Section 3: ARGUMENTS ON ELECTORAL POLICY
The arguments in relation to the electoral policy of the Movement must be considered in the light of the historical context.
Historically, the abstention policy developed in a situation where an alternative state machine was in gestation, and rapidly becoming accepted by the people.
This situation existed in the twenties, but following the military defeat of the army of the republic by the counter-revolutionary forces with imperial support, it became more and more difficult to convince the people to continue to give active support to the shadow of the original republican state.
The recognition of this by DE Valera and the rise of Fianna Fail, together with the world crisis, gave rise to a situation when, if abstention had been abandoned, an independent, principled voice in the parliament could have exposed the compromising leadership of DE Valera during the course of the thirties. The social forces which the Republican Congress rallied for a period would have provided the radical social objectives and social consciousness necessary to link a revolutionary movement with parliamentary representatives.
Instead, the IRA leadership, having given tacit support to Fianna Fail in the 1930-32 period, found itself in the political position of attacking the Congress from the right, with the result that the Movement lost many of its socially conscious members.
What was left of the IRA, after it became clear that DE Valera had betrayed them, and having lost the bulk of its most politically conscious element, had no option but to maintain a purely military role, as during the forties and fifties there did not exist a well-defined and accepted radical political, social and economic programme capable of guiding a parliamentary group, had such existed, nor was the purely military organisational form adapted to this purpose.
The adoption of Sin Feign by the IRA in 1948 did not alter the situation in any way.
The primary objective of the movement in the fifties was the military campaign, and the political wing of the Movement played a purely supporting role. Electoral victories, such as that of 1957, were not used to build a mass movement or to build links with the people by agitation or organisation. Opportunities presented by the mass unemployment in the fifties, and land agitation in the midlands, were passed over.
It is fitting that the nature of abstention and the historical circumstances which gave rise to it should again come up for examination. The purpose of this section is to see, in the light of the analysis of the present situation, whether abstention is still relevant or not, examining the arguments for and against, and to draw what the Commission consider to be a valid conclusion.
The traditional arguments for non-participation in parliament can be summarised as follows:
1. WESTMINSTER
Rejection of the right of Britain to govern any part of Ireland or to interfere in any way in the internal affairs of Ireland must mean refusal to send representatives to her parliament and to give any allegiance to her head of State, the Queen.
By sending representatives to Westminster you may make short-term gains in propaganda if you have men of the right calibre, but you weaken your case of opposition and you divert the attention of the Irish people from action at home to achieve independence by giving them a vague hope that something tangible can be achieved at Westminster. A people seeking freedom, no matter how determined they may be, will always try the easy way, and the will to tackle the more difficult direct way will be sapped if there is any slight hope that an easy, though roundabout, way exists.
Republicans in Irish history are the ones who have always pointed the more direct way, whether it be one of direct political action, as in the United Irishmen's Back Lane Parliament, the Fenians' Land League, or Sinn Fein's Dail Eireann in 1919, or military action, as in many other instances. There may have been instances of individual republicans taking the parliamentary road and going to Westminster, but never at any time did the Republican revolutionary movement make a decision to send representatives to London. There had never been an Irish republican in Westminster until Larry Ginnell left the Parliamentary Party and joined the Republican Movement. In the eyes of the Irish people, it would be a very retrograde step for a republican to go there now.
2. STORMONT and LEINSTER HOUSE
Both of these parliaments had their origins in a British Act of Parliament: the Government of Ireland Act 1920 - the 'constitution of Northern Ireland'. At the time it was passed by Westminster, Dail Eireann - the Parliament of the Irish people - existed. This parliament rejected the Act in the name of the Irish people.
A year later a treaty was forced on the Irish people, and this Act was the basis of that treaty. Republicans rejected the Treaty as they had previously rejected the Government of Ireland Act. The effect of Fianna Fail's entry into Leinster House was that Fianna Fail thereby accepted the terms of the Treaty, just as the Nationalists in the six Counties accepted the Treaty by taking an oath of allegiance to the Crown. The Republican Movement has never accepted the Treaty, even as a framework within which to act. By not accepting it, they have also refused to accept Stormont and Leinster House as legitimate parliaments. This is the principle to which the Republican Movement has held, and this is the principle which would be abandoned at last if we sent representatives to Stormont and Leinster House.
To abandon this principle at the present juncture would have two immediate effects:
1. It would be a major tactical victory for the establishment, as it would indicate that the only major political group of dissidents within the state - both states - had at last come to heel, and accepted the constitutional framework. It would strengthen parliamentarian-ism and weaken the will to revolt. It would even indicate that republicans believed they no longer had the right to revolt.
