The 'Marxism' of the BICO
When considering the ideas of this
pamphlet it is also instructive to consider the organisations who support
these ideas. The Workers Association is a loose group fathered by the
British and Irish Communist Organisation. This group would lay claims to be
'Marxist'. It is no such thing.
A 'Communist Party' as envisaged by
Marx and Engels gathers within its ranks the most advanced sections of the
working class. It is the brain of that class and must give a lead to the
broad mass of workers. It is not an elitist body cut off from workers and
their organisations but must make itself a part of the day-to-day struggles
and problems of the working class. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and
Engels detail its role.
Its propaganda, they say, must aim to weld
the workers together as a class distinct from all other social classes. Both
its programme and its activity must be designed to raise the consciousness
of workers, to give them an understanding of the task imposed upon them by
history: to rid the globe of capitalist production and create a new social
order. This does not place the Marxist leadership in the role of academic
instructor - rather this leadership must be an integral part of the
struggles of the workers' movement but must take each particular struggle
and generalise it to show its significance in the fight against
capitalism.
This the B&ICO do not even attempt to do. All their
material is pitched at the lowest level of consciousness of the most
backward, not the most class conscious workers. They make their starting
point the lowest level of awareness of the class. And they advance that
awareness not one step! Instead they seep into the minds of workers the
poison of sectarianism and of nationalism. Neither their common interests as
a class, not their historical tasks, of they ever point out. In the context
of Northern Ireland the first can only be done by raising the slogan for the
unity of the working class, Catholic and Protestant. The second by raising
demands which challenge the existence of the capitalist system. The
B&ICO fail on both counts. Rather their every speech, pamphlet and press
utterance, could only have the effect of welding into the minds of
Protestants the notion that they are a distinct historically evolved group,
and that, therefore, present day divisions are right and
proper.
Marxism is based on firm ideas and perspectives. It begins
from a scientific examination of any situation using the method of Marx and
Engels themselves. These writers in the 'Communist Manifesto' explained that
'the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class
struggles.' A Marxist tendency must understand the class forces at work in
any situation, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the classes, and be
capable of relating these to the changes in the economic situation. It must
be able to couple an understanding of the objective factors in the
situation, the economic factors for example, with a keen awareness of such
subjective factors as the mood of the masses. Tendencies, groupings and
sects who lack such an approach are incapable of consistency. They do not
understand the forces at work in a situation. Events therefore take them by
surprise. They respond empirically to every event, reacting with random
changes in their programme and ideas, easily cavorting from one incorrect
position to another. Such a group is the B&ICO. In fact they are a
valuable museum relic of what Lenin denounced a 'infantile
communists'.
Protestant Fascists!
In the late 1960s the B&ICO evolved a
position diametrically opposed to that which they hold today. Today they
court the UDA, UVF and other para-military groups. In 1969 their attitude
was somewhat different. At that time their leaflets were sold in Catholic
areas only. One headed 'The struggle in the north' and dated 18th August
1969 begins:
The struggle of the Belfast workers from the Falls Road and
other pre-dominantly Catholic working class areas is not a sectarian war
directed against Protestant workers: it is a struggle against fascist
terrorism. Fascist terrorism supported, equipped and financed by a
substantial section of the Unionist Party and its administration. The
Fascists have formed themselves into a number of front organisations such
as the 'Ulster Volunteer Force', the 'Shankill Defence Association' and
the 'Ulster Constitutional Defence Committee.'
Throughout
the troubles of that period it was our present authors, with their now
almost religious devotion to unionism, who screamed loudest for a United
Ireland. Then their political instruments were tuned to the lowest level of
outlook of Catholics - the idea that those on the opposite side of the peace
lines were fascist. Class ideas were then as conspicuous by their absence
from their material as in the latest pamphlets. For all their troubles they
got no thanks from the Catholic working class. They met with total
demise.
They did not disappear for long. Like the republican Phoenix
they re-emerged rising out of the ashes of their past mistakes- except that
from now on they were to be found on the other side of the barricades
singing different songs altogether. Yesterday they denounced the
Protestants. Today they denounce the Catholics. Really the difference is not
all that great! Al they have done is re-write all their old material,
scoring out 'Protestant' where it appears and inserting 'Catholic'. Slogans
which could lead to the uniting of the working class are nowhere and at no
time raised.
Is the South trying to take over the North?
In 1969 the enemy was
identified as British imperialism. This concept has since disappeared from
their thinking. In its place, in the writings of the WA and the B&ICO,
has stepped a new force - Southern Imperialism! This, we are told, is the
source of our problem. The Southern ruling class are trying to take us over!
It is their 'undemocratic claims' which have ignited the powder keg of
Northern Ireland!
