Politics from the Prisons and other Articles about Ireland
| Date: | 1988 |
|---|---|
| Organisation: | Workers Revolutionary Party (Workers' Press) |
| Collection: | The British Left on Ireland |
| View: | View Document |
| Discuss: | Comments on this document |
| Subjects: |
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Commentary From The Cedar Lounge Revolution
4th May 2009
An interesting document from the UK based Workers’ Revolutionary Party - and typical of a category of pamphlet published by UK left organisations on Ireland that the Archive will be uploading many more of in the course of the year. This takes a strongly pro-Sinn Féin and IRA viewpoint and seeks, through articles such as “Class Struggle and national struggle”, to position it within a Marxist framework.
The Workers Revolutionary Party , founded by Gerry Healy, has to be one of the most interesting British Trotskyist groupings with a remarkably contentious history. Let’s just say that by the time this document was published that history had brought it to a point where there were two competing versions of the WRP, the WRP (Newsline) which remained centred on Healy and the WRP (Workers Press), the latter being the originator of this document.
Anyhow, whatever its provenance, the introductory piece lauds:
Questions of History written by Irish Republican Prisoners of War and published by the Sinn Féin Education Department… [as] an exceptional book. If previously we thought of self-sacrifice and defiant courage as the prisoners great strengths, now we must add another: they are making a vital contribution to political discussion.
This seeks to set the book within a clearly ideological framework, which is much to the liking of the WRP.
Trotskyism and nationalism are dealt with in an article that notes that Trotsky himself ‘criticised the [1916] Rising’ and continues that ‘Subsequently Trotskyists today play down the importance of the question of national liberation of the working class’. It continues to bring these seeming contradictions with the stance of the WRP to a conclusion which for good measure notes that…
At the same time Stalinist parties - be it the British CP or Communist Campaign Group, or the CP of Ireland - are condemning of ‘terrorism’ ever more loudly. On the present anti-IRA witch hunt - where the issue of defending national struggles comes up concretely - they are with imperialism. As for the Stalinist Workers’ Party, they have long ago accepted partition lock, stock and barrel. It is these people, not Trotskyists who turn their backs on Ireland’s right to self-determination.
Indeed this approach is carried into other pieces, such as “Stand firm against anti-IRA witch-hunt”, written in the aftermath of the Enniskillen bombing which notes that “First off the mark to denounce the IRA, before any of the details were known, was the Soviet news agency, TASS”. Although this isn’t restricted to “Stalinists”… “The “Militant” tendency stands for a similar ‘unity’ - within the confines of the six-county state created by British imperialism, and at the expense of any principled defence of those in military conflict with that state.”
And the central line is expressed as follows:
Revolutionaries must support all struggles taken up by all sections of the working class in pursuit of their class interests. But if backward sections of the protestant working class are drawn in behind the loyalist pogroms against catholics, we must support those who physically oppose them. (In other words, if a protestant worker on a picket line attacks a policeman in the course of picketing, we support him; if a protestant worker attacks the same policeman because he is resisting a loyalist pogrom in the name of bourgeois justice and the Anglo-Irish Agreement, we support catholic workers’ right to defend themselves, and ridicule any illusions that there is anything spontaneously “progressive” about the attack on the policeman).
There’s considerably more to this document than that, but it gives a flavour of it and a sense of the analysis used.
This text and these files are a resource for use freely by anyone who wants to for whatever purpose - that’s the whole point of the Archive (well that and the discussions). But if you do happen to use them we’d really appreciate if you mentioned that you found them at the Irish Left Online Document Archive…
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You can join this discussion on The Cedar Lounge Revolution
By: Fergus D Thu, 07 May 2009 15:52:34
Mick Hall “Jim’s rule of thumb is spot on, (see comment 13) and for me sums up perfectly why the Trotskyist left, despite the enormous dedication of its cadres, have failed to move beyond the phone box mentality.”
