971. GrossDIAGRAM 1

national product (GNP) grew by 4.1% per annum between1958 and 1968, compared with a rate of 0.7% per annumbetween 1951 and 195ft Investment increased: gross fixedasset formation climbed from 13% of GNP in 1960 to22% in 1969.21In the north, the war hel [led to stave off the crisis ofUnionist capital. Markets for its commodities were guaran-teed by war-time demand for ships, machinery and cloth-ing. Agriculture was hastily reorganised to provide be-leagured British capital with extra food. However, thedecline of Empire and the emergence of revitalised com-petition on the world market led to a drastic decline inemployment in the traditional industries of linen and ship.building. A series of industrial development Acts expandedstate aid and capital grants to industry. Grants of 30%to 40% towards buildings, machinery and equipment wereoffered without the employment conditions attached totheir less generous counterparts in Britain, accompaniedby minimal rents for government factories. Between 1963and 1972, industrial production in the north grew by60% compared with 28% in Britain over the same peri-od. HBut employment in northern manujacturing industrycontinued to decline. Only the expansion of employmentin services prevented a colossal growth of the unemployed.The change in the British relationship with Ireland springsfrom the changing economic balance within Ireland, ratherthan from any active imperialist initiative on Britain'spart. British capital had long been able to rely on Irelandas a source of labour power and of cheap agriculturalcommodities. Free trade, the welcome to foreign capital,and the increase in the productivity of Irish agriculturewere all welcome to the declining British capital. The Irishmarket, while not enormous, provides an important ad-ditional outlet for certain British manufactures.The southern Irish initiatives complemented a Britishturn away from the Empire and towards Europe. Theshare of British investment in Western Europe includingthe Irish Republic, as a proportion of total overseas in-vestment, rose from 13.3% in 1962 to 21.7% in 1971.British capital expanded into Ireland in line with thegeneral turn to Europe:

Growth of British Direct Investment Overseas1962-71 sa

.1G7~

IrisnRep. DevelopedW. Europe DevelopingCountries

8

--UQ

World


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Apart from providing a greater field for the investmentof British ca nital , Britain also has a strategic interest inensuring free' trade with Ireland. In 1974, out of totalBritish imports of food and Jive animals of 3,372m, some278m came from southern Ireland whose contributionwas exceeded only by Denmark and the Netherlands. "'Substantial subsid ie s were made to the northern stateletto subsidise welfare benefits, social services and grantsto industry. ln addition to actual subventions certain itemsof revenue collected in Great Britain are waived for (henorth. The 'imperial contribution' - a share of British stateex pendi ture - is set a t a nominal f 1m. When the real costof this is taken into account, the 1967-8 subvention wouldbe 138m, rising to some 460m in 1973-4. Some 424mo f the liabilities of the 627m public debt incurred by thenorthern statelet were covered by advances from theBritish treasury. In addition to these subventions. theshipbuilding and aircraft industries have received grantswhose payment is shared with Britain. These forms ofstate expenditure form a real burden on British capitaland it would like to see them transferred onto the shouldersof the EEC. 25These developments have brought their own problemsinside Ireland. In the south a major source of employmentwas new foreign capital operating in Ireland.

TABLE 12Origins of New Investment in Southern Ireland1960 to 1972Countryof Origin

Number of Employment Total FixedProjects Projected Investment

Ireland ~BritainUSAGermanyOtherTotal

212 14,467 S2.9m182 11,490 41.0m113 13,342 69.0m85 8.200 14.0m76 10,161 f45.0m668 57,660 221.9m

.. Includes joint projectsWe have seen that this strategy of relying on foreign rn-vestment led to a much higher growth rate and higherindustrial employment. Yet with this development, thecontradictions of capital began to emerge explicitly. Dur-ing the sixties, the number of employees as a percentage ofthe total at work grew from 60% to 70%. Coinciding withthis, lhe number of workers involved in struggle grew enor-mously and Ireland twice topped the world strike leaguefor the number of days lost per employee. Unemploymentalso grew steadily and today stands at over 9% whileIreland jockeys with Japan for the second highest inflationrate in the OECD group.The key to understanding these developments lies in therole played by the state in the economy. Although wagelevels are low by European standards, this in itself wasinsufficient to attract new investment. It was necessaryfor the state to aid the establishment of capital units ofsufficient size to compete on the world market, and it

DIAGRAM 2

Consumer Prices: Per Cent Change at Annual Rates 27

% increaseIrish Rep

15,; UK.' Fr, Ger,Ita./10 - ~.~._ - - _ . _. ,,- USA. . . . . . . . . ::-~. . . . . . . . . ;.,;~

5

1960-10

did so by a variety of fiscal measures and subsidies. Stateinvolvement, both in terms of direct grants to foreigncapital and of providing an infrastructure of communica-tion, training and advisory services. increased dramaticallyin the stXI1CS. The ratio of total state expenditure to GNProse from 27% in 58/59 to 42% in 72 /73. 23 To finance19. See ell Lyons. pp 624-634; T K Whitaker, 'From Protection

to free Trade - The Irrsh Experience', Social and EconomicAdministrauon, 8. 2, 1974, pp 95-115: Programme ForEconomic Expansion. Pr 4796 (Dublin, 1958).20. OECD. Reviews 0/ Notional Scoe1lc


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this and to service the risl'ng national debt required massivetaxation increases and further borrowing. To expand stateexpenditure by this kind of t)n4'fIcing creates problemsfor capital. Taxation cuts into workers' wages or intoprofits. while borrowing adds to inflationary pressures. Itis the particular extent to which this has occurred inIreland which IS responsible for the acute problems whichare now emerging.By the late sixties. Ireland had the highest ratio of interestpayments On public debt to GNP in all the EEC countries.H the ratio of interest payments pi us government sub-sidies (wh :ch arc ma in Iy to industry) is taken .. Ireland hasthe highest rauo. The gr cwth of taxation and borrowingsince 1965 IS shown below:DIAGRAM J

Financing of State Expenditure1965-73 '0DirectTax+2n~Indirect Borrowing+2.20~ GNP

+162't,Tax+171 < t . I 1973

Indirect taxation as a percentage of GNP is higher inIreland than In any other Of.Cf) country and Its rateof IOCIC:I'Se is no lower than Ihe a vcra gc. Direct taxationa~ a share of (," I' i- , not d rnong the Iiighest. but this ISonly because f:Hil'l"f~ have been cxcl udcd from pavingincome tax up to nOW. I h c rate of change of per sonalIncome tax is th e highevt of the OEeD group, rising forthose workers under the PA YE scheme from 8.lp perPound !n 58.'59 to ,4.21' p


