9 August 2001 Edition
Left Behind?
BY THE COVEY
The second issue of Spark, the magazine for young republicans, hits the streets this week. The editorial team aim to tackle issues avoided by more mainstream republican publications (ahem!) and approach their job with a refreshingly anarchic attitude. Spark is not afraid to put the boot in, and to prove the point, we have been allowed to reprint the following incisive and bile-laden article from the second issue. Titled Left Behind?, the writer takes to task the myriad of microscopic left-wing groups that populate the wings of the Irish political stage, criticising their obsession with dogma, their self-imposed isolation, their ongoing efforts to `expose' Sinn Féin and worst of all, their all-round ineffectiveness.
Spark is available now from all republican outlets, price £2. Watch out for sellers at Belfast's Féile an Phobail this weekend.
There are possibly as many definitions as to what constitutes the Irish Left as there are groups which claim to be socialist, socialist republican, communist or whatever other label they attach to themselves.
For the Trotskyite groups the Left is a fairly narrow and sparsely inhabited place, defined by one's devotion to the writings of Leon Trotsky on events in the first four decades of the 20th century. The political equivalent of the Seventh Day Adventists, Trotskyites are often so doctrinaire that the only people admitted to be of the one true faith are themselves and their sister sects in other countries.
Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'
But even where they have attempted to break out of their self-imposed isolation, as has been the case with the Militant-dominated Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, they find it difficult to abandon their old habits. Theirs' is a universe peopled by heretics, backsliders and spies. Swap the buzz words of `class', `party', and `revolution' for `God's chosen people', `Church' and `salvation' and you could be kicking up your heels in Geneva in 1540 instead of moping over pints in the corner of the Students' Union.
The Irish ultra-left is defined by a number of principle features; Firstly, it has no genuine roots in the Irish revolutionary movement. It is true that the founders of Irish Trotskyism were former members of the Republican Movement, but they were also self-conscious imitators of the Trotskyite fringe which grew up around the student movement in Britain in the 1960s. Unlike republicans, left-wing elements in the Labour Party, and the Communist Party, their focus was on glamorous and safely distant struggles in Vietnam or China, rather than the mundane work of trade unions, tenant associations, and issues around the national question.
Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves
Little has changed in the intervening period, most of them choosing to act as spectators to the struggle in the Six Counties but reserving the right to lecture republicans from the sidelines on the morality of killing ``workers in uniform'', or urging that the movement's politics be tailored so that we wouldn't be an embarrassment to whatever ridiculous Mary Poppins ``International'' they belonged to. Now that the struggle has moved into a different phase, some of these erstwhile revolutionary pacifists accuse us of having sold out because the IRA is on ceasefire!
We are also told that Sinn Féin has sold its soul for American dollars and the chance to cosy up to respectable people like Bertie and Blair. They can't wait for us to go into coalition so that they can shout `told you so!' and assume the mantle of the leadership of the Irish working class.
The optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole
For the Trotskyites, the world of politics and power is a Grimms' Fairy Tale; there are no grey areas and subtleties, only bad witches and good fairies. Thus, the very fact that Sinn Féin has ministers in the Six-County Executive is proof positive that we have sold out. So completely have they missed the plot that they insist upon comparing the current set up at Stormont to every other government, and claim that Sinn Féin is part of a right-wing cabinet.
What they totally fail to understand, as they have consistently done over the past 30 years, is that this is most certainly not a case of `normal' bourgeois democratic politics. The executive, and republicans' place in it, is part of the ongoing, and unfinished business of dismantling the British connection. Sinn Féin ministers are not in Stormont to run the health service or the schools as part of some permanent settlement. They are there to pursue our revolutionary objective, not by infantile gestures and grandstanding, but by the patient exposure of the real nature of power in the Six Counties and of the logical necessity to bring about a British military and political withdrawal and real self-determination for the Irish people. Only then can we move towards the objectives of social and economic liberation.
Failure to understand this has led the Socialist Party and its predecessor to follow other anti-national elements on the `left' into the most bizarre coalitions. Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'. But of course they were not acting entirely without some form of logic. In the case of the Militant/Socialist Party, that logic was (is?) the strategic goal of a `Socialist Federation of the British Isles'. Now doesn't that sound like a good plan! This is the same type of nonsense that has led left-wing revisionist historians to argue that the arrival of that progressive republican, Oliver Cromwell, to our shores was a good thing really. So instead of Whitehall securocrats we could look forward to being ruled by chaps immersed in the classics of scientific socialism and who at the end of the day agree with Dame Thatcher that Finaghy - and sure why not Finglas for that matter - is as British as Finchley. After all, workers have no country.
Why bother to even discuss these people? Well, for one thing, they appear to be obsessed with us. Their `theoretical' journals devote much space to dissecting the politics of the Republican Movement and their tactics in the 26 Counties are to `expose' Sinn Féin. What this means is that they are trying to use campaigns such as the current Dublin anti-bin charges movement to promote either Socialist Party or Socialist Alliance candidates to contest certain constituencies in the next general election. What all their target constituencies have in common is that they are areas in which Sinn Féin has sitting councillors and where Sinn Féin has opportunities of winning seats in Leinster House. It is a cynical and petty tactic, where the optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole.
