The following document, first drafted in March 2024, was passed unanimously at the founding congress of the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland. Here, we offer our perspective and analysis of the main trends that are shaping Irish politics and the class struggle.
Although the crisis of capitalism has given an accelerated tempo to the pace of events (for example since the drafting of the document Sinn Féin has been relegated to third party in the polls, Varadkar has resigned and Donaldson has been arrested), the main political lines of the document have been confirmed by the developments that took place in Ireland over the last six months. We believe it can offer a guide for revolutionaries in Ireland in this dramatic period of capitalist crisis.
In the words of Alan Woods: “Any self-respecting mariner knows that in order to sail a ship you need a map and a compass. Without that you’d get lost. And without a clear perspective, a revolutionary international can also get lost. So we make no apologies by always beginning with perspectives. We try to understand the general tendencies that are taking place on a world scale, because upon that question will depend the correctness of our strategy and tactics.”
A Marxist organisation is first and foremost a set of ideas and a programme. In the midst of the confusion and pessimism fostered by the bourgeoisie and the so-called ‘lefts’, our struggle to build a genuine revolutionary communist organisation in Ireland is at bottom a struggle for political clarity.
Developing perspectives is a crucial part of that struggle – it enables us to understand which stage of the class struggle we are passing through, how it will affect the consciousness of the working class and youth, and hence allows us to correctly orientate the work of our organisation so as to grow.
Of course, as Marxists, we have no crystal ball for predicting the future. The task of a perspective document is not to cover everything or predict the minutiae of future events – which is impossible – but to touch on the most important, fundamental processes that are taking place, and identify the likely course of events.
The Death Agony of Capitalism
Without a doubt, we are today at a turning point in human history.
Capitalism across the world has been plunged into its deepest crisis ever. There is scarcely a country that has been left unscathed by economic, political and social disasters. The living conditions of the working class and youth have been battered by the bourgeoisie.
All across the world, wages stagnate, health systems crumble, inflation chips away the living conditions of the working class, homelessness is skyrocketing, the climate catastrophe is spiralling out of control threatening the very existence of society. COVID-19 rampaged across the world, claimed millions of lives, and revealed the complete rottenness of the capitalist system.
The crisis of capitalism is reigniting the conflict between different capitalist powers and exacerbating imperialist contradictions – threatening to plunge whole regions of the planet into a barbaric nightmare. We are even witnessing the return of imperialist war to Europe’s shores, with US imperialism clashing (by proxy) against Russia in Ukraine.
Imperialist wars are further weakening world capitalism. Growing militarism drains the coffers of nations and stokes inflation. Trade routes are disrupted. The lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been sacrificed. Living standards of workers throughout Europe have been dramatically impacted – and after all this sacrifice, the US is now facing a humiliating defeat in Ukraine.
Perhaps nowhere do we see the barbarity of imperialist war more clearly than in Palestine today. Needless to say, what is happening is a tragedy of indescribable proportions.
The ongoing genocide has completely exposed the hypocrisy of Western ‘democracies’ and the absolute uselessness of ‘international law’ in the eyes of millions. The world is witnessing live, through social media, the extermination of countless innocent Palestinians at the hands of Israel, which enjoys undying support from the bourgeoisie in the US, UK, EU – including Western imperialism’s cheerleading lackeys in Ireland, despite their hypocritical statements.
Tens of millions have taken to the streets in protest at what is happening all across the world. As a result, the ruling classes have taken to curtailing basic democratic rights in many countries, and have stepped up police oppression and intimidation against the Palestine solidarity movement. They know that rage is building against their rule, and they are preparing their repressive forces for mighty class battles in the future. But in doing so, they are only further discrediting this rotten system in the eyes of workers and youth.
To many, it must seem that the whole world is suddenly gone mad. And in a sense it is true: the capitalist system has become utterly irrational. Reason has turned into unreason.
On the back of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the bourgeoisie went on an orgy of gluttony and vanity. History was over! Capitalism had triumphed once and for all!
But all these stupid illusions came crashing down in 2008. Capitalism has been unable to take society forward since then. And from a relative fetter, it has now become an absolute fetter on the continued development of humanity. Today, capitalism is actually dragging society backwards.
The crisis we are living through is profound and far-reaching – of unprecedented proportions in the history of class society. Capitalism is in its death agony, and there is no way out of the crisis on a capitalist basis. History therefore places before the working class the task of taking the capitalist system out of its misery – and to lead the world toward communism.
And it places before us – the communists – an enormous historic responsibility. We must rise to the events that are coming. We must rapidly grow into a powerful force, uniting the advanced guard of the workers and youth around revolutionary communist ideas, in a disciplined, fighting organisation, that can vie for the leadership of the working class. Our job is precisely to make conscious the unconscious striving of the working class for a better world; for communism.
Communism is Back
In fact, the working class is not taking all of this standing. You can only bend a stick so far before it snaps. And intense class struggle is back on the order of the day all around the world. Since 2021, we have witnessed wave after wave of strike action taking place in country after country – not to mention the many insurrectionary movements around the world.
An Irish perspective document is not the place to go into the details of each specific country, and comrades should read this document in conjunction with the 2023 IMT World Perspectives Document, voted on by the IMT World Congress.
But the implications of the worldwide reawakening of the class struggle and the profound shift in consciousness that is taking place all around the world among workers and youth are of paramount importance for us.