2. The widespread belief of the Irish people in the basic integrity of the Republican Movement would be shattered. Even at the worst of times, when the image of the Republican Movement was bad when they appeared to have no policy, etc, the people always knew in their hearts that they could not be beaten and could not be bought, and that they sought nothing for themselves but were willing to give all for the nation. This is why such widespread mass support was always ready to flock to the Republican Movement whenever they had a victory - whenever the people saw that they were in with a chance they gave them their full backing because they trusted them when they failed they were abandoned.
Apart from these arguments there are many others for maintaining a policy of direct political and military action and abstaining from parliamentary action at present.
If the Republican Movement becomes a parliamentary party, they will gain the support of the more moderate republicans and lose the support of the hard-line militant Republicans. Appeasement and compromise first on small issues, later on larger ones, will gradually begin, in order to hold the support of a wide number of people. Expediency is essential in politics, as otherwise you will lose the votes, and there is no point in being in parliamentary politics unless you try to get the votes. A structure in which the parliamentary group would tend to dominate the Movement, as in the case of the Labour Party, would arise. While the Republican Movement is thus engaged in parliamentary politics, it is most likely that the more militant revolutionaries who have no trust in parliaments will form their own revolutionary movement, thus taking from us our whole revolutionary base.
Great progress has been made in the past few years in undermining the confidence of the people in the establishment and the political parties and in exposing the inadequacy of parliamentary institutions in the North and the South. We have taught the people the value of direct action and must not do anything which would restore their confidence in the present political or social framework by giving the impression that good men can reform it from within.
Arguments for participation in Leinster House and Stormont in the present historical context.
The basic principle, of the Movement is the establishment of a 32-County socialist republic. The methods whereby this is achieved can only be described as tactics. It is unsound to elevate any particular tactic to the status of a principle.
The arguments may be subdivided into (1) arguments that have arisen from the changes in the external situation, and (2) arguments arising from the internal development of the Movement.
External Arguments:
(a) The 26-County people in the referendum have shown quite clearly that they value and want to use the existing electoral system in order to defend themselves as best they can against the dictatorship of large-property acting through the property-based parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
(b) The Six-County people have shown by their support for civil rights demand, one man one vote, that they are interested in and want to use the existing electoral system, provided it is improved in respect of local government.
They have also shown in the February 1969 Stormont election that they are prepared to support a radical alternative to unionism, on a non-sectarian basis. The crushing defeat of the Nationalists, and the vote for the moderate radical group involving Hume and Cooper, together with the significant vote for the People's Democracy candidates, can only be regarded as a significant expression of a wish to vote for a radical alternative within the Six-County framework, illusory as this may be. The fact that this voting pattern has not reflected itself in seats to the same extent is a result of the inflexibility of the English electoral system. PR would have thrown up a significantly changed Stormont.
The failure of the people to vote Nationalist despite Blaney's appeals is a further rebuff for gombeen nationalism of the old type. The only principled body with an all-Ireland organisation is the Republican Movement. It can, if it asserts itself now, provide principled leadership within a broad anti-unionist and anti-imperialist alliance with progressive social objectives. Such an alliance will develop, whether the Movement participates or not. But without Republican participation, the danger is that the long-term objective of a 32-county republic, and the need to build an all-Ireland anti-imperialist movement, will be lost.
(c) There is a steady trend of young radicals into the 26-County Labour Party; these would come to us were we more credible. There is no doubt that the Labour Party, despite its apparent radicalism has a basically opportunist leadership and these people will be disillusioned in due time. If there is no credible movement to the left of them they will be disillusioned for good and there will intervene a generation of political doldrums like that which followed the thirties.
All these external arguments add up to the fact that there is a need for a principled 32-County radical group, in the national revolutionary tradition, based on Connolly's teachings, to the left of Labour.
The Republican Movement represents the great mainstream of the national and social revolutionary tradition. The Labour Party represents a tradition of national and social compromise. The key to the future is the establishment of means whereby the radical element of Labour can be swept into a genuinely revolutionary position in the Connolly tradition. The Republican Movement can and must develop these means: basically, the present agitations on housing and trade union democracy must be kept up and so organised as to involve all existing radical political groups as well as trade unionists and homeless people.
But the next step will not be clear until the Republican Movement takes up full political participation; for if the Republican Movement by continuous agitation succeeds in forcing the Labour Party into an apparently genuine radical position, the role of the Republican Movement in doing this will be ignored and the Labour TDs, with full publicity will reap the benefits, unless the Republican Movement itself puts in TDs to sit and give independent principled voice to the demands of the agitations. On the other hand if the Labour Party Conservatives retain the leadership to the extent that the Labour Party radicals become disillusioned and leave, they will have nowhere credible to go unless the Republican Movement is organised to receive them and to put up principled TDs to take their seats and voice the demand of the dispossessed.
