Ireland: The Promise of Socialism Joe Craig, John McAnulty and Paul Flanagan This book is a timely intervention into the debate about the future of socialism in Ireland. It takes issue with the two major strands in the argument on the left: those who believe that the national question is an outdated distraction from real class politics and those who put their hopes for socialism in a blind tail-ending of the Republican movement.
Its scope is wide ranging. It situates the struggle for socialism in Ireland within a broad framework covering the fall of the Stalinist states of Eastern Europe, European integration, the relationship between the struggle for socialism and women's liberation and the question of the environment.
The starting point is the failure of both partitioned states; the South, paralysed by a massive international debt and saved only in the short term by EU aid, and the North, totally dependent on political, military and economic aid from Britain.
Some, including John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in the North believe the solution to the problem of what he calls the divided people of Ireland is regional self government within a federal EU. The Dublin ruling class is keen on this idea and believes that closer union within the EU is the way to overcome the country's hisulation toric dependence on Britain. Thus Irish independence is to be achieved by greater European unity. Unfortunately for them a large section of the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland does not share this Euro ideal. Neo-colonialism
This exchange of dependence on Britain for dependence on the EU is precisely what occurred after 1960 in the South. The attempt at native economic development between 1932 and 1958 ran into the sand by the late fifties. What followed was an abrupt aboutturn by the Fianna Fail government - opening the economy to foreign capital and a dash for membership of the European Union. The effect of the influx of foreign capital was a rapid growth in the number of jobs controlled by multinational capital and the decimation of domestic industry.
The book takes issue wit the argument, The book takes issue with the argument, put forward by the Socialist Workers Movement and others, that the South is not a neo-colony. This would have us believe that the South is not to be bracketed with the underdeveloped world, that it is no more subject to the ebbs and flows of international capital than other economy and finally, that Dublin is capable of acting on its own behalf outside the control of its colonial masters.
The fact is that the Irish economy was shaped in Britain's interests, that what determines capital accumulation in Ireland is the capital flows of the imperialist countries and, finally, that despite those sectors, such as drugs, computers and electronics which have sprouted since the influx of multinational capital in the 1960s and which make such a big difference to the balance of trade, there remains a high dependence by native capital on the British market. This dependence was clear in the big devaluation of the Irish pound after the British currency crashed out of the ERM in 1992.
One of the most important consequences of this dependence on multinational capital is the fact that about 12% of GDP is repatriated by the same multinationals. The lack of investment which accompanies such massive capital outflows means that manufacturing productivity in both parts of Ireland is about 75% of that in Britain and Britain is by no means a world leader in this area. The National Question
As well as being a neo-colony (the South) and a colony (the North), Ireland has an unresolved national question. British rule has never been accepted by the majority of the people of Ireland and Britain can only maintain that rule through repression and sectarianism. For the authors, there is only one legitimate response to this oppression; immediate withdrawal and disbanding of the repressive forces which it has brought into being.
This demand is a democratic one but should not, as some socialists do, be counterpoised to socialism. As the book points out: "Avoiding or fudging political issues while promoting purely economic ones... surrenders these questions to the capitalist class.... At the same time, the struggle for self determination, while it may improve the conditions for the struggle for socialism, is not the same thing. A unified 32 state is not the solution to the problems of Irish workers."
Workers in Britain have a responsibility to demand British withdrawal, if only because of the classic Marxist dictum that a nation which oppresses another can never itself be free - a phase which has been borne out repeatedly in the history of relations between Britain and Ireland. Workers Unity
The book argues that Protestants are not a separate nation and it is because they cannot clearly identify themselves as British, Irish, Northern Irish or an Ulster nationality that they define themselves by religion. The call for Protestant self-determination is an attempt to give their reactionary and pro-imperialist role a democratic cover. The Northern state was and is based on a sectarian head-count.
Sectarianism cannot be reduced to the ideas in peoples heads - it is woven in to the very fabric of the northern statelet which was to its founders to be a Protestant State with a Protestant Parliament. Seeing sectarianism in this way feeds easily into the view promoted by the British that the war is an irrational feud which needs the presence of themselves to keep the fanatics apart. The authors argue that socialists need to challenge the sectarian ideas held by many Protestant workers: not capitulate to them.
