Post by RedFlag32 on Apr 17, 2007 20:41:44 GMT
Easter Statement from the leadership of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement.
Easter 2007
To all comrades, volunteers, ex-combatants, ex-prisoners, families of our dead volunteers, friends and supporters the leadership sends its revolutionary greetings on this the 91st anniversary of the remarkable uprising by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army against the then greatest Imperialist power in the world.
Occasions such as these are a time for mourning, for reflection and for looking forward. We mourn for those who paid the ultimate price in the struggle to finish what 1916 started. We reflect on personal memories of our lost comrades and the sufferings that so many families have had to endure. And unfortunately we reflect on the set back that the republican struggle has suffered after decades of armed campaigns.
British rule is still intact. Ireland is still bitterly divided not merely by an imaginary line through a map but by bitter divisions between the descendants of the Planter and the Gael. These divisions have been cleverly exacerbated by the British to perpetuate their rule and to allow unfettered capitalist exploitation of both catholic and protestant workers.
In the March elections held in the North there was no fundamental economic differences between all the main parties. They have in essence all signed up to the neo liberal economic agenda that will privatise as much as possible of all socially owned resources. In short to take back for capitalism all the gains that centuries of working class struggle had achieved.
All these parties will introduce and implement the economic policies dictated by the British Government and which have their origins in the policies of the international capitalist bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank.
When this leadership took up a principled position of opposition to the Good Friday Agreement we were vilified by some on the left and by Sinn Fein (P) as warmongers and anti –peace. But we clearly indicated we opposed the GFA because it endorsed the British policy of divide and rule. It institutionalised sectarianism, cemented British rule in a part of Ireland, and endorsed partition.
Others took a different and wrong road. They decommissioned, entered Stormont, worked British rule in the North, implemented privatization policies, bowed the knee to USA war lord George Bush, colluded in the doing away with the political status gained by the heroic deaths of 10 hunger strikers and belittled and demeaned other republicans who rejected their reformism.
For our part, whilst our analysis on the present situation is clear in regards to armed actions/struggle, nevertheless we will retain our structures, our weapons and our republican socialist principles and credentials. To do otherwise at this present time would be foolish in the extreme.
Comrades and friends we say very clearly neither the parliamentary road nor the armed road is the way forward for the working class. Both positions ignore or downplay the class struggle. They have forgotten every thing James Connolly wrote about!
He said “Imperialism would still rule you if you do not set about building the socialist republic”
The national question will be solved with the victory of socialism and not before. But in working for socialism we do not forget that the working class is deeply divided and stuck into two sectarian camps. Ignoring or downplaying the reality of the sectarian divisions by abstract appeals to class unity has not and will not work.
For our part this movement will continue to do what it has been doing over the past 11 years, while others stood idly by waiting for our collapse. Driven as we are by the passion of Costello, the ideas of Ta Power and the energy and commitment of Gino Gallagher, this leadership has implemented the policy of the primacy of politics. That we were able to do so was because everything we did, everything we said, was the collective voice of the Party, the collective voice of the movement.
The result has been the re-emergence of the IRSP as a credible revolutionary party. Throughout our history the revolutionary soldiers of the INLA fought and in many instances gave their lives not only to defend the absolute right of this movement to exist and to organise but also in a battle over militarism wrapped in a green flag, the soldiers of the Peoples Army paid a heavy price to ensure that each of us here today can march behind the banner of the IRSP as we celebrate and remember the lives and ultimate sacrifice of our dead volunteers.
It is now up to each and every comrade and volunteer to pick up the weapons of today, the weapons of class struggle, the weapon of agitation, the weapon of political education, the weapon every day involvement in the struggle of the class. Each and everyone of us has a responsibility to politically educate ourselves in the struggles of the working class for it only by the collective actions of the mass of the people that we can transform society and build the Socialist Republic But comrades and volunteers beware of individualistic tendencies in the movement. No individual is greater than the movement.
The leadership of the working class is not self appointed or proclaimed. It is not handed down. It has to be earned in the white heat of everyday battles. By our theory and practice this movement will one day earn the right to be considered the advanced section of the working class. But that day is a long way away. It is up to us all here to earn that right.
In the meantime we are slowly building a credible left revolutionary force advocating the Connolly /Costello road to revolution. And we are prepared where necessary to step in and defend vulnerable working class areas from sectarian attacks. But our main push, our main drive, our overriding consideration is the need to push positive policies, approaches, and ideas from an anti-imperialist and socialist perspective.
That would be the best way to honour and acknowledge the sacrifices our volunteers made, the sacrifices their families made and the sacrifices ordinary working class families made to support the anti-imperialist struggle.
We remain unrepentant republicans, bloodied but unbowed, steeped in the socialism of Connolly and implacable opponents of any settlement of the Irish question that falls short of the Socialist Republic. For National Liberation or Socialism. Victory to the Irish Working Class!!!
