Midsummer’s day, and four years and counting… June 21, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in CLR empirebuilding.20 comments
It’s the longest day of the year and the shortest night, and what better time to take stock of the fact that the Cedar Lounge Revolution has now been around since June 2006?
I’m a bit staggered by that. Four years seems a long time, and it’s gone by – well, not in the blink of an eye, not at all – but fast enough.
But, on the other hand it seems like a lot longer since a few of us sat in a bar (not the Cedar Lounge as it happens) and decided to set up a blog. I don’t think we ever thought it would run this long or that it would prove to be such an enjoyable, if at times challenging, experience. Indeed I’m not sure if we realised what form it would ultimately take…
We’ve maintained the avowedly broad left approach of the site and I think done some justice to our opening declaration of intent.
The Left Archive continues to expand, I think we now have about 50 or so different groups, formations and parties represented there, and well over 200 individual pieces. A raft of new donations from various quarters offer some items of particular interest over the next couple of months. And that A3 scanner I mentioned a while back is on its way.
We’re always open to contributions in the form of posts if they fit the overall ethos of the site. So anyone with something to say, just drop us a line.
So, here’s to at least another spell and to everyone who contributes here, has contributed and will contribute whether in posts, comments or donations to the Left Archive. And for those of you whose contribution is to read it, it’s also appreciated.
Left Archive: Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist), Red Patriot, August 1982 including Communiqué of the Central Committee of the CPI (M-L) on the Occasion of the Party’s 12th Anniversary June 21, 2010
Posted by irishonlineleftarchive in Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist Leninist), Irish Left Online Document Archive.12 comments
Many thanks to Tommy Graham, editor of ‘History
Ireland’, for this donation.
This addition to the Archive actually comprises of two documents. The first is a neatly presented and reworked Red Patriot which was restarted after an hiatus of two years or so as the Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist). The second is a lengthy Communiqué of the Central Committee of the CPI (M-L) on the Occasion of the Party’s 12 Anniversary.
Both provide useful insights into the nature of the CPI (M-L) at this point in time, a period where it had shifted from support for Mao Zedong Thought, which had characterised its position during the 1970s, to support for the Party of Labour of Albania.
Red Patriot contains a varied selection of articles, leading with commemorations of the H-Block hunger strikes, one year on from the deaths of the hunger strikers. The article notes that “No one who fights for Irish freedom can be called a criminal!” and that:
…the immediate cause for which Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty and Thomas McElwee and the other martyrs fought – the prisoners five demands – have still not been fully achieved; the patriotic prisoners of the H-Blocks, as well as Armagh, Crumlin Road, and not forgetting the Irish prisoners subjected to inhuman conditions in jails in Britain : – all these are still fighting in various ways for the recognition of their rights to be treated as political prisoner, out of their just refusal to be treated as criminals.
This strong identification with national struggle continues throughout. A short ‘Report: Recent H-Block Commemoration’ notes:
… the events of this commemoration serve to illustrate the role of the Irish bourgeoisie and the Free State apparatus, gardai etc., as national traitors and native sell-outs to British imperialism.
The Editorial is written beside the slogans ‘Bolshevise the Party! Disseminate the Marxist-Leninist Line! Prepare the Conditions for Revolution!’
It notes the publication of the Communiqué and continues:
The restatement of CPI(ML)’s Marxist Leninist political line and the thorough repudiation and public condemnation of the revisionists, who came up internally to try to destroy our Party over the last three years or so, open up great prospects for CPI (ML) to advance its work and influence over the next period.
It also argues that:
The existence of the genuine Communist Party of the working class, based on Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, is the most crucial subjective factor in developing the conditions for revolution, when it comes, is carried through to a successful conclusion…
Other pieces deal with the struggle in Palestine, health workers in Northern Ireland ‘alongside their class brothers and sister in Britain’ and information on the Second International Sports and Cultural Festival Britain 1982. Included on the list of events are performances of Cornelius Cardew’s Instrumental Compositions and a Memorial Competition for Musical Composition. There is a page devoted to the Centenary of the birth of Georgi Dimitrov. Also included are a number of Albanian centred reports.
