Workers’ Party, Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration, Bodenstown, 2009 July 8, 2009
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Address by Comrade Mary Diskin
Workers Party Annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration
Bodenstown, Sunday 5th July 2009
Comrades,
As we gather once more at the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the founder of our revolutionary republican tradition, we can look back on our efforts since we were last here with a good deal of satisfaction.
We have gained new members; we have revitalised our Party structures and expanded our work within working-class communities and workers’ organisations; we have restored a number of party branches where they had lapsed; Look Left goes from strength to strength, and is putting our message into the hands of workers, the unemployed, students, and those working in the home; our Research Section that did so much to expose the rotten nature of Irish crony capitalism in the 1970s and 1980s is once again producing effective socialist analysis of the crisis of capitalism.
The results of our hard work can be seen in our positive electoral results. Davy Walsh held our seat in Waterford and Ted Tynan was re-elected to Cork City Council. Already both Davy and Ted have challenged the cosy consensus politics that operates on their local councils, offering strong and independent working-class politics. The Party stood in areas it has not stood in for more than a decade, missing out on several seats by a whisker. That all our candidates can be said to have had good elections is a tribute not only to them as individuals but also to the branches in those areas and to the Party as a whole. People are responding to our message, and there are certainly many things that we can confidently look forward to building on in the coming months.
At the same time, comrades, the Party faces many challenges, not least the continued efforts of the most reactionary elements of US imperialism to persecute – and I mean persecute and not prosecute – our former President, Seán Garland. It is clear not only to us but also to any disinterested observer that there is no evidence to substantiate these charges. These charges reflect nothing more than the aggressive militarist policy of the discredited Bush-Cheney regime which sought at every step of its existence to frustrate any chance of a peaceful settlement on the Korean peninsula. That regime did not want to allow the people of Korea the freedom to determine their own future. Faced with its imminent demise, it sought to frustrate the possibility for change promised by President Obama by raising once more these ridiculous charges, and thereby poisoning the possibility of a fresh start between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. When we think about these charges, comrades, we do not forget their lies when they wished to start a war; nor do we forget the blood of the hundreds of thousands of innocents that stains the hands of Bush and Rumsfeld, of Cheney and Rice. They oversaw the most corrupt US regime since Nixon, and like him, they used an imperialist war to line the pockets of American big business at the expense of foreign civilians and the domestic poor.
I said earlier that any disinterested observer could see these accusations for the sham that they are. The Bush regime themselves knew that they had no evidence to offer. This is why they attempted to use the unjust 2003 Extradition Treaty with the UK during their attempt to nab Seán Garland from Belfast in 2005. That Treaty requires no evidence to be presented for a person to be extradited, and the Bush regime tried to use the UK treaty as opposed to that of the Republic, precisely because they had no evidence to offer. In December 2008, with their government already voted out of office, they tried one last desperate act to ensure that they would set the agenda in Korea for years to come.
It is a testament to both Seán personally and to our Party, to our work for peace and on behalf of working people, that a wide cross-section of the Irish public has come forward to support him and to oppose his extradition. The Committee to fight the extradition of Seán Garland has members drawn from across the political divide in the Oireachtas, as well as prominent trade union and cultural figures. All of us here must contribute whatever we can to the campaign.
If President Obama is serious about making a real break with the failures of the past, if he genuinely wants to engage with those Bush tried to bully, then he could give no clearer demonstration of his intentions than withdrawing the extradition request. The interests of justice and fairness, as well as promoting peace in the Korean peninsula, demand it.
Lenin stated that there was no economic crisis so great that the working class could not be made to pay for it. We have seen that the capitalists have taken this message to heart. Across the world, governments have rushed to splurge public money on propping up banks that have become the victims of their own massive greed. For decades we have been hearing about the all-powerful market, about how the almighty market would solve all our problems. The current crisis has revealed the re-hashing of the theories of Milton Friedman and his disciples by governments and academics to be just the arrogant and senseless bleating of a capitalist class, intoxicated with its own power. This crisis has revealed the extent to which capitalists have a single objective – the accumulation of ever greater amounts of capital. When that means privatization, deregulating the market, tax avoidance schemes, and no-union clauses then that is what they favour. When it means going squealing to government demanding handouts, the socialisation of losses, and temporary public ownership to enable their companies to survive, then they are in favour of that too.
Blair and Brown, as the leaders of New Labour in the UK, embraced the new capitalism and promised an ever rising graph of profits and job creation. They were part of the Bush military merry-go-round. They were the leaders of the politics of privatisation and light touch regulation. And suddenly the house of cards collapsed. Families in Northern Ireland and Britain are paying with their jobs, their savings and their homes. Brown is now so unpopular he can hardly keep a cabinet intact for a month.
No ruling elite has embraced the market with more zeal than that of the Republic. Since the foundation of the state, politics here has been a case of tweedledum and tweedledee. At no time has this been clearer than during the last two decades. Going back to the bad years of the 1980s, both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael implemented a policy of slash and burn, of corruption and emigration. During the boom years, both sought to rule the country in the interests of the multi-nationals, the property speculators, the construction companies, and the financiers, often while feathering their own nests. Truly the state was the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. Throughout the period of the boom, we in The Workers’ Party pointed out that not enough was being done to boost public services, to improve real wages, and to create sustainable growth.
