The following article was written before the announcement of a small split from PBP with the departure of Red Network. The departure of Red Network, although long in preparation, is symptomatic of the fact that there are many in PBP questioning the way forward. Red Network’s statements, however, lead us to believe that they have not grasped the essence of the thing.
This article’s intention is to draw out the relationship between the fight for reforms and for revolution. In their departure statement, Red Network insisted that we must be upfront about being socialists. This is very good. But in their programme they introduce a sharp division. On the one hand, it starts with the ‘minimum’ we must fight for “today” – essentially a series of reforms achievable under capitalism. It then makes “suggestions” for the working class to take up “tomorrow” – a ‘maximum’ programme for socialist revolution.
The division between ‘minimum’ and ‘maximum’ demands has its origin in Social Democracy before 1914, and it was a division that suited the opportunist leaders of Social Democracy very well: a reformist programme for today, a revolutionary programme for May Day speeches, applicable at some indeterminate time in the future.
But with capitalism dying on its feet, the urgent task before the working class today is that of the socialist revolution. Every additional day that capitalism persists brings mankind one step closer to barbarism. The whole task of communists is to find the bridge that links every day to day struggle to that overarching goal. This bridge is what is missing in Red Network’s statements.
We believe that political discussion, when carried on in a comradely spirit with the intention of raising the level, can only strengthen the movement. We therefore decided to go ahead with our original intention of publishing this article despite the departure of Red Network and hope it will be read with interest.
As the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland (RCI) has grown, our comrades have had many sympathetic interactions with workers and young people who have been delighted to hear that communist ideas are finding fertile soil in Ireland. But our comrades have also encountered questions. What is the utility of a small group? And what is our position towards other, larger left-wing groups?
These are legitimate questions. People Before Profit (PBP) is arguably the largest all-Ireland political party to the left of Sinn Féin today. Like the RCI, it is a party led by self-identified Marxists. It would be quite reasonable for a class-conscious worker to therefore pose the question: what is the difference between the RCI and PBP?
In fact, our comrades have been asked this very question in the course of many very friendly interactions with PBP members themselves.
Fundamentally, our difference comes down to this: whilst in programmes, articles and statements, PBP advances very good proposals that target the symptoms of capitalist decay, the party fails to strike at the decayed system’s root.
All of the major problems facing the working class flow from the crisis of capitalism. The first job of revolutionaries is to tell the truth to the working class: that this system cannot be patched up. We must overthrow it.
It is necessary to raise the sights of the working class to the task of overthrowing the rule of capital, North and South, in Ireland and beyond. We must present a programme that draws the threads connecting the specific grievances workers face – over housing, pay, imperialist war, the oppression of women, etc. – and the need to overthrow the capitalist system as a whole.
Above all, it is necessary to pose the task of striking in a revolutionary way at the property relations upon which this system is based. In other words, communists fight for the nationalisation of the property of the big capitalists, and their integration into a plan of production under democratic workers’ control. As Marx put it, we are fighting for “the expropriation of the expropriators”.
Reformism and reforms
Let us see how PBP poses the question.
We will begin by citing one of the more recent and comprehensive documents laying out PBP’s positions. During the last election in the South, PBP published a programme titled, 100 Years of FF/FG is Enough: Another Ireland is Possible.
The document lays out a series of important reforms that the party is fighting for. These include: a free and well-funded national healthcare system, mental health services and childcare services; the provision of free education up to all levels; better state pensions; a decent living wage; massive investment in green energy and public transport, as well as increased funding for Irish language learning, and much else.
To address Ireland’s atrocious housing crisis, the party also proposes to establish a State Construction Company to build the housing stock necessary, as well as a cap on rent, and a number of regulations to prevent environmentally damaging practices.
Now, right from the outset, let us make one thing absolutely clear. We support every reform that would genuinely benefit the working class, including those proposed by PBP. How many times have communists erroneously been accused of talking about revolution while being uninterested in fighting for reforms that satisfy the immediate needs of the working class?