This latter feature is part of the shift in the ideological positioning of the CPI(M-L) where, as noted in the Communiqué:
The work of the Party was a great achievement, made in the teeth of complex and adverse conditions — attacks by British imperialism and the Irish bourgeoisie and their state powers, as well as from the social-democrats and the revisionists, not least from Chinese revisionism. It was this last achievement which stood the Party in great stead and ensured that CPI(M-L) has been able to overcome both the adverse effects of Maoism and the concerted attempts by revisionist cliques amongst the former leaders of the CPI(M-L) to subvert and liquidate our Party over the last three years or so, and turn CPI(M-L) into yet another revisionist Party, to wipe out once again the essential Marxist-Leninist headquarters of the Irish working class.
It mentions the repudiation of “Mao Zedong Thought” which it traces back to the historic Report of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania of Comrade Enver Hoxha to the Seventh Congress of the PLA, in November 1976. It notes that
…our party militantly denounced the Chinese revisionists as a new aggressive social-imperialist power, when China launched its perfidious and hostile attack on the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the PLA, by cutting off all internationalist aide and all trade with socialist Albania in July 1978. Our Party denounced the origins of Chinese revisionism in the anti-Marxist theory of “Mao Zedong Thought” in September 1979.
It also refers to internal struggles where ‘former leading cadres of our Party… formed revisionist factions which both colluded and contended with one another, and which attempted to use the opportunity of the repudiation of ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ as a Trojan horse to smuggle revisionism into the heart of the Party, so as to eliminate everything revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist which had been established in CPI(M-L) since its foundation, on the hoax that this was ‘carrying through the repudiation of Maoism and its effects on CPI(M-L).’
And…
In this struggle, the Central Committee has had the particular, important assistance of our fraternal parties, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), as well as the profound inspiration of the growing strength and unity of the International Marxist-Leninist Communist Movement and the heroic example of the struggle of the Party of Labour of Albania, headed by Comrade Enver Hoxha, against revisionism — against the Titoites, Kruschevites, Maoists, Eurocommunists etc. which were brilliantly summed up in Comrade Enver Hoxha’s Books — ‘Imperialism and the Revolution’, ‘Reflections on China’, ‘The Kruschevites’ etc.
The account of the struggles within the CPI(M-L) references the British and Irish Communist Organisation, the Socialist Party of Ireland and others. There is particularly interesting reference to:
The promotion of revisionist lines to conciliate and collaborate with the revisionists, social-democrats and opportunists, and in general, with the labour aristocracy controlling the trade unions, under the hoax that this was ‘repudiating the main error of CPI(M-L)’s past under the Maoist influence, ‘left sectarianism’ which became a trend in articles on the workers’ struggles in ‘Red Patriot’ during 1979, in particular for a short time support for the slogan of the labour aristocracy in the campaign against the burden of PAYE income tax, ‘Tax the Greedy, not the Needy’ which had been developed by the revisionist so-called ‘Sinn Féin the Workers’ Party’.
It would be useful to see copies of Red Patriot from that period. Obviously at this remove it is difficult to assess the accuracy of the charges, but what is striking is how the influence of those other formations, and perhaps as importantly the concepts they promoted, impinged, even rhetorically, on the CPI(M-L). This is not to overstate that dynamic or that influence, but simply to note that on the further left it existed to some limited extent both as a pole of attraction and repulsion.
Also outlined are the ‘Basic Principles and Programme of the CPI(M-L).
All in all a useful addition to the Archive which clarifies the self-perception of CPI(M-L) as it entered the 1980s.
Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week June 20, 2010
Posted by Garibaldy in media.38 comments
Not a hugely stupid edition this week, although we are seeing the re-emergence of the anti-public sector and anti-union rhetoric given that not everyone affected by the Croke Park deal has dropped to their knees and humbly accepted what is coming.
Emer O’Kelly offers this outraged response to the opposition to the Croke Park deal.
