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| Ulster Workers' Council Barricade |
NORTHERN IRELAND - THE CRISIS DEEPENS
This article, written by JOHN THRONE, explained how five years of conflict had deepened the divide between Protestant and Catholic workers. It includes a Postscript after the Ulster Workers Council strike of May 1974. It was published in the Militant International Review (No.9), June 1974
This sectarian horror, which is the lot of the Northern Irish working class, is the direct result of the tactics and strategy of the British ruling class over the past 400 years. When British landlordism was the main agent of exploitation of the Irish masses, the tactic of divide and rule was a vital weapon. The plantation of Ulster in the early 17th century was the clearing of whole counties in the North-east of the country of the native population and the "planting" of as many new tenants from England, Scotland and Wales as possible. The terms of division of these confiscated lands illustrates the reasoning of the British ruling class at that time. The seized land was divided into lots of 2,000, 1,500 and 1,000 acres. The receivers of the largest lots were forbidden to take Irish tenants; the receivers of the 1,500 acre lots were not, but if they did, their rent, payable to the Crown, was increased from £5.6.8 per 1,000 acres to £8 per 1,000 acres. The total of this land given to Irish tenants did not exceed 10% of the whole and was usually the worst land. The pattern can be seen in some rural areas to this day, where the hilly, mountainous areas are occupied by Catholic farmers with obviously Irish names, while the valleys have larger farms whose owners have Scottish or English names and are mostly Presbyterian or Church of Ireland. The plantation was an attempt to set down tenants in a hostile environment who because of this, could always be counted on to be loyal to their British masters. Thus providing a secure base from which to dominate and exploit the country as a whole.
This strategy received a severe shock with the coming together of sections of the Protestant and Catholic peasantry and artisans, craftsmen and small manufacturers in the 1798 rebellion of the United Irishmen led by Wolfe Tone. While this rising drew some inspiration from the French revolution, it had two main driving forces. One was the artisans, craftsmen and small manufacturers who were restricted by the domination of the Irish economy by the British ruling class. The latter saw Ireland as a source of agricultural produce and wealth in the form of rents etc. while at the same time taking measures to see that industrial competition did not come from that quarter. The other was the wretched conditions of the peasantry. These had given rise through the century to the struggles of the Whiteboys in the Southern part of the country. This organisation physically resisted evictions and assassinated landlords and their agents. Parallel organisations sprang up in the Monaghan-Tyrone-Armagh area - the Oakboys: this was made up of both Catholic and Protestants; and in the areas of Antrim and Down, the Protestant Steelboys.
This rising evoked ruthless repression from the British ruling class and an intensified campaign to divide the masses along sectarian lines. The Orange Order, after its establishment as a small local body in the early 1790's, was developed and financed by the ruling elements for this latter purpose. The poverty of the great mass of the population provided the perfect seed-bed for such tactics. Marginal privileges were distributed through the Orange lodges to sections of the Protestant population. The sectarian division was thus deepened.
This process was accentuated by the particular military and strategic needs of British imperialism during the 19th century and early decades of the 20th. The British ruling class were increasingly opposed by the developing strength and combativity of the British working class. The other was the movement in Ireland for Home Rule, the spine of which was the struggle against the landlord system. The famine of 1846-47 gave an impetus to this struggle. This famine, which reduced the population of Ireland by one-third in 10 years, is commonly believed to have been caused by a failure of the potato crops, the main source of food for the Irish peasant - but more accurately it was caused by the landlord system. The peasant grew two main crops, potatoes to feed himself and his family and corn to pay the rent to the landlord. When the potato crop failed, the landlord still demanded his rent and while the rural population was being reduced by death and forced emigration to just over half, there was enough grain and cattle being exported to feed the starving people twice over. The Roman Catholic church insisted on the peasantry paying their rent.
The rising of 1848 followed, then the Fenian movement and rising of the 1860's, the Home Rule movement that was given a boost by these events and finally the co-operation of the latter with Michael Davitt and the Land League in the land war of 1879-82, nudged the most conscious elements of the British ruling class into action. Opposing Home Rule, mainly for military reasons at this time, fear that a foreign power would use Ireland as a base from which to attack, they tried to take the steam out of the Home Rule struggle by placating the peasantry. A series of Land Acts were introduced, stretching from 1870-1909. These made it possible for the peasantry to buy land. It subsidised the landlords, so that in most cases they got more than the market value. Between 1870 and 1910, 13 million acres were taken over by half a million tenants at a cost of £120 million. They also, as Randolph Churchill put it in 1886, played "the Orange card", stirring up sectarian riots in Belfast and the North-east, playing on the fears of the Protestants and claiming that "Home Rule would be Rome rule".