A cunning plan? Well, it might be were it not for the fact that its implementation is in the hands of proven political incompetents. Already, the Socialist Alliance shows all the signs of going the way of the Socialist Labour Party of the 1970s, which was torn apart by Trotskyite bickering over the most ridiculous and trivial issues. As for the Socialist Party, well if they enjoy the same success in `exposing' Sinn Féin as they did in taking over the Free State Labour Party, I think our directors of elections may sleep soundly in their beds. Expecting Trotskyites to actually bring something to a successful conclusion is akin to asking a committee of three-year-olds to drive a train from Dublin to Cork. The danger is of course, that serious campaign issues will be lost if such groups are allowed set the agenda. That is why it is crucial that Sinn Féin is on top of matters like the bin charges and that we do not allow these people to dictate our actions. Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves.
So to return to our initial question; what constitutes the Irish Left? Historically, that has been defined by two main issues, an anti-imperialist position on the national question and a programme of radical social change. Only the Republican Movement has consistently held to this over the past 200 years of revolutionary struggle. As Connolly understood, the two are inextricable, and the only genuine progress towards the political and social freedom of the Irish people has been made when they have been in tandem. This was the case in the revolutionary period from 1913 to 1922, and even to a lesser degree in the early years of Fianna Fáil power, when the more blatant symbols of the defeat of 1922/23 were jettisoned and some steps were taken towards creating better living conditions for ordinary people.
That is why Fianna Fáil rather than the Labour Party has commanded the bulk of the constituency that in other countries forms the basis of what are more commonly considered to be left-wing parties. The Labour Party compounded its failure to make any significant breakthrough in the revolutionary period by being consistently to the right of Fianna Fáil on the major national and social issues of the day. And I mean social as in to do with the living conditions of working people rather than the spurious liberal agenda so dear to the heart of the Labour Party and its true constituency, the urban middle class.
The Republican Movement is now in a position to challenge for this leadership of progressive forces in Ireland. In doing so we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the gadflies of the ultra left. Confident of our revolutionary credentials, which certainly do not require the imprimatur of any self-appointed revolutionary elite, we can bring this new phase of struggle to a successful conclusion.BY THE COVEY
The second issue of Spark, the magazine for young republicans, hits the streets this week. The editorial team aim to tackle issues avoided by more mainstream republican publications (ahem!) and approach their job with a refreshingly anarchic attitude. Spark is not afraid to put the boot in, and to prove the point, we have been allowed to reprint the following incisive and bile-laden article from the second issue. Titled Left Behind?, the writer takes to task the myriad of microscopic left-wing groups that populate the wings of the Irish political stage, criticising their obsession with dogma, their self-imposed isolation, their ongoing efforts to `expose' Sinn Féin and worst of all, their all-round ineffectiveness.
Spark is available now from all republican outlets, price £2. Watch out for sellers at Belfast's Féile an Phobail this weekend.
There are possibly as many definitions as to what constitutes the Irish Left as there are groups which claim to be socialist, socialist republican, communist or whatever other label they attach to themselves.
For the Trotskyite groups the Left is a fairly narrow and sparsely inhabited place, defined by one's devotion to the writings of Leon Trotsky on events in the first four decades of the 20th century. The political equivalent of the Seventh Day Adventists, Trotskyites are often so doctrinaire that the only people admitted to be of the one true faith are themselves and their sister sects in other countries.
Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'
But even where they have attempted to break out of their self-imposed isolation, as has been the case with the Militant-dominated Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, they find it difficult to abandon their old habits. Theirs' is a universe peopled by heretics, backsliders and spies. Swap the buzz words of `class', `party', and `revolution' for `God's chosen people', `Church' and `salvation' and you could be kicking up your heels in Geneva in 1540 instead of moping over pints in the corner of the Students' Union.
The Irish ultra-left is defined by a number of principle features; Firstly, it has no genuine roots in the Irish revolutionary movement. It is true that the founders of Irish Trotskyism were former members of the Republican Movement, but they were also self-conscious imitators of the Trotskyite fringe which grew up around the student movement in Britain in the 1960s. Unlike republicans, left-wing elements in the Labour Party, and the Communist Party, their focus was on glamorous and safely distant struggles in Vietnam or China, rather than the mundane work of trade unions, tenant associations, and issues around the national question.
Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves
Little has changed in the intervening period, most of them choosing to act as spectators to the struggle in the Six Counties but reserving the right to lecture republicans from the sidelines on the morality of killing ``workers in uniform'', or urging that the movement's politics be tailored so that we wouldn't be an embarrassment to whatever ridiculous Mary Poppins ``International'' they belonged to. Now that the struggle has moved into a different phase, some of these erstwhile revolutionary pacifists accuse us of having sold out because the IRA is on ceasefire!
We are also told that Sinn Féin has sold its soul for American dollars and the chance to cosy up to respectable people like Bertie and Blair. They can't wait for us to go into coalition so that they can shout `told you so!' and assume the mantle of the leadership of the Irish working class.
The optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole
For the Trotskyites, the world of politics and power is a Grimms' Fairy Tale; there are no grey areas and subtleties, only bad witches and good fairies. Thus, the very fact that Sinn Féin has ministers in the Six-County Executive is proof positive that we have sold out. So completely have they missed the plot that they insist upon comparing the current set up at Stormont to every other government, and claim that Sinn Féin is part of a right-wing cabinet.
What they totally fail to understand, as they have consistently done over the past 30 years, is that this is most certainly not a case of `normal' bourgeois democratic politics. The executive, and republicans' place in it, is part of the ongoing, and unfinished business of dismantling the British connection. Sinn Féin ministers are not in Stormont to run the health service or the schools as part of some permanent settlement. They are there to pursue our revolutionary objective, not by infantile gestures and grandstanding, but by the patient exposure of the real nature of power in the Six Counties and of the logical necessity to bring about a British military and political withdrawal and real self-determination for the Irish people. Only then can we move towards the objectives of social and economic liberation.
