Things Can Change in order to Remain the Same – Article by Eamonn Smullen, Workers Party journal Class Politics, 1983

Guest post from Brian Hanley…

ES WP

This article by Eamonn Smullen was published in first (and only) issue of the Workers Party journal Class Politics in Autumn 1983. It is significant because it is an attempt to provide a theoretical basis for the WP’s labeling of the Provisional IRA, and Sinn Fein, as fascist. That term was used extensively by the WP to describe the Provisionals, but it was rarely explained in political terms. There are two contexts for Smullen’s argument. One was the worsening recession with the Fine Gael/Labour coalition in government and denounced by the WP for trying to make workers pay for the cost of the crisis. The second was the post-hunger strike period in the north where Sinn Fein were making electoral breakthroughs, with Gerry Adams becoming an MP in June 1983, with increasing speculation that the party would make gains south of the border as well.

Smullen argues that the depression of the 1930s and the rise of the Nazis in Germany held ‘many lessons for us at the present time.’ He explains the rise of fascism as a consequence of the slaughter of the First World War. His general analysis of 1930s Germany is fairly unremarkable in terms of conventional communist historiography, noting the counter-revolutionary role of the Social Democrats while acknowledging some of the mistakes of the German communists. More perceptive are his comments on the practical impact of recession; ‘poverty- especially a fall from reasonable comfort to poverty- means desperation and such desperation can be harnessed not only against the establishment but also against the organized working class.’ Smullen notes how unemployment affects expectations; ‘unemployed persons who are forced to live on small doles are very sensitive…much more is expected from those regarded as champions of the working class than is the case in normal times.’ He notes ‘that some trade union officials get over £20,000 a year or nearly that amount. It can be argued that no person is worth that sort of money at the present time- especially from members’ subscriptions.’ Smullen argues that the Nazis were able to suggest in 1930s Germany that ‘union officials did not share the sufferings of their members or ex-members’ and that ‘at that time of acute depression the trade unions failed to offer any real hope of a better future to the young.’ Whatever about the analogy with Weimar Germany, the argument about the gap between the salaries of top union leaders and those of their membership, and the problems it poses, is certainly still relevant. Smullen then identifies the Nazis success as their being able to position themselves as a ‘phony left revolutionary party’ and harness the anger of ordinary Germans to reaction.

Turing back to Ireland Smullen notes growing cynicism about conventional political parties and the various efforts by the self-employed and private firms to undermine state companies. Perhaps over optimistically he claims that trade union organization has helped undermine the ‘snobbery’ that divided blue-collar from white-collar in the past, but notes again that a hard-core of lower middle class people could be attracted to a movement that appealed to ‘traditional values.’ He warns that the condition of the unemployed on one hand and the fears of the lower middle classes on the other could then produce in Ireland a new fascist movement; ‘if the unemployed young people cannot see a place for themselves…in our society there is a danger that street politics of the Brownshirt, SA variety many seem attractive…the country is littered with phony “left organizations” which could grow into Nazi type gangster politics. These groupings, one and all, now appear in the streets with those who belong to semi-armed groups who propagate the greenest of green nationalism. One group feeds off the other- the phoney rhetoric of “worker politics” is grated onto unadulterated nationalism…’

And then the punch line; because Smullen is clear where this fascist movement will come from. The ‘main organisation’ that had harnessed the ‘energies and frustrations’ of the Catholic youth in Northern Ireland had been the Provisionals; ‘the stone throwers and the petrol-bomb throwers have now been disciplined into serious viciousness…the Nazi street gangs made a hero out of a young criminal and a song in praise of this individual, the Horst Wessel song, became the anthem of the SA…the several SAs now plaguing Ireland have their anthems to Bobby Sands-Nicky Kelly.’ Just as German big business had funded the Nazis, the Provos were ‘established and financed by the Fianna Fail Party.’ Smullen then argues that the Provisionals were attempting to infiltrate trade union struggles in the south, aided by unnamed ‘ultra-left’ journalists and groups. He claims that both the mainstream media and some journalists had deliberately downplayed and even justified the brutality of the Provisionals campaign; ‘establishment and ultra-left – it usually means the same thing- journalists continually glorify the people responsible for the terrorism and for the many murders of innocent people. They justify the torturers, the knee-cappers and the droppers of concrete blocks on the limbs of men and women. When captured these people are “always innocent” – the foul deeds are always committed by someone else.’

Smullen concludes that the ‘terrible lesson’ of Germany was that the ‘Social Democrats and the Ultra Left opened the door for reaction to march through’ and that ‘serious class politics’ means ‘seeking out issues which unite rather than divide’. Therefore ‘fashionable, trendy issues that divide the working class should be avoided like the plague.’ For Smullen the ‘essential element in making revolutionary change’ was the building of a ‘disciplined, politically educated Party of The Working Class.’