Now that the boom has come to an end, we can see how Fianna Fáil squandered it. From 1998 to 2007, €58 billion was amassed in tax. Scandalously, that most regressive of taxes, V.A.T., lay at the heart of the increased tax take. The government used this windfall to cut taxes still further for the richest, not to invest in health and education – education spend lags behind the OECD average. In short, at a period when domestic and foreign companies have been making unprecedented profits in Ireland, ordinary people have been subsidising their tax breaks and tax avoidance.
Now we are paying for their mistakes as well. In the Republic, unemployment stands at 11.9% and most likely will rise to close to 20% over the next year. Emigration has returned as a serious problem for our young people. We are told to tighten our belts for the sake of the country, while the super-rich continue as before, very often as nominal non-residents for tax purposes. The so-called alternative, Fine Gael, would behave no differently. We should remember that at the General Election of 2007, the Fine-Gael/Labour alternative fought the campaign on the grounds that they would be better for business and would offer lower taxes. Only socialism offers an alternative, we cannot expect to get real change from any coalition in which Fine Gael makes the running.
The recent elections showed that there is an appetite for real change among the electorate in the south. Voters rejected Fianna Fáil, and many are looking to the broad Left to provide leadership to overturn the policies that have wasted the greatest economic growth this country has seen. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the party that did best was Fine Gael. Left unity is essential. The individual left parties are each too weak to be the engine of significant change. Progressive forces must find better ways of cooperating. The trade union movement must play a major role – its position as a social partner, as the largest organisation representing workers, and as the organisation within the left with the greatest resources – mean that it has a great responsibility. We welcome the efforts by those in trade union movement who challenge the neo-liberal consensus through their economic analysis and alternative policies. If the left is to produce the type of detailed economic policies necessary to provide a credible alternative, then the trade unions must increase their efforts in this area.
The Labour Party, as the largest political force on the broad left, also has a duty to stand up for workers. The likelihood is that it will play a decisive role in the formation of the next government. The fate of the Green Party should be a warning to it. It must not allow the attractions of power to cause it to acquiesce in a government that attacks the living conditions of workers and destroys public services. Instead, we need a left that pushes relentlessly its own vision of a better society – a secular society; a society where the state invests heavily in a concerted programme of job creation in state-owned enterprises; where laws and policies are made in the interests of the people; and where an integrated public transport policy ensures that commuters can get where they need to go, and that the environment is protected at the same time. None of this can happen with a government committed to private enterprise.
The need for Left Unity is perhaps even more critical in Northern Ireland. Eleven years after the Belfast agreement politics have become even more sterile and locked into sectarian isolation. At the recent European election the turnout was less than 50% – where often in the past a turnout approaching 80% could be expected. There was no progressive candidate. This situation demands innovation and energy from the left.
Of course we will be back on the streets very shortly. The Lisbon Treaty re-run is scheduled for October 2nd this year. This is an insult to the Irish people.
We express bitter disappointment at the cowardice demonstrated by Taoiseach Brian Cowen in failing to defend the democratic decision of the Irish people and in accepting a deal in Brussels which is no more than a promise of a promise.
In June 2008 the Irish people massively and democratically rejected the Lisbon Treaty. During that campaign we raised many serious issues about the ending of Irish military neutrality, about the militarisation of the EU and the promotion of the international arms trade within the EU, about the common foreign and security policy and about structured co-operation. Each of those issues are very serious in their own right and raise fundamental questions of democracy.
The Brussels’s deal not only refuses to confront the real question, but raises complete red herrings. The deal makes a song and dance about the “threat of conscription” being ended. This was never an issue raised by the NO campaign.
When the PR gloss from this deal is stripped away the Irish people will recognise that the commitment of Merkel, Berlusconi and Sarkozy to the militarisation of the EU remains undiminished; that their commitment to tie the EU even closer to the nuclear armed NATO remains; and their commitment to allow the EU to intervene in 3rd countries remains. They will further realise that the EU led attack on jobs, attack on wages; attack on democracy; and attack on social services remains unabated. This is exactly what we rejected in 2008, and I am convinced that in October the people will deliver the same answer.
The Ryan Report on Institutional Child Abuse was published in mid May. Despite the fact that the report was published in the middle of a major election campaign it dominated all headlines and continues to make headlines. The march of Solidarity with the Victims of Abuse, on Wednesday 10th June in Dublin, was a hugely emotional affair and gathered at least 7,000 participants.
Why is this issue important for the Workers’ Party? On a very basic level it affects some of our members. On a personal basis I know five members / very close supporters who were incarcerated in Industrial Schools. On a political basis the report raises huge issues for debate and possibilities for political action. The report shows very clearly the historical collusion between the Catholic Church, the ISPCC, the Judiciary, the Dept of Education and the medical profession.
