Problems of The Irish Left ✏ An Overview

Michael O’Rourke ✍ We are somewhat unique and privileged here in Ireland to have the political legacy of one of the world’s great revolutionary Marxists and revolutionary socialist republicans, James Connolly.

Socialists in Ireland can also feel forever honoured at having Commandant James Connolly; international socialist, theoretician and writer, military commander of the forces of the Irish Republic, signatory of the Easter 1916 Proclamation, one of the founders of Irish independence, outstanding Irish patriot, and one of their own.

Connolly was also one of the early founders of modern socialism in the British and American working class movements, lecturing, writing and organising in defence of workers rights against the brutal oppression and starvation policies of the capitalist class and state forces of the time.

But you would be mistaken if you thought that in the subsequent following decades after his execution by British imperialism that an appropriate relationship of equals would exist between British socialists, the British left, and their Irish counterparts. Instead what followed was a retreat into chauvinism on the most part with the British socialist movement - with the exception of a small minority - and the assertion of a kind of social imperialism towards Ireland and Irish socialist parties, which is still evident today in the British left. Furthermore, it is not hard to see how this unhealthy political circumstance would also provide opportunities for British state intelligence in their ever present quest to subvert Irish independence as it arises across the political spectrum. It is not alarmist to suggest this: it is realistic and should be understood by any mature, serious political person interested in the political world we live in. With these opening remarks I would then look at the current Irish Left.

Firstly I would consider the vassal role the CPI played towards its political overseer, the CPGB, because it remains an important political factor to this very day. It is unfortunately true that the CPI existed under the political hegemony of its British counterpart from the 1930's on. And reinforcing its Anglophile credo by adopting as it did the Stalin-Churchill pact, there was no place for revolutionary republicanism or Irish independence from Britain within that Anglophile political construct. It was to be replaced with a doctrine of defeatism to encourage republicans to desist from traditional struggle and adopt whatever policies emanated from the Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow wrapped up in fake republican rhetoric and quack socialism. It gained traction to some extent because of the dearth of political theory in Ireland during the time.

This political methodology has been the stock and trade of the CPI, and presumably also the British CP ever since WW2, and for some old hands of the CPI it meant (whether true or not), the wholesale conversion of the Official republican movement, the Stickies, into an ideological mirror image of themselves.

But not unexpectedly there was a falling out between the two over which party was more entitled to official recognition from Moscow. It is interesting to note also that both of these parties have in recent years undergone political splits in their ranks; both of them with their northern branches who were deemed to have emerged fully as politically Unionist made it untenable to hold together as a single unit.

For those who observed the cow-towing by these two parties to reactionary Unionism within the Irish trade union movement, pandering to the autonomous Unionist, Northern Ireland Committee of the ICTU, and providing it with a veto on any policies or resolutions supportive of Irish national aspirations, it is not a surprise. The two Stalinist parties in the south ran out of road supporting this reactionary deference to Unionism, while simultaneously performing political contortions in still maintaining links to the Irish working class. Nonetheless they would still certainly be incapable of seeing it as the objective reality or the historical process of the Irish working class objectively assuming its historic role to remove British imperialism. And also incapable of seeing that political factor asserting itself despite their years of believing they had actually suppressed it, in their own minds at least. Instead their responses all resort to subjective reasoning and personal bickering, none of which reflect or concur with Marxist historical materialism.

But the CPI are not solely to blame for an overriding influence and control of the Irish left by the British left. All of the Irish left-wing groups, those not affiliated to the Stalinist wing of communism, groups who claimed allegiance to the Fourth International also in one way or another originated as Irish offspring of left-wing British political parties. This occurred usually among Irish immigrants in Britain who joined the various organisations and then later returned to Ireland to begin establishing an Irish group affiliated to its British counterpart, but in reality very much under their control and mirroring the imperialist relationship between the two countries.

However, to their credit and notwithstanding any due criticism or differences one might have with them, Peoples Democracy were the only indigenous Irish left-wing group to be formed in Ireland and affiliated as an Irish section of the Fourth International, though at this time they may not any longer be affiliated to that body.

Other than that, the only other breach of the left-wing British infusion into Irish politics was in the 1980’s when an Irish group with a connection to the British WRP after it had imploded, formerly broke with them on the basis of their perceived imperialist conceptions regarding Ireland. It was a political and theoretical break that allowed for a real theoretical and political development among the Irish group without the profoundly debilitating constraints derived from Britain’s domination of Ireland in every respect over the centuries, and transmogrified into the politics and culture of the British left.

Today in Ireland it is the groups who are, or were at one time, associated with the Fourth International that have made progress in electoral terms, not the CPI however (except perhaps two closet members who are TDs) mostly because of their toxic Stalinist brand. And there does not appear to be much or any open antagonism between them as both subscribe generally to a reformist agenda. But the British Left influence is still in existence in the parties that make up People Before Profit. They are very much integrated with their British counterparts, and despite the Irish parties having elected members in the Dáil unlike their British counterparts, they play a subservient and deferential role to the British. In addition and most importantly, they maintain an identical policy in relation to the British occupation of the north, which they wrongly refer to as “internationalism”.

The story of the Irish Left is not a pleasantly edifying one; it is one with a serious question hanging over it. The question to be asked and answered is: to what extent are the British left infiltrated by MI5, and to what extent is that infiltration and influence carried over to their Irish counterpart? It is a serious and relevant question that needs be taken up by those committed to the Irish and international working class cause, and particularly by those committed to Ireland’s struggle to remove British imperialism.

🖼 Michael O’Rourke is a former POW imprisoned on behalf of the INLA.