Category Archives: The Left

Fragments of Victory’: The Contemporary Irish Left’, book review (6 of 6)

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The most damning judgements in Fragments are that the movements since 2008 ‘failed to identify an avenue through which society might be changed’; ‘it is unlikely the Trotskyist People before Profit will manage to articulate a viable alternative . . . and the steps between the current situation and the long-term goal of socialism are less clear than ever before. The radical left ‘were engaged in a form of politics incapable of realising its own aims.’  (p183, 191, 192 & 181)

The left made gains during the years covered by the book, expressed in some relatively modest electoral successes, but this was achieved though pursuit of a strategy and practice that might be considered as one of least resistance, which had inevitable shortcomings and meant these ‘steps’ were not an ‘avenue through which society might be changed’; entailed a lack of articulation of ‘a viable alternative’; lacked clarity over how to achieve ‘the long-term goal of socialism’ and gave rise to the perception that its politics was ‘incapable of realising its own aims.’

This is not only a question of an absence of a revolutionary socialist programme, which we have already noted in previous posts.  The left has worked under the assumption that achievement of  its objectives requires a revolutionary party, which alone would understand the necessity for revolution and how it may be achieved, and that in its various forms it is the nucleus of this party, which is considered to be revolutionary because its leaders truly believe in revolution (regardless of how it looks from outside).  This obviously means that its own activity and building its own organisations are the absolute priority.

I am reminded of the slogan that the duty of a revolutionary is to make the revolution, except socialist revolutions are not primarily made by revolutionaries but by the working class in its great majority.  The emancipation of the working class can be the work only of the working class itself, as someone famous once said.  This is one of many principles widely acknowledged but without understanding what it entails.  Revolutionaries are ‘the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class . . . which pushes forward all others [with] the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.’ (Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto).

The working class party is built not solely or even mainly by the activists of the left but mainly by the working class itself, with the socialist movement playing the role just mentioned.  Instead, the mantra of building the party is reduced to building the existing left organisations not as a consequence of the development of mass working class movements but separate from them.  Revolutionary organisations can only develop if they find within the working class this growth of socialist consciousness, which is itself partly a result of their own activity but only as an integral part of the struggles of the working class itself.

We have noted the need to challenge the existing leadership of the trade union movement as an example of what is needed to begin addressing these tasks. We have noted that the limits of single issue campaigns means that they were not a substitute, however useful they may be otherwise, and that the political education that was given was the failed statist politics that subordinates the class’s own activity to that of the capitalist state. This view has come to dominate understanding of what ‘socialism’ is and reflects the historical domination of social-democracy and Stalinism.

This was rudely demonstrated by the left’s customary call for nationalisation being appropriated by the state in relation to the banking system when it faced collapse; which was carried out to protect both capitalist ownership and itself, while dumping the cost on the working class.  I have seen it defended on the grounds that this was not ‘socialist’ nationalisation, but this complaint just admits its unavoidably capitalist character.  Could capitalist state ownership be anything other than capitalist? How could the capitalist state introduce working class control and ownership when it was its own ownership that was asserted?

Progress through the lines of least resistance does not necessarily involve conscious opportunism, precisely because it does involve progress, but like all opportunism it sacrifices long term principle for short term gains. Gains which can more readily dissolve as circumstances change and change they always do.  The approach of appearing more ‘practical’ and attuned to workers’ existing consciousness by declaring that one can leverage the state to do what the workers movement itself must do, through a ‘left government’ for example, does not educate, in fact miseducates, the working class.

This does not invalidate the struggle for reforms that of necessity are under the purview of the state, but these are of benefit not only, or so much, for their direct effects but for their arising from the agency of the working class through the struggle to impose its will on the state and capitalist class.  Reforms are ultimately required to create the best conditions for a strong workers’ movement, and not as solutions to their problems that act to co-opt workers to dependence on the state.  Handed down from above they can primarily be seen as performing the latter role. 

The alternative of seeking to mobilise workers when their organisations are bureaucratised and the majority are either apathetic or antipathetic, is often seen as less practical, less advised, and ‘ultra-left’.  However, the point of socialist argument and agitation is often not with the expectation of eliciting immediate action but to advance political consciousness, which sometimes might be seen as widening what is called the ‘Overton window’.

This approach addresses the argument that only in revolutionary times or circumstances can one advance revolutionary demands.  All independent action by the working class is a step towards its own emancipation, no matter how small, just as reliance on the state is not.  Reforms won from the state are significant such steps if they involve independent organisation of the workers’ movement to achieve them.  As Marx said in the Communist Manifesto in relation to workers’ struggles: ‘Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers.’

Something similar was pointed out by James Connolly, who knew that temporary victories would not yield permanent peace until permanent victory was achieved, and that for such victories ‘the spirit, the character, the militant spirit, the fighting character of the organisation, was of the first importance.’ Fragments’ statements that the left ‘failed to lay deep social roots’ and ‘failed to develop a mass political consciousness’ is the authors judgement that this didn’t happen.

It is banal and trite to acknowledge that demands need to be appropriate to their circumstances, but this must also encompass two considerations.  First, that even in situations in which it is almost impossible to achieve the working class mobilisation that is required, it may still also be necessary to say what must be done in order to achieve the desired outcome.

Second, only by always putting forward an independent working class position, which most often does not involve any call to more or less immediate revolutionary overthrow, is it possible for workers to begin to realise that an independent working class politics exists that has something to say about all the immediate and fundamental issues of the day.  As I have previously noted, this begins by instilling in workers the conception of their own position and power as a class, not that of an amorphous ‘people’.  What this involves in any particular circumstance is a political question and the subject of polemical differences that are unfortunately unavoidable.

The fall of the Celtic Tiger demonstrated that such crises on their own will not bring about the development of socialist consciousness – that capitalism is crisis-ridden and must be replaced by a society ruled by the working class.  One of the earliest posts on this blog noted evidence that these crises most often do not.  In order that they deliver such object lessons it is necessary for a critical mass of the working class to already be convinced that their power is the alternative to capitalism and its crises.  This requires a prior significant socialist movement integral to working class life and its organisations.

We are a long way away from this, with one reviewer of the book in The Irish Times noting that its editors had excessive optimism about the experience of the Irish Left over the period.  The reviewer makes other comments that are apposite.  The argument of this review is that the book records enough experience to show that optimism is unjustified, at least on the basis of continuation of the political approach recorded by it.

The project of a left government that would be dominated by Sinn Fein, with secondary roles for the Labour Party, Social Democrats and Greens is not the road to address the failures noted at the top of the post.  The project is a chimera that is incoherent and cannot work.  In (un)certain circumstances it might spur a further development of consciousness and independent working class organisation and activity, but this is by far the less likely outcome and is not, in any case, what is being argued by the projects’ left supporters.

The left is always in a hurry, partly because of the preponderance of young people involved but more decisively because of the project itself, which is not based on building the strength and consciousness of the class as a whole but of building the left organisations themselves, particularly through elections.  The next one is always the most vital.  The former is the work of years and decades to which the project of ‘party building’ and ‘the immediacy of revolution’, understood as insurrection, does not lend itself.  These are outcomes that cannot be willed by socialists but determined ultimately by the wider class struggle and the decisions of countless workers as well as by their enemies.

Elections allow socialists ‘a gauge for proportioning our action such as cannot be duplicated, restraining us from untimely hesitation as well as from untimely daring’, and ‘a means, such as there is no other, of getting in touch with the masses of the people that are still far removed from us, of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions.’  It is not a means to arrive at a government that is ‘left’ of the current bourgeois duopoly but right of socialism, and that peddles illusions that the current capitalist form of democracy can deliver fundamental change.

