The Power and The Priests (1995)

From the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hardly a day goes by now without the Catholic Church in Ireland having to face some scandal or other. However, it is not only the wayward behaviour of some of its priests that has resulted in Irish people abandoning the church in droves and ignoring its reactionary teachings

One of the many fictions that prevails among Protestants in Ireland is that the Catholic Church always stood in the forefront of the struggle for independence from Britain. The reverse of this is true but acknowledging that would not fit in with the traditional Unionist slogan that “Home Rule is Rome Rule” — even though the slogan itself contains more than a germ of truth.

The historian Beresford Ellis rightly points out that the Roman Church played a key role in preparing Ireland for the Anglo-Norman invasion and it was Pope Adrian IV who, in 1154, promulgated a Bull authorising Henry II of England to invade Ireland. After the Reformation the Catholic Church in Ireland saw its role as that of facilitating the counter-Reformation and it was identified with conspiracies, mostly emanating from Spain, aimed at bringing about the defeat of the English Reformation. These activities were not aimed at the independence of Ireland; on the contrary, Ireland was now seen as an essential springboard for restoring Rome’s authority throughout the entire Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Roman Church was hostile to every succeeding effort by Irish nationalists to cast off “the English yoke”, especially during those periods when the national struggle was married to the struggle of the poor for the amelioration of their poverty. It opposed the Fenian movement and its opposition became hysterical when the Fenians established relations with the International Working Men’s Association. Indeed, Archbishop Moriarity opinioned that hell was not hot enough or eternity long enough to punish the Fenians.

Earlier, in the period 1845-8, when the potato crop was blighted and thousands of people were dying of hunger and its diseases, while the export of sheep, cattle and pigs, as well as most of the cereal crop continued unabated, the bishops reminded the starving of the “moral” duty to pay their rents. In 1848, a leading Catholic layman, Dr John O'Connell, the son of Daniel O’Connell, the famous Catholic Emancipator, said “I thank God I live among people who would rather die of hunger than defraud their landlords of rent.” The bishops were eloquently silent.

Boycott weapon

The events of 1879-82 are significant in that they paved the way for resolution of the land question in Ireland and the establishment of the material conditions that were to create modern Ireland. It is a classical example of how a subject class can oppose with peaceful means its oppressors and, if sufficient unity is achieved, win victory. The Land League forged the boycott weapon, not only giving a new word to the English language but also setting in train a social revolution that was to finally banish the worst features of landlordism from Ireland.

With notable exceptions, the Church was unhelpful. An earlier version of the Land League, the Tenant Right League had achieved a considerable degree of unity between Protestant small farmers in the north and their more impoverished Catholic counterparts in the south. It was potentially an exciting development but, when Lord John Russell, the British Prime Minister, responded to the Pope's attempts to establish new bishoprics in Britain with an anti-papist Ecclesiastical Titles Act, the Catholic clergy and some Catholic leaders of the Tenant Right League sacrificed the unity that underpinned the struggle of the Irish poor in order to promote the politics of Rome.

A few years later the bishops brought bitter division into the Home Rule movement with the outrageous vilification of Charles Stewart Parnell after it was revealed that the Protestant leader of the Irish National Party was involved in a relationship with a married woman. As effectively as it had split the Tenant Right League, it now shattered the unity of the National Party and inadvertently set the stage for the entrance of Sinn Fein.

In 1912-13, the desperately impoverished transport and general workers of Dublin were locked out by their employers for joining a trade union. Revealingly, Sinn Fein was promoting the political interests of the vicious coterie of Catholic capitalists who were savaging the poor and the Church did nothing to hide its bitter opposition to the workers. As a gesture of solidarity, English trade unionists (whom Sinn Fein opposed) offered to take some of the workers' children and ensure that they were provided for while the lock-out lasted. The Church went wild and priestly louts led attacks on the departing parade of hapless children. The excuse was that these unfortunates whose little bodies were suffering from the bitter rapacity of Irish capitalism might have their souls endangered by the Protestant and “pagan” English.

In 1916, the residue of the Irish Volunteers — the great majority of whom had gone to fight the Germans — combined with the Irish Citizen Army to form the IRA which staged the so-called “Easter Rising”. The ICA had been formed by James Connolly to protect locked-out workers from the thuggery of the paramilitary Royal Irish Constabulary three years earlier. Now, incorporated into the IRA, it was hijacked by Connolly into taking part in an insurrection to forward the Sinn Fein policy of legislative independence to promote the interests of Irish capitalists.

After the defeat of the insurrection the Catholic newspaper, the Irish Catholic, editorialised on the immorality of the Rising and opinioned that it was an act of treachery and that there was no reason to lament that its perpetrators (the leaders of the Rising had been executed) had met the fate that since the dawn of history had been reserved for traitors.

The subsequent establishment of the Irish Free State politically canonised the executed leaders and nowhere were they more lauded than by the hypocritical Catholic hierarchy.

Holy orders

It would take volumes to detail the way the Catholic Church wormed and bullied its way into the affairs of the newly-established Irish Free State. One example will suffice.

In February 1948, the Fianna Fail government of Eamon De Valera lost its Dail majority for the first time since it achieved power in 1932. The new government was a coalition, and a young medical doctor, a left-wing republican, Dr Noël Browne, became an enthusiastic Minister of Health.

Poverty and acute privation grew during the war despite Southern Ireland’s neutrality. In the nine years since 1939, taxable profits had risen by some 200 percent but real wages had actually fallen below their pre-war level. The war years had been preceded by the heightened poverty resulting from the British embargo on Irish imports in the early 1930s which had followed the refusal of the De Valera government to pay the annuities which Britain had imposed when the Irish Free State was established. Life was hard for the urban workers and desperate for small farmers and this proved a fecund breeding ground for tuberculosis, a poverty disease which was then sweeping Europe.

I had met Browne and can testify to the enthusiasm of his efforts to counter the medical consequences of poverty in southern Ireland. After much trimming by his cabinet colleagues, the Minister introduced a Bill in the Dail that provided for free healthcare for expectant mothers and children up to the age of five.

The Irish Catholic bishops went wild. These puny efforts to give some medical help to mothers and babies was “rank socialism” and could not be tolerated by “Holy Mother", the Church. The well- cosseted bishops, living like feudal princes, did not simply pass on their opinion that the state help for the poor was “socialism” (which the church universally had always vigorously opposed), they wrote to the Taoiseach, John A. Costello, an earlier fascist sympathiser, instructing him that the government would introduce the Mother and Child Bill "under pain of sin”. The Bill was abandoned but an amended scheme was introduced, despite clerical protest, by the succeeding Fianna Fail government.

Since then, a new reality, brought about by the needs of a burgeoning capitalism, has inhibited the more audacious arrogance of the Catholic hierarchy. For years, as the Republic first become a trading partner with Britain in the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement of the mid-Sixties, and later as a minor player in big-league EC capitalism, the Church remained a formidable agent of reaction. But television, with its insensate curiosity and its international programme fare, has had a part to play in breaking down the old walls of secrecy and false piety behind which many eminent churchmen traditionally sheltered. Again, the narrow world of gombeen capitalism has been overtaken by the brash presence of the multinationals and their religiously indifferent personnel. Reality was, and is, changing fast in Ireland, sometimes pushed by European law, and the Church is being exposed as a mere part of the “hallowed sepulchre" of its teachings.

Crumbling monolith

In Northern Ireland, especially in places like Belfast, the Catholic clergy have been happy to accept the bribes of the British government to act as a counterinsurgency agent. In an effort to combat the massive unemployment that, especially in more impoverished urban areas, plays into the hands of the paramilitaries, the Northern Ireland Office introduced Action for Community Employment (ACE) which provides temporary employment in non-profit-making enterprises. Shrewdly, the government used the Catholic clergy as a conduit for distribution of the ACE largesse in the Catholic community, thus, indirectly giving priests the power to assist those whom they favoured. Doubtless, Tory largess has won the Church a few friends. Undoubtedly, too, it has made them many enemies in the more embattled regions of the north.