A new and more cohesive force was developing in Ireland: the Irish working class. The first meeting of the Irish TUC was held in 1894. James Connolly founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in 1896. Especially worrying as far as the British ruling class was concerned was the developing militancy of the unskilled workers. Their wages were approximately one-third less than that of their British counterpart. In 1907 in Belfast, Jim Larkin conducted a determined struggle against the local employers to organise the unskilled dock workers. The bosses used the sectarian weapon and the workers developed the sympathetic strike. Support for the workers came from a split-off from the Orange Order - the Independent Orange Order. Out of this struggle were laid the foundations for the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP). Another after-effect was the founding of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union in 1909. The Irish Labour Party was founded in 1912 by the Irish TUC, under pressure from Connolly and Larkin, but it was the 1913 lockout in Dublin which really struck terror in the hearts of the ruling class. The employers locked out all members of the ITGWU. The struggle went on for eight months. The sympathetic strike developed in Belfast in 1907 was used again; battles were fought with the police daily; workers were killed and the Irish Citizens Army was founded. This was the first "red army" in Europe, a trade union defence force to defend the picket lines.
This bitter struggle raised the militancy of the British workers to an even higher pitch. They had already been moving against the bosses with determination. The 1910-11 Cambrian Combine strike in the Rhondda in South Wales, and in 1912 the nationwide six week strike of over 1 million miners for a minimum wage, reflected this. In 1911 the Parliament Act went through the House of Commons. This removed a lasting veto of the House of Lords.
All these factors coming together, prompted the British ruling class to resort to the most drastic methods to prevent the passage of the "Home Rule" Bill. They had seen their Parliamentary veto considerably curtailed. They had witnessed the insurrectionary events in Dublin in 1913, with the young Irish working class predominantly unskilled, demonstrating the same audacity and freedom from routine as the Russian workers in 1905 and 1917. Britain, as Lenin pointed out at the time, stood on the verge of civil war between 1912-14. The movement of the workers in Ireland threatened to dovetail with the struggles of the British working class. At the same time, Ireland as a sea base assumed decisive importance so far as the British ruling class was concerned, in view of the approaching clash with their German rivals. An additional factor was that even the limited "Home Rule" would reverberate throughout the "Empire" and give a further push to the struggles of the Indian, African and other peoples for national freedom. It was for these reasons that the dominant sections of finance capital, represented by the topmost leaders of the Tory Party in collusion with the officer caste, organised the military rebellion at the Curragh in 1914. This conspiracy forced the Liberal government to abandon the milk and water scheme for Home Rule.
The organiser of the anti-Home Rule movement in Ulster was Sir Edward Carson, a Dubliner who had been Solicitor General in the Tory government from 1900-1906. Thus sectarianism was whipped up and the basis of the future partition of Ireland laid as a means of cutting across the movement of the Irish workers in the direction of a social revolution and as a way of organising an armed force both inside and outside the British forces themselves for the defence of the wealth and power of the British ruling class. The sectarianism and the division amongst the working class in Northern Ireland today, along with all the deaths and suffering that have resulted, have been caused by the British ruling class and their tactics and strategy over this period.
The 1916 rising and the six-year Independence struggle that followed, was permeated through and through with the struggles of the Irish workers. From 1916-18, trade union membership rose from 65,000 to 250,000. The take-over of creameries, mines and land, the flying of the red flag, the Limerick soviet and the 1919 engineers' strike in Belfast demonstrated this. The leadership of the Labour movement stood by, subordinating themselves and the demands and needs of the working class, to the leadership of the Nationalist movement, made up at that time of Griffiths, De Valera and Collins. Griffiths, who condemned the workers in the lock-out in 1913 and who at one stage had called on the British troops to intervene against Irish workers on strike. Tragically, with Connolly's execution in 1916, no Labour leader with anywhere near his class consciousness had emerged. Only a clear class lead by the Labour leadership at that time could have united the workers North and South and the country on a Socialist basis. With the signing of the treaty in 1922, partition became a reality.
SECTARIANISM
Behind the tariff walls erected around the 26 Counties state, the Southern ruling class attempted to build an independent economic base. The task was beyond them. They finally acknowledged this by signing the Free Trade Agreement with Britain in 1964. This effectively opened the 26 Counties' economy to British investment and the take-over of Irish industry by the major monopolies and multi-nationals. During the 1960's, British capitalism contributed around 25% of total overseas industrial investment in the 26 Counties. This was stated in a speech by Keating, minister for Industry and Commerce in the Southern government, reported in the Financial Times 29/11/73. He went on in the same speech to explain that after a fall in British investment during 1970-72, due to the situation in the North, the Industrial Development Authority anticipated that of the 16,000 jobs created by inward investment up to March 1974, 4,500 would be the result of capital expenditure by British companies. This opening of the 26 Counties' economy to outside investment meant a sharp upturn in the process of industrialisation.' Industrial exports rose from £51 million in 1960 to £400 million in 1973. Approximately two-thirds of Britain's largest 100 companies have subsidiaries in Ireland, and by the end of 1972, over half the fixed assets of all the 26 Counties' registered industrial and service companies were foreign-owned. With the 26 Counties becoming an increasing source of profits for British capitalism and Britain becoming an increasing source of investment for the Irish economy, with the consequent rake-off for the native capitalist, the relationship between them underwent a change. The political and economic system in the 26 Counties suited the British ruling class better than that in Northern Ireland. Their profits and investment were being protected and assured in the South.