Back to part 5

Fragments of Victory’: The Contemporary Irish Left’, book review (5 of 6)

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Fragments makes a series of observations about the political consciousness of the Irish working class, some of which we have already noted, such as the view of many on the Labour Party entering office that ‘the crisis was clearly not their fault and . . . the harsh austerity measures they took were seen as both forced by the Troika and, while painful, necessary.

It records the view of another author that the first year of crisis saw a large number of demonstrations but these ‘dried up once the public realised the magnitude of the banking crisis, and they were replaced by years of “muted protest”. Certainly, there was a sense of powerlessness at the scale and suddenness of the economic crash, a degree of acceptance of the official narrative . . .’ (p31)

It notes that the muting of protest was partially the result of emigration, particularly of the young with 106,000 leaving from 2009 to 2013.  ‘However, the muting of opposition was also due to the influence of the Labour Party and trade unions, which contained protest and channelled anti-government anger down institutional routes from 2009 to 2011.’ (p30). These organisations did indeed push anger down the road of inevitable failure, and yes, they were betrayed, but how was this possible?

One contributor notes that by late 2013 ‘it is difficult to overstate the feeling of exhaustion and disillusionment’, with the radical left ‘comprehensively defeated on the one anti-austerity struggle they’d seriously fought – household taxes.’ The ‘public mood was judged sullen but compliant’ and was successfully ‘blackmailed’ into voting yes to the EU’s fiscal Treaty in 2012 ‘even though this treaty restricted the possibility of future government spending” (p 40-41)

I wrote about this result at the time, noting that:  ‘At 60 per cent Yes against 40 per cent No there is no room for doubt.  It is a decisive endorsement of government policy and a mandate for further cuts and tax increases.  The result should not have been unexpected given the political forces ranged in support of the Treaty, the support of big and small business, the failure of the trade union movement to oppose it and the inevitable support of the mass media.  In the general election last year the Irish people voted by a large majority for a new government in no important way different from the previous one and with no claim to pursue significantly different policies.’

I also noted that ‘Austerity isn’t popular despite the vote and never will be.  Even the Yes campaign was under instructions not to celebrate its victory . . . In October last year when the Austerity Treaty was originally being negotiated an opinion poll recorded 63 per cent opposed to it with only 37 per cent supporting.’  I noted that some people had changed their minds or perhaps did not have the confidence to follow through on their opposition.  This might have united around the demand to repudiate the debt taken on by the state on behalf of the banks and their bondholders, but this also meant opposition to the Troika upon whom the state had become reliant.  It also meant opposition to the administration in the US, even though its Secretary to the Treasury Timothy Geithner thought it was ‘stupid’ to guarantee the banks liabilities. 

I wrote a number of blogs on the issue of repudiating the debt here, here and here, and the disastrous and ‘stupid’ decision to bail out the bondholders in the first place.  Doing so was a real political challenge and required an alternative that didn’t exist.  Without this the failure of the opposition to austerity was inevitable, even if the question of the debt was only one element of the necessary political alternative.

Where the book completely fails is the neglect of what the political content of the alternative might have been, although this is revealing.  In recording the activity of the left its non-appearance reflects the absence of this in the anti-austerity movement as a whole and the failure to win any significant section of it to a socialist perspective.

The same contributor noted above goes on to say that at a later time ‘A proper balance sheet would recognise how the Labour Party and the aligned section of the union movement were rendered powerless to influence or sidetrack the anti-austerity movement.’ (p 42). He points to the drop on the Labour vote from 19 per cent in the 2011 general election to 7 per cent in the 2014 local elections and the ‘victory for left-wing independents and Trotskyist parties alike.’ (p 43)

He argues this was possible because in 2014 100,000 marched against water charges in October followed by 150,000–200,000 in November and 80,000 (in Dublin alone) in December in what was ultimately a winning struggle.  We have already noted the limp role that was expected of the trade unions and political parties in the campaign in the previous posts but the argument that the Labour Party and trade union leaders could not divert the campaign is correct.

It won because it was a community campaign based on mass protests, blocking the installation of water meters and non-payment of bills.  Independents and left wing candidates benefited from their role in the campaign which also distinguished itself by exposing the equivocating role of Sinn Fein. Despite the political weaknesses of the campaign that we noted previously its tactics were able to beat the counter-measures of the government where the previous campaign against household charges could not.

The campaign proved that individual campaigns, given the right circumstances, could defeat particular austerity measures even where the wider offensive was continued successfully. It should be recalled that the water charges campaign took off almost a year after the state exited the Troika bailout programme. It is also worth recording again the failure to draw the right political lessons as the trade union official who contributed the chapter on the campaign finishes his story by endorsing the statement by ‘one of the world’s greatest authorities on water’ that:

‘The Irish system of paying for water and sanitation services through progressive taxation and non-domestic user fees, is an exemplary model of fair equitable and sustainable service delivery for the entire world.’ (p 61)

In fact, the Irish water industry was wasteful and inefficient and state ownership is neither democratic nor socialist.  For this, workers’ cooperative ownership or the demand for workers’ control would have been necessary but the Irish left, like so much in the rest of the world, have become habituated to statist views of socialism that Marx repudiated but that have become entrenched through the domination of social democracy and Stalinism over the last one hundred years.

With such a political platform the problem of the state being the solution, when the solvency and policy of the state was the problem, was once again avoided because doing otherwise would raise the question of ownership and control that would show the platform’s inadequacy.

The main victory in Fragments of Victory was thus necessarily limited and could not be a springboard to address the many deficiencies of the resistance identified in the book.  These included the failure ‘to build lasting political and social institutions’ and ‘no lasting form of working-class self-organisation.’  Reliance on capitalist state ownership as ‘an exemplary model’  illustrates why a problem could not be addressed: that ‘the steps between the current situation and the long-term goal of socialism are less clear than ever before.’ (p192)

The view that the trade union bureaucracy was ‘rendered powerless to influence or sidetrack the anti-austerity movement’ is therefore only partially true. The politics of the bureaucracy, and of the Labour Party, were not challenged by a wider political alternative and the much-trumpeted militant tactics of the campaign were no substitute for it.

back to part 4

Forward to part 6

Fragments of Victory’: The Contemporary Irish Left’, book review (4 of 6)

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In the previous post I argued that the leadership of the trade unions were unable and unwilling to challenge austerity because it would involve a political challenge to the state it had decades of ingratiating itself with it as its ‘social partner’.  However, I also noted that ‘the undeveloped and inadequate political consciousness of the working class itself [was] also a major factor’ in the union movement being unable to successfully resist austerity.

The socialist critique of the bureaucratic leadership of the trade unions is not that its passivity never reflects the views of its members but that the occasions in which members are prepared to take action are often betrayed and their passivity reinforced through ensuing demoralisation.

Protests and demonstrations (called by trade unions early in the economic crisis and also later) are only useful in so far as they are necessary steps to more effective action: by rallying the troops and persuading others that there are alternative courses of action and the means to achieve them.  Otherwise, they are what they are defined as, simply public expressions of objection, disapproval, or dissent, and public exhibitions of the attitude of a group toward an issue.

There is currently no other rival union leadership that believes in independent working class politics that is separate from and opposed to the state and seeks to increase the class’s political consciousness.  Bureaucratic organisation stifles any democratic control that might permit episodic bouts of struggle to advance and accumulate an understanding of class politics.  Lack of democracy and low participation are both causes and effects of political weakness.

Both the leadership and membership are wedded to the view that fundamental change can come only through the state as the only (legitimate) agent capable of achieving it.  All sections of ‘the left’, from Sinn Fein to supposed ‘Trotskyists’, have a political programme that hold that achievement of governmental office will enact this social transformation, and campaign on this basis.  How a capitalist state will permit this is never explained.