What we communists oppose is reformism: the false policy of circumscribing the workers’ movement to the fight for what are thought to be ‘reasonable’ reforms that do not step beyond the confines of capitalism. Reformism is an attempt to create a kind of ‘capitalism with a human face’. That is, it is a hunt for a chimera. But communists do not thereby renounce the fight for reforms.
On the contrary. It can only be in the struggle to defend its hard-won gains, and to improve upon them where possible – that is, in the fight for past and future reforms – that the working class becomes mobilised, begins to feel its strength as a class, and under the correct leadership can begin to recognise the pinched, temporary nature of any reforms under capitalism.
Without the workers’ struggle to defend past reforms and acquire new ones, revolution would be inconceivable.
Communists make up the most ardent fighters for reforms. But we do not stop there. We seek to raise the sights of the working class, starting with its most advanced layer, to the task of overthrowing capitalism. If the ruling class cry that they cannot afford such and such a reform under their system, then we answer: so much the worse for your system.
We do not limit ourselves to what is ‘realistic’ under this system, but base ourselves on what is necessary from the point of view of the working class.
Furthermore, we point out that the willingness of the capitalists to grant concessions is relative. If threatened with losing everything, the capitalists will be more than willing to grant something. Thus, the more threatening, the more revolutionary the movement of the working class, the more likely the workers are to win meaningful concessions.
As that great Irish Marxist and revolutionary martyr, James Connolly, put it:
“If the workers ask for the capitalist baker’s shop, he will throw the loaves at them to keep them out.” (C. Desmond Greaves, The Life and Times of James Connolly, p. 137)
Ironically, it has never been the ‘realistic’ reformist party, limiting itself to what few crumbs the capitalists are prepared to cast down from their table, that has won serious reforms, but the spectre of revolution itself.
It was in the immediate wake of the German Revolution of 1918 that the German ruling class granted the eight-hour day. After the Second World War, it was fear of revolution and communism that forced the ruling classes of much of Europe to create the welfare states that are now being dismantled. And it was the revolutionary general strike of May 1968, and fear of a new May 68, that forced the ruling class of France to grant a shorter working week, higher wages, and a lower pension age.
None of the historic gains made by the working class had anything to do with the ‘clever’ negotiating or parliamentary maneuvering of reformist workers’ leaders.
In Ireland today, we too must fight for “the capitalist baker’s shop”, as Connolly put it: that is, communists fight for the revolutionary seizure of the factories, the banks, the insurance companies, the offices, the labs, the land, the data centres, the means of transport and infrastructure. We fight to wrest them from the hands of that tiny exploiting minority that robs the masses.
This is ABC for any Marxist. But, lamentably, such revolutionary measures are not to be found anywhere in the programmes, policies or statements of PBP.
Taxation or expropriation?
Let us return to the aforementioned election manifesto. The same programme correctly states that plentiful wealth exists in Ireland for carrying out every single one of the reforms proposed. The problem is that it is in the hands of the rich, in particular the giant multinationals that treat the South like their personal playground.
The whole thrust of PBP’s programme rests on a single plank: forming a ‘left government’ – that is, a Sinn Féin-led government excluding FF/FG – that would tax, rather than expropriate the rich to fund these reforms.
Some of this, the party proposes to attain with money already at the government’s fingertips. PBP would allocate the Apple money to fund a State Construction Company. The rest of the money needed to carry out the other reforms would be raised with cash from new taxes on the rich: a ‘Multi Millionaire Tax’ on wealth over €4.7 million; raising corporation tax to 20 percent; by introducing a financial transaction tax; through a levy on the profits of the pharmaceutical companies and private healthcare; and through a 50 percent windfall tax on the energy companies. Meanwhile, PBP pledges to close tax loopholes.
It all sounds very ‘realistic’, and much less revolutionary than “seizing the capitalist bakers’ shop”. The whole document only mentions nationalisation in three places: specifically, in connection with private hospitals, the energy sector, and the wastewater system.
But in general, it is a programme which would leave all of the key levers of the economy in the hands of the capitalists. In fact, nowhere in PBP’s statements, website or programmes will you find anything concrete that would overstep the limits of capitalism.
But here is the problem with this ‘realistic’ programme: it is completely impossible to implement.