The anti-democratic charge, with its potential to scupper the agreement, has been led by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT). It’s hard to believe that the men and women entrusted with the educational formation of many of our citizens at second level, and all of our citizens at university level, can behave in such an unprincipled fashion. At least, it’s hard to believe of the IFUT; we’re used to the outrageously selfish impropriety of teachers at primary and secondary level. But how uneasy does it make you feel to envisage the intellectual elite of the country being taught ethics, philosophy, and particularly, politics, by people who refuse to abide by a democratic, if reluctant, vote?
Jody Corcoran rushes to the defence of his neo-liberal heroes in Fine Gael. You know, the ones who couldn’t unseat a massively unpopular leader, but who have the talent, skills, vision and courage to turn the state around. After all, it’s not like their ideology landed us where we are.
The truth is also this: Neither were Varadkar, nor Naughten nor Timmins, nor all of the rest of them so foolish as to involve themselves in a coup, of the palace kind or any other variety, for any reason other than they felt it the right thing to do, and they probably still feel that.
These are the people who know Enda Kenny best. It seemed to me that they sought a different future for Fine Gael, and they were defeated by a combination of gombeenism, opportunism and patronage. Kenny’s opponents will pay the price for that because that is the way of it. Another curious thing though: It also seemed to me that most of them were happy enough to pay the price.
In first place, Ruth Dudley Edwards, as well as baffingly describing someone as completely and utterly weird (not to say perverse in every sense of the word) as Philip Larkin as the voice of the fed-up ordinary bloke, has this to say of the Tea Party Movement.
These John and Jane Does are the infantry in the war against Washington (personified by the aloof, cerebral machine politician that is President Barack Obama and the wealthy career politician, Californian Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives), which they believe is bent on ruining the essence of America by replacing free enterprise, small government and personal responsibility with wasteful European-style statism and large-scale income redistribution.
Where do you start with that?
By the way, the Sindo seems to be pushing for the emergence of a new right-wing party, made up of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil elements. Bonkers.
Kudos to whoever did this… June 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, Film and Television, Uncategorized.4 comments
Any of us who like the output of one J. Wheedon will appreciate it.
Actually, speaking of Wheedon, just finished Dollhouse Season One. Got to say that although the premise was pretty good the execution was hit and miss. Some good episodes followed by some awful ones although quality control generally went up as it progressed across its 13 (or is 14) episode run.
It’s hard to pin point what precisely is the problem, perhaps it is simply that Wheedon can work the tragicomedy thing better in the context of what seems to be a show for adolescents (but isn’t just for them) rather than a show which was – at least on paper – decidedly more mature. And there was a curious evasion at the heart of Dollhouse where the true implications of the ‘dolls’ and what they did – essentially a form of prostitution, sometimes sexualised sometimes not, wasn’t quite engaged with. Perhaps it couldn’t have been because that would tip this into a territory that would have changed the nature of the show entirely and making it effectively horror.
That said the true finale, which wasn’t broadcast on television, Epitaph One, was something else, tightly plotted, low budget but somehow none the worse for that and a piece that pulled away from the more hokey elements that had dragged the season down throughout. This was closer to hard science fiction and horror and all the better for it.
This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… the Mad Violets June 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....2 comments
The Mad Violets, neo-psychedelic garage band, based in New York during the early to mid 1980s and led by Wendy Wild, artist, performance artist (she was closely associated with John Sex), singer, person around town, character. She died in 1996 at the shockingly young age of 40 from breast cancer.
You’ll find on her wiki page that she worked with a range of people including Bronski Beat, the Fleshtones, and the Hoodoo Gurus. So an eclectic mix there then.
I first heard them on a neo-psychedelic compilation in the mid 1980s and was struck by her voice, an individual voice – although I have to admit to really liking it. The Mad Violets were definitely Wild’s band, and the work she did with them was memorable. That voice managed to make them sound not so much of the 1980s as the late 60s. Which is to say that if she had intended to lead a garage/neo-psychedelia band then she managed that task admirably.
I’ve always loved their song ‘Come Out and Play’, which is here. A lovely melody set to a chugging rhythm and keyboards. She did a remarkable version of ‘Morning Dew’ with some of the Fleshtones as her backing band, but that’s not available on YouTube. So I’ve had to put in another Fleshtones collaboration which is, sadly, nowhere near as good.
