IS and Ireland: A curt answer to a non-reply

Submitted by AWL on 18 February, 2014 - 4:51

Dear comrades,

we find your 'reply' to our critique of your line on Ireland astonishing to say the least.

Our first difficulty is in taking it seriously! If it were the work of some enterprising, but dull comrades, in their own names, that might perhaps explain it. But this is the work of two of our brightest comrades, and published in your name! As a reply it is a tissue of evasions (the word "tedious" with which it is peppered is a marvellous escape hatch from the issues raised in our pamphlet) and serves only to show once more the weakness of your case; you merely restate your case, thus approaching the SLL's definition of a profound argument: saying things twice!

The second thing to note is the language, and the hysterical tone, resembling more the language of a witch-hunt (and let's face it, since we joined IS in late '68 the treatment of the Trotskyist Tendency has seldom risen above the level of crude witch-hunting) than an attempt to arrive at the truth by argument. "Lies","blatant dishonesty more worthy of the professional liars of the Workers' Press"; ”slanders"; "factional bad faith"; "simple ignorance"; “Matgamna's rebellious Irish’ satraps" etc. (What are satraps anyway? We thought they were Persian viceroys....) We do not complain: we merely note that our smooth comrades, who wear their "niceness" like a badge, resort here to the tone and language of the proverbial fishwife. To us it is proof that our attack drew blood. Good! Those responsible for the group's line on Ireland deserve to be made to feel their own responsibility.

The third thing to note is that the reply is largely an irrelevance according to its own terms of reference. You denounce violently the charge that in actual fact, according to the logic of actual politics, IS supported the troops, (and we never said IS explicitly supported them). Much ink, paper and spleen is spent in showing why and how it "would” be (it was?) quite principled to support the troops. If you are right that you didn't support them, why bother?

We will reply to your 'case’ as briefly as possible. Time prevents a complete restatement of our case. We assume comrades have read the T.T. pamphlet, and recommend those who haven't to do so.

THE TROOPS

Briefly then, to repeat. For British imperialism the Northern 6 Cos. which were once the most profitable chunk of Ireland, are now the least profitable. Britain has to pay large sums of money (small compared with profits she reaps) in order to keep up the level of social services. The Orange statelet, once so valuable, has now become an embarrassment. Thus British capital wants a united 32 counties neo-colony. The reunification that Britain envisaged was a slow evolutionary process, gradually giving reforms to the Catholic minority who would be safely under the leadership of the Catholic middle class - while trying to stifle the Orange backlash, making sure that the Orange industrialists who also want reunification don't lose the leadership of the Protestant working class to the Paisleyites.

It didn't work out like that. The puppet government of Stormont didn't quench the Catholics thirst for reforms; they didn't control the Orange reaction. There was an eruption and British imperialism had to do the job itself. Its agents were the troops.

The role of the troops was not just to return the situation to the status quo, they had to create a new superstructure for the future rule of imperialism They had to immediately prevent the breakup of the 6 Cos., but also to prepare for future unification with the 26Cos. They had to take away the newly won independence of the Catholic workers, and put them back under the hegemony of the Catholic middle class and the church. They had to smother or smash the Orange reaction. This could and did involve attacking the Paisleyites. It could, and may very well in the future, involve physically attacking the Catholic workers. It could and did involve politically and therefore militarily disarming the autonomous Catholic areas in Belfast and Derry.

Of all this Marks an Palmer see only the physical attacks on the Paisleyites. They do not see the less obvious but no less real political attack on the Catholic workers. However, let us by a hypothetical argument make things more clear for you. SW was demanding that the barricades in Belfast and Derry should stay up until certain demands were met – a slogan which we said was in obvious contradiction to the presence of the troops. Now suppose that the Catholics, following SW's advice, had refused to take their barricades down? Suppose that the troops had been unsuccessful in their efforts at persuading the Catholics to give up their autonomy – then undoubtedly they would have used force. Therefore at one and the same time they would be clobbering both the Paisleyites and the Catholics. Presumably then we would have to change our slogans according to a very rapidly changing reality.

The point is precisely that one bases one's programme, one's agitation and propaganda not on a one-sided interpretation of the role of the troops but on their overall role, not on their apparent role (defending Catholics from Paisleyites) but on their real role (making sure that the Catholics didn't defend themselves). If we don't do so, we are merely reflecting the existing level of understanding; we are standing objectively on the side of the Catholic middle class, who formed an alliance with imperialism against those who were calling for the withdrawal of British troops. Of course they were a small minority, but they were the most conscious, most progressive elements in the struggle and we should have been reinforcing their hostility to the troops and supporting them in their demands. Incidentally, the republicans are a very amorphous group. In Derry where the young republicans are the most progressive section, they were calling for the withdrawal of the troops. As for the SLL and RSL sectlets in the 6 counties, we agree entirely that they did nothing to campaign around the demand. Following the lead of their mentors in London, they had a totally abstract concept of class unity which verged on denying that there was any religious friction at all. We think it is false to judge the demand for the withdrawal of the troops by looking at the performance of these nit-wits.