While in some areas the situation has moved forward, in other aspects the situation has not changed one iota. Even when the state has put child protection structures or regulations in place the reality is often that they are not working. There is a serious lack of social workers available in the HSE to deal with referrals. The absence of 24 hour social work call has been highlighted in recent tragedies. A serious and growing problem is the almost total lack of child psychiatric services in the state. The Education and Welfare Board, for example, is not effective and is seen as a waste of time and money by most teachers and Boards of Management.
The HSE child care and fostering system is a shambles. It is a fact that every night in Dublin teenagers, and even children as young as 11 or 12, who have been loose on the streets all day congregate in city centre Garda Stations like Store Street and Pearse St. At about 8.00pm the HSE duty social worker arrives and collects the number of these children for whom there are hostel beds available. The remainder of the kids bunk down in sleeping bags on the floor of the foyer of these stations. These are modern day scandals and must be tackled.
Church influence, while not as overt as in the 1940s or ‘50s, still continues. Education, in the Republic, at first and second level is still dominated by the RC church; the colleges of education which produce primary teachers are either Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland. The only exception is the graduate programme of Hibernia College. There are approximately 3,200 primary schools – over 3,000 of which are Catholic. In the North the sectarian divide in education remains undiminished. We must campaign as a party, as a youth movement, and as part of a great broad campaign to open up society and to liberate the country from the continuing cloak of theocracy. This is one of the best opportunities we will ever get to open this debate.
The Workers’ Party believes in a society where citizens are free to practise their religious beliefs subject to respect for the rights of others, to change their religious affiliation or to choose not to hold any religious belief. No church or religious belief should be endorsed or conferred with any special rights or privileged position by the state. Politicians, elected to public office, should not use that office to endorse or express religious views or preferences in the course of their public duties.
The Workers’ Party demands complete separation between church and state and by that we mean there is no place for the special position of any church, denomination or religious belief in the public life or institutions of the state. The Workers’ Party is committed to the primacy of a secular democratic society based on principles of equality and justice and supports the need to defend the state against all those who seek privileges and special treatment on the grounds of their religious belief, whatever that belief.
The Workers’ Party believes that it is the duty of the state to create public institutions and spaces which are religiously neutral and this includes schools, hospitals and places of work. Faith based schools, of whatever religion, serve to divide youth and foster difference. All children should be educated through and in a properly integrated system of education. The state should abolish religious declarations and oaths for public positions including eg the office of President and judges in the republic, with immediate effect and should be constantly vigilant against any church-state agreement or arrangement which might attempt to impose a position on political decision-making.
We come to Bodenstown today to reiterate our commitment to the revolutionary republican tradition inaugurated by the United Irishmen. That tradition has several core components – it is democratic, secular, socialist and internationalist. The United Irishmen were part of a broader international movement – that had as its aim greater human freedom and social justice – just as we are today. The last quarter of the eighteenth century saw the beginning of modern politics with the American and French Revolutions which put government by the people, of the people and for the people on the political agenda for the first time. Tom Paine was a central figure in the American Revolution, a member of the National Convention of the French Republic, and his Rights of Man distilled the principles of revolutionary democracy. It was this work that inspired the United Irishmen – as Tone put it, Rights of Man was the ‘Koran of Belfast’.
Paine died 200 years ago this year. As with Tone, when we look at Paine’s writings, at his secular democratic republicanism and his plans for a government that would ensure social justice, we see his continued relevance. When sectarianism continues to shape life in Northern Ireland; when the votes of those of us who are neither unionist nor nationalist mean less than those who support the sectarian blocs; when working class schoolchildren will continue to be sacrificed to those of the middle class; when public services are under threat from a right-wing coalition representing the unionist and nationalist bourgeoisie; when our economic policy stresses call centres not high value, high skill jobs in public-owned businesses; then we see that we must continue to pursue the United Irishmen’s programme of the Unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter to create a government in the interests of the people of no property. As we have fought sectarianism for 40 years we must now fight the newest offspring of sectarianism, racism – both north and south – which festers and bubbles at every level in society.
The left has an opportunity. We in The Workers’ Party, with others, must grasp it. As part of the New Departure of the 1960s, Cathal Goulding identified the need for republicans to engage on every front of the people’s struggles. This remains the case today. The struggle against capitalism in the conditions of the current crisis must be fought on every level. At the economic level, to defend jobs and conditions, and to frustrate the efforts of multi-nationals to flee the country without proper compensation for workers, as has happened at Waterford Crystal and Visteon in Belfast.
At the ideological level, through Look Left and our other publications, especially the work of the Research Section, and in arguing our case in both old and new media, especially via the internet. And at the political level, through building the Party, by becoming more active in our communities and workplaces, in recruiting new members – in short, through educating, agitating and organising. As I said at the start, we have had a good year. Let’s make next year a better one.
Thank you comrades.
“They oversaw the most corrupt US regime since Nixon, and like him, they used an imperialist war to line the pockets of American big business at the expense of foreign civilians and the domestic poor.”
Does this mean that they see a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. By extension I suppose they see a difference between FF and FG. Mind you were they not in coalition at one stage before the student princes left.
As a member of the WP, I see very little diifference between the GOP and the Dems. In my view it’s the same old business as usual.In the past the differences between the two parties seem to have been more than cosmetic but there’s not much in it now.
