23.09.1999
British-Irish: once again
Jack Conrad argues that communists must champion the democratic rights of all peoples
Our discussion, for and against the right of a British-Irish province to self-determination within a united Ireland, has revealed disquieting theoretical shortcomings throughout the Communist Party’s ranks. A warning of what can result, if not swiftly corrected, can be seen in the dire contributions of Tom Delargy and Dave Craig (Weekly Worker September 16).
Of course, it goes without saying that both are subjectively committed to socialism and the freedom of the working class. Comrade Delargy is a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, while comrade Craig leads the non-functioning Revolutionary Democratic Group. Unfortunately, despite lofty intentions, when it comes to Ireland and the British-Irish, the draconian means advocated by comrades Delargy and Craig could only but result in unintended opposite results - if they were ever to discover a political agency willing to put their programme into practice. Not self-liberation, but a new form of slavery.
Comrades Delargy and Craig are SWPers in exile. Sadly that also makes them devotees of the cult of the Soviet Union as a form of state capitalism - a dogma which completely mangles and therefore negates the basic categories of Marxism. To the casual observer it might appear strange then that the duo express solidarity with Steve Riley (Weekly Worker September 2). Comrade Riley, it will be recalled, still believes that the Soviet Union under the monocracy of Stalin was an example of “really existing socialism”. So in the USSR and Ireland at least comrade Riley has the dubious virtue of a consistent credo. Freedom will be handed down from the mailed fist. Socialism needs not a tincture of democracy.
What comrades Delargy and Craig share with comrade Riley and leads them to the same undemocratic conclusions on Ireland and the British-Irish is pidgin theory and therefore erroneous thinking. Comrade Delargy is a self-confessed opponent of revolutionary democracy, which he derides as being above class and thus unable to distinguish “between bourgeois and proletarian rule”. Evidently this is untrue. Nevertheless in cocksure ignorance comrade Delargy lambastes the essential political theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky in the name of an inflexible economism (which, needless to say, he foolishly imagines is authentic Marxism). He thus arrogantly belittles or denies the dialectal relationship between the class struggle for democracy under capitalism and the realisation of socialism. Confusion on Ireland is inevitable.
Comrade Craig is heroically loyal to fixed categories and the outer appearance of things. Impervious to reason, this means he insists as a matter of sectarian faith that the rouble in the Soviet Union was money. It concerns him not in the least that the rouble was no universal, but only a partial equivalent. Nor does the fact that labour power was neither bought nor sold for roubles matter a jot to him. The theory of state capitalism demands “wage slavery” in the Soviet Union, so “wage slavery” there was.
The same trammelled a priori method leads him to get completely lost in the mists of nationalism. According to comrade Craig, nations are ancient, not modern phenomena. Frustratingly, defining “who is a nation is never clear-cut”. They do not have hard, exact edges which allows them to be easily differentiated from non-nations. Nevertheless even Jack Conrad admits the British-Irish are not a nation. Hey presto, he has me. In his dreams. As only nations can be granted national rights, it follows ipso facto that non-nations such as the British-Irish cannot have anything approaching national rights by definition. So to hell with self-determination. Let the British-Irish quietly content themselves with the parochial rights of a German Land or an American state. And heaven help them if they object. If the British-Irish challenge their lot they will be subject to “coercion” by the majority. Put another way, unity in Ireland is not to be founded on consent, but brute force. The awful fate of Yugoslavia and Lebanon beckons.
Before comprehensively dealing with comrade Craig and his muddle on the British-Irish and the national question overall, let us examine comrade Delargy’s critique of Jack Conrad. His opening gambit maintains that the 20 theses I presented on Ireland and the British-Irish lack “clarity”. In particular he claims that there exists a contradiction between thesis 7 and thesis 15. Oh really. Let us see. Thesis 7 reads as follows:
“There can be no right of present-day Northern Ireland to self-determination. The six-county statelet was founded in 1921 on the cynical basis of permanently institutionalising the oppression of the catholic-nationalist minority. We do not, and cannot, support the right of the British-Irish majority in the north to oppress the catholic-nationalist minority.”