Following the crisis of 2008, class anger found its first political expression among the left reformists – people like Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Tsipras etc. However, having gathered around them the illusions of tens of millions of workers and youth, they proceeded in the following decade to shatter these illusions into a thousand pieces – betraying the working class in country after country.
Nothing is wasted in politics, however, and on the back of this betrayal, a new generation of young class fighters have jumped forwards by leaps and bounds: all the way to communism. Today, for the first time in more than half a century, the ideas of communism are grabbing the mind of a significant layer of young people. We are not yet talking about the majority of the working class, of course, but in every country there are thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of young people that understand that communism is the only alternative to this crisis-ridden capitalist system.
For us, this is the most important turn in the class struggle in decades – and the single most important conclusion to be drawn out of our perspectives. Our future successes entirely depend on us grasping this fundamental feature of the current situation and allowing it to guide our strategies and tactics to build the revolutionary organisation. There are hundreds, thousands, of young communists in Ireland looking to get organised. We must not let them down.
What is happening in front of our eyes is the concentrated political expression of 16 years of profound crisis and reformist betrayals. It is a foreshadowing of even greater things to come in the coming years and decades. Comrades, we need to be prepared!
Ireland
In the middle of all of this stands Ireland – connected by a million threads to the world political and economic situation.
This, of course, is true of every country – because capitalism has economically, socially and politically bound the whole wide world tightly together. But it’s even more true for a country dominated by foreign capital as Ireland is. The Irish bourgeoisie mostly plays the role of the facilitator of the exploitation of the Irish working class by world imperialism. This is perhaps more apparent in the North, where imperialist domination takes the shape of direct political rule by the British capitalist class. But the same is nonetheless true in the South – a country that is overwhelmingly dominated by North American and European capital. This situation leaves the Irish economy particularly vulnerable to the storms and stresses of the world capitalist economy, and the Irish ruling class impotent before the storms and stresses of world politics. An understanding of World perspectives is essential for developing Irish perspectives.
After decades of breakneck growth fuelled by foreign capital, the “Celtic Tiger” collapsed like a house of cards in the face of the global crisis of 2008. Since then, the living conditions of the Irish working class have been butchered by a combination of austerity, cuts and inflation.
The profound crisis of British capitalism, compounded by the self-inflicted wound of Brexit, have reignited the national question in the North. Only a quarter of a century after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the power-sharing setup lurches from one crisis to another.
The last 15 years of capitalist crisis have taken a profound toll on the main pillars of capitalist rule in Ireland. We are entering the most unstable period of Irish history perhaps since the betrayal of the Irish revolution over a century ago. At the same time, never has the ruling class been so discredited and the working class so powerful as it is today in Ireland. Events are preparing the ground for a new chapter in the Irish Revolution.
The South
In the south of Ireland we have an enormous crisis of every pillar of the bourgeois establishment that has dominated Ireland since so-called ‘independence’ more than a century ago.
The church, which was a bulwark of private property and reaction, which undermined every revolutionary struggle in Irish history, which crushed women and children beneath its brutal spiritual dictatorship, is now utterly despised.
Two referenda on gay marriage and abortion rights gave the final verdict on its influence. The ruling class, whose interests remain tied up with the Church, was left shell-shocked. So hated has it become that it cannot even find the recruits to replace priests who die and retire. This was unimaginable just one generation ago.
The collapse of the influence of the Church reflects the enormous change Ireland has undergone: from a rural, backward country where religious superstition held sway, it has been converted into a modern, urban society, with a youthful, educated working class, unencumbered by conservative traditions.
This is the single most important fact that we must understand for the Irish revolution. By merely lifting its little finger, the working class crushed the once all-powerful Church (which however still holds state power in the health & education systems). This, before it has begun to really move, is a mere foretaste of its power.
Economics
Economically, the South has been turned upside down by the large scale opening up to foreign investment. Since its foundation, the Southern state has been backwards, poor and underdeveloped. For centuries, British landlords and capitalists had sucked Ireland dry, preventing any serious industrial development except a little pocket around Belfast. Even after ‘independence’, being undersized, underdeveloped, and with the British Empire lording over it, it could not develop its own productive forces to compete on a world stage.
In a vain attempt to develop indigenous industry, the southern Irish state maintained protectionist measures until the late 1950s. Throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the ruling class implemented a series of policies consciously aimed at attracting foreign investment to the South. It was only in the 1990s though that massive investments from the US and Europe combined to develop the Irish economy at an unprecedented pace. Since 1989, GNP has grown by 7.5 percent per year, and since 1994 GDP grew by 8.6 percent per year. Roughly 415,000 jobs were filled between 1993 and 1999, an increase of over 35 percent. The labour force in Ireland now numbers an unprecedented 2.8 millions in its ranks.
After having dominated the history of Ireland for thousands of years, agriculture now accounts for only 1 percent of Irish GDP. The rest is services and industry. Today, Ireland has one of the most advanced economies in Europe, although the Irish capitalist class remains a parasitic, weak class, dependent on foreign imperialism.
But those factors that have been Ireland’s economic strengths are now turning into its weaknesses. Illustrative is the case of the Tech sector, which today plays a prominent role in the Irish economy. All over the world, the tech sector has been the target of massive investment (and speculation) over the last 10 years. Due to its particular position in the EU and its extremely low corporation taxes, Ireland has been one of the favourite spots for the Tech industry in Europe. However the tech bubble has now begun to burst, and Ireland is, and will increasingly be, at the centre of the fallout. Out of the total number of lay-offs in the tech sector in Europe in 2023, 40 percent were in Ireland.