Either way, the external arguments that the Republican Movement will lose out to the opportunist led Labour Party whether radicalised or not, unless it engages in independent political action, is strong. To ignore it would consign the movement to historical limbo, as its sources of recruits dried up and its members become disillusioned their ideas being stolen and partially implemented by a basically opportunist Labour Movement.
The negative tradition of 'glorious failures' which has been with us for so many centuries will continue unbroken through a further generation of frustrated effort.
Internal Arguments
There are a number of internal arguments:
(a) The Movement has already, by implication in the campaign for civil rights and PR, committed itself to the defence of such democracy as exists against repression by the unionists and neo-unionists. This battle could be waged more strongly by good men in the places where the repressive laws are made.
(b) The Movement has from time to time organised pressure on TDs, together with other groups, to stop repressive or bad laws being passed. It is easier to press a TD if he is part of the Movement, and responsible to its leading bodies.
(c) The Movement in the Six Counties has committed itself to the support of demands for democratic reforms such that, if conceded, there would be nearly as much limited democracy in the Six Counties as there is in the 26 Counties. This will be small consolation to republicans in the Six Counties unless they are able to manoeuvre more effectively within the slightly wider framework. Indeed, the involvement of republicans in the local government arena in the Six Counties is of the highest urgency, if the favourable situation created as a result of Republican involvement in civil rights is not to be capitalised on by other pseudo-radical parties such as the NIILP.
It is worth noting that the Six-County local authorities as at present constituted have more actual power than those of the 26-Counties, the latter having been curbed in 1941 by the County Managers Act, which puts the real local power in the hands of the civil service. Thus, the participation of Republican councillors in Six-County local elections, especially if strengthened by a broadened franchise, would have an even more positive effect in helping the people to organise to fight for their rights than has been possible in the 26-Counties where the Movement and its local representatives have worked successfully together.
It is therefore necessary to build up experience throughout the whole country of combining revolutionary parliamentary action, agitation, work in mass organisations, and occasional aggressive militancy in such a way as to show results in the form of building the Movement and awakening the people. Otherwise civil rights, if achieved in the Six Counties, and other agitational demands in the country as a whole, will be of no use to the Republican Movement, and they will be used to the full by opportunist and gombeen elements such as always arise to dominate the people when the latter are without effective principled radical leadership.
(d) The impact of the Criminal Justice Bill has made it quite clear that the Leinster House machinery, although not very potent for producing good laws - for which reason, among others, participation has been rejected hitherto by the Movement - is an effective body for producing bad laws, such as to reduce the level of democratic rights to that available under Stormont.
Clearly, the presence of principled TDs in the place where the bad laws are made would help to prevent them being made. Thus, provided the TDs had no illusions about using the existing state structure for positive purposes, and were actively engaged outside the Dail in laying the basis for a 32-County state structure based on the organisations of the people, they would fulfil an important role within parliament, exposing and hindering repressive legislation.
It is necessary to analyse the corruption process of Fianna Fail and the Clann. They became corrupt because they (a) had no theoretical base in the Connolly tradition, (b) had no disciplined revolutionary organisation with conscious understanding, (c) had no organic links with the organised working people. The elements which were missing in the twenties and forties have now been developed sufficiently to enable the Movement, if it had TDs, to instruct them specifically on all key issues with a policy of democratic resistance to the re-conquest by English and other foreign monopolies and a policy of national and social emancipation.
It is necessary to lay down guidelines covering:
(a) the choice of candidates;
(b) the relationship between the elected representatives and the movement;
(c) the relationship with individuals, mass organisations and representatives of opportunist political parties;
(d) relationship with the state machine;
(e) electoral programmes.
The following guidelines, if implemented, would enable a principled political movement of a new type to be developed that would be the incorruptible inheritor of the Connolly tradition.
(a) To say that we should not take part in parliamentary action now does not mean that we should never take such action. A movement with a political objective must obviously assume political power to achieve it. Such power can be gained either by extra-parliamentary methods or by popular vote. If it can be done by popular vote, then we should be ready to do it that way. But we must not negative the possibility of the extra-parliamentary methods. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to make the right decisions at the right time. Just as certain conditions for success may be present when taking extra-parliamentary action, so also certain conditions must be present before taking parliamentary action. It is up to the leadership of the Movement to evaluate whether these conditions are present at any particular time or place.