And thesis 15:
“Communists must include in their programme for Ireland the demand for a federal solution whereby the area containing a clear British-Irish majority has the right of self-determination up to and including secession. This area forms a geographically coherent whole and includes country Antrim, north Tyrone, south Derry, north Armagh, and north Down (there are catholic majorities in Fermanagh, south Tyrone, south Armagh, north Derry and south Down). West Belfast also has 100,000 catholic-nationalists. In a united Ireland a federal solution would require new federal borders” (‘Ireland and the British-Irish’ Weekly Worker August 26).
Comrade Delargy supposes himself “forced” to “choose between” thesis 7 and thesis 15. Suffice to say, there is no ‘either-or’ choice to make. We are not in a political anteroom faced with two alternative doors: one marked ‘no self-determination’ and the other ‘self-determination’. The propositions on self-determination are not contradictory, but complementary. The ‘self-determination’ door follows down the programmatic corridor from the one marked ‘no self-determination’. Open the one and you arrive at the other. I know it is testing the patience of the intelligent reader. But bear with me while I outline the argument for the sake of a comrade Delargy, who is dumbfounded by the formal opposites of ‘no self-determination’ and ‘self-determination’, but fails to see the obvious connection in terms of concrete application.
“Present-day” Northern Ireland was founded in 1921 and does not contain a “clear” British-Irish majority. As alluded to by thesis 7, the borders of the six-county statelet were mapped out “on the cynical basis of permanently institutionalising the oppression of the catholic-nationalist minority”. A minority that now accounts for something like 43% of Northern Ireland’s population. The Lloyd George government and Sir Edward Carson’s unionists were determined to maximise British territory around the then strategically important industrial-military centre of Belfast. They had neither the wish nor the wisdom to take account of the “sympathies” of the catholic-Irish population. Three of Ulster’s counties were surgically removed and discarded. To have done otherwise would have jeopardised the protestant ascendancy.
In other words Northern Ireland is a gerrymandered statelet built upon the national oppression of a large, and unwilling, catholic-Irish population. Thesis 7 is perfectly clear: “We do not, and cannot, support the right of the British-Irish majority in the north to oppress the catholic-nationalist minority.” That is why we stand as a matter of principle for the immediate abolition of the six-county statelet.
What then of thesis 15? This concerns the future. It is premised on a “united Ireland” which would, if it was to be fully democratic, have to take account of the will, “sympathies” and “legitimate fears” of the British-Irish. Within a united Ireland I therefore advocate a federal solution, whereby a one-county, four-half-county British-Irish province would exercise self-determination. Is this synonymous with present-day Northern Ireland? No. Is it a code words for a “rejuvenated” or “leaner-meaner” protestant ascendancy? No. Is there a contradiction between calling for the abolition of the Northern Ireland statelet and calling for a united Ireland with a British-Irish province? No. Does comrade Delargy need a course in elementary logic? Yes.
Incoherence follows in the footsteps of incoherence. After the bogus claim that there is a contradiction between thesis 7 and thesis 15 comrade Delargy fields a number of insubstantial arguments that are indeed mutually contradictory or simply defy the verifiable lessons of history. “Jack’s theses imply, or appear to imply,” says the comrade, “that a stable, voluntary and peaceful solution to the Irish question is possible within one, two, or more bourgeois republics of Ireland.” Such “naivety”, announces comrade Delargy, “is born” of the theory of revolutionary democracy: “The reality is that the problem posed by the 'British-Irish' will remain a festering sore so long as the capitalist class have both the incentive and the resources to play the orange card.”
Here we have an eclectic mix of right and wrong. No doubt “so long as the capitalist class have both the incentive and the resources to play the orange card” the British-Irish question will remain a “festering sore”. Myself and comrade Delargy are at one on this. However, comrade Delargy is convinced that the antagonism cleaving the British-Irish and the catholic-Irish cannot be resolved, even partially, under capitalism. That is his main point. I profoundly disagree. Northern Ireland is not static. Rather it is the product and site of conflicting class and religio-national-ethnic interests, compromises and struggles. That is why the only thing I am absolutely certain of is that nothing is fixed. Everything is undergoing a process of being and becoming: ie, change.
