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Bob Armstrong

Internal Bulletin (January 1940)

Copied with thanks from the Workers’ Republic Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

In times of acute social conflict, such as will be engendered by the present war, the so-called minimum programme of the socialists becomes merged directly with the maximum programme – the struggle for power. The perfectly legal day-to-day demands of normal times for the protection of the most elementary human needs (more food, rent reductions, shorter hours, etc.) involve a challenge to the whole constituted authority. This war will bring the class antagonisms and colonial struggles to a head in all countries, including Ireland, and pose the problems of a quite literally life and death character for the whole Labour movement. Only the most naive can suppose that a fortunate neutrality can render Éire immune, linked as she is to the bloodstream of the world market and, above all, to her nearest neighbour. What prospects are in store for the Irish workers (North and South) in the period of ferment lying only a short distance ahead?

In the Six Counties the Craigavon Press is already conducting systematic propaganda against all wage increases for the duration of the war. The bakers, threatening strike action for higher wages to keep pace with soaring prices, are accused of rendering assistance to the enemy, Hitler. Meanwhile, there are still about 80,000 unemployed, with no prospect of any radical diminution in these numbers to be seen, although increased activity in armaments may partly solve this problem. The linen trade, on the other hand, deprived of flax supplies from the Baltic countries, will probably be reduced to an almost hopeless plight once existing stocks are exhausted. All expenditure on social services has, of course, been ruthlessly curtailed. Although rationing has not yet officially commenced, in actual fact the shops have been supplying their customers on a ration basis for weeks past. The permanent conditions of Ulster are poor enough. Add to them these euphemistically named ‘temporary’ hardships, which must multiply with the continuance of the war. Unquestionably widespread working-class unrest is in store.

In Éire wages are still higher, but, to counterbalance this, social insurance is disgracefully low. Unemployment is on the increase. British war needs may partly solve this problem for Éire, but it must be noted, the British have not made any serious progress towards a solution of their own unemployment problem.

A rigid imposition of rationing (official and otherwise), the export of basic foodstuffs regardless of Irish requirements, cumulatively mounting prices, inflation and the uncompromising front of employers against yielding even the smallest concessions, will provoke class antagonisms on both sides of the Border on a scale unprecedented in Ireland.

Certainly sections of the peasantry stand to gain from the increased British market, and even the least fortunate may be temporarily dazzled by a new illusion of prosperity. Also, they are less threatened by positive famine that the working class, despite the probable dearth of imported foodstuffs. In addition, the larger farmers stand to gain from tillage subsidies, but this can scarcely be of much benefit to the small-holders, whose land for the most part is already intensively cultivated. Whatever favourable factors there may seem to be will be more than cancelled, however, in a short space of time. Increases in the cost of feeding stuffs, higher costs for machinery parts, huge prices for manufactured goods and food necessities other than home-grown products, higher rates of interest on fresh mortgages and mortgage renewals will produce feelings of acute discontent throughout the countryside.

The growth of strikes, unemployed struggles, demonstrations of mothers demanding more food for children, etc., in the towns, accompanied by sporadic outbursts of hostility in the hard pressed countryside, will reveal a rising turmoil of opposition to the status quo. How will this dissatisfaction manifest itself? What unified political shape will it assume? Against whom will the first outbursts of mass indignation be directed, and what “friends” of Irish freedom will be unmasked?

Craigavon is an open agent of the British Empire. He holds the reins of government solely by virtue of the Special Powers Act, which provides him with all the dictatorial power over political opponents that the European fascist dictators possess. Relying upon the Orange Order, the “B” Specials and the British garrison, he would just as ruthlessly pit himself against any radical demands of the workers as against the nationalist forces.

De Valera’s precise connection with the British Empire is less easily defined. His deliberate ambiguities on the question of the Six Counties, his pacifist cautionings, show that he is not prepared to countenance any practical measures to end British oppression. British and Irish capitalism are tied together by a thousand threads, and de Valera is the responsible representative of Irish capital. A threat to the vested interests of the one would constitute and immediate challenge to the other. De Valera is finding it a difficult enough matter to cope with the nationalist fervour of the rank and file of his own party, though, first rate politician that he is, he manoeuvres with consummate skill. But the interests of the banks, the food pacts, etc., will place this erstwhile rebel against British rule as firmly on the side of the status quo as is the dictator in the North.

The villages will see the machinations of their most hated enemy, British imperialism, behind their desperate plight. In the towns, large sections of the workers will undoubtedly accept the Socialist standpoint against capitalism, but even there the British Empire will be regarded as the main opponent to be overcome. Under the circumstances as we foresee them, the attitude of the Socialists towards national emancipation will assume tremendous, indeed crucial, importance.

The workers of Ireland are faced with the unenviable task under existing conditions of combating capitalism which is supported by two State Powers, for any move against domestic capitalist interests would be simultaneously a blow struck at vital British vested interests. The banks and railways, for instance, are largely controlled by cross-channel shareholders. A serious threat to important property interests in Ireland (in Éire alone even) could lead to an armed struggle with the British Empire, despite its difficulties elsewhere. Certainly the military base in the North would launch a campaign of intervention.