Firstly, it supposes that the capitalist state would be responsive to a left government, and would dutifully oblige in carrying out such a programme. But both North and South, despite democratic window dressing, the state in Ireland exists for only one purpose: to protect the interests of capital.
In the North, the state is obviously a tool for the implementation of the interests of British imperialism. In the South, formally and constitutionally speaking, the state derives its power ‘from the people’. In fact, it too exists to defend the interests of capital, and above all the interests of the imperialists.
We only have to look at how the courts have protected the vulture funds, or how the gardaí have assisted bailiffs and repressed pro-Palestine demonstrators. If a left government passed measures that struck at the interests of big capital, would the judges, garda commissioners, senior civil servants and generals carry their legislation into effect? We need only recall how serving generals in the British Army made explicit that they would not obey orders from a Corbyn government, were it to be elected, back in 2017.
The real power of the state under capitalist ‘democracy’, held by unelected individuals who have been carefully selected by the ruling class, is hidden behind the window dressing of the parliamentary talking shop. PBP does occasionally recognise this fact. The party has thus argued that a left government would have to mobilise the masses outside the Dáil. But the end of such mobilisation for PBP is to pressure the capitalist state to carry out reforms against its interests. The real end must be the smashing of the capitalist state and the placing of the working class in power.
However, the capitalist class has much more effective, although far less direct means to bring governments of any political stripe to heel.
The enormous development of the Irish economy over the last 30 years has been almost wholly based upon investment by highly productive American capitalists, above all in the big tech and pharmaceutical sectors. They were attracted by a number of factors, of which the extremely low tax rate levied by the Irish state is not the least important.
Without the enormous influx of foreign capital, Irish capitalism would remain extremely backward. Indeed, the figures show that homegrown Irish capitalism remains as backward and dependent on foreign imperialism as ever.
Gross value added (GVA) per worker in foreign-owned firms in Ireland in highly productive industries like chemicals, pharmaceuticals and big tech is €414 per hour. For Irish-owned industries it is a much lower €55 per hour per worker. Even this latter figure is inflated, as the most productive Irish-owned industries are themselves mere appendages of foreign operations. Foreign-owned firms account for 56 percent of GVA, Irish industries accounting for the rest.
Just ten giant US multinationals were thus responsible for 56 percent of all corporate tax collected in 2021.
What would happen if higher taxes were levied on these companies in the manner PBP proposes? Quite simply, they would cease investing and uproot their operations and relocate to where costs, in terms of wages and taxes, are lower. There would be enormous capital flight and Irish capitalism would collapse like a house of cards. Without the tax revenue of big business, government borrowing costs would spiral, until the state is brought to its knees and to the brink of bankruptcy. Even the threat of higher taxes would be met with a sell off of Irish government bonds and a rise in borrowing costs. By these means would the government be forced to capitulate.
We saw this in action very recently, ironically, with a right-wing government in Britain, when Liz Truss announced unfunded tax cuts. A quick sell off of government bonds was all it took to push up the cost of borrowing, crippling the British government and thus forcing Truss from power. Even the British government, which has far greater material means and latitude to act as it chooses than the Irish government, is no match for the power of the market!
When we limit ourselves to what is ‘possible’ within the current parliamentary system and within the existing property relations, this end result – capitulation to the markets – seems inevitable, a closed, narrow circle from which there is no escape. PBP’s programme remains circumscribed wholly within the limits of this circle.
Revolutionary measures
There is only one way to cut this Gordian Knot, to really take hold of the enormous wealth of the Irish capitalists and foreign multinationals and use it to serve the interests of the Irish working class and poor. That is, by seizing it.
Instead of setting up a State Construction Company to compete alongside private sector construction companies, the RCI stands for the nationalisation of all of the big construction companies without compensation, integrating them into a single state construction monopoly under workers’ control.
Instead of funding such a company by taxing the corporations, we say we will fund it by immediately nationalising all of the banks and insurance companies. By seizing such wealth, we would properly fund free and high-quality healthcare and education at all levels.