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In Ireland there IS a strong reforrmst basis for th e accept-ance of the integration of the trade unions into the state.The size and weakness of the Irish economy and its de-pendence on foreign capital imports and foreign marketsproduces a pressure to protect tile 'national interest' andat the same time to accept the dependence of Irelandand economic imperialism. But precisely that weaknessand dependence forces workers into conflicts which in thecontext of the changed nature of Imperialist relationswith Ireland begin to raise the Question of imperialist con-trol. When foreign investment becomes less and less ableto deliver the goods, the possibility of seeing a link betweeneconomic struggJes and the imperialist relation is muchshar pcr than in a period of protection, The anti- imperialistsnuggle becomes posed as a struggle also against thesouthern bourgeoisie, now entirely economically dependenton imperialism.The apparent indifference of the southern workers to thenorth, While it had some basis in the success of foreigninvestment until recently, was never absolute. Even in theabsence of any movement with a programme linking thegrowing economic crisis to the national question, the r e opublican tradition had a life of its own. According toMcCann, this was the situation in 1969:There were tens of thousands of people on the streets ofDublin and other ci r ies demanding that Mr Lynch's govern-ment move to protect the Northern Catholics from what lookedlike an impending pogrom. .. Workers at many factoriesstruck. It subsequently emerged that al least two members ofMr Lynch's cabinet ha d been in favour of sending the armyacross the border. Some officer, of the army were momentarilymore than enthusiastic about doing just that. Had a stopno t been pu t 10 what was happening in Belfast and Derry itmight well have proved impossible for Mr Lynch to "holdthe linc " against the gut-Republicanism suddenly surging again.not leas-t in his own party.' "It is no accident that the party pushing with the mosturgency for the ratification of Sunning dale was the south-ern government, fully aware of what could occur in thesouth if the instability of the northern situation was notresolved.what Cosgrave is attempting to do at present is to dealwith the IRA before it becomes necessary to COo front theWorkers. But that, beca use of the situation in the north,might well prove imposvible The lmh bourgeoisie itselfis beginning to spl it over the issue. Labour's Conor CruiseO'Brien wants to forget about the national question. whilein Fianna Fail, the movement of Haughey back onto thefront bench represents a resurgent nationalist current. Thedeepening economic crisis in the south and the re-ernerg-ence of the national question promise a stormy periodahead for the southern ruling class. Whether the lmkbetween the national q uesrion and the economic crisisin the south is made, and what Will issue from the situ-at ion depends 0[1 the existence of a revolutionary leadership which ca n advance a clear strategy in the Irishsituation.The crisis in the northIn Ihe north, state intervention had prevented a drasticslump, rather than sponsoring a boom. While the overalllevel of civil employment has remained steady, there havebeen important changes in its components.

Agrrcuu ural employment has declined drastically as aresult of r aricnalrea tion carried through in the post-warperiod. Th e workers from thl' sector have been thrownonto a la bour market which has witnessed the declineof (he I wo major industries - linen a nd s hip bu il din g. TIleOVtTaJ1 cha nges ill usrrared in the diagram underestimatethe decl me of linen production, beca use textile rnanutac-ture inel udes man -rna de fibre production which has grownenormously in the recent period Employment in linenplants fell from 89% of all textile employment in 1950to 57% in 1970. " The declme in manufacturing employ-DIAGRAM -'"

Net Changes in Employment in the NorthMain Sectors and Specific Industries 34

Employment(thousands)

Services + 75.5

+Tolal+2.4

ConstructionE.. + 15.5ngtneermg + 11.8

- -14.4 Shipbuilding-33.8 Textiles-39.6 Total Manuf'actur ing-47.5

Agriculturemen! would have been even greater if It had not beenfor the Influx of foreign Investment and government av -sisred Industry. 1n 1% 1 government sponsored mdustrywas responsible for 22.5% o r all manuf acrunng employrnent , by 1972 thrs share had grown to 44.9%. The onlymajor sector which ha , grown IS services. Some 900'0 ofthe incr ease in til IS sector is due to the intr oducucn ofsocial services into the north and the corresponding expansion of education health services, and state adrninisira-u on. C onstru cu on has expanded due to public works.while the growth of engineering employment IS due [0new gran! aided mdust rv ."The shift from the traditional sectors of employment tothose that are state sponsored is not simply ar; Increasein the importance of the Slate in maintaining employment.It s ig na I s the economic decline of the Union 1S t bourgeoisie,and of ItS ability to use ItS powers of direct discriminationto maintain the Loyalist bloc of workers and capitalists.

33. Earnonu rvlcCJlln. War and QII Irish TO",n (P enguin, 1 97 4) .p 234.

.1 4. C alcula ted from Nortlier n l r e i a n d D i g e s ! 0 / 5Iall ....I!C$.: >5. C a l cu la te d from Department of Commerce, Northern Ire-

land. RI?POrl on t ltc Ce nsns of Prod ucuon, 1 950. 1 970.36. l ndust n at D~vdDpIIICIII. p 8: lorman Cuthbert, The

Northern lreland Economy (B elfast , )970) , D 6.

1 1


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'IrA t il LE 2""GOVC,[mllcn! Sponsored Projects in the North: 1945-72

Counl.ry Number Per Cento f of of allOrigin Projects ProjectsNI l O t ) 40.5GIJ J 10 40.9Other 50 11;'6TOia] 269 100.0

The sragnaribn of Unionist ca pita l is d ra ma tic ally illustrale d in Ih e tab le a hove. A l though ind igenous c;a pi ttl li n itialec! a sim ilar n umber of projects as B ritish ell pita I, thecontri b urion II made lC J growth in ernp lovment was onlya qua riel" that o J Ildtain. The new British and foreignca'pilat was far more productive than its local counter-part, II was rhercf'ore less concerned with using sectariandrvisions 10 keep wage 'S down and overt irne up . 1 .1 1 ,1n waslJ nion ist cap ita l in its- precarious econom ic ,I ate . ,"\;Vlla I Inve The con seq uences of these developments beenfor the: nortb ? There is no lack of bouraeois observers ofthe suugglc \\1 11 0 ' lttl,m pt to dep ict i! as~ a dreadful h ang-0\ er fr0hl;,\ p a s ! . era : a rel igious war. If only, it is argued,these peap!.: would come to iheir sc:nses and realise tintKing Biily arid the V irg i 11 Mary cu e dead and buried, thenall w cukl be well. Suoh peop l ~ And corn pa nv with theecon 0 r n i si ic " ll ,; ,e ia II st S wh 0 a 1 " [ ; ue 1 . 1 1at ihe tel ig ious divisi onin th e north is :slmpl\ ' \h l:: result of cap1tal i~t machination,For the lattcr, it i, necessarv to 'get ri d of sectarianisrn'before the ' real struggle' can begjn,C ap ita lism has riot and will never triumph In a 'pure'f')lm. I I ftl w ays takes root in specific h ist orira] situa lions,a nd ',:m erg e, CO;} tt::d in th e hi\: orical rubb ish left over froma 11 1 : ' < 1 r Iier P ' - ' r iod . C on ~ eq lie n t 1 1'. c a p ita l ist ic le o I;)gy Il eyerappears 11 1 i) pure fonll either: i I takes t he garb of thespccsric soc ial c,\nd:tioll< ; in which it arises. A ll id eo logyhas


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Unionist capital has no! weakened its ability 10 maintainthis traditional privilege. Stormont 'was ultimately [eS],J0f1-sible for the location of grant aided rndustry, This factor,combined with the 'natural' advenrages of the Belfast areacreated by Unionist capital, has meant that location basbeen in the predominantly protestant east.'~ Th,\ls stareaided industry has' reinforced rather than undermined thetraditional relations between protestant and catholic 'wor-kers. Public and private employment policy in the northhas succeeded in preserving discrimination. in employmentThere is no detailed set of figures.1I vailable which show therelative numbers of catholics in employment and out ofemployment compared with protesrants. However, it 'isknown that 'in Belrast's three largest firms, Catholics .areern pl oved in the proportions of 3 per cent, 1.4 pe,teen Iand 0- per cent respectively.' .,., The census figures give amore general indication of Ill" extent of unemploymentamongst the catholic population:

TABLE 3 !{Discrimination ill Employment in the North

Area Pef cent Per ce n t r l1 'aJeCatholic unemploymentBelfastFalls Road 79.6 2 3 . 8Shaukhill Road 7.8 11.3

DerryNorth Ward 435 IIASouth Ward 82.1 26,7

The traditional response of the protestant w~rk_ing-das5 toa decline in employment has been to tum against thecatholic minority, since they are seen as direct comperitorsfor the available jobs. The famous united riOIS: of 1932Were preceded by a fall in employment in, shipbuilding ofover 80% in less than two years. J;. This was Hie extent [0which economicconditions had to deteriorate before pro-restant workers spontaneously abandorred their traditionalhostility to C .R tholic workers, Ii is (he height q .f naivete toexpect (he Iwo sect ions of rne northern work ing cl ass tounite on 'economic' ixsues, when it is precisely these thatdivide them. As the crisis begins to. bite, protestant w~)rkerswill pursue the traditional way our: {he expulsion ofcatholics from employment. Only later, when the Unionistregime is visibly unable to preserve the. I~QsltjoD of protes-tam workers, will the possibility exist of breaking theprotestant workers (rom Loyaiism and drawing them raundli, programme which emphasise-s the economic issues. AsConnolly scornfully remarked' about the Economists of hisday: .'the .doctrine that because t he workers of Bellast Jive. underIhe same industrial conditions as do those of Great Britain,they are therefore subject to the same passions and to beinfluenced bv tne same methods of propaganda. Isa doctrinealmost screamingly [ullny in its absurdity.' InTtrcdevelopments in the north and south in the post-warperiod were important not only for reinforcing the materialbasts of thee protestant ascendancy, but also for promotingdivisions within the Unionist camp, The growth of 'the

'welfare-stare' in the north contrasted with thil: poverty ofsocial services inthe south. Although Westminster UnionistMPs 'had velrernenrf y opposed !,he legislation estal;!Jjshingtire social senvices after the wa r , rh e oorurasting develop-men: provided Loyalism "I)th a further argument to favourof partition. The fortification of the ascendancy throughS II b sid ie s from 13r it a i n sowed t he seeds of su bseq uent devel-QI~menbwi lh in Unionism. To Briush capital, the changed-economic balance within Ire land itSElf seemed (0 poirnt awards some reconci liation of north and souih. The Britishsiij re , r:J.ther than th e pa rtition of I reland, was the guar an-teeo! northern economic survival. The South was experi-encing un p recedented expansion. and the sectarian dividein the north appeared totally anachronistic. Bruish policywas open to the encouragemeru of some k in a of federalrelationship between north and south, Tin: ag",111 for thispoliJand we s tt1 he the supposed rnodernlsingelenrenrs in the. south - Lynch. Fitzgerald and O'Brien. anda new 'middle class' in the north. purported to be abovetraditional seetarian dlvisions an d composed of bothca tlmlie;; and protestants.In the noah of I reland, (he situation was q ui t e differentfrom how it appeared in British ruling class ciroles. Thegrowth of state.sponsoredindustry had given sustenance to;1 Unionist middle class iTl1pa.tfent with traditional IoyaJi'slll ,This section of the U nio nist b lo c W:l,S willing to concede tocatholics a measure of reform which breached tradhienalbut arrachrcnisric divisions, The ccrtual pr oblern seemednot so much a question of programme, but of the pace atwhich this could be Implemented without alienating tradi-tional Unionis; SUppOfL O'Neill, who became PM' ill 1963,was the represen tal ive of this tendency I t would be ludi-42, 'Relatively high unemployment and a low standard of livingexist i n Northern Ireland ill spi(~ of the goverrnnerusactions in attracting or 'directing no less than 217 new Iac-

rories to the province since [945, One hundred of thesewere "sponsored" by the government inasmuch as the Stateprovided one-third or all capital outlav costs 011 piam "mJmachinery. The other I 17 factories wore built in advanceby the government before tenants were found or ihe 217new factories, onlv 3!, or 14(110.IHlv6 been located man:than 30 miles from' Belfast. Cautious hIVe'S!rncnt frorn public

, ' 1 8 - well as pr iva re so urces h as mean I ,hat eastern townssmaller than some in the west of the. province have receivedmore factories. Thus Lurgan with a popularion of 1 8.OUOand cnly twenty-one miles from Belfast ha s RHracteci 13new factories, while the City of Lon c!ond'l;Try , or Derrv .with 11 population of 55,000 but more- than seventy milesfrom Belfast has attracted only T factorles - t woof whichwere vacant in J968.', Alan Robinson. 'Londonderry,Northern Ireland - A Border Study', Scottish O-eo.graphicalMogasine, 86. 3, December 1970, p 21.1.

0. Morris Fraser, Cluldren in Conilict (Penguin, 1974.\, p IJS.44, Calculated from General Register Office. NorthHII [r'tiano;

CeiJSIJ .5 of Populo/ ja il 1971, County Reports. Wl' havechosen to take male unernployment as. reflecting, the truedilTerenees be! ween catholics and proteSIIlMS becausewomen, who may well. be 'economically active' accorrllugto ' the Censuacatcgories, are en cumocTE l < 1 with other- raskswhich prevent them from entering th e labour market 011 anequal basis with men, (Ii;' free wage labourers.

45. See, K S Isles "nd. N Cuthbert, An Economic Survey otNorthern Ireland CHMSO, (3.l!liasl. l'J57), p 594 ..46. 'North-East ULsler', SW, p 267.

1 3


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crous, of COIJ:fSe, to represent thrs wing of Urrionisro as, m m e kind klf 'pfp_gf~,~ive bout:gc(rts,je. '. ft ~va" , ] i l 1 . _ G ~ r e l : y tryingto f()KfLt'y the rule of tbe larger Unionist capital, by resnov-ling some of the more minor discriminations. which protected.,)le, 'SQl_qller L1 nion ist c,api,t,aI an\i1' I)rcserved the trivia!' butimportant l)~ir~'ilt [he Ifcpub licans in the south will bl1 L!


17/55

'(0 arion alist fervour) only lay dormant, ready to blaze intolife again ... the threat to conscript Ulster in 1941 created1 1 crisis in Ei re overn igh t al J~a wave of an t i-British sent irneu Iswept .over the southern workers', ~"This wa, a period when workers in their thousands werefighting against the Fianna Fail measures-against th erestrictions on waze increases and.against anti-Trade Unionmeasures, Th e possibility existed' then of uniting the twostruggles, a pcssibiiity which i$ much greater today whenIreland' i5 engulfed by foreign investment. under the unchallenged control pi Bntish economic interests in particular .The toous of the struggle at til is p oint is the n crt h .., It ISrruo that t!wre is fl~) W i t -y {i~r\'ard without !\J1 a'l1 1 < -Irularidm(jvcmcmt and O l:la t a socialist movement im ~ he ,uuth callIU lve an 8 11 ([) tm Ol.L ",effect on the divisions In t he n (jj- i h. BU:, jnow arc the SO l!lth1 C .rmwo rkers to come to 'in tlJikrstailiJi!lgof tb.c JlIiil~'V of the a!!ilti-impe'ri'lj,ist slttu-ggle aJi,d ,tnc deki1Ceof their ~i~lil1g standards? The il'llpl!llse !lor ~tJc soi:lthommovement w-i l l (; . 'Mo: from the l1oft'lit, because the economicstrugglt, on it s ow n wilt not clarify a wlliy forward unlesslit is linktd to' the na tional struggle. The p()ssi~'i1ity fur theP91_LiJioisaii~lnl of thie workers' cconornic stwggles comesj!lre.