There is no doubt that Smullen’s polemic would appeal at a gut level to many WP members, especially those who had first hand experience of conflict with the Provos in Belfast and elsewhere. The rhetoric also appealed to a southern constituency, some of whom were represented within the WP by the 1980s, who were appalled by the on-going violence in the north, which they blamed exclusively on the paramilitaries (usually the nationalist paramilitaries). But what did Smullen’s argument mean in practical terms?

In the article there is no hint that anyone other than the paramilitaries had responsibility for violence in the north, and no suggestion that the British government was in any way culpable. The Irish state however, through Fianna Fail, was blamed for setting up the Provisionals. Smullen’s assertion, that the Provos were simply the creation of Fianna Fail, was one repeated on many occasions by the WP. It is an inadequate explanation for the origins of the Provisonals and one which in my view became completely discredited by the WP’s overuse of it. It also meant having to avoid any other explanation as to why the Provisionals had not only managed to stay in existence, but were winning electoral support by the early 1980s.

Smullen’s ‘Horst Wessel’ dig at Bobby Sands and Nicky Kelly was no doubt emotionally satisfying to some of his readership. But it was simply political name-calling (as well as being insulting to both men, neither of whom were Nazis). And it was ironic that Smullen himself after all, had been a member of the IRA in the 1940s, when the organization had no electoral mandate of any kind, and when it’s leadership had sought an alliance with the actual Nazis. Smullen had been convicted of shooting a young man the IRA accused of giving information to the Gardai and was jailed in Portlaoise as a result. There he refused to wear prison uniform and spent several years ‘on the blanket’ to use 1970s terminology. Smullen of course changed his views considerably during the 1950s, though he would be back in jail (in England) for attempting to buy arms during 1969. It could be argued that these experiences had made Smullen acutely aware of the dangers of such activity, but perhaps they should also have suggested to him that denunciation and imprisonment do not seem to have much of an impact on the willingness of young people to become involved in republican paramilitary politics.

Similarly the language Smullen used to decry paramilitary violence was problematic, especially coming from a senior member of the Official IRA. The Communist Party’s Irish Socialist (December 1983) while agreeing that the WP’s rejection of armed struggle was ‘honest and in our view, correct’ noted that what it called ‘the moralising holier-than-thou spirit with which they attack the Provisionals…is hard to bear when one knows the details of their own history.’ And that was a view that had currency well beyond the CPI. It was not simply a historical matter. In 1983 the Official IRA were still very much in the kneecapping and leg breaking business. A WP activist might be able to explain why the Provos kneecapping of someone made them fascists, while OIRA punishment beatings were completely different, but the average person was likely to be confused. This certainly had an impact on the WP’s image in nationalist areas of the north. One of the interviewees in Fionnuala O’Connor’s In Search of a State (published in 1993) would claim that ‘ten to fifteen years ago I would have voted for the WP, but not now. Not only because of the hand-washing of the most useless kind they do but also when you run up against them at ground level in west Belfast, when you see how they behave- how they can preach to anyone else gets to me…’ In effect the WP’s condemnation of violence was simply not accepted by many northern nationalists, because they knew the party was being economical, to put it mildly, with the truth.

Smullen’s dismissal of what he called ‘trendy issues’ that ‘divide’ the working class is also interesting. He does not specify what issues he means but there is perhaps a hint in his assertion that when paramilitaries were arrested ‘these people are “always innocent” – the foul deeds are always committed by someone else.’ This fed into a view that focusing on cases of injustice like that of the Birmingham Six, or Nicky Kelly, bolstered the Provos and should therefore be avoided. Using the term ‘trendy’ also served to trivialize such campaigns, as something working class socialists should not be associated with. (My memory is that while there was often widespread sympathy for the Birmingham Six and others, their cause was hardly trendy). Smullen’s suggestion that the ‘establishment’ media was dominated by sneaking regarders for the Provos seems to have been a widespread one within the WP. During October 1983 Des O’Hagan would claim in Workers Life that there had been support for the H-Block hunger strikers across the ‘entire southern mass media, with one or two honourable individual exceptions.’ These assertions would not, I think, withstand any objective study of the media at the time, but what’s important is that some people in the WP believed them and they contributed to a feeling that the party alone was holding the line against ‘fascism.’ (This Provophobia also affected attitudes to the drugs crisis in Dublin).

Class Politics was aimed at party cadre, rather than supporters or voters. How much of the views expressed here percolated further than the WP is hard to quantify. In the late 1980s, for example, opinion polls on attitudes to extradition showed a majority of WP voters opposed it, in contrast to the party’s stated policy of support for extradition, with legal safeguards. Smullen’s article then is a snapshot of an argument that had some impact on the WP’s practice, on how they were viewed by others on the left, and in some of the communities in which they operated. How much of an impact is obviously open to discussion.