Now here’s one for you that tends to confuse international audiences to no end.
What is Irish Socialist Republicanism?
In its simplest terms, Irish Socialist Republicanism is Irish Republicanism infused with a strong
class-based analysis.
But that won’t mean much if you don’t already know what Irish Republicanism is.
In the international context, Republicanism is simply the rejection of monarchy and the
“divine right of kings”, which could potentially include people from all across the political
spectrum.
In the Irish context, however, it takes on a much more radical meaning.
In line with the revolutionary Irish Republic of 1919 to 1922 and its Democratic Programme,
Irish Republicanism is the egalitarian, anti-colonial, revolutionary national liberation struggle
of the Irish people, primarily against British imperialism.
Socialist Republicanism takes its egalitarian goals one step further, following these ideas
to their natural conclusions, recognising that the struggle for Irish National liberation
needs to be based along class lines.
Why does it need to be along class-based lines?
Throughout Irish history, there has unfortunately been a trend of narrow nationalism which seeks
to blur the lines between the ruling class and the working class, to unite the Irish
nation – rich and poor together – against the British empire.
And this sounds great in theory – we’re all united and in this struggle together!
The problem is that we’re not.
The Irish ruling class often worked alongside and in alliance with the British ruling class
to oppress fellow Irish people, rendering such notions of cross-class nationalist unity
void.
A perfect example of these class contradictions within the movement was when William Martin
Murphy, an extremely wealthy business owner and self-proclaimed Irish nationalist, fought
against the Irish workers (particularly those in the Irish Transport and General Workers’
Union) who wanted better conditions during the 1913 Dublin Lock-Out.
Note the wording; this was a lock-out, which is when an employer refuses entry to their
workers until the workers give in to the employers’ demands.
Not the other way around like with a normal workers’ strike.
This was class-based warfare from above - an attack from the wealthy business-owning ruling
class elites on the workers, all of whom were supposed to be on the same side, united in
their Irish nationality.
This trade dispute, the largest in Irish history, clearly demonstrated the irreconcilable difference
between the interests of the bourgeois ruling-class nationalists and the proletarian working-class
nationalists.
In other words, normal workers, employees, and the rich employers did not and do not
share the same economic interests, despite both groups often claiming to be nationalists
fighting against the British colonial occupation of Ireland.
So when you say that you’re a Socialist Republican, you’re committing to resolving
this class antagonism within the Republican movement.
People don’t usually start at this position though.
The most common trajectory that people follow is that they join the Irish Republican movement
without a consistent class analysis, mostly in response to seeing the devastating impact
of British imperialism on this country.
This is where people can sometimes get caught in the “Brits out” stage and they might
erroneously see individuals as the main problem rather than the systems of oppression and
exploitation which create them.
Republicans then generally advance in their political development and gain class-consciousness
as they begin to see the class contradictions in the movement for themselves, and naturally
progress into Socialist Republicanism.
History Now, Socialist Republicanism is primarily
associated with the great revolutionary hero, James Connolly, given he was the first one
to formally synthesise in his writing the two main radical traditions within Ireland;
namely socialism, and left-wing nationalism, or republicanism.
It’s tempting to suggest that this is where Socialist Republicanism began.
But actually, the history of Socialist Republicanism can be traced back as far as the late 1700s
with the United Irishmen and father of Irish Republicanism, Wolfe Tone, who of course emphasised
the revolutionary importance of “the men of no property”.
But it was Tone’s comrade in the United Irishmen, Jemmy Hope who really put forward
that working-class analysis within the early Republican movement.
In his organising, he would target manufacturers, business owners, and landowners, and he recognised
them as being the enemies of all those who fought for freedom and liberation.
Really, a proto-Marxist figure who was decades ahead of his time.
So even from the very beginning of the Republican movement, we can see that there was always
this key strand that moved beyond that narrow “Brits out” approach to revolutionary
activity in Ireland.
And this class-conscious strand carried through to the Young Irelanders’ uprising in the
1840s during the Great Famine with James Fintan Lalor, an agrarian revolutionary who was very
concerned with land reform and tenants’ rights, against the more liberal Republicanism
of the other Young Irelanders.
Interestingly, Lalor was coming to same the conclusions as Marx was around this same time,
but completely independently of the international socialist movement.
Then of course, James Connolly came along in the latter half of the century and would
finally use the term “Socialist Republicanism” to describe this particularly class-conscious
tradition within the Irish Republican movement.
Now, sometimes people ask: what kind of socialism did he espouse for Socialist Republicanism?
Well, Connolly was explicitly a Marxist who fought for a “Worker’s Republic”.
He was very active in the trade union movement, and a member of the IWW, so people sometimes
use this to suggest he was some form of a syndicalist, and he certainly may have had
his sympathies for, but he never rejected political party organisation, government or
the state; he also never centred his politics around the idea of dismantling hierarchies,
aside from occasional jabs at monarchists.
Actually, his ideology led him to many of the same conclusions as Vladimir Lenin, seeing
the need for what was essentially a militant revolutionary vanguard to bring about the
workers’ state, which was embodied in the form of the Irish Citizen Army – sometimes
called the “first Red Army in Europe”.
Personally, I find it extremely difficult to read Connolly as anything other than a
Marxist-Leninist before the ideology formally existed.
And this is reflected in the modern Socialist Republicans who generally base their ideology
around Marxism-Leninism as applied to the unique conditions of Ireland, or some variation
thereof.
For example, the Irish Republican Socialist Party/Irish National Liberation Army, the
Communist Party of Ireland, the Workers’ Party, Saoradh, groups like the Irish Socialist
Republicans/Anti-Imperialist Action, etc., all of whom fight for our Workers’ Republic.
Modern Socialist Republicans have of course developed and expanded their analysis beyond
opposition to British imperialism alone.
We now focus on the triple-lock of imperialism in Ireland from the UK, the EU, and the USA
– and we fight against all three in equal measures.
Keep in mind that this is using Lenin’s definition of imperialism, rather than just
using it as a synonym for settler-colonialism.
Perhaps most importantly, as Socialist Republicans, we reaffirm our allegiance to the revolutionary
Irish Republic of 1919 to 1922 and its 1919 Democratic Programme, a phenomenal text which
called for collective ownership of the means of production, a dictatorship of the proletariat,
and a pledge to support the international working-class movement (the socialist movement)
– though it did most of these things without using the explicit terms – in fact, the
first version of the document was actually censored by some of the more moderate revolutionaries
for being “too communistic”.
This programme has unfortunately not yet been followed-through on due to the bourgeois counter-revolution
of the Pro-Treaty Free Staters from 1921 onwards.
But it’s our goal as Socialist Republicans to make sure that it will be one day.
I’ll put a link to the programme in the description box below so you can read it for
yourself.
So that’s it.
Irish Socialist Republicanism is Marxism as applied to the unique Irish conditions – class-conscious
Republicanism.
Thanks to Michaela Schmid, Rare Hero, William Leetch, and the rest of my Patrons, I wouldn’t
be able to make these videos without you.
Cheers everyone.
Slán go fóill.