Post by Stallit 2 de Halfo on Jun 2, 2008 0:00:03 GMT
Eoin O’Murchu (Communist Party of Ireland)
THE WORKERS’ PARTY~ ITS EVOLUTION AND IT’S FUTURE
A CRITIQUE BY EOIN O’MURCHU
ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION
Speaking at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown in 1967, Cathal Goulding, then reputed to be chief of staff of the IRA , declared “We decided……. to make an all out attack on the take over of Irish assets by foreign interests……… This movement has only room for revolutionaries, for radicals, for men with a sense of urgent purpose, who are aware of realities, who are not afraid to meet hard work, men who will not be defeated and who will not be deceived”
And the following year, at the same commemoration Sean Garland, now general secretary of Sinn Fein, The Workers’ Party further elaborated the point: “This changes drastically our traditional line of tactics. There are no longer two different types of republicans: physical force men and politicians. We in the Republican Movement must be politically aware of our objectives and must also be prepared to take the appropriate educational, economic, political and finally military action to achieve them.”
These statements mark the first real public acknowledgement of a shift in orientation in the Republican Movement from a secret army, with only the most superficial of political understandings, to a serious, and constitutional political party, with Dail representation and a clear influence on the politics of the country.
It is an evolution that took place increasingly against a background of political crisis and inevitably ambiguities and differences of direction disrupted the process, it is an evolution, too, that perhaps marks the last stage in the development of the old movement for national independence out of Which Fine Gael and Fianna Fail were also born.
Sinn Fein The Workers Party, then, goes back in continuity to the original capitalist Sinn Fein party of Arthur Griffith, to the revolutionary nationalist alliance led by Eamon de Valera during the War of Independence and subsequent years to the irredentist republicans of the post Fianna Fail era. But, in truth, as the opening quotations make clear, SFWP’s roots lie more in the physical force tradition, in the IRA which rejected first the treaty, and then the deValera reform of that Treaty which is the real bunchloch of this state. It is through understanding the IRA that we can begin to understand Sinn Fein, The Workers Party has evolved.
The post Treaty IRA was always riven by suspicion of ‘poIiticians’ by the physical force men, by fear of the corrupting impact of participation in the new state’s institutions by the remoteness and sterility of the rather legalistic way it defined its objectives and, essentially, by a basic division between left and right. The right had only one strategy: to resume the armed struggle, and-the political purposes of that, armed struggle became less and less significant comparison to the principle of armed struggle itself. The left, through Saor Eire, through Peadar O’Donnell’s use of An Phoblacht, the IRA paper of the Thirties as a vehicle for social agitation, though ultimately the attempt to develop the Republican Congress sought to redefine the aim of the Republic in terms of social change, of social as well as national revolution.
The leadership of SFWP identified themselves with this Left position from the very start of the New Departure - as It was called -in the Republican Movement in the Sixties. But, of course the Left position had been internally defeated in thirties. The IRA of the forties had degenerated into a mindless bombing campaign with only the vaguest of objectives, and with Fianna Fail victorious in the secret war in the prisons of those dreadful years.
After the war, the IRA returned to prepare for yet ‘another round.’ It stood aside from the political struggles of that time, and indeed drew some solace from the ultimate disintegration of Clann na Poblachta. In 1956, the other round began again. The military campaign of 1956 62 was in itself a total disaster. It provided a new crop of martyrs, Sean South, the most notable, but had no military or political effect whatever
It was the crucial turning point however, for it marked the utter discrediting of the new Right Republicans and their strategy. The young men whose commitment to their ideal was cemented by a shared experience of prison, of being on the run, of being in action, were forced to reassess their lives, their hopes and their future activities. The decisive influence in this, without any doubt, was Cathal Goulding.
For most of the ‘56 ‘62 period, Goulding had been in prison in England, where he had politically educated himself by voracious reading of revolutionary texts - an international and not specifically Irish pedagogical method - and was unsullied by the mutual recriminations that always affect defeated guerrilla groups. Goulding initiated a very self critical examination of the whole development, and experience of defeat - in which it was particularly rich - this critical examination of the whole development of the Republican Movement. The results were embodied in a document “In the 70s The IRA Speaks.” published in 1971.
The main conclusions of this self examination were that the IRA had no solid ‘political base’ amongst the people, and that its concentration on military struggle had ignored the political aspects of Britain’s presence in the North and the changing nature of the relationship between Britain and Ireland as a whole The document summarised their experience “The Irish Republican Army had become remote from the people. The people respected the stand, which they were taking and indeed they cheered on from the sidelines. But they were spectators arid not participants in the Republican struggle against British Imperialism”. This analysis is, perhaps, a bit too optimistic as to the degree of sympathy which the 56 - 62 campaign generated,
But there was certainly no denying the lack of popular support. The overwhelming conclusion was that there should be no repetition of such campaigns, that the Republican cause had to be understood in terms of the social and economic needs of the Irish people, that the struggle was not one about abstract definitions of freedom, but about changing the conditions of life and the ownership of wealth on which those conditions depended.
The IRA declared: “Our objective was to be the Reconquest of Ireland, not simply to place an Irish government in political control of the geographical entity of Ireland, but to place the mass of the people in actual control of the wealth and resources of the Irish Nation and to give them a cultural identity.” The means to achieve this objective were seen to be by organising economic and cultural resistance, by political action to defend rights and win reforms, and by military action “to back up the people’s demands, to defend ‘the people’s gains and eventually to carry through a successful national liberation struggle”. There was thus no sharp break with the assertion of the legitimacy of armed struggle, but limits were placed on the context of such legitimacy whose ultimate direction had to be - as in fact it has been - a rejection of armed struggle as a relevant concept, at least in the existing cond1tions of the 26 counties.
Ideologically, there was a bitter struggle to define these new objectives as socialist. The Army Convention of 1965 redefined the IRA’s objective as the establishment of a “democratic socialist republic”. It is to’ be noted that the word ‘democratic’ was included to contrast with ‘totalitarian’, for anti-communist ideology was still dominant and rampant; and in more backward areas, occasional efforts were made to give effect to Army Order No. 4 which banned volunteers from reading communist literature
But these were concessions only, to those whose political development logged behind. Goulding at all times operated with the desire to bring the entire movement with him to win every member over to the new line. But, even so, the pace was too fast for some Daithi O’Connaill, now a prominent Provisional, resigned in protest at the declaration of a socialist objective, and others in the leadership, like Sean MacStiofain and Ruairi Bradaigh were noticeably unenthusiastic about the New Departure. But the young were. Tralee-man, Denis Foley, who stood as an independent in the recent general election, turned the United lrishman the IRA newspaper, into a social agitator, a role developed by subsequent editors, Tony Meade, and, most dramatically Seamus O’Tuathail.