As I recall, the WP left coalition as soon as the FFers proposed putting VAT on kids’ shoes. (Compare the current Green/FF coalition).
Personally speaking, I wouldn’t like to see this thread diverted into history lessons.This speech has many substantial things to say about present-day realities.
Jim,
Some governments are worse than others. Is Obama that different to Bush? In many respects, no. In some respects, yes. I’d certainly prefer Obama. Same with the Tories and Labour in the UK. Both are identical on certain areas, but differ on others, and Labour is marginally the better, but that margin can be important when it comes to things like public services. I think when it comes to judging these matters, there is no problem with saying I’d like to be kicked in the ass rather than the nuts.
Which leads me to the point made in the speech about left unity and the Labour Party. The WP are the last people to be under any illusions about the people now in charge of it. But I do think it is right to say that they will be the kingmakers at the next election, and that the further to the left they are – even if they remain firmly in the centre-left – the better it will be for us all. A more effective and united left can pressurise them to watch their flank, and cooperate with the best elements remaining in the Labour Party. I think again that this is a matter on which we must be pragmatic.
Jim
The WP were never in a coalition, they voted on an issue by issue basis. In 1992 6 of the 7 TD’s left to form DL which then entered a coalition. Needless to say the Student Princes and the others left because they wanted to join a coalition.
I think the most important issue raised in Mary Diskins speech is how the Broad Left including the Labour Party respond to the current economic crisis.
Justin on Obama, while i have no illusions i can see some difference with the GOP, note the confused response to the coup in Honduras. Bush and Cheney would probably have organised it.
Cheney and his ilk probably did organize it. I see the differences between the Reps and Dems as considerable, they are both expressions of the US imperilium but undoubtedly the Dems are still associated with organized labour and have a structural concern in greater equity – Sean Garland’s case is one which must be fought by all those who believe in Justice – his crime he backed the losing side in the Cold War because (if naively) he believed such an alliance would allow him to pursue the building of a party that would become a vehicle for social justice, peace and the end of sectarianism in Ireland. Crime is defined by power relations and for me Sean Garland is as far from a criminal as you can get – I believe Obama will recognize this.
Do the Democrats still have a structural concern in greater equity? Clinton presided over the introduction of a strongly punitive element in the US welfare system (such as it is) and not only that but he did so without any significant revolt in the ranks of the Democrats. Obama is indeed preferable to Bush, but he’s never hidden the fact that he is not a radical, nor even a centre-left politician of any kind.
“his crime he backed the losing side in the Cold War because (if naively) he believed such an alliance would allow him to pursue the building of a party that would become a vehicle for social justice, peace and the end of sectarianism in Ireland.”
And he didn’t notice any thing wrong adcross the iron curtain. This to me is nonesense. The North Korean regime is vile and anyone who does not know this is a fool.Dd he not notice the banning of Solidarity. Why did he reverse the line on the suppression in Czechoslovakia. Aside from the cold war he effectively backed repression in Ireland North and South, acting as a cheerleader to the status quo, driven by his hatred of the Provos.
Wasn’t Rabbitte a junior minister or was this for DL? Cannot remember.I though it was Kemmy who brought a government down about VAT on shoes. the bould Garret the Good, waffled about sneaky women who might wear kids shoes and dodge the VAT.
I am against his extardition but am baffled about the illusions in Obama. If they do not opursue it it will be because they cannot be bothered. Have you seen the troops upsurge in Afganistan. The Obama fans, like the ones for Kennedy, will blame all this on the Bush gov.( We still get the JFK fan club saying against all the evidence that Kennedy would hav epulled out of Vietnam) Get a grip Imperialism is as bad with the Democrats as with the Republicans. The Democrats sell it better because they have more people to fool.
Here, look carefully at Kenny. Will his cuts be any better.FF are the party of the builders and Anglo-Irish bank, FG are the party of the BOI and Allied Irish banks. Only slight differences in the levels of awfulness.
The left has to be weaned form proping up bourgeois governments and delivering thier constituenices for the chop.
We need resistence not cooption.
The task facing the left is to provide a far left alternative which would make it difficult for LP and SF ( for lack of a better word, the mainstream left) selling their souls for a cabinet position.
Surely the WP members with the experience of Rabbitte and co behind them would be aware of what this coalitionism leads too.
The topical debate (not the historical) is about NO to coalitions. For a Left Government which will change the basis of society and prevent messes like this occuring every few years.If the far left, WP, SWP, SP and allied and assorted independents do not shut the door themselves they give carte blanche to Gilmore and co to destroy the asperations of a new generation. The line shouild be that if the LP and SF do a coalition deal they will be attacked from the left and exposed for the charalatans they are.
The real left should be for a root and branch change.Even inside reformist parameters this is possible.
On a footnote the Swedes had a banking crisis a few years ago and sorted it out. They are in one again because when they sorted it out the banks proceeded to do the same again.The only difference between the Greens and Labour is that Bertie offered a deal to the Greens. AsLabour would have done the same (Oh did not the SIPTU leader say that Labour should have looked for a deal).As for SF the leadership is gong ho for a deal with either tweddledum/tweedleedee.