With the collapse of the military might of British imperialism - a consequence of its economic decline - Ireland assumed less importance. During the Second World War it still remained a vital factor in the naval strategy of British imperialism; Churchill even considered an invasion of the South in order to secure the ports for British vessels in the U-boat war. The development of modern weapons - Polaris submarines etc - now renders Ireland "obsolescent" from a military point of view.
At the same time, British imperialism saw that a United Ireland would suit them best. This was reflected by the Lemas-O'Neill talks. Unfortunately for them, even though the tactical and strategic measures that had led to partition had gone, the sectarianism that they had created and institutionalised in the Northern Ireland state had not.
As Marx explained, ideas taken up by the masses can become a material force. The accuracy of this has been brutally borne out over the past few years in the North. The Protestant workers' opposition to a united Ireland has been the main obstacle to any movement towards unification. What British imperialism created in the past now stands in her way.
The British Army was not sent in in 1969 because the British ruling class wanted to prevent the slaughter of Catholic workers by the B Specials, RUC and sectarian groups of Protestants. The army was sent in to cool the situation which threatened to spill over into a civil war and the possible involvement of the 26 Counties. In this process, factories would have been burnt down, investment ruined, profits would be hit and the possibility of a social revolution rising out of the flames could not be ruled out. 40.5% of total company investment in Northern Ireland comes from Britain (Financial Times 10/12/73). This factor alone warranted intervention.
Armed workers make the bosses nervous. Even though they may be shooting each other at present, if a strike situation developed, it's a short step to using the gun to settle the strike in the workers' favour. The effect of such a conflict on the British workers in a period of increasing class tensions, was also uppermost in the minds of the British ruling class. Workers in UCS threatened to turn the Clyde into a Bogside (a no-go area) if their jobs were not saved. Ideas cross the sea.
The rising of the Catholic working class in the Civil Rights (CR) movement came after half a century of discrimination and oppression, within a state where the conditions of the working class as a whole was one of high unemployment, low wages and bad housing. When Callaghan came to Derry in 1969 as Home Secretary, he met a deputation from the Derry Citizens Defence Association. A member of this deputation showed him a photograph. In it, Callaghan was talking to an unemployed man in Derry when he'd been on a trip there 20 years before. It was this same man he was meeting again and he was still unemployed! This man has since died in an explosion. This incident epitomises the worst of the Catholic ghetto areas in places like Derry, Belfast, Newry and Strabane. The CR movement raised the hopes of the Catholic working class, especially the youth. Its refusal to take up issues like wages, unemployment, housing and redundancies from a working class viewpoint, closed the door to the Protestant workers. The movement was held to these democratic demands by the domination of the Civil Rights Association (CRA), by the reformist politics of the Communist Party of Ireland and the Official Sinn Fein. It was only the Labour movement, by taking up the CR demands and linking them to the class programme for a change in society that could have united the working class in the North and shown the way forward. While the problems of workers in the North have been caused by British imperialism, the onus for solving them lies with the Labour leaders. These leaders remained silent.
Sections of the Southern ruling class did not! Alarmed by the developments in the North and afraid they would spread to the South, they worked actively to split the republican movement. This allied to the frustrations and impatience of elements of the Catholic population and the Provos were born. Their ranks were swollen by Catholic youth who were constantly harassed, beaten and humiliated by the army and the police. They saw friends being killed or imprisoned by corrupt courts and the lying testimonies of the so-called security forces, and the Provos seemed to offer the means of striking back. Against a background of unemployment and its attendant misery, literally thousands joined after Bloody Sunday.
The Provos' leadership produced Eire-Nua - their blue-print for a new Ireland. This calls for the setting up of a Democratic Socialist Ireland. While the Provo leadership holds right-wing Republican views, the working class instinct of large numbers of the rank and file prevented the complete abandonment of Socialism as an objective. How this socialist Ireland is to be achieved is nowhere understood or explained in the document. In the 10 "more important and fundamental features of the programme" of Eire Nua neither the working class nor socialism gets a mention. While it calls for "the means of production, distribution and exchange to be controlled by the people", it also assumes that "private enterprise will have a role to play in the economy". Its denial of the class struggle is spelt out when it states later in the document that "the Irish nation must organise itself in such a way as to defend itself against the economic forces associated with the imperial system which tends towards its depopulation and impoverishment".
As far as ending partition was concerned, their military campaign had no chance of success from the start. The Protestant working class, two-thirds of the population in the North, were not going to be forced into an extended 26 Counties with all the loss in material benefits that would entail - lower social welfare, educational and health standards and the threat from the influence of the Roman Catholic Church on the Southern state. The Catholic working class, while identifying the escape route from their position in the North along the lines of some sort of United Ireland, would not be prepared to accept an even worsening of their conditions that an extension of the Southern state would mean. The only way to unification is within the framework of a socialist Ireland. A transformed 32 Counties: only the working class can carry through this task.
