IRELAND: THE KEY TO THE BRITISH REVOLUTION DAVID REED LARKIN PUBLICATIONS 1984 1 © DAVID REED 1984 LARKIN PUBLICATIONS BCM BOX 5909 LONDON WC1N 3XX FIRST PUBLISHED 1984 ONLINE EDITION 2016 BRITISH LIBRARY IN PUBLICATION DATA David Reed Ireland I. Ireland—Politics and government— 19th century 2. Ireland— Politics and government—20th century I. Title 941.508 DA950 ISBN 0-905400-04-6 www.revolutionarycommunist.org 2 CONTENTS Preface PART ONE: THE COMMUNIST TRADITION 1 Marx and Engels on Ireland 16 The early position 16 The revolutionary position on Ireland 19 Engels’ tour of Ireland 20 The land question and the Fenian movement 21 The Irish national revolution and the English working class 23 The First International and Ireland 26 Nationalism and internationalism 32 2 The socialist revolution and the right of nations to self-determination 35 Imperialism and the working class 35 Imperialism and colonial policy 37 Socialists and the right of nations to self-determination 40 PART TWO: THE FIGHT FOR AN IRISH REPUBLIC 3 Home rule 47 Home rule and the land question 47 Irish labour confronts British imperialism 49 The Dublin lock out 52 Home rule and the exclusion of Ulster 60 Imperialist war 68 4 Irish revolution 74 The Easter Rising 76 Reign of terror 79 Socialists and the Easter Rising 82 3 Revolutionary nationalism after the Rising 86 Irish labour after the Rising 87 The General Election December 1918 89 Dail Eireann 90 War of Independence 91 The people’s war 93 The response of the British labour movement 96 The Treaty and partition 99 Communists and the Treaty 102 PART THREE: REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALISM IN RETREAT 5 Republicanism under siege 109 A carnival of reaction 109 Republicanism under siege 116 Republicanism searches for a mass base 120 6 The IRA goes on the offensive 126 The campaign in England 1939–40 126 The Border Campaign 1956–62 130 Communists and the Border Campaign 139 PART FOUR: REVOLUTIONARY WAR 7 From civil rights to insurrection 145 Unionism gets a face-lift 145 The civil rights movement 151 The real face of Unionism 160 Insurrection – the battle of the Bogside 164 The Belfast pogrom 166 8 The rise of the Provisional IRA 171 Revolutionary nationalism v revisionism 172 The split in the IRA 176 Dublin government under pressure 179 4 British imperialism intervenes 182 The road to revolutionary war 186 9 Revolutionary war 196 The war begins 198 Internment without trial 204 The fall of Stormont 211 The Irish revolution and the British left 219 10 The long war 228 Truce 229 British imperialism breaks the truce 236 The rise and fall of power-sharing 241 The Ulster Workers Council strike 256 I I Ulsterisation 259 First steps to ‘Ulsterisation’ 260 Rees and internment 262 Constitutional convention 266 The second truce 268 The Gardiner Report 275 The truce breaks down 279 Ulsterisation and loyalist terror 284 Loyalist paramilitary organisations 286 Assassinations 289 12 Institutionalised torture 1976–79 297 Newman’s reorganisation of the RUC 299 Arrest 300 Torture 303 Getting results 308 Torturers’ charter 309 A catalogue of horror 310 Torturers exposed 316 Torture – an ‘administrative practice’ 321 5 13 The war is taken to Britain 324 The bombing campaign in Britain 324 Show trials and imprisonment 330 Resistance in prison 335 14 The fight against ‘criminalisation’ 340 The blanket protest 341 The ‘Peace People’ 350 The loyalist strike May 1977 353 SAS assassination squads 357 Fightback … on the streets 360 Fightback … the military campaign 366 15 The prison struggle 371 Political forces prepare for confrontation 371 Political forces in the South 373 Political forces in the Six Counties 379 Political forces in Britain 398 16 Hunger strike 408 The first hunger strike 409 The second hunger strike 421 The hunger strike and the British left 442 The end of the hunger strike and its political consequences 446 17 Britain and the Irish revolution 452 British imperialism cannot play a progressive role in Ireland 452 Nationalism and socialism – Ireland the key to the British revolution 459 British middle class socialism and the Irish revolution 467 Democratic rights in Britain and the Irish revolution 476 Forces of revolution 477 Postscript 481 Bibliography 501 6 ABBREVIATIONS AIL Anti-Internment League ASU Active Service Unit BSP British Socialist Party CIA Central Intelligence Agency CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain DUP Democratic Unionist Party EPA Emergency Powers Act FRFI Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! GAA Gaelic Athletic Association ICJP Irish Commission for Justice and Peace ICTU Irish Congress of Trade Unions ILP Independent Labour Party IMG International Marxist Group INLA Irish National Liberation Army IRA Irish Republican Army IRSP Irish Republican Socialist Party ISM Irish Solidarity Movement ITGWU Irish Transport and General Workers Union ITUC Irish Trade Union Congress LAW Loyalist Association of Workers LCAI Labour Committee Against Internment LCI Labour Committee on Ireland MRF Military Reconnaissance Force