Jim,
I don’t think anyone here has illusions about Obama, and I spent most of the campaign telling people I thought he was a charalatan, and argued that no faith should be put in him here. Nevertheless that doesn’t mean that he isn’t generally slightly better than Obama.
I of course agree that we need a left alternative, and that we need to work towards it. However, realistically speaking I don’t see that being built before the next election, so we should set both short-term and long-term goals. In the short term I don’t believe we can stop either the Labour or the Provos or the Greens entering government after the next election. But there is a possiblity of influencing the behaviour of any of them in a coalition, if only out of fear on their left flank.
Yes let’s not discuss history; there only lies madness. However…it was Jim Kemmy brought down FitzGerald’s government over tax on children’s shoes.
On the US; it’s not either-or. LBJ was reviled for his role in Vietnam and was arguably in terms of domestic policy the most left-wing US president of the 20th century (certainly since FDR).
I have an idea
What about the Left Parties and Independents agreeing to a joint policy platform on issues like natural resources Etc. and how to use the benefits for the good of the people. Followed by a joint approach on what their members in the Trade Unions propose in Trade Union policy. Followed by an electoral agreement on the number of candidates and an attempt to maximise transfers Etc.We will all join together on the second Lisbon Treaty referendum anyway, better then discussing who did what during the Hunger Strikes.
agree with maddog wilson. disagree with jim. a far left allience at best will simply take over SF position as jnr lefty party.
sitting down and recogniseing comonality, even if you joined every one together. all the trots all the republicans, greens green factions and labour, it would still be a minority but it would be an alternative that has a shot. mick o reilly has been talking about this for years the way of braking the one policy state we live in as opposed to one party state.
argueing over who stuck an ice pick in who’s back now, is equivilent to nero fiddled as rome burned.
Agree with Maddog,Shea and Jim!
Maddog’s proposal is positive and could open up opportunities to end “the one policy state”
Shea is right let’s forget about the “toothpicks”
Agree with Jim on the Bolshevik disaster in the East and elsewhere.Does the WP support North Korea?What has N Korea ever done for democracy?Find money for guns and none for food!
The big problem is Labour.They don’t want to play ball with the rest of the left
“icepick” not toothpick!
oops!the legacy of Bolshevik misrule and places like North Korea is that socialism is completely discredited.Any Tom,Dick or Harry can shout down socialism by mentioning the gulags or the purges
Tom, Dick and Harry should look at the Labour government which created the welfare state in England or Olof Palme’s Swedish government in the seventies. I’d agree with the great historian George Lichtheim, who always described himself as a socialist and said, “I find liberalism almost as boring as communism and have no wish to be drawn into an argument over which of thestwo antiquated creeds is less likely to advance us further.” It still strikes me as a huge mystery, no matter how many explanations I read by Eric Hobsbawm, as to why so many people felt it necessary to defend Russian Communism for so long. It’s as meaningless to attack socialism for the sins of communist dictatorships as it is to imagine that capitalism is fundamentally discredited by the behaviour of the likes of Pinochet, Stroessner and Videla in South America. I agree with Jim’s unity idea. The only problem is that the electoral arithmetic always tempts Labour with the prospect of coalition government and I suspect that won’t change. Then again if Labour do join forces with Fine Gael in slashing and burning, perhaps the road would be open for a real alternative on the left. Mary Diskin’s speech is very good by the way but does the Workers Party have any kind of real existence anymore outside Waterford?
EamonnCork,
The reference to the Bolsheviks and N Korea was in the context of WP socialism.I don’t want to have a go at individual members but I don’t know what the WP thinks of N Korea or the former Soviet bloc.What was Garland doing in N Korea?Perhaps Garibaldy or Justin could give us the official party line.
Palme and old Labour were proper social-democratic parties I could be wrong but the WP is affiliated to another “international” and might even see Palme and Atlee as traitors to “real” socialism or class collaborationists.I agree Tom,Dick and Harry could do well by looking at post-war Britain and 70s Sweden.They could also study a secular kibbutz in Palestine,the fascinating Emilia-Romagna region in Italy or municipal socialism in France.Martin Buber’s “Paths in Utopia” gives a wonderful insight into non-Bolshevik utopias.
You’re right about how people perceive capitalism and communism but the victory of the Bolsheviks virtually killed off non- Soviet supporting leftists witness Orwell’s difficulty in getting a publisher for “Homage to Catalonia”.
You gave me a tip on a book by Parshad on the history of the third world which I enjoyed immensely,thanks!
I hope I didn’t come across as snapping at you there Fergal. Not my intention. It’s a bit of a heartbreaker to read papers from the seventies and eighties where people are singing the praises of Ceaucescu’s Romania and the Cultural Revolution. Funnily enough in Mike Milotte’s book he suggests that the CPOI are worried because SFWP had taken to cosying up to Russia to such an extent that they were in danger of usurping them as favourite Irish sons. There was also a fascinating thing in the mid seventies when the Trotskyist candidate who was defeated for the Presidency of the USI cast aspersions on the victor and his party’s strong relationship with the Soviets. The Trotskyist? Carol Coulter. The victor? Eamonn Gilmore. I can also remember the Winter of 1989 when I was living in England and one of our local Labour councillors brought out a statement which lamented that the people of Eastern Europe had brought down actually existing socialism because of their greed for Western consumer goods.