18/55

liAlilerem.1 in the elitism of thG\ IRA. Th e 8i\lille people who.w{!1 Sllrfk)f( th~ lIRA w i , ! ! ! ! '!fll:':(;ctieal aSSiStiiJiJde, Ott th estre ets" e tc , wil! vot@ Iof the SUlL? in an elcctien becausethey cars se e no ,peihica 1 rlIi,n~GtioA !h~'l.iprovides an y alter-native - !\lot t 'mtf H the Tina t['Hail oasis,l 'he Eh'~lli,h cml'f)C'(iti\)l1. is rt )moved ft'(M]) under '(l[,le fee! ofthe a scl;.n de nc y, (llt~r(; willI 81 ill ix' po IIt iIC: \ I a T{d ill eo IQ)gicalIfeinniifm oit it. T~l~ p3lramillitll:ry gWl!lPS' w(~I!l~d no! imrne-dia!!eiydi~ha'rjd: t t h " qU""tiNI atl\l'~ (l ' v - . 1 1 l ( J \\'l)tJid controli D 2 ! J ; 1 1 t lloadh. "i' tld w h a t power w1llJ['d be rnol:\i f. i s e d ' to. m-ainrein tneJ! CClI1!'roL Thtre ctllnmot be i1l1;,' k,;nd of 'iol:Utio.n int tQe tranrcwork oi t.lll~ 5~ix C [lU Ih ti@ ,: :1 11 -d i[.Ink,s the ascen-dency i~ d tt\ lf 1. J' 5'e d. tl ue tight wing lcadcrshies and thep ar am i] ita r y gl 'oupl\ ddeal~~, t, llere art: ' grcuj dangers ahead .TIlE onkJ3ih' htli'cVt tbat ill is po~sib\c 'to Win rhe pmle~ra! ; ) twOTlk .~Fs vi:! tbdr rencuonary !('ad~l', or -groups, This isbased m11(He LC,)liO'IllI'~lic illuslol'I [hal (lie nations] quesrienand! Il'1e rr]


19/55

waraspirations of the working-class was a constitutionalistsplit-oil from the republican movement, OaDI1 na Pob-lachta, which formed a coalition with Fine Gael andLabour in .1948, In the- sixties, ib e growth of the LP -to alarge extent in the form < ? I t an influx of inte1lectna:l~-coincided with a parallel aevelQpmenl in the republicanmovement, and at ail times the working class SUPPGr't tOrthe LP was smaller even than that of Fine Gwel, thesuccessor of the old T r ea.tyltes and BIuesh irts: F ia fHl > a, hiiIheld a- relatively unbroken hegemony throughout in termsaf e lec to rs 1 support.In the north, the Labour movement is determined Iil~ thepolitical character of the protestant labour aristocracy. Atthe beginning of the 20th century the centre of SJi}~ial-democracy was B~;lfast, but it Was the- soci'a1-detnt)~.tacy 0' Walker, whose name is given to the reactionary Unionist-ial)C1trr ideology which Connolly bitterly Jougbt, and ag-ainstwlitleh h~ set up t n . : Irish SO'cia!l~t Republican Party.Wafkerargtred in the Irish TUC f'or the.political expre-ssionof the ):!niofls - through the Britlsb Labour Part,y. 'TIleNeSGJ11-day Labour Party is ennrely within thiis tn.di~lio'iJ.,operaurrg within and acceptiag the partition of r rdaJ'lj., asthe Northern Ireland Labour Party. This is wby tb_e NILP,will ) ' l i . : l - y no role ion the development of the' wClrklih_g.,, 'I~.ss_,either catholic or protestant, There is no basis for a strongsocia l-dcrnccracv among (he protestant work ers, bcca usethe g~ins made in Britain were .~jmply translcPnlci to tl:!&mthrough the- British connection : it is that ti'i,ey want tomaintain.

Th e tasks hI . Rrifaln[rd:lnd\ Jm~.bleilis spti~g tli!-clo}ly support.' ""Lenin's support for the 'bourgeois nationalism' W;lS neverunconditional. Only his support [or its 'general democraticcontent' was, The bourgeois and petit-bourgeois )eaSenhip'sare incapable of leading the struggle in a consistent fashi(~n"It fa Ih 1 '0 'the working class to carry the iasf;; through in athoroughgoing manner,One of the aspects of lhe general democratic content whichLenin describes is the free.dom for a nation to conduct it~internal political struggles without the interference 0'[imperialism. Consequently, it isnece-ssary for revolutlen-aries to show their solidarity with the struggle o f tIneoppressed against imperialism, since trfe achievement ofself-determination will break downcrucial obstacles to thestruggle for socialism in the' oppressed nation.However, this general I lc !ce>;s i ly to salidrlrise witb thestruggle. of the oppressed was insufficient for }'1arx andL"'llin, For Ma rx , su pp or tin g- the struggle of rhe lri.sh fn rseH -deter mi (l.


20/55


21/55

- wiU notautomatically bring ananu-chauviaist conscions-ness into being. Th8 issue of Ireland has 10 be raisedexplicitly in th" BriHsh labour movement.COnversel y, the failure to ta ke up the issue of Uelandmakes struggles on all other fronts more difficult , andslows up the advances which can be made. If the working-class accepts till! right of it s state to impose its pol icy onthe Irish. it accepts in reality, the right of the ruling Classto impose its programme not only inIreland, but in Britainas well. H the 'law and order' of th e British bourgeoisieis the (1)je for Ireland, then why not for Britain and for th eBritish workers? The identification of sta te policy with the'national interest' of WI': working-class in tile oppression ofanother nation will lead to political confusion in the ranksof the workers' movement when the state is us-ed against' t tin Britain.Throughout the COUL_ s e of the srruggle Jn the north, theconsistent emphasis on the neutrality of the state and theimportance of 'moderation' in the pursuit of pohticalendsby any section of society (barring the 'neutral' slate and itsarmv) is an attempt to discredit any serious struggle againstbourgeois rule. If left unchallenged, it will remaIn a severeobstacle to th e success of such a struggle La Britain.The penetration of bourgeois ideology into the wor-k ing-class movement means that trade union politics (even in itmilitan t form) can co-exist with ch a uvinism. Th e graveconseq uences of th i s consciousness became dear in theaftermath of the Birmingham bombings, When sections Ofthe worklng-class in the Midlands expressed their anti-Irishsentiments, The British left has not been able to deal with'chanvinism within the labour movement and has oftencapitulated to it. This is often paralleled by a failure tocon:CT.eleJy support the struggle of th e Irish against irnperi-alism. All the lett llr-oups pay Iip-serv ice to supporting tJ~estruggle of the Irish for self-deterrnina t ion. However, Inpractice. this 'support' i~often nothing more than Worthysounding ultirnarurns which have no concrere pbliljcaiconsequences.The bornbjng carnpaign in Britain presents enormeus prob-Ierns. As Marx -said of the Fenian bombings:'One cannot expect the London proletarians to.allow.themselves10 be blown up in, honour 0 ' the Feniwl emiSfiari~s- T~er-e is'always a kind of r a J a - l i t y about s!Jch a secret, rnelodratnaiic sorto r conspiracy: orBut public criticism by revolutlcnaries-rnust al~aYE be setin the conrext of the war situation that prevails and thebrutal oppression that working-class catholics endure atthe hands of the army of occupation and the extreme ,rightin Ireland. Although some, groups may lake. 1 1 . formallycorrect position, the absence of a: scientific understanding6f reforrnlsrrr and ohauvinisrn on their part makes Itirnpossible tor them 10. carry this position through intopractice. The result is an inevitable capitulation to, thereformi.stand chauvinist prejudices OL the mass of theworking-class, in deed if no t in word.A failure to relate to the ongoing struggle and to thenation al q des tion means th at th e quest ion of cha uvi n ism isnot taken up and that nothing ls done to practically aid theIrish struggle. After the Birmingham bombings, the WRPput forward a string of platitudes in order to avoid takingtip the Irish question rn Britain:'We: appeal to all workers to help build the unity of British and