MUFTI Minimum Use of Force Tactical Intervention NCCL National Council for Civil Liberties NIC/ICTU Northern Ireland Committee – Irish Congress of Trade Unions NICRA Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association 7 NILP Northern Ireland Labour Party NUPE National Union of Public Employees NUR National Union of Railwaymen OUP Official Unionist Party PTA Prevention of Terrorism Act PAC Prisoners Aid Committee PAF Protestant Action Force RAC Relatives Action Committee RCG Revolutionary Communist Group RTE Radio Telefis Eireann RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary SAS Special Air Services SDF Social Democratic Federation SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party SLP Socialist Labour Party SNHDC Stoke Newington and Hackney Defence Campaign SWP Socialist Workers Party TOM Troops Out Movement TUCAR Trade Union Campaign Against Repression UDA Ulster Defence Association UDR Ulster Defence Regiment UUAC United Unionist Action Council UUUC United Ulster Unionist Council UVF Ulster Volunteer Force UWC Ulster Workers Council WRP Workers Revolutionary Party (Britain) 8 PREFACE In November 1980 Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! printed the first article of what was intended to be a series of three articles on the Irish question. The series, under the title ‘The Communist Tradition on Ireland’, was in fact to run to seventeen issues and was completed in November 1982. That series constitutes the bulk of this book. It has been edited and slightly reordered, small additions and corrections have been made and a postscript was added in November 1983. The political argument and material in the book has not been significantly changed from the articles. The articles were written because of the urgent need to mobilise British people in support of the Irish prisoners’ struggle for political status. The first article, ‘Marx and Engels on Ireland’, appeared very soon after the first hunger strike had begun. The introduction to that article made the political standpoint of the series very clear: ‘Today with the hunger strike in the H-Blocks, the need to understand and act upon the revolutionary significance of the Irish war is more urgent than ever. ‘The communist tradition on Ireland holds a wealth of theoretical, political and tactical lessons for us today. For communists the question of Irish self- determination stands at the heart of the- British revolution. This is as true today as it was when Marx first stated it over a hundred years ago. Now as then, Irish liberation is the precondition for the British revolution. Communists, as these articles will show, have always stood for the fullest freedom for the Irish people and have waged a determined struggle against those opportunists in the working class movement who have repeatedly betrayed that struggle.’ 9 The series of articles grew in length precisely because of the lessons the history of the Irish people’s struggle for freedom contained and offered to those prepared to study it in any detail. Deeper study had, after all, forced Marx and Engels to reverse their earlier standpoint on the relation between the Irish and British revolution. And if, as Marx and Engels argued, the Irish revolution stands at the heart of the British revolution, then undoubtedly its history from their time until today would be full of vital lessons for any developing revolutionary movement in Britain. As the history of each period was examined in turn, it established a number of important political conclusions. Firstly, that British imperialism cannot play a progressive role in Ireland. Secondly, that the failure of the British working class to make ‘common cause’ with the Irish people’s struggle for freedom has undermined the struggle for socialism in both Britain and Ireland, and significantly strengthened reaction in Britain itself. Finally, that any developing revolutionary movement in Britain has a great deal of a theoretical, political and tactical character to learn from the Irish people’s struggle for freedom. Ireland: the key to the British revolution examines the history of the Irish people’s struggle for freedom from the late 1840s to the present day. Basing itself on the theoretical and practical activity of Marx and Engels on the Irish question, it examines this history in the context of the struggle for socialism, and establishes that Ireland is the key to the British revolution. It shows how Lenin further developed the position laid down by Marx and Engels in the concrete context of imperialism as a worldwide system. As a result of this understanding Lenin was one of the few socialists who grasped the revolutionary significance of the Easter Rising and Connolly’s role in it. 10 The lessons drawn by Marx, Engels, Connolly, Lenin and the Communist International from the Fenian Movement, the Dublin lock out, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War and the partitioning of Ireland are used as the basis for a detailed analysis of the latest period of the Irish national revolution: 1969– 1983.