The global crisis of capitalism is going to have a particular strong impact on the Irish economy since it relies so heavily on multinationals. We had a glimpse of that in 2008. The unprecedented increase of GDP since the noughties, can go away in the snap of a finger if big companies decide to move somewhere else or go bust.
But that is only the beginning of the troubles. The reversal of globalisation – as a result of the increased conflict between capitalist powers – is going to have serious economic consequences too. To give one figure, the value of Ireland’s exports are equivalent to 137% of its GDP – the European average is only one third of that. A trade war between imperialist countries will have a devastating effect on the Irish economy.
Perfect Storm
Irish capitalism faces a perfect storm. If in all these years of unprecedented growth of the economy, you had a spiralling of a combination of crises, what will happen with the economy stagnating, or even going in reverse?
The hectic, anarchic character of capitalist development in Ireland followed by two consecutive, deep and far-reaching crashes in 2008 and in 2020 has left Irish society riddled with contradictions.
Most of the infrastructure in the South is utterly inadequate and on the point of collapse. We see this in the school system, which doesn’t have the resources to absorb all new potential students this year; the healthcare system, with its endless waiting lists; and even water, with demand in Dublin outstripping Uisce Éireann filtering capacity in January!
But the failure of capitalism in Ireland is nowhere clearer than on the question of housing. Capitalism has had more than a decade to solve the housing crisis since 2008. Not only has it failed to do anything about it, but hardly a month passes by in which the crisis doesn’t get significantly worse.
In inner city Dublin, tents are a common sight on every main road. Roughly 100 people die on the streets each year. Hundreds of thousands are either couch-surfing or trapped in their parents’ homes, completely priced out of the housing market. Those that are fortunate enough to afford the sky-high rents live in constant fear of no-fault eviction. Many Irish youths are being forced to emigrate, fleeing Ireland as “rental refugees”. The extent of the housing crisis is producing major knock-on effects for the Irish economy, with most sectors reporting recruitment and retention problems. Most workers simply cannot afford to purchase or rent with their current wages.
For young people, there is no prospect of a good life in the South anymore. So bad has it become that a staggering 70 percent of the youth is considering emigration. Capitalist Ireland is depriving the Irish youth of any hope of a future.
Collapse of the Two party system
This is all feeding into massive resentment and frustration across the population.
Anger is building in society: against the bankers, landlords, developers, politicians, Gardaí, journalists. You can feel it, like a tension in the air. You can hear it at bus stops and in the pub. But who’s giving organised expression to this anger?
On the political front, the two party system is completely crumbling. After a decade and a half of austerity, carrying out the policies that the ruling class requires, both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have seen their support hollowed out.
The fact that both parties cannot even get 50 percent of the vote any longer is a symptom of a profound political crisis of the ruling class. This collapse, and the rapid rise and fall of Labour, the Greens, and now Sinn Féin, is a symptom of a profound searching among millions of workers for a way out.
That the so-called Civil War parties are now forced to govern in an open coalition would, again, have been unimaginable just one generation ago. This coalition was a desperate last throw of the dice by the Irish ruling class, which needed a firm, reliable pair of hands to carry out its attacks on the working class.
As these parties quickly turn into a spent force, the ruling class is forced to look around for another pair of hands to govern. They are forced to turn to Sinn Féin, who they look upon with suspicion. Unlike FF-FG, Sinn Féin is an untested force from their point of view. But they are applying enormous pressure on the party to toe the line, to prove its respectability, to distance itself from its past, to fall into line with the policies of the Irish ruling class’ imperialist masters, NATO, the US and the EU, on questions like Ukraine and Gaza.
Again, the rise of Sinn Féin has been spectacular. Until 1994, the party’s broadcasts and interviews were banned on RTE. In the 2007 elections, the party took a mere 6.9% of the vote. Today it looks set to become the biggest party at the next election.
The party’s rise in the South has only one cause: the fact that it has spoken in ‘left’ language on questions of healthcare, workers’ wages, and above all, on housing. It succeeded in raising expectations. But it has absolutely no perspective of breaking with capitalism, and if it gets into power, it will be forced to betray all these promises. Capitalism gives it no room for manoeuvre. The big foreign multinationals will dictate.
This will open up an enormous vacuum, on the left and the right. The process of radicalisation will not develop simply in one direction. As workers seek a way out, we can expect violent swings of the political spectrum in both directions.
Where the far right, like Trump, have made gains, it has been by tapping into anti-establishment anger, and using populist rhetoric to denounce Washington as a billionaire-run swamp. This language naturally resonates. Everywhere that the far right has made gains, the so-called Left has tended to draw the wrong conclusions, seeing only a reactionary development, and bemoaning the rise of ‘fascism’.
But the overwhelming strength of the working class rules out the rise of fascism in the short or medium term. What these right-wing populist trends represent is a distorted class anger. Ireland is no exception, as we see with the way that massive anger on the housing question has been abused to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment among a backward layer.
But the betrayals of reformism are also pushing a large layer, particularly of the youth, far to the left. In one country after another, we are seeing a renewed interest in communist ideas. This layer has already moved far to the left of Sinn Féin. They are past that, and are looking for something more radical. They are looking for communism. The youth were the backbone of Sinn Féin’s meteoric rise, but its recent polling is now stuttering, and its shine has all but worn off among this layer. That is not to say that when an election is called, many who have moved far to the left of the party and see through it completely will not vote for it nonetheless to kick the ruling class. That is understandable.