Irish workers by supporjirig the policy of thll WI~P toSECURE the withdrawal of British troops r'rem Uls~r.D1Sl'JANDthe army and the polite ..CREA TE a workers militia, _CON-STRUcr the revolurionary party which will eltJjro-priate capitalism and establish a planned ecenomy.' .,~.

Slogans about th e 'unity o f B ritish and Irisb workers' or'disbanding the army and police' mean nothing at aU if noideas are offered as (0how these sloganscar- be. a guide toaction. Securing the withdrawal of British troops from'Ulster' will not come about throogn exhortations - itrequires 4 o ( the very least the building of a movement towithdraw the troops,11-1eeconornistic approach of the left ," has meant that theIrish issue has n O I been taken up politically. Ecenornismatrer the Birmingharn bombings also refiecteditself illanattempt to focus around the issue of repressive legislation(the 'Prevention of Terrorism' Act) and on the question ofcivil rights alone, rather than using this to raise thequestion of self-determination 'for the Irish." TI:e ~ationa~efor this orientation has been that trade uruornsts willreadily see the threat of repressive legislation to tradeunionism. This economistic appeal to the labour movementfails to grasp the fact that a narrow 'approach to '~ivilrights' in no way challenges. 1He cha uvinisrn in t~e working-class, Mauv workers se e the Aot as protection againstbombs. Th~ general accepta ncerrt the 'Jenkins Law" wasdu e to the aha uvin ist tradition of the labour movement onth e issue of Ireland. By abstracting t he r ep re ss iv ~ legistati~1:lOUt of the context of the lrh;h struggle, one IS left Withecorrornistic phase-mongering about civil rights. The olllywa v in whlGh (he quesrion of repressive legislation can betaken up and effectively fought is in the context in whichii arose -Ireland.1[1 stirnulating chauvinism, the ruling class may be able toach ieve what ttlc SlQcia l Con tract could no! effectively carrythrough -. class collaboration In this context too, thequestion of Ireland, and (he building of Ihe Troops OutMovement becomes more important than ever before.Building TOM and struggling around its two deman~s of'S elf-d eterrnina tion for the Irish people as a whole and'Troops Out Now' is the only concrete manner in .whlchanti-Irish chauvinism can be [ought and.real support givento the Irish people; The -econ 0 rnistic orienta lion of leftorganisaiions vmanifests itself in the-ir relucli;lnee to ' bUildthe TOM . TOM began its existence With v irttJ.a Jly n osupport from the larger left groups and still lacks full sealecommitment from the major organjsatjQ;us, on the leff.Hand in hand with the substiturlon of other issues for thecentral question of the right to self-determination goes alack of faith in tile possibility of building TOM ill theworking-class. Substitutes are found in til," 's tudent move-men!'. T h e isolation of the BrJtish left from any influencein the working-class is reflected in their poUtics which tallthe Class rather than offering any lead. Instead of cnalleng-57. Marx to Engels. ]4/12/1867, MEGI, P 149.58. Workers Press,' 22/11/1974: the International SocialistsWere, of course, all Ihin..g5\0 all men. Their headline: 'Stopthe bombings', 'Troops Out of Ireland', Socialist WQrker,

30/1! /74.59. For a discussion- of E'collQmism see ;Frank- Richards. op Cit,60. 'Fight Police State Laws', Red Weekly. 5/12/14.

1 9


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[llg the pf(!seml consciousness of tile class. cconomismechoes ~t.Thexe vafi!iciS f t1,rI1l l$ of capitula tron to the chauvinisrn ofthe Bri ~isl ; l working. class weaken the J rish struggle andhelp (0 strengthen (he grip of the British rul ing class overits ".. ark ingclass, Tl1e importance of British workers takrnga deterrn i Iled sta n d aga ins t S'ril ish dorninati 0'0 cannot beunderestima ted. The revo III\ iona iY COil scio usness of Bri t ishworkers would. as it developed, have an effect on the Irishrevolution. A firm stand in supp ort of the righ t o r the1rish to self -det er rni na tion, backed up by practical .a.ctiol1in the rorm of blacking military goods and agitation forthe withdra wal of troops would do more to shake the basisof petit-bourgeois natlonallst prejudices and 01 sectarianismin J reland than any amount of idealising over working-classunity.The revolutionary movement In Britain 1)111$t make opposi-tion 10 Br il i~ h impe ri al ism . in' Ireland all i,Iltegr:tl part ofHS programme, and rhe propaganda i- t puts a-cross to the-developing vangua rd in t n istl.o\m (ry, Th e . Irish queslion ishot the busines, o r a ,few "peci:alisls in the movement, buta fundamental part of lhe devcloprnent of tile parry. No-one can call themselves revel ut i.on'i r ies in Britain withoutbeing ahie to pu t across a dear anti .impe,rialisi position i~relation 10 Ireland, The political development of. theadv~?,ced workers p1US( include an unders'!,\nding of thisp05t\L(J[1 if they are 10 be able LO argue ll. dear revolutionarvposition on other quesiioris." .On the ideological front reformism has to be confrontedat Its strongest points. Chauvirusm is one of the sturdiestof these when used 10 .iUSitify the policy of the British statein its dealings internauonallv, and the '(jqmestic consequen-ces which follow. The attack on civil rights becomes justi-fied because it is necessary to protect Brrtish workers homa tiny minority of Itrrorists within the United Kingdom, Ifreaction is to be successfully Iought, it must be ~,ttackednot at" its most superficial points. but at Its rOOlS, Irelandhas provided the British ruling class for centuries with areservoir of reaction which it can draw upon in times ofcrisis. f r the lefl-is to be able to make advances il l otherst ruggles it must lake up concrete support for (lie right of(he Irish 'to determine their O'\NJ1 future, T o fail to do thisrnea ns [hat tb e movement will be continually delayed andset back by the abili tv of tbe Br: li,h rul ing class to playupon the cha trvi n is i p re jud ic es of British worker s.Pi)Lilica! Committee of the ReGMarch 1975