Of course, People before Profit and Socialist Party pay obeisance to the view that the capitalist state will have to be overthrown but this plays a role analogous to republicans’ view that the legitimate government of Ireland resides within the IRA.

During the crisis there was little to no awareness of the possibility of an independent working class political force as more than perhaps a vehicle to pressurise the state, or with a view to having its representatives occupy positions in its parliament so that they could legislate sought after policies and adopt necessary measures.

This reflects the widespread support for the democratic credentials of the state and its political system, further legitimised by the country’s colonial history and the struggle against it.  This gives the nationalism that is the express ideology of almost all political parties a progressive veneer and a reactionary essence.

Accompanying this is an acute awareness of the weakness of the small Irish state and its dependence on US investment and EU membership, where most power resides in the much larger European states.  There are some illusions in the independent sovereignty of the state but also awareness of its constraints.  When the Irish state became bankrupt the view that it could not resist the demands of the EU and US that it bailout the banks was reluctantly accepted because there appeared no alternative.

When your politics is based on winning concessions from the state, and/or the perspective of being the official government of the state, it is difficult to present these as possible when that state is bankrupt and your proposed actions are opposed by much more powerful states.  Not only does it look unconvincing, it actually is.  Hence the comment in the book, in relation to the Dáil, of the ‘futility of marching to an institution that was taking its own marching orders from elsewhere.’

One contributor to Fragments, writing about the trade union input into the one anti-austerity campaign that was successful – against water charges – reports that ‘political economy training . . . was the most impactful part of the campaign’. (p57) Except this training appears to have been peddling the same mistaken conception that state ownership is the answer that the whole crisis, and the response to it from the Irish state, should have utterly dispelled.

This campaign morphed into the Rights2Change movement that on paper united much of the left and some trade unions.  Its programme of rights, which went beyond the question of water, made sense only if the state had an obligation to satisfy them, and it didn’t begin to address the claims by the government about the lack of state resources to do so.  A programme based on the supposed moral obligations of the state was as weak as the commitment of the various organisations to the project. It demonstrated only that this spectrum of organisations was united in illusions in, and subservience to, the capitalist state.

Two aspects mentioned in the book illustrate these weaknesses: ‘throughout the period of Right2Water’s existence, nobody was working on the campaign full time. The bulk of the work on the union side was done by two or three trade union officials who also had their day jobs.’ (p61)

As to the unions role as a ‘pillar’ of the campaign, it was to ‘bring organisational skills . . . politically neutral; provide economic and political research; have activists in workplaces all over the country and bring financial assistance.’  (p 55) Nothing about workers action in the workplace and what sort of action its ‘activists’ should fight for.

The role of political parties was equally somnolent – to ‘bring political knowledge; an ability to raise issues in the Dail and have activists in communities all over Ireland.’  (p55) Again, without an acceptance that political debate over aims and strategy was absolutely required, as opposed to already accepted, there was no specifically political input sanctioned for political parties.

Like so many left campaigns, broadness was confused for depth, and political shallowness for agreement and unity.  One ridiculous outcome was that at one demonstration ‘we ended up with 36 speakers or acts.’ (p53) One unambiguously positive legacy of the campaign claimed by the writer is that the ‘unions and progressive political forces were in place to prevent the movement from being co-opted by the far right.’ (p60). Not a high bar.

If the original platform for the campaign was weak (that water was a human right), there remained differences on appropriate tactics, so it could be no surprise that this attempt at turning a ‘mass movements’ into a’ story of mass organisation’ rather than simply mass mobilisation’ was a failure (p180-1 &182). This meant that it was ‘large but ephemeral’, ‘failed to lay deep social roots’, ‘failed to identify an avenue through which society might be changed, and given this, . . .  failed to develop a mass political consciousness around the capitalist nature of our society or around what needs to be done to change it.’ (p183)

Sowing illusions in the state and failing to educate those mobilised on its unreformable class nature is guaranteed not to ‘develop a mass political consciousness around the capitalist nature of our society.’  The major success of resistance to austerity set out in the book came nowhere near this because it didn’t try, and it didn’t try because the left didn’t know what this would have to involve.

Back to part 3

‘Fragments of Victory’: The Contemporary Irish Left’, book review (3 of 6)

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The summary conclusions in the previous post raise a host of questions about the struggle against austerity following the crash of the Celtic Tiger: the lack of permanent organisation; the lack of working class consciousness and awareness of its specific political interests; lack of credible political programme and the inability to ‘articulate a viable alternative’; reliance on electoralism and thus on Sinn Fein, and lack of clarity on ‘the long-term goal of socialism’.

This is quite a list, and it is to the book’s credit that they are recognised.  What is also recognised, more by implication than by explicit critique, is that this is the result of the conscious approach taken by ‘the left’, which the book sees as one of failure qualified by some success.  It also implies that the answer to overall failure is not simply more and better activity.  For the left however, it is the roller-coaster of activity that is consciously seen as necessary to keep the show on the road.

If we briefly look at these issues, the first question is why ‘mass movements were less a story of mass organisation than mass mobilisation’ and were ‘large but ephemeral’.  These mobilisations were campaigns so were inevitably time limited and impermanent.  The issue is why they were temporary when their object of attack – austerity – had not been defeated and why the permanent organisations that did exist failed to keep the campaign going?

The second question is posed mainly to the trade unions and particularly ICTU, which called initial demonstrations and then left the stage.  Two further questions then arise – why did they do so and why were they able to get away with it?

The first answer is that since 1987 the trade unions have seen the state as a ‘social partner’ and very definitely not an antagonist – never mind enemy, and conducted themselves as partners in not opposing austerity itself but only seeking to modify its implementation. This to be done in the normal way of partners, through lobbying and negotiation.

The decline in strike activity and union density during the period of partnership was therefore not simply a result of economic conditions because they improved dramatically in the 1990s, at first rather slowly in terms of employment and then rapidly.  In 1986, just before the first deal, there were 309,198 days ‘lost’ in strikes and in 2007, just before the crash, a total of 6,038 days. By 2022 this had fallen even further to 5,256 while union density declined from 46 per cent in 1994 to 30 per cent in 2007.

Economic power and state revenue shifted to foreign multinationals that unions largely failed to organize, resulting in many skilled, educated, and younger workers being excluded.  One of the early results of partnership was the 1990 Industrial Relations Act that made illegal a strike unconnected to a ‘legitimate’ trade dispute, which successfully thwarted solidarity action – one of the very purposes of a trade union movement.  ‘Partnership’ also did not prevent the bosses refusing to recognise or negotiate with trade unions

Since the crisis was one of solvency of the state, arising from it guaranteeing the deposits and liabilities of the banks that it could not itself finance, the response was cuts in state services and the pay of public sector staff. The initial ICTU response was therefore a public sector strike that recognised its weakness in the private sector.  Bourgeois politicians and its media made hay with accusations about the privileges of these workers that sought to divide private sector workers from those working for the state, which the unions had themselves done little to prevent through their failure to organise across the whole working class.

Private sector workers were met by a withdrawal of their bosses from the social partnership arrangements, one result of which was their repudiation of sectoral pay arrangements.  This demonstration of the hollowness of partnership with the state and bosses, both of whom had withdrawn, did not prevent the unions going into another deal in 2010, the Croke Park Agreement, which gave way to Croke Park 2 as more cuts were sought.  When the proposals for it were initially rejected by a large majority of members the union leaders were able to manoeuvre ultimate acceptance by warning of the consequences of rejection while providing no strategy for fighting for its members decision.