We do not regard priests or bishops as being especially obedient to their own precepts of “morality”. Accordingly, unlike the media in general, we see no undue significance in their being increasingly exposed as liars, cheats and child molesters. Probably, in the past, many young men who aspired to the priesthood were able to suppress normal sexuality, often at the cost of personality deviance or alcoholism. Today there are few recruits to the priesthood; young Catholics have become disaffected as reality overwhelms theology. Regrettably for their victims, it appears that increasing numbers of the sad fraternity who seek opportunities for the expression of their sick proclivities are taking advantage of the scarcity and swelling the numbers of deviant priests.

Just as the advent of electricity reduced the sightings of leprechauns, so the heightened understanding of natural phenomena and its concomitant disregard of unevidenced beliefs — both by-products of modern capitalism — has destroyed the mystery and secrecy of the holy men who presume to “sin” outside the parameters of their own precepts.

The gullible will turn to the weeping statues. More will show their contempt for a crumbling monolith that, for the love of its god, heaped misery on humanity. 

Richard Montague

The Irish elections. More Communist trickery. (1927)

From the October 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Exit China, enter Ireland ! With the complete failure of all their anti-working class policies in China, and the consequent passing of enthusiasm about Chinese troubles, the Communist Party of Great Britain now turns its attention to Ireland. It has been offering the Irish workers advice in order that the latter may know how to manage affairs in the very successful way that the Communists have managed their own affairs over here, and Chinese affairs in China.

In the recent Irish elections there have been numerous parties soliciting the support of the electorate, and a working-class organisation taking upon itself to offer advice would naturally make it its duty to point out clearly which party, if any, had a policy which is deserving of working-class support. Given the existing political confusion, clearness is above all to be aimed at by those who would teach the workers how to emancipate themselves. How, then, did the Communists perform this elementary duty?

Opposition Parties.

There were several opposition parties :—

1. The Republicans (De Valera);
2. The National League (Redmond);
3. The Labour Party (Johnson);
4. The Irish Worker League (Larkin);
5. The Workers’ Party of Ireland (Communist Party).

Of these, the first two, like the Government Party (Cosgrave), are frankly Capitalist, while the remaining three make special appeal to the workers.

In the Sunday Worker (September 11th) edited by the Communist W. Paul, is an article by another Communist, Jack Carney, weighing up the two largest parties led by Cosgrave and De Valera respectively. He dismisses them as the representatives of two Capitalist groups, and says “Behind De Valera stands the American banker, and behind Cosgrave the British financier.”

They differ, like our Liberal and Tory parties, over the question of tariffs. The Capitalists behind De Valera use the catch cries of Republicanism to further their own interests by means of “high protection,” De Valera admitting in an interview (Manchester Guardian, June 27th) that this would, in his opinion, mean a “less costly standard of living” for the workers. He boggled at the words “lower standard of living,” but a careful and repeated reading of his subtle attempt to differentiate fails to disclose any difference whatever between the two descriptions of his party’s aim.

The Labour Party’s policy, as outlined by its leader Johnson, in The Irishman (May 14th, 1927), has no more to offer the workers than has De Valera’s. They, like the Republicans, advocate protection and lower taxes on capital invested in Ireland, and while asking for numerous trivial demands which are on the programmes of all parties, such as “the provision of employment” for the unemployed, they even go out of their way to repudiate expressly the nationalisation of the land, factories, etc. As the Worker’s Life (Communist Party of Great Britain) correctly points out, “The (Irish) Labour Party has degenerated into a Liberal Party pure and simple” (September 9th).

It is interesting to recall also that immediately after the last election in June of this year, the Labour Party first offered to support the Government Party, and their offer being refused, then secured the support of the Republicans and the National League in a tricky manoeuvre which was to have elevated them to office. This shows how little in principle separates them from these other three avowedly Capitalist parties.

Similarly, just before the last election, De Valera’s Republicans and Cosgrave’s party demonstrated their fundamental agreement on the maintenance of Capitalism by mutual gestures of reconciliation. Thus, in reply to Mr. Cosgrave’s “I am prepared to forgive and forget,” Mr. Sean Lemass, for the Republicans, said, “We are prepared to forgive …. If he wants a political truce with Fianna Fail he can have it to-morrow.” (The Republic, September 17th). A step further towards reconciliation took the form of a joint meeting of party leaders immediately following the election.

The Workers’ Party of Ireland (Communist) has aims exactly like those of the English Communists. The Irish Workers’ League was formed by Larkin immediately before the election, and has a policy indistinguishable from that of the Workers’ Party of Ireland.

Telling them how to vote.

We have already mentioned that in the eyes of the Communists the Irish Labour Party is “Liberal, pure and simple.” Yet in face of this the Worker’s Life (September 9th), and the Workers’ Party of Ireland (Official Statement “How to Vote”) tell the Irish Workers to vote for Labour candidates. They do not explain why workers should support a “Liberal Party” which calls itself “Labour” and not support a “Liberal Party” which calls itself “Liberal.”

Gallacher, Stewart and Saklatvala, members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, were over in Ireland officially supporting Larkin’s “Irish Worker League” (Irish Independent, September 13th), which was also supported by De Valera’s Republicans. (See Sunday Worker September 11th). Thus we had the Communists and the Republicans associated in support of Larkin despite the fact that the Communists themselves admit that “Behind De Valera stands the American banker” (Sunday Worker, September 11th). Thus Mr. E. Cooney (Republican candidate) told his supporters, “I hope, after voting Fianna Fail that you will give your next preference to Jim Larkin, for he stands for militant Irish Nationalism just as much as Fianna Fail.” (Irish Independent, September 13th.) In return, Larkin declared, “We are appealing to the workers to vote for Fianna Fail ….” (Sunday Worker, September 11th).

But although Larkin’s Communist supporters were telling the workers to vote for the Labour candidates, Larkin himself admitted that his object was primarily to down the Labour Party, and particularly its leaders. It was known in advance that he was almost certainly debarred from taking his seat.

He said :—

“We have got them on the run. … 1 can promise you that next Thursday night Johnson’s political career is closed in Ireland. . . . We are out fishing in dirty waters. We may not catch much salmon, but . . . we are going to drown three political worms, maybe more.—(“Sunday Worker,” 11/9/27.)

To make confusion worse confounded, the Workers’ Party of Ireland (Communist) which supported Larkin and ran no candidates of its own, not only told the workers to support Labour candidates, but also told them to vote for Republicans and National League candidates. Thus, in Dublin City (North), it supported a list of 4 Republicans, 2 Labour candidates, 1 Larkinite, and 1 Redmondite, and in Dublin South it supported 4 Republicans, 1 Labour candidate, and 1 Larkinite (“How to Vote.”). This same leaflet “How to Vote,” while supporting the Republicans, says, “The Republican Party is equally as capitalistic in its outlook, representing the smaller Capitalist elements.”

Last of all, it actually declares in the first and last lines respectively of the same paragraph, “Therefore vote against the Free State candidates,” and “only give your last votes to the Free State candidates.”

An Unholy Mess.

If, therefore, any unfortunate Irish worker listened to his Communist advisers, he would have been told (1) by Larkin, to vote for him and for the Capitalist Republicans (De Valera), and to help smash Johnson;: (2) by the Irish Worker Party to vote for Larkin, for Johnson, for the National League, for De Valera, and lastly for the Cosgrave (Government) Party; (3) by Saklatvala and company, to vote for Larkin and the Labour candidates, although Larkin’s party and the Labour Party are alleged by Larkin to be irreconcilable enemies, and although they themselves know the Irish Labour Party to be “Liberal pure and simple.”

This is what they call practical politics !

Capitalism triumphant.