You are, comrades, still, it seems, in the panic which prompted you to abandon the call for the withdrawal of imperialist troops last August: "We should not forget that even today the Paisleyites/UVF force probably have more men at their disposal, under arms or with access to them, in N.I. than either the Catholics or the British army." The imlication is that British imperialism is so weak that it needs our help - thus an oblique justification is offered for the analogy you make with Trotsky's approval for giving working class support to liberal bourgeois forces against reaction, all the better later to deal with the liberals. Therefore the troops must stay... But in that case should IS not call for more troops in order to ensure the better security of life and limbs of the Catholics and PD?

You quote Trotsky to back up your case. We think that you would have done your own cause better not to bother. Quoting Trotsky can be dangerous, comrades! Briefly, Trotsky argues that it might be in the workers' interests to fight side by side with 'democratic' bourgeois forces, including the army, against the fascists and backward-going forces - with the revolutionary workers "maintaining their complete political independence". Right!

Now during last Autumn, IS may have preserved what was left of its virginity by saying in the small print of SW 'no confidence' in the troops. But that is not the issue; nor does it fulfil the conditions stressed by Trotsky. That condition is independence of the masses involved, i.e. the Catholic workers. Did the Catholic workers maintain their independence? No, they did not. IS did, but it approaches sectarian ego-centrism to forget that the masses in N.I did not; and to ignore our own possibilities here. (Which is the issue between the T,T and the comrades of the EC). What could IS have done to reinforce and fight for the independence of the Catholic masses? By at least warning of the contradiction between the troops and self-defence, between the troops and free areas, between troops and the barricades. While this contradiction was working itself out in real life, in the political surrender of the barricades and of self-reliance of the masses to the British army, IS was relegating it to the far-distant future.

The article you quote from SW is from October, and the renewed period of Protestant which the troops easily controlled. In the earlier crucial period when the barricades were first coming down in Derry and Belfast, SW didn't call for the defence of the barricades in any immediate sense. Why? To do so necessarily implied to call for resistance to the troops.

Your own quote from Trotsky on the hypothetical relations of a revolutionary Belgium and the attitude of the French working class in exploiting the contradictions between Germany and France to aid Belgium, is the best answer to you on this. The hypothetical case is of the sending of arms to Belgium by the French bourgeois state. In that case, the French workers would aid the French bourgeoisie. Yes.

But what if French imperialist 'aid' to a proletarian Belgium were not the sending of arms, but (using superior military strength) the substituting of their own army and their own action for Belgian proletarian self-reliance, in a drive to take physical control which they would then use as they liked? That's the real analogy with N.I. The British government didn't send guns (we wouldn't have the least objection to that...); it took control in its own interest. In such a case the French proletariat would oppose such 'aid' (i.e. such strangulation) to proletarian Belgium. And anybody who would argue otherwise, for the need to save, physically, Belgium and Belgian labour movement from the Nazis – who would annihilate the labour movement – would be a charlatan. In fact such people were called social patriots, they capitulated to the liberal bourgeoisie, pretending, as did the CPs, that they were utilising contradictions amongst the class enemy to further their own ends.

In most of the cases mentioned in these quotes, there is a weak and vacillating liberal bourgeoisie threatened by a considerable and powerful militarist or fascist reactionary force, with a strong section of the bourgeoisie lined up behind them. This is not the case in Ireland. The Paisleyites have no section of the bourgeoisie behind them (except those that take their ideology more seriously than their purses). The only conjuncture in which the bourgeoisie could line up behind the Paisleyites is the imminence of a proletarian revolution, which means by definition that the Protestant workers are not behind Paisley. That is why we must be careful when we call them fascists. To suggest, as do Marks and Palmer, that the Paisleyites are the strongest force in the set up, is ludicrous nonsense. British imperialism is militarily, politically and economically the master of the situation. Look at the ease with which, in a few weeks, they had the whole situation under their control.

We repeat, comrades: quoting Trotsky is dangerous. Call yourselves Trotskyists if you like. Call us the “Trotskyist" Tendency (quotation marks are cheap enough). But beware of calling Leon Trotsky to the witness stand. He only speaks against you.