We would ensure that the wealth created by the Irish working class belongs to the Irish people as a whole by nationalising all of the assets of the foreign-owned multinationals and large monopolies, integrating them into a democratic plan of production that would produce for human need. On the basis of such a plan, the working class in power could develop new industries, including green industries, by retooling factories and retraining thousands of workers without the need for a single job loss.
Such a programme cannot be achieved through a parliamentary vote, in either the Dáil or Stormont. It can only be achieved by the working class seizing power and sweeping away both of these increasingly discredited institutions of capitalist rule, along with the other pillars of the capitalist state, North and South, and forming a 32-County Socialist Republic. Incidentally, this is the only means to undo partition, through a socialist revolution and not, as PBP proposes, through a constitutional border poll they expect to be granted by a British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Instead of remaining circumscribed by what is ‘possible’ under capitalism, we would abolish capitalism. This is the programme of socialist revolution. Is it practical? It is the only practical programme that can solve the pressing problems of the Irish working class.
James Connolly sharply answered this question in Socialism Made Easy:
“Let us be practical. We want something practical.
“Always the cry of humdrum mediocrity, afraid to face the stern necessity for uncompromising action. That saying has done more yeoman service in the cause of oppression than all its avowed supporters. […]
“Yet, although it may seem a paradox to say so, there is no party so incapable of achieving practical results, as an orthodox, political party; and there is no party so certain of placing moderate reforms to its credit as an extreme revolutionary party. The possessing class will and do laugh to scorn every scheme for the amelioration of the workers so long as those responsible for the initiation of the scheme admit as justifiable the “rights of property”; but when the public attention is directed toward questioning the justifiable nature of those “rights” in themselves, then the master class, alarmed for the safety of their booty, yield reform after reform – in order to prevent revolution. […]
“Revolution is never practical – until the hour of the revolution strikes. THEN it alone is practical, and all the efforts of the conservatives, and compromisers become the most futile and visionary of human imaginings.”
We feel fully justified in saying that this is the same political position that the RCI defends today.
More than a century ago, Connolly placed his finger on precisely the limitation of PBP’s politics: the party does not “direct public attention towards questioning the justifiability of the ‘rights of property’”.
PBP makes many broad and vague references to ‘system change’, but without touching upon the property question at all. In this sense, irrespective of whether the party’s leadership believes itself to be ‘Marxist’ or not, PBP is a reformist party. This is not an insult but a scientific statement.
The ‘practical’ socialist might ask in response, wouldn’t a revolutionary policy, if carried out, also incur the wrath of the capitalist class and of imperialism? It certainly would. But ask yourself this: how long would pass before the British workers seize power once the Irish working class has set the example? A few years, perhaps, if we are being generous? How long would American or European capitalism last once the example has been set?
Ireland would be a beacon to the workers of the whole world who are seething with anger and discontent, but who have no example to point to that offers them a way out.
Suddenly, Ireland would become a shining example for hundreds of millions of workers everywhere, who would point to Ireland and say: “That is it! That is the answer that we have been groping towards, that is what we must fight for!”
Reformism has failed
The question might yet be asked, however, why, if capitalism was once able to offer substantial reforms to the working class, are those reforms being clawed back now?
For genuine Marxists, the answer to that question must be sought in the concrete material conditions of capitalism in the present day. For a party with a reformist outlook, for a party which believes that there is no barrier to us just taxing the rich to pay for reforms, which starts from the premise that there is no objective reason why thorough-going, lasting reforms cannot be secured under capitalism, the answer has to be found elsewhere.
If such reforms could be guaranteed for the working class within capitalism, why would the capitalists not buy class peace for themselves by granting these reforms? The only answer is that there must be something peculiar in the subjective, ideological commitment of the established parties to an anti-working class agenda. This reasoning is repeated time and time again in PBP’s literature.
In Cost Of Living Crisis- We Can’t Pay (2022), we read: “Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens will never support [free public transport] because they are ideologically committed to the free market.” (our emphasis)
In The Case for a Left Government (2024), we read: “[Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael] are ideologically opposed to state intervention to protect people from the ravages of capitalism.” (our emphasis)
An article titled, Political Ideology Is Preventing Housing Crisis From Being Solved (2017), goes even further: “The bankrupt ideology of Ireland’s right-wing parties is the only barrier to a serious resolution to the housing crisis.” (our emphasis)
The only barrier!