One did not need to be a prophet to know that the election results would show Irish Capitalism triumphant, and since no Socialist candidate was in the field it was equally easy to foretell that none would be elected. Much preparatory work has yet to be done before such an event can be considered within the bounds of possibility.

In conclusion, a little comic relief is provided by contemplating Larkin. Although his chequered past shows him to be one of the most audacious charlatans who have ever preyed on the Labour Movement in any country, there is one person at least who has a good opinion of him, that is Larkin. In his election address he writes modestly about himself :—

“In one year alone …. James Larkin (Jim Larkin) forced the employers to increase wages to the extent of £127,000 in one year.”

During the election, much use was made by Larkin of the name of Connolly. It is therefore to the point to recall Connolly’s considered judgment of Larkin. In a letter to William O’Brien, dated May 24th, 1911, Connolly wrote :—

“Do not pay any attention to what Larkin says …. the man is utterly unreliable—and dangerous because unreliable.”—(see p. 162 of “Report of Actions in the Law Courts,” published by Irish Transport and General Workers Union, 1924.)

Larkin is no less dangerous now than then, a fit companion for the muddle-headed British Communists who support him and his Capitalist Republican allies.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: Is the vote a weapon? Some questions and our reply. (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades,—I am prompted to ask the following questions after having read article “Backward Race ” in August S.S,

First of all, I had better state that I am not an “Industrial Unionist” or an “Anti-Parliamentarian.” I agree with the words of Marx that “the workers must first of all acquire political supremacy” in order to control the State machinery for the sole purpose of establishing Socialism.

(1) Yet how are our black comrades to get hold of the State forces if they are “disfranchised” and “legally barred from effective participation in most political activities in South Africa”? Would the S.P.G.B. oppose the agitation of “disfranchised” workers, such as our black fellow workers for the vote, because it was not Socialism?

(2) Does the S.P.G.B. lay it down that the workers can only “acquire political supremacy” through Parliament? I fully agree that this is the only method known at the present time in Great Britain, or in any other country where the workers have the majority of the votes !

(3) Would Socialism be impossible to establish if the workers are without votes? I am not suggesting that the Capitalists have only to disenfranchise the workers whereby making Socialism impossible. That would, I think, not be possible under a highly industrialised country. Am I correct?

(4) When South Africa becomes industrialised, will our fellow black workers be enfranchised by the Capitalists? I am not wanting you to be prophets, but it is a historical fact that, in countries that begin industralism, the franchise is a necessity for the carrying on of the Capitalist system?

Has the Franchise ever been granted to the workers in any country without agitation?

Yours fraternally,

T. W. C.

Clapham.

Reply.

For convenience I have numbered “T. W. C.’s” questions.

(1) It is obvious that the black workers cannot unaided gain political control in South Africa against the might of those who govern, backed up, as the latter are, by the full strength of capitalist Britain. We would strongly urge them to agitate for the franchise, although it is plain that workers who have only just begun to organise, and have had no political experience, are not yet possessed of the knowledge and confidence necessary for the establishment of Socialism.

(2) The S.P.G.B. is concerned primarily and directly with conditions in this country, and our Declaration of Principles is framed accordingly. Speaking generally, however, we may say that the centralised political machinery of the Capitalist State (whatever its name and its peculiarities in different countries) must be controlled by a working class seeking to establish Socialism.

In passing, it is interesting to see how the Irish Republicans, in spite of all their brave words and threats of civil war, have been compelled to enter the Southern Irish Parliament as the only alternative to political extinction.

De Valera says :—

“The alternatives with which the new Free State legislation confronted them were to resign their responsibilities, to dissolve their organisation, sacrifice everything they had built up, or to take the step they took”. (“Manchester Guardian,” 23 August.)

Here we have a striking illustration of the power of Parliament, in spite of the fact that the Free State Parliament is still in its infancy, and that the Government has only a bare majority of votes. (Of course, the Republicans are as Capitalist as their opponents.)

(3) In the long run, the Capitalist State, in its modern developed form, needs representative government as a means of maintaining stability and carrying on the increasingly complex work of administration. In spite of the post-war fascist movement, there has been no general tendency to limit the franchise. Here and elsewhere the tendency is to extend it still further.

(4) The black workers (in Cape Colony only) did possess a limited franchise, which, owing to their own backward condition, has not been of any particular value to them. Under the recent “Colour Bar” legislation, a new and more limited form of representation is to be given to black workers throughout the South African Federation.

We can fairly confidently predict that, in due course, the backward workers drawn into the realm of capitalist production will be given the vote. It must not be forgotten that the Capitalists are themselves divided into groups with sectional interests. While there remains in existence a body of disfranchised workers, there is always the inducement to the competing Capitalist groups to add to their influence by a campaign for the extension of the franchise. Instances are numerous. In this country, after the mainly working class Chartist movement had failed to secure votes for the workers, the Radical movement, under John Bright, rallied them. The objects of the Radicals were entirely capitalist, and their working-class supporters were regarded, and were, in effect, simply so many potential “voting cattle,” to be thrown into the struggle against rival propertied interests.

In Chicago this year the new Mayor, Thompson, appealed directly to the negro vote (hitherto left severely alone). Thompson won, and it is certain that the bosses of other political groups in America will in due course be compelled to bring the negro into the political arena, however little they may like doing so.

In Kenya Colony, during the heated struggle between the Indian trading class and the British landowners (who were in political control), the Indians threatened to start an agitation among the millions of blacks, intending to use them simply as a weapon against the whites.

In South Africa there has always been acute bitterness between the mineowners, who want to employ more cheap black labour and less white, and the white workers, who thought to resist a lowered standard of living by laws preventing the introduction of blacks into white men’s jobs. The Boer farmers, who resented the loss of their cheap black labour by migration to the mining areas, support the white trade unionists. In the great strike and riots of 1922 the mine owners already talked of supporting the claims of the blacks to political equality as a means of outvoting the white workers and Boer farmers, and it is inevitable that one or other of the political parties will sooner or later seek to gain kudos and votes by advocating an extended black franchise.

The franchise has certainly been extended without the existence of any strong agitation on the part of those who received it. (So far as can be seen, there is no strong demand for the vote among women under 30 years of age, who are promised the vote.) Clearly, however, there must be some degree of political knowledge and interest before it would be worth while giving votes. There must, for instance, be sufficient interest to make the newly enfranchised take the trouble to record their votes. What has usually happened in the past is that the struggles of the rising Capitalists for a place in the political sun has communicated some of its enthusiasm to the ranks of the workers underneath, and served to create interest.

Edgar Hardcastle

Notes by the Way: Workers Better Fed 200 Years Ago (1940)

The Notes by the Way Column from the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workers Better Fed 200 Years Ago

Sir William Bragg in an interesting article on the kind of food we ought to eat and the possibility of supplying it to everyone in war-time (Times, October 26th, 1940), throws light on what has happened to the diet of the workers during the past two centuries—the centuries when we were reaping the supposed benefits of capitalism: —

“Professor Drummond, of the Ministry of Food, has recently made it clear that in this country our people were worse fed at the end of the nineteenth century than at any time within the preceding 200 years. White bread and meat in some plenty had become the principal foods of a great part of the population, and, though energy and warmth were thus supplied in sufficient quantities to appease hunger, a number of constituents necessary to health were no longer included in the popular diet. This was not so when milk and vegetables, fruit and wholemeal bread were more commonly consumed. The result of the change was the frequent occurrence of certain diseases, and the nation was horrified to find in 1914 that a considerable number of the people must be classified as C 3.”

—(The Times, October 26th, 1940.)

He goes on : —

“White bread and meat are the cheap foods when the demands of hunger are alone concerned, because they supply the energy and warmth which the body wants and asks for. Consequently, when there is very little money to spend on food, the body is allowed to go without the necessary aids to health and growth which the cheaper foods do not contain. Thus the poor suffer first when the proper supplies are not available, not because they go hungry but because they are insufficiently protected from disease and structural failures. From the national point of view the protective foods are the cheapest, because it is costly to maintain an unhealthy nation.”