Many socialists so strongly desire workers unity that they ignore or play down inconvenient facts. Employment discrimination is a manifestation of the sectarian nature of the Six County State and, as the book points out, the differential in Catholic and Protestant unemployment has changed little under the benign reigns of various British direct rulers. Neither do the authors counterpoise the fight against employment discrimination, as some "equality-of-misery" socialists would have it, to a general fight against unemployment as it affects all workers.
Demanding unity between Catholic and Protestant workers while ignoring the fact that the majority of the workforce refuses even to accept that discrimination exists, is a false and fragile unity. On the same tack, the authors place no reliance on anti-discrimination legislation from Britain or pressuring the investment policies of US transnationals.
The struggle for national self determination is not a diversion from what some call the bread and butter issues in the North of Ireland. On the contrary, the fight to dismantle the sectarian state grew out of basic issues such as discrimination in jobs and housing. Attempting to unify the working class around these issues while ignoring the political divisions will not succeed. Sooner or later they will fall apart under the pressure of the Unionist ruling class which bases itself on sectarianism.
The usual response for the trade union leadership in the North to sectarian murders has been to call on the British State - in the guise of the Army or the police (RUC) - for protection, this in spite of the well documented collaboration between both of those and loyalist murder gangs. The only true defence is workers self defence.
The first step is to denounce all attacks on workers because of their religion and to demand that all organisations which claim to defend workers campaign against sectarian attacks. Such a defence campaign would necessarily be anti-Loyalist since loyalist is based on Protestant sectarianism. For Republicans, targeting mainly Protestant towns, accepting Protestant civilian casualties which wouldn't be accepted if they were Catholics, and refusal to confront the bigotry of the Catholic Church, are rightly denounced.
Rejection of Protestant self-determination does not mean rejection of the need for minority rights in a united state. Worries about the sectarianism of the South should not however lead socialists to support Protestant sectarianism in the guise of Protestant self determination or unity by consent.
Reformists put forward the demand for workers unity in the north as the alternative to sectarianism but limit it to unity between Catholic and Protestant workers in the North. Only a programme of unity of all workers North and South, offers an alternative to both Loyalist and bourgeois nationalism. The Republicans and armed struggle
The book defends republicans who fight against imperialism, including their right to use armed force. While it doesn't demand of republicans as a precondition of support that they adopt a socialist programme, this implies in no way support for the republicans nor for their methods. Military struggles by their nature are elitist and many republicans elevate armed struggle into a principle. The republicans have furthermore combined militarism with reformist politics and more recently developed a strategy of alliance with the bourgeoisie North and South in the so- called pan-nationalist alliance.
The book asserts that the struggle for self determination for the whole of the Irish people is fundamentally democratic and must be supported. How that self-determination is expressed is itself a matter of struggle. For socialists, it is clear that real democracy and equality will only be possible in a workers republic. This is why, the authors argue, socialists should fight for the concrete expression of self determination (without giving up unconditional support for the struggle for self determination, whether it makes socialism its goal or not.)
Republican politics offers no solution to the problems of the working class north or south, let alone to loyalist workers. Breaking out of the impasse of republican politics requires mass action and a programme which is not only democratic but addresses the needs of workers especially in the South. The Southern working class is the key to the destruction of the sectarian northern statelet but these workers will not be mobilised around the demand the demand for self determination though the vast majority favour self determination and Irish unity.
A large part of the failure of the Republicans to win significant support in the South has been its failure to confront the backward, bigoted and reactionary ruling class on the question of women's rights. Never having challenged the notion of family, republicans have been sidelined as more and more cases of violence against women, abuse of children and the hypocrisy of many priests who preached celibacy but acted otherwise, have emerged from behind the facade of the Irish catholic family.
The book criticises the so-called social partnership promoted by the leadership of all the main unions in the South and which is nothing less than class collaboration. This has left the mass of workers open to the attacks represented by unemployment, emigration, cuts in welfare, new management techniques and privatisation.
A key political requirement in the South is to break the working class from its support for Fianna Fail, and encouraging workers to identify with the need for a party which represents their interests. The authors do not support the Irish Labour Party, which they argue cannot be reformed, but they argue that building a genuine workers party means first of all winning workers to support class politics. The success of such initiatives have no small impact on the struggle for socialism in England, Scotland and Wales. * reviewed by David Coen Self-published, Belfast, August 1996. Cheques (£5.00 +50p p+p) to Socialist Democracy, PO Box 40, Belfast, N. Ireland