20

The Question ofthe International

In 'Our Tasks and Methods' we noted that th e strategy ofeach. national patty can only be seen as a. pan of an inter-nationalstrategy for world revolution. We said: ''We cannot as yel say whether this will mean rebuilding, re-forming or recreating the Fourth International. Clearly I.hismust be il priority lor OUT [()UP to determine.' IFor us a diseussionon the Fourth International. (FI) has atwo-fold purpos~. First, we must understand our .traditionand learn from the past experience of the Trotskyist move-ment. S c c . o , D . d l Y , as a revolut ionary organisation, the Revo-lutionary Communist Group can only develop simultane-ously with the development of an Internattenal. Theq,uestion of achieving PQ[itica'l clarity in relation to the'($xistlng Fl' is thus. a priority for the organisation.The ail1lt of this docnrnent is not to write a historica]aCCOuf\~cf the PI. Rat t le r irs goal js J C I draw out the generaltheoretical positions of the world Trotskyist movement, toevaluate some 'of these ideas and to leaOl frorn these pastdiscussions, Ourcrleuratien is Bot to go over the specificerrors of the past or to put a positive ora negative .signnext to every positi on 'taken by tb e PI. An exercise, athistorically checking old positions against .a -5e.ries oforthodox positions is an approach which is alien to theMarxist tradition. A Marxist i!-nalysi~ attempts to under-stand past experiences from the standpoint of the lateststage of development and in this way presents generallessons hom the point of view of today. We stan from ourunderstanding of today tc comprehend the past. The hind-sight of today - the end of the post-war boom - allows usto gi ve significance to the 'mistakes' of the past, We lookat the past with the clarity and insight that the present nowgives us in relation 10 the past. Marx's notes on methodare important in this respect.'Bourgeois society is the most developed and the most complexhistoric organisation. of production. The categories whichexpress its rela (iOIlS, the comprehension of its structure, therebyalso allows insigh,ts into the structure and the relations ofproduction of all vanished social formatiens out or' whoseru ins and elernen t s, il built i(self lip, whose par t Iy still uncon-quered remnants are carried al.ong within it, etc, HumanliJ:atoruy contains 4 key to the anatomy (jf 1 . l 1 , e ape, The i n t i m -a t ,10 11S o f higber development among the st)bo~dlnat.e anima!species. however, can be understood only after thel;igherde>:e1o~m(;h ( i~ i,Jr~i1d~1 \h\O\l.p. T he bourg eois eC-UI1OJJ1V thus.',upJ)l;je-sthe k.;y to Ihg alll!;fc-'f! etc... .' ii "Marx ~!ldcC';t()o


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tion di1f~fS from hls inquiry. Marx al)~h!sed capitalismhisf.(Clricaliy but IIis presentation dlff_ers frO!;P his mode ofinquiry, Marx explains IJ10: jusrifkati(m' or" his rn~!/I(j~. ofpresentation thus:' T t l . wDuld 't li . .; ;r ,eforr il ITeull.fcasib'le ana'wrOl1'g to let 1 l'!e, ccol;)(l!lliccalegQI.ies Iollow DO C anolhc.r ill !h!! S-'lOIC sequence as Ihal inwhich they were historically decisive, Their. sequence is deter-mined. rather. by Ihelr ijela"(ion (0' orre another in 1110dembourgeois soeietv, which li s precisely the' opposite Q ) _ ( thal whichseems t.m bg Ihci"r lla:\.(cll"al OfGJer or which. corresponrt , \'0h i st o .r ti ca l d evdQ iP lncn t. j :jFor revelutionaries today, all anal;ysis of t'he past expeni-enccs ' < 0 f I~( ) movement is !: lot an \:~0~~ise in ' revolutfanaryhls!@ry' p,ther ii h necessary in relation Ito undersrarrdingthe movement t\Qd.ay. Mare spec.ijkally an analysis < O I f i the.F~ ffi)!lSt pr(')v,ide revoI.Ultilof1!ui'es with th.e most relevantlessons 01 I n e p.a~t. 1 1 1 1 ier5pectii 'Vc. Why would a H (, il is h w qr .k cr sup-pmt 11'1e ,rb i'sta nGC aga inst tpe C I = ! iteam iUt i t a? W!;l(l!~ d o e sOFl ~ay \0 workers 3i~ UCS, who, talk about Japanese corn-petlticm ? Q'nly an l i n terna, l iona , l i sJ 'lemd;poiml can i'lrmrevel uiionaries ir t thejr fight agai [;lst F(!,f:orrlliSffI. 1I'he CPdisanIl5 the working class by providing 'ITa!iomfli soh'l.tloi1s'.'II is no t a quest ion of foUo wi n g; a pol ic y o ff na ~1;Orlal excl us ive-ness nQT or waving tile U nion U a:k. \'i/h at Is fU '1 illllnenlally atstake is the right of lhe Biili,h people 10


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C@'mjIDJer ,11 had degenett!li-ed treyolld the point of no retllm.Toe absence of a:lIY respons-e to the disastrous Stahniststrategy iII Germarty (rom 'the ranks of the Third Inter-InaetJ.Dzj dErcllonSIT,a:teti that :the Comirrtern could no t learnfrern i~ s eci'lp"rie;nc.c aj;jd'iWnect iits mi.stakes in tha fU,i"urfl.There was no pos'sihili'ty of reforming the Comintern.n(J!~'kyWf(.}~e i'An organisation wruGh wa s not roused! bv It lh:c lnurrdcir of fas-cism an d which submits, docilely to such QNtrage,ol!ls ;('Gts (i f !h ebureaucracy dernonstrates tfl~reby Ihrl 'i~is d~ad i ,Hi:d !matnOlhip;g ~),n .cvu revive it. To say I lb is o r: >tm~ y alHI p~lb!i"c'lyis Cl!)T cfirec! duty towards the pro~cHlrlat a m e l i its fuiurc. III a IIIour subsequent w'()rk it is necessary 10 ' tak~ a, our pojnt ofdepart ure [,ne lii~loril;:al collapse of the officia] Cil~ rn unistIflICITriarliO',l'al.' 'T he c s,mh tis h.m em;t of the FI was dictated by' th ~ Meci toC on s truer new fevollu~lionary palrl,it's imiqiendemt of theS t.a lin hlst a md S oc ia] Dflmocf la rl ic I 'lTga hI5a ti o! l' s am d 'the needto pu t n :; \i .o l1 l ti o! ]; !i "x )i i (J f; 'a s t o ii, ne w g'tt)1cfatiolrl of w orkersintcrna rionall y- . Foe -!rn:lIsky. -as for Lorl'hl, tll@ Q\JeS110g ofths International was not one of numbers, but of the needto ntaintain and f l ig 'h~ for Ibo revel utionary tradition inter.nationally. Lenin WEOt(;, in 1 191 7:"ll is not a qucst ion of nurn ben. bl.H of givil lg correct expression11 0 the i'd'eas and policies of the IruJy rcvolutjonary JIlml'e"lif~iat.The thing is not to 'proclaim: i:n.t(~rri~ltioilaI)sm. but 10 be abioto DC f\J;l interuationalist in deed wh~)l I irnes arC' most: I rYJj;Ig',' .,The FI was founded precisely ttl face this central Itask ofg,iving correct expression to the ideas and po1.icics of ItheU'lJ[y revolutionary proletariat. Giver, the bankruptcy o(th e other Internationals, th0.rc Gall he [10 questlor, 'Q f theco r r ectttr"s of Trod