Failure to understand this has led the Socialist Party and its predecessor to follow other anti-national elements on the `left' into the most bizarre coalitions. Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'. But of course they were not acting entirely without some form of logic. In the case of the Militant/Socialist Party, that logic was (is?) the strategic goal of a `Socialist Federation of the British Isles'. Now doesn't that sound like a good plan! This is the same type of nonsense that has led left-wing revisionist historians to argue that the arrival of that progressive republican, Oliver Cromwell, to our shores was a good thing really. So instead of Whitehall securocrats we could look forward to being ruled by chaps immersed in the classics of scientific socialism and who at the end of the day agree with Dame Thatcher that Finaghy - and sure why not Finglas for that matter - is as British as Finchley. After all, workers have no country.
Why bother to even discuss these people? Well, for one thing, they appear to be obsessed with us. Their `theoretical' journals devote much space to dissecting the politics of the Republican Movement and their tactics in the 26 Counties are to `expose' Sinn Féin. What this means is that they are trying to use campaigns such as the current Dublin anti-bin charges movement to promote either Socialist Party or Socialist Alliance candidates to contest certain constituencies in the next general election. What all their target constituencies have in common is that they are areas in which Sinn Féin has sitting councillors and where Sinn Féin has opportunities of winning seats in Leinster House. It is a cynical and petty tactic, where the optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole.
A cunning plan? Well, it might be were it not for the fact that its implementation is in the hands of proven political incompetents. Already, the Socialist Alliance shows all the signs of going the way of the Socialist Labour Party of the 1970s, which was torn apart by Trotskyite bickering over the most ridiculous and trivial issues. As for the Socialist Party, well if they enjoy the same success in `exposing' Sinn Féin as they did in taking over the Free State Labour Party, I think our directors of elections may sleep soundly in their beds. Expecting Trotskyites to actually bring something to a successful conclusion is akin to asking a committee of three-year-olds to drive a train from Dublin to Cork. The danger is of course, that serious campaign issues will be lost if such groups are allowed set the agenda. That is why it is crucial that Sinn Féin is on top of matters like the bin charges and that we do not allow these people to dictate our actions. Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves.
So to return to our initial question; what constitutes the Irish Left? Historically, that has been defined by two main issues, an anti-imperialist position on the national question and a programme of radical social change. Only the Republican Movement has consistently held to this over the past 200 years of revolutionary struggle. As Connolly understood, the two are inextricable, and the only genuine progress towards the political and social freedom of the Irish people has been made when they have been in tandem. This was the case in the revolutionary period from 1913 to 1922, and even to a lesser degree in the early years of Fianna Fáil power, when the more blatant symbols of the defeat of 1922/23 were jettisoned and some steps were taken towards creating better living conditions for ordinary people.
That is why Fianna Fáil rather than the Labour Party has commanded the bulk of the constituency that in other countries forms the basis of what are more commonly considered to be left-wing parties. The Labour Party compounded its failure to make any significant breakthrough in the revolutionary period by being consistently to the right of Fianna Fáil on the major national and social issues of the day. And I mean social as in to do with the living conditions of working people rather than the spurious liberal agenda so dear to the heart of the Labour Party and its true constituency, the urban middle class.
The Republican Movement is now in a position to challenge for this leadership of progressive forces in Ireland. In doing so we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the gadflies of the ultra left. Confident of our revolutionary credentials, which certainly do not require the imprimatur of any self-appointed revolutionary elite, we can bring this new phase of struggle to a successful conclusion.BY THE COVEY
The second issue of Spark, the magazine for young republicans, hits the streets this week. The editorial team aim to tackle issues avoided by more mainstream republican publications (ahem!) and approach their job with a refreshingly anarchic attitude. Spark is not afraid to put the boot in, and to prove the point, we have been allowed to reprint the following incisive and bile-laden article from the second issue. Titled Left Behind?, the writer takes to task the myriad of microscopic left-wing groups that populate the wings of the Irish political stage, criticising their obsession with dogma, their self-imposed isolation, their ongoing efforts to `expose' Sinn Féin and worst of all, their all-round ineffectiveness.
Spark is available now from all republican outlets, price £2. Watch out for sellers at Belfast's Féile an Phobail this weekend.
There are possibly as many definitions as to what constitutes the Irish Left as there are groups which claim to be socialist, socialist republican, communist or whatever other label they attach to themselves.
For the Trotskyite groups the Left is a fairly narrow and sparsely inhabited place, defined by one's devotion to the writings of Leon Trotsky on events in the first four decades of the 20th century. The political equivalent of the Seventh Day Adventists, Trotskyites are often so doctrinaire that the only people admitted to be of the one true faith are themselves and their sister sects in other countries.
Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'
But even where they have attempted to break out of their self-imposed isolation, as has been the case with the Militant-dominated Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, they find it difficult to abandon their old habits. Theirs' is a universe peopled by heretics, backsliders and spies. Swap the buzz words of `class', `party', and `revolution' for `God's chosen people', `Church' and `salvation' and you could be kicking up your heels in Geneva in 1540 instead of moping over pints in the corner of the Students' Union.
The Irish ultra-left is defined by a number of principle features; Firstly, it has no genuine roots in the Irish revolutionary movement. It is true that the founders of Irish Trotskyism were former members of the Republican Movement, but they were also self-conscious imitators of the Trotskyite fringe which grew up around the student movement in Britain in the 1960s. Unlike republicans, left-wing elements in the Labour Party, and the Communist Party, their focus was on glamorous and safely distant struggles in Vietnam or China, rather than the mundane work of trade unions, tenant associations, and issues around the national question.
Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves
Little has changed in the intervening period, most of them choosing to act as spectators to the struggle in the Six Counties but reserving the right to lecture republicans from the sidelines on the morality of killing ``workers in uniform'', or urging that the movement's politics be tailored so that we wouldn't be an embarrassment to whatever ridiculous Mary Poppins ``International'' they belonged to. Now that the struggle has moved into a different phase, some of these erstwhile revolutionary pacifists accuse us of having sold out because the IRA is on ceasefire!
We are also told that Sinn Féin has sold its soul for American dollars and the chance to cosy up to respectable people like Bertie and Blair. They can't wait for us to go into coalition so that they can shout `told you so!' and assume the mantle of the leadership of the Irish working class.
The optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole
For the Trotskyites, the world of politics and power is a Grimms' Fairy Tale; there are no grey areas and subtleties, only bad witches and good fairies. Thus, the very fact that Sinn Féin has ministers in the Six-County Executive is proof positive that we have sold out. So completely have they missed the plot that they insist upon comparing the current set up at Stormont to every other government, and claim that Sinn Féin is part of a right-wing cabinet.
What they totally fail to understand, as they have consistently done over the past 30 years, is that this is most certainly not a case of `normal' bourgeois democratic politics. The executive, and republicans' place in it, is part of the ongoing, and unfinished business of dismantling the British connection. Sinn Féin ministers are not in Stormont to run the health service or the schools as part of some permanent settlement. They are there to pursue our revolutionary objective, not by infantile gestures and grandstanding, but by the patient exposure of the real nature of power in the Six Counties and of the logical necessity to bring about a British military and political withdrawal and real self-determination for the Irish people. Only then can we move towards the objectives of social and economic liberation.
Failure to understand this has led the Socialist Party and its predecessor to follow other anti-national elements on the `left' into the most bizarre coalitions. Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'. But of course they were not acting entirely without some form of logic. In the case of the Militant/Socialist Party, that logic was (is?) the strategic goal of a `Socialist Federation of the British Isles'. Now doesn't that sound like a good plan! This is the same type of nonsense that has led left-wing revisionist historians to argue that the arrival of that progressive republican, Oliver Cromwell, to our shores was a good thing really. So instead of Whitehall securocrats we could look forward to being ruled by chaps immersed in the classics of scientific socialism and who at the end of the day agree with Dame Thatcher that Finaghy - and sure why not Finglas for that matter - is as British as Finchley. After all, workers have no country.
Why bother to even discuss these people? Well, for one thing, they appear to be obsessed with us. Their `theoretical' journals devote much space to dissecting the politics of the Republican Movement and their tactics in the 26 Counties are to `expose' Sinn Féin. What this means is that they are trying to use campaigns such as the current Dublin anti-bin charges movement to promote either Socialist Party or Socialist Alliance candidates to contest certain constituencies in the next general election. What all their target constituencies have in common is that they are areas in which Sinn Féin has sitting councillors and where Sinn Féin has opportunities of winning seats in Leinster House. It is a cynical and petty tactic, where the optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole.
A cunning plan? Well, it might be were it not for the fact that its implementation is in the hands of proven political incompetents. Already, the Socialist Alliance shows all the signs of going the way of the Socialist Labour Party of the 1970s, which was torn apart by Trotskyite bickering over the most ridiculous and trivial issues. As for the Socialist Party, well if they enjoy the same success in `exposing' Sinn Féin as they did in taking over the Free State Labour Party, I think our directors of elections may sleep soundly in their beds. Expecting Trotskyites to actually bring something to a successful conclusion is akin to asking a committee of three-year-olds to drive a train from Dublin to Cork. The danger is of course, that serious campaign issues will be lost if such groups are allowed set the agenda. That is why it is crucial that Sinn Féin is on top of matters like the bin charges and that we do not allow these people to dictate our actions. Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves.
So to return to our initial question; what constitutes the Irish Left? Historically, that has been defined by two main issues, an anti-imperialist position on the national question and a programme of radical social change. Only the Republican Movement has consistently held to this over the past 200 years of revolutionary struggle. As Connolly understood, the two are inextricable, and the only genuine progress towards the political and social freedom of the Irish people has been made when they have been in tandem. This was the case in the revolutionary period from 1913 to 1922, and even to a lesser degree in the early years of Fianna Fáil power, when the more blatant symbols of the defeat of 1922/23 were jettisoned and some steps were taken towards creating better living conditions for ordinary people.
That is why Fianna Fáil rather than the Labour Party has commanded the bulk of the constituency that in other countries forms the basis of what are more commonly considered to be left-wing parties. The Labour Party compounded its failure to make any significant breakthrough in the revolutionary period by being consistently to the right of Fianna Fáil on the major national and social issues of the day. And I mean social as in to do with the living conditions of working people rather than the spurious liberal agenda so dear to the heart of the Labour Party and its true constituency, the urban middle class.
The Republican Movement is now in a position to challenge for this leadership of progressive forces in Ireland. In doing so we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the gadflies of the ultra left. Confident of our revolutionary credentials, which certainly do not require the imprimatur of any self-appointed revolutionary elite, we can bring this new phase of struggle to a successful conclusion.
The second issue of Spark, the magazine for young republicans, hits the streets this week. The editorial team aim to tackle issues avoided by more mainstream republican publications (ahem!) and approach their job with a refreshingly anarchic attitude. Spark is not afraid to put the boot in, and to prove the point, we have been allowed to reprint the following incisive and bile-laden article from the second issue. Titled Left Behind?, the writer takes to task the myriad of microscopic left-wing groups that populate the wings of the Irish political stage, criticising their obsession with dogma, their self-imposed isolation, their ongoing efforts to `expose' Sinn Féin and worst of all, their all-round ineffectiveness.
