The fight for the socialist revolution has never been as pressing as today.
War, poverty, environmental catastrophe, sexism, racism; all these evils have their roots today in capitalism.
Everywhere, the crisis of capitalism is decimating the living standards of workers and youth – meanwhile, the bosses are laughing all the way to the bank, raking in unprecedented profits. The illusion that capitalism can be made ‘nicer’ through reforms has been shattered into a thousand pieces.
For centuries Ireland has been at the rough end of imperialist subjugation. First through direct political rule, and since partition through a combination of direct subjugation in the North and indirect economic subjugation to international finance capital in the South. The Irish ruling class – a feeble class tied up by a thousand threads to the imperialists – is only too happy to shrug off this state of affairs as long as it can share in the cream of imperialist profits, skimmed off the labour of the Irish working class.
They have participated in the tearing apart of Ireland’s social fabric. The healthcare system is chronically underfunded, with over 20 percent of the population on waiting lists. We have an ever-spiralling housing crisis, with hundreds of thousands scraping to rent in the most dilapidated conditions. We have a shattered education system, wrecked by decades of austerity and run in the South by a Church responsible for unspeakable abuses of women and children. And we have the poisonous legacy of partition and sectarianism, legacies of a conscious policy of our class enemy to divide workers against one another. Poverty and social crisis run deep into every alley, estate and corner of this island.
The fact is that the resources exist to eradicate all the problems facing workers and youth today. But this immense wealth, produced by workers, is appropriated by the capitalists. It sits inside the banks’ vaults. It overflows the pockets of billionaires. It is gambled in the stock market. All the while, the rest of us are forced to scramble over mere crumbs.
This is why we, the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland, stand unashamedly for the overthrow of capitalism and a root and branch transformation of society along socialist lines.
By nationalising the big banks, credit institutions and construction monopolies under workers’ control as part of an economic plan, we could start today building the hundreds of thousands of homes desperately needed by workers and youth.
By expropriating the big industrial and energy monopolies, we could plan a truly green transition out of the environmental nightmare. We could tackle the energy crisis. We could undertake massive public investments in healthcare, education, and social care. We can turn the higher levers of the economy to work for the benefit of the masses, not the profits of the bosses.
Putting all the fruits of labour at the disposal of society and planning the economy based on need instead of profit, we can raise the living standards of workers to unheard-of levels. The working day could be reduced to a fraction of its current length. However, this is only possible on the basis of a democratic economic plan, as opposed to the anarchy of the capitalist market.
But you cannot plan what you don’t control, and you cannot control what you do not own. That is why we stand for the nationalisation of the biggest monopolies under workers’ control and management.
Irish capitalism today is deeply connected to the world market. The fight for a Socialist United Ireland is intimately bound up with the fight for the socialist revolution internationally; to the fight for a socialist federation of Europe; and ultimately to a worldwide socialist federation.
The Revolutionary Communists of Ireland march towards this goal alongside our comrades of the Revolutionary Communist International all around the world, under the revolutionary banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Connolly. We stand firmly on the side of the working class, the only “incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.” Join us in this fight!
Expropriate the big monopolies!
Overthrow the bosses’ system!
For a Socialist United Ireland!
Fight for World Revolution!