While we don’t question the fact that FF/FG are, in fact, ‘ideologically’ committed to right-wing policies, this is not the main explanation for the squeeze that the working class faces. Their policies are only the ideological reflection of the economic interests of the capitalist class in a time of deep crisis.
The ruling class would like nothing more than to buy social peace by casting down a few crumbs from their table to the working class. There have been periods when they have been able to do so. But the crisis of capitalism today makes that impossible.
When the economy is booming, when the pie is growing, the capitalists can slightly increase the size of the slice going to the working class, although never at a rate commensurate with the growth of profits.
But when markets are shrinking, when competition is becoming more fierce, the capitalists are forced to increase their competitiveness by making the working class pay.
One might object that at present the FF/FG government is in a very good position to grant some reforms. After all, even on the basis of the exceptionally low tax rate that is presently levied on foreign corporations, the Irish government is swimming in tax money – an exceptional situation in Europe! Billions are sitting in a pot in the form of Apple tax money, apparently just waiting to be spent.
PBP calls for a government that taxes the rich. Well, FF/FG are taxing the rich, maybe only a degree less than PBP would. And yet, strangely, FF/FG refuse to spend a cent alleviating the housing crisis or any of the numerous other crises.
Why? The answer has less to do with mere ideology than the material facts of capitalism.
Firstly, they intend to send a message precisely to those corporate investors on which the Irish economy depends. If they spend the Apple tax money, they fear sending a message to big investors that their profits are not as safely guarded by the Irish state as the Irish state might have led them to believe. They are subject to the whims of the giant American monopolies.
But secondly, they know that the good times won’t last. Any shock could plunge the world economy into a crisis, causing their temporary surpluses to evaporate. They are attempting to create a buffer in the public finances for the day when the crisis of capitalism batters Ireland’s shores once more. Trump’s tariffs are bringing that evil day ever closer.
The point is, that whatever the political hue of the incumbent government, under capitalism it is the markets and the boardrooms of the giant monopolies that dictate policy, not the politicians.
The reason that the capitalist class cannot grant reforms in the way they did in the past, say during the postwar boom, is because capitalism today is in a deep, intractable crisis. The working class are being forced to pay the cost of extricating the capitalist class from the crisis.
Austerity and other attacks on the working class flow not from ideological causes, but from the material realities of capitalism in crisis. It is for that reason that we have seen the same policy carried out by both right-wing and apparently left-wing governments internationally.
Take the government of Socialist Party President François Hollande in France, for instance. He was elected President in 2012 on a programme precisely of taxing the rich. David Cameron, the British prime minister at the time, promised to “roll out the red carpet” for French companies if Hollande went ahead with his tax hikes. Rather than face a flight of capital from Paris to London or Frankfurt, Hollande gave up on his programme.
In 2015, Syriza in Greece was elected on an even more radical programme of defying the IMF, ending austerity and taxing the rich. Greece actually did face a rather serious flight of capital, and in the end, the party capitulated and carried out the austerity programme demanded by imperialism.
In these cases, purely ‘ideological’ explanations explain nothing. It was because the programmes of both Syriza and the French Socialist Party were limited to what was ‘achievable’ on the basis of capitalism that they eventually capitulated to big business.
These are living examples for the leadership of PBP, who although they may call themselves ‘Marxists’, also defend a programme that is wholly restricted to taxing the rich within the confines of capitalism. They are policies that cannot work.
Tariff trouble
In a perverse way, something of an experiment is actually being conducted at present on the Irish economy, putting to the test precisely how capitalist monopolies react when subjected to the pinch of taxation.
This experiment isn’t being conducted by a left government intent on redistributing wealth. It is being conducted by Donald Trump, with the very deliberate intention of incentivising those monopolies to leave Irish shores.
It is having an effect. Already, Paschal Donohoe has warned that GDP growth in 2025 may have to be downgraded from nearly 3 percent projection to 1.5 percent, and as many as 75,000 jobs could be threatened.