The capitalist class in Britain and Ireland certainly have a manifest incentive to deliver a peaceful solution. European integration, US super-imperialism, Blairism, the Good Friday deal and Dublin’s willingness to drop its claim to be the lawful government of all Ireland signal a new constitutional agreement as a real possibility. Hence despite the irresistible force of Sinn Féin/IRA and the immovable might of unionism the Northern Ireland crisis could theoretically be resolved under the conditions of commodity production. Multinational Switzerland, the 1919 Wilsonian reorganisation of Europe, the post-Franco settlement in Spain all testify that this is no flight of naive fantasy. As do the ‘velvet’ divorces between Sweden and Norway, Denmark and Iceland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Talk of the impossibility of a solution prior to socialism is absurd theoretically and historically counter-factual.
There is also our preferred possibility. The working class taking up the politics of the offensive for the maximisation of democracy: from the capitalist present all the way to communism. Indeed unless the working class fights for consistent democracy, including the equality of all nations and nationalities, in the here and now, there is no hope for proletarian hegemony or proletarian state power. Either way there can theoretically be a “stable, voluntary and peaceful solution to the Irish question” under the conditions of capitalism (realised by vying bourgeois politicians due to a common desire to ensure the smooth reproduction of capital or by the revolutionary proletariat as a stage in its uninterrupted struggle for self-liberation).
Worse follows. Comrade Delargy holds that in proposing democratically agreed federal borders within a united Ireland Jack Conrad departs “from the unconditional meaning of self-determination of nations attributed to it by his above-class revolutionary democracy”. Obviously in a desperate attempt to rubbish Jack Conrad’s 20 theses at any cost comrade Delargy departs from the ABC of democracy. This is a shame, the comrade surely knows better. Communists have no wish to impose borders, to force solutions upon peoples from on high. Does comrade Delargy disagree? For our part communists in the CPGB stand resolutely for democratic solutions to all such problems, not in the name of an “above-class democracy”, but in the vital interests of the working class.
Again in his attempt to rubbish Jack Conrad comrade Delargy rubbishes revolutionary democracy and thereby Marxism. He insists that if one supports my thesis 15 - ie, a federal solution within a united Ireland - “it would be no less essential to support the right to an independent state for towns with a catholic majority trapped inside Jack’s new protestant state for a protestant people”. He takes my argument to the point of absurdity by holding out the “demand” for protestant street statelets “trapped inside the catholic city states”, etc, etc. One might just as well accuse Lenin of such a Russian dolls scenario. He too acknowledged the right of historically constituted peoples to exercise self-determination up to the point of secession. It should not need saying, but neither I nor Lenin call for the formation of ethnically-religiously pure states of any sort. Nor do Leninists want micro-states. Only those who baselessly conclude that peoples from different religious-ethnic backgrounds or nationality cannot peaceably live together would entertain such a bigoted proposition. I believe in the unity of humanity. That said, in the concrete I would argue for transitionary measures whereby British-Irish and catholic-Irish cities, towns, enclaves and, yes, if necessary, streets, in what is now Northern Ireland, have “far reaching measures of local autonomy” (thesis 13). The wounds and sensitivities of the last 30 years necessitate such a policy of devolution in extremis.
Unless he wants to be branded a fraudster comrade Delargy would be well advised to cease his habit of putting stupid formulations into my mouth. Eg: Jack Conrad stands for a “new protestant state for a protestant people”. For the umpteenth time I anticipate and favour a united Ireland: that is, one state. Got it, comrade Delargy? Within that republic I advocate a federal arrangement whereby a clear British-Irish majority territorial area in north-eastern Ulster, a British-Irish province, exercises self-determination up to and including the right of secession. It should not need repeating, but it seems I must do so: Jack Conrad is against that right being exercised in favour of separation (independence). Got that too, comrade? Furthermore a British-Irish province is something I would countenance in terms of implementation under two preconditions. Firstly, due to the efforts of democracy - including, I would hope, in Britain - British imperialism has been defeated in Ireland (troops are withdrawn and the treaty of union is annulled). Secondly, the statelet of Northern Ireland has been democratically abolished.
