IRELAND An historic step for Sinn Fein A GREAT DEAL more was at stake in Sinn Fein's decision in November to drop its policy of refusing to participate in the Irish parliament than an electoral or political tactic.
In his address to the Sinn Fein congress, the organization's president, Gerry Adams, explained quite clearly what was involved:
"We should not reject participation out of hand, but we should always be aware that such rejection may become essential. It depends on the objective reality and conditions of the time. It is merely a problematic, deeply-rooted and emotive symptom of the lack of Republican politics and the failure of successive generations of Republicans to grasp the centrality, the primacy and the fundamental need for Republican politics. This truth must be grasped. It is a difficult one for many to accept given the conspiratorial and repressive nature of our own past, our distrust for 'polities and politicians' and a belief that 'polities' is inherently corrupt. But once it is grasped then everything else follows logically, especially the need to develop our struggle at the level of people's understanding." GERRY FOLEY tion of advocates of political action conformed to the militants' rejec- pois tion of politics.
In the 1916 Dublin uprising, the radical leaders were executed. The radicalization that was developing in the 1918-21 war of independence was halted by the acceptance of the Anglo-Irish treaty that sold out the struggle. The pro-Treaty forces managed to isolate the militants politically and crush them militarily.
In the 1930s, there were major attempts to give the Republican movement a radical political-social program. They failed, because of the incapacity of the left and because of the powerful pressure the reactionary Irish clergy was able to bring to bear, both directly and indirectly. After the Second World War, a progressive Republican leadership around Sean McBride tried to undertake political action, but got lost in parliamentary coalitionism.
Campaign for civil rights
After the disastrous defeat of the IRA guerrilla campaign in Northern Ireland from 1956 to 1961, for the first time the majority of the Republican leadership embarked on a course of left-wing political action. It made an historic breakthrough by giving impetus to the campaign for civil rights for the oppressed Northern
Catholics. That movement created the basis for the mass struggle against
Thus Adams explained that tactics have to be based on material conditions and adjusted to the understanding of the people. He acknowledged that this was a difficult concept for the movement to accept and that successive generations of Republicans had failed to grasp the need for a political program of their own.
But how could a revolutionary movement wage such a long fight without an understanding of ideas that are basic for most other revolutionary movements in the world today? The answer points up both the strengths and weaknesses of the Republican movement.
It is a very old movement with roots in a revolt against the moralistic pacifism of Ireland's first mass movement, the movement for Catholic emancipation. Daniel O' Connell and his clerical associates made non-violence into an abstract principle. Their Young Ireland left wing made armed struggle, therefore, into a principle, divorced from politics and concrete reality.
That established a pattern whereby the militant nationalist movement 4 tried to keep its eyes fixed on the perspective of preparing for armed struggle for independence, to keep this apart from all other issues. This meant in practice that its actions tended to become symbolic, designed to arouse by inspiring example rather than to win concrete objectives as part of a general program for organizing the masses of people. The material difficulties of the struggle reinforced this attitude. Radical social conclusions
This conception did not prevent the militant nationalists from being drawn behind mass campaigns led by bourgeois politicians. In fact, as Adams said in his speech, it made that inevitable because the fighters did not have a political program of their own. Conversely, the fighters always tended to come to radical social conclusions. But this process was always stopped short. Moreover, repeated opportunist degenerathe basis for the mass struggle against oppression that has continued for 18 years.
But most of that leadership, the "official" Republicans, became afraid of what they had unleashed. An important factor in this was a stagist theoretical framework they took over from Stalinist political advisors. They did not expect a "democratic" movement to lead to a violent crisis of the Northern society. And so they failed to prepare either the oppressed population or their members for a blowup. They immediately faced a rebellion from those who saw them as militarily weak, who formed the Provisionals, the present Republican movement. The Officials feared the Catholic revolt was "setting Protestant worker against Catholic worker." And so they tried to retreat from the struggle. That being impossible, they more and more tried to impose their concept of politics by bureaucratic means, leading to enormous bitterness and a violent split. Their organization was destroyed as a political force and became a pro-imperialist sect, now called the Workers' Party. This experience became a major obstacle to politicization in the Republican movement.
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
IRELAND
The Provisionals, however, turned to radical ideas and political forms of action out of their own experience. When the armed struggle became isolated, by the mid-1970's if not earlier, they turned to mass action to defend imprisoned Republicans threatened with very long sentences under inhuman conditions. Impelled by a hunger strike to the death of Republican prisoners, this movement became really massive and opened the way for the first successful Republican election campaigns in our time.
Now, with the dropping of abstentionism, this process of politicization has reached a new stage. The way this change has been carried out indicates a high level of political maturity and skill of the leadership that has emerged from 18 years of violent struggle. This Republican leadership is the first in 60 years to succeed in making a political turn without a devastating split (at least so far). Its political adeptness and principled approach in conducting a democratic and educative debate offer hope for new steps forward for the Irish revolutionary movement.
The abandonment of abstention comes at a challenging time for the Republican movement. The Anglo-Irish Accord has both created illusions of negotiated progress among the oppressed Catholics and enraged the pro-imperialist Protestants.
Pressure on the nationalist population has increased. At the same time, in the last elections in the North, Republicans suffered setbacks. The electoral polls in the South also show that illusions in the agreement pose dangers for the anti-imperialist movement. Unless the masses in the South can be shown the link between the fight against imperialism and their
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