Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:25:41 +0100
From: Gerry Downing <gerry-AT-gerryd.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-G: Ireland: "The Limits of Nationalism"


In message 3.0.2.32.19980415072758.00b2eb3c-AT-pop.gn.apc.org, Chris
Burford cburford-AT-gn.apc.org writes

The contributed article copied below is obviously not a definitive
Republican position on the limits of nationalism but is regarded as a
valuable contribution to a debate within Sinn Fein that the leadership
wants widened.

I submit the article "The limits of nationalism" is compatible with a
Marxist analysis of the successes and limitations of Irish nationalism,
and why the way ahead for them in their opinion may not be a purely
nationalist one, if they want a united Ireland, democratic and
socialist.

Dear Chris,
This letter is not at all compatible with Marxism, though it is the
ideological basis of Republicanism, which, No Other Law (a regular
critical contributor) must be regarded as a prime advocate. It is
underpinned with many idealist assumptions.

Remember Marx=92s famous analysis of the French revolution: The big
bourgeoisie watched the revolution from their windows until it had spent
itself and then stepped in to transform =91liberty, equality and
fraternity=92 into the small change of industrial commerce. The ideals
were translated into the dictatorship of the bourgeois republic because
the working class was not you strong enough to intervene to establish
its dictatorship. But it is now, objectively certainly though not yet
politically because  of its lack of revolutionary leadership.

Gerry Adams uses the idealised French Republic, which could never exist,
to propose something similar for Ireland: =91Sinn Fein has a vision of the
future. Of an Ireland free from division and conflict. And where all our
people can live together in peace. This can be achieved in our
lifetime.=92

The class struggle will definitely have to await the agreement of the
Loyalist here, obviously.

No other law sets out his vision thus:

=91The objective of the republican movement is a socialist republic.
Socialism is based on common ownership of resources, production and
distribution. It is profoundly democratic. Republicans cannot achieve
equal citizenship or democracy under capitalism, where class, profit and
exploitation prevail. Partition was enforced by Irish nationalism and
British imperialism. It works in the interests of Irish and foreign
capitalism. Republicanism and socialism provide the means to oppose
partition and the alliance of nationalism, capitalism and imperialism
that it serves. Since 1798 republicanism has found itself unable to
wrest leadership of the movement for national democracy away from
nationalism. The result has been betrayal, defeat and repetition. The
peace strategy tries to go back in time, to recreate the pre-1921
alliance between republicanism and nationalism. That alliance failed and
that time is gone. Nationalism will always betray republicanism and
socialism. Until we place a radical republicanism at the core of our
politics and strategy we condemn ourselves to failure.=92

He does not say how this is to be done, at least in general outline, it
is simply the old  Republican/Socialist  confusion. For instance the
Republican Congress of 1934 was deliberately split by the Stalinists on
the question of whether you should demand of DeValera =91for the Republic=92
(the Stalinist wing) or =91for the Workers Republic=92 (the Price/Connolly
O=92Brien wing). Trotsky recognised the progressive nature of the
opposition by Price and Nora Connolly/O=92Brien and entered into
correspondence with Connolly=92s daughter.  Surely to put the workers
Republic as the slogan implied a rejection of the nationalist/Stalinist
two stage theories of revolution and placed the working class as the
central leadership of the revolution - a socialist one which had as one
of its central tasks the achievement of the unresolved national tasks.

=91Republicanism=92 is the left petit-bourgeois form of nationalism, not a
separate entity. It is the form that did not sell out in 1921 or 1969 or
1998. But it nevertheless is of the same class  basis and cannot take on
and defeat international imperialist companies, to which Irish capital
is of necessity subservient. This is the form of =91socialism=92 advocated
for a period by Castro and Gadaffi, amongst others. Where an abundance
of natural resources or the support of the USSR could allow a national
capitalism, of a deformed and isolated workers state,  to make socialist
advance without the mass participation of the working class as the real.
and not proxy, leadership of the revolution. Not a republican/socialism
but an internationalist  revolutionary  socialism - Trotskyism - is what
is needed. A new reforged Fourth International which can organise to
prevent the capitalist internationally discipline workforces by moving
production to other countries to break unions,  which can organist
defence of the working internationally until it is politically strong
enough to make revolution.

Put the battle to defend the Australian dockers  and the Mexican factory
workers etc. first and you will  find  the key to internationalism, not
by simply looking inwards to a lost idealist tradition.


Gerry Downing


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