No one is calling for a protestant state for protestant people or grotesquely suggesting that a majority in a British-Irish province has the right to oppress the catholic-Irish minority. Read thesis 17:
“There would, of course, still be a catholic-nationalist minority in the British-Irish part of the country. There would also be a British-Irish minority elsewhere in the united Irish republic. We do not advocate a movement of population or ethnically ‘pure’ states. Whatever the religio-ethnic community, there must be full citizenship rights.”
To cap it all, and exposing comrade Delargy’s utter befuddlement, he then concedes that “Jack’s theses have much to commend them”. He writes this amazing closing paragraph:
“I have no problem in agreeing that if, within a victorious republican movement, there emerged an overwhelmingly powerful reactionary gang obsessed with exacting revenge against the protestant people as a people (in other words a mirror image of loyalism) we would be presented with new problems. Theoretically circumstances could, at some stage, dictate that communists champion a new independent state in the north of Ireland. Such a state would, though, be secular with equal rights for catholics and protestants, not a state with a permanently guaranteed protestant majority, a guarantee enshrined in thesis 15.”
Again, though he puts garbage into my mouth about “guaranteeing a permanent protestant majority”, here is comrade Delargy’s solution under capitalism. He is a convert to revolutionary democracy. Unfortunately not a very good one yet, nor a very astute one. Yet what should one expect from a mere novice? To begin his education as one of us can I pose to Tom this straightforward but pointed question: why, before we are prepared to agree to anything short of a centralist Ireland, should the British-Irish be slaughtered by “an overwhelmingly powerful reactionary gang”? Does protestant blood really have to flow down Shankhill Road in order to get you to propose self-determination?
The antagonism between the British-Irish and catholic-Irish is not a remote “theoretical” abstraction nor an invention of Jack Conrad’s. On the contrary it has dominated Irish politics for much of the last hundred years. The poles of oppression would in all probability be reversed in a united Ireland not brought about by the leadership of the working class.
Communists should not dumbly wait upon the victory of green nationalism, let alone a bloodbath, before we advocate the optimum conditions whereby to bring about the voluntary unity of the British-Irish and catholic-Irish in Ireland. It is that, let me again emphasise - the unity of peoples, not territory - that I want the working class movement to champion. A federal solution is the most consistently democratic means to cement the rapprochement of Ireland’s dichotomised communities. Whether we can realise that fully and completely under capitalism is problematic, of course. Capitalism is inherently undemocratic and constantly turns democracy into a means of lulling the masses and getting the exploited to meekly accept their exploitation. But not to advance such a solution now, immediately, and to inculcate the working class in the spirit of consistent democracy is to desert proletarian socialism, to betray the cause of human liberation.
What of comrade Craig? He has tied himself into mental knots over the British-Irish question and nations in general. To be honest, his whole approach reeks of petty nationalism. I will not waste time refuting his nonsense on the British nation. How this “indisputable” cultural, linguistic, economic and territorial unity of nearly 60 million human beings - who are prodigiously working class - is “reactionary” because of the union jack and the monarchy is beyond me. Nor will I bother with his claptrap about the “real nations suffocating under the rule” of the British nation: ie, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Without doubt, nations emerge with the rise of capitalism. If the British nation was “forged” in the 17th century, as comrade Craig contends, what then of his pre-modern or ancient English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish nations? Did they have a common language, a common economy, a common culture and, if so, when? Comrade Craig’s “real” nations are crude Victorian inventions, designed to mystify the past and divide the working class.
We will swiftly move on. Thank heaven, unlike comrade Delargy, our friend Craig has no objections to a federal Ireland as a matter of principle. No, he boasts when he was snugly in the SWP he “argued the case” for a federal united Ireland. Sad to say, his federal solution is a sham. There is no right of a British-Irish province to self-determination. As noted above, Craig’s reason for the omission is that the British-Irish are not strictly speaking a nation according to Stalin’s pre-set criteria.