There’s a newish compilation album out from them, and an old mini-album of theirs, ‘Worlds of LSD’ (natch!) from 1986 or so which you can hunt down on t’internet should the mood take you.
Enjoy.
Come out and play
Psilocybe
I Go Wild (by the Wild Hyenas fronted by Wendy Wild – atypical in terms of the sound of the Mad Violets)
“Sports is Like a War without the Killing” June 19, 2010
Posted by Garibaldy in Sport.16 comments
Another bloodless performance from England tonight. Not so Algeria. This story might explain why.
At the insistence of their manager, England’s World Cup opponents prepared for the match against Algeria with a private screening of The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo’s harrowing 1966 film depicting scenes from their country’s war of independence.
You’ve still got to be kidding… June 18, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.9 comments
We start as we finish…
There were 49 speakers at the meeting with Mr Kenny speaking at the beginning and the end. His winding up speech was said by supporters to have been powerful and to have left some of them in tears.
Then we’ve this for remarkable optimism…
Speaking outside Leinster House after the meeting Mr Kenny said he was “thrilled and very relieved” the motion of confidence in him had been endorsed by the parliamentary party.
“We move on from here as a completely united party even though we had a vote on this issue. Our priority now is to have a general election as soon as possible, to have our party move forward – address the issues, concerns and anxieties that affect the Irish people in a country that is almost bankrupt,” he said.
And how about this for never closing a door?
Mr Bruton said issues and concerns had been raised and resolved and that the party now needed to convince the public it was capable of forming the next government. Mr Bruton urged his supporters, many of whom came from the party’s front bench, to unite and he denied his challenge had given ammunition to Fianna Fáil.
Although he had previously said it would be hypocritical of him to serve on Mr Kenny’s front bench, having mounted the challenge, Mr Bruton said the matter was “not a decision for today”.
There’s more…
Senator Ciaran Cannon, former leader of the now-defunct Progressive Democrats, said the party was “deluding itself” if it thought there was a “Messiah” who could lead it to 50 per cent or 60 per cent in the polls and he recalled that the PDs had a “great leader” in Mary Harney who achieved very high personal ratings but this was not reflected in the figures attained by the party itself.
Hold on, that’s actually quite sensible. Except for the Mary Harney bit.
More from the [nearly] man of the day?
Opposing the motion, Richard Bruton described himself as “a politician of conviction” who was “neither right nor left”.
And for the mathematicians amongst us…
The count was conducted by party chairman Pádraic McCormack and Senator Paschal Donohoe and although the result was given, no figures were revealed. Various sources estimated the margin of victory for Mr Kenny at six or “between four and seven”.
Hmmm… between four and seven. And close to six.
Enda speaks again…and a mighty curious phrase crops up…
“I did address a number of issues that were raised. I did speak of my own qualities as a person, the characteristics that I have since being born in Fine Gael and the pride that we have in our party and in the future,” he said.
Finally, for now – and am I the only one who wonders if this is really the end of the heaves?
At the end of his summing-up speech, the party leader received a standing ovation from most of those present, including those opposing the motion and sources said there were “tears in the eyes” of some of Mr Kenny’s critics.
I’ll bet.
This week on the Irish Election Literature Blog… June 18, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.2 comments
…well, what a week politically this has been. So with that in mind what has AK selected? Well, some of this is truly remarkable. And from the very first example…
From 1979 in North Antrim a leaflet for John Turny of The Irish Independence Party.
Briefly the Party was a destination for Republican voters before Sinn Fein came into the electoral fold. They would have been to the Left of the SDLP.
Then a pair of leaflets that tell us a lot about our ruling party.
From the 1945 Local Elections, a Fianna Fail Leaflet which tells of the times. Ground Rents, Housing ‘the dread disease of tuberculosis’ and a ticket dripping with Civil War influence and also has ‘Terry’ Rogers The Grandfather of the bookmaker of the same name.