‘Mass mobilisation’ was not therefore meant to involve ‘mass organisation’ but dependence on the trade union’s own bureaucratic organisation.  Its purpose was to assist union leaders’ lobbying with some pressure from below that was to be applied to the government while releasing it from the working class, amounting to simply blowing off steam. By February 2013 ICTU speakers at one of their demonstrations gave over the stage to musicians before many marchers had arrived at the finish in order to avoid being heckled.  They avoided it afterwards by not having any demonstrations at all.

Mobilisation wasn’t mean to be permanent, and it wasn’t meant to be an alternative to social partnership and the union bureaucrcay.  Although it was formally dissolved by the state it never ended given the objectives and strategy of the trade union leaders who simply pursued it unofficially, originally pushing the idea that the Labour Party in government might mitigate the worst effects of austerity.

The trade union movement, through its bureaucracy, is wedded to the state.  Most of its members are in state employment and the state facilitates its organisation through facilitating membership subscriptions, while the share of members in the private sector has declined.  The alternative offered by the trade union leaders was therefore the Labour party in government; rises in taxation instead of expenditure cuts, and ‘sharing the burden’ rather than its repudiation.  While the unions’ organisational weakness was material, they were partly responsible for this themselves, and while this weakness was also the basis of political passivity and failure, this too was partly their leaders’ own responsibility.

If we look to answer the questions about the lack of permanent working class self-organisation and failure to maintain mobilisation against austerity, we need to look at the prior commitment to social partnership and dependence on the state, which itself had become dependent on the Troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  The unions were, and are, not the expression of the self-organisation of the working class and for this their leadership is partly responsible, with the undeveloped and inadequate political consciousness of the working class itself also a major factor.  While in times of social peace the union leaders can represent the passivity of the membership, in times of heightened political awareness and activity they consciously act to limit this independent action and the possibility and potential for advancing political consciousness.

Had there been any permanent opposition to social partnership within the trade union movement prior to the crisis it might have presented a starting point to build an alternative to the union bureaucrats.  Any opposition however was generally of a temporary campaigning character while the bona fides of the bureaucrats became generally accepted.  No independent political alternative was built within the trade unions, reflecting the political weakness of the left outside it.

In these circumstance the bureaucracy was able to mobilise spontaneous anger, demoralise it and then dump it, getting away with it primarily because the politics of the union movement went unchallenged.  This in turn partly reflected the political weakness of the left.

Back to part 2

Forward to part 4

‘Fragments of Victory’: The Contemporary Irish Left’, book review (2 of 6)

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In the book’s introduction we are informed that after the 2016 general election one in 20 members of the parliament was a Trotskyist”, which would, for example, translate to over 30 MPs at Westminster.  In the conclusion it notes that this election was ‘perhaps the greatest electoral success of Trotskyism in any western country ever’, ‘the development of one of the strongest electoral lefts in western Europe’ (p177)

Except this avoids the question of what manifesto – what political programme – did these ‘Trotskyists’ get elected on that was in some way supported?  Was it in any way a revolutionary socialist one and if not, in what sense was it a vote for Trotskyism or for Trotskyists? What wider movement, if any, did the vote reflect?  How isolated was it, or was it the vanguard of a much wider radicalisation?

Fragments initially appears to be organised around the concept that there is some identifiably coherent ‘left’, except reading it reveals that this is not the case.  There is however some commonality that we alluded to at the end of the previous post, but it is this commonality that is itself incoherent.

We are informed that the Irish were one of the ‘strongest electoral lefts in western Europe’ and that this ‘left’ not only includes the ‘Trotskyists’ but also Sinn Fein; so we know that however strong this left became in electoral terms its political unity is at the very least questionable. You can assemble the various parts but it becomes less an alternative the more it is put together.

On page1 we learn that the left ‘won some victories’ (a near unique achievement in western Europe during this period) that ‘other countries could learn from.’  Yet in this introduction we are also informed that the austerity following the economic crisis ‘created a collapse of living standards, experienced by many’ with emigration that exceeded ’even the highest rates . . . of the past’.(p 13) 

On page 3 we learn that apart from Sinn Fein other left wing parties and campaigns ‘have struggled in the face of the new political challenges’ while despite ‘widespread support for leftwing politics, the left has failed to build lasting political and social institutions . . . After a decade that saw the left win real victories, mobilise hundreds of thousands and transform the electoral landscape, in many ways the left finds itself in a strangely weak position.’  These judgements are all in one paragraph!

In the conclusion, after noting some successes, including electoral gains, it states that ‘despite these successes, the left is in many ways as weak as it was pre-2008.  No lasting form of working-class self-organisation has emerged.  Union density is lower now than it was in 2007.  No mass parties have emerged.’ (p177-8)

On the next page we learn that ‘These apparent advances by the left in Ireland contrast sharply with the decline of its counterparts in most of the West . . . the left in many countries is in a worse position than it was before the crisis.’ (p 178). ‘The advance of the left in Ireland is even more striking when the political situation in pre-crisis Ireland is compared with that of Western European states.’ (p179).

It notes the failure of Syriza in Greece and Irish hopes for it, although Ireland did not even produce a Syriza and, as the book acknowledges, its defeat led Sinn Fein to shift its rhetoric to the right, opening the door to junior partnership in government with one of the two main bourgeois parties.  Gerry Adams is quoted –“I have to say, I never really subscribed to that notion of a left-wing government, certainly not in the short term.  I mean, who are the left.” (p 171) A very good question, to which Adams gives one element of an answer – it doesn’t include Sinn Fein.

This favourable comparison with the rest of Europe sits uncomfortably with the observation that ‘Missing in Ireland, especially in the early years, were the massive explosions of protest seen in other countries during 2009–13’. (p 184). 

Nevertheless, we are told that ‘The material successes of the Irish left and its social movements have been unique . . .’ (p185) and ‘the achievements of the social movements since 2008 are striking.  There are some real, substantial victories. Hundreds of thousands were mobilised. And the political culture of Ireland was definitely changed.  The neoliberal consensus . . . is over.’  ‘Today the left in Ireland is no longer marginal. While in almost all of Europe the last few decades have witnessed the decline of the left. In Ireland it has grown in strength’ demonstrating ‘what can be achieved.’  ‘There is today in Ireland significant support for the left . . .’ (p191)

These advances were apparently based on an already well-positioned movement because ‘in some ways, the left in Ireland was well prepared for the crisis.’ (p185). By this is meant that it was not focused on identity politics and ‘cultural questions’ although in fact this is not the case.  It is just that the majority of the Irish left have swallowed gender identity politics for example with hardly a debate, mirroring the introduction of gender self-id recognition carried out by the state purposely also without debate.

The conclusion presents ‘two key findings’, including that ‘the 2008-18 period saw the emergence of major mass movements that have both fundamentally changed Ireland’s political life and can provide lessons for the left internationally.’ (p188)

‘Trickier to identify, but unquestionably real, Ireland is a more leftwing country than it was in 2007 . . . Between the summer of 2021 and the summer of 2024, the left consistently outpolled the right, whereas before 2008, the left only had a third of the support for rightwing parties.’  Also adduced as evidence is that there is now recognition of the need for state intervention to solve the housing crisis. (p184). The problem with the latter however is that this state intervention has largely been to incentivise private sector solutions, which the left has denounced.