The active membership of the Republican Movement flung itself into housing agitations, fish-ins, ground rent protests, Vietnam solidarity demonstrations and sit-ins. This was politics with a vengeance, and many of the Old Guard resented it.
This resentment came to the fore at the re-interment in ‘69 of Barnes and McCormick, two IRA volunteers executed in England for their part in the Forties bombing campaign. Jimmy Steele of Belfast delivered a traditionalist oration which attacked everything connected to the New Departure, and especially, the co-operation with communists and socialists that was an inevitable part of social agitations. Though Steele was expelled for this speech the grounds of the later Provisional split had been laid. The North, too, of course, was not immune from the New Departure. But the IRA in the North, especially in Belfast, had always functioned partly as a Catholic defence force, and was extremely cautious about revolutionary politics. Nevertheless, many units there, too, threw themselves into social agitations, especially on the housing question. But this issue ultimately raised more serious questions about the North: the question of civil rights. For the Republican Movement, however, activity on social and economic matters went hand in hand with internal political analysis, and particularly political education. Goulding went out of his way to seek experts that could assist in this area. He was able to persuade Dr Roy Johnston to help, despite the latter’s often expressed reservations about the armed wing in the shadows.
Nevertheless, Johnston’s role was considerable. While in retrospect much of his theorising was abstract, he undoubtedly gave a thrust to serious political analysis, forced members to reconsider old prejudices and played a major part in the real politicisation of the movement. But, it should be emphasised too that it was a politicisation which Goulding was working for and for which he had won the support of the majority of the leadership. Of course, the occasional gesture was made to make the military elements feel happy. German owned farms were burned as part of a land agitation. The buses which carried strike-breakers to EL at Shannon were destroyed. And these were not purely gestures to recalcitrant elements, but reflected a genuine ambiguity in people who were in the transition of moving from one form of struggle to another.
But, the Republican Movement did not develop in isolation. Because of its activities in social struggles, the Republican Movement became aware of other political strategies, particularly that of the Communist Party (at that time, in the South, the Irish Workers’ Party). The communist strategy was to fight for “progressive governments, North and South” as a prelude to unity. In the South, this meant a government committed genuinely to defending economic independence and expanding industrial development. And in. the North, it placed a premium on the struggle for equality and democracy, for civil rights.
Communist Party members, like the late Betty Sinclair, were very much to the fore pressing the trade union movement in the North to take action in relation to civil rights. And, indeed, it was on the initiative of the Belfast and District Trades Council that the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was established. The history of the NICRA is reasonably well known but the Republicans did play a crucial part in it especially in stewarding and, paradoxically, in controlling wilder elements.
But despite the Republican protestations that their support for civil rights was on its own terms and not as a prelude to another military round, the unionists, and even many Republican sympathisers, were unconvinced. What complicated the issue was the Republican faithful could only be brought along the new path if they were convinced that the Army was not being abandoned or run down. So, at the very time that the emphasis North and South was shifted to social agitation and mass demonstrations, ironically there was a renewed demand for arms training. The reality, however was that the IRA had few arms left. Little remained after 1962, and resources after that were put into propaganda and educational literature rather than into guns. But the public perception was that the IRA was back in business, and, in the Northern context, able, if needed, to defend the people as Garland had stated at the 1968 Bodenstown commemoration (quoted above) and as spelt out in sundry internal documents.
In 1969, the pace of events began to develop a momentum of its own. The Stormont administration lost credibility as more and more civil rights demonstrations emphasised the existing inequality and the demand for change In the South, too, Republican involvement in struggles was particularly worrying to government leaders. In February 1969, the Fianna Fail government, under the special direction of Charlie Haughey began sounding out dissident elements of the Republican Movement, with a view to developing a split. These activities were carried out by the state’s army intelligence units. The essence, of the Flánna Fail approach was that the social agitations in the South were being carried out at the expense of proper preparations for defence of the Northern minority, and that Republicans were being used as tools in a communist conspiracy. As the North careered down the road of political crisis political manoeuvring, personal jockeying for power, subversion of the IRA, conflicts between IRA and Sinn Fein personnel grew to frenetic levels.
AMBIGUITIES AND CRISIS
In August 1969 Ulster Unionism, unable to adapt itself to the demand for democracy and civil rights, launched an all out attack against the Catholic population. This effort to make the “croppies lie down” was to shatter the unionist state and to send shock waves of crisis through every political institution in Ireland. It brought Britain face to face with its responsibility for the situation in Northern Ireland but divided the political parties in Ireland in confusion and bitterness. The attack began with the RUC assault on the Bogside but the Bogsiders resistance and the solidarity of other Catholic towns throughout the North blunted this assault. In frustration, a pogrom was launched in Belfast, with the RUC and the B-Specials leading Orange mobs in a spree of burning and killing against the Catholic ghettos. At this supreme moment of crisis, it was discovered that the IRA did not really exist as an army. It had no weapons to defend the people. This is not to deny the courage of those who faced the mobs unarmed, pretending that they had guns, nor that the mobs themselves never realised how unprotected the people were. But Belfast Catholics reacted with bitterness and contempt ‘I Ran Away’ was a common jeer at the IRA, but in all fairness there was little justification for it.
It would have been impossible for the Republican Movement to have simultaneously rebuilt its army structure and developed a political strategy, and in any case, how could funds have been found to buy arms for rebuilding the army when the political situation created no base for support or interest? But the victims of Belfast’s pogrom were not impressed by excuses. This was the crisis for which the state army’s intelligence forces had been waiting. The Provisionals were born, but mainly from those who had stood aside from the New Departure and even from the civil rights struggle itself. For the Republican Movement itself what was at issue was the continuance of the new policy. And in particular, two key questions that would give more coherence to the new policy and which were scheduled to be resolved at the 1969 Army Convention and subsequent Sinn Fein Ard-Fheis. These were the dropping of abstentionism and a commitment to build a national liberation front type of alliance.
Abstentionism was always a contentious issue, and was not entirely a matter of left-right differences. The original legalistic position; of course, was that both Stormont and Leinster House were creations of the British Parliament and not the Republican institutions established in 1919. Indeed, the abstentionist attitude was at one time shared by Eamon deValera, and even when Fianna Fail broke away from Sinn Fein in 1926 on the issue of abstention it still refused initially to enter the Dail while the oath to a foreign king was required. As time passed and Fianna Fail in the Forties proved worse and more deadly enemies to the Republican Movement than the Free State before them the abstentionist principle increased in importance. In addition one of the underlying justifications of an army was the illegitimacy of the parliamentary institutions. There were many on the Left during the New Departure who mistakenly equated abstentionism with a Leninist critique of parliamentarianism. But in general, it was clear that if the Republican Movement were to concentrate on political struggles, building mass movements on social issues and so on, the electoral process could not just be ignored. Indeed, it was widely felt that abstentionism cost Republicans the chance of building on their prestige won by involvement in such struggles and cleared the way for others to climb to power on their backs. This was particularly the case in the North, where the Republicans had to stand aside and allow a new generation to come to the fore, Including John Hume, Bernadette Devlin, Ivan Cooper and others,
Bernadette Devlin’s situation in fact epitomised the problem. The original Republican nominee was Kevin Agnew, but inevitably an abstentionist candidate would have meant giving the seat to Unionists. The only logical choice was that Agnew should run on a participationist platform - a breach of General Army orders - or he should withdraw in favour of a broadly acceptable anti-unionist candidate. The latter choice was made, but many activists bitterly resented the lost opportunity.