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For Trotsky, who had participated in some of the mostcrl;lcia! debates in .rhe revolutionary movement, the Belshe-vlk It!IIa:di.tionwas a weapon which he could Use to ddvr~!l)pand carry theprogramme of the FI forward, Ia th is respectTrotskywas a unique figure in the Fl. The rest Of theleadership of the FI was incapable o f t es ti ng ailt'! develop-ing the ideas of the Bolshevik tradition. Th e wp< :I i, jl io li ls ofthe period did not provide a school for rcvol utionarystruggle where th e cadres of the FI could have 3,cq)uiredand assimilated the Bolshevik tradition. (iiven these hos"tile historical force.s it is not surprising that the Fl sulferedfrom serious theoretical weaknesses,Trotsky understood the negative c:oosequc8tl;s t);lilt thedcfell!ts of the working class had' for the Bolshevik wl.diUon.He wrote:c . w ~ [ive in an epoch of the universalIiqutdation of M~ITXfSmin 'fhc ruling summits of the labour movement, The ITlO,t vulgat'prcjutlices now serve as the official doctrine" ,[0'f the p(,litic


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He then proceeds to ignore th e law" Qf e i l, p l' ta l is t p f 0dnc ti d f)an d locales th e crisis of capitalism in consumptron.'To sum up, Much the same situation prevails' in production andconsumption as w e p re vio us ly noted lin the n:\.1(io:1 \1,"twrenmass iUCOI)lCS and exp anding gross output lind in Ihc r~ .I(\1 iv@ ,share of the mass of the people in l i la ! 'iG )J l' a I ihcorne. III emc'hlinstance the needs of the people arc subordinated 1, \ thi! nar rowinterests" of a p lu to cr atic m in ority . Such a sei-lIP. il~).:Lu:" andEngels long ago explained, cannot he!p but produce (!i)Pilrit'ie".rnaladjus tmenis and disproportions which cllhniil"t.! illi pcrriD'Ciicexplosions or crises. ' ro .The underpinning of capitalist stability i~ th~ (!xpansi


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Thus Eastern Europe was characterised as capitalist.'To deny IY1C c,api!al i ,~t nature' M' these countries amounts !:oaccep tance, in one form or l\JlQtrher'. o r 't]:ris' Stalinist theory,It means scriouslv to envisage the historic possibiHty of a de-struction of capitalism by "rerror from above" without there 1101 , 1 ! l I lonarv in t erven ~Im l nf tha tn a sses," HT,i>lis narrow tJ(lti1 o() k. w hi:d~ utlll~ cs II:!,;e "revQtl'!!ioo.a.ry in-tervcruiort of t,ile rriasses' as a sociological cri t lC~.iMn.. was ,il,''the future to give W;J:Y I to o [1 p ar t UlJii,tliG a..da{ptaJtJiolll t o S ta li n-ism, when the F] eompir,ical ly dedl;l,tlfd 't;rial Eastern Ej!!rOpewas [Lot ca,llital'ist. The uncomfortable f ac t t! hil t S ta ll im isT ll lcominued 1 0 C ll.lS t apd ove rr exp and i-Jltfl Eastern f"l.~lrapewas tla'ced by the F! in an o~!rirhllke manner The move-rn ern l o li Slt:l1i Ln i sm into Eastern IEmope was po s ed by t : l~eFI rn terms of whether !he~l'!al'ird~ts were rcvolutlonary ornot This co.nflUst'd way of approaching (~e pr,otJiel)1 is aliithe more sutifiri~ijjjg as Trotsky had .a~rc3!dy noted that th ~expansion of Stall i n.i ;s ls i nt o Finland an d P6Jla!1d wouldresult i r . l a tr;l.nsfpfliTlaltli(m of the existing, t&J r> i ; i 0F1S of pro-ducriori. Ue wroeo: . ,'Th.h, variant is f;) ']ast probahle I l Q I be.CilJ).IC th e bureaucracyremains t r~ c to IflO sccialist NDgri\!1' ~1C. bu I because it isn.eijl10rcl~~'in)'ls nor capalDle of shariilg the power, Jn61 IhepLi\'illtge~. th e 1a.1:1


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permanent revolution without this and outside of it, is liketrying to fill [he cask of Danaides.... A necessary condition for this is to carry out consistemtva policy which prepares the proletariat in ( l :Q1)cf time for theconquest of power, Now, Lominarlze has made. of the possibilityof a permanent development of the revolutiou .(on the con-dirion thaC the Communist policy be correct) a scholastic for-milia . guarantee ing alone blow and 'for all ume a revolutionarysjluatio~ "for many years". The 'f~ii1f~""'tr ch aracier 0 / therevolution thus becomes (l law p/cC'mg itsel] abow: hisiory, "I'dependent oj the policy ()f the leadershh: and of the materialdevelopment of revolutionary events.' 30The theory of permanent revolution raised by Clarke intoa historical process in effect provides for the transforrna-tio 11 o f Stalinist parties into revolutionary' ones. A Dd Ibiswas the conclusion drawn by the Third k'ongr.c$s of theFl in its resolution on tho Yugoslav Revolution.'In Yugoslavia, the- first country where the PT(lktilf'iat tookpower since (he degeneration of the USSR, Slal l l l i~.m no ion-ger exists today as an effective factor ill tlht~ workers'movement.' HIn its analysis of Yugoslavia the FI. introduced a corollaryconcept of the theory of 'objective prm:c:s~(Os'- this wasthe role of mass pressure, In the case of Yugoslavia, masspressure forced the yep to a non-Stalinist stance.'The specific policy 0/ the CPT, (Hstil.1guishiug itsdf from thillof all the othe-r C ommunist parties of Euroac, :;1r.1miuily underthe pressures of the m asses.' J"The case of Yugosla via j)Gvidt:~ w strik ing i'llm;tr;lJti'


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Pablo and the overthrow of one-sided orthodoxyUp until J950, the one-sided orthodoxy of the FJ preventedthe Trotskyist movement from capitulating to outrightrevisionism. To some extent, the optimism of the Trotskyistleadership gave the FI a revolutionary outlook and keptthe orthodox positions intact. However, with the growingstabilisation of capitalism and Stalinism, the mood of theFl was becoming more and more influenced by its isolationfrom the proletariat. and a general pessimism regardingrevolutionary possibilities prevailed. The stage was set forthe revisionism of Pablo, Pablo's perspectives were pre-sented in a document 'Where Are We Going?', written inJanuary 1951. In this document, the logic of the fatalismof the Fl's analysis comes to the forefront.'To understand that capitalism is evolving inexoraby towards~ar. because it has no other immediate or long-term outlet ...is to already determine the fundamental line o r the develop-ment of the International situation. ' "Thus capital has no choice but to prepare for another warin order to avert its collapse. Pablo concluded from theKorean war that the balance of forces had turned to thedisadvantage of imperialism 'and that the internal dis-location and disequilibrium of the ca.p;ila1Jst regimes isgreater than we supposed'. From this conclusion, Pablodeduced that the weakness of imperial ism would inevitablyresul t in revolutions.'It is the objective reality which will push to the first place thecomplex dialectic of a revolutionary war.' "As a resul t of this 'objective real tty', which i.s characterisedby the weakness of imperialism. the war would become:' ... all infemallona/civilwar. especially in Europe anr! Asia.These con t incn ts would rapid ly pass over under the C Oil ~ rolof the Soviet bureaucracy, of the Communist Parties or of therevolutionary masses.' a s.Pablo's concept of 'war-revolution' carries the f,",!alist logicof the 'objective process' to the furtl'lt:sL (On til is point heis very explicit. 'The objective process is in the final analy-SIS the sole deterrnuung factor. overriding. all! obstacles of asubjective order.') ,'J Here: the concepts ef revolu~]oha[yleadership and revolutionary programrne are overthrownlock. stock and barrel. There is not even any need fl'lr inter-national class struggle. Instead revolution U:G)m~$ via thewaves of history, an outcome' of an objective process" result-rng from war. The working class ( P 'a @ ! 'G ) " s 'revolutionarymasses') becomes radjca 1ised as part