In our opinion, the following pre-requisites are essential before any attempt to supplant capitalism by socialism can be successful:

1) The elimination of the Border. In Ulster, the bitter hatred against British Imperialism prevents one section of the Labour movement from concerning itself primarily with any socialist aims, while, on the other hand, another section follows the reactionary British Labour Party and is supporting the war. The Socialist movement remains extremely weak in Northern Ireland, for the galling question of partition canalises the activities of the most ardent spirits of the working class into purely anti-British channels. The existence of partition obviates the possibility of any unified programme or any form of active collaboration between the workers of the North and South on a solely anti-capitalist basis. Socialists have often posed the question – can the partition of Ireland be ended under capitalism? To this we reply: Until partition is ended we can conceive of only the remotest possibility of a socialist victory. The elimination of the Border is a prior necessity for a successful struggle for socialism.

2) The support, or benevolent neutrality, of the peasantry. The Labour movement, still extremely weak in the town, has practically no influence in the countryside. In the initial period of the tumult, the bulk of the small-holders will be violently anti-imperialist but by no means pro-socialist. Only the attainment of national emancipation will appear to them as a universal panacea. It would be Utopian, however, to imagine that the workers could win and hold the power without widespread support from the countryside.

Other arguments could be brought forward to illuminate our case, but for brevity’s sake we only mention the leading ones.

Both in town and countryside there is a lively enough tradition of detestation of the British Empire, and in the coming crisis the overwhelming majority of toilers can be made to move in unison on this question. In any event, a struggle for national freedom is impending, with our without the participation of the working class movement. Socialists, if they are to play any considerable role in the future, must clearly define their attitude on this question, linking it both with the immediate demands of the workers and to the final objective.

National emancipation would largely bring to an end the contradictory political currents between the workers of North and South. The different religious ideologies assume political importance only through partition: with the abolition of the Border, only the merest remnants of the pro-British tradition would survive in Ulster. Thus the basis would be laid for a national movement. Freedom of agitation, hitherto unknown, would be assured for the Ulster workers, and the British base for intervention, a manifest threat to any workers’ regime in Éire under existing conditions, would be destroyed. Moreover, a nationalist victory in Ireland would strike a blow which would be followed (unless preceded) by a struggle for national liberty over a quarter of the earth, where hundreds of oppressed colonials groan under the monstrous iniquities of British rule. It would echo resoundingly across war-weary Europe and fire the workers everywhere with hope and resolution. Above all, it would strike an immense chord of response among the British workers.

An isolated Socialist regime, lacking broad popular support, would be placed in dire peril at the first powerful British onslaught; but an anti-imperialist front, uniting all the toilers, would provide a sufficient formidable force to hold the enemy at bay until the British workers could organise effective aid on behalf of their Irish comrades. But, with or without such aid from overseas, we firmly hold that such a struggle could only end in victory for Ireland.

Whatever type of Government was borne into power as a result of a victorious bid for independence would find it very difficult to curtail the freedom of the working-class movement, which had rendered full and resolute support in the struggle, and in consequence had grown immeasurably in numbers and prestige. The socialists, dissociating themselves sharply from all parties standing for the maintenance of a private property regime, would press forward to the ultimate goal. Large sections of the peasantry, finding that national independence had brought no mitigation of their economic distress, would begin to follow their lead.

The Russian workers seized the power in alliance with a vast mass of the peasantry, and waged a successful struggle against intervention. Nevertheless, historical analogies must not blind us to the vastly different circumstances prevailing in Russia in 1917 and Ireland today. Czarist Russia was a great imperialist power. Sovietisation of the national minorities was carried out in conjunction with the victorious Great Russian workers. The Bolshevik policy satisfied the most urgent demands of the peasantry for peace and a division of the land. Also, the Bolshevik Party of Lenin had developed in the course of years of arduous struggle into the most disciplined and politically clear party in history to date. In Ireland, on the other hand, the first major demand of the masses is for complete secession from the British Empire. Also, such a party as the Bolsheviks has scarcely yet begun to evolve.

The age-long demand for national freedom is once more being urged with uncompromising insistence. A campaign for complete secession from the British Empire is unfolding, which will coincide and link itself with the growing despair of the workers and peasants, reduced to ruin by the dislocation caused by the world war. If the Labour movement segregates itself from this campaign, or underestimates its significance, the issue will be put to the test in any case. Under such circumstances, if Ireland is defeated, the organised workers will experience a general demoralisation; or again, if she emerges victorious, will have let slip a wonderful opportunity for advancing its authority and power. Only the closest harmony existing between the Labour and Nationalist forces can assure the coming struggle of success.

Obviously, no ready-made scheme for national liberation and the ultimate victory of socialism can be prepared in advance. Indeed, if the overthrow of British capitalism by the British workers anticipates the demand for independence in Ireland (an extremely unlikely eventuality) Craigavon would be reduced to such a sorry plight that the national question would be solved almost automatically. But we cannot base our programme upon such improbable perspectives. What is required in place of the piteously inadequate paragraphs that serve as a substitute for real solidarity with the national cause in the Labour press at present, is a carefully planned, large-scale agitation relating the pressing immediate demands of the workers and the fight for socialism to the more conservative demands of the peasants and the approaching national conflict.

Only hopeless doctrinaires, in our opinion, will denounce this conception of our Socialist policy as tail-endism. On the contrary, it takes account of the most deep-rooted needs and aspirations of the masses, and prepares the ground for final social liberation.

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