But for the Belfast IRA the issue was somewhat artificial. While Tyrone Republicans resigned in opposition to abstentionism - including, incidentally, Kevin Mellon, now a prominent Provisional - the Belfast IRA was increasingly worried by the growing dangers. It wanted guns, and some of its leadership - like Leo Martin - did not particularly care what agreements had to be made to get them. People like Martin, and the expelled Jimmy Steele, certainly felt that if the price of Fianna Fail’s giving weapons was the dropping of the socialist objective and the ending of Republican involvement in social agitations, it was a price worth paying.
But the New Departure could not survive such a price, and Goulding could not even contemplate paying it. It was decided that the issue of abstention should be pushed for resolution at the Army Convention, scheduled for December 1969. There was to be no turning back, no compromise was felt possible. Some sympathetic observers, in fact, have criticised Goulding for pushing this issue at such a time and in such circumstances. But realistically, what was at stake was the New Departure itself, and to that extent he had no choice. When the Convention met, it voted 39 votes to twelve to end the policy of abstention, though it must be noted that an internal struggle of allegiance in Belfast meant that that major IRA Brigade was not represented at the Convention. But, any case, it would not have affected the decision. Those opposed to the New Departure saw this as the final straw. They withdrew from the Convention and, though a minority established their own Provisional Army Council. The split was now a fact.
But all was not over yet. While the IRA had agreed to a new policy, Sinn Fein had yet to discuss it. And contrary to ill-informed and prejudiced opinion such a discussion would never have been a formality. In particular, abstention was enshrined in the Constitution it required a two thirds majority to remove it. In the event, the resolution failed by 19 votes out of 247 to gain the required majority. But the split could not be denied. Dennis Cashin from Armagh took the microphone and proposed a traditional motion that the Ard-Fheis recognise the Army Council as the legitimate authority of the state. This was now as unacceptable the Provisionals as to Fianna Fail, and there was an immediate walk-out by a quarter of the delegates. But if the debate on abstentionism had ended in anti-climax, a more immediately relevant motion had settled the issue for most of the Provisionals-to-be. This was the proposal that the movement should commit itself to a national liberation front type of revolutionary strategy. To be honest, this was rather abstract theoretics. But it was clearly inspired by the Vietnamese example, and was understood by all sides in the debate to be a clear identification of the movement’s objective of socialism with revolutionary socialism. Its practical effect could only be to bring the Republican Movement into a closer working relationship with the communist parties North and South.
The right savaged the idea. And, indeed, after the split, Provisional spokesmen insisted on calling the IRA which accepted the legitimacy of the convention decision the NLF. They denounced the whole scheme, at home and abroad, as a communist plot, and fervently assured their supporters in the United States that, by contrast, the Provisionals Republic Would be one “untainted by communistic or socialistic ideas.”
Again some sympathetic to the official standpoint have argued that this was another provocative move in the circumstances. But Goulding and McGiolla were both determined that their political orientation would not be diverted by the August ‘69 and indeed felt that It was more essential than ever that the movement keep its political head to prevent the vacuum of leadership being taken over by those who wanted to limit and restrict the scope of political developments. But while these ideological issues were of great concern to those who organised the Provisional split - and certainly of great concern-to the Fianna Fail government, both Haughey and Lynch wings, which helped finance it - the, main slogan by which the new organisation grew was a promise that the people would be defended. Daithi O’Conall, returned to membership after a four year lapse expressed this clearly at the Provisional Bodenstown Commemoration when be declared that never again would crown forces be allowed to run through an Irish town.
The Provisionals, however, took few members of the movement with them, and ironically given their emphasis on the military issues, a higher proportion of Sinn Fein members than of the IRA men. Its leadership were all old and tired names and many of the younger members actually welcomed their departure on the grounds that the brakes on the movement a political development were now removed. But while the Provisionals could not take the majority of the IRA with them even in Belfast, they were able to draw new recruits totally untainted by the political education of the previous year. The bulk of the membership of the two organisations had little knowledge of each other. The split at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis gave the Provisionals another opportunity to present publicly their criticisms. Of course the old canards were resurrected: the guns not available when needed in Belfast had been sold to the Free Wales Army to raise funds for the United Irishman Goulding was obviously anti-Catholic because he hadn’t been seen at mass for years, and that was why he was more interested in revolution in the South than in freedom for the North!
It mattered little to those who pushed these stories that the Free Wales Army was only marginally less mythical than the guns allegedly sold to lt. In reality, the contact with the Welsh had once been optimistically looked at to as a source of explosives, all Welshmen, as is well-known, being miners and explosives experts! And Goulding’s supposed anti-Catholicism reflected more the prejudices against non-Catholics of his accusers.
More formally, the Caretaker Executive, as the Provisional sympathisers styled their break-away leadership in Sinn Fein, listed the main specific reasons for their break, apart from the issues or abstention and the national liberation front: the leadership’s support of extreme socialism leading to ‘totalitarian dictatorship” the failure to protect the people if the North in August 1969; the suggestion that Stormont be abolished and the North brought under direct rule from Westminster; and the internal methods by which Provisional sympathisers had been squeezed out or expelled. Most of these charges were empty or founded on prejudice. The third item was manifestly untrue. The Barricade Bulletins and Radio Belfast, controlled by the IRA in August 1969, all expressly disagreed with such a viewpoint, and indeed, emissaries were regularly sent from GHQ in Dublin to the Belfast leadership to impress this point. But given central charge that the Officials had failed the people militarily, the Provisionals obviously needed to demonstrate their competence in this field.
The immediate consequence, of course, was that the Republican’s energy was diverted to the needs of their internal struggle at a time when major political developments were occurring in the big wide world. Jim Sullivan, Official leader in the Lower Falls, in Billy MacMillan’s enforced absence, might be photographed with General Freeland or British Home Secretary, Callighan, but the Republicans were easily manoeuvred to the side by the church, the green nationalists and the Fianna Fail agents. And important events were occurring. In the immediate aftermath of the August crisis, with the direct use of British troops and a degree of British political attention that the Unionists found most unwelcome, the Downing Street Declaration, which went some way to meeting the demands of the civil rights demonstrators, was issued. But British policy was not so united. There were strongly entrenched elements within the British establishment, the civil service, the Army and the political parties at Westminster who were concerned at the direction of British policy the Downing Street Declaration implied, and the British Army Itself was soon at work to undermine it.