In reality the Southern ruling class are little
more than a shadowy reflection of British Capital. They act at the whims and
dictates of the much more powerful British Big Business. It is nonsensical
to put down al the problems of the north to the 'undemocratic claims of the
Southern government for jurisdiction over its territory' as do the
B&ICO.
To those 'Marxists the provisional are the 'unofficial
army' of the Southern Government. In order to support the argument that the
south is at work trying to take over the six counties of Northern Ireland,
it is necessary to believe that Southern Capital, such as it exists, is
behind the Provisionals. They must be seen as the 'unofficial army' carrying
on a struggle on behalf of the 26 county government. That is why the Fianna
Fail administration introduced emergency legislation to outlaw the IRA! That
is why they reopened the Curragh camp and brought in a back door form of
internment of republicans!
To give them all due credit the B&ICO
attempt to explain this apparent paradox. They state 'if we are to talk of
justice, Southern internment is infinitely less just than northern…Over the
last three years republicans have been given every facility (including the
very tangible support of eminent people in the state) for carrying out their
campaign in the north.
They have failed. Therefore they are being
interned (
Workers Weekly 2/6/72) After three years of supporting
them we are to believe that the southern administration suddenly decided
that the Provisionals were not efficient enough and so interned them - for
inefficiency!
In 1969 a section of the Southern ruling class, Blaney,
Haughey and co. financed and helped form the Provisionals. Why? To take over
the north? No! Blaney and his friends saw and reacted to the developing
movement to the left both North and South. They looked for a lever with
which to break up that class movement. The lever was the Provisionals.
Blaney wished to use them to reactivate the germ of sectarianism and push
the working class into the old ruts of unionism and
nationalism.
Blaney does not represent the present day interests of
the southern bosses. Cosgrave and Lynch, far more representative of the
wishes of their masters, wish as far as possible to extricate themselves
from the situation in the North. They wish to act at every turn as the
backers of the policy of Westminster. Above all far from working to bring it
about, they tremble at the very prospect of a united Ireland because they
are only too aware that if the might of the British army cannot hold the
situation in check, their tiny forces and state resources would be paralysed
from the outset. They could never hope to contain a million hostile
Protestants. Nor would they be capable of gaining the support of the
northern Catholics who would never accept a cut in their social standards
for the sake of 'unity'. Lynch and Cosgrave are alert to the fact that
although Catholic workers in the north might look to them today, in an
all-Ireland under their leadership any support they now have would quickly
turn to outright hostility as economic factors began to bite
home.
The Southern Government must give 'full recognition and
accordance of the right of the Ulster Protestant nation to remain as part of
the UK state'. This would lead to a 'democratic settlement' of the conflict.
So say the B&ICO. Northern Ireland has experienced five years of
bloodshed. Thousands of families have been uprooted and forced to leave
their homes. Over a thousand people are dead. The sectarian divide has never
been wider. However there is no need to worry! The B&ICO have unearthed
the cause of it all - the South is responsible! There would be no problem if
only southern politicians would give up their claims on the territory of the
north! As if, on the strength of a few words spoken by a group of
politicians in the south, the problems built up over the last five years and
longer would evaporate and a 'democratic solution' emerges.
The Two Nations theory - its implications
Behind al the political
wheelings and dealing of the B&ICO over the recent period stands the
belief that Ireland is not one, but two nations. This theory is totally
erroneous. Also its very implication is reactionary. (
See
article appended for an explanation of this theory.) Yet even if Ireland
were two nations, the method in which the theory is applied by the B&ICO
has nothing in common with the methods of Marx and Engels or Lenin. Were a
Marxist to accept that Ireland is two nations he would not draw the totally
false and one-sided conclusions drawn by these people.
A second part
of the B&ICO and Workers Association's 'democratic solution' is the
accordance of democratic rights to the minority in Northern Ireland. In
words they occasionally say this. But the conclusion drawn from 99.9% of
their material is just the opposite. In their publications every article is
an attack on the Southern Government - the rights of Catholics in the North
are
never expanded upon and explained. Quite the opposite! We have
already seen how they denounced the civil rights campaign as a 'republican
plot'. Not only the campaign itself but
anyone who takes up the issue
of Civil Rights including the trade union leaders, is branded as an enemy of
the people of the north. They have nothing to say about the repression and
harassment of Catholics, the internment of their men, women and children -
except to support it. 'Internment must be retained until either the
Provo campaign has been called off or until the Provos have been effectively
disowned by the Catholic community.' (
Weekly Worker,
18//8/74)
In relation to any national struggle a Marxist would
support the rights of any oppressed minority within a nation.