Trotsky showed in his theory of Permanent Revolution, written in and confirmed by the Russian Revolution" that in the modern epoch the bourgeoisie in the colonial and semi-colonial countries is incapable of completing their own revolution - thoroughgoing land reform with the elimination of all feudal and semi-feudal relationships in the countryside, the unification of the country and the development of the economy along modern lines. The effete capitalists in these countries, linked through the banks to the landlords, are incapable of carrying through such a land reform. They fear their own working class more than imperialism. They have come too late onto the stage of history - the working class is already knocking on the gates to the future. The Irish bourgeoisie proved no exception to this rule. As explained, it was the British ruling class who, for tactical reasons, through the Land Acts of 1870-1909, carried through the distribution of the land and the Irish bourgeoisie were incapable of unifying the national territory, finally accepting the treaty of 1922. A remnant of the national question is all that remains. Only the working class can solve this and only in the process of the socialist revolution itself.
Understanding this, the Provos' campaign is more than ever seen to be a cul-de-sac for the Catholic youth. The armed campaign, basing itself at its height on one-third of the population in the North (no more than 10 or 15% of Catholics now support them) with the other two-thirds opposed to it, the Southern working class cut off because of the lack of working class programme and the nature of the campaign itself, could only have resulted in the present situation: a deepening in the divide between Protestant and Catholic workers in the North; the falling away of the support that existed in 1968 and 1969 amongst workers in Britain and the South and in the death and demoralisation of sections of the most self-sacrificing Catholic youth. The campaign has thrown back the development of the working class struggle. If it had not taken place, the increased attacks on workers' living standards North and South, through the increased cost of living along with the restrictions on wages, would much more effectively have been pushing workers into struggle together on these basic class issues. The building of a united working class, the only force in Ireland capable of defeating British imperialism, would have been much nearer today.
The Provo leadership have learnt nothing from the failures of the campaigns of the '40's and '50's. Nor have the so-called Marxists, who from positions of relative safety chew on the efforts of the Provo activists, learnt anything from the struggles of the Russian Marxists against the Narodniks and Social Revolutionaries. The "terrorism" of these two groups was of a different form; mostly the assassination of landlords and Tsars and their agents, as opposed to the bombings of the Provos and the effects that these have on working class families in the North.
Still, Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks waged a determined struggle against these tactics. As Trotsky recalled in 1933, "when at the beginning of the century we struggled against the petit-bourgeois illusions and adventurism of the Social Revolutionaries, many good people not only in the Narodnik camp but even in our midst, indignantly broke with the Leninist lskra, which, you see, allowed itself to criticise terror unmercifully at the time when the terrorists were perishing on the hangman's noose. We replied: the aim of our criticism consists precisely in tearing away the revolutionary heroes from individual terrorism and in leading them to the road of mass struggle."
From the time when the first bomb went off, from the first shot fired, the Militant supporters have been the only ones to determinedly and patiently explain the impossibility of finding a way forward through the campaign. When the smoke clears and hundreds of working class people have died, what will be the answer of the so-called Marxists who supported the methods of the Provos, when the rank and file ask them: "why did you not tell us it couldn't succeed?". Marxism has long been clear on these questions. The Clerkenwell explosion of 1867 was condemned by Marx, who was in close touch through Engels with leading Fenians at that time. If we came upon an impatient and angry youth who wants to attack a patrol of armed police, the only way in which to help him is to explain to him that there is another way. Not to cheer him on as he rushes to his own assassination.
The tactics of British imperialism in the North has been to draw together the middle class Catholics and middle class Protestants into the power-sharing alliance, while using the armed forces of the state to repress as brutally as possible any opposition from working class areas. This has led to up to 2,000 political prisoners and internees and the assassinations by the army of republicans like Joe McCann, the mass murders of Bloody Sunday and the murdering of Protestant workers in areas like the Shankhill Road. The dominant mood of the Northern working class after five years of such repression and suffering is war-weariness and inertia. A desire for peace. While maintaining the repression, the Sunningdale Agreement, it was hoped by the British ruling class, would seem to provide the escape route from the troubles - the straw that the war-weary population would clutch at. The Agreement means all things to all men. Faulkner was "pleased with the declaration from the Southern government, that there would be no change in the status of Northern Ireland until the majority demanded it." Gerry Fitt was pleased that "the British government would support Irish unity if the majority in the North so wished it." The Southern government has stated recently that Northern Ireland is a part of the U.K., while at the same time their constitution claims it as part of the national territory!