But first a gesture of reassurance. Militant loyalists on the Shankill Road, demonstrating in October 1969 against the declaration, and the abolition of the B Specials in particular, were given a rude lesson by the British Army to the real meaning of the slogan ‘We are the people.’ But after October there was little change. The RUC were manifestly not co-operating into Inquiries into their misconduct. The murderers of Sam Devenney, indeed, remain protected to this day. The Catholics, living still in fear of another pogrom, wanted real advance. They wanted the spirit of the Downing Street Declaration Implemented. And gradually they began to take to the streets again.
For the Officials, they were now called by the media; this was a straightforward commitment, except that this time they were especially conscious of the public jeers concerning August and of the Provisional menace. For the Provisionals, it posed a difficulty. They could not allow crown violence against the people to go unanswered. It is reasonably clear that the British Army deliberately provoked confrontation. In January 1970, a demonstration in Ballymurphy was harshly put down, and when in the ensuing riot, token petrol bombs were thrown, General Freeland determinedly gave the order to shoot to kill. As young Danny O’Hagan lay dying the British Army were no longer the defenders of the people of a few months before - and the question was put up to the Provisionals in a blunt and stark way. The Officials asserted then, and have consistently asserted since, that this provocation should have been ignored (militarily). Political action on a mass basis for civil rights, they argued, would emphasise Britain’s international isolation. They could be forced back to concessions. Instead the military die was cast.
SINN FEIN AND THE IRA
The assumption of this analysis is that the major developments influencing the evolution of SFWP as a significant Dail political party concern, in fact, developments within the IRA itself. This is a delicate issue for SFWP leaders, and one which they have never handled forthrightly. In fact, they have nothing to be ashamed about in their development for the processes have been genuine ones, but hostile forces have regularly been willing to propagandise in a distorted way over the question. So what exactly was the connection between Sinn Fein and the IRA and how did the development of a new political approach affect it?
The IRA activist who rejected the Treaty of 1921 as a betrayal of the Republic tended to blame the political processes of British administration and negotiation for the “corruption” of formerly loyal Irishmen. While totally lacking in theoretical sophistication, their instincts lay generally in favour of direct rather than representative democracy though this was rarely coherently expressed. In fact, an explanation of the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War reveals an incredible confusion of purpose and objective. The wonder is not that they were beaten, for they had no real political programme, but that they survived at all.
For our purpose here, however, it Is worth noting that this suspicion of political manoeuvrings and rhetoric extended to their own side., Sinn Fein did not lay down the guidelines of Republican policy In the Civil War, and Eamon deValera, formerly president of the Republic, had no higher function than assistant to the Director of Munitions. The Right Republicans resisted throughout the Twenties and Thirties the efforts of Saor Eire, O’Donnell and Gilmore the Republican Congress et al; to embroil them in the dreaded politics, and inevitably Sinn Fein declined to a narrow purist and irrelevant rump. But, given the illegality of the IRA there were obvious restrictions on its scope for public political activity, and in the build up to the ‘56 campaign the IRA favoured a revitalisation of Sinn Fein. However, Sinn Fein’ was always a separate organisation, and while a majority of its members might in specific areas be also members of the IRA, especially among the younger contingents, membership was by no means synonymous and there were occasional conflicts inevitable given the purist and backward nature of Sinn Fein.
But, of course, during the Fifties campaign, Sinn Fein’s role of propagandising for the Republic, of support for the IRA campaign; for defence of prisoners and victims of discrimination was in exact accord with what the IRA needed. After the collapse of the campaign and its formal calling-off in 1962, it was in the IRA that the process of reassessment and reorientation began. Indeed, how could Sin Fein as such decide on such matters when organisationally it had nothing to do with the direction of the campaign or even its calling-off.
Thus it was the IRA volunteers who engaged in fierce political discussion over the meaning of ‘revolution’, ‘imperialism’ and the rest of the vocabulary of an increasingly socialistic youth. Sinn Fein tended by and large to be the preserve of those who had seen better days. When the IRA was won to the idea of political action, its members naturally paid, greater attention to Sinn Fein, but long before the split occurred there were tensions and conflicts, as much to do with the brashness of youth and the caution of the old, with the energy of activists and the passivity of staid conservatives, as any thing else. In fact, it was a frequent complaint at IRA section meetings that long-established members of Sinn Fein cumainn obstructed the new approach and certainly the old guard had a higher proportion of support in Sinn Fein than they did in the IRA
This certainly ironic given the Provisionals emphasis on the military aspect. But in the first year after the split, Cathal Goulding had a high public profile as the reputed chief of staff of the IRA, while many volunteers complained that MacGiolla had not similarly stamped a title of possession on the name Sinn Fein. Within a few years, the public perception was reversed, as indeed the Provisionals military campaign came to dominate the headlines.
The IRA necessarily was more attractive to the more active young men, and cautiously, women too, who believed in supporting the right to fight for freedom, would naturally want to play a direct part in it. While there were some young activists who were not members of the IRA, and while this number increased, especially in Dublin, as the policies of the New Departure came to the fore, most gravitated to the IRA itself. This contradiction was keenly appreciated by the leadership. One of the Provisionals complaints was that in some areas would-be volunteers were discouraged and advised to join Sinn Fein instead, and this was to an extent true. But it shouldn’t be exaggerated. However, much the IRA wished to enhance the role and authority of Sinn Fein, the needs of organisational unity required the army be assured of its ultimate function. After the split there was a curious contradiction in policy. On one hand, the insistence on pushing the motions concerning abstentionism and, the national liberation front had ensured that there would be a split but, on the other, every (private) effort was made to reassure the wavering that the army was not being run down, that its significance was not being demoted, that the traditional aims and objectives remained unaltered.
While the commitment to policy implied in the controversial motions was explicit, practice on the ground tended to be more ambiguous, the lines of distinction blurred. The Officials refrained not just from public criticism of the Provisionals, but even from publicly answering the attacks on them. This indeed, was a disastrous error of judgement. It implied, to many, that the Provisional charges were true and suggested certain duplicity on the Official side. In addition, it was obviously not enough to assert that the IRA was not being run down; physical proof had to be given. Thus the Officials were caught in a trap of emulating a Provisional policy they disagreed with.
The contradictions of this were to become more and more acute in the following years and their resolution very difficult and bitter to achieve. But it is in the process of struggle, against the background of the political events of the early seventies, that SFWP in its present form evolved.