In Francois Furet’s The Passing of an Illusion, which is far from left wing but an outstanding history despite its blindspots, he suggests that the deference initially afforded by the European parties of the left to the October Revolution had a lot to do with guilt over the first world war i.e. all the parties of the Second International had got caught up in the patriotic fervour at the start of the conflict and backed their governments, the Bolsheviks were almost alone in saying no to the war so were in something of a position of moral superiority. He also suggests that the Revolution ended when the Kronstadt Mutiny was suppressed and the rule of the party over the soviets confirmed). And, in fairness, posits Rosa Luxembourg as the embodiment of another radical socialist tradition which provided an alternative to communism. (Though I’m sure Lenin’s answer to that would be ‘and look where it got Rosa).
Glad you enjoyed The Darker Nations, I thought it was a really great book. Among other things it does show that the idea of Communism was a huge boost to movements in places where they were not taking on liberal democracy but the very worst kind of fascism. Eric Hobsbawm’s point that the Soviet Union can be praised for supporting the ANC and similar organisations is fair enough. Bad and all as it was at home, its foreign policy was no worse than that of the U.S. who I see wiped out another horde of people yesterday with the ubiquitous drone.
EamonnCork said “Mary Diskin’s speech is very good by the way but does the Workers Party have any kind of real existence anymore outside Waterford?”
Unsure what you mean by “real existence”, EamonnCork.
In any case, as Mary Diskin siad, the WP is growing in membership and has a strong presence in Cork, where Ted Tynan was recently elected onto the council. There are branches and members around the country including Galway, Dublin, Belfast, Dundalk, South Derry.The party paper, Look Left recently celebrated its third birthday.
The WP is also present on the web in the form of the party website.Party material can also be found on indymedia.ie and the Irish Left Review as well as Solidnet, the International website for communist and workers parties. The WP regularly attends and participates international conferences of the Left.
The WP is attempting to strengthen its youth wing and a youth journal is in the pipeline. The Party is formally affiliated with WFDY, the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
WP is quite aware of its small size and all that entails, but remains in no doubt as to its relevance to contemporary Ireland.
Justin, I didn’t intend to be snide. Apologies if it came across like that. It was a genuine inquiry. I admire the work done by both Ted Tynan and Davy Walsh. Real existence is probably a crude way of putting it but there is a perception that the WP is in decline, it’s not mentioned anywhere like as often as the SP and SWP. You make sound as if rumours of its demise have been exaggerated, and that’s a good thing. By the way, is there any word on when this history of the WP is coming out?
Eamonn,
The Penguin website says 3 September.
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781844881208,00.html?strSrchSql=brian+hanley%2A/The_Lost_Revolution_Scott_Millar
Garibaldy thanks very much, that’s good of you. I might pester them for an advance copy. Also congratulations on uniting Italy and inventing those odd biscuits with the black specks on them.
If only uniting Ireland were as simple Eamonn, I could have entire range of biscuits by now
EamonnCork
You can order it on Amazon, as i have done. Garibaldy you must be a fan of ‘ The Gadfly ‘ my favorite book of all time.
Just ordered that. The 672 page length sounds promising, if someone’s put that amount of work into it chances are it’ll be a decent book.
Just ordered my copy as well, if it does any service to the history of Official Republicanism it should be an explosive read if somewhat tinged with tragedy and mourning – I just hope it does what it says on the tin and tells the whole story without fear or favour – if it does then it will help the Left in this country’s development and hopefully put some of the debates that have stifled it rather than aided it to rest.
Agree with you both on that. There is too much of the who shot who business about for my liking.
On the subject of Irish political parties, is there any history of
the Communist Party of Ireland available?
Communism in Modern Ireland by Mike Milotte, published by Gill and Macmillan in 1984. It’s a good book and focuses not just on the CPOI but on other parties and organisations who might also be described as communist or marxist.
http://www.workersrepublic.org
The above has Ranor Lysaghts critique of the CP.
The Cp id a history themselves. Not great. No mention of Breslin and co.
Oh Barry McLoughlin has an article on more Gulag victims in a history (I think CPGB). I forgot to take a note of it. But it has more material of an Irish interest.
Loved the Gadfly myself. The author Voynich was the daughter of a Cork Maths prof. who invented Boolean algebra (of great use in programming).
The Gadfly was very popular amongst the Bolsheviks.
Am I not good with the footnotes?
I have to confess Maddog I’ve never read the Gadfly. Sounds like I should.
Jim, Garibaldy
I saw it reveiwed in Rosc Catha in about 1973 by Peter Beresford Ellis, it is one of two books i would never read for a second time because it would detract from the force of the first reading, the other being Lord Of The Rings.