Spark is available now from all republican outlets, price £2. Watch out for sellers at Belfast's Féile an Phobail this weekend.
There are possibly as many definitions as to what constitutes the Irish Left as there are groups which claim to be socialist, socialist republican, communist or whatever other label they attach to themselves.
For the Trotskyite groups the Left is a fairly narrow and sparsely inhabited place, defined by one's devotion to the writings of Leon Trotsky on events in the first four decades of the 20th century. The political equivalent of the Seventh Day Adventists, Trotskyites are often so doctrinaire that the only people admitted to be of the one true faith are themselves and their sister sects in other countries.
Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'
But even where they have attempted to break out of their self-imposed isolation, as has been the case with the Militant-dominated Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, they find it difficult to abandon their old habits. Theirs' is a universe peopled by heretics, backsliders and spies. Swap the buzz words of `class', `party', and `revolution' for `God's chosen people', `Church' and `salvation' and you could be kicking up your heels in Geneva in 1540 instead of moping over pints in the corner of the Students' Union.
The Irish ultra-left is defined by a number of principle features; Firstly, it has no genuine roots in the Irish revolutionary movement. It is true that the founders of Irish Trotskyism were former members of the Republican Movement, but they were also self-conscious imitators of the Trotskyite fringe which grew up around the student movement in Britain in the 1960s. Unlike republicans, left-wing elements in the Labour Party, and the Communist Party, their focus was on glamorous and safely distant struggles in Vietnam or China, rather than the mundane work of trade unions, tenant associations, and issues around the national question.
Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves
Little has changed in the intervening period, most of them choosing to act as spectators to the struggle in the Six Counties but reserving the right to lecture republicans from the sidelines on the morality of killing ``workers in uniform'', or urging that the movement's politics be tailored so that we wouldn't be an embarrassment to whatever ridiculous Mary Poppins ``International'' they belonged to. Now that the struggle has moved into a different phase, some of these erstwhile revolutionary pacifists accuse us of having sold out because the IRA is on ceasefire!
We are also told that Sinn Féin has sold its soul for American dollars and the chance to cosy up to respectable people like Bertie and Blair. They can't wait for us to go into coalition so that they can shout `told you so!' and assume the mantle of the leadership of the Irish working class.
The optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole
For the Trotskyites, the world of politics and power is a Grimms' Fairy Tale; there are no grey areas and subtleties, only bad witches and good fairies. Thus, the very fact that Sinn Féin has ministers in the Six-County Executive is proof positive that we have sold out. So completely have they missed the plot that they insist upon comparing the current set up at Stormont to every other government, and claim that Sinn Féin is part of a right-wing cabinet.
What they totally fail to understand, as they have consistently done over the past 30 years, is that this is most certainly not a case of `normal' bourgeois democratic politics. The executive, and republicans' place in it, is part of the ongoing, and unfinished business of dismantling the British connection. Sinn Féin ministers are not in Stormont to run the health service or the schools as part of some permanent settlement. They are there to pursue our revolutionary objective, not by infantile gestures and grandstanding, but by the patient exposure of the real nature of power in the Six Counties and of the logical necessity to bring about a British military and political withdrawal and real self-determination for the Irish people. Only then can we move towards the objectives of social and economic liberation.
Failure to understand this has led the Socialist Party and its predecessor to follow other anti-national elements on the `left' into the most bizarre coalitions. Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'. But of course they were not acting entirely without some form of logic. In the case of the Militant/Socialist Party, that logic was (is?) the strategic goal of a `Socialist Federation of the British Isles'. Now doesn't that sound like a good plan! This is the same type of nonsense that has led left-wing revisionist historians to argue that the arrival of that progressive republican, Oliver Cromwell, to our shores was a good thing really. So instead of Whitehall securocrats we could look forward to being ruled by chaps immersed in the classics of scientific socialism and who at the end of the day agree with Dame Thatcher that Finaghy - and sure why not Finglas for that matter - is as British as Finchley. After all, workers have no country.
Why bother to even discuss these people? Well, for one thing, they appear to be obsessed with us. Their `theoretical' journals devote much space to dissecting the politics of the Republican Movement and their tactics in the 26 Counties are to `expose' Sinn Féin. What this means is that they are trying to use campaigns such as the current Dublin anti-bin charges movement to promote either Socialist Party or Socialist Alliance candidates to contest certain constituencies in the next general election. What all their target constituencies have in common is that they are areas in which Sinn Féin has sitting councillors and where Sinn Féin has opportunities of winning seats in Leinster House. It is a cynical and petty tactic, where the optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole.
A cunning plan? Well, it might be were it not for the fact that its implementation is in the hands of proven political incompetents. Already, the Socialist Alliance shows all the signs of going the way of the Socialist Labour Party of the 1970s, which was torn apart by Trotskyite bickering over the most ridiculous and trivial issues. As for the Socialist Party, well if they enjoy the same success in `exposing' Sinn Féin as they did in taking over the Free State Labour Party, I think our directors of elections may sleep soundly in their beds. Expecting Trotskyites to actually bring something to a successful conclusion is akin to asking a committee of three-year-olds to drive a train from Dublin to Cork. The danger is of course, that serious campaign issues will be lost if such groups are allowed set the agenda. That is why it is crucial that Sinn Féin is on top of matters like the bin charges and that we do not allow these people to dictate our actions. Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves.