The success is qualified – ‘looking forward, the achievements of the last 15 years seem rather more fragmented’ and even the ‘electoral gains arising from a period of struggle . . . is now very much in the rear-view mirror.’  In the same paragraph it notes that the campaign victories over abortion rights and water tax ‘failed to result in lasting organisations.’ (p191). The other ‘side of the coin’ as the book puts it. (p3)

Capitalist crisis did not see ‘the re-emergence of working-class self-organisation and provide a space for the activity of the radical left’ while ‘mass movements were less a story of mass organisation than mass mobilisation’ (p180-1,182)

The movements since 2008 were ‘large but ephemeral’, ‘failed to lay deep social roots’, ‘failed to identify an avenue through which society might be changed, and given this, they have failed to develop a mass political consciousness around the capitalist nature of our society or around what needs to be done to change it.’  While they apparently ‘frequently terrified the ruling elite’ ‘they have never presented a serious challenge to the existing order.’ (p183)

Despite the positive evaluation and even with the qualifications, which leave a rather confusing picture, the real damaging conclusion is contained in these comments:

‘In many ways, despite the victories of the left since 2008, the future looks bleak.’ (p190). ‘It is hard to believe Sinn Fein will deliver the change that many desire . . [and] It is unlikely the Trotskyist People before Profit will manage to articulate a viable alternative . . .’ (p191) So despite short-term victories’, ‘the steps between the current situation and the long-term goal of socialism are less clear than ever before.’ (p192)

The book’s last words are that ‘it is clear that fragments of victory are not enough.’ (p 192) with the fatal verdict that despite the ‘striking’ advance of the left and ‘the apparent success of the Irish left’, the radical left ‘were engaged in a form of politics incapable of realising its own aims.’  (p179 &181)

Back to part 1

Forward to part 3

‘Fragments of Victory’: The Contemporary Irish Left’, book review (1 of 6)

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Reading ‘Fragments’ I was reminded of the statement by Marx that ‘We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.’

Fragments sets out to record the struggles of the Irish left (in the Irish state) over the past few decades so that the reader can form a view on its successes and failures.  In doing so we can apply Marx’s prescription and determine to what extent it shows the left ‘what it is really fighting for’ so that it can be conscious of the lessons that should be learned.

There are some obstacles in the way, including the variety of authors with different viewpoints although an introduction and conclusion is meant to summarise the results.  The major problem is the definition of what it means to be ‘left’.  In the introduction Sinn Fein and the Green Party are listed as left even though the major theme of the book is the response to the implementation of austerity following the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and the consequent bankruptcy of the State.

During this period Sinn Fein presided over austerity while in a coalition government with the DUP in the North, while the Green Party entered into a coalition with Fianna Fáil in 2007 that bailed out the banks and inaugurated widespread cuts in social welfare and wages.

As part of the relaunch of Stormont in 2015 the ‘Fresh Start’ agreement committed the parties, including Sinn Fein, to reducing NI civil service staff numbers: ‘Between April 2014 and March 2016, the NICS is set to reduce headcount by approximately 5,210 and between April 2015 and March 2016 a further 2,200 will exit from the wider public sector.’ The Green Party supported the bank bailout that the state could not afford, which resulted in the intervention of the Troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF, along with the huge austerity necessary to satisfy their demands.

Even taking account of the elastic possibilities permitted by employing a relative term such as ‘left’, it is difficult to sustain any claim that these parties are in any substantial or verifiable way left-wing.  Sinn Fein was described by a comrade of mine a long time ago as containing members with left-wing opinions and right-wing politics.  The party has, in the meantime, fully confirmed this judgement while in government.  The Green Party began life as The Ecology Party promising ‘a radical alternative to both Capitalism and Socialism’ but in office twice it has displayed no alternative to capitalism and therefore no alternative to socialism.

Looking at political struggle through the lens of ‘left’ versus ‘right’ has therefore the potential to obfuscate as much as it clarifies.  A more illuminating approach is to set out the class nature of the politics of a political party and to explain why different parties with generally similar class natures have the politics that they do, even if they have different colouration.

Thus, as a nationalist party, Sinn Fein is a petty bourgeois party that considers the Irish people as one, with any class distinctions completely secondary and subordinate to the interest of the nation and its state, which can represent the true interests of all the people simply because of their nationality.  The Green Party claimed at its birth to have a radical alternative but also rejected a class approach through its largely petty bourgeois base and ideology.  It confirmed its class character by its members enthusiastically joining Fianna Fáil in government (voting 86% in favour) and by its commitment to the banks and austerity.

It might appear difficult to assign a class identity to some parties, and any classification has to be justified, but this is precisely the point of identifying the class nature of the forces involved.  As petty bourgeois parties, both Sinn Fein and the Greens have imposed austerity on workers while espousing radical rhetoric.  Calling them left is an attempt to obscure this and works to introduce doubt that they will not always fall on the side of the capitalist class in a struggle.

Fragments demonstrates this repeatedly, even when making secondary observations, for example that individual members of Sinn Fein were active in the Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes but that the party was not: ’This form of partial (non-)commitment proved to be the defining feature of Sinn Fein’s approach to most political struggles of the time.’ (p37)

Approaching politics this way allows us to make judgements of other ‘left’ parties such as the Labour Party and Social Democrats etc. and permits an understanding of their behaviour during this period.  While the Labour Party paraded its ‘Labour’s Way’ as resistance to ‘Frankfurt’s Way’ while in opposition, it had no alternative to austerity when in government.  The doubling of its vote in the 2011 general election was a prelude to its consequent decimation in the next one.  ‘Labour’s Way’ didn’t become Frankfurt’s Way’, not having an alternative meant it always was.

Was the 2011 vote for Labour therefore a victory for the ‘left’ and was its subsequent decimation a defeat?  Did those who voted Labour in 2011 make an advance in consciousness or do so by deserting it in 2016? Or were they just registering disappointment and resignation?

Fragments offers the view that despite Labour delivering austerity when in office ‘the new government retained a huge amount of goodwill . . . the crisis was clearly not their fault and . . . the harsh austerity measures they took were seen as both forced by the Troika and, while painful, necessary’, while ‘the ‘honeymoon lasted for much of 2011 . . .’  (p31) So, were these views completely discarded when the Labour Party was dumped out of office? Was there any real advance in consciousness of an alternative when it happened?  Is roping the Labour Party into ‘the Left’ clarifying either history or the future?

Today, all these parties are allied in supporting Catherine Connolly for the post of President with the additional enthusiastic support of People before Profit and Solidarity.  The latter’s politics are supposed to be based on the view that existing power in capitalist society does not come from parliament but from the permanent state apparatus and the economic and social power of the capitalist system, yet they promote the idea that election to a post that is admitted not only to be without power, but forbidden to exercise any, would be a major advance.

Paul Murphy, People before Profit TD, states on Facebook that ‘this is a rare opportunity for the left to come together, and elect a voice for workers, for women and for neutrality.  Change starts here.’ This is a left that includes all the parties above that have been tried and tested.

In doing so all sorts of illusions in the role of bourgeois politics and institutions; about the ability of one person to represent the nation, and all the people within it; because of a one-off vote, and of the way ‘change’ can be made, are strengthened against an alternative view that real change comes from the organisation and struggles of the working class itself.

Are such views ‘Trotskyist’, as Paul Murphy’s organisation is called in the book? Or is this term used because that is just how it is usually described, or should such a designation not require some comparison of its political practice to a reasonable account of what Trotskyism is?  The umbrella term of ‘left’ addresses these questions by rendering them unimportant, and this is a problem.

To anticipate one message of this review; Fragments provides enough testimony to show that a different approach is necessary and that an alternative is required to the illusion that there is a ‘left’ that should be united to advance the cause of the working class.

It demonstrates, in its own way, that only a class analysis can explain events, including the actions of the state, why it succeeded in imposing austerity and why the resistance to it was unable to rise to the challenge.  Explaining all this in terms of whether certain actors, institutions or policies were ‘left’ or ‘right’ is hopeless not only because of the vagueness of the terms but because all of these acted out of material interests, as they perceived them, and these in turn were based on objective factors that were fundamentally determined by class relations.