Easter 2007
To all comrades, volunteers, ex-combatants, ex-prisoners, families of our dead volunteers, friends and supporters the leadership sends its revolutionary greetings on this the 91st anniversary of the remarkable uprising by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army against the then greatest Imperialist power in the world.
Occasions such as these are a time for mourning, for reflection and for looking forward. We mourn for those who paid the ultimate price in the struggle to finish what 1916 started. We reflect on personal memories of our lost comrades and the sufferings that so many families have had to endure. And unfortunately we reflect on the set back that the republican struggle has suffered after decades of armed campaigns.
British rule is still intact. Ireland is still bitterly divided not merely by an imaginary line through a map but by bitter divisions between the descendants of the Planter and the Gael. These divisions have been cleverly exacerbated by the British to perpetuate their rule and to allow unfettered capitalist exploitation of both catholic and protestant workers.
In the March elections held in the North there was no fundamental economic differences between all the main parties. They have in essence all signed up to the neo liberal economic agenda that will privatise as much as possible of all socially owned resources. In short to take back for capitalism all the gains that centuries of working class struggle had achieved.
All these parties will introduce and implement the economic policies dictated by the British Government and which have their origins in the policies of the international capitalist bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank.
When this leadership took up a principled position of opposition to the Good Friday Agreement we were vilified by some on the left and by Sinn Fein (P) as warmongers and anti –peace. But we clearly indicated we opposed the GFA because it endorsed the British policy of divide and rule. It institutionalised sectarianism, cemented British rule in a part of Ireland, and endorsed partition.
Others took a different and wrong road. They decommissioned, entered Stormont, worked British rule in the North, implemented privatization policies, bowed the knee to USA war lord George Bush, colluded in the doing away with the political status gained by the heroic deaths of 10 hunger strikers and belittled and demeaned other republicans who rejected their reformism.
For our part, whilst our analysis on the present situation is clear in regards to armed actions/struggle, nevertheless we will retain our structures, our weapons and our republican socialist principles and credentials. To do otherwise at this present time would be foolish in the extreme.
Comrades and friends we say very clearly neither the parliamentary road nor the armed road is the way forward for the working class. Both positions ignore or downplay the class struggle. They have forgotten every thing James Connolly wrote about!
He said “Imperialism would still rule you if you do not set about building the socialist republic”
The national question will be solved with the victory of socialism and not before. But in working for socialism we do not forget that the working class is deeply divided and stuck into two sectarian camps. Ignoring or downplaying the reality of the sectarian divisions by abstract appeals to class unity has not and will not work.
For our part this movement will continue to do what it has been doing over the past 11 years, while others stood idly by waiting for our collapse. Driven as we are by the passion of Costello, the ideas of Ta Power and the energy and commitment of Gino Gallagher, this leadership has implemented the policy of the primacy of politics. That we were able to do so was because everything we did, everything we said, was the collective voice of the Party, the collective voice of the movement.
The result has been the re-emergence of the IRSP as a credible revolutionary party. Throughout our history the revolutionary soldiers of the INLA fought and in many instances gave their lives not only to defend the absolute right of this movement to exist and to organise but also in a battle over militarism wrapped in a green flag, the soldiers of the Peoples Army paid a heavy price to ensure that each of us here today can march behind the banner of the IRSP as we celebrate and remember the lives and ultimate sacrifice of our dead volunteers.
It is now up to each and every comrade and volunteer to pick up the weapons of today, the weapons of class struggle, the weapon of agitation, the weapon of political education, the weapon every day involvement in the struggle of the class. Each and everyone of us has a responsibility to politically educate ourselves in the struggles of the working class for it only by the collective actions of the mass of the people that we can transform society and build the Socialist Republic But comrades and volunteers beware of individualistic tendencies in the movement. No individual is greater than the movement.
The leadership of the working class is not self appointed or proclaimed. It is not handed down. It has to be earned in the white heat of everyday battles. By our theory and practice this movement will one day earn the right to be considered the advanced section of the working class. But that day is a long way away. It is up to us all here to earn that right.
In the meantime we are slowly building a credible left revolutionary force advocating the Connolly /Costello road to revolution. And we are prepared where necessary to step in and defend vulnerable working class areas from sectarian attacks. But our main push, our main drive, our overriding consideration is the need to push positive policies, approaches, and ideas from an anti-imperialist and socialist perspective.
That would be the best way to honour and acknowledge the sacrifices our volunteers made, the sacrifices their families made and the sacrifices ordinary working class families made to support the anti-imperialist struggle.
We remain unrepentant republicans, bloodied but unbowed, steeped in the socialism of Connolly and implacable opponents of any settlement of the Irish question that falls short of the Socialist Republic. For National Liberation or Socialism. Victory to the Irish Working Class!!!