SUNNINGDALE FAILURE
The Sunningdale Agreement represented the traditional methods of British imperialism - a combination of "concessions" and repression. The Catholic middle class were offered a share in the state pie, in the form of "power sharing". The more blatant examples of discrimination were to be eliminated. Grandiose promises on housing, social services, education etc. were made. At the same time, the military onslaught against the Catholic and Protestant "extremists" continues unabated. But, as anticipated by the Marxists, within months of its announcement the Agreement has foundered. All the violence in Northern Ireland is rooted in the terrible social conditions of Catholic and Protestant worker alike and the sectarian poison disseminated over centuries. What hope is there of replacing the slums of the Falls Road, of the Shankill Road, of the Catholic Bogside or the Protestant Fountain Street area in Derry, at a time when Britain builds less houses than at any time for 25 years? How is it possible to remove the cancer of unemployment at a time when Britain as a whole faces the prospect of anything up to a million unemployed towards the end of this year or next? The spokesmen of British capitalism boast that the unemployment rate has been cut from 9% in 1971 to 6% today. What this conceals is that a big percentage of those, "gainfully employed" are in schools "training" to be labourers! At the same time, unemployment still stands at 50% for the male population in the Catholic Ballymurphy estate in Belfast.
Optimism has given away to pessimism bordering on despair in the ranks of the British ruling class, in relation to Northern Ireland. They have in the main greeted the decision of the new Labour government to legalise Provisional Sinn Fein and the Ulster Volunteer Force. They hope thereby to demonstrate the narrow base upon which these organisations rest. This is accompanied by talk of the "phased release" of internees under "sponsorship" and the return of "security" to the RUC.
Cross-border "co-operation" between the Southern and Northern regions - particularly by extradition of terrorists for trial, or an agreement that arrests and trial will take place in the South for offences in the North or vice versa, is to be stepped up. But none of these expedients is capable of offering a solution to the problems in Northern Ireland. Temporarily it is possible that the violence can be reduced "to an acceptable level" as the spokesmen of capitalism call it - acceptable to them, that is, not the mainly working class men, women and children who will continue to be killed and maimed. But a recrudescence of violence and of sectarian conflict is inevitable on a capitalist basis. It is lodged in the very pores of Northern Ireland society. Only the working class, by taking power, can eradicate it once and for all.
The Southern ruling class, while for political reasons not doing away with the claim to the 32 Counties in the Constitution, are working zealously with the British Army to put away all Provos. Their economic links with Britain bind their futures closer and closer together. Inclusion of the Six Counties holds no attraction for them at present. What would they do with the Protestant and Catholic workers, with their history of militancy and struggle? It was stated at the January conference of the Confederation of Irish Industry that it would mean an extra £300m expenditure if Northern Ireland was to become part of a 32-County state. This did not include the present cost of "security" in the North. It suits the Southern ruling class better to let the British Army deal with the situation in Northern Ireland in their own way.
The internment camps in the North are overflowing. Protestant internees are now swelling the numbers. The Special Criminal Court in the South is a disguised form of internment. The word of a Garda superintendent that he believes a person to be a member of an illegal organisation, is sufficient evidence to warrant a jail sentence. The ending of internment in its various guises North and South and the repeal of all the repressive legislation on the statute books is an immediate issue which must be taken up by the whole working class movement. These measures will be used against the labour movement in the future. Workers continue to be murdered in the North. There is an immediate need for defence against the maniacs on both sides of the divide. The increasing attacks on groups of workers over the past few months have highlighted this. The trade union movement, based as it is on all sections of the working class, is the only structure which can draw the workers together in their own defence. Trade union branches and groups of workers have called on the leadership of the unions to act. This points the way forward. The struggle for the unconditional withdrawal of the British Army must be continued and linked to the demand for a trade union defence force by a conference to be called by the trade union leaders, of all trade unionists, shop stewards, defence committees and tenants associations. This could be the beginning of the setting up of the structure, of a trade union defence force. Linking this to the class programme put forward in Militant Irish Monthly and understanding the objective economic factors developing in society, which are pushing workers together in struggle against the bosses, a transformation in the situation could be achieved.
This demand for a trade union defence force has met with opposition from practically every group on the left. Official Sinn Fein have called for it on a few isolated occasions. It is decried as "not practical" as there is a deep sectarian divide amongst the workers. This is a position which could only be taken up by reformist groups with no understanding of Marxism. Of course it is true that a sectarian divide runs through the workers in Northern Ireland. It is also true that as long as this present consciousness (sectarianism) continues, there can be no means of defence or an end to the conflict once and for all. But we don't start from a position of accepting the present level of understanding of the workers, but from a position of stating what their objective needs are. We then put forward demands that relate to their objective needs, fight for these demands and conduct a struggle to transform and raise working class consciousness and consequently transform the situation. Socialism itself is not possible unless the understanding and consciousness of the working class is transformed. On this basis it would mean we do not demand a Socialist society.
Militant supporters have always held that a consistent class appeal should be made to the troops in the North. Evidence to support the correctness of this has come from an unexpected quarter recently. Army chiefs reported in the London Evening Standard, talked about how worried they were about the possible reaction of the troops when asked to deal with civilians in Northern Ireland, on being used there first. This worry was removed and the authority of the reactionary officer caste reinforced when soldiers began to be spit on, blown up and shot.