That would
be is first and prime task. The B&ICO on every occasion are to be
found on the side of the forces of the capitalist state against the minority
in Northern Ireland. Equally they are silent about the internment and
harassment of 'loyalists'. Although a Marxist would stand opposed to the
methods of both the Provisionals and groups such as the UDA and UVF he would
be duty bound to oppose the repression by the state forces against
them.
Lenin in
all his writings on the national question
always stressed the two sides to this issue. On the one hand a
Marxist tendency upholds the right, and it is only a right - not a duty - of
an oppressed nation to secede. (Who Northern Ireland is going to secede from
is open to question?) On the other hand 'while recognising equality and an
equal right to a national state, it values
above all, and places
above all, the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and
evaluates every national demand, every national separation
from the
angle of the class struggle of the workers.' (Lenin,
Selected
Works, Vol. 1, p335)
The B&ICO see the first side but are
completely blind when it comes to the second. Were there two nations in
Ireland the question of a Socialist Ireland would still have to be posed.
Marx himself, when writing about the oppression of Ireland by England
advocated Ireland's separation, but added the rider: 'although after the
separation there may come federation.'
The 'right of
self-determination' is no abstract cure all as the B&ICO tend to assume.
It is merely a formula pulled out of history which must carefully and in a
class manner, nit mechanically, be applied to any situation. What a Marxist
must stress in relation to a national struggle would be decided only after
an examination of that struggle 'from the angle of the class struggle of the
workers.'
An independent class position in Northern Ireland, reached
in such a way, even in the event that there were two nations, would be to
assail the leaders of the Protestant community, together with the likes of
Phil Curran, for their anti-working class sectarianism and to raise demands
for the uniting of the working class north, south and in
Britain.
During the Ulster Workers Council strike the Workers
Association produced a series of
Bulletins. They boast: 'During the
last days of the strike thousands of copies of the
Bulletin were sold
in the Shankill Road, Sandy Row and East Belfast.' Does the mark of the
intervention of Marxists in the situation? Nowhere in these
Bulletins
is there even one criticism of any, even the most right wing, leaders of the
strike. The
Bulletins are without any attempt to take a class
position as distinct from the stance of the UWC. Instead they declare the
UWC to be 'the most open minded as well as the most powerful political
organisation in the Protestant community.'
These
Bulletins as
with the
What's wrong with Ulster trade unionism pamphlet come not
from the 'angle of the class struggle' but from the angle of Loyalism and of
sectarianism. Their material is totally uncritical of present day loyalist
leaders, and lacks any suggestion as to what the working class should do
independent of the middle class politicians. They conclude: 'what the UWC
should have done during recent weeks is to give to the community the same
quality of democratic, purposeful leadership that Carson and Craig did in
1912-1914.'
Such material doe only one thing -
it provides a
'theoretical' gloss for sectarianism. Who invented the theory of the two
nations? Marx? Engels? Lenin? No. Carson, Bonar Law, Craigavon and
Brookeborough. Who upholds it today? Enoch Powell among others. These are
the people who nurtured this ideological monstrosity. By your friends we
know you!
What role does this 'theory' play in relation to the
struggles of the working class? A strong labour movement in Northern Ireland
would shatter the ties of sectarianism and bring workers together outside
the bonds of Orange and Green Tories. The two nations idea can only work
against such a process and in such a situation would only help repair the
manacles which have bound workers on both sides to right wing and sectarian
influence. It would only serve to smother the independent aspirations of the
working class with the same 'democratic and purposeful'! ideas as were once
used by Carson and Craig to the same end.
The Ulster Workers Council,
which the Workers Association and the British and Irish Communist
Organisation applauded until their hands were sore is already beginning to
fragment. Many of its supporters now have doubts in their minds about this
or that aspect of its activity and are looking around for some way out. All
the British and Irish Communist Organisation have to say to these workers is
that they should stay with the UWC. But despite the activities of the
Workers Association and BICO the Protestant bloc must shatter. A growing
class movement would cut through the camp of 'Loyalism' and draw to its side
the mass of the Protestant working class. When this happens the British and
Irish Communist Organisation, all their false theories with them, will be
swallowed in the crevice which will divide Protestant workers from their
exploiters and overlords.
Web site note: There is a
reference in the text to Phil Curran, someone who was prominent in the mid
1970's, but who has faded from history. Here's a note on him for the vast
majority who will not know of him.
Phil Curran was a founding member of
the Catholic Ex-Servicemen's Association (CEA). Set up in 1971 following the
introduction of Internment with the stated aim of 'protecting' Catholic
areas. Curran, in common with other members, had previous military training.
The CEA was paramilitary in nature but unarmed, and at its most active in
1972 it was claimed that the membership was 8,000. Nothing else has come to
light so far.
This series of articles on Northern Ireland from our archives
are
available here.
The full range of articles from the Socialist
Party
are
available in our sitemap
