11.04.1996

Socialism and the national question

Eamonn Mccann is a leading member of the Socialist Workers Movement (sister organisation of the SWP) in Ireland. He was a prominent supporter of the civil rights movement in Derry and his 'War and an Irish town' (1974) remains one of the best accounts of the period. He spoke to Mark Fischer recently

I have never been positive about the ‘peace process’. When the ceasefire was declared there was an air of triumphalism in and around the republican movement and a belief they were on a ‘high road’ to a united Ireland. There was a certain arrogance given what they perceived to be very powerful ‘allies’ - the Dublin government, the US and so on.

Of course, the reason why they formed this sort of alliance is rooted in their political nature. They lack any class perspective. Even so, the triumphalism has faded: a certain disillusionment has set in. Impatience and discontent is expressing itself in criticisms of the Dublin government by Adams, McGuinness and others at the top. Among the rank and file there is a deeper disappointment and a feeling that they must re-examine how they got into this cul-de-sac.

This re-examination must involve facing some painful truths. You would have to be a fool not to understand that the strategy that was presented to them simply has not worked.

The national question will, of course have an ongoing potency in Irish politics. But from the socialist point of view, while nationalism is inevitable it is not enough. The fundamental viewpoint of the republican movement has been that the national question overrides all else. They view class politics as irrelevant until the national question is solved and they have acquired over the years a number of quasi-Marxist advisers who have provided them with an entirely spurious ‘Marxist’ rationale for this.

Of course, the question is complex and dynamic. There is no ready-made formula to tell us everywhere how to integrate the national and the class struggle. It depends on the concrete circumstances.

What’s important about the trade union movement in the north of Ireland is that it is not very different from trade union movements elsewhere in western Europe. That’s its problem. The besetting sin of the bureaucracy is not sectarianism per se, but rather reformism. There are examples of direct sectarianism by the trade union movement, but it is difficult to argue there has been a pattern of this.

What you see is an unwillingness to detach themselves from the state. The northern Ireland committee of the All Ireland Council of Trade Unions is literally in the pocket of the northern Ireland Office. But then, if you examine the finances of the TUC in London, you will find that a considerable proportion comes from the British government or from Europe.

The problem with the north of Ireland of course is that when a reformist organisation accepts the state it is accepting a sectarian state. That gives a coloration to everything you do. Serious socialist thought about the north of Ireland recognises the problem with the workers’ movement is reformism, not sectarianism. But then, reformism here by definition is sectarian.

The protestant working class is of course pro-British. Yet they are worthy of more serious consideration. Most nationalists - and most are catholic nationalists - examine this section of the working class through the prism of their own beliefs. But one of the most interesting things about the protestant working class has been the inability of the Official Unionist Party and the Orange Order to politically control it. The OUP for example has never won the Shankill Road. It has always been represented by mavericks, eccentrics, dissidents of one sort or another.

There are many complications here. In one sense, the proletarian belligerents of the Progressive Unionist Party and the ‘socialistic’ way it presents itself is not new at all. It is part of a tradition on the Shankill road, where it is concentrated.

Having said that, there is no doubt that the emergence of these new loyalist working class parties does reflect something that is happening in the working class generally. Systematic discrimination is no longer available as a viable option for the protestant community. In the past, this more or less guaranteed young protestant men work, but this simply does not exist anymore.

Tory policies over the last 16 years have impacted on the working class here exactly as they have on the working class in Manchester, Glasgow or anywhere else. These things at least create the potential for a resistance that will not automatically take a sectarian form. Socialists must make the argument against the PUP that in so far as they attempt to represent the distinct interests of the protestant section of the working class they are unable to represent the class at all. They are inviting the Shankill to compare itself with the Falls.

I am a Marxist. I have never been in favour of the armed struggle. It is an anathema to me that a small group of people set themselves up as the liberators of my class. I have never been too infected by attachment to the romantic forms of Irish nationalism. Yes, the IRA struggle grew organically out of the struggle of the masses but it wasn’t the only development possible. It has never been socialist, but rather catholic nationalist.

The armed struggle has been a total dead end. There was never any possibility of any return commensurate with the time, effort and sacrifice that was put into it. It could never work.

I do not believe there is some historical duty on British revolutionaries to pretend that the armed struggle viewed from Britain is different to the armed struggle viewed from Ireland. That is just nonsense. I am occasionally struck by how blithely those who wish to solidarise with the republican movement accept the deaths of innocent workers.

I’m an old-fashioned communist. I think revolutionaries in Ireland must pursue the main strategic demands of our programme - the total withdrawal of the British army, the dismantling of the northern Ireland state. The working class has the objective interest in this revolutionary perspective. Thus, the fight must be conducted on an all-Ireland basis to organically link the struggle north and south with a revolutionary programme.

Nationalism fatally undermines this. How can you effectively fight the government in the south when you have illusions that this same government will deliver a ‘settlement’ in the north? This is a variant of the old argument that no working class can be a class for itself if on central questions it is making common cause with its oppressors. This is certainly true for the protestant working class, but it is also true for the nationalist tradition and workers in the south.