Sir W. Bragg appears to think that the fault has been one of the population merely falling into bad habits, and he is gratified with “the effort now being made by the Minister of Food to bring milk and other protective foods within the reach of the poorest.” He does not touch on the fact that there have been and will continue to be the interests behind the food trades whose concern is not with working-class nutrition, but with making a profit. They have at their disposal powerful means of encouraging the population to buy their well-advertised products whether good or bad, and the small voice of any disinterested scientist or doctor has no chance of being heard against them.

It will, too, be noticed that Sir William Bragg is anxious that certain foods should be brought within the reach of the poorest—he has nothing to say about the problem which underlies it, the existence of rich and poor.

* * *

The Scientist and Accumulated Knowledge

Incidentally, Sir William Bragg wrote interestingly about the use the scientist makes of accumulated knowledge and experience : —

“Scientists have so many new tales to tell that they are often supposed to pay little regard to that which is old. It is a fundamental mistake. Science is built on the accumulation of experiences, and every scientist knows that he must not base his conclusions only on the last few experiments in the laboratory. He must take into account all that has been done before. History is to him a very real thing; tradition is priceless, because there is no substitute for it. Practice is based on the experiments of innumerable years, and even when there are no written records to be consulted, the behaviour of men, the thoughts they have turned over and sifted, the knowledge they have gained in ages of trial and error are all of value; they are not to be thrown aside in favour of the last galvanometer reading. When a scientist records a discovery he only makes a new entry in an old book.

Now in this matter of food the scientist is at the. present time insisting that certain old ways are best, and it is queer that he should be supposed to be trying to introduce fads that have no merit but novelty.”

* * *

“There Is No Morality”

The Daily Worker (October 28th, 1940) had a smug editorial under the above heading telling us that “there is no morality in power politics. The European system has always been based on the balance of power, with France perched between Britain and Germany—the two strongest imperialisms. After their own military defeat and the vital elimination of British influence on the Continent the French ruling class now enters the camp of their former enemy. Capital knows no frontiers….”

It comes ill from the Communist Party, which has defended the Russian Government’s power politics through thick and thin, to talk in this strain about other governments. The choicest passage in the editorial comes later when the Daily Worker says that “the Tory ‘anti-Fascists’ are still itching to switch the war, and they would take Hitler into their arms to-morrow if only he would honour his promises of Munich. And so would the dollar capitalists of America.”

The Daily Worker seems to forget that one principal reason why other people cannot take Hitler into their arms is that he is already in Stalin’s arms, but, apparently, in Communist eyes, hobnobbing with the Nazis is only a crime west of the Rhine.

Remembering Finland it is ironical to be told by the Daily Worker that it is the code of the detested “power politics” that “conflicts can be settled only by means of superior force and violence.”

* * *

Those Bus Tickets Again

It was recently suggested in these columns that if the powers that be really wanted to save paper, and if their vision were not limited by the capitalist necessity of profit making, they would not waste efforts printing thinner bus tickets, but would do without tickets. Now the “Londoner” in the Evening Standard has been thinking about the problem : —

“The reduction in the length of the London bus ticket has caused some people to suggest that London Transport should find means of using tickets a second time, or even of dispensing with tickets altogether.

But no one can explain how this is to be done and, while invention in most fields marches on, the majority of tickets used to-day on road vehicles all over the country are issued by a device that has known no major change since it was first made, some sixty years ago.

I am told that nearly £1,000,000 has been lost in efforts to establish various new types of issuing machines. One of the successful is the “Tim” printer used now on some London buses, but the old “bell punch” system remains pre-eminent.”

—(Evening Standard, October 22nd, 1940.)

For a very long time Socialists have been trying to persuade the workers that while capitalism has provided the incentive for much technical and economic development, it now stands in the way of the development of society. Perhaps something that seemed unnecessary or even Utopian under peace conditions, in the eyes of men and women still steeped in tradition, may be more easy to grasp under the stress of war. Under a sane, economical system of society road vehicles and rail transport systems would exist simply to convey people to their work and their places of entertainment, etc. Consider then the absurdity of a social system which permits the problem of transport to be cluttered up with financial considerations and the employment of an army of men and women engaged in checking and counter-checking the payment of fares, and generally in safeguarding the interests of a body of shareholders who own and control what are mistakenly known as “public” services. Even under the stress of travelling to and from work during the war the companies are still concerned with the problem of profits. Consider the absurdity of the disclosure that “nearly £1,000,000 has been lost in efforts to establish various new types of issuing machines.” Consider the absurdity of the following : —

“Many people have been told that the little confetti-like circles of ticket that fall into the bus conductor’s machine are counted as a check on receipts. And most of them think that it is not true. But it is true—up to a point.

The scraps of paper are counted if the conductor’s takings do not agree with the serial numbers on his unissued tickets when he goes off duty.

Generally the clippings are emptied out of the “punches” and heaped together to become pulp.”

And all of this puerile business proceeds in what the Labour Party calls the “socialised” London Passenger Transport Board.

* * *

The Army and The Workers

Readers of the Socialist Standard over a number of years will remember several occasions when Communists have argued that the S.P.G.B. is wrong in holding that when a Socialist majority is in control of the political machinery this will also give control over the armed forces. One of their arguments has always been that the army, both rank and file and officers, would be out of sympathy with Socialism and would assist reactionary elements to prevent the majority from democratically and peacefully introducing Socialism. In particular they have argued that the officers would challenge the democratic system. In the light of this controversy it is interesting to read the following views expressed in the Soviet newspapers. The summary was published in the Times (October 7th, 1940), from their New York correspondent: —

“New York, October 6th. 

Soviet newspapers published last night what foreign correspondents in Moscow were permitted to say were “significant,” approving references to working-class participation in Great Britain’s war efforts. They were contained in a two-column message of the Tass Agency from London, which praised British defences and the discipline, moral, living conditions, and social conditions in the British Army. The article, in giving an eye-witness account of a British anti-aircraft battery in action, reported that most members of the battery were trade unionists and of working-class origin. This, it declared, was “unlike the last war when few trade unionists were among the British soldiers.” It was unlike the last war, too, it added, in that British officers were now drawn from all walks of life and were not professional soldiers.”

* * *

Without Comment

Mr. William Hickey, in the Daily Express (October 22nd, 1940), has the following: —

“A worker in a Torquay hotel (“which of course might bias my outlook,” he says) sends this choice there’s-a-war-on cutting from a local paper: —

” Dog nurse wanted. Woman to take care of small dog, partially paralysed. Vet. attending daily. Only those who have some experience & knowledge of this type of case need apply. …”

I feel sorry for this dog’s obsessed owner ; sorrier still for the dog. Wouldn’t it be best to coin a phrase & put him out of his misery ?”

* * *

The Case of Prince Starhemberg

The following report of some heated questions and answers in the House of Commons is taken from the News Chronicle (October 24th, 1940): —

“Captain Balfour, Under-Secretary for Air, replying to Mr. Wedgwood (Lab., Newcastle-under-Lyme), said that Prince von Starhemberg held the rank of lieutenant in the Free French Air Force, and received £1 4s. 11d. per day in pay and allowances.

Mr. Wedgwood: Is it not rather indecent that this man, who assassinated democracy in Austria, should now be allowed to fight on our side and be paid by us in a war against all that Starhemburg has stood for ?

Captain Balfour: I reject wholeheartedly the hon. member’s suggestion. We owe a debt of gratitude to anyone who risks his life in the air to fight on our side.

Mr. Woodburn (Lab., Clackmannon and Eastern) : Is there any suggestion that we are going to impose this man on Austria at the end of the war ?