THE WORKERS’ PARTY~ ITS EVOLUTION AND IT’S FUTURE
A CRITIQUE BY EOIN O’MURCHU
ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION
Speaking at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown in 1967, Cathal Goulding, then reputed to be chief of staff of the IRA , declared “We decided……. to make an all out attack on the take over of Irish assets by foreign interests……… This movement has only room for revolutionaries, for radicals, for men with a sense of urgent purpose, who are aware of realities, who are not afraid to meet hard work, men who will not be defeated and who will not be deceived”
And the following year, at the same commemoration Sean Garland, now general secretary of Sinn Fein, The Workers’ Party further elaborated the point: “This changes drastically our traditional line of tactics. There are no longer two different types of republicans: physical force men and politicians. We in the Republican Movement must be politically aware of our objectives and must also be prepared to take the appropriate educational, economic, political and finally military action to achieve them.”
These statements mark the first real public acknowledgement of a shift in orientation in the Republican Movement from a secret army, with only the most superficial of political understandings, to a serious, and constitutional political party, with Dail representation and a clear influence on the politics of the country.
It is an evolution that took place increasingly against a background of political crisis and inevitably ambiguities and differences of direction disrupted the process, it is an evolution, too, that perhaps marks the last stage in the development of the old movement for national independence out of Which Fine Gael and Fianna Fail were also born.
Sinn Fein The Workers Party, then, goes back in continuity to the original capitalist Sinn Fein party of Arthur Griffith, to the revolutionary nationalist alliance led by Eamon de Valera during the War of Independence and subsequent years to the irredentist republicans of the post Fianna Fail era. But, in truth, as the opening quotations make clear, SFWP’s roots lie more in the physical force tradition, in the IRA which rejected first the treaty, and then the deValera reform of that Treaty which is the real bunchloch of this state. It is through understanding the IRA that we can begin to understand Sinn Fein, The Workers Party has evolved.
The post Treaty IRA was always riven by suspicion of ‘poIiticians’ by the physical force men, by fear of the corrupting impact of participation in the new state’s institutions by the remoteness and sterility of the rather legalistic way it defined its objectives and, essentially, by a basic division between left and right. The right had only one strategy: to resume the armed struggle, and-the political purposes of that, armed struggle became less and less significant comparison to the principle of armed struggle itself. The left, through Saor Eire, through Peadar O’Donnell’s use of An Phoblacht, the IRA paper of the Thirties as a vehicle for social agitation, though ultimately the attempt to develop the Republican Congress sought to redefine the aim of the Republic in terms of social change, of social as well as national revolution.
The leadership of SFWP identified themselves with this Left position from the very start of the New Departure - as It was called -in the Republican Movement in the Sixties. But, of course the Left position had been internally defeated in thirties. The IRA of the forties had degenerated into a mindless bombing campaign with only the vaguest of objectives, and with Fianna Fail victorious in the secret war in the prisons of those dreadful years.
After the war, the IRA returned to prepare for yet ‘another round.’ It stood aside from the political struggles of that time, and indeed drew some solace from the ultimate disintegration of Clann na Poblachta. In 1956, the other round began again. The military campaign of 1956 62 was in itself a total disaster. It provided a new crop of martyrs, Sean South, the most notable, but had no military or political effect whatever
It was the crucial turning point however, for it marked the utter discrediting of the new Right Republicans and their strategy. The young men whose commitment to their ideal was cemented by a shared experience of prison, of being on the run, of being in action, were forced to reassess their lives, their hopes and their future activities. The decisive influence in this, without any doubt, was Cathal Goulding.
For most of the ‘56 ‘62 period, Goulding had been in prison in England, where he had politically educated himself by voracious reading of revolutionary texts - an international and not specifically Irish pedagogical method - and was unsullied by the mutual recriminations that always affect defeated guerrilla groups. Goulding initiated a very self critical examination of the whole development, and experience of defeat - in which it was particularly rich - this critical examination of the whole development of the Republican Movement. The results were embodied in a document “In the 70s The IRA Speaks.” published in 1971.
The main conclusions of this self examination were that the IRA had no solid ‘political base’ amongst the people, and that its concentration on military struggle had ignored the political aspects of Britain’s presence in the North and the changing nature of the relationship between Britain and Ireland as a whole The document summarised their experience “The Irish Republican Army had become remote from the people. The people respected the stand, which they were taking and indeed they cheered on from the sidelines. But they were spectators arid not participants in the Republican struggle against British Imperialism”. This analysis is, perhaps, a bit too optimistic as to the degree of sympathy which the 56 - 62 campaign generated,
But there was certainly no denying the lack of popular support. The overwhelming conclusion was that there should be no repetition of such campaigns, that the Republican cause had to be understood in terms of the social and economic needs of the Irish people, that the struggle was not one about abstract definitions of freedom, but about changing the conditions of life and the ownership of wealth on which those conditions depended.
The IRA declared: “Our objective was to be the Reconquest of Ireland, not simply to place an Irish government in political control of the geographical entity of Ireland, but to place the mass of the people in actual control of the wealth and resources of the Irish Nation and to give them a cultural identity.” The means to achieve this objective were seen to be by organising economic and cultural resistance, by political action to defend rights and win reforms, and by military action “to back up the people’s demands, to defend ‘the people’s gains and eventually to carry through a successful national liberation struggle”. There was thus no sharp break with the assertion of the legitimacy of armed struggle, but limits were placed on the context of such legitimacy whose ultimate direction had to be - as in fact it has been - a rejection of armed struggle as a relevant concept, at least in the existing cond1tions of the 26 counties.
Ideologically, there was a bitter struggle to define these new objectives as socialist. The Army Convention of 1965 redefined the IRA’s objective as the establishment of a “democratic socialist republic”. It is to’ be noted that the word ‘democratic’ was included to contrast with ‘totalitarian’, for anti-communist ideology was still dominant and rampant; and in more backward areas, occasional efforts were made to give effect to Army Order No. 4 which banned volunteers from reading communist literature
But these were concessions only, to those whose political development logged behind. Goulding at all times operated with the desire to bring the entire movement with him to win every member over to the new line. But, even so, the pace was too fast for some Daithi O’Connaill, now a prominent Provisional, resigned in protest at the declaration of a socialist objective, and others in the leadership, like Sean MacStiofain and Ruairi Bradaigh were noticeably unenthusiastic about the New Departure. But the young were. Tralee-man, Denis Foley, who stood as an independent in the recent general election, turned the United lrishman the IRA newspaper, into a social agitator, a role developed by subsequent editors, Tony Meade, and, most dramatically Seamus O’Tuathail.