But the most radical youth, the young communists who exist in their thousands, can now see clearly what path the party is on. It is trying to present itself as a ‘respectable’ party of government – respectable, that is, in the eyes of bourgeois public opinion.
Above all, the question of Palestine is completely exposing the party. In words, they maintain a veneer of standing up for Palestine, making pacifist calls for a ceasefire. In deeds, they drag their feet about expelling the Israeli ambassador; they rub shoulders with the ambassador of the Palestinian Authority, who act merely as prison guards for Israel in the occupied West Bank; and most scandalous of all, the party leaders head over to the US to rub shoulders with ‘Genocide Joe’ on St. Patrick’s Day.
It is important to note that these betrayals do not represent personal failings, cowardice or treachery on the part of the Sinn Féin leadership. Rather, they flow entirely from the petty-bourgeois nationalist politics of this party that originated as a right-wing split in the Republican movement.
‘Neutrality’
The weak Irish capitalist class is completely subservient to and dominated by foreign imperialism. Its foreign policy is the logical extension of this economic subservience. Its traditional parties, which like Sinn Féin also emerged from bourgeois and petty-bourgeois trends in the course of the national liberation struggle, have had to pay lip service, historically, to the deep hatred of imperialism that runs through the veins of the Irish people. Hence all the talk of ‘neutrality’, which for the ruling class has always been completely hollow.
This sham neutrality is a disguised subservience to foreign imperialism. Any party, however ‘nationalistic’ its rhetoric, if it does not break with capitalism, must inevitably take a similarly subservient position – whether openly or hidden behind hypocritical phrases.
The epoch we are in is making that subservience ever more glaring. The writhing death agony of capitalism presents new horrors every day. The fighting over the scraps by gangs of imperialist bandits becomes ever more severe. Imperialist wars are becoming more common, as we see between NATO and Russia in Ukraine, and the one-sided genocide of Israel, backed by all the western powers, against the people of Gaza. As a small island nation, Ireland can have no hope of balancing between the different imperialist blocs, and its imperialist masters will become ever more insistent that it fall into line.
Only a complete break with capitalism, a socialist revolution in Ireland and the formation of a 32-county socialist republic as the spark for a Europe-wide socialist revolution, can guarantee any meaningful independence for Ireland.
The North
The North of Ireland has dynamite built into its foundations, and the current situation risks lighting the fuse at a moment’s notice.
Only 26 years ago the British, Americans and Irish ruling classes were jubilant with their successes in signing the Good Friday Agreement. Listening to their speeches at the time, one would have to believe the GFA was to be the last word ever on the national question in Ireland! A quarter of a century on, the whole structure built by the GFA is a complete shambles. Stormont has not functioned for half of its existence. And even when it’s up and running, it is little more than a glorified local council, implementing London rule in the Six Counties.
None of the problems affecting the North have been remotely solved in the meanwhile. Sectarianism is anything but gone. Actually, the GFA had the effect of further entrenching it and institutionalising it in the region’s setup – with political parties having to register as either Unionists or Nationalists (or “Other”), and then forced into a grand coalition together. Although significant majorities both North and South embraced the GFA out of a tiredness of violence, the GFA was no solution to the problems affecting the North, nor did it advance the struggle for a united Ireland by a single inch – and it was opposed by the Marxists at the time. The last two decades and a half have proven the Marxists correct over and over again.
The statistics on sectarianism are simply appalling and show little to no improvement in the situation since 1998. Of the much anticipated “peace-dividends” workers in the North have nothing to show for. The Six Counties are one of the poorest regions in Northern-Western Europe, the poorest in the UK, and are plagued by a social crisis that touches every sphere of life. Loyalist paramilitaries (still armed and numbering more than ten thousand) still plague their communities with drug dealing and other anti-social behaviours. There is a thick sense of malaise in Belfast that can be felt by anyone walking around the many abandoned workers’ neighbourhoods.
The North used to be the industrial powerhouse of Ireland, but industry now lies in tatters in the region. The textile and shipbuilding industries – once the pride and glory of the Belfast bourgeoisie – have all but vanished. The long-term decline of British capitalism is giving the crisis a particularly acute character. The crisis is already far-reaching – but Westminster is demanding further austerity and the raising of rates.
Infrastructure is on the point of collapse, as shown by the devastating pollution in its largest body of water, Lough Neagh – the source of 40 percent of the water used in the region! But similar systemic issues affect health and social services as well as the educational system. The cost-of-living is going through the roof. The housing situation is on a trajectory little better than in the South, with the collapse in the social housing stock driving up house prices and rents. From May 2022 to May 2023, The North of Ireland experienced a 9.2% year-on-year increase in rents. Homelessness is rising, with an increasing number of people sleeping rough on the streets of Belfast.
Capitalism has turned the life of workers and youth in the 6 Counties into a genuine nightmare. More people have in fact taken their lives since the GFA, than were killed during the Troubles.
National Question
As Lenin said, the national question is at the bottom a question of bread. And the deep crisis of capitalism in the Six Counties is bringing the national question back onto the agenda with renewed force.
Communists in Ireland must seriously study the national question, and particularly the writings of Lenin, Connolly, and our own writings on this important subject. Time and time again, left-wing groups have been broken because they failed to correctly appraise this question and draw the necessary practical conclusions.
