https://socialistaction.org/2016/04/29/class-struggle-in-ireland-1916/
Class struggle in Ireland: 1916
/ 22 hours ago
May 2016 Irish CitizensBy SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY
— Socialist Democracy is the sympathizing organization of the Fourth
International in Ireland. —
At first sight, the Tale of 1916 seems a simple one. On the one hand,
there was a small band—an alliance of socialists and revolutionary
democrats. On the other hand, were the British imperialists and their
Unionist supporters.
Even if we stay within that narrative, The Rising had enormous
significance. It was founded upon a wide range of working-class
struggles across Ireland and Britain and extending across Europe and the
USA. Across the world democrats took inspiration from the rising,
especially around anti-colonial struggles in Asia and Africa. Yet at a
deeper level there was class conflict within all the elements associated
with 1916.
James Connolly and the Citizen Army arrived at 1916 through a bitter
struggle with Irish capitalism in the Dublin lockout of 1913. Connolly
claimed this as a drawn struggle, but it was, in fact, a Pyrrhic victory
for the employers. Their main target, the Irish Transport and General
Workers’ Union survived and the smaller employers had been scared enough
not to support any attempt to revive the strategy of the general lockout
in Dublin. However, they were able to deny union recognition to the
workers, and their leaders, the biggest ones, were able to exclude the
unions from their workplaces altogether.
What was especially significant about 1913 was the reasons for the
setback. Alongside the onslaught of the state and the employers and the
relative weakness of the Irish working class ran a strong reformist
current in the trade-union and labour movement. Connolly, in debates
with the Belfast socialist William Walker, had already condemned the
“gas and water socialism” that set as its goal the narrow aim of seats
on the councils and municipal reform.
However, the problem was much larger than that dispute indicated. Across
Europe, the trade-union and labour movement had developed its own
bureaucracy and become partly integrated with the structures of
capitalism. There was a widespread view that, if the social democratic
parties could win a majority in parliament, they would be able to use
the structures of the capitalist state to institute socialism. In the
heartlands of the imperialist powers, sections of the working class saw
themselves as an aristocracy of labour, having common interests with
their imperial masters. The Ulster loyalists were an extreme example of
this current, combining an often quite militant trade-union
consciousness with an abject political loyalty to their Protestant bosses.
They were not socialists, but William Walker tried unsuccessfully to win
them by his combination of milk and water socialism and Protestant
unionism. His current was linked to the British reformists whose social
patriotism deferred to royalty and the Empire
The reformist current had found its expression in the writings of Eduard
Bernstein, the German social democrat. He used the social democrats’
division of “maximum” (socialism) and “minimum” (immediate reforms) to
abandon the first (“the ultimate goal is nothing”) and urge
concentration on the second, the improvement of capitalism. The British
Fabian movement was an example of this political shift.
The true cost of reformism was spelt out in the trenches of the First
World War. The mass International of working people, the 2nd
International, had seemed to be an invincible bulwark against war. Its
leadership had declared that the workers would not fight and would rise
up against war and institute a revolution. However, when war was
declared, the reformist leaderships swung behind “their own” national
capitalist classes and sent an entire generation of European workers to
the slaughter.
This background lent a sharp urgency to Connolly’s decision to press for
a Rising. He felt it absolutely essential that the declaration of the
International be upheld and that the workers rise up against the
imperialist killing machine.
The revolutionary nationalists of the Irish Republican Brotherhood felt
a similar urgency. British propaganda had based itself around “gallant
little Belgium” and the “freedom of small nations” while at the same
time delaying on home rule. The revolutionists foresaw the carve up and
decay of empires that would follow the war and felt it essential to put
forward Ireland’s claim to nationhood, summed up as “England’s
difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.”
Connolly’s decision was within the context of rebellions and revolutions
across Europe during and after the war, culminating in the workers’
seizure of power in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Lenin remarked that
the Irish had “risen too soon” but the necessity for rising was never in
doubt.
The IRB were also proved right. The war was followed by an increased
assertion of national rights across the British Empire and its gradual
decay. The Indian nationalist movement especially drew heavily on the
Irish example.