Such formalism runs counter to the theory and practice of Bolshevism which had no hesitation in giving non-nations like the Cossacks self-determination in the Russian Federation of Soviet Republics (or much bigger, strictly speaking non-nations such as the Ukrainians, Georgians and Armenians). Lenin, as I have shown elsewhere, never felt the need to present his own special definition of a nation. His overriding concern was politics and hence the “sympathies” of the people. According to these sympathies communists should work for “democratically” agreed frontiers along with the “freedom to secede”. “Socialism,” emphasised Lenin, “gives full play to the ‘sympathies’ of the population, thereby promoting and greatly accelerating the drawing together and fusion of the nations” (VI Lenin CW Vol 22, Moscow 1977, p324-5).
Bound hand and foot by comrade Craig’s check-list approach, the British-Irish province would have no more rights than one of the 51 states in the USA or a German Land such as Niedersachsen or Saxony. Moreover, having been designated a non-nation, the British-Irish, all one million of them, are to be united with the catholic-Irish by force - it is a calumny that comrade Craig attributes this to me. They are also to be kept imprisoned in a united Ireland using the same means - a calumny he kindly excuses me of.
That ‘force before unity, non-force after unity’ paradox does explain why he considers my position inconsistent. Of course, in actual fact, I am perfectly consistent:
“Communists support the right of a British-Irish federal entity in a united Irish republic to self-determination, but argue against exercising that right in favour of secession. We are for voluntary unity and the growing together of the two traditions in Ireland on the basis of a common struggle for international socialism and world communism” (thesis 20).
It is not the 100,000 legally held firearms in the possession of the British-Irish, their RUC and their irrational hostility to popery and republicanism that frightens me. It is the consequences for the working class project if a united Ireland is achieved using coercion against the historically constituted British-Irish population. As a consistent democrat - ie, a communist democrat - I am for voluntary union and to be voluntary there must be both the right to freely join together and the right to separate. For communists like myself there is a principle when it comes to uniting peoples. We say democracy, not force.
Blood and iron can only bring about the unwilling and therefore transient unity of peoples. It is a recipe not for rapprochement and merger, but religious-ethnic warfare on a scale dwarfing the ‘troubles’ of the last 30 years. How many on both sides have to die? Ten thousand, 100,000, more? Here, yes, we have the slippery slope that leads to comrade Riley’s bureaucratic socialism, the gulags and the deportation of whole peoples. Comrades Riley and Craig - and, one presumes, comrade Delargy - would force freedom upon the British-Irish. If the ungrateful “scabs” - comrade Craig’s analogy - resent their freedom so gained and break ranks with the Irish nation ... then presumably these prods should be crushed, butchered or driven into the sea, every man, woman and child.
Underpinning comrade Craig’s article is the assumption that economic “trends will decide”. The “economic basis” for unionism is “ended”. The Irish ‘tiger’ economy and the interests of the EU, of British and US imperialism mean that historically “British-Irish unionism is finished”. The comrade admits that “obsolete political arrangements” can hang on for decades, even centuries. But the long and short of it is that Irish unity is certain.
We do not in the least deny the importance of economics. Passing trends are another matter entirely, however. Forty years ago the 26 counties were a sleepy backwater. Go back to the beginning of this century and Belfast and north-eastern Ulster was an industrial-economic powerhouse on a par with Hamburg or Osaka today. A defining feature of economic development under capitalism is unevenness. The 26 counties could prove to be Europe’s South Korea and suffer a similar meltdown. Perhaps it will go the way of Singapore? I have no way of knowing. What I do know though is that there is nothing more ridiculous than worshipping or being seduced by current trends. Economically speaking, nation-states are obsolete and have been so since the dawn of imperialism and the rise of finance capital to dominance. There is a global market and global production. Economically the next step for humanity is communism, by way of socialism and the dictatorship (rule) of the working class. Within capitalism the only sure thing as far as I am concerned is that booms are followed by slumps.
There is no need to dwell on comrade Craig’s economic trends except to warn him of the trap of confusing economics with politics. Irish unity and the demand for a federal solution do not lie in the realm of economics, but politics in general and political democracy in particular. Hence, in contrast to what comrade Craig appears to argue, it is not economics which leads me to call for the abolition of the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and a united Ireland. It is to the historic mission of the working class that we communists subordinate all democratic demands, including British-Irish self-determination and Irish unity.