Rather than invest in Ireland and face high taxes (i.e. tariffs), would it not be more profitable to invest in the US or even to repatriate capital? This question is being posed in the boardrooms of multinationals with investments in Ireland today. It would be posed again tomorrow were a left government to attempt its own taxation programme.
This is only the beginning of the trade war. Trump has threatened far higher tariffs to come. And he has made it clear that he intends specifically to come for the Irish pharmaceutical industry at a certain stage, which he wishes to reshore.
The European Union, for its part, has made it clear that if a fully-fledged US-EU trade war erupts, they could come for US tech companies, with obvious implications for the Irish economy. Irish capitalism is at the bottom of the list of concerns of both US and European imperialism.
The Irish economy in the South is under threat of being crushed between the two millstones of these competing imperialist blocs.
PBP has only published one, very short article on this important question. A longer analysis by leading PBP member Kieran Allen, however, contains all the same fundamental policies and attempts to supplement this with something of an analysis. It is worth quoting here.
Titled, Submit or Resist: The Irish State and Trump, Allen attempts to play down the threat of trade wars!
He starts by noting, “To put it baldly, about 90% of the Irish workforce are not dependent on US multinationals.” The figure is questionable. It ignores the many companies that service these same US giants, not to mention the dependence of Irish tax revenue on these companies.
Again, the article plays down the possibility of US companies withdrawing:
“[A]s not all US multinationals would withdraw on Trump’s orders, we should keep in mind these figures. Moreover, even if they wanted to withdraw, it would take some time to dismantle physical plants.”
In other words, it is supposed that tariffs will be transitory. The issue is Trump, and Trump won’t be around forever. Why are we bending the knee to this blackmailer? We can wait him out and hope for better weather under the next, presumably Democratic administration in the US.
The article also alludes to the idea that there might be other ‘realistic’ policies that could be applied by the Irish state wholly under capitalism:
“Today, the US is a declining hegemon, worried that it is losing out to its Chinese rival. In other words, even within the limits of the current economy, there is room to manoeuvre rather than simply groveling.”
Firstly, then, the threat of tariffs is overblown. Secondly, tariffs are a Trumpist policy, we just need to wait out Trump. Thirdly, we can avoid being caught up in the damage of trade wars by maneuvering between other imperialist blocs including China.
The article is wrong, utterly wrong, on all three counts. The reason the threat of tariffs is played down is because while it seems realistic that austerity and social inequality can be overcome under capitalism by progressive tax policies, there is no reformist road out of a trade war!
The worldwide trend towards protectionism, along with the trend towards imperialist war, is a vivid expression that the productive forces of humanity are coming up against an insurmountable barrier under capitalism: the stifling limit of the nation state.
As the crisis deepens, the struggle between the major imperialist blocs over markets, resources, fields of investment and spheres of influence is becoming acute. Wars and trade wars are the result.
The guiding thought behind this article, like PBP’s policy on austerity, is that tariffs are merely an ‘ideological choice’, for which Trump has an inexplicable mania. But the trend towards protectionist measures was already evident under Biden, who took sharp measures not only against China but also against the EU. Trump embodies this process but he is not its cause. The idea, therefore, that Irish capitalism can ‘wait out’ tariffs by waiting out Trump is false to the core.
Even more foolish is the idea that the heating up of competition with China and other imperialist blocs will give Ireland greater room to manoeuvre. Tariffs are the result of growing imperialist rivalry, and they are also aggravating this rivalry. The goods that the Chinese cannot sell on the US market will be offloaded onto other markets including the EU. The EU will not stand around and accept this. New protectionist measures will follow as night follows day.
Ireland is among those economies most dependent of all on the world market, world trade and global investment. At a time when the tentacles of international capital are retreating behind national borders, Irish capitalism stands as one of the most exposed.
Again, there is only one solution: to expropriate the capitalists, to overthrow the rule of capital, and to fight for the victory of the world socialist revolution, to put an end to the archaic limit of the nation state.
This is the position of the RCI. It is a position which flows from our whole analysis. Such a position and such an analysis are not to be found anywhere in material produced by PBP.