When we take parliamentary action in Leinster House and Stormont (and we must open both options together) it must be evident to the people that we have had a series of successful political actions, have a broad base of support, have a widespread and disciplined organisation, and that our participation in parliament is a logical extension of successful revolutionary action. We will have a mandate, not from the moderates for reforms, but from the extremists for revolution.
Candidates would not be chosen unless the Movement has had a consistent prior record of public activity and links with the people's organisations in the constituency. A candidate would be local and would personally have local roots, he would be experience in revolutionary theory and practice. He would be prepared to sign over his whole salary if elected and claim from the Movement his original salary plus vouched expenses. He would also resign all local and regional office, acting as a paid organiser for the Movement. He must, of course, be agreed by the Ard-Chombairle. He would retain national office if elected by the Ard-Fheis, but should not attempt to act as a regional delegate, handing over to a substitute.
(b) Relationship with the Movement must be based on regular meetings with the local, regional and national executives of the Movement, to discuss and co-ordinate actions by individuals, cumainn, the mass movement and other bodies with the current agenda in whichever of the three assemblies he acts, in resisting all repressive and retrograde legislation and exposing the inadequacy of the existing structure and the hypocrisy of the leadership of the opportunist parties by pressing for implementation of their verbal reforms.
(c) Relationship with others must be based on the following principles:
1. individual cases to be channelled to the Movement via citizens' advice bureaux;
2. common solutions to problems common to many individuals to be found by means of organisation;
3. criticism of or support for other organisations to be based on policies rather than individuals, good relations to be cultivated with ordinary members and middle leadership while exposing compromising policies of top leadership;
4. voting of individuals into positions to be based on an evaluation of objective merit, in consultation with the mass organisations concerned, rather than on rigid party considerations.
(d) Relationship with the State machine to be based on the assumption that the latter is often composed of men of good will constrained by a foreign structure; flaws in the structure to be sought and exploited by organising a co-ordinated attack both in the assembly and from the mass organisations concerned.
(e) Electoral programmes to be without unrealisable promises, objectively stating the difficulty of obtaining significant advances within the 6/26-County structure, stressing the need for the people to press forward outside parliament with their own organisations, guaranteeing support for this as far as possible within the constraints, and stressing the urgency of resistance to repressive and regressive legislation by the unionists and neo-unionists.
Finally, on the question of oaths of allegiance, it is necessary to state, with Connolly, that the taking of an oath devised by the enemy to discommode the consciences of members of the Movement may be regarded as null and void by the latter, just as is an oath taken under duress. It has for centuries been the practice for Irish revolutionaries to join the British Army to work within that body to undermine English rule, taking an oath which they disregard.
It is of course necessary to fight against the oath as a civil rights issue as well, but members of the Movement should have no hesitation in taking it, as did many Fenians and others, in order to achieve the main objective of smashing English imperial rule in Ireland.
Section 4: PROPOSALS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE MOVEMENT
In this final section there are proposed a number of organisational changes which will enable the Movement, whatever strategy and tactics are adopted, to develop its understanding, its actions and its links with the people in such a way as to achieve the maximum effect for a given amount of effort.
The proposed organisational changes are such as to leave open a number of strategic options and tactical methods, being adaptable to a rapidly changing situation.
The organisational changes may be summarised under two heads:
(a) integration of the existing Movement into a unified whole;
(b)development of co-ordinated action with other radical groups.
Integration of the Movement
The appended Constitution (Appendix 1) is intended to combine principle with flexibility. It is not final; some detail remains to be filled in. The main principle is that of a single, unified leadership, to which all regional and specialist functions report.
It is envisaged that the specialist functions represented at the regular meetings of the Ard Chomhairle should include all existing specialist functions - commemorations, youth work (Fianna); Cumann Cabhrach; trade unionists' groups; farmers' groups; The United Irishman; action groups concerned with physical defence of the people, etc.
Specialist functions would have voice but no vote, unless the personnel concerned are regional delegates, or elected by the Ard-Fheis.
Elected representatives on local authorities would constitute specialist groups at regional level. Similarly, elected representatives to assemblies at national level would constitute a specialist group, should such a group be judged to be necessary. Such a group would meet frequently with the Coiste Seasta on national issues, having previously been briefed by the Movement in their own individual areas.
It is necessary to stress the priority of the political objectives; the role of all specialist groups must be subordinate to the integrated leadership of the Movement.
The historic link with the Republican Government, at present vested in the Army Council, must be preserved. The continuity may be maintained by vesting the powers of the Republican Government in a shadow cabinet, with links into a shadow state structure composed of the people's own organisations as soon as such a body becomes credible.
