Left Archive: Workers Republic, LWR Conference Documents 1977, Sept-Oct 1977 January 22, 2018
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Many thanks to the person who forwarded this to the Archive.
Many thanks to the person who forwarded this to the Archive.
This is an important edition of Workers Republic (see here for more issues) from the LWR. Printed in 1977 it came at a time when Fianna Fáil had just returned to power after the Fine Gael/Labour coalition.
The editorial ascribes the 13% achieved by the latter party and the loss of seats by Labour Ministers as a result of ‘coalitionist’. It argues that Fianna Fáil won because it ran ‘on a programme of concessions to the working class and middle class’. it also criticise the Liaison of the Left Committee for refusing to ‘organise a broad left opposition to coalition within the LP’ which ‘caused the LP left to be totally unprepared to meet the ruthlessness of the apparatus in blocking all candidates who might pose the slightest threat to the coalition’ and it further criticises the Browne/Merrigan ‘ill-prepared and politically confused independent labour campaign’.
Other parts of the publication include the main document adopted at the LWR conference in May 1977. These, as the introduction notes ‘first advance the new tactical turn of the LWR, where we turned from the sectarian attempt to build revolutionary party outside of the mass organisations of the working class to an orientation to those mass organisations’.
These documents address both international and national issues and provide a compelling insight into the thinking of the LWR during this particularly eventful political period.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
As stated, ‘first advance the new tactical turn of the LWR, where we turned from the sectarian attempt to build revolutionary party outside of the mass organisations of the working class to an orientation to those mass organisations’.
To record some historical facts, I believe LWR attended the first Socialist Labour Party Congress. It left at the initial stage on the basis that Matt Merrigan and Noel Browne should not have broken with the Labour Party and should not have formed SLP. All this despite the fact that Merrigan and Browne were “deselected” by a Labour regime bent on Coalition, but even so Browne was elected as TD. The Militant now SP declined to join and stayed within Labour. Other leftists stayed within SLP, including the SWM now SWP. How the times have changed, or not.
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