Communists and electoral politics
A revolutionary communist programme does not take as its starting point that which is superficially ‘realistic’, ‘practical’, or ‘popular’ among the working class at its present level of consciousness. We start instead from what is necessary.
Only the revolutionary seizure of power by the working class and the expropriation of the property of the capitalists as part of the struggle for world socialist revolution can solve the burning problems workers face.
However, in order to carry out that task, a revolutionary party must strive to win the leadership of the overwhelming majority of the working class. The path to achieving that is by no means a straight line. Although enormous anger is building in the depths of society, there remain all sorts of confusions among ordinary workers.
Some are indeed drawing close to revolutionary conclusions. But others maintain the hope of reform through bourgeois democracy. Others express their anger in an anti-political hatred of parties in general, and still other more backward layers have, for now, bought into anti-immigrant ‘solutions’.
However, the anger in society is growing. It is seeking a point of reference. All parties, of the left and right, that proffer ‘solutions’ within capitalism are little better than snake oil salesmen. They will disappoint as soon as they are seriously tested.
Consciousness can change rapidly under these conditions as workers test each option on offer. In the absence of a mass revolutionary party, we can expect sharp swings of the political pendulum to the left and to the right. But we are confident that events and struggle will teach ever broader layers of workers of the need for a fundamental revolutionary change.
Our task is to grow the forces of revolutionary communism and there are already ample opportunities to do so right now.
If we can develop a strong, national organisation, with trained revolutionaries in every community, workplace, school and college, we are confident we will be able to reach the masses in the years ahead. Those who will not listen to us now will lend a most sympathetic ear in the future.
The working class will erupt onto the scene as a mass force at a certain stage. It will feel its power. It will seek a clear programme. As the growth of the revolutionary tendency and the growing consciousness of the working class converge, possibilities will open up to form a mass revolutionary party.
But we must rise to that. Our task is to grow the forces of revolutionary communism from the position that we have presently conquered. No revolutionary party exists in Ireland that can reach the broad masses yet.
But before the walls and roof of a building can be built, we must lay its foundations. For that reason, the RCI is focusing all effort on reaching the most advanced workers and youth, of whom, not yet millions but certainly many thousands are open to being convinced of the correctness of a communist programme. We must find them, win them, organise them into a tight-knit organisation of professional revolutionaries, the hardcore of that future mass party, equipped with clear ideas and a fighting determination to build.
These tasks are our starting point when addressing the tactical question of electoral work.
Although we understand that capitalism cannot be reformed out of existence through the legislation of bourgeois parliaments, the mass of workers do not share that understanding. They may despise politicians, the Dàil, Stormont, but they are not yet convinced of the necessity of their revolutionary overthrow. They do, in fact, pay attention to elections and parliaments, and it is necessary for communists to use every platform available to us to advance our programme.
A grave mistake would be to confuse our own consciousness with that of the masses. Doing so leads to ultra-left conclusions and to abstentionism, which has been tried many times in Irish history and has led nowhere.
Because elections are mass work, because they involve placing our programme before the whole electorate, and because the majority of workers will not look towards a revolutionary option except in exceptional, revolutionary circumstances, the electoral front tends to be the weakest front for the revolutionary party.
It is certainly possible to win positions, and where communists win positions, to use them as a revolutionary tribune to condemn capitalism and raise the revolutionary alternative.
Where a small group is able, by exception, to play a role leading certain struggles, as we saw with the Water Charges movement, this can translate into electoral success. And the burning anger in society, even if not coherently expressed, can throw up all kinds of surprises. Just look at how many voters were prepared to vote for Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch just to spite the establishment in Dublin Central last year.
But again, the task of communists in the present time is not to win positions, it is not to work ourselves to death giving the working class a revolutionary option in every constituency – it is to build the revolutionary party. To elevate the importance of parliamentary work above this, to be blinded by successes in that field, forgetting that it is one field among many for building the revolutionary party and not an end in itself, is referred to by Marxists as ‘parliamentary cretinism’. It is no less an error than ultra-leftism and abstentionism.