As with the socialists, there were divisions among the nationalists.
These were much sharper, being based on a struggle between contending
classes within the movement.
The class division showed itself at the onset of the Rising, with the
leadership of the Irish volunteers countermanding mobilization orders,
dooming the Rebels to rapid defeat.
The Irish nationalists, representing local capital but excluding the
unionist industrialists and the landed gentry, wanted limited home rule,
a provincial assembly without any power over foreign affair within the
British Empire. The revolutionary nationalist current, based in the
Irish petit bourgeoisie, wanted an Irish democracy and an independent
economy.
From a Marxist point of view, the revolutionary democrats exhibited
great courage and determination. However, their vision of a revolution
based simply on national self-determination would always include a space
for an Irish capitalism that would inevitably be subservient to British
imperialist economic interests, and that class would inevitably betray
the nationalist revolutionaries.
In times of upsurge, the nationalist revolutionaries would break from
the restraints of the Home Rule capitalists. However, there was a fault
line amongst them between those, like the official volunteer leadership
before the Rising who were clear in wanting a stable capitalist society
and who feared losing control of their movement, and those who were
happy to take the risk. When the downturn came, the conservative wing
was able to block with its Home Ruler (and even Unionist) opponents,
while the revolutionary nationalists went into often military
opposition, leading to further splits later.
The British Empire faced a struggle with revolutionaries, while in the
background was an Irish capitalist class subservient to imperialism and
a weak working class with a strong reformist current. The outcome was
partial independence, partition, civil war, followed by a society with
the migrant boat the only escape from the grinding oppression of church
and state.
Looking back, it is important to remember that many of the participants
were unaware of the full extent of the divisions in their movements.
Connolly saw himself as debating with other trade unionists and
socialists who could be won to revolution. On the international stage,
as part of the general reshaping of the working-class movement, even
Lenin believed that he was following closely the programme of German
social democracy rather than re-establishing a revolutionary
independence of the working class.
Within the working class the battle between revolution and reform was
fought out in a series of skirmishes that were seen as individual
disputes rather than a clash of worldviews. It was clear to Connolly
that he was isolated within the world socialist movement, an isolation
made more intense in that, unlike Lenin, he did not have a relatively
homogeneous political party behind him. He tried to make up for this by
building working-class militancy to clash with Britain, but he was
unsuccessful.
After the Rising, the leadership of the Irish Trade Union Congress and
Labour Party (then united in the syndicalist manner) used Connolly’s
name in vain whilst adhering to reformist (though never actually
unionist) principles closer to those of his reformist opponent, William
Walker. In the current peace process, they capitulate utterly to Unionism.
Since 1916 the class struggle has ebbed and flowed. There were many
heroic struggles by the working class, including general strikes,
determined fights by railway workers, and a widespread eruption of
bitter struggles by farm labourers. And, inspired by the Russian
Revolution, a wave of soviets swept the country. But we have never
succeeded in building an independent working-class leadership. The
reformists in the Labour and union leaderships have time after time
succeeded in dismantling the struggle and making peace with capitalism.
The revolutionary nationalist movement has ebbed and flowed with the
class struggle. When strong, it commits to armed struggle. When that
fails, as it inevitably does, it surrenders to the capitalists. The
latest collapse is a mighty fall, with Sinn Fein operating the
mechanisms of a sectarian austerity administration within a British
colonial structure.
The American author William Faulkner remarked in relation to the U.S.
Deep South that: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
This is certainly true of Ireland today; 1916 and its aftermath saw a
partial and incomplete national revolution. Both parts of the country
remain firmly in the grip of imperialism, and workers continue to flee
the country. Those who stay are ground down by a rapacious ruling class.
The carnival of reaction predicted by Connolly is here today. The
completion of the 1916 rising remains a task for the working class.
Photo: Trade-union workers trained by Jack White drill in the Irish
Citizens Army.
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April 29, 2016 in Europe, International, Ireland, Marxist Politics and
Philosophy.
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