The active membership of the Republican Movement flung itself into housing agitations, fish-ins, ground rent protests, Vietnam solidarity demonstrations and sit-ins. This was politics with a vengeance, and many of the Old Guard resented it.
This resentment came to the fore at the re-interment in ‘69 of Barnes and McCormick, two IRA volunteers executed in England for their part in the Forties bombing campaign. Jimmy Steele of Belfast delivered a traditionalist oration which attacked everything connected to the New Departure, and especially, the co-operation with communists and socialists that was an inevitable part of social agitations. Though Steele was expelled for this speech the grounds of the later Provisional split had been laid. The North, too, of course, was not immune from the New Departure. But the IRA in the North, especially in Belfast, had always functioned partly as a Catholic defence force, and was extremely cautious about revolutionary politics. Nevertheless, many units there, too, threw themselves into social agitations, especially on the housing question. But this issue ultimately raised more serious questions about the North: the question of civil rights. For the Republican Movement, however, activity on social and economic matters went hand in hand with internal political analysis, and particularly political education. Goulding went out of his way to seek experts that could assist in this area. He was able to persuade Dr Roy Johnston to help, despite the latter’s often expressed reservations about the armed wing in the shadows.
Nevertheless, Johnston’s role was considerable. While in retrospect much of his theorising was abstract, he undoubtedly gave a thrust to serious political analysis, forced members to reconsider old prejudices and played a major part in the real politicisation of the movement. But, it should be emphasised too that it was a politicisation which Goulding was working for and for which he had won the support of the majority of the leadership. Of course, the occasional gesture was made to make the military elements feel happy. German owned farms were burned as part of a land agitation. The buses which carried strike-breakers to EL at Shannon were destroyed. And these were not purely gestures to recalcitrant elements, but reflected a genuine ambiguity in people who were in the transition of moving from one form of struggle to another.
But, the Republican Movement did not develop in isolation. Because of its activities in social struggles, the Republican Movement became aware of other political strategies, particularly that of the Communist Party (at that time, in the South, the Irish Workers’ Party). The communist strategy was to fight for “progressive governments, North and South” as a prelude to unity. In the South, this meant a government committed genuinely to defending economic independence and expanding industrial development. And in. the North, it placed a premium on the struggle for equality and democracy, for civil rights.
Communist Party members, like the late Betty Sinclair, were very much to the fore pressing the trade union movement in the North to take action in relation to civil rights. And, indeed, it was on the initiative of the Belfast and District Trades Council that the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was established. The history of the NICRA is reasonably well known but the Republicans did play a crucial part in it especially in stewarding and, paradoxically, in controlling wilder elements.
But despite the Republican protestations that their support for civil rights was on its own terms and not as a prelude to another military round, the unionists, and even many Republican sympathisers, were unconvinced. What complicated the issue was the Republican faithful could only be brought along the new path if they were convinced that the Army was not being abandoned or run down. So, at the very time that the emphasis North and South was shifted to social agitation and mass demonstrations, ironically there was a renewed demand for arms training. The reality, however was that the IRA had few arms left. Little remained after 1962, and resources after that were put into propaganda and educational literature rather than into guns. But the public perception was that the IRA was back in business, and, in the Northern context, able, if needed, to defend the people as Garland had stated at the 1968 Bodenstown commemoration (quoted above) and as spelt out in sundry internal documents.
In 1969, the pace of events began to develop a momentum of its own. The Stormont administration lost credibility as more and more civil rights demonstrations emphasised the existing inequality and the demand for change In the South, too, Republican involvement in struggles was particularly worrying to government leaders. In February 1969, the Fianna Fail government, under the special direction of Charlie Haughey began sounding out dissident elements of the Republican Movement, with a view to developing a split. These activities were carried out by the state’s army intelligence units. The essence, of the Flánna Fail approach was that the social agitations in the South were being carried out at the expense of proper preparations for defence of the Northern minority, and that Republicans were being used as tools in a communist conspiracy. As the North careered down the road of political crisis political manoeuvring, personal jockeying for power, subversion of the IRA, conflicts between IRA and Sinn Fein personnel grew to frenetic levels.
AMBIGUITIES AND CRISIS
In August 1969 Ulster Unionism, unable to adapt itself to the demand for democracy and civil rights, launched an all out attack against the Catholic population. This effort to make the “croppies lie down” was to shatter the unionist state and to send shock waves of crisis through every political institution in Ireland. It brought Britain face to face with its responsibility for the situation in Northern Ireland but divided the political parties in Ireland in confusion and bitterness. The attack began with the RUC assault on the Bogside but the Bogsiders resistance and the solidarity of other Catholic towns throughout the North blunted this assault. In frustration, a pogrom was launched in Belfast, with the RUC and the B-Specials leading Orange mobs in a spree of burning and killing against the Catholic ghettos. At this supreme moment of crisis, it was discovered that the IRA did not really exist as an army. It had no weapons to defend the people. This is not to deny the courage of those who faced the mobs unarmed, pretending that they had guns, nor that the mobs themselves never realised how unprotected the people were. But Belfast Catholics reacted with bitterness and contempt ‘I Ran Away’ was a common jeer at the IRA, but in all fairness there was little justification for it.
It would have been impossible for the Republican Movement to have simultaneously rebuilt its army structure and developed a political strategy, and in any case, how could funds have been found to buy arms for rebuilding the army when the political situation created no base for support or interest? But the victims of Belfast’s pogrom were not impressed by excuses. This was the crisis for which the state army’s intelligence forces had been waiting. The Provisionals were born, but mainly from those who had stood aside from the New Departure and even from the civil rights struggle itself. For the Republican Movement itself what was at issue was the continuance of the new policy. And in particular, two key questions that would give more coherence to the new policy and which were scheduled to be resolved at the 1969 Army Convention and subsequent Sinn Fein Ard-Fheis. These were the dropping of abstentionism and a commitment to build a national liberation front type of alliance.
Abstentionism was always a contentious issue, and was not entirely a matter of left-right differences. The original legalistic position; of course, was that both Stormont and Leinster House were creations of the British Parliament and not the Republican institutions established in 1919. Indeed, the abstentionist attitude was at one time shared by Eamon deValera, and even when Fianna Fail broke away from Sinn Fein in 1926 on the issue of abstention it still refused initially to enter the Dail while the oath to a foreign king was required. As time passed and Fianna Fail in the Forties proved worse and more deadly enemies to the Republican Movement than the Free State before them the abstentionist principle increased in importance. In addition one of the underlying justifications of an army was the illegitimacy of the parliamentary institutions. There were many on the Left during the New Departure who mistakenly equated abstentionism with a Leninist critique of parliamentarianism. But in general, it was clear that if the Republican Movement were to concentrate on political struggles, building mass movements on social issues and so on, the electoral process could not just be ignored. Indeed, it was widely felt that abstentionism cost Republicans the chance of building on their prestige won by involvement in such struggles and cleared the way for others to climb to power on their backs. This was particularly the case in the North, where the Republicans had to stand aside and allow a new generation to come to the fore, Including John Hume, Bernadette Devlin, Ivan Cooper and others,
Bernadette Devlin’s situation in fact epitomised the problem. The original Republican nominee was Kevin Agnew, but inevitably an abstentionist candidate would have meant giving the seat to Unionists. The only logical choice was that Agnew should run on a participationist platform - a breach of General Army orders - or he should withdraw in favour of a broadly acceptable anti-unionist candidate. The latter choice was made, but many activists bitterly resented the lost opportunity.