From the times of the United Irishmen, sectarianism has been a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes to divide the working class, pit workers against one another, and redirect their anger away from capitalism into “safe” channels. The “orange card” in particular has been played over and over again by the British ruling class every time that a movement arose that challenged its rule.
Over 100 years ago – in the midst of the Irish Revolution – Britain engineered the partition of Ireland with the aim of: (1) keeping the most industrialised part of the island under its direct control; (2) because of its strategic importance for defending Britain in the case of war; (3) to stave off revolution in Ireland, which they feared might spread to Britain.
But the situation has radically changed nowadays and things have turned into their opposite. First, as mentioned above, the Six Counties are far from being that industrial powerhouse they once were – actually they are a drain on the British public purse. Further, in the epoch of long-range nuclear ballistic missiles, British imperialism has very little to gain strategically from holding onto a port in Belfast. Finally, rather than a source of stability, the North has become one of the most unstable regions in Western Europe, and an endless source of headaches for the British ruling class.
The reality is that the most ‘sensible’ wing of the British bourgeoisie would love to rid themselves of the burden of holding on to the North. The Provisional IRA (and not they alone!) failed to understand this fact, and attempted to use armed action to make it unaffordable for British imperialism to maintain its grip. But it was not for economic reasons that British imperialism maintained its grip on the North. If they could let it go, they would have let it go. But they can’t.
Having spent centuries whipping up the monster of sectarianism for their own cynical, short-term interests, like Dr. Frankenstein, they have now found out they don’t control their own creature any more. Any move towards reunification on their part would be met by the fiercest resistance from Loyalism – as it was the case in the events leading up to the Troubles with Terence O’Neill’s attempted reforms, when the Paisleyites held a match to the combustible material of sectarianism. As much as they would love to forget about the North, the instability they risk triggering is a much more serious threat to their interests. Sectarian strife in Ireland, once ignited, would not remain confined to Ireland, but would threaten to spread to Scotland and even English cities, and would have consequences for the relations between the British imperialists and their masters in Washington.
In addition, on the other side of the Irish Sea, the British ruling class is already busy in dealing with the Scottish independence movement. Westminster will be extremely resistant in entertaining calls for a Border Poll in the North of Ireland, as that could reignite national independence movements across Britain on a higher level – threatening to put an end to the United Kingdom.
So they are forced to hold on to it, but in the process they are discrediting the whole setup of the northern statelet. The same contradictions that threatened to break into open civil war in the 1970s continue to simmer just beneath the surface.
Crisis of Unionism
Sectarianism rested on the fact that Protestant workers would receive just a little bit more than Catholics. Capitalism in crisis, however, means artificial scarcity, with nothing to offer either to Catholic or Protestant workers. By any statistics, Catholics workers are still far worse off than Protestants. But the living standards of Protestants and their relative privileges are getting chipped away at by the crisis. This is feeding a deep sense of betrayal amongst a certain layer, who increasingly feel like they are being abandoned and left behind by the British ruling class and ‘their’ Unionist political representatives. Reactionary Loyalist demagogues are playing on this mood.
Unionism has suffered two massive political defeats in the last few years, first in the Stormont election, then in the 2023 local elections. For the first time since partition, we have a nationalist party being the most voted in Stormont, a nationalist party winning the biggest share of local councils, and recent polls even giving Catholics a majority in the Six Counties. Having boycotted the Assembly for two years, the DUP eventually restored power-sharing – despite their initial requests not being met. Political Unionism finds itself in a blind alley. The DUP is riddled with inner conflicts over the question of Stormont, Brexit and the Irish Sea border. There is nothing concrete they can offer to ‘their’ community.
Reactionary Unionist and Loyalist opportunists cynically exploit this sense of betrayal, anger and despair. They are pushing a siege mentality in the region: “we are surrounded by enemies and traitors on all sides!”
This is all fomenting divisions and fuelling polarisation in the North. Dialectically, rather than weakening, sectarianism is being aggravated by the crisis. The intertwining of deep crises in the North with the national question has created a heavily combustible mix that gives a hectic and explosive character to the class struggle in the North. Radicalisation is not happening only in one direction. We see a two-fold process: reaction and revolution are growing stronger side by side with one another as the crisis grows deeper.
Among most disenfranchised layers, some will come under the influence of Loyalist paramilitaries. The sectarian riots seen in 2021 are a warning sign of what lies ahead on the basis of capitalism – and the risk of an explosion of sectarian violence hangs like a Damocles sword over the region. But this is also radicalising a layer of the youth, who understand that capitalism and British imperialist rule only promises barbarism, far to the left.
A Sinn Féin First Minister
On the other side, there is Sinn Féin – which now holds the First Minister position in Stormont. Sinn Féin in the North does not have nearly the same left-wing veneer that it has in the South. After all, they have been in consecutive coalitions with Unionism carrying out Westminster-dictated austerity for years.
The sectarian baiting of nationalist communities by Unionist politicians, and the crisis and setbacks for Unionism seem to pose the possibility of a United Ireland as tantalisingly close. This has allowed Sinn Féin to rally its support in recent years. But just as we’ve seen in the South, the Sinn Féin leaders hanker after ‘respectability’, and this has seriously tarnished their image among left-wing Republican youth. The sight of Michelle O’Neill attending the coronation, being escorted by PSNI officers and even applauding to the tune of “God Save the King”, must have stirred the stomach of many nationalists. This is not to say that they won’t continue to gain politically.