Mr. Shinwell (Lab., Seaham) : Supposing his name were Starhemberg, instead of Prince von Starhemberg, would it make any difference ?

Captain Balfour : No. None at all.

Mr. Wedgwood : Why does not he allow other aliens from Austria who hate Nazism to fight ? Why keep them in prison ? Why allow this scoundrel to fight for democracy? (Loud cries of “Order!”) I want an answer.

At this point the Speaker intervened and the next question was called.”

* * *

The Times and the Causes of War

On October llth the Times published the first of two articles on “Fallacies of Nazi Finance,” written by an unnamed correspondent. He touched, incidentally, on the world scramble for markets, and had the following to say about its relationship to war : —

“Beyond doubt one of the fundamental causes of this war has been the unrelaxing efforts of Germany since 1918 to secure wide enough foreign markets to straighten her finances at the very time when all her competitors were forced by their own war debts to adopt exactly the same course. Continuous friction was inevitable.”

The Times correspondent’s main concern was to show that “Hitler has not advanced Germany one step towards the solution of this problem,” and he did not go on to the still wider problem of how to get rid of this struggle for markets. Socialists, having become aware of the facts long before they were discovered by the Times, know quite well that the problem is utterly insoluble short of introducing Socialism.

* * *

Do We Want to Legislate for the Talented or for Everybody

In an article which otherwise showed a good deal of insight into the real nature of the poverty problem the Reverend W. Rowland Jones (Daily Herald, October 28th, 1940), describes the “better world” that he wants to see as one in which “the backward son of the rich” shall not be able to pass through a sheltered life “to a position of responsibility just because he is a son of the rich,” and in which “the brilliant son of the slum” shall not be hedged in and “kept out of the advantages of education just because he is a son of the slum.”

The idea behind this is to be found mixed up with all the reforms demanded by the Labour Party, it is the idea that attractive careers should be open to the talented, not kept as a preserve for the rich and influential. It is naturally a very good idea in the eyes of those who think they are talented, but thwarted in their striving for success in the world of to-day. It is not a Socialist idea. Giving a privileged place to one select group means relegating the rest of the population to an inferior position. Socialism, on the other hand, will give every human being access to the means of life. Socialists are not concerned with enabling a selected few of the poor to climb into the ranks of the rich, but with abolishing both rich and poor.

Mr. Jones should consider the problem again, and particularly consider what he means by his own phrase that the new world “shall have no poor and rich.”

* * *

Really, Mr. MacDonald ! 

Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, Minister of Health, spoke recently about the future health of the population. The Times reports his speech as follows: “He insisted that the lessons taught by the war must be remembered in peace. One of these was the stimulating effect on their physical well-being of sending children from the cities to the country; after the war the children in cities must be able to draw fresh draughts of life from that source. Another lesson was that there must ! be adequate consumption of the right kinds of food.”—(Times, October 18th, 1940.)

Obviously the Times noticed nothing odd about the speech, for they did not make any critical comment. Yet the speech is odd and incomplete. Why, in the past, have poor children not been sent to the country and not been given enough of the right kind of food. Mr. MacDonald implies that fathers of children did not know, having had a war to teach them, or if they did know they forgot, and in future they must not forget. And if it wasn’t the fathers who forgot then it was someone else, perhaps the Government, or the rich. The truth is that most of the fathers had a very good idea about it all and did not forget. The Government and the rich did not forget (they remembered about their own holidays and food, anyway), they just weren’t concerned. The fathers failed to take the necessary step because they were poor, and for no other reason. It is therefore up to Mr. MacDonald to tell us precisely what he and his fellow Ministers are doing to abolish poverty.

* * *

The Complacent Bishop

Bishop Hensley Henson, Canon of Westminster, preached a sermon at Westminster Abbey on the anniversary of the declaration of war. He touched the social reforms that were introduced since the last war.

“The last War had stirred deeply the social conscience of the British people, and perhaps one reason why the nation was so perilously slow to realise the fell significance of Hitlerism was its fear that war would arrest the salutary movement for social reformation which, in the interval between 1918 and 1939, had effected such great improvement in the life of the people and brought new hope into the darkest places of industrial society. The determination to fight was accompanied, and in some sense conditioned, by a determination to continue and complete the effort to re-order British social and economic life on more reasonable and equitable lines. The combination of these two objects—defence and reform—was deeply significant, for it separated sharply the British ideal of a rightly ordered society from the ideals of Moscow and Berlin, which were either coldly indifferent or professedly antagonistic to Christian faith and morals.”— (The Times, September 4th, 1940.)

The complacent view of “such great improvement in the life of the people” is hard to square with the well-known facts of poverty in the distressed areas and elsewhere. A few weeks after the sermon was preached a letter was published in the Manchester Guardian (September 24th, 1940) from Mr. Eddie Williams, Chairman of the Children’s Nutrition Council (Wales). The following is taken from the letter, which dealt with investigations “into the income and expenditure of some of the poorer sections of the community” :

FAMILY A.

1. Number in family seven—father and mother and children aged 14, 13, 11, 9, and 5.

2. Income £2 5s. unemployment assistance.

3. Expenses: Rent 12s., coal 2s. 6d., light 2s., clothing club 3s., insurance 1s.

The parents say : “What we are receiving is not sufficient to clothe and shoe the lot of us and to feed the children and ourselves all the week. Often there is nothing in reserve in the larder. We cannot afford to buy milk; and butter is too dear. Three of the children get free meals in the school feeding centre, and we are thankful.”

FAMILY B.

1. Number in family seven—father and mother and children aged 26 (a cripple), 13, 12, 10, and 9,

2. Income £2 5s. from unemployment assistance and the cripple on relief just enough to keep himself.

3. Expenses: Rent 11s., coal 2s. 6d., light 2s., clothing 4s., insurance 1s. 6d.

The parents say they are unable to use meat coupons because meat and bacon are too dear. Their children are without boots most of the year because boots are out of their reach. They buy one pint of milk per day and two tins of milk a week. The children in school have free dinners. Other instances were also given.”

It is true that these investigations were made after the war had been in progress some time, but even if the families had received the same income before the war their standard of living must have been deplorably low.

* * *

How To Win Elections in Rumania

Mr. Noel Panter, Balkans correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (October 17th, 1940), tells how Rumanian and Hungarian peasants were induced to vote for Nazi-minded politicians: —

“Nazi propaganda in the Hungarian provinces is of the most blatant type.

It was in Rumania that M. Goga, who became Premier, gained electoral support by proposing to bring the printing presses and royal mint from Bucharest to the village market-place so that the peasants’ pockets should be filled with crisp 1.000-lei notes as these rolled off the machines, “instead of those officers and courtiers who have the advantage now.”

To-day the Hungarian peasantry are being told that when a Nazi Government is in power pengoe notes will be scattered about the streets and the millennium will have arrived, with the wealthy being compelled to share with the poor. The benevolent Greater German Reich, they are also told, will assure work and plenty for all.”

This sounds very childish—until we remember the Social Credit Movement and the way the Alberta Election was won by Dr. Aberhart with his promise of “dividends for all.”

* * *

Candid Mr. De Valera

It is striking to contrast the above with Mr. De Valera’s gloomy words to his supporters : —

“The Prime Minister, who, when in opposition, had painted a rosy picture of what he could attain if given a majority, admitted that the problem was disconcertingly difficult. Indeed, he went so far as to say that it defied solution, and that it is an apparently incurable ” blot on our social organisation.”

. . . The working classes must produce more and, if necessary for this result, work harder. The trade unions must cease to practise restriction of output and must be prepared to accept a lower standard of living.

—(Economist, September 7th, 1940.)

Mr. De Valera also stated, according to the Economist report, that “Nationalisation of industry or the manipulation of credit are incapable of improving the situation.”