True. And it came out in the way they operated in arenas such as the UK Labour Party and various campaigns. They didn’t discuss or debate – they shouted at you. Those of us “who had been around” (increasinlgy large number who had been through at least one group) could identify the source of an “interventaion” within the first sentence. Speakers who were members of a group(let) would propound the “party line” and pretty much leave it at that, with some denunciation of the “leadership” of the LP or whatever. They just couldn’t seem to really engage in debate, discussion and development of ideas.
Actually, in the unios I think they operated mostly just as “militants” and didn’t raise “political issues” much at all.
I’ve kept away from such groups for a long time for such reasons. Has it changed?
Not impressed by the UK left’s approach to Northern Ireland at all. Difficult and complex subject but I couldn’t find much that was attractive anywhere.
Reply on the CLR
By: Jim Monaghan Thu, 07 May 2009 16:05:20
http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Healy/
The above has a bio of the infamous Healy by Bob Pitt. I don’t buy in to all of Pitts politics but he is right on the facts.
Gerry Downing, I think an Irish Trotskyist has some material as well.
http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/1544314-gerald-j-downing
I think What Next is an excellent journal. A bit ecletric but always intersting even when I disagree.
Look for the debate between ranor Lysaght and John Sullivan on Connolly.
Healy last major campaign was to accuse the leadership of the American SWP of being KGB agents. I think he sated they wre also on the payroll of the FBI. Doublejobbing as well.
He spent part of World War Two in Ireland when the RCP (the main Trotskyist group) feared they would be banned. They hung around with Paddy Trench and wrote for the Dublin Labour Party journal THE TORCH.
Shhehy Skeffigton was friendly to them.
Oh
Healy was in the end a thug and a bully.
Whatever you can say about Grant he was not that. In my opinion boring without originality.
Cliff, again not a Healy and interesting. I would disagree with him but he was not nasty.
The SLL/WRP burnt 1000s of potential cadre and left little of any real worth.
There is an awful story of where the money came from and the price that was paid.
As regards any campaiging work in the neighbouring island give me the British SWP and the IMG any day over Healy and his ilk. From trade union soilidarity to Ireland.I have alwys found the Militant of Grant anemic.
TheLambertistes are the same in France building parties and fronts with only themselves. Here the LCR and its project the NPA offers hope of a breakthrough.
Reply on the CLR
By: Mick Hall Thu, 07 May 2009 19:02:25
Jim,
I presume the story is about Saddam.s intelligence agencies in London and the Iraqi CP, etc, if true and I have no knowledge about its veracity, it is as you say dreadful. As to was the Joe Hansen CIA/KGB nonsense. The Workers Press/Newsline was edited I think at the time by a former World in Action journalist Alex Mitchell, who really was a cut above the average, yet day after day it churned out articles about this CIA/KGB plot.
Although in the papers defense I will say its coverage of the Israeli siege of Beruit and the massacres at the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila were second to none, as was its overall coverage of the PLO.
Reply on the CLR
By: WorldbyStorm Thu, 07 May 2009 19:13:05
Can I thank you all for contributing to this thread. It’s precisely the sort of discussion I’d hoped for when posting up the WRP material, both insightful and cordial (or if people prefer, comradely). It really gives an insight into the times – and how some things have changed and others haven’t.
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By: Neues aus den Archiven der radikalen Linken « Entdinglichung Fri, 15 May 2009 13:31:54
[…] Nicky Kelly News (vermutlich 1983) * Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP): Politics from the Prisons and other Articles about Ireland […]
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By: Left Archive: “James Connolly and the struggle for Marxism in Ireland” – Article from The Labour Review, monthly journal of the Workers Revolutionary Party (UK) c.1981 « The Cedar Lounge Revolution Mon, 22 Nov 2010 07:41:17
[…] Left Archive already has a piece of documentation from the WRP itself and the WRP linked Workers League and an interesting analysis critiquing the involvement of the […]
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By: Left Archive: “Torture Casebook – The Ulster Dossier, Socialist Labour League [later Workers Revolutionary Party], October 1971. « The Cedar Lounge Revolution Mon, 26 Mar 2012 02:24:05
[…] Left Archive already has a piece of documentation from the WRP itself and the WRP linked Workers League and an interesting analysis critiquing the involvement of the […]
Reply on the CLR