So to return to our initial question; what constitutes the Irish Left? Historically, that has been defined by two main issues, an anti-imperialist position on the national question and a programme of radical social change. Only the Republican Movement has consistently held to this over the past 200 years of revolutionary struggle. As Connolly understood, the two are inextricable, and the only genuine progress towards the political and social freedom of the Irish people has been made when they have been in tandem. This was the case in the revolutionary period from 1913 to 1922, and even to a lesser degree in the early years of Fianna Fáil power, when the more blatant symbols of the defeat of 1922/23 were jettisoned and some steps were taken towards creating better living conditions for ordinary people.
That is why Fianna Fáil rather than the Labour Party has commanded the bulk of the constituency that in other countries forms the basis of what are more commonly considered to be left-wing parties. The Labour Party compounded its failure to make any significant breakthrough in the revolutionary period by being consistently to the right of Fianna Fáil on the major national and social issues of the day. And I mean social as in to do with the living conditions of working people rather than the spurious liberal agenda so dear to the heart of the Labour Party and its true constituency, the urban middle class.
The Republican Movement is now in a position to challenge for this leadership of progressive forces in Ireland. In doing so we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the gadflies of the ultra left. Confident of our revolutionary credentials, which certainly do not require the imprimatur of any self-appointed revolutionary elite, we can bring this new phase of struggle to a successful conclusion.BY THE COVEY
The second issue of Spark, the magazine for young republicans, hits the streets this week. The editorial team aim to tackle issues avoided by more mainstream republican publications (ahem!) and approach their job with a refreshingly anarchic attitude. Spark is not afraid to put the boot in, and to prove the point, we have been allowed to reprint the following incisive and bile-laden article from the second issue. Titled Left Behind?, the writer takes to task the myriad of microscopic left-wing groups that populate the wings of the Irish political stage, criticising their obsession with dogma, their self-imposed isolation, their ongoing efforts to `expose' Sinn Féin and worst of all, their all-round ineffectiveness.
Spark is available now from all republican outlets, price £2. Watch out for sellers at Belfast's Féile an Phobail this weekend.
There are possibly as many definitions as to what constitutes the Irish Left as there are groups which claim to be socialist, socialist republican, communist or whatever other label they attach to themselves.
For the Trotskyite groups the Left is a fairly narrow and sparsely inhabited place, defined by one's devotion to the writings of Leon Trotsky on events in the first four decades of the 20th century. The political equivalent of the Seventh Day Adventists, Trotskyites are often so doctrinaire that the only people admitted to be of the one true faith are themselves and their sister sects in other countries.
Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'
But even where they have attempted to break out of their self-imposed isolation, as has been the case with the Militant-dominated Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, they find it difficult to abandon their old habits. Theirs' is a universe peopled by heretics, backsliders and spies. Swap the buzz words of `class', `party', and `revolution' for `God's chosen people', `Church' and `salvation' and you could be kicking up your heels in Geneva in 1540 instead of moping over pints in the corner of the Students' Union.
The Irish ultra-left is defined by a number of principle features; Firstly, it has no genuine roots in the Irish revolutionary movement. It is true that the founders of Irish Trotskyism were former members of the Republican Movement, but they were also self-conscious imitators of the Trotskyite fringe which grew up around the student movement in Britain in the 1960s. Unlike republicans, left-wing elements in the Labour Party, and the Communist Party, their focus was on glamorous and safely distant struggles in Vietnam or China, rather than the mundane work of trade unions, tenant associations, and issues around the national question.
Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves
Little has changed in the intervening period, most of them choosing to act as spectators to the struggle in the Six Counties but reserving the right to lecture republicans from the sidelines on the morality of killing ``workers in uniform'', or urging that the movement's politics be tailored so that we wouldn't be an embarrassment to whatever ridiculous Mary Poppins ``International'' they belonged to. Now that the struggle has moved into a different phase, some of these erstwhile revolutionary pacifists accuse us of having sold out because the IRA is on ceasefire!
We are also told that Sinn Féin has sold its soul for American dollars and the chance to cosy up to respectable people like Bertie and Blair. They can't wait for us to go into coalition so that they can shout `told you so!' and assume the mantle of the leadership of the Irish working class.
The optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole
For the Trotskyites, the world of politics and power is a Grimms' Fairy Tale; there are no grey areas and subtleties, only bad witches and good fairies. Thus, the very fact that Sinn Féin has ministers in the Six-County Executive is proof positive that we have sold out. So completely have they missed the plot that they insist upon comparing the current set up at Stormont to every other government, and claim that Sinn Féin is part of a right-wing cabinet.
What they totally fail to understand, as they have consistently done over the past 30 years, is that this is most certainly not a case of `normal' bourgeois democratic politics. The executive, and republicans' place in it, is part of the ongoing, and unfinished business of dismantling the British connection. Sinn Féin ministers are not in Stormont to run the health service or the schools as part of some permanent settlement. They are there to pursue our revolutionary objective, not by infantile gestures and grandstanding, but by the patient exposure of the real nature of power in the Six Counties and of the logical necessity to bring about a British military and political withdrawal and real self-determination for the Irish people. Only then can we move towards the objectives of social and economic liberation.