But for the Belfast IRA the issue was somewhat artificial. While Tyrone Republicans resigned in opposition to abstentionism - including, incidentally, Kevin Mellon, now a prominent Provisional - the Belfast IRA was increasingly worried by the growing dangers. It wanted guns, and some of its leadership - like Leo Martin - did not particularly care what agreements had to be made to get them. People like Martin, and the expelled Jimmy Steele, certainly felt that if the price of Fianna Fail’s giving weapons was the dropping of the socialist objective and the ending of Republican involvement in social agitations, it was a price worth paying.
But the New Departure could not survive such a price, and Goulding could not even contemplate paying it. It was decided that the issue of abstention should be pushed for resolution at the Army Convention, scheduled for December 1969. There was to be no turning back, no compromise was felt possible. Some sympathetic observers, in fact, have criticised Goulding for pushing this issue at such a time and in such circumstances. But realistically, what was at stake was the New Departure itself, and to that extent he had no choice. When the Convention met, it voted 39 votes to twelve to end the policy of abstention, though it must be noted that an internal struggle of allegiance in Belfast meant that that major IRA Brigade was not represented at the Convention. But, any case, it would not have affected the decision. Those opposed to the New Departure saw this as the final straw. They withdrew from the Convention and, though a minority established their own Provisional Army Council. The split was now a fact.
But all was not over yet. While the IRA had agreed to a new policy, Sinn Fein had yet to discuss it. And contrary to ill-informed and prejudiced opinion such a discussion would never have been a formality. In particular, abstention was enshrined in the Constitution it required a two thirds majority to remove it. In the event, the resolution failed by 19 votes out of 247 to gain the required majority. But the split could not be denied. Dennis Cashin from Armagh took the microphone and proposed a traditional motion that the Ard-Fheis recognise the Army Council as the legitimate authority of the state. This was now as unacceptable the Provisionals as to Fianna Fail, and there was an immediate walk-out by a quarter of the delegates. But if the debate on abstentionism had ended in anti-climax, a more immediately relevant motion had settled the issue for most of the Provisionals-to-be. This was the proposal that the movement should commit itself to a national liberation front type of revolutionary strategy. To be honest, this was rather abstract theoretics. But it was clearly inspired by the Vietnamese example, and was understood by all sides in the debate to be a clear identification of the movement’s objective of socialism with revolutionary socialism. Its practical effect could only be to bring the Republican Movement into a closer working relationship with the communist parties North and South.
The right savaged the idea. And, indeed, after the split, Provisional spokesmen insisted on calling the IRA which accepted the legitimacy of the convention decision the NLF. They denounced the whole scheme, at home and abroad, as a communist plot, and fervently assured their supporters in the United States that, by contrast, the Provisionals Republic Would be one “untainted by communistic or socialistic ideas.”
Again some sympathetic to the official standpoint have argued that this was another provocative move in the circumstances. But Goulding and McGiolla were both determined that their political orientation would not be diverted by the August ‘69 and indeed felt that It was more essential than ever that the movement keep its political head to prevent the vacuum of leadership being taken over by those who wanted to limit and restrict the scope of political developments. But while these ideological issues were of great concern to those who organised the Provisional split - and certainly of great concern-to the Fianna Fail government, both Haughey and Lynch wings, which helped finance it - the, main slogan by which the new organisation grew was a promise that the people would be defended. Daithi O’Conall, returned to membership after a four year lapse expressed this clearly at the Provisional Bodenstown Commemoration when be declared that never again would crown forces be allowed to run through an Irish town.
The Provisionals, however, took few members of the movement with them, and ironically given their emphasis on the military issues, a higher proportion of Sinn Fein members than of the IRA men. Its leadership were all old and tired names and many of the younger members actually welcomed their departure on the grounds that the brakes on the movement a political development were now removed. But while the Provisionals could not take the majority of the IRA with them even in Belfast, they were able to draw new recruits totally untainted by the political education of the previous year. The bulk of the membership of the two organisations had little knowledge of each other. The split at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis gave the Provisionals another opportunity to present publicly their criticisms. Of course the old canards were resurrected: the guns not available when needed in Belfast had been sold to the Free Wales Army to raise funds for the United Irishman Goulding was obviously anti-Catholic because he hadn’t been seen at mass for years, and that was why he was more interested in revolution in the South than in freedom for the North!
It mattered little to those who pushed these stories that the Free Wales Army was only marginally less mythical than the guns allegedly sold to lt. In reality, the contact with the Welsh had once been optimistically looked at to as a source of explosives, all Welshmen, as is well-known, being miners and explosives experts! And Goulding’s supposed anti-Catholicism reflected more the prejudices against non-Catholics of his accusers.
More formally, the Caretaker Executive, as the Provisional sympathisers styled their break-away leadership in Sinn Fein, listed the main specific reasons for their break, apart from the issues or abstention and the national liberation front: the leadership’s support of extreme socialism leading to ‘totalitarian dictatorship” the failure to protect the people if the North in August 1969; the suggestion that Stormont be abolished and the North brought under direct rule from Westminster; and the internal methods by which Provisional sympathisers had been squeezed out or expelled. Most of these charges were empty or founded on prejudice. The third item was manifestly untrue. The Barricade Bulletins and Radio Belfast, controlled by the IRA in August 1969, all expressly disagreed with such a viewpoint, and indeed, emissaries were regularly sent from GHQ in Dublin to the Belfast leadership to impress this point. But given central charge that the Officials had failed the people militarily, the Provisionals obviously needed to demonstrate their competence in this field.
The immediate consequence, of course, was that the Republican’s energy was diverted to the needs of their internal struggle at a time when major political developments were occurring in the big wide world. Jim Sullivan, Official leader in the Lower Falls, in Billy MacMillan’s enforced absence, might be photographed with General Freeland or British Home Secretary, Callighan, but the Republicans were easily manoeuvred to the side by the church, the green nationalists and the Fianna Fail agents. And important events were occurring. In the immediate aftermath of the August crisis, with the direct use of British troops and a degree of British political attention that the Unionists found most unwelcome, the Downing Street Declaration, which went some way to meeting the demands of the civil rights demonstrators, was issued. But British policy was not so united. There were strongly entrenched elements within the British establishment, the civil service, the Army and the political parties at Westminster who were concerned at the direction of British policy the Downing Street Declaration implied, and the British Army Itself was soon at work to undermine it.