At least the Irish workers will not be able to complain in future that De Valera has given them less than he now promises.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

This column was actually unsigned but it was obviously by Hardcastle, who was the usual writer of this column. It just happened to be the case that Hardcastle - who was on the editorial committee of the Standard - already had three signed articles in this issue of the Standard, and my guess is that his usual signature ('H') was left off this column because it didn't want to give the (true) impression that he'd written the majority of this issue.

The Irish Elections (1957)

From the April 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The main problem now confronting the people is to discover by what defect in our system it has come about that the nation, while never better equipped in knowledge and machinery to produce all its needs, is forced to see so much of that knowledge wasted and the machinery lying idle, while thousands of willing workers are unemployed and in need of the necessaries of life."

Thus spoke Senator James Hickey, Chairman, at the Irish Labour Party’s annual conference in Athlone, less than a year ago. At the time, Labour was the second largest party in a Coalition Government, which had been pledged to discover and remedy this defect along with all the other problems of the Irish working-class, who had elected them. They failed to do this and as a consequence. must now try to fill the opposition benches, with depleted ranks, while the task of administering Irish capitalism passes to Mr. De Valera and his colleagues in the Fianna Fail party Speaking at an earlier Labour Party conference, shortly after being elected to power, Mr. B. Corish (A Labour Minister) said: "Workers could look forward to the day when the spectre of emigration would have become a bad memory . . . it remained one of the fundamental aims of the Labour Party to see that every person who was willing to work would find decent employment in his own country.” (Dublin Evening Mail, 30/9/49). Yet, in a statement issued on the 26th January of this year, explaining why he could no longer support the Government, Mr. S. McBride, ex-Minister for External Affairs pointed out that the unemployment figure was now 100,000 and that in the five year period 1951-6, over 200,000 people had been forced to emigrate. So much for Labour Party promises. In Dublin, where unemployment is most acute, the unemployed put up a candidate of their own and succeeded in capturing a seat at the expense of the party who claimed to have the solution to their problems! Work hard, they were told, and prosperity is yours. “If our national income becomes stagnant, if we refuse to work hard and produce more, social security becomes merely a delusion and a deception, said John Costello, the Prime Minister, in 1948, but the man who was Minister for Social Welfare (plus the portfolio of Deputy Prime Minister), Wm. Norton (Leader of the Labour Party) had told the workers ten years before, that “Under our' present social system, greater productivity means a lower wage for the worker and higher profits for the owner of industry.” (Labour News, Dublin, 29/1 /38). Though Costello could claim in the Dail (20/7/49) that the 1948 volume of production for all industries was 28% above the 1938 volume and the United Nations Statistical Bulletin issued on 6 November, 1947, included Eire among the countries showing monthly production averages higher than 1937, the International Labour Office in its cost of living findings for February, 1947, picked out Eire for special mention among four countries where “real wages have actually dropped below 1937 levels.” Little wonder that the tide has again turned in favour of “ Dev.”

If however the working class of Ireland believe that their problems can be solved by Fianna Fail, they are in for a rude awakening; for the record of that party is a record of service to the only class which can be served under capitalism—the capitalist class. It was they who introduced the most repressive anti-working class legislation in the history of the State. The Wages (Standstill) Order, the Trade Union Bill, the Industrial Relations Bill (which set up the now notorious Labour Court), all measures designed to hinder the efficacy of trade-union action, in the interest of Irish employers. After sixteen years of Fianna Fail rule, the Medical Superintendent of the Dublin Fever Hospital stated that: “Until the Dublin wage-earners and their wives and children were decently housed and fed, more beds in sanatoria and tuberculosis hospitals would be needed.” (Irish Independent, 24/6/49). That was Fianna Fail before; may we expect a change now? The answer is an unqualified “ NO ” and to prove that he is consistent in his concern for the class he represents, Mr. De Valera’s first statement after his election success was— yes, you guessed it—a clarion call for harder work! “One great, combined and sustained effort and the task will be done.” (Irish Times, 8/3/57). And the “task?” To put a very shaky native capitalist class back on its feet again, while Irish workers continue to live in poverty and go to Mass on Sundays.

There is, however, one bright spot in this otherwise murky picture; the tiny (as yet) Socialist Party in Ireland, continues, with the limited means at its disposal, to point out to Irish workers the message of Socialism, that until the machinery referred to in the first paragraph is commonly held by ALL, it will continue to lie idle, however willing a non-owning class may be to use it. This wonderful world can be OURS when enough of us really want it AND KNOW HOW TO GET IT.

F.

Democratic Control (1934)

From the April 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Open Letter to the Rank and File of “Labour," "Communist" and "Independent” organisations. 

'Comrades of the Working Class,

I am writing especially with a view to reaching the young and enthusiastic member of such organisations, who, gulled by windy and insincere professions of trust in the “ rank and file," is only too often assisting in a tragic game of “over-backs" perpetually called upon to “tuck in the tuppenny” for the vaulting ambition of “leaders" who come well on their feet on the other side.

The New Leader, the Labour Monthly and the Daily Worker, when not keeping up their spirits with chanting the “United Front" supply choice examples from the said “Front" of treachery, incompetence and “careerism."

The Daily Herald, run on the most approved capitalist lines, descending to all the usual sordid devices for maintaining circulation, enthusiastically Christian with “Good old George,” mildly agnostic with Harold Laski, drinking a loyal toast (fervently adding, “God bless him") with Cripps, forms a convenient clearing house for cheques drawn on working-class ignorance.

In the conspiracy of silence about the Socialist Party of Great Britain, it is difficult to get the “rank and file” to realise the yawning gulf that separates this party from all other political organisations. I ask the younger workers (“Old Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone ”—the succeeding verse is politically apposite, Hosea 4, 17) to acquaint themselves with first-hand knowledge of the constitution of the S.P.G.B. Attend all meetings—all of them. Surprising as the fact may be, there are absolutely no private “sessions” of the S.P.G.B. Our “ Object,” specifically stating DEMOCRATIC CONTROL of the means of life, is reflected in the constitution of the Party. We have emerged from the stage where the superior person, centre of an idolising following, dictates “policy” and creates the “Platform” atmosphere so dear to the Trade Union type of mind.

Get this: Officers and Executive are instruments of the party, strictly accountable to the rank and file (through the branches) for all action taken. Delegates to conferences (come to our Annual Conference on Good Friday, if this reaches you in time; seeing’s believing) are instructed by their branches as to action and voting on specific questions. In short, the S.P.G.B. has for good and all abandoned “leadership" not only in word, but in deed. There is, therefore, no need in the S.P.G.B. to keep an eye on possible “careerists”—“picturesque personalities” (to quote a young I.L.P. friend of mine), or otherwise. The constitution of the party simply rules them out, as the eggs of a fish would be barred from complete fisdom deposited on dry land.

Consider for a moment this item of news (News-Chronicle, January 19th, 1934): —

  “Mr. J. Maxton and Mr. McGovern . . . had a 90 minutes talk with Mr. De Valera. There was a pledge of secrecy upon the subjects discussed.” 

What have these two members to conceal from their Party? After all, things are apt to be disclosed. Mr. Maxton, after the Right Honourable James Ramsay MacDonald had followed to its logical conclusion what stood for his political “convictions,” was compelled to disclose the fact that he had been deliberately supporting someone he knew was “never a Socialist." That Mr. Maxton “was impressed by De Valera’s sincerity and ability” is of no more importance to the working class than Mr. McGovern’s considered opinion that His Majesty has a “good ’eart ”—which opinion was deliberately omitted in the New Leader, although immediately preceding remarks (concerning a silly exhibition at the opening of Parliament) were recorded.

My young friends may find the following extract interesting, if not illuminating: 

  “When the Little Peddlington Branch of the S.D.P. or the Flat-ditch Branch of the I.L.P. sends me a pompous notice, written in ungrammatical English on dirty paper, that the comrades in the said Branch have publicly disassociated themselves from me, I retire into my armchair and smile. These poor, dear little comrades, never did have a sense of humour.”