Failure to understand this has led the Socialist Party and its predecessor to follow other anti-national elements on the `left' into the most bizarre coalitions. Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'. But of course they were not acting entirely without some form of logic. In the case of the Militant/Socialist Party, that logic was (is?) the strategic goal of a `Socialist Federation of the British Isles'. Now doesn't that sound like a good plan! This is the same type of nonsense that has led left-wing revisionist historians to argue that the arrival of that progressive republican, Oliver Cromwell, to our shores was a good thing really. So instead of Whitehall securocrats we could look forward to being ruled by chaps immersed in the classics of scientific socialism and who at the end of the day agree with Dame Thatcher that Finaghy - and sure why not Finglas for that matter - is as British as Finchley. After all, workers have no country.
Why bother to even discuss these people? Well, for one thing, they appear to be obsessed with us. Their `theoretical' journals devote much space to dissecting the politics of the Republican Movement and their tactics in the 26 Counties are to `expose' Sinn Féin. What this means is that they are trying to use campaigns such as the current Dublin anti-bin charges movement to promote either Socialist Party or Socialist Alliance candidates to contest certain constituencies in the next general election. What all their target constituencies have in common is that they are areas in which Sinn Féin has sitting councillors and where Sinn Féin has opportunities of winning seats in Leinster House. It is a cynical and petty tactic, where the optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole.
A cunning plan? Well, it might be were it not for the fact that its implementation is in the hands of proven political incompetents. Already, the Socialist Alliance shows all the signs of going the way of the Socialist Labour Party of the 1970s, which was torn apart by Trotskyite bickering over the most ridiculous and trivial issues. As for the Socialist Party, well if they enjoy the same success in `exposing' Sinn Féin as they did in taking over the Free State Labour Party, I think our directors of elections may sleep soundly in their beds. Expecting Trotskyites to actually bring something to a successful conclusion is akin to asking a committee of three-year-olds to drive a train from Dublin to Cork. The danger is of course, that serious campaign issues will be lost if such groups are allowed set the agenda. That is why it is crucial that Sinn Féin is on top of matters like the bin charges and that we do not allow these people to dictate our actions. Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves.
So to return to our initial question; what constitutes the Irish Left? Historically, that has been defined by two main issues, an anti-imperialist position on the national question and a programme of radical social change. Only the Republican Movement has consistently held to this over the past 200 years of revolutionary struggle. As Connolly understood, the two are inextricable, and the only genuine progress towards the political and social freedom of the Irish people has been made when they have been in tandem. This was the case in the revolutionary period from 1913 to 1922, and even to a lesser degree in the early years of Fianna Fáil power, when the more blatant symbols of the defeat of 1922/23 were jettisoned and some steps were taken towards creating better living conditions for ordinary people.
That is why Fianna Fáil rather than the Labour Party has commanded the bulk of the constituency that in other countries forms the basis of what are more commonly considered to be left-wing parties. The Labour Party compounded its failure to make any significant breakthrough in the revolutionary period by being consistently to the right of Fianna Fáil on the major national and social issues of the day. And I mean social as in to do with the living conditions of working people rather than the spurious liberal agenda so dear to the heart of the Labour Party and its true constituency, the urban middle class.
The Republican Movement is now in a position to challenge for this leadership of progressive forces in Ireland. In doing so we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the gadflies of the ultra left. Confident of our revolutionary credentials, which certainly do not require the imprimatur of any self-appointed revolutionary elite, we can bring this new phase of struggle to a successful conclusion.BY THE COVEY
The second issue of Spark, the magazine for young republicans, hits the streets this week. The editorial team aim to tackle issues avoided by more mainstream republican publications (ahem!) and approach their job with a refreshingly anarchic attitude. Spark is not afraid to put the boot in, and to prove the point, we have been allowed to reprint the following incisive and bile-laden article from the second issue. Titled Left Behind?, the writer takes to task the myriad of microscopic left-wing groups that populate the wings of the Irish political stage, criticising their obsession with dogma, their self-imposed isolation, their ongoing efforts to `expose' Sinn Féin and worst of all, their all-round ineffectiveness.
Spark is available now from all republican outlets, price £2. Watch out for sellers at Belfast's Féile an Phobail this weekend.
There are possibly as many definitions as to what constitutes the Irish Left as there are groups which claim to be socialist, socialist republican, communist or whatever other label they attach to themselves.
For the Trotskyite groups the Left is a fairly narrow and sparsely inhabited place, defined by one's devotion to the writings of Leon Trotsky on events in the first four decades of the 20th century. The political equivalent of the Seventh Day Adventists, Trotskyites are often so doctrinaire that the only people admitted to be of the one true faith are themselves and their sister sects in other countries.
Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'
But even where they have attempted to break out of their self-imposed isolation, as has been the case with the Militant-dominated Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, they find it difficult to abandon their old habits. Theirs' is a universe peopled by heretics, backsliders and spies. Swap the buzz words of `class', `party', and `revolution' for `God's chosen people', `Church' and `salvation' and you could be kicking up your heels in Geneva in 1540 instead of moping over pints in the corner of the Students' Union.
The Irish ultra-left is defined by a number of principle features; Firstly, it has no genuine roots in the Irish revolutionary movement. It is true that the founders of Irish Trotskyism were former members of the Republican Movement, but they were also self-conscious imitators of the Trotskyite fringe which grew up around the student movement in Britain in the 1960s. Unlike republicans, left-wing elements in the Labour Party, and the Communist Party, their focus was on glamorous and safely distant struggles in Vietnam or China, rather than the mundane work of trade unions, tenant associations, and issues around the national question.
Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves
Little has changed in the intervening period, most of them choosing to act as spectators to the struggle in the Six Counties but reserving the right to lecture republicans from the sidelines on the morality of killing ``workers in uniform'', or urging that the movement's politics be tailored so that we wouldn't be an embarrassment to whatever ridiculous Mary Poppins ``International'' they belonged to. Now that the struggle has moved into a different phase, some of these erstwhile revolutionary pacifists accuse us of having sold out because the IRA is on ceasefire!