The history of the author and her husband is a story in itself. I think she was a niece of Colonel Everest who discovered the mountain. From what i remember Ellis qouted George Bernard Shaw who said it was his favorite book, and Ghandi who said it was one of the reasons he opted for civil disobedience rather than armed struggle.
Set during the Risorgimento and about a muck raking journalist, hence the phrase ‘Gadfly’, well worth a read.
Jim your Footnotes are always great.
Was this the source for the film Shostakovich did the music for?
Dr. X
I believe it was.
Communism in Modern Ireland by Mike Milotte, published by Gill and Macmillan in 1984
Whatever happened to Mike Milotte?
You’d think that a man of his talents ought to have a popular political blog on the go.
Jim, a chara,
Boole was not a Corkonian although he founded the Maths Department of the university, then called Queen’s University until liberated in 1921. When I got there in the 1960s a leading member of the Third West Cork Brigade was by then a key member of the College staff. The man was alsoa participant in the Beal Na mBlath ambush and, according to certain authoritative republican sources, the man who fired the shot.
EamonnCork,
I didn’t think you were being snide. I wanted to outline the main areas of WP activity. If I knew how to add a smiley-faced critter, I would!
Wow. Looks like I do know how to do that!
>>>the man who fired the shot.
Dev was a member of staff at UCC?
Dr. X
You’re watching too many Neil Jordan movies !!
You can never watch too many Neil Jordan movies!
I was just reminded of my mum’s story about her neighbour telling her on more than occasion that Dev himself had shot Collins at point blank range.
I was just reminded of my mum’s story about her neighbour telling her on more than occasion
So …
…dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi..
Collins was shot by Jonathan Rhys Meyers who, having gone unpunished for this crime, then went on to brutally murder Scarlett Johannson in Match Point. Which just goes to show that Dermot Ahern is right when he says that the justice system is too soft on criminals.
He’s not on the approved list, Eamonn !
http://www.iol.ie/~obrienc/assassins.htm
EamonnCork,
No need to apologise for anything,great little story about the Labour councillor lamenting the collapse of the Eastern bloc,and that’s really where I’m coming from ie what kind of socialsm does the WP want?
Interesting point by Furet about the guilt felt by parties in the West .
Kronstadt was undoubtedly the beginning of the end and incidentally a point on which Trots (Coulter!) are rarely challenged on.The dismantling of the Soviets and their transformation from real workers’ organisations into Bolshevik puppets was another heartbreaker along with the treatment of Nestor Makhno in the Ukraine.The Spanish CNT went to Moscow in 1921 as part of the “Red international of labour unions” and issued a damning report on the progress of the Soviet version of Communism.This essentially said it was a police state and not communism.Volin has written a wonderfully one-sided version of the failures of Bolshevikism from an anarchist perspective called “The Unknown Revolution”.His take on the Civil War is also fairly interesting that it was basically the peasants and workers who defeated the Whites and the the Red army would turn up and claim victory!
Rosa didn’t get anywhere as such but still fought the good fight
Having said all that the Soviets did put it up to American imperialism.Communist municipalities in continental Europe provided an idiom/culture for working people away from the usual pap on offer .You could go to see a play by Brecht on a rainy Monday night in an ordinary suburb of Paris,watch a dance troupe from Cuba on a Friday night and see an African concert on a Saturday night all for a pittance and all in the heart of working class areas.The Irish middle class could only dream of such beauty.Nowadays you can watch Big Brother on TV!
Just one more thing!The Soviets tended to “internalise” state violence so the victims of the KGB,purges,gulags tended to be Soviets or Eastern bloc citizens.The Berlin Wall both physically and figuratively encapsulated this idea.American violence tended to be exported so the victims of American-British terror tended to be outside the USA(Vietnam,Latin America,Iraq etc).The price of global capital?Which is more honest?more “right”?
It has to be said that a place like Cuba provided a safe haven for those challenging the evil empire of the US in South and Central America and indeed US dissident citizens as well,didn’t Angela Davis live there?
Fergal,
Missed your earlier query. If you go to the Left Archive index to The WP bit, and find The Future is Socialism from 1993 you will find some comment on both the achievements and the faults of the eastern bloc countries. No-one wants to replicate what occurred in eastern Europe, and even if they did, it would be impossible as the historical circumstances in which they came about have gone.
As for the DPRK. I don’t have any Ard Fheis resolutions to hand, so this is not the official party line, but here are some thoughts. We support the right of the Korean people to work out their own way forward free from foreign interference. We also recognise that due to its political and economic systems the DPRK has been for decades at the front-line of the conflict against imperialism. A large proportion of the US nuclear arsenal is aimed at the DPRK, the US maintains an aggressive profile on the Korean peninsula, while in the 1990s the US tried to take advantage of the famine by pressurising other countries to withold aid unless the Koreans did what the US wanted. As far as I am concerned that was an attempt at political genocide.
Why will the US not guarantee not to launch an attack against the DPRK? It is quite clear which is the rogue state that has started several wars since the fall of the USSR. It is quite possible that it is only because the Iraq War went so badly that neither Iran nor the DPRK were attacked. There is every reason to think that Bush would have done so if he could (I note that Korea is absent from your list in comment 42).