There speaks the typical “leader.” Don't they just despise you? But you ask for it. . . The author of the foregoing quotation? Oh, yes— Robert Blatchford, Clarion (January 14th, 1910). Have I seen the New Clarion? “New presbyter is but old priest writ large.”

The Socialist Standard is democratically owned and controlled by the Party. Battling through thirty years for SOCIALISM, and Socialism all the time, it has never ceased to be the organ of the PARTY, never deviated from the position determined by the sheet-anchor of the Party, our Declaration of Principles.

With Lewis Morgan (Ancient Society, page 344) we believe that “the human race is gradually learning the simple lesson that the people as a whole is wiser for the public good than any privileged class of men, however refined and cultivated.”

Not that one would regard Blatchford’s vulgar outburst as “refined ” or “ cultivated.”

Yours for Socialism,

A. Reginald.

Editorial: The Communists and Ireland. (1922)

Editorial from the August 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard 

On the front page of “The Communist ” (8-7-22) there appears an article entitled “Our Duty to Ireland ” that calls for some comment on our part on account of the nonsense contained in it.

The main struggle in Ireland is not, and never has been, a struggle of wage workers against masters. Here and there in the history of Ireland there have been minor struggles on the part of the workers, but the greater part of the stage has always been occupied by the national struggle for freedom of enterprise on the part of the various groups that might benefit by greater freedom to exploit Irish Industry. As Ireland exists principally by agriculture the small farmers or peasants have figured largely in the strife. The fact that the poverty-stricken peasants have borne the bulk of the burden of struggle is no evidence that they will obtain any benefit, whatever be the outcome.

This struggle in Ireland has been going on for centuries, and bitterly indeed have the peasantry suffered by the coercive actions of the foreign land-owning class, who were backed up by the different English Governments.

Irish industry is backward partly on account of the lack of certain economic resources such as coal and iron, partly because it suited Irish landlords and English capitalists to keep Ireland in the main an agricultural country.

Though the capitalistic development of Ireland has been slow, yet considerable progress has been made in that direction. The wage labouring class has relatively increased and the farmers have come more and more under the control of large industry. The farmers are, in the main, in the hands of the agents of the large exporters—egg buyers, cattle buyers, corn buyers, creameries and so on. The European war made the farmers temporarily well-to-do, and they poured money into the Sein Fein movement in the belief that the latter movement would conserve their prosperity. Peace, however, is bringing them back to the position of paid growers and distributors of agricultural produce.

An Irish Sein Fein Republic will not solve the difficulties of the wage labourers and farmers—it will, in fact, intensify their misery. They will then be under the control of the same people who control affairs now—Irish buyers—Irish Capitalists—without being able to salve their wounds by blaming all their troubles upon the English oppressor.

The way out of the difficulties facing the Irish town and country worker is the same as the way their fellow workers have to follow, no matter what country they chance to exist in. That way is to join with their fellow workers the world over in the struggle to put an end to Capitalism by introducing Socialism. Anything short of this will only bring in its train bitter disillusion. They who tell the Irish workers to organise for anything less than this are their enemies.

Such in brief is the general position. The article mentioned in our opening remarks advises the present minority in Ireland to fight on, and the reason they advance for backing the minority is contained in the following extract:

  “De Valera never was, never can be, a leader of the workers. Nevertheless, most of the revolutionary workers are with O’Connor and him.

  “They are with them for the same reason that we, if we had to make the choice, would be behind De Valera and O’Connor—because they are fighting the British Empire. (Italics theirs.)

   “That reason—no other.”

The Communists, therefore, support the minority in Ireland “because they are fighting the British Empire—that reason— no other.” What a brilliant attitude for a self-styled working class party to take up. If they follow this policy out logically (not that we wish to be accused of suggesting that the Communist can follow anything out logically) then on the same ground they would have been bound to support the Central Powers in the European War, incidentally supporting the oppressors of foreign working men, and the useless slaughter of working men generally. In other words they tie themselves to a policy of supporting the murderous conduct of different groups of foreign capitalists “because they are fighting the British Empire!” A delightful position indeed—but a fitting position for sensational gasbags.

The above is not all—the article concludes as follows :

  “Workers of Britain, show these politicians they are wrong.

  “You have no cause for quarrel with your oppressed comrades in Ireland. You never had. Whether the present armed conditions in Ireland are prolonged or no.”

  ”Stop making munitions for Ireland ! Stop sending munitions to Ireland ! Demand the withdrawal of British troops ! Do for the Irish what you did for the Russians !” (Italics theirs.)

This is really the most absurd part of all—if one can define one piece of nonsense as more absurd than another. Not many months ago they themselves made the following enlightening observation on “what you did for the Russians.”

  “Frankly, the National Council of Action has failed, and its failure is all the more disappointing when one remembers the unanimity and enthusiasm of the great Central Hall Conference held at the beginning of August last. It was formed to prevent the supplies and munitions being sent in support of the attack on Soviet Russia, which it is quite obviously not doing. Somehow, and from somewhere in this country, those supplies are being sent.

  “A Moscow report alleges that England has sent seven steamers of munitions, three tanks, and twelve small steamers with provisions in aid of Poland, and that these have been unloaded at Danzig. German reports refer to foreign vessels passing through the Kiel Canal, presumably to the same direction.’ ” (The Communist, 7/10/20.)

This is “what you did for the Russians.” What blind rhetorical balderdash !

“What you did for the Russians” then was to fail completely to prevent munitions being sent to assist those fighting against Russia. The Communists wish the same policy to be carried out again. Funny, isn’t it?

Taking the superficial facts of the situation in Ireland as it is at present concerning the attitude of the minority, the position is. as follows :

The Irish people have voted in favour of the Free State idea by an overwhelming majority. This is the fact that cannot be swept aside by sensational remarks. Consequently, whatever the minority may think of the Free State position, the only sensible course for them to follow is to accept the position the vote of the people has forced upon them for the present, but work to alter the mental outlook of the majority so that future elections will see the Free State position supplanted by the one the present minority favour. To endeavour to alter the views of the mass of the population by battering their heads is a nonsensical attitude to take up. Besides, has not the common cry of Ireland for years been that the majority of the Irish people were being coerced to suit the ideas of a minority ?

Whether or not the English Government has bought over the Collins group does not hide the fact that the majority of the Irish population agree to the position Collins has taken up. This should sign “finis” to the matter for the present without further useless throwing away of lives.

It may appear very heroic to fight a losing battle to the end; martrydom is always a very questionable attitude, though it may be spectacular. In the present circumstances, where it involves the lives of numbers of Irish working people who do not yet understand their social position, it is criminal folly.

Finally, as mentioned above, whatever the immediate outcome of the struggle may be, one thing is certain; it will still leave the Irish workers wage labourers—and that is the essence of the matter for us.

IRA: Is It Really the End of “the armed struggle”? (2005)

From the September 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The leadership of Oglaigh na h’Eireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign. This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon. All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms” (Extract from IRA statement of 28 July)

So the IRA has given up the gun for the ballot box – but not for the first time.

In 1956 it was reluctantly pushed by its young activists to begin a ‘Border Campaign’. Within a few months the campaign had deteriorated into cutting down a few telegraph poles and issuing grandiose statements about the activities of their commandos. Away from the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic this new phase of the interminable ‘troubles’ was hardly noticed. Everybody but the IRA knew their campaign was going nowhere. Internment, both in the north and in the south, emaciated the movement and inevitably internal disputes in the internment camps began to fester among the volunteers.

It took the IRA’s Army Council five more years before it announced the formal termination of the Border Campaign but at last, in 1962, Oglaith na hEireann, the Irish Republican Army, issued what was as near as possible a notice of surrender. It admitted that it had not achieved the necessary support from the nationalist (Catholic) community in Northern Ireland; in fact it castigated the nationalists claiming that they had sold ‘their heritage for a mess of pottage’ – a reference to the scheme of welfare capitalism introduced in Britain after the war and extended to Northern Ireland.