Supporters of the Derry Labour and Trade Union candidate were pleasantly surprised at the reaction of the troops there, over the recent Election. They were overwhelmingly supporting Labour in Britain. Like most regiments, they came from working class areas of high unemployment. While thug regiments like the Paras and SAS elements would probably be an exception, a class appeal to the troops would find an echo. Especially if it raised the demand for trade union rights for soldiers (TU rights for soldiers exist in some other West European countries), over-time rates and the election of officers.
Having a clear perspective, the Militant supporters have consistently put forward a programme which at all times reflected the objective needs of the working class. We have not bent like all the other elements on the left in Britain and Ireland, to whatever moods are prevailing in the working class, or in some cases the petit-bourgeois areas in which they were based.
The immediate future for the working class, North and South, is one of a rising cost of living and a holding down of wages. In the North and Britain, the official estimate of price increases for 1974 is 16-18%. For essentials, which take up most of the workers' wage packet, the increase will be over 20. In the South last year, essentials like food, clothing, footwear, transport, fuel and light rose by over 20%. This was when the official Consumer Price Index was 13.5%. Government figures estimate the Consumer Price Index will rise this year by 15%. The growth rate in the South is expected to fall by almost half to %. These are the objective, factors which will move the working class into action. While this process in the South will be initially restricted and uneven because of the collaboration of the Labour and TU leaders in the national wage agreement, the Labour Court and the Coalition government, the process is nevertheless inevitable. A crucial question for Marxists is what organisations will the workers use as they fight back against the bosses? The traditions of the workers show this clearly. The organisations that they've built in the struggle throughout their history are the trade unions and the Labour Parties North and South. It is to these traditional organisations that they will again turn.
In the North, the situation cries out for a mass Labour Party to take up the working class issues. The Protestant workers more and more see the real nature of British imperialism. This is reflected in statements from groups like the UVF calling for a socialist Ulster and attacking the upper class elements who have always dominated them. Leaders like Paisley and Craig show no solution: The idea of UDI, which is their last resort ,would mean raising £300 extra per year per head of the population in Northern Ireland and this is not counting the cost of so-called security, Army, police etc. The Catholic workers are seeing the futility of the Provos campaign and the sell-out of the Social Democratic Labour Party. A Labour Party based on the trade unions, taking up the issues of low wages, rising prices and rents and mortgages and linking up with the Labour Party in the South, to fight the employers on a 32-County basis and for workers' control and management of the economy, is the only way forward. In the North at present the only party with any links with the trade union movement is the Northern Ireland Labour Party. Pressure must be exerted for the leadership of this party to take up this demand along with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the leaders of the Irish Labour Party. The latter's coalition with the arch-conservative Fine Gael must be broken and a fighting lead be provided for the workers. Connolly showed the way in 1912 when he pressurised the ITUC to set up the Irish LP and put his forces inside this party to fight for socialist policies.
The class battles that lie ahead in Ireland and Britain will cut across the mood of inertia and weariness now existing amongst the working class in the North, due to the events of the past years. With the increased militancy and consciousness that will result in the ideas and programme of Marxism finding an ever-widening support.
In a previous Militant International Review (No 3 Autumn 1970) [click for link], we have explained that the repression, the slaughter and the poverty conditions of workers North and South are the result of the system of imperialism and capitalism. That the only force that can smash this system of exploitation is the working class. The only way to end internment and repression for good and build a future which ensures a decent standard of living for all, is through the struggle of the workers for the expropriation of the commanding heights of the economy. The end of the post-war boom internationally, the developing crisis within the capitalist countries has led and, as the crisis deepens this process will intensify, to savage attacks on the living standards of the working class. These attacks are pushing the workers into struggle to defend their living standards. This will be reflected more and more in the trade unions, the Labour Parties and in a raising of the consciousness of the workers North, South and in Britain. As the workers move into action, unity can be forged and the working class can carry through to a successful conclusion the struggle against capitalism and imperialism, and for a socialist united Ireland and a socialist Britain. The struggle of the Militant supporters for the adoption of a Marxist programme by the workers' organisations is the key to this success.
POSTSCRIPT 10th May 1974
The above was written before the May strike organised by the Ulster Workers Council. This event serves to confirm the analysis made in the article. The strike has at one and the same time shattered the strategy of the British ruling class and completely undermined the assumptions on which the Provisional IRA have based their policies and actions.
The strike was historical retribution for all the past crimes of British imperialism in Ireland. They created the sectarian monster - they taught Catholic arid Protestant to hate and fear each other. In the past they urged on Protestants to military rebellion to prevent a united Ireland. Now the sectarian monster refuses to lie down at the bidding of the British master.
The UWC organised the strike by recruiting the support of a minority of the Protestant working class in key industries like the power stations. All the evidence showed that there was considerable opposition from the Protestant working class at the outset of the strike. Thus 90% of the Protestant working class of Derry were at work on the first day of the strike and only "responded" to the strike call when threats were made to burn out their families. In the giant Harland and Wolff shipbuilding yard - employing 10,000 workers - only 500 attended a "strike" meeting and only 100 voted in favour of coming out. Support for the UWC call was gained by threatening to bum the workers' cars. The same pattern of massive intimidation was repeated at Mackies, Sirrocos and other workplaces.