Forward to part 2

An exchange of views on Palestinian solidarity and Hamas

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Sráid Marx has received a comment on the series of posts that were written on solidarity with Palestine from Socialist Democracy, having linked to one of its articles in my second post. I include their comment below and a brief reply.

* * *

A critique of our position on Gaza solidarity.
Are the politics of Hamas a defining issue?

Over the course of the ongoing genocide in Gaza Socialist Democracy has distributed thousands of leaflets and newsletters commenting on the struggle and the movement in solidarity in Ireland. The aim of that work has been to provoke a response and to support a debate in the movement about it’s future direction.


While we have had a number of interesting conversations, there has been no organised response, so it is with some pleasure that we read a commentary by Sraid Marx on their blogspot, especially as we are given a C‐ for our most recent publication.


However we have some difficulties in responding. The comrade does not mention our name or give a full account of our position, so we are being invited to reverse engineer to understand the comrades own position.


Essentially we feel that the Sraid Marx position is too formalistic, whereas our approach is more contextual.


A chief point in the ongoing offensive is the constant demand that we condemn Hamas. We are familiar with this approach from the troubles and constant demands to condemn the Republicans. The demand now is that we blame Hamas for the violence, ignore the Israeli and US previous drives towards genocide and agree that history started with the Hamas breakout.


We can’t agree, because that concedes to the imperialists. We can’t endorse the action because that would tie us to the strategy of Hamas. The answer is: What do you expect when you imprison millions in an open air concentration camp and constantly humiliate and murder them?


Much of the critique is given over to the nature of Hamas. We think that beside the point. The source of the violence rests with the US and Israel. The UK is a willing participant in genocide and Ireland a consistent facilitator and opposition must start from there.


A useful criticism of Hamas lies in the context of the Gaza outbreak. That was the Abraham accords, drafted by the first Trump regime and aimed at erasing discussion of Palestinian rights and winning endorsement of Israel by the Arab regimes. When Hamas launched the Al-Aqsa flood it was appealing to the Arab regimes on the basis of nationalism and to the Muslim world on the basis of religion. An immediate tactical aim was to do what they had done in the past – seize prisoners to use as bargaining chips and win concessions from Israel.


They were profoundly mistaken. Arab nationalism no longer has a progressive content. Imperialism is poised to establish complete control of West Asia, founded on establishing the absolute military primacy of the US and Israeli axis and the capitulation of the Arab regimes. Genocide is an acceptable cost of victory and dissent is to be crushed. The imperialists have scored remarkable but still incomplete victories. The final task is to crush Iran, but there are doubts about the military capacity of the US alliance and its failures in Yemen which are holding it back from regional war.


The Irish movement does not discuss politics. It remains fixed on Free Palestine and individual acts of BDS. Demands for government action do not lead to a consistent campaign against the government.


This political weakness has a material base. Much of the leadership is the decayed remnant of the anti-imperialist left. It is in alliance with Sinn Féin, who wanted to suggest anti-imperialist positions without breaking with imperialism. Sections of the trade union movement pose as defenders of Palestine without breaking their partnership with Irish capitalism. The core of the Palestinian diaspora are linked to the collaborationist Palestinian Authority and their ambassador to Ireland and are hostile to Hamas.


A new inflection came with a current associated with the group Rebel Breeze. They criticised the solidarity campaign for inaction and failure to target the US, Israel and the Irish government. We supported the criticism but did not support their position of uncritical support for the Palestinian resistance. We attempted to engage with them but they did not reply. So the current situation is that the solidarity movement is weak and has no mechanisms for national debate.


In relation to Sraid Marx we would be critical of the formalism which led to the analysis of the CounterPunch position. We see no reason to give credence to their analysis of Hamas and their Irish solution of a Palestinian Good Friday Agreement is risible.

These positions arise less from political theory than from a long tradition of opportunism. They are not a serious attempt to plot out a revolutionary position, more an attempt to align with a relatively non-political base.

Changes are taking place. The genocide in Gaza is related to the drive to war in Europe and the trade war with China. The UK is to the fore in urging warfare not welfare. The Irish government is every day taking measures to integrate with NATO and with European militarism. This feeds a growing outlawing of protest and use of state force.

The liberal virtue signalling of Irish leftism and of the NGO world will fade away like snow from a ditch. A genuine socialist and anti-imperialist movement will arise from recognising the role of local ruling classes as representatives of the imperialist world order.

* * *

You ask the question “Are the politics of Hamas a defining issue?’” to which the answer you give is presumably ‘no’ although that depends on what the issue is to be defined.  I was careful to define the issue of solidarity with Palestine in terms of the responsibility of the Irish state in collaborating with imperialism and the Zionist state in the first part of my series of posts; the general approach of socialists to solidarity in the second part and in relation to Hamas in particular in the third part.

This means that in order to rebut the legitimacy of criticism of Hamas you need to engage with the arguments of the second post and you have not.

Progress has been made, however, in that you are no longer claiming that ‘denunciation of HAMAS is simply a mechanism for supporting genocide’, which I pointed out in my second post.  Instead, you indicate that although you cannot endorse the actions of Hamas the correct response is to say “What do you expect when you imprison millions in an open air concentration camp and constantly humiliate and murder them?”  This may be a point to make in response to imperialist calls to condemn Hamas but it is woeful as a position in relation to how imperialism is to be defeated.

It would appear however that you do believe that criticism of Hamas is valid – “A useful criticism of Hamas lies in the context of the Gaza outbreak.”  This criticism includes Hamas’s reliance on reactionary Arab regimes “on the basis of nationalism and to the Muslim world on the basis of religion.”  You also concede that its tactical plan was a strategic disaster, so that “the imperialists have scored remarkable but still incomplete victories.”  As you say, Hamas “were profoundly mistaken” and “Arab nationalism no longer has a progressive content.”

You have therefore moved considerably but remain still a bit confused.  You argue that the critique of Hamas, specifically its nature that would account for and explain ,for example, all the criticism you make yourself, is “beside the point.” You are keen to argue that the political weakness of the Irish solidarity movement “has a material base” but do you not also believe that this is true of Hamas?

If you take your critique seriously you are obliged to advance the arguments that a working class alternative armed with socialist politics is required to help advance not only the solidarity movement but also the struggle of the Palestinian people against genocide.  This is what I attempted in the second post.

A penultimate point about trying to further debate in the solidarity movement.  You state of my posts, and their reference to the analysis of two authors in Counterpunch, that you see “no reason to give credence to their analysis of Hamas and their Irish solution of a Palestinian Good Friday Agreement is risible.”  

I make my own criticism of the authors references to Ireland clear, while it gets you nowhere to claim that their criticisms of Hamas should not be discussed because I should not “give credence to their analysis.”  If you think they are categorically wrong, you need to say why and where they go wrong.  Otherwise, dismissive comments are but another example of the refusal to engage in debate for which you criticise others.

A final point. You write that a “genuine socialist and anti-imperialist movement will arise from recognising the role of local ruling classes as representatives of the imperialist world order.” It will also require a political struggle against nationalism and fundamentalism and rejection of the petty bourgeois moralism that preaches that the leaders of oppressed groups are beyond criticism.

Solidarity with the Palestinian people (2 of 3) – Socialist solidarity

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Belfast City Hall 5 April 2025

A friend sent me an article on the Counterpunch website that looked at Hamas and the October 7 attack that precipitated the current genocide in Gaza, which I will look at it in the next post.  It raises issues about solidarity with oppressed groups by socialists and what, if anything, socialists have to say that is different.  Having something different to say isn’t in itself a reason to say it, but if socialists think they have a distinctive view of the world and don’t have anything very different to say it implies that their socialism isn’t very important.