Henceforth, the IRA was taking the gun out of Irish politics – the IRA spokesperson, the legendary ‘P O’Neill’, actually said that – and would confine its activities to political campaigns on social issues.

Behind the scenes a coterie of Leninists had defeated the death-or-glory boys of traditional Republicanism and took control of the IRA’s Army Council. This element saw the IRA as the nucleus of a political movement that would use the atrocious political and social conditions in the North as a catalyst for uniting workers who traditionally opposed one another on religious grounds. The Rosary brigade, those for whom republicanism and Catholicism were synonymous terms, were appalled by this ‘rank communism’ and left the movement.

The IRA then transformed itself into ‘Republican Clubs’ in furtherance of its plans. Up to then, the Unionist government had claimed to accept the right of republicans to use constitutional means to achieve a united Ireland. Such a claim did not represent a political threat to Unionism, which, at the birth of the state in 1921, had helped demographically tailor the territory of Northern Ireland to ensure that they had a two-to-one majority based on the religious topography of the six north-eastern counties of the ancient Province of Ulster. Despite this guarantee, they immediately banned the Republican Clubs.

Traditionally, the IRA had based its claim to use physical force on the results of the elections of 1918 which was the last general election held in Ireland before the country was arbitrarily divided by the British government. Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, won an overall majority in that election and established the first Dail Eireann which was effectively banned by the British.

Six counties

A brutal guerrilla war ensued during which the Westminster politicians showed that they were the ‘moral’ equal of those they called terrorists by recruiting mercenaries who terrorised the populace in an effort to frighten support away from the IRA. The tactic had the reverse effect but eventually, as now, British ministers sat down with the ‘terrorists’. Under threat, an unsatisfactory peace deal was negotiated which divided Ireland into the 26-county Irish Free State and the 6-county state of Northern Ireland.

This ‘solution’ split the IRA and resulted in a bloody civil war between Free State forces – armed by the British – and a rump of the IRA who were dubbed ‘Irregulars’. The latter, the ideological antecedents of the present Provisional IRA, were defeated and they and their followers glumly pronounced that both the new governments on the Island of Ireland were ‘illegal’ and a betrayal of the holy grail of ‘The Republic’ as proclaimed by the new-born IRA in the insurrection of 1916. Dail Eireann, the legend went, had transferred its executive authority to the Army Council of the IRA and, thenceforth, any group claiming to be the rightful heirs of the 1916 Declaration of the Republic could grandiosely claim to be the de facto government of Ireland.

The political leader and, then, icon of the defeated Irregulars was Eamon De Valera. Despite being the main architect of the politics that resulted in the Civil War ‘Dev’, as he was known, was a pragmatic politician who realised the absurdity of further military adventures against the Free State. In 1926 he formed a new political party, Fianna Fail, to challenge the party in government, Cumann na nGaedheal (later, as now, Fine Gael) and in 1932 Fianna Fail won an outright victory at a general election and De Valera became Taoiseach. It was a bad day for later incarnations of the IRA, for despite having created the genre of dissident Republicans, Dev, who held power until 1948, proved a bitter, even vicious, enemy of the IRA.

The modern IRA

It is important to take this brief look back at the history of the IRA because it raises an important question. Following the Civil War in 1922, the split within the movement and then the desertion of De Valera, the organisation never regained any real political influence in Ireland until 1970 and the establishment of yet another breakaway movement, the Provisional IRA.

The IRA admitted in 1962 that the Northern Catholic nationalists had not supported its brief, inglorious ‘border campaign’ but what were the new material conditions that brought about general Catholic support for the Provisional IRA after 1970? And what lessons may it have for the future, both in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain which is now facing a terrorist threat of an even more menacing kind?

The IRA’s 1962 decision to pursue a constitutional campaign based on social issues paradoxically fused with an aspect of the new mood of northern nationalists who had earlier rejected the IRA. Generally, after the war and the benefits of some UK social reforms, nationalists were becoming increasingly reconciled to acceptance of the northern state. In 1965 Britain and the Republic of Ireland signed a Free Trade Agreement and after this the few nationalist politicians in the Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont accepted the role (and the salaries) of Her Majesty’s Opposition. But, if they were going to be loyal then they wanted the apparatus of religious discrimination and vote-rigging to be dismantled.

What happened was that the Republicans managed to tap into this mood. Unionist politicians and fascist-type bigots like the hot-gospeller Ian Paisley, were to claim that the subsequent Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement was a creature of the IRA but it wasn’t this simple; in fact it was established by a younger, more active genre of nationalists, products of the 1944 British Education Acts, and it resulted in a coalescing of anti-Unionist factions including the IRA in its Republican Clubs incarnation.

Taking its cue from the American Civil Rights campaign, the new movement adopted the name Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and proceeded to use the same tactics of massed demonstrations and protests in pursuit of its demands. The Unionist Prime Minister, Captain Terence O’Neill, was not averse to granting the basic demands of the NICRA and had he been able to do so it is likely that Catholic nationalist anger would have been defused and the violence of the following thirty years avoided but Paisley was rousing old anti-Catholic bigotries in the unionist community – and, incidentally, using that bigotry to forge a political career that would bring rewards well beyond his modest Bible-thumping talents.

Faced with government bans, NICRA turned to civil disobedience and the government ordered the armed police, which the Unionists had traditionally used as their private army, to use force against ‘illegal’ demonstrations. Television pictures showing the police (RUC) attacking non-violent marchers were flashed around the world much to the discomfort of the British government which was the ultimate authority in Northern Ireland.

Events were hurrying towards a bitter sectarian pogrom. Protestant loyalists, assisted by the B Specials (an exclusively Protestant paramilitary auxiliary police force) torched Catholic homes; some ex-IRA men went to the Dublin leadership of the IRA to seek arms to defend the Catholic ghettoes in Belfast and Derry and were told that IRA arms would not be made available for sectarian warfare. In Belfast, Republican dissidents were appalled at this response; the ‘communist’ leadership was denounced by much of the rank-and-file and the Provisional IRA was born, leaving two IRA’s –the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA, both claiming to be the executive heirs of the only legitimate Dial Eireann. Extreme Catholic conservatives within the Irish government, fearful of the consequences of ‘communist’ influences, helped to procure arms for the new PIRA

Pawns in a game

The rest is the story of the brutal conflict that became Northern Ireland’s ‘Dirty War’. Now the IRA is standing down its foot soldiers. There were three sides to the war: the British Army/RUC, the Provisional IRA and the various Protestant paramilitary organisations. As a first step in accounting, we can say that none can claim victory. It is always the working class that make up the pawns in armies, legal and illegal, and the end of a war never brings them victory. The other thousands who died were just the innocent victims of those who were at war.

Ironically, Paisley’s strident anti-Catholicism played a major role in galvanising the Catholics into open rebellion. ‘No truck with Dublin’ has been his war cry but his hard-line bigotry has now brought about a situation of virtual joint authority between London and Dublin in the affairs of Northern Ireland. Paisley, whose fight for Ulster went only as far as throwing snowballs at Jack Lynch when he visited Stormont as Irish Taoiseach, is obliged to discuss policy with both the British and Irish Prime Ministers.

On the other hand, the Provisional IRA, whose war aim was to end partition, drive out the British and abolish the state of Northern Ireland have succeeded only in establishing a claim to be part of the political administration of the state they set out to abolish!

Eventually the politicians on both sides will have to reach an accommodation to work the structures of government established by the Good Friday Agreement. The salaries and the expenses are good and the leaders can write of a finish to a satisfactory war.

But what have the workers across the infamous religious divide got? As so many times before, they have simply been used as pawns.

Richard Montague