Fast forward to 1989 and a leaflet entitled ‘Some Notes on Ireland’s Premier Political Party’ looking back at the achievements of the party and attacking the opposition…
“The Labour party’s commitment to nationalisation in pursuit of a Social Workers’ Republic….” [Social Workers Republic - hmmm... 
wbs] and “… [that] Fianna Fail is to the Left of Fine Gael may be seen in the party’s commitment to the problems of the small man…”
With the week thats in it… a 1992 leaflet from Richard Bruton with the headline ‘Seeking Your Support’
And for the final round up and off the beaten track altogether with…
firstly a few cards about Petrol Prices and Mrs Thatcher from Class War
From the 2007 General Election a few stickers from The Workers Solidarity Movement
And last but not least… Feb 2009… ‘New Home Wanted For Fat Cat’
After the leadership vote in FG… June 17, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.16 comments
It’s a quare way to get back to to where you were, but isn’t this utterly insane? At the end of a week of high, well – not tension exactly – but perhaps some moments of drama, we are back where we started. Almost.
Bar a few high profile casualties along the way. Look, there’s Richard Bruton’s ambitions shattered. Whatever about Kenny Bruton is a much diminished figure. Look over here… there’s the young Turks, licking their wounds and trying desperately to work out what went so horribly wrong. Look yonder, why there’s the bulk of the party representatives probably wondering what the hell just happened and why.
Anyhow, here are a few initial impressions to be getting on with.
I’ve got to be honest, if I had any sympathies in this, and I had some very slight ones, they tended to be with Kenny. He’s a decent man who has gone far and much of it under his own steam. His politics isn’t mine, and I’ve never much liked the way he treated SF in the Dáil (mostly because it was all that rhetorical stuff which never plays well with me), but he’s not the worst. I wouldn’t say that he didn’t deserve all this, it’s politics after all, but he handled it in a way that was… quite ruthless as it happens.
An object lesson in dealing in both a tactical and strategic fashion with political competitors. His cleverest move? Denying the front benchers, already hopped up on their own self-importance, any room to try to take him down in the context of the front bench. Their cries of ‘It’s not fair’ at the premature end of that assembly simply pointed up how detached from the reality of what they were doing and how over inflated their judgement of themselves really was.
But as it happens I also have some residual sympathy for Bruton. If ever a man seemed uneasy about being thrust forward in this way it was him and you’d have to wonder how much he was put up to this.
Leo Varadker’s mournful expression on Tuesday said it all. The wheels were coming off the plan fast. No coronation for their chosen ruler. And now no front bench job for him either, although, although, it’s amazing how positions have softened subsequent to the vote. I could see Bruton back in a fairly short period of time. And, Kenny presumably will know this is no time to be vindictive.
But I can’t help but feel that there was too much cleverness by half. And worse again a sense of panic or hysteria about the party’s future fortunes that would make you wonder if they know something we don’t. Because bottom line is that short of some unbelievable return by Fianna Fáil one Enda Kenny is going to be in power in a fairly short period of time. Think of it. All those Ministerial and Junior Ministerial positions put to the flame over the past three days (and effectively only since the wonderful nine appeared in all their glory at the beginning of the week). How they must rue the fact that they weren’t just a little bit more hesitant, a little bit more ready to hold back.
This has been a gift. No doubt about it. A gift to Fianna Fáil, reeling after the two recent reports. And now able to slip through a week where a confidence motion had absolutely no impact, not even rhetorical, at all. A gift to Labour since there’s been no substantive change of the status quo, and even if Kenny’s new ruthlessness plays better with a few more voters it is unlikely to change the situation in Dublin where they remain well ahead. A gift for the Green Party, where the same factor is extant and where they’d hope to get some soft FG support in transfers.
But maybe this will change perceptions. Perhaps Kenny’s reputation will be enhanced. If so it will likely be at the expense of his party. And truth is little or none of that will be his fault. The damage was done by others.
Addendum… interesting points raised here.
And with one bound… June 17, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.10 comments
… our hero was free! To face another vote? Too close to an election, and the bitterness from this will not fade rapidly. That must have been some speech he gave.
Got to say, I didn’t know what way this would go, though again I thought Miriam Lord might be onto something in her piece, and… there was that curious statement from Enright referred to in the last post which seemed very fence sitting indeed.
More later…
