Left Archive: BICO Literature list, c.1975 May 7, 2018
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
To download the above please click on the following link. bico-literature-list
Please click here to go the Left Archive.
Many thanks to the person who forwarded this to the Archive. It is a two page list of literature from British & Irish Communist Organisation. The list consists of books and publications including policy statements, ones on Ireland, economics and revisionism and those ‘by Stalin’. As can be imagined many of them are titles that would be very useful to have in the Archive.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
The above list mentions a document, Was Connolly a Bourgeois Intellectual?: a reply to J. Hoffman
J.A Hoffman was a London based marxist who had in 1970 written a very interesting document, The Irish Question: Connolly, the I.C.O. and the Irish Bourgeoisie , which gained much interest at the time. During the course of his polemic with the ICO he casts a critical eye on Connolly’s Labour in Irish History and asserted that Connolly wrongly glorified pre capitalist Ireland.
This document is available in The National Library: http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000276700
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Now that’s a document I’d like to see!
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You’re nearer to The National Library than I am, WbS!
Interestingly Hoffman’s document is in the Mike Malotte collection.
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If Connolly ‘glorified’ pre-capitalist Ireland it was because he understood the depth of nationalist feeling among all sections of the Irish people in the early 20th century. He pragmatically worked within the cultural climate of the times. That is why in ‘Labour, Nationality and Religion’ he tried to trace elements of primitive socialism in the lives and thoughts of some Celtic saints i.e. he wanted to show that modern socialism was not incompatible with the religious traditions of Catholic Ireland, thus contradicting papal and episcopal teaching on the topic. He was the first socialist writer to assert that the national question and the labour question were intertwined, his famous utterance being: “The cause of Ireland is the cause of labour: the cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland.” [Half of the quote is inscribed on Connolly’s statue opposite Liberty Hall.]
In the late 20th century, the Vietnamese defeated French and US imperialism because they were motivated by nationalism more than by marxism.
ICO-BICO-Aubane have churned out an amazing heap of political literature from the 1960s up to the present. They have made a lot of people think, even if most of those people have moved on to other modes of thought.
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He was the first socialist writer to assert that the national question and the labour question were intertwined, his famous utterance being: “The cause of Ireland is the cause of labour: the cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland.” [Half of the quote is inscribed on Connolly’s statue opposite Liberty Hall.]
Along with SIPTU enthusiastically taking a wrecking ball to the original Liberty Hall of Connolly’s ITGWU and Citizen Army, that unintentionally says a lot.
At tonight’s first night of the Connolly 150 festival in town, there was strong pushback from the panel on the naive notion that Connolly ‘abandoned’ socialism. This accusation most often from people who inevitably can find no fault with British socialism’s embrace of the Great War, or of said ‘comrades’ being wholly in favour of recruitment and then conscription of the Irish working-class into the British war effort.
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I was looking recently at the list of organisations/publishing imprints associated with BICO, and it’s quite a list.
There’s these in the archive:
* British and Irish Communist Organisation
* Northwest Labour Publications
* Athol Books
* Aubane Historical Society
* Workers’ Association
But there are also these:
* Belfast Historical and Educational Association
* Institute for Representative Government in Northern Ireland
* The Ingram Society
* Ernest Bevin Society
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How many were involved in the Institute one has to wonder…
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Not many, I’d guess. A hard core of active writers/theoreticians seems to have hung in there through fluctuating political times. They attracted curious individuals to their meetings and got them to read their publications. Their Two Nations campaign attracted some and repelled others. They have at times been cold then warm about Irish nationalism. In recent years they cultivated interest from Fianna Fail supporters! Aonrud above lists several organisations, publications and publishing enterprises – all established and promoted by a hard core, some of them aimed at thinking unionists, labour activists or disillusioned republicans. Mary Burke-Robinson in her early student days is supposed to have read some of their stuff. In the past few years they have founded The Heidegger Review, for philosophy buffs. I’ve picked up samples of their publications in Books Upstairs from time to time. (I am not connected with them, honest.)
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“ICO-BICO-Aubane have churned out an amazing heap of political literature from the 1960s up to the present. They have made a lot of people think, even if most of those people have moved on to other modes of thought.”
Hmm. Let’s see what “Modes of thought” are expressed in the April issue of the Athol Books publication “Irish Political Review”. It has a essay “Es Ahora”, by someone called Julianne Herlihy. Discussing the menaccused of abuse by the #MeToo and #Timesup movements, Herlihy says:
Most have fled to clinics-Harvey Weinstein is in one in some American states as is Kevin Spacey, others have gone underground and into hiding if they haven’t the funds availible like Weinstein for
top clinces. There is such fear that there can be no doubt that we are witnessing a totalitarian society emerge.
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Cork City Library is a great source for this material, and some of the staff there are quite knowledgeable and helpful.
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“Mary Burke-Robinson in her early student days is supposed to have read some of their stuff.”
So did David Trimble, according to the Dean Godson biography. There’s a persistent rumour that Trimble kept a full set of BICO/WA pamphlets in his house.
Also, if Mrs. Herlihy wants to talk about “such fear”, she should discuss the 80 + women who say that the ratbag threatened, sexually harassed and raped them.
http://www.newsweek.com/harvey-weinstein-accusers-sexual-assault-harassment-696485
Also, the 15 people who say Spacey harassed and assaulted them.
http://www.newsweek.com/harvey-weinstein-accusers-sexual-assault-harassment-696485
Talk about the IPR puching down, eh?
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“Cork City Library is a great source for this material, and some of the staff there are quite knowledgeable and helpful.”
I believe there are also a number of Athol Books publications in the
Boole Library at UCC.
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