But more. It was a matter of a neo-colonial military power being deployed in a sector of a semi-colony. But - "revolutionary socialists at that point had parallel interests with the British bourgeois state in wishing the defeat of Paisleyite mob power", say Palmer and Marks, adding an entirely new, revolutionary definition of imperialist interest. According to this cosy formula, British revolutionary socialists were allowed to side with British imperialism, to aid it by embellishing its work and defending its actions before the already too miseducated British workers. How much further from Leninism can one get?

Talk of Lenin uniting with the Provisional Government in July 1917 to fight Kornilov is no more useful for your purpose of self-justification?Mass independence was preserved and grew. Lenin did not bow to the Provisional Government for fear of the physical effects of a Kornilov victory on the workers. The Bolsheviks did not allow the Provisional Government grasp on the situation to tighten. On the contrary - their support for Kerensky was indeed that of a rope for the hanged man. In Ireland IS objectively supported the complete subordination of the mass Catholic movement to the British government and its agents. There is no comparison.

Nor is it comparable with Trotsky's attitude to the Black/Red referendum in Prussia in 1931. Trotsky condemned CP/Nazi unity against the social democratic government and argued for a united working class front against the bourgeoisie and first of all the fascists. The GPs never heeded the call for a working class united front. Soon after the victory of the fascists, they went in, in panic, not for a United Front but Popular Fronts. What were these? The subordination of the workers and their parties to the 'liberal’ bourgeoisie as the 'lesser evil’. Spain is the most extreme example. Marks and Palmer are indignant at any comparison of the CP then and IS & Ireland. "In Spain the stalinists argued for the parallel interest of the liberal bourgeoisie and the workers in the defeat of fascism, to demanding the subordination and indeed the liquidation of all independent centres of working class power politically, militarily and industrially to the bourgeoisie, their army and state." Which is precisely what IS did in N.I. - in practice. Not accidentally Marks and Palmer do not bother to talk about how Trotsky would have fought against this subordination. Trotsky saw that keeping the political independence of the workers meant voting against the military budget in the Cortes. This is addressed, of course, not to the Cortes but as a slogan to the masses, - "No confidence in the bourgeoisie!". If IS had an MP would we have instructed him to vote against the British expedition in N.I.? We certainly hope so. But then would not this be in contradiction to refusing to call for the withdrawal of the troops?

There is of course a difference between the stalinists in Spain and IS in N.I., and subjectively not a small one, in that IS didn't demand the subordination and didn't want it. But you were so panic-stricken, comrades, so lacking in confidence ad in perspective, that you did nothing to prevent it. In actual political logic you stumbled into popular frontism (as did the POUM in Spain 1936-37). When Marks and Palmer talk about parallel interests with imperialism (though they don't actually call it imperialism) they underline the grotesque misuse you make of Trotsky's quotes on the question, and especially the one on Prussia in l93l.

But in any case it is nonsense to just say that IS "called for no confidence or no concessions to the troops" without recalling that IS openly attacked those who opposed the presence of troops. Marks in SW openly argued that the troops were essential to the arming of the Catholics and their physical safety. That was spreading illusions – whatever the reservations in the small print. Of course IS did “argue against demobilisation, politically or militarily” (except at the crucial moment in September when to do so would have called for resistance to the British troops).

BREATHING SPACE

"The left wing in the Catholic working class have used the period since to strengthen their ability to defend themselves. PD also have used the months to try and develop their base, both organisationally and politically. Neither would have been possible under conditions of a religious civil war between Catholics and Protestants.” - Incredible! The barricades have been dismantled by the troops, the Catholic workers are firmly under the leadership of the middle class, they have lost their self-reliance and independence - and yet, they are better prepared to defend themselves.... Truly all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds! And what is the substantiation for this amazing assertion - that a few more guns have been imported and PD has begun to get itself organised (which we think it would have been better advised to do before the fire and not during it). Well, PD may be better prepared, but are the Catholic workers? No they are not.

SECESSION

To compare the demand of the Trotskyist Tendency on secession in N,I. with a demand for secession of Arab areas in Israel is, frankly, in bad faith. The comrades hope it will pass because the reference is so obscure. Briefly the Israeli secession demand (a left Zionist demand) would have strengthened the Zionists, with the seceded trees under the hegemony of Israel (not long ago there was talk of a similar state for the West Bank). Secession in N.I. would have rendered the Orange state unviable, made its continued existence outside a united Ireland (where it might have some sort of autonomy) impossible. That is how we saw it. Have any Orange elements ever raised this demand? Again the analogy doesn't stand.