We are also told that Sinn Féin has sold its soul for American dollars and the chance to cosy up to respectable people like Bertie and Blair. They can't wait for us to go into coalition so that they can shout `told you so!' and assume the mantle of the leadership of the Irish working class.
The optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole
For the Trotskyites, the world of politics and power is a Grimms' Fairy Tale; there are no grey areas and subtleties, only bad witches and good fairies. Thus, the very fact that Sinn Féin has ministers in the Six-County Executive is proof positive that we have sold out. So completely have they missed the plot that they insist upon comparing the current set up at Stormont to every other government, and claim that Sinn Féin is part of a right-wing cabinet.
What they totally fail to understand, as they have consistently done over the past 30 years, is that this is most certainly not a case of `normal' bourgeois democratic politics. The executive, and republicans' place in it, is part of the ongoing, and unfinished business of dismantling the British connection. Sinn Féin ministers are not in Stormont to run the health service or the schools as part of some permanent settlement. They are there to pursue our revolutionary objective, not by infantile gestures and grandstanding, but by the patient exposure of the real nature of power in the Six Counties and of the logical necessity to bring about a British military and political withdrawal and real self-determination for the Irish people. Only then can we move towards the objectives of social and economic liberation.
Failure to understand this has led the Socialist Party and its predecessor to follow other anti-national elements on the `left' into the most bizarre coalitions. Armed with a Disneyland model of class struggle, these so-called revolutionaries have cosied up to genuine reactionaries and fascists in the trade union movement and the loyalist paramilitary organisations in the pursuit of `Workers' Unity'. But of course they were not acting entirely without some form of logic. In the case of the Militant/Socialist Party, that logic was (is?) the strategic goal of a `Socialist Federation of the British Isles'. Now doesn't that sound like a good plan! This is the same type of nonsense that has led left-wing revisionist historians to argue that the arrival of that progressive republican, Oliver Cromwell, to our shores was a good thing really. So instead of Whitehall securocrats we could look forward to being ruled by chaps immersed in the classics of scientific socialism and who at the end of the day agree with Dame Thatcher that Finaghy - and sure why not Finglas for that matter - is as British as Finchley. After all, workers have no country.
Why bother to even discuss these people? Well, for one thing, they appear to be obsessed with us. Their `theoretical' journals devote much space to dissecting the politics of the Republican Movement and their tactics in the 26 Counties are to `expose' Sinn Féin. What this means is that they are trying to use campaigns such as the current Dublin anti-bin charges movement to promote either Socialist Party or Socialist Alliance candidates to contest certain constituencies in the next general election. What all their target constituencies have in common is that they are areas in which Sinn Féin has sitting councillors and where Sinn Féin has opportunities of winning seats in Leinster House. It is a cynical and petty tactic, where the optimum result for the ultra left would be to prevent Sinn Féin taking seats by attracting a couple of hundred votes away from our candidates to some modern day Lenin, who will make the scales fall from the eyes of the deluded workers and youth who - damn their ignorance! - can't see beneath the cunning façade to the rotten reactionary heart that beats within the breast of Councillor Larry O'Toole.
A cunning plan? Well, it might be were it not for the fact that its implementation is in the hands of proven political incompetents. Already, the Socialist Alliance shows all the signs of going the way of the Socialist Labour Party of the 1970s, which was torn apart by Trotskyite bickering over the most ridiculous and trivial issues. As for the Socialist Party, well if they enjoy the same success in `exposing' Sinn Féin as they did in taking over the Free State Labour Party, I think our directors of elections may sleep soundly in their beds. Expecting Trotskyites to actually bring something to a successful conclusion is akin to asking a committee of three-year-olds to drive a train from Dublin to Cork. The danger is of course, that serious campaign issues will be lost if such groups are allowed set the agenda. That is why it is crucial that Sinn Féin is on top of matters like the bin charges and that we do not allow these people to dictate our actions. Ignore their childish accusations and as far as possible keep them on the far end of the barge pole. They are political parasites who feed off the genuine movements of ordinary people and who have neither the basis of support nor the cop-on to organise these things themselves.
So to return to our initial question; what constitutes the Irish Left? Historically, that has been defined by two main issues, an anti-imperialist position on the national question and a programme of radical social change. Only the Republican Movement has consistently held to this over the past 200 years of revolutionary struggle. As Connolly understood, the two are inextricable, and the only genuine progress towards the political and social freedom of the Irish people has been made when they have been in tandem. This was the case in the revolutionary period from 1913 to 1922, and even to a lesser degree in the early years of Fianna Fáil power, when the more blatant symbols of the defeat of 1922/23 were jettisoned and some steps were taken towards creating better living conditions for ordinary people.
That is why Fianna Fáil rather than the Labour Party has commanded the bulk of the constituency that in other countries forms the basis of what are more commonly considered to be left-wing parties. The Labour Party compounded its failure to make any significant breakthrough in the revolutionary period by being consistently to the right of Fianna Fáil on the major national and social issues of the day. And I mean social as in to do with the living conditions of working people rather than the spurious liberal agenda so dear to the heart of the Labour Party and its true constituency, the urban middle class.
The Republican Movement is now in a position to challenge for this leadership of progressive forces in Ireland. In doing so we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the gadflies of the ultra left. Confident of our revolutionary credentials, which certainly do not require the imprimatur of any self-appointed revolutionary elite, we can bring this new phase of struggle to a successful conclusion.