Socialism is international or it is nothing.  By this we mean that the cause of the working class in other countries is our cause and that socialism cannot exist within a single country.  This means that we seek to advance the socialist struggle of the workers in every country and that a victory in another country is a victory for us.  This is the material basis of solidarity for socialists.

Of course, in doing so we oppose oppression in every country, but you do not need to be a socialist to do this and we are socialists not just because we oppose oppression but because we believe only socialism – only the actions of the working class – can defeat oppression and establish freedom.  And this goes for the struggle in Palestine as well, although often these considerations appear to disappear when socialists discuss it.

Instead, we get statements such as the following – ‘that we must not only oppose oppression but support the oppressed, the right to resist oppression and the resistance itself.  We also get formulas that we should not take sides in intra-Palestinian political disputes, which only the Palestinians should engage in and determine.

If we work backwards – what is this last idea but a form of identity politics?  That Palestinians are a group apart with ideas and movements separate from the rest of the world’s struggles with nothing to learn from them; nothing to learn from the long history of working class struggle across the planet? If they are so different as to have nothing to learn then they would have nothing to teach us either. Either they are uniquely blessed with a political leadership beyond criticism because it never gets anything wrong, or it gets it wrong but is beyond help.  If neither of these are true, is it because we have no right to speak about their struggle or only to do so to voice our support? (Do we take this view about every struggle: of the French working class or German or any other?).

If it is the last argument, this simply leaves us back at the start and fails to argue why socialists have no right to state what we think is good or bad for the struggle; one that we have said is part of our own world-wide struggle and on which we are also at least partly dependent.  In short, the international struggle for socialism is something that involves Palestine and therefore involves us.

It might be argued that the struggle in Palestine is not about socialism, but this is no answer since socialists have a position on all struggles against oppression and these very often do not immediately raise the possibility of a socialist victory.  Otherwise, in today’s condition of the class struggle, we would silence ourselves across most of the world.

Of course, what we have to say should be within the framework of solidarity with the oppressed and should have something relevant and positive to contribute, but part of our solidarity is that we believe we do have something distinctive to contribute, not least because for us, solidarity is not an act of altruistic humanitarian concern for others but is part of our own fight.  The only basis for refusing to engage in debate on the way forward for the Palestinian struggle is the belief that it is separate from us: ‘In our thousands! In our millions! We are all Palestinians!’ becomes not only untrue (we are not suffering genocide!) but is also denied and rejected by the claim that we are not permitted to offer our own views.

This, however, is the most common view of solidarity, which thus becomes a sort of activist charitable exercise fed by the politics of self-determination of nations.  The socialist view is the primacy of self-determination of the working class, as an international class that can unite politically and organisationally, which is obviously impossible without debate, argument and disagreement.

Where does this leave us with the formulation that we must not only oppose oppression but support the oppressed, the right to resist oppression and the resistance itself? 

First, even oppressed people’s and nations are composed of classes involving class exploitation and oppression.  Genocide only partly qualifies this, as those with lots of money will always find a way to use it to their benefit.  Class divisions have a bearing not only on whether and how to resist oppression but also on the objectives of resistance.  Class struggle doesn’t disappear and socialists above all should recognise this in their solidarity and within the solidarity movement.

So what about the right to resist?  Socialists are in favour of the working class and other oppressed groups resisting exploitation and oppression but do so on the basis that capitalism exploits and oppresses, and that class struggle exists as a result.  As Marxists we understand that capitalism gives rise to the potential for socialism because of the nature of its development.  From this arises the struggle for socialism, not some moral right to resist that is independent of the circumstances and conditions in society.  This is important for how we resist, which we will explore in relation to Gaza in the next post.

In general, however, socialists are always to the fore in advocating resistance to exploitation and oppression, with the view that advancing towards the alternative is what matters above all.  We therefore support the oppressed by seeking to end their oppression, which ultimately can only be through the working class becoming the ruling class of society.

This leads to the final claim, that those in solidarity with the oppressed must also solidarize with the resistance and with the resistance movement, and this is where the biggest difference arises.  Since our view of solidarity is not dictated by any moral assertion there can be no moral claim on us to support resistance movements that are themselves reactionary, and this obviously includes Islamic political movements (as opposed to democratic and socialist movements composed of religious believers).

Solidarity arises from common interests and purposes.  What common interests and purposes arise between reactionary movements in conflict with imperialism and socialists?  To ask the question is almost to answer it.  Both can be opposed to imperialism on the grounds of some common effects of its rule or intervention but reactionary movements that come into conflict with imperialism are not anti-capitalist, never mind socialist, so their opposition is limited and qualified.  Ultimately their interests and purposes are opposed to those of socialists and is the reason for separate organisation and politics in the first place.

Since our primary interests and purposes are separate any common activity is also limited and qualified and there can be no unqualified or unconditional support.  Common objectives may allow episodic common actions and organisational cooperation to achieve them but there are no grounds for avoiding criticism or separate organisation.

We therefore do not give political support to reactionary movements on the grounds that they embody the resistance of the oppressed, because that resistance is politically reactionary and cannot represent their full and complete interests.  Whether these movements are in our own country or another does not fundamentally change this but at most determines the emphasis to be placed on opposition to our own state for whatever role it plays in the oppression.

In practice many socialists acknowledge this while denying it in words and will criticise the Palestinian Authority but not Hamas, for example on the illogical grounds that ‘denunciation of HAMAS is simply a mechanism for supporting genocide.’  Such an overblown statement scarcely warrants a response.  See below a better statement by this organisation to the Belfast rally pictured above. 

Back to part 1

Forward to part 3

The domestication of the Irish Left

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Marxists believe that power in society resides in capital, in the capitalist system and its property relations in which ownership and control of the means of production etc. are monopolised by one class.  In the form of money, capital can be otherwise employed to gain political influence through the media, buy politicians and discipline governments through speculation on the bond markets.  Capital strikes can disable economies just as individual capitals can close down workplaces overnight destroying the livelihoods of their workers.

On top of this are states that defend these property relations through a multitude of laws bolstered by assumptions about the primacy of bourgeois private property rights that are considered holy writ.  Should this be questioned the state is also composed of forces armed with the monopoly of violence to police and impose the requirements of these property relations.  Since such relations involve the exclusion of ownership and control by the majority there is nothing democratic about them and no bourgeois claims to democracy entertain the notion that there should be democratic ownership and control of the economy.

Instead such claims to be democratic rely on parliamentary institutions that are dignified with reverential rules and procedures, the better to elevate their status above their essential subordination to the real power in society.  Incantations about their sacred embodiment of democracy cover for this subordination while most people vaguely register their awareness of the sham through a view of all politicians as essentially liars.

This, however, is a purely cynical reaction and is not the ground for either an adequate understanding of what is going on or the envisioning of a genuine democratic alternative.  Nationalism provides additional glue to bind workers to their (nation) state and the claims it makes for itself on their behalf, but more and more decisions are taken at an international level where real democracy is even more obviously absent. It is generally considered in most of Europe that its people live in a ‘democracy’.  The job of socialists is to make them aware that this is bourgeois democracy and that it is a sham that they should seek to change.  Moreover they need to be convinced that the state they are invoked to give allegiance to does not defend their interests.

One very small example of the fraudulent character of bourgeois parliamentary democracy has erupted in Ireland as the governing parties have voted to restrict the speaking time of the opposition, reduced its own exposure to questioning, and allocated opposition time to a group of ‘independents’ who have all declared full support for the government and have a number of members as ministers within it.  As all the opposition parties have put it, you are either in the government or in the opposition – you cannot be in both.

Dáil sitting has been suspended before in much disorder but was suspended again yesterday when the change in Dáil standing orders was pushed through without debate by the Ceann Comhairle (the Speaker of the House). She is supposed to be independent but was elected as a member of the same ‘independent’ group and appointed as part of the secret deal that no doubt lies behind the speaking privileges now given to it.