At the same time once the effectiveness of the strike was demonstrated, it gained support from the Protestant working class. The five years of bombings and violence, together with the fear of being incorporated into a capitalist united Ireland, fuelled their support for the strike. Above all, it was the speeches of Gerry Fitt, with his sweeping characterisation of all supporters of the strike as "fascists", and Wilson , with his infamous "spongers" speech, and the use of the army in the petrol stations which served to unite practically the whole of the Protestant population behind the UWC call.
But the strike was organised for reactionary ends. There were genuine fears on the part of the mass of the Protestant working class that they were to become the new minority - discriminated against and permanently subjugated – in a capitalist united Ireland. But the leaders of the UWC -with their diatribes against "communists and Trotskyists" - and their political allies, Paisley, Craig and West, played on these fears in an attempt to turn back the wheel of history to the pre-1969 situation. They wished to re-establish the Protestant Ascendancy - their own Ascendancy.
The strike was aimed not just against "Sunningdale" and the "Irish dimension", but in order to force back the Catholic population into the position they occupied before the Civil Rights campaign.
Nevertheless, the strike also demonstrated in a distorted form and on a reactionary issue, the colossal power of the working class when it moves into action. The whole basis of life in modern society depends on the working class. Nothing moved in Northern Ireland without the permission of the working class. Even bourgeois commentators, hostile to the aim of the strike, were forced to comment on the power and ingenuity displayed by the working class. Thus the Times correspondent commented on the situation in the Protestant Sandy Row district of Belfast ... "Between fifty and a hundred men have operated a rubbish clearance service, going round in the backs of lorries while others sweep the streets. At the weekend, brown paper rubbish bag s arrived and 22,000 have been given to families in the past three days." Connections were made with sympathetic farmers who supplied the areas with cheap food.
The significance of the strike - the enormous potential power of the working class - has been remarked on by the spokesmen of capitalism. Faulkner has warned the rulers of Europe of the implications of the “political strike". The English Times has had editorials on the same theme. The semi-official organ of Fianna Fail - the Southern Green Tories - the Sunday Press, remarked .... "it (the strike) is more insidious than open rebellion with gun and bomb, because on present thinking and because of the implications for legitimate strike, military force cannot be used against it ....there is no escaping the implication that if a people elect an administration .... that irritate trade unionists .... then temptation will be to over-ride the electoral decision by general strike." (2/6/74). The conclusion drawn by the strategists of the Southern bourgeoisie is that "If that weapon (the strike) is bent for political purposes .... then it is surely finished as an economic weapon .... the community, in order to protect itself against the greater evil will have to outlaw them." The Southern capitalists cannot cancel out with a stroke of the legislative pen the hard-won rights of the Irish working class. But they understand, along with their Northern and British counterparts that the working class throughout these islands will have noticed the power of the May strike. It will not be lost on the British workers that the Protestant working class were able to use their industrial might to topple a government. When the need arises, they will seek to emulate this example, only on a progressive class basis.
The Executive, the British government and the 16,000 troops in the province were powerless against such a movement. In the aftermath of the strike, the Southern Irish capitalist press have interpreted the reluctance of the army to move against the Protestant workers and break the strike, as a modern version of the Curragh mutiny. Nothing could be further from reality. Generals King and Freeland, the army commanders in Northern Ireland, have opposed even the use of troops in the petrol stations because they understood the army were incapable e of running even "essential services". At the same time, the Army tops were afraid that in a shooting war - a definite possibility if the army would have moved against the strike - they would not be able to hold the Protestants, who had 100,000 guns ready to put in the field.
A NEW PARTITION!
Yet in the wake of the UWC strike, Rory O’Brady, head of the Provo's political wing, has stated that they would like to see "a phased withdrawal of British troops over a number of years, in order to avoid a Congo situation." But if the Protestant population will just come to heel in the event of a British pull-out, why call for a "phased withdrawal"? Why mention a "Congo situation" - a clear reference to possible wholesale attacks on Catholics in the Belfast area and the prospect of civil war - if a withdrawal of British troops will call the "Orange bluff" ?
