"The revolutionary
International Viewpoint 8 December 1986
IRELAND
Ard-Fheis will address itself to the question of abstentionism.
You will be asked to consider and support a motion from the Ard Chomhairle, [national committee] and from cumainn [branches] and comhairli ceantair [district committees] throughout Ireland, calling for a reconquest of Ireland"
change in our abstentionist attitude to Leinster House.
Before addressing this issue directly, I would like to take this opportunity to address myself to the debate and to the mood and conditions in which I think it should be conducted.
THE CONGRESS of the Irish republican political organization Sinn
Fein, on November 1-2 marked a watershed in the history of the traditional revolutionary movement. In our last issue, we published an initial assessment of the meaning of the decision to participate in parliamentary politics in the formally independent part of the country.
Below we are publishing major excerpts of the keynote speech at the congress (Ard-Fheis) by Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.
The speech illustrates the process by which the republican leadership came to its decision and the arguments it used to convince the majority of the movement. It tells quite a lot about the republican movement and about a leadership that is now trying to give this movement a more developed program. It also helps to explain how this leadership has been able to carry through a fundamental change without yet suffering a major split. (There has indeed been a split which is not insignificant, but whether or not it will become a real challenge remains to be seen. That will probably depend to a large extent on how effectively the Sinn Fein leadership applies its new approach. For the moment it holds the high ground.)
For all these reasons, we have decided to publish the bulk of Gerry
Adam's presidential address. There are many historical references, which are explained when they are important to the political points he is making. It should be pointed out at the start, however, that when he says he rejected a "dual power" approach, that refers to schemes for building up parallel governments now as a substitute for participating in parliamentary politics. He says that in 1918, when a rebel parli ament was set up, there was a genuine dual power situation.
One thing has to be said and said loudly so that the whole world can hear. We are still around.
Despite all the best efforts of the governments,
Dublin
British and despite all the bluster of Fine Gael or representatives, the their Northern party], bourgeois
SDLP
[Catholic despite the bullies of the DUP [Demo-
Fein
Unionist Party],
Sinn cratic
Ta muid ann has not gone away.
ann go mbeidh agus fanfaigh muid bua again. [We are here and will remain until victory is ours.]
The IRA is also still around. The
Oglaigh
Volunteer soldiers of na hEireann, now 17 years in the field, have demonstrated, time and again in the past 12 months, that they are unbeaten and unbroken. Their tenacity, in the face of a numerically stronger and much better equipped enemy, has become a legend among
20 freedom-loving people throughout the world.
It is no accident when Conor Cruise O'Brien [a consistent advocate of Irish national surrender to British imperialism ] was quite properly chased ignominiously out of South Africa by they chanted: "Victory to the IRA!" We share their contempt for Dr.
Brien and we also share their solidarity in our common struggles. We extend that solidarity liberation armies throughout the world. We especially extend that solidarity to the men and women Volunteers of Oglaigh na hEireann.
The struggle for the past 12 months has been carried at a great cost by republican activists.
One of the most important debates so far in this phase of our struggle will take place tomorrow when the
Of course, I cannot force these conditions upon anyone. When delegates address the Ard-Fheis they are free to do so in whatever way they choose, but I appeal to you all, regardless of what view you hold on this issue, to remember that we are comrades in struggle and should conduct ourselves accordingly.
We are a political organization and political organizations must, by their very nature, discuss and debate issues which they consider pertinent. We cannot do so properly unless all sides of the argument are articulated, unless all sides are accorded equal respect and consideration and unless all are bound by the democratic wishes of their comrades. The Ard-Fheis is the supreme authority in Sinn Fein -not the Ard Chomhairle, not the Coiste Seasta [Executive], not the president. The assembled delegates of an Ard-Fheis are the authority. You are the leadership. And whatever you decide on this issue, as on any other issue, is binding on us all. None of us can predict or anticipate tomorrow's vote; none of us, on our own, can decide which way this party is going to vote, but each of us can decide as individuals what we are going to do when the vote is counted. And we can make that decision today.
Many republicans have deep and justifiably strong feelings about abstentionism. I share and understand those feelings. But none of us, regardless of the strength of our views, has the right to present the establishment and our opponents with the opportunity -to project internationally the spectacle of yet another republican "split". Indeed, we have a duty to deny them such an opportunity. This struggle is bigger than all of us and it demands of us, as a basic requirement of our involvement, that we develop the ability and maturity to agree to disagree, even on fundamentals, and to unite in the great struggle for the reconquest of our country.
Unity is strength. Not a conditional unity or a qualified unity but a total commitment to a unified acceptance of the democratic mandate of this
Ard-Fheis.
International Viewpoint 8 December 1986
I can understand that some comrades view a change of the tionist policy as a betrayal of republican principles. Some of you may feel that a republican organization making such