You distinguish between the right of self determination and advocacy of it. In general true; but for Ireland it won't do. Yet again you show that you see the 6 cos. as a unit, a nation; and not Ireland a unit, the nation, with the 6 Cos. torn out by imperialist violence. British socialists don't raise the self determination demand; the Irish people, in their vast majority, have. For centuries. In the 6 Cos. itself the Catholic nationalist vote has at least this vestigial republican content.

Secession is denounced as a "stages theory". It is. It begins with reality, trying to give a republican logic to the actual catholic struggle. "Stages theory" has emotive connotations - mensheviks and stalinists. The difference? The mensheviks and stalinists imposed preconceived stages theories on realities where other and better possibilities existed. This was its reactionary character. But there are stages in reality based on real possibilities. Stages can be bridges, or they can be road blocks. Lenin, in most of his writings, understood this (and Marks and Palmer, e.g. in their 'reply’, put forward a stagist theory on the civil rights movement, a reactionary one at that! And yet another reactionary stagist theory is the breathing space argument......) In relation to N.I. we said precisely what the alternatives have been shown to be. Either British consolidation - or a break up along republican lines. Stages? Yes. And the present stage is what? British entrenchment and massive intensification of catholic/protestant hostilities. True, the secession demand accepted unity as possible only in the future: this is realistic (short of a workers' revolution in Britain or Europe) IS's line has had no other effect. Palmer and Marks: in other words they look to other factors than the struggle of the class to save them from a situation which they can see no way to alter". Terrible! The point, comrades, is that we are dealing with a working class chronically divided over many decades with the division institutionalised in a state structure that is artificial to a rare degree. The talk of immediate class unity in action is idiotic phrase-mongering, nice to think of but day-dreaming. If IS had followed the logic of this we would have had a line very similar to the SLL and the RSL.

We proposed the strategy grounded in the recognition of the unsolved national question in Ireland and of its position at the root of working class division.

We did not accuse those who mentioned the agonising problem of Belfast as a democratic quibble, of saying that the border was the best of all possible borders. We said it of those who refused to consider the logic of the map showing that the areas west of the Bann (half of N.I.) had a Catholic majority - because these areas are mainly agricultural and not heavily populated.

We are criticised for withdrawing the emergency secession demand (suggested pre-August precisely for the situation of pogroms etc.) We saw it not as an all-time panacea. The situation has changed: Self-determination remains a principled basic slogan; one interpretation of how to achieve it, contingent on a certain situation, no longer applies. Marks and Palmer: “Whatever became of their insistence on the question of demands that 'the content and meaning does not differ according to whether action might be on a mass scale or on a tiny scale'?” What we said was that there cannot be an internal contradiction between propaganda and agitation depending on the likely immediate effects: remember Marks at the time arguing that we could tacitly accept troops in our 'agitation’ and reject them in our 'propaganda’, because propaganda wouldn't lead to action. Does that mean that a programmatic concept (and its components theory, propaganda and agitation) is forever fixed, unalterable, that there are no contingency responses?

We retreated from one interpretation of the basic point (self determination) as not immediately applicable. You equate this with the IS retreat from the basic point itself; in this case self-reliance, no subordination to imperialism The existing situation cannot dictate demands (slogans) contradicting our strategy: but not all strategies are at all times appropriate, or immediately relevant. The strategy of the break-up of the state is not applicable when the upsurge has died down. Moreover: there was a massive contradiction between accepting the troops and believing in working class independence. The difference is that the secession slogan was dropped when it could no longer be applied; but IS dropped the troops slogan just when it did become crucial.

AGITATION AND PROPAGANDA

For our own part, were we "as tedious as a king" we think that we could find it in our hearts to bestow it all upon comrades Marks and Palmer, for they obviously have not bothered to reply to this very boring argument.

To restate the original case. In his article Fine Slogans and Grim Reality (SW 18.9.69) Cde Marks identifies agitation (slogans) with calls to action, and propaganda (small print) with education. This is the mistake Martynov made in "rendering Plekhanov more profound". Lenin showed that agitation and propaganda are both educational and could both lead to action, and that they both came from a common source - our programme and analysis of reality. Martynov made this artificial distinction between agitation and propaganda because he wanted to be a Marxist in "discussion and propaganda" but not in his "calls to action".

Comrades Marks and Palmer don't bother to defend the article. Instead they decide that attack is the best form of defence. Instead of them having an opportunist conception of the difference between agitation and propaganda,we have apparently a sectarian conception of the difference - i.e. we don't relate our tactics to reality, we are abstract propagandists. Unfortunately they don't try to substantiate this assertion.