It is clear to all with eyes to see that the awesome power displayed in the strike is a guarantee of determined Protestant resistance to incorporation into a bourgeois United Ireland. On a capitalist basis, religious civil war is guaranteed if British troops are withdrawn and nothing is put in their place. Perhaps there are some in the ranks of the Provisional IRA leadership who believe that out of the ashes of such a civil war will be born a united Ireland. In reality, a new partition would be the result. As in India in 1947, mutual indiscriminate slaughter would be inevitable. The Catholics would be driven out of Belfast, the Protestants from the border counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone and parts at least of Derry. In the past few weeks, "doomsday" schemes, whereby the British Army would hold “corridors" to allow Catholics to escape from Belfast, have appeared in the capitalist press. More than in 1922, a rigid line of demarcation would be drawn between Catholic and Protestant. An exclusively Protestant statelet would be left in the North. The prospect of a united Ireland would be postponed for decades. Even worse, from the standpoint of the labour movement, a new partition will blunt the class struggle North and South. It was James Connolly who predicted that "a carnival of reaction" would result from partition. And so it proved to be. But the reaction which followed the 1922 partition would be as nothing to what would follow a new division of Ireland. The situation would be analogous to the conflict between Israel and Palestinian people. The displacement of the Palestinian people, the setting up of the Israeli state and the consequent guerrilla attacks have tended to blur the class issues both in Israel and in the Arab world. An exclusively Protestant state in the North could only come into existence by creating Catholic refugees. This in turn would provide fertile soil for recruitment of guerrilla forces to be used against the North. The labour movement in the South would be bedevilled by the tide of nationalism which would engulf the country. The Protestant workers, in the face of the inevitable guerrilla attacks would be driven into a bloc with their own capitalists.
The British bourgeoisie, despite the threatening noises in the aftermath of the strike, would only withdraw its troops when it has exhausted all other possibilities. It is paying a heavy price for maintaining its presence in Northern Ireland. It has been forced to foot the bill for the £65m damage to property, the £7m for death and injury, in addition to the yearly subsidy of £430m. But this would be as nothing to the cost - economically and socially as explained above - in the event of a civil war.
Its first attempts at “power sharing” have collapsed as the Marxists predicted. The historical cross currents which dragged down this attempt to put together a coalition of Protestant and Catholic middle class politicians, was revealed by the dilemma which confronted Wilson on the use of troops during the UWC strike. Wilson could only keep the SDLP in the Executive if he promised the use of troops. But the use of troops led to the shipwreck of the Executive! Now the British ruling class is weighing up the possibilities of fresh Assembly elections and some further attempt at "power sharing", this time between the loyalist coalition, or parts of it, and the SDLP. This will be combined with a continued drive against the Protestant and Catholic ultras. It cannot be excluded that some kind of coalition can be established to temporarily paper over the cracks in the Northern Ireland society. But there can be no solution to the violence, the murders, the sectarianism which pervades society in Northern Ireland.
Only the labour movement can show a way out of the impasse. Only through their own organisations, the trade unions, can the working class dispel the threat of a sectarian holocaust which hangs over the ghettos of Belfast, Derry and the other towns and villages of Northern Ireland. For five years, the trade union leaders left the field free for the bigots. Only with the "Back to work march" was some kind of serious stand against sectarianism attempted. But this went ahead without any real campaign - mass meetings in the factories etc - amongst the workers, to explain the issues involved. Nor were any steps taken to provide adequate defence for any workers to participate in the demonstration. Workers were expected to brave barricades, UDA pickets and threats to their families in order to reach the starting point of the march. The march could have only been guaranteed of success if it had been coupled by a clear call to the working class to take a class stand. At the same time, only a trade union defence force could have provided the means of defence to withstand the intimidation against workers wanting to participate in the demonstration.
In the aftermath of the strike, the very existence of the trade unions as a body cutting across sectarian lines is endangered. The UWC, fresh from its victory over the Executive, in the aftermath of the strike has spoken about "clearing out the communists and reds" in the trade union movement. There is only one way to guarantee the defeat of the right-wing attempt to split the trade union movement on religious lines and that is by posing a clear class solution. This would link the low wages in Northern Ireland - £6-£8 less than in Britain - together with the appalling housing, social services etc. and the sectarianism, with the existence of capitalism. The purpose should be to drive home to the working class that even their meagre standards are put in peril if they allow themselves to be duped by the bigots on both sides of the religious divide. A Trade Union Defence Force, starting from the need to defend the working class from the sectarian maniacs and assassins, could lead to united class action on the other social issues affecting the working class.
A sectarian catastrophe cannot be ruled out in Northern Ireland; particularly if the trade union movement fails to act now. But Marxists reject the siren voices who speak and write of the "inevitability" of religious civil war. Events in Britain and Southern Ireland can exercise a profound effect in the North of Ireland. The worsening economic situation in Britain and its effects in Britain will provide the opportunity for cementing a class movement of Catholic and Protestant workers. But as in the past, these opportunities can be missed if the lessons of the last six years are not learnt. The bitter religious divisions between the working class will not be bridged by Christian homilies. Sectarianism will not evaporate if the trade union leaders act as if by ignoring it, it will go away by itself. The working class of Northern Ireland have demonstrated their colossal power during the May strike. They were using that power for reactionary aims and to assist their own worst enemies, the Craig s, Paisleys and co. Let them use it together with the Catholic working class - against the common enemy - the Orange, Green and Red, White and Blue capitalists - and they will be an invincible force. Irish Marxists - gathered around the Militant Irish Monthly - are the only tendency in the Irish labour movement, on the basis of a Marxist programme and perspective, capable of furthering the process of re-arming the Northern Ireland workers on class lines.
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