Attempts to opportunistically short circuit the process, to get the biggest possible vote by connecting with reformist workers on a programme that is not our own, by dropping or shaving the sharp edges off our revolutionary programme, can only jeopardise the necessary work of building the revolutionary party.
This is what PBP has quite purposefully and systematically done. We say that this is purposeful because we know for a fact that the party leadership and dominant factions consider themselves Marxists. They have read Lenin. We even find rare echoes of their reading in occasional PBP documents.
The 2023 document by PBP, The Case for a Left Government, pointed out the real class character of the Irish state. It pointed out that carrying out a radical programme would require the revolutionary mobilisation of the working class. Although it still did not call for the expropriation of the capitalist class, it tentatively suggested that it might be a good idea to nationalise the banks.
You see, PBP’s leadership is aware of what is necessary. But they are also aware that saying so openly would jeopardise their electoral chances. Thus, none of these points were to be found in the milquetoast reformist programme they advanced when election time came around in 2024.
By lowering the political level of its programme, PBP may draw in a few thousand more votes. It may draw into its ranks workers and young people who have illusions in reformism. It may grow, but it is no longer growing into a tight-knit party of revolutionary fighters, but into a broad-based reformist party. Its goals become ever hazier as it strives to keep the ‘broad’ but diluted party together, and beyond the party, to retain the passive vote of its electorate. The lowest common denominator becomes policy.
This is a political mistake of the first magnitude with wide practical consequences for the party.
With the lowering of the political level of the party, comes a lowering of the political commitment that its members have to its hazy goals. The commitment that is asked of PBP’s overwhelmingly inactive membership is reflective of the low political level. One can join PBP for an annual amount of €10.
On this basis it is impossible to fund a serious revolutionary organisation. And, in fact, the full time apparatus of PBP is not paid for by members’ dues, but through the hundreds of thousands of euros of state money that the party receives on account of having TDs, MLAs and councillors.
Now, we’ve no issue with taking state money! But that state cash can evaporate from one election to the next. Without a disciplined party with strong traditions of financial sacrifice, Dáil and council seats must be retained at all costs to maintain an apparatus. This only further increases the pressure to jettison anything too ‘revolutionary’ in order to ‘broaden’ the party’s appeal among the electorate.
Once the revolutionary path has been abandoned in favour of reformism, parliamentary work thus becomes a conduit for further pressure to adapt in a reformist direction.
Join the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland
In drawing all this to a close then, what is the difference between PBP and the RCI? It can be summed up quite simply as the difference between reformism and revolution. There is nothing revolutionary about PBP.
That is not intended as a comment on any personal quality of any member or leader of the party. A party’s character is first and foremost defined by its political analysis, programme and method.
Indeed, there are very many honest and dedicated militants in PBP, as dedicated and honest as any member of the RCI, many of whom sincerely want to sweep capitalism from the face of Ireland and the world. We appeal to revolutionaries in PBP: please consider our arguments. It is our firm conviction that PBP is unfit as a tool for the task that we are undertaking.
So where do we go from here? We believe the objective conditions created by the crisis of capitalism should leave us undaunted by the prospect of starting from scratch. Yes, PBP has achieved a certain prominence. It is a recognised party, its leaders are well known. But beyond this, it has thousands of members only on paper. The real active core consists of perhaps two or three hundred nationally. The outward appearance of success has not led to a growth of a revolutionary core.
What it fundamentally lacks is clear ideas. The only historical justification for a revolutionary party, which if it is truly revolutionary always begins as a party of a tiny minority, is its ideas.
This is the foundation on which the RCI is being built: a clear emphasis on theory and education. Wizened fools like to mock the RCI as little more than a bookish reading club. They think they are hitting us in our weak spot when they are actually taking aim at our greatest strength.
In the last two and a half years, the RCI has grown from 5 to over 50 – all drawn in by the clarity of our ideas and the bold, openly revolutionary profile of our organisation. We aim to be a hundred within the year and believe it is eminently achievable. The present conditions for rapidly building the core of a future revolutionary party are excellent. Again, there are ample opportunities to build.
We warmly extend the invitation to you to join us in this work.