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they correctly saw as liquidationisrn. In June 1952, themajority of the PCI was expelled from the F'l by Pahlo.The SWP and the Healy group iin Britain only beg'aIl!fighting Pablo when their organisations were threatenedby Pablo's manoeuvres. In 1954 these organ isarions formedthe International Committee (lC) of the PI. It was arrorganisational recognition of a major split in i.he T - ' [ _ Theother half of the International was called the IntomatiohalSecretariat (IS) of the FT.It is important to note that the 1953 split tf10~ place overtactical questions and were stimulated by fractional anderganisational considerations. The sections ~illppoTting, theIntemauonal Committee never put forward counter-per-spectives to Pablo's onentation, nor di01 they attempt todraw up a balance sheet to learn from the Ff's .pas! experi-ences. Their sense of orthodoxy warned them of thedangers of deep entry but in no way were they aware ofthe theoretical issues at stake. This becomes cllear from thewritings of the SWP leadership. the main force behind thenewly-established International Committee. Les Evanswrote that there were no theoretical obicctions to Pablo'sscheme jJl. 'Where Are We Going?"."That was nOI . the level on which disagreernents developed with:Pablo. We never said that his was a theM,ctiGui revision ofTrotskyism, or ihat his p"o~iadion W~~ toMUy impossible.What we argued was Inat thb scf,jo:Jna was n()~ lite m(~~tlikelyone. Nor was il the one on which the Im(er:!llttiunal shouldstake its whole political future! 'and'The key issue on whicl\ the split was 1 0 occur was the move-menl's practical orientation towards the Stalinist and SocialDemocrat ic parties.' ,!,James Cannon's letter ilo ,Vhe'IPCI (May 29, J952} makes itclear that the SWP agreed with Pablo's perspective.'I think the Third World Congress made a correct analysis ofthe new post-war fe;l!ji!y in the world and the unforeseen turnsthis reality has tah,j)_ Proeec_dliog from this analysis, the CO[l-gress drew corree I conclus ions for the orientation of thenational Trotskyist parties towards the living movement as ithas evolved since the war ... .'and'We judge the policy of the International leadership by theline it elaborates in official documents - in ihe recent period bythe documents of the Third World Congress and the TenthPlenum. We do not see any revisionisjn there. All we seeis an elucidation of the post-war evolution of Stalinism andan outline of new tactics 10 fight it more effectively. We con-sider these documents to be completely Trotskyist.":"Cannon would remain blind to revisionism until a Pabloitefaction inside the SWP threatened the integrity of thatorga nisation.Even the leadership of the PCI, who saw the politicalconsequences of Pablo's position the clearest of any ofthe sections of the Ff, failed to struggle against the the-oretical basis of Pablo's orientation. TIJe conflict that arosein the FI in the early fifties could have provided an excel-lent opportunity to reassess past experiences. The drawing-up of a balance sheet of past positions. long overdue, didnot takl! place. Rather the split was seen 10 OCCUI overorganisational matters. The SWP reaction, in pa rtJc ular,had serious anti-internationalist overtones. Cannon stressedthe primacy of interference in the SWP by the Internationalleadership as a cause of tbe split. He wrote:

'We don't consider ourselves an American branch office .ojan inter!'lfI,\iO[1 iIi business firm that receives orders ffIlm rheboss. Thai is [101 us .... We conceive of inrerna uorra lism a sint ii rna lionQ/ col laborat ion, in the process of which we ge! thebenefit of the opinions of international comrades and they getthe benefit of ours; and by comradejv discussion and collabor-ation we work out, if possible. a common line.'


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is attacked on the basis of wrong facts which do not corres-pond to the SWP's reality,' ... (For Pablo) ... To arrive at these far-reaching conclusionson Stalinism the resolution has to present a picture of the worldsituation which is not in accord vlith reality and 1 0 take partialand limited' changes for decisive and fundamental ones. Thusthe resohitioii stares on page 3: The fundamental conditionsunder 'w'~'i~h!he Soviet bu r eaucracy and i 1 s t ight holdl over tbeComrnunlst Parties developed, nllmdy, the ebb of the revolu-tion, (he isolation of the Soviet I!Jnion, and the backward con-ditions of its economy - these conditions have disappeared,Let us cXiHminG: the post-war world and see (0 what degreethese sweeping assertions conform to the real stale of affairs.We are here dealing with matter of [act,' ..The Internanonal Committee erroneously located the' re-visionism of Pablo not in the abandonment of the Marxistmethod but on the basis of the wrong facts. The nearestthe SWP comes to the question of method is by criticisingthe manner in which Pablo divides up 11jS schema. Theignorance of the SWP regarding the ABC of Marxistmethod becomes clear in the passage below:' ... However, its ... CPablo's [ruernational Secretariat's) ...method of analyses misrepresents th e real stale of affairs andleads to political conclusions diverging from Traditional Trot-skyist views... This ca n be seen, first of all, in its manner of breaking upworld historical developmenrs since 1917 into three mail)periods: the period 01 revolutionary rtse from 1917 to 1923;(he period of revolutionary ebb f~om 1-92343; and the periodof revolutionary resurgence on higher level since 1943. The

division provides the fundamental framework for the resolutionand serves as the start ing point for a revision of our conceptionon the nature and role of the Stalinist bureaucracy.' ,,,Revisionism arises from bad periodisation, which for theSWP rs synonymous with method! What we have here isan empiricist critique of Pablo tempered with 'Trotskyist'home truths. The spirit of the document is best summed-up in the fears expressed about the need to re-evaluate'all previous political values'. It is a spirit which is entirelyalien to the Trotskyist tradition.'Revolutionary thought has nothing in common with idolworship. Programmes and prognoses are tested and correctedin the light of experience, which is the supreme criterion ofhuman reason.' 'JThe fear of the SWP of re-evaluating old political positiens


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'The p-olliiiczlicourse of the majority was to accept the Cubanrevolution as it is, plunge in fully and completely, aH-CITIpttoform relations with the revolutionaries and cement these rela-tions if possible. The minority line if adopted, weuld have keptus at arm's length from the Cuban revolutionaries and by-flinging doctrines and texts at them WW"CDLi! regard to racucalconsiderations. we would have driven a wedge deeper anddeeper berwecrs us and : th e r ev ol ut io n as it was actuallydeveloping.' b'The SWP, tired of its isolation from the working class,saw i n the Cuban Revolutiolll a short-cut to the essentialtask of party building. Haosen wrote:'And kit me ask: in passing: What does this . (the Cubanrevolution) . . . do to the theory of entrism sui generis?Where would the Cuban Trotskyist have been in Cuba?Theywould have been in the CP, wouldn't they? What they neededwas 12 guys to go up on the Sierra Maestre, If you .go bythat experience that's literally what happened ... .' 53For Hansen the opportunist capitulation implied by deepentry is invalidated by the success of Castro. In taking thisshort cut, the SWP drew closer to Pablo on the questionof revolutionary leadership, Hansen observed about theCuban experience:'Does this signify that il is impossible for the masses to ov

revolutionary communist 2 - may 1975

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