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International Socialism, February/March 1971

 

Chris Gray

The Republic of Ireland

 

From International Socialism, No.46, February/March 1971, p.33.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

 

The Republic of Ireland
Lysaght
Mercier Press, 21s.

Comrade Lysaght has rendered an inestimable service to the cause of the working class in these islands by writing this book, and deserves our congratulation. What he has done, in effect, is to extend the analysis put forward by Erich Strauss in his book Irish Nationalism and British Democracy, which covers the period 1603-1921. Lysaght begins with a brief survey of pre-feudal and feudal Ireland, and its subordination to English feudalism. Then, following a discussion of Grattan’s parliament, the Act of Union and O’Connell, the author examines post-famine Ireland and its class struggles down to the late sixties of the present century. The wealth of factual material presented, plus the bibliography, constitutes a sizeable and important contribution to the understanding of Irish society today.

There are, however, a number of areas that one wishes the author had dealt with more fully. First and foremost the relations between Ireland and British Imperialism: Comrade Lysaght correctly points out that, following the 1921 Treaty, ‘Irish credit economy remained dependent upon that of Britain. Irish credit had to be backed by British credit’ (p.75) but does not explain the precise mode of operation of this check upon Irish economic growth, except for a brief discussion of banking on p.94. Even then there is no mention of the pound-for-pound cash ratio for Irish banks with the Bank of England (see P. McGlynn, Economics of Freedom, p.15). The book contains much useful material on the ‘Economic War’ of the ’30s, tariffs, the 1938 Trade Agreement, the Emergency, Norton, Whitaker, etc. etc., but no detailed description of the nature and extent of imperialist exploitation. (There are additional hints in the appendix but nothing approaching a full analysis of neo-colonialism at work).

Partly because of the absence of such an analysis, there is no clear picture of what Irish capitalism is like in the 26 Counties. There are plenty of references to ‘big bourgeois’ and ‘small capitalists’ and their respective problems, and political representatives, but no statement as to what proportions of the 26 Counties’ economy was under foreign capitalist ownership, what successful enterprises have been set up by native capitalists, what industries have gone or will go to the wall, and so on.

Such analysis is needed in its turn in Order to understand the politics of the Irish working class, which from the outside appear something of a puzzle. (Dublin looks to be streets ahead of the rest of the country when viewed from the remote distance, of the British Museum, but is this really the case? And what proportion of Irish workers still exhibits a rural as opposed to an urban proletarian consciousness?) Comrade Lysaght is very good at describing the political movements to which Irish workers give and have given support, but he writes at times as if these movements had an inner life of their own unaffected by the development of Irish capitalism.

More serious still is the almost complete absence of any reference to the international working class movement. There is a brief mention of the Second International on p.59, which makes it appear as though Connolly was the only opponent of the First World War in Europe at the time. The various Irish Communist Parties got a mention, but their relations with the Third International and the Russian party are almost completely left out, apart from a brief reference to Larkin being at one time a ‘leader’ (?) of the Comintern. This leads to an ‘objective’ treatment of the Republican Congress of 1934 – a movement whose significance cannot be correctly grasped without an understanding of the politics of the Comintern at this stage, and the rival conceptions of ‘popular’ and ‘united’ fronts likewise.

The programme at the end of the book goes some way to filling the analytical gaps, but at the cost of further confusion. The first proposal put forward is for the creation of a Citizen Army (!) to be sponsored by the (all-Ireland) Council of Labour. Needless to say, this idea is not put forward in the expectation of its being adopted, but as an ‘educational’ demand. But it is doubtful whether such a demand will educate anyone – at present. Comrade Lysaght forgets that the original ICA arose out of a mass strike in which pickets were being attacked by the police, i.e. as a result of a concrete immediate need realized by the strikers themselves. Only subsequently did the organisation become part of the armed independence struggle. This suggests that only under similar circumstances can a second Citizen Army arise.

The demand is all the more senseless in that it poses an organisational solution in advance of the transitional slogans which are needed to break the political status quo. In fairness to Comrade Lysaght it should be pointed out that

  1. his programme does contain some transitional demands, and
  2. that it was originally intended for adoption by the Irish Workers’ Group, a revolutionary socialist organisation, now defunct.

The IWG was never very large, and it collapsed in 1968 following a very hard-fought and vitriolic factional struggle inside its own ranks. Before its demise the group adopted a programme (not Comrade Lysaght’s) which readers can find in The Workers’ Republic, no.20, Winter 1967-68.

This programme is, if anything, even worse. The transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat is envisaged as taking place regardless of the will of the proletariat itself, which is only asked to accept that such and such measures ‘will’ be brought in in order to realize ... workers’ power. (!) Given this kind of approach, it is not surprising that the organisation collapsed. It must be said that at present there exists no coherent alternative to the various political manifestations of bourgeois rule in Ireland.

Comrade Lysaght’s book, however, is an important contribution to the building of such a socialist alternative, by virtue of the ground it covers and the areas of investigation that it opens up. Socialists on both sides of the Irish Sea should not fail to read it.

 
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