The WP extends solidarity to the DPRK in its struggle against imperialism and in its efforts to build socialism. Just as we do with Cuba, which has much more popularity and support, and yet faces a lesser threat. Our fraternal parties around the world also offer solidarity to the DPRK in its struggle. And rightly so.
What efforts to build socialism? How could anything socialist be built in North Korea?
Cheers Garibaldy,
I’ll check out the archive.Leaving Korea out from my list in comment 42 wasn’t intentional,far from it.It’s just that the list is very,very long.
The rogue state is the US..again but the real sufferers are the people of north Korea.The state has enough money for guns but not enough for food!And for me a state that for whatever reason fails to feed its citizens is also a rogue state!Simply put US imperialism is worth fighting but n Korean “socialism” isn’t worth fighting for.
Fergal,
I raised the issue of it being left off the list not as a criticism of you personally but because it demonstrated how Korea is somehow seen as different to all those other places among many on the left in these islands. This despite the fact that until the 1970s or 1980s the northern economy was superior, and that until the 1980s south Korea was a dictatorship, and even today its level of democracy is a far cry from what we would expect. Never mind the naked reality of the military situation on the peninsula. Korea is a much less controversial thing in many other places.
As for guns versus food. I think you can find other revolutionary regimes that have prioritised survival when faced with a crisis, going back to the Terror in the French Revolution. The Korean crisis has been more prolonged than most.
The Koreans have good reason for thinking that without the ability to make a war so costly that no US President could survive the next election that they may well have been destroyed by now. These factors must be taken into account.
Dr. X,
I think the above contains the basic points I would say in response to your points.
Having said all this, let’s not forget the most important thing. We are in Ireland in the C21st. An advanced country where fortunes have recently been made and the benefits not seen by those creating the wealth. The left here is extremely weak. So we should set aside as far as possible our differences on Kronstadt or Alma Ata, or Korea or whatever else, and cooperate as best we can to address the issues faced by workers north and south today.
By the way, Furet is partly responsible for the Black Book of Communism. To anyone who has seen it, it is enough to undermine any credentials he has to comment on communism (or anything else for that matter).
Nollaig
Millotte was a journalist last I heard maybe RTE.
Was the mad Catholic O’Rahilly there during your time. The worst of rightwing catholic excesses.
“The WP extends solidarity to the DPRK in its struggle against imperialism and in its efforts to build socialism. Just as we do with Cuba, which has much more popularity and support, and yet faces a lesser threat. Our fraternal parties around the world also offer solidarity to the DPRK in its struggle. And rightly so.”
I may be wrong but I could only give critical supprt to the people of Korea North and South, not the regimes, north or south. I know this shocks I woud prefer to live in the south. And most of us if we were honest would say likewise.
I oppose Imperialist war, but the regime here is led by a clinically insane mad man. (is this a bit strong).Starving your people for arms.
The rose timnted glasses you used when looking over the Berlin wall and on junkets to Moscow still blind you.( I refer to party leaders like Garland and De Rossa who were on these trips.).
The Moslems pray in the direction of Mecca, you are in the same position vis a vis Moscow, or North Korea.I am still a bit surprised that otherwise intelligent commentators on say the Irish economy etc. can lose a grip on reality when looking east. For the Moslems it is a religion which as with Christins and others is based on faith not logic and evidence.
Likewise with the Mullahs of Iran. I oppose a war against them. I don’t feel the need to dress them up as the graeatest thing since sliced bread to do so..
Cuba, warts and all, is different. By warts I mean the anti gay stuff and the needless repression.
I am amused that when the scales lift from the eyes of fellow travellors about stalinsim they commence to blame the early soviet regime.
The CNT/FAI was so stupid that they ignored the warnings of the Trotskyists and the POUM when the Stalinists were moving in for the kill.So much for the intelligence of the anarchists.
Garibaldy
It is true that until the 1980s South Korea was a dictatorship, and even today its level of democracy is a far cry from what we would expect. However North Korea is a nasty dictatorship right up until the current day. I understand being a subject of Betsy I have little room to talk, but a communist State in which the leadership acts in a monarchal manner and passes the great leader position from father to son alone would be bad enough, but the sheer incompetence of the regime in Pyongyang makes it unfit for purpose.
Its stupid, infantile and childlike drive for nuclear weapons and rocketry to launch them, at a time when the country is poverty stricken is criminal. The regime in Pyongyang knows full well it would not last a day if it cut a deal with the South and opened its borders, hence NK is forever stoking up a crises, believing the US will not act militarily against them for fear of the Chinese Stalinist-Neo cons.
This type of thinking may have had a bases when the Chinese government had few friends, but not any more and the satraps who rule China would not give a second thought if they felt it was in their interest to sell out the crazies in Pyongyang.
Do you really believe that the regime in NK has made any attempt to build socialism as most socialists in the West understand the word today. Socialism, if it is to be worth a candle is about extending democratic freedoms and space, the regime in NK has never been in that type of business, in the past it implemented a mockney version of stalinism, Gulags and May day parades with tanks and rocketry and all, and to day, well the great and dear leader tags displays the bankruptcy of this regime perfectly.