The signing of the GFA on the part of Sinn Féin meant a betrayal of the struggle for Irish Unity. From armed struggle, they veered toward the most naive constitutional illusions. They have spent the last 26 years fomenting democratic fantasies and rewriting history. From them, we now “learn” that the Provos’ struggle was not actually for unity but for “equality”, which they apparently achieved in 1998. Even then it would be questionable whether any working class Catholic feels “equal” about much in Belfast.
Sinn Féin’s whole argument for unity is that it makes sense on a capitalist basis. They are openly trying to appeal to the ruling classes of America, Britain and Ireland that they would be better off if they allowed a united Ireland. This creates the paradoxical situation where Sinn Féin has become a more reliable pair of hands for British rule in the Northern statelet than even the DUP!
Mike Nebitt, former leader of the UUP, even praised Sinn Féin recently for being more “pragmatic” than the DUP, that they are trying to make the northern statelet work. They want to make it seem viable, they want Stormont up and running, they want a coalition with the Unionists to work, so as to give credibility to their appeals to the southern bourgeoisie that absorbing the northern statelet isn’t such a bad proposition. So they crawl on their bellies before British imperialism, and in Stormont carry out the policy dictated by the capitalists. But the whole reason the national question is erupting with renewed force is that society is in a complete impasse! Nothing works, healthcare is in crisis, the political system is in crisis, the whole rotten setup demands to be overthrown!
Sinn Féin wish to make themselves respectable to the southern capitalist class, and middle-class opinion in the North, that is perhaps unhappy with Brexit. But the southern bourgeoisie is not in the least interested in listening to their arguments about a united Ireland. With the signing of the GFA, Sinn Féin has, in fact, abdicated the national self-determination of Ireland to London. The British state alone has the constitutional power to call a border poll.
The whole plan of Michelle O’Neill and Mary Lou McDonald amounts to politely asking Westminster to grant them one. But both parties across the aisle in the British Commons have been quite clear: “A United Ireland is not even on the horizon” for them. Actually, the latest restoration of Stormont came with reassurances to the DUP from the Tories precisely on this question.
Having a referendum on unity is a basic question of democracy – and of course, we are not against it. As communists, we stand for full defence of national self-determination. But it begs the question, who’s going to allow it to go ahead? The British imperialists have no intention of unleashing unknown forces that would spring from a referendum.
We need to learn the lessons from Scotland and Catalonia, whose independence movements, led by petty-bourgeois nationalists trying to appeal to the ruling classes (in London, Brussels, Madrid, or wherever else), have been drawn out, demoralised, and defeated. A similar approach in the Six Counties will produce similar disastrous results. The bourgeoisie – either Irish, or British, American, or from Europe – is not interested in Irish unity. Actually they are firmly opposed to it. The only force in society that can bring about the necessary revolutionary changes is the proletariat.
Only a militant movement of the working class – one that unites the most advanced layers to lead a common struggle against the very foundations of capitalist rule – can finally resolve the national question in Ireland, uniting the country in a 32-counties workers’ state.
Class Contradictions in Republicanism
The question of our approach to Republicanism will be a key one in years to come. We do not dismiss Unionism and Republicanism as two twin reactionary ‘nationalisms’ as some do. Unionism is the nationalism of British imperialism. Republicanism represents a long revolutionary, democratic tradition. Going back to Wolf Tone and the United Irishmen, all of the great revolutionaries in Irish history have come from the Republican tradition.
Republicanism has always been historically divided along class lines, with a right-wing, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois trend that has sought to artificially detach national liberation against imperialism from the struggle for socialism. But the national question is inseparable from the imperialist domination and exploitation of Ireland under capitalism. With a false policy, this right wing has always therefore veered towards betrayal, which reflects the weakness and economic subordination of the Irish capitalist class to British imperialism.
But there has always been another, left-wing, proletarian, socialist trend in Republicanism, with outstanding representatives like Connolly, Larkin, Mellows and Costello. The Old IRA was formed precisely between a fusion of the petty-bourgeois Irish Volunteers and the proletarian Irish Citizens Army after the death of Connolly. The socialist Republican trend was subordinated beneath the petty-bourgeois leadership, which succeeded in aborting the Irish Revolution.
Since then we have seen the same basic antagonistic class tendencies in Republicanism, although the proletarian tendency has generally lacked a clarified organised expression. We must orientate towards this left wing, win over the most advanced elements, and offer political clarity and a programme of class independence. All comrades should study Alan Woods’ Republicanism and Revolution, and begin familiarising themselves with the revolutionary history of Ireland. This is not a secondary question, it is part of every comrade’s political education, North and South.
The Provisional IRA and modern Sinn Féin emerged as a right-wing, petty-bourgeois split within Republicanism in 1969, and despite occasional ‘left’ language, it still has this basic character. We have often seen in history how, with no conception of the role of mass class struggle in bringing about a socialist united Ireland, petty-bourgeois nationalists of this stripe easily switch between the most apparently ‘revolutionary’ methods of armed struggle on behalf of the masses, to constitutional subordination to imperialism when the armed struggle of a minority inevitably ends in failure.