If it was sectarian to say that the troops were not there with parallel interests to the Catholic workers, but to attack them (and not in the distant future but here and now, even if not physically) and crystallise this with the slogan British Troops Out - then we plead guilty. But who was it who ignored reality? In his article Marks talked about "a future turn in the situation when the demolition of the barricades may be needed in the interests of British capital itself". Now according to his logic, when the troops did start taking down the barricades (that very same week) then the first stage - troops +-Catholics v. Paisleyites - had finished. Shouldn't IS then have re-incorporated the demand for troops to go?

SOUTHERN FACTORIES

Perhaps Sean Matgamna discussed the possibly chauvinist overtones of the demand for seizure of southern factories last Autumn. It is not true to say he opposed it. The LWR has actually succeeded in interesting workers in Dublin (in a car assembly plant) in the idea. In their reply the comrades give a prominence to the demand that was absent last Autumn.

In any case, while good, its limitations must be seen. It can hardly be a major response or strategy at this stage. It presupposes a really advanced level of consciousness in the south. Any seizures would in fact probably be the work of republicans. To equate the seizure with working class politics in anticipation is highly optimistic, as is also to think that it could, without an actual revolution of the working class in the South (and this can be evoked just by Catholic solidarity?!!) lead to a successful class call to the Paisleyites. Do the comrades think factories seizures in the south would lead to clearer class struggles in the North? Alas it is not so simple. It would probably have as exacerbating an effect on inter-working class relations in the north as the secession demand. 'When a good idea is raised to a great panacea one descends once more to fantasies.

ICRSC

We are accused of not building ICRSC - and by implication of not being active on the Irish question in Britain. Over a year ago one of the biggest solidarity demonstrations was organised by us in Manchester (see SW report), and a campaign was set up. Last August and September we organised meetings and demonstrations (extensively reported in the Guardian – or doesn't Cde Palmer read it?). Manchester No.1 branch sent two volunteers to Belfast when it seemed that a conflict between troops and Catholics was developing on the barricades issue. Lack of interest? Of activity? True, we were distrustful of the ICRSC and its many shifts and turns. True also, in many of our leaflets, we turned a left face to the Irish workers, raised the workers' republic demand and specific solidarity with the. left in N.I. with the Irish workers we approached.

It is implied that Sean Matgamna believed a solidarity movement should be based only on a full socialist programme! Nonsense. We did believe in the need to turn to the Irish workers in Britain with socialist propaganda on the basis of solidarity with the left in Ireland. Palmer and Marks argue that in the early stages of civil rights it was necessary "to support all the genuinely anti-Unionist forces" - i.e. even the Green Tories. With the concessions after August these moved out and civil rights reached its second stage, a socialist or at least social emphasis. Socialists should have concentrated on solidarity with the left while not excluding general solidarity. NICRA was already doing what ICRSC did. The final joke was PD's repudiation of ICRSC. The story of ICRSC is one of tailing after the liberal bourgeois demands in Ireland followed by panic switching of slogans, and by decline. The defence is just as ludicrous.

P.D. AND THE L.W.R.

To say we lie about the EC or individuals in it opposing left unity in Ireland is useless. We can quote NC resolutions. When Marks and Palmer wrote that the LWR opposes unity they had in their possession a letter from the LWR secretary agreeing to the unity conference proposed last December by the IS NC and then dropped!

In general LWR and PD relations are very bad. The LWR finds it difficult to forgive the antics of PD's leaders in calling for British troops: they tend to make the mistake of confusing the raw mass movement of PD with those leaders whom they know and distrust. Their attitude is reinforced by, for example, PD selling Maoist literature at its conference (including such works as In Defence of Stalin) while barring the Dublin Trotskyists' fortnightly paper Workers’ Republic. Marxists in Britain should help overcome the animosities, recognising the need for a new Marxist organisation, whilst seeing ED for what it is - a raw and amorphous group. As for the "touchstone" for unity in Ireland being Gillespie's paper - who decides? - it should have been decided at the conference which the IS NC proposed last December (which Palmer thereafter worked against). Instead it is sprung" on the left as a factional manoeuvre in a way best calculated to alienate the LWR. However, we think that the LWR should participate.

To sum up, comrades. We have followed in the tracks of your appointed attorneys, picking up their political litter. We missed out on some silly bits, like where they say we believe IS consciously obstructed the growth of a revolutionary socialist movement in Ireland! Indeed, we emphasise your good intentions. But good intentions are not enough - principled politics are far better.

Yours fraternally,

Sean Matgamna

Rachel Matgamna

Joe Wright

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