The tactical desirability or otherwise of sending elected representatives to take their seats and assume the function of full time paid agitators under the control of the Movement is, of course, subject to the consensus of the Movement on the arguments advanced in section 3.
Development of co-ordinated action:
Already the practice has been established of workers of the Movement acting on ad hoc committees with other radical groups on issues such as housing, civil rights, Trade Union democracy.
It is envisaged that this work, if it continues to develop positively, (would enable) a convention of radical groups or national liberation front to be set up. Association with such a convention is provided for in the constitutional notes (Appendix 1).
Some preliminary notes towards a constitution for such a Convention are given in Appendix 2. It is premature to attempt to define more precisely the structure of the Convention but it is necessary to allow for the possibility that a number of distinct Conventions may emerge on a local or regional basis, taking into account the different situations which exist in various parts of the country. It would be the policy of the movement as a whole to work for the maximum co-ordination and ultimate unity of all such conventions.
The Shadow Republic:
It is necessary to state that in proportion as the movement is successful in drawing together the people's organisations into joint councils at local and regional level, and as such councils develop standing and resources, there will be emerging a new form of state structure close to the people that will be capable of replacing the old state machine inherited from the period of direct English Rule.
This genuine revolutionary road if it is followed consistently, with the maximum organised unity of principled and disciplined radical groups, will move in the foreseeable future to a situation where North and South will again clasp hands, again it will be demonstrated, as in 1798, that the pressure of a common exploitation can make enthusiastic radicals out of a Protestant working class, earnest champions of civil and religious liberty out of Catholics, and of both a united social democracy. (James Connolly, Labour in Irish History).
Appendix 1: NOTES FOR A DRAFT CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT
AIMS: The achievement of a united 32-County democratic republic in accordance with the objectives of the 1916 Proclamation, in which the Republican principle of democratic control shall be extended throughout the social and economic structure of society, and in which the principal means of producing society's wealth shall be socially owned and managed in the interests of the Irish people.
METHODS: The building of the maximum unity of all Irish workers and farmers and working owner-managers in the defence of Irish social, economic and cultural life from encroachment by foreign imperialistic interests and by large-propertied monopolistic interests whether native or foreign.
The education and involvement of existing mass organisations to this end.
Association and affiliation with broader bodies on a national or regional basis as considered tactically appropriate.
If and when considered tactically desirable, the nomination of candidates for election to the Dail, Stormont or Westminster, as well as in local government in both Six and 26 Counties.
ORGANISATION: A national executive shall be composed of:
(a)ten members elected by the annual conference,
(b) one member from each regional executive, the size and composition of the regions being ratified annually by the annual conference on a motion from the outgoing national executive. <
The national executive shall elect its own Chair who shall appoint a staff, not necessarily composed of executive members, subject to ratification by the executive.
The staff shall consist of specialist officers defined as necessary from time to time.
Specialist officers shall, if necessary, appoint committees to help them in their work.
Regional executives shall be constructed of delegates who shall be leading members of local Cumainn. They shall elect a Chair from among their own number, who shall proceed to nominate a specialist staff, subject to ratification by the regional executive.
Regional or national offers shall not hold Cumann office for more than one month after appointment.
Specialist officers may hold specialist conventions on a national and regional basis from time to time.
Such specialist conventions may recommend the composition of the national committee concerned with the speciality to the specialist officer appointed by the national executive.
The national executive shall meet at least quarterly, taking at least two days for its deliberations. It shall hear reports from all regional and specialist officers and shall decide policy for the coming period.
The day-to-day implementation of the policy shall be the responsibility of a standing committee consisting of the chairman and principal officers and other specialist officers as tactically necessary; every specialist officer must report to the standing committee at least once a month.
Finance shall be based on a monthly subscription of local to regional bodies brought by the delegate in person likewise regional delegates shall transmit to the national executive all money due on the occasion of the national executive meeting.
Membership shall be defined by (a) regular attendance at meetings (b) regular payment of dues (c) acceptance of the objectives and methods of work (d) implementing decisions and reporting back; abiding by the discipline of the Cumann.
Appendix 2: NOTES FOR A CONSTITUTION OF A DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
Aims:
The achievement of a government pledged to the maximum democratisation of social and economic life in the interest of the people.
To resist foreign political and economic control.
Methods:
To unite all forces prepared to work for the above objective.
To strengthen the democratic organisations of the people.
To co-ordinate efforts with other bodies both in Ireland and abroad having similar objectives.
To defend and extend civil liberties.
Organisation:
National, regional and local delegates from (a) existing bodies, affiliating for a registration fee proportional to effective membership; (b) Convention clubs founded for the above objectives without prior existence.
Membership: Direct or by affiliation.
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