Today, Sinn Féin hangs all its hopes on a constitutional road through a Border Poll, which is likely to be posed with greater insistence in the coming years. We need to produce more material to arm comrades on this question. If, as seems likely, we see a Sinn Féin Taoiseach greeting a Sinn Féin First Minister in the coming years, the party is going to increase its calls for such a poll. When it is unable to carry out the social reforms it has promised in the South, this is likely to be the one question the party will pin its fortunes on.
Can a movement for unity succeed on the basis of a fight for a capitalist Ireland, as envisaged by the petty-bourgeois nationalists of Sinn Féin? No.
Workers from unionist communities see the state of capitalism in the South and – to put it mildly – are not that eager to join a state with the worst housing crisis in the world, with collapsing infrastructure, and where the 1% holds 35% of the countries’ wealth. It might not be Pope Rule anymore but it’s Dollar Rule to the extreme. Without any real alternative, the majority of working-class Unionists will continue to cling to the Union and those relative privileges that London throws them.
In fact, even if a border poll were to be somehow allowed, so long as the main pro-unity campaign offers nothing to Protestant workers, which only a socialist programme could offer, it will be unable to win a significant section of them over, and would be forced to rest on the demographic balance of forces. It could transform into a reactionary sectarian headcount that would push Protestant workers straight into the arms of reaction and further entrench sectarian divisions. Nothing progressive can come out of that.
The question of ending partition starkly poses the question of a united, revolutionary struggle of all workers, Catholic, Protestant or other, North and South, against the capitalist system and imperialism. The socialist revolution alone can cast partition aside in its mighty sweep.
The Working Class
In fact, alongside the sectarianism and threat of violence from the Loyalists, and the betrayals of Sinn Féin, we have had a glimpse of the immense power of the working class in the North and the astonishing potential that a united movement of the working class can have on January 18 of this year – when 170,000 workers took to the streets in what was in effect a public sector general strike.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of this strike. This was one of the largest in the history of the state – and it cut across sectarian divides. To find cross-community movement of the working class of a similar size in the North one would have to go all the way back to the Outdoor Relief Strikes of 1932 – a whole 92 years ago! And this occurred on the back of consecutive years of record strike numbers in the North of Ireland.
January 18 sent shivers down the spine of the ruling class. The whole region ground to a halt as workers took a stand against the political farce that was being played out between the DUP and the Tories over the running of Stormont. Such a day graphically showed to the workers the mighty power that they hold in society when united together – and it won’t be forgotten easily.
But faced with the complex nature of the national question, the trade union leaders prefer to ignore it, to take an ‘apolitical’ stance. They appeal to the official politicians, nationalist and unionist, to get together in Stormont, sort things out, and act responsibly. But in so doing, they recognise these Stormont politicians as the legitimate voice of working-class communities, and thereby abdicate the job of giving an independent class lead on the political front. Many so-called ‘socialist’ groups do the same. They prefer to ignore the national question, seeing it as ‘divisive’, to focus instead on bread and butter trade union questions. James Connolly referred to this as ‘gas and water’ socialism.
Our job is not to lower ourselves to trade union consciousness, not to ignore the national question, but to raise the consciousness of our class and recruit the best class fighters, and to answer the burning questions, including the national question, with a clear, proletarian policy.
Without organisation, workers are just raw material for exploitation. Workers don’t need this point explained to them: everywhere, they instinctively understand the need for unity in the face of their individual boss, and they instinctively join trade unions. But the job of communists is to raise this understanding, to explain to workers that it is not just their bosses, but the bosses as a class who are their enemy, with their army, police, state institutions, and that imperialism is also their common enemy. The class struggle is also a political struggle.
We must state plainly what is: under Stormont rule or direct London rule, capitalism will continue to undermine the workers’ living conditions. As a class, we have the same interests. True liberation for the working class can only come by sweeping away British imperialist rule, by the working class in the South sweeping away the capitalist southern state, and building a Socialist United Ireland.
On the back of the crisis of capitalism, the squabbles of Stormont and Westminster politicians, it is the workers that are shouldering the burden of the crisis – while bosses are laughing all the way to the bank. It is the common hatred of capitalism that during the struggle can unite the working class in the North if it is given a clear expression by a revolutionary party.
There is no shortcut to overcoming the sectarian divisions in the northern working class. Simply ignoring the national question will not help revolutionaries connect with Unionist workers. Rather, we must turn to the advanced layers with our full programme for a 32-county socialist republic. We will find youth open to communist ideas in all communities. It will be the advanced layers of the class that will, in turn, draw more backward workers behind them in struggle.
Our programme is that of James Connolly: “In their movement the North and the South will again clasp hands, again will it be demonstrated, as in ’98, that the pressure of a common exploitation can make enthusiastic rebels out of a Protestant working class, earnest champions of civil and religious liberty out of Catholics, and out of both a united Social democracy.”
The majority of youth in the North are already sick to the stomach of the sectarian divisions, and are looking for a way out. The advanced layers of the working class just had a taste of their common strength. The fight for a Socialist United Ireland, for a 32-county workers’ state, the overthrow of capitalism all around Ireland, is the only solution to the issues facing workers of all backgrounds in the North and South, and the only way that a united Ireland will be finally obtained.
A note on the Left
Until 2020, the IMT had nothing in Ireland. Now we are rapidly expanding. At the same time, the ‘left’ groups are in a state of collapse. That is not a coincidence. Quite frankly, we wish them luck in their successive implosions. Whereas other left groups prefer to huddle together for warmth, we are not interested in them.