This is no doubt a cynical political stoke that should be opposed. The up-its-backside liberal propaganda news sheet ‘The Irish Times’ opined that “normal Dáil business” must “resume immediately” so that a list of issues can be discussed. These include climate and health care that “normal Dáil business” has failed to successfully address for decades.  Even these relatively minor attacks on democratic functioning do not find this liberal mouthpiece defending it.

Of course, the government is committing much greater crimes against democracy than these latest shenanigans, including allowing planes delivering arms to Israel to pass through Irish air space.  Like governing party claims before the general election about the number of houses that were being built or support for the Occupied Territories Bill, this is a government that cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

The opposition parties, including People before Profit, have united to ‘stridently’ oppose this ‘alarming’, ‘outrageous’ and ‘unprecedented’ plan and to defend the ‘fundamentals of parliamentary democracy’.  There has been a lot of talk about the government’s changed procedures reducing their ability to ‘hold the government to account’ and to ‘represent their constituents’.

But this follows People before Profit centring their recent electoral campaign on ending 100 years of unbroken office by the two ugly twins who nevertheless won the recent general election.  When has either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael been held to account over this 100 years?  When has it been punished for its failures, lies, hypocrisy and previous much more authoritarian measures?  In what way do impassioned speeches by People before Profit TDs excoriating government ministers to an almost empty Dáil chamber – shown regularly on social media – embody holding these ministers to account?

The man in the centre of it all,’independent’ TD Michael Lowry, has been found by a state tribunal to be “profoundly corrupt” but here he was giving two fingers to the PbP TD Paul Murphy! Why is he not in jail, never mind inducing the government to tear up Dáil standing orders on his behalf?  Tribunal after tribunal has demonstrated that there is no justice from the state and the Dáil chamber is incapable of delivering it either.  More evidence of the sham that is bourgeois democracy!  Why not say this?

Rather than use the episode to demonstrate this to the Irish working class, to further explain the limits and hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy, and to call out the alternative, People before Profit has decided to become bourgeois democracy’s most vocal defender.  Rather than use it as support for the argument that the working class will not find real democracy within a bourgeois parliament, it declares the vital need to support its fraudulent claims that it can allow workers to hold the government to account’, i.e. criticise and punish it.  Instead of exposing the hot-air bloviating that passes for democracy it holds out the necessity for extra hours of fine speeches.

Illusions in bourgeois democracy run deep in Irish society, as in most advanced capitalist states, with the continued election of Lowry and the ugly party twins as plenty of evidence.  Every opportunity to expose it should be grabbed.  Ironically, a previous posture of doing this – of exposing the hollowness of bourgeois democracy evidenced again by this latest stroke – would have been more powerful in embarrassing the government than the strident claims that more time to ask questions and talk to an almost empty room is vital to democracy.

To go back where we started – with Marxist principles.  These declare that the emancipation of the working class will come from the activity of the working class itself, a principle precisely counterposed to the parliamentary illusions of much of the left.  Real power comes from outside, that of both the capitalist system and of the working class.  It is on the power of the working class and its organisations outside that socialists need to focus, and which could do with much greater democratic functioning. Illusions in the Dáil are only for those for whom these illusions are comforting and who seek a career within it.

First steps for the left in the new Dáil

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When the Dáil met following the general election the order of business included the nomination of a new Taoiseach and the position of a new Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Dáil).  The latter became part of the horse-trading between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the Independent group of TDs (who are FF/FG in all but name) so that the three of them could form a stable administration.  With no principled difference between any of them the issues were all about divvying up the spoils of office, which included the role of Ceann Comhairle.  This comes with a salary of €255,000 a year, which is greater than that of the Taoiseach.

The Independent group let it be known that this was one bauble that they wanted and the two main parties thought about it.  Their wish was granted and their nominee, Verona Murphy, was approved following, rather appropriately, the proposal of Michael Lowry.  Murphy had previously lost the support of Fine Gael as a candidate following remarks about asylum seekers needing to be “deprogrammed”, as they may have been “infiltrated by Isis”, and further comments claiming that Isis had “manipulated children as young as three or four”.  Lowry had long ago been removed as a candidate of the Fine Gael party following a number of scandals.

This has passed without much fuss as par for the course for bourgeois politics in Ireland. Unfortunately, the Socialist Party TD Ruth Coppinger missed the point by stating that “in rallying behind its selection for Ceann Comhairle, it could be the first and last rally for women that the next government is likely to do when it comes in.”  The point of Murphy being the first woman to be elected Ceann Comhairle was really beside the point, but pretending to make it so reflected the influence of identity politics on Coppinger and the Irish left.

More importantly, Coppinger registered her abstention on the more significant business of the nomination of Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein as the new Taoiseach, “simply because we do not have a real prospect of an alternative government.”  It is beyond doubt that Coppinger will vote many times over her next few years in the Dáil on motions that will have no chance of being passed or against others she will have no chance of stopping. Why is this an obstacle now?

If her rationale was a cop-out, People before Profit’s support for a Sinn Fein Taoiseach made no sense at all.  Its leader, Richard Boyd Barrett, stated that “People Before Profit will be supporting the nomination of Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, not because we agree with Sinn Féin – we disagree with it on many things, not least its refusal to rule out coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael – but because we believe parties on the left have an obligation to end 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and put together the first left-wing government this State has ever seen.”

Besides the absurdity of supporting an alternative government based on a party you do not agree with, or doing so on the assumption that this is a ’party of the left’ – what exactly constitutes being left-wing? – how could this party ‘put together the first left-wing government this State has ever seen”? So focused and fixated is People before Profit on ‘ending 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government’ that what it is replaced with appears to be utterly secondary – even admitting Sinn Fein’s potential to go into coalition with either (or both?) of them anyway!

If Coppinger’s remarks were an admission of failure of the ‘left-wing government’ project, Richard Boyd Barrett’s were a judgement on the retrograde consequences of pretending to pursue it in circumstances in which it is impossible.  The only good thing in this case about writing a blank cheque for a Sinn Fein government is that it cannot cash it.  While Coppinger cops out on what is a question of principle – what sort of administration a Sinn Fein Taoiseach would preside over? – Boyd Barrett votes in principle for a principle he cannot possibly support – a Sinn Fein Taoiseach leading a government that is not committed to opposing either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael participation within it.

The whole performance is political theatre, which – with the season that is in it – is a pantomime.  Grubby deals accompany political posturing that reflects no good on any of the participants and is of no educational value at all to workers looking in.

People before Profit’s Paul Murphy says “What should the left do now? Rule out coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and put forward left-wing policies”; except the first has been determined irrelevant by the recent election while ‘putting forward left-wing policies’ begs the question of what is meant by ‘left-wing’ and what is meant by ‘policies’?

People before Profit stood on a manifesto saying that “The first step in bringing about fundamental change will be the formation of a Left Government – one that excludes FF and FG.”  That is now stuffed, with no elections likely for a few years, even were it the case that working class struggle should revolve round them, or that it need start with the actions of TDs in the Dáil.  Were we now to take them at their word we would have to wait to the next general election to take “the first step in bringing about fundamental change.”

Such change does not come from parliament, not from ‘left’ governments and not even from the state, which People before Profit seems to pretend is governed by the first two.  The first step is never the action of ‘left’ governments, parliaments or the capitalist state but from the independent action of the working class.

It is not the role of the ‘left’ to lead in the Dáil while the working class is a supporting act outside.  Some part of the People before Profit thought process knows all this but has not the first idea how to operationalise it.  Even were it only able to identify it at a very general level, it would be a good first step to doing the first thing about it, a good New Year’s resolution perhaps.