But first a gesture of reassurance. Militant loyalists on the Shankill Road, demonstrating in October 1969 against the declaration, and the abolition of the B Specials in particular, were given a rude lesson by the British Army to the real meaning of the slogan ‘We are the people.’ But after October there was little change. The RUC were manifestly not co-operating into Inquiries into their misconduct. The murderers of Sam Devenney, indeed, remain protected to this day. The Catholics, living still in fear of another pogrom, wanted real advance. They wanted the spirit of the Downing Street Declaration Implemented. And gradually they began to take to the streets again.
For the Officials, they were now called by the media; this was a straightforward commitment, except that this time they were especially conscious of the public jeers concerning August and of the Provisional menace. For the Provisionals, it posed a difficulty. They could not allow crown violence against the people to go unanswered. It is reasonably clear that the British Army deliberately provoked confrontation. In January 1970, a demonstration in Ballymurphy was harshly put down, and when in the ensuing riot, token petrol bombs were thrown, General Freeland determinedly gave the order to shoot to kill. As young Danny O’Hagan lay dying the British Army were no longer the defenders of the people of a few months before - and the question was put up to the Provisionals in a blunt and stark way. The Officials asserted then, and have consistently asserted since, that this provocation should have been ignored (militarily). Political action on a mass basis for civil rights, they argued, would emphasise Britain’s international isolation. They could be forced back to concessions. Instead the military die was cast.
SINN FEIN AND THE IRA
The assumption of this analysis is that the major developments influencing the evolution of SFWP as a significant Dail political party concern, in fact, developments within the IRA itself. This is a delicate issue for SFWP leaders, and one which they have never handled forthrightly. In fact, they have nothing to be ashamed about in their development for the processes have been genuine ones, but hostile forces have regularly been willing to propagandise in a distorted way over the question. So what exactly was the connection between Sinn Fein and the IRA and how did the development of a new political approach affect it?
The IRA activist who rejected the Treaty of 1921 as a betrayal of the Republic tended to blame the political processes of British administration and negotiation for the “corruption” of formerly loyal Irishmen. While totally lacking in theoretical sophistication, their instincts lay generally in favour of direct rather than representative democracy though this was rarely coherently expressed. In fact, an explanation of the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War reveals an incredible confusion of purpose and objective. The wonder is not that they were beaten, for they had no real political programme, but that they survived at all.
For our purpose here, however, it Is worth noting that this suspicion of political manoeuvrings and rhetoric extended to their own side., Sinn Fein did not lay down the guidelines of Republican policy In the Civil War, and Eamon deValera, formerly president of the Republic, had no higher function than assistant to the Director of Munitions. The Right Republicans resisted throughout the Twenties and Thirties the efforts of Saor Eire, O’Donnell and Gilmore the Republican Congress et al; to embroil them in the dreaded politics, and inevitably Sinn Fein declined to a narrow purist and irrelevant rump. But, given the illegality of the IRA there were obvious restrictions on its scope for public political activity, and in the build up to the ‘56 campaign the IRA favoured a revitalisation of Sinn Fein. However, Sinn Fein’ was always a separate organisation, and while a majority of its members might in specific areas be also members of the IRA, especially among the younger contingents, membership was by no means synonymous and there were occasional conflicts inevitable given the purist and backward nature of Sinn Fein.
But, of course, during the Fifties campaign, Sinn Fein’s role of propagandising for the Republic, of support for the IRA campaign; for defence of prisoners and victims of discrimination was in exact accord with what the IRA needed. After the collapse of the campaign and its formal calling-off in 1962, it was in the IRA that the process of reassessment and reorientation began. Indeed, how could Sin Fein as such decide on such matters when organisationally it had nothing to do with the direction of the campaign or even its calling-off.
Thus it was the IRA volunteers who engaged in fierce political discussion over the meaning of ‘revolution’, ‘imperialism’ and the rest of the vocabulary of an increasingly socialistic youth. Sinn Fein tended by and large to be the preserve of those who had seen better days. When the IRA was won to the idea of political action, its members naturally paid, greater attention to Sinn Fein, but long before the split occurred there were tensions and conflicts, as much to do with the brashness of youth and the caution of the old, with the energy of activists and the passivity of staid conservatives, as any thing else. In fact, it was a frequent complaint at IRA section meetings that long-established members of Sinn Fein cumainn obstructed the new approach and certainly the old guard had a higher proportion of support in Sinn Fein than they did in the IRA
This certainly ironic given the Provisionals emphasis on the military aspect. But in the first year after the split, Cathal Goulding had a high public profile as the reputed chief of staff of the IRA, while many volunteers complained that MacGiolla had not similarly stamped a title of possession on the name Sinn Fein. Within a few years, the public perception was reversed, as indeed the Provisionals military campaign came to dominate the headlines.
The IRA necessarily was more attractive to the more active young men, and cautiously, women too, who believed in supporting the right to fight for freedom, would naturally want to play a direct part in it. While there were some young activists who were not members of the IRA, and while this number increased, especially in Dublin, as the policies of the New Departure came to the fore, most gravitated to the IRA itself. This contradiction was keenly appreciated by the leadership. One of the Provisionals complaints was that in some areas would-be volunteers were discouraged and advised to join Sinn Fein instead, and this was to an extent true. But it shouldn’t be exaggerated. However, much the IRA wished to enhance the role and authority of Sinn Fein, the needs of organisational unity required the army be assured of its ultimate function. After the split there was a curious contradiction in policy. On one hand, the insistence on pushing the motions concerning abstentionism and, the national liberation front had ensured that there would be a split but, on the other, every (private) effort was made to reassure the wavering that the army was not being run down, that its significance was not being demoted, that the traditional aims and objectives remained unaltered.
While the commitment to policy implied in the controversial motions was explicit, practice on the ground tended to be more ambiguous, the lines of distinction blurred. The Officials refrained not just from public criticism of the Provisionals, but even from publicly answering the attacks on them. This indeed, was a disastrous error of judgement. It implied, to many, that the Provisional charges were true and suggested certain duplicity on the Official side. In addition, it was obviously not enough to assert that the IRA was not being run down; physical proof had to be given. Thus the Officials were caught in a trap of emulating a Provisional policy they disagreed with.
The contradictions of this were to become more and more acute in the following years and their resolution very difficult and bitter to achieve. But it is in the process of struggle, against the background of the political events of the early seventies, that SFWP in its present form evolved.