As a relatively new group in Ireland, it will be worthwhile from time to time for us to write polemical articles to educate our own comrades and draw clear lines of demarcation between ourselves and the sects, but as a rule we turn our back on them and face instead towards the thousands and tens of thousands of fresh youth who are drawing towards communist ideas.
The collapse of these groups, who only serve to miseducate and demoralise the young people unlucky enough to venture into their ranks, represents a welcome clearing of the decks. They have done nothing but give Marxism, and especially Trotskyism, a bad name.
All of their problems can be traced to one source: their utter abandonment of Marxist theory, which they see as a merely interesting bauble, rather than the cornerstone of a revolutionary party. Instead, we see the likes of the so-called ‘Trotskyist’ Socialist Party and PBP latching on to every trendy idea emanating from bourgeois academia: postmodernism, identity politics, feminism, queer theory, ecosocialism – everything, in fact, except the scientific method of Marxism! The Socialist Party is currently undergoing a split precisely because of its infatuation with identity politics.
We, in contrast, must implacably wage a continuous internal battle against these ideas. If that means we lose some individuals who have wandered into our ranks on the basis of a misunderstanding, we will be stronger for it.
These same sects have adopted a completely reformist electoral approach. Dizzy from success at having won a few TD seats, they bent their whole political programme, watering it down, to win a few more votes. The rise of Sinn Féin at the next election could all but wipe them out, cutting off the state money that kept them going.
Meanwhile, as there has been a renewed interest in communism in Ireland, we have seen the modest growth of small Stalinist and Maoist sects. Their rise is an interesting symptom of a mood among a layer for something bolder. We must reach them first. It is no coincidence that these groups are attracting young people who call themselves socialist Republicans, although the genuine ideas of James Connolly and the so-called theories of Stalinism are like oil and water. Frankly, these groups have an equal disdain for theory, and, for that reason, their rise is also likely to be short-lived.
In place of a clear revolutionary policy based on class struggle methods, mass struggle and along clear theoretical lines, these groups tend to engage in ‘showy’, petty-bourgeois stunts that attract a bit of social media attention and have a very ‘radical’ feel, but which offers no serious way forward.
Lenin answered these self-described ‘Leninists’ in advance, “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity.”
We instead, comrades, are building on the granite foundations of orthodox Marxist theory. The ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and James Connolly are the only foundations upon which a solid revolutionary organisation can be built in the long term. Our recent unprecedented successes in Ireland are a striking confirmation of this.
No Way Forward Under Capitalism
We are entering a period of great instability. In the next few years, Ireland – as everywhere else around the world – will be gripped by revolutionary upheavals. The pre-2008 norm of stability, growth, and improvements in the living conditions (at least for a layer of workers in the Western world) is gone and is not coming back any time soon.
There is no saving capitalism from itself. Every decision the ruling class is taking is pouring further fuel on the crisis. As Trotsky put it in 1939, “the ruling class is tobogganing towards disaster with their eyes closed.”
At this point in the crisis of capitalism, every attempt at restabilising the economy will only further destabilise the political situation. And vice versa, any attempt to bring back political stability can only come at the price of further economic instability. In the long term, the capitalist class is going to have neither.
But we should not make the mistake of believing that capitalism will collapse by itself. The ruling class would sooner drag the whole world into barbarism than relinquish as much as a pinch of their privileges and power.
On the other hand, the working class has never been as strong as it is today – both numerically and in terms of the central role that it plays in the running of society. When it decides to move, nothing will be able to stop it. But today its revolutionary strength is bottled up by the utter rottenness of the leadership of the labour movement – which are the main props to the continued existence of the bourgeoisie and its reign of horror over this planet.
The most important task in front of us is that of building a revolutionary leadership, that can equip the working class with a revolutionary programme, and lead the struggle against capitalism to its conclusion once and for all.
For Revolutionary Communism
This document – the first Irish Perspective document we have developed as an organisation – is aimed at beginning to equip us with the weapons we need to move the building of the organisation to the next phase.
Comrades, our founding congress is an historical event. In the last year, we have succeeded in gathering our initial forces at an incredible speed. We now have an organisation consisting of multiple branches, a publication of our own, regular activity around Dublin, Belfast, and we are aiming at establishing ourselves ever more forcefully all around Ireland.
The present situation will undoubtedly present us with many opportunities to grow. We must seize them with both hands, and aim at becoming the biggest organisation on the left in Ireland.
The step from 1 to 10 comrades is the most difficult one. From 10 to 100 is relatively easy in comparison – and we are already well underway to reach it. We must break out of thinking of ourselves as a small circle, and consciously fight to become a professional Bolshevik organisation operating on a national scale. Concretely, this means reaching the 100 comrades mark as soon as possible, and working to steel each comrade in our ranks with the Marxist methods and perspectives.
Revolutionary events will shake Ireland sooner than many may think. Our task is to prepare for these events. The Irish working class is a class with an inspiring and tremendous history of resistance, of battles and of revolutions. They deserve a revolutionary leadership worthy of its name. And it is the duty of communists to work as hard as we possibly can to build that.
We need to rise to the occasion, comrades! With our work, we are laying down the foundations for a future mass revolutionary party. We must not be daunted. We must place one foot in front of the other and advance with determination. With the correct method and our unshakable faith in the power of the working class to change society, we will be successful! We will complete the revolution that James Connolly started in 1916!
LONG LIVE THE IRISH SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!
FOR WORLD COMMUNISM!