Who are the British-Irish? Comrade Riley has dismissed them as a mere “religious faction” (Weekly Worker September 2). Comrade Craig is not so stupid. He discusses the British-Irish in terms of religion; but rightly adds culture, ethnic origins, politics and an historically established territory in north-eastern Ulster too. He even writes of the British-Irish as “Anglo-protestants”, a formulation he uses to describe the “British nation” in Great Britain. Leaving aside the Scottish antecedents of most British-Irish, the key thing to grasp is that, having being planted in Northern Ireland in the 17th century, the settlers quickly “stopped being Scottish or English” and formed a new hybrid Irish identity (thesis 2). The million-strong British-Irish are therefore an historically constituted and distinct community of Irish people. “That calls for a definite political solution” (thesis 6).
Given the palpable antagonism that has existed between the British-Irish and the catholic-Irish throughout the 20th century, and certainty of this conflict continuing into the next century, it is frankly insane in terms of political strategy for comrade Craig to deny the necessity for the British-Irish to have the right of self-determination. His categories do not enlighten, but blind him.
Comrade Craig deploys the example of Germany. So shall I. Germany has been a nation since at least the middle of the last century though it was finally united by Bismarck and the Prussian monarchy. However, as we all know, in 1945 Germany was de facto cleaved into two (leave aside Austria). Federal Germany successfully developed as an integral part of the capitalist world economy. The German Democratic Republic was a relatively prosperous outpost of the Soviet Union and bureaucratic socialism.
By the late 1980s, however, the GDR was in terminal crisis. Gorbachev had abandoned the Brezhnev doctrine, and the masses in Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden took to the streets demanding radical change. What should communists - real communists, that is - have advocated? Should they have called for an all-German referendum on the basis of the economic unviability of the GDR and the historic existence of a single German nation?
Such a stance would in my opinion violate elementary democracy. There were influential schools of thought in the GDR trying to concoct a ‘third way’ between capitalism and bureaucratic socialism. Others in the east preferred unity after a lengthy transition so as to avoid economic and moral pulverisation. Undaunted, chancellor Kohl and his Christian Democrats pushed for immediate unity - and offered handsome bribes. But - and this is crucial - unity was obtained by getting a majority within east Germany, not Germany as a whole. There was, and had to be, a voluntary Anschluss. Imagine what would have happened if Kohl had steamrollered through a pan-German vote and refused to abide by the specific will of the Ossis.
There is no historical antagonism between the eastern and western peoples of Germany. If anything Wessis viewed the Ossis as suffering under a foreign heel. Much as the catholic-Irish pity and empathise with their northern brethren. There is no equivalent of the alienated British-Irish.
Surely if a dull conservative like Kohl recognised the need to proceed with care and caution, taking full account of the wishes of the Ossis, should not communists approach the British-Irish problem as consistent democrats, not ham-fisted nationalists? To advocate rights to self-determination for the British-Irish is not to lapse into “libertarianism” or “anarchism”, as comrade Craig laughably protests. The British-Irish are not the same as a town, or a street, or some student bedsit, as my polemical opponents insinuate. Nor will they vanish as an historically constituted people with the departure of the last British soldier and the unity of Ireland’s territory, as comrade Craig envisages. There has been a long antagonism between the two communities in Ireland which cannot simply be removed along with British imperialism.
Self-determination and federalism are communist solutions to real problems. Comrade Craig does not understand that simple fact. For him formal criteria are everything. Britain is “multinational”; therefore it should be federal. Ireland is one nation, therefore there can be no right to self-determination for the British-Irish minority. Such a rigid and lifeless approach does not serve the workers’ movement, neither theoretically nor practically. It is nothing other than economism.
For us British-Irish rights are not something which primarily concern the British-Irish. I do not argue for British-Irish self-determination so as to “pander” to orange or loyalist Neanderthals so they will “support a united Ireland”. That is ridiculous. No, for communists British-Irish rights are first and foremost about the consciousness of the catholic-Irish working class. I want what is now a shapeless mass to make itself into a universal class. It will do so by championing the rights of others. Only then can we really begin to seriously talk about the struggle for socialism and communism. All comrade Craig recommends to the catholic-Irish working class is fighting for the right of the British-Irish to be an Irish minority. That is just what Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gail do as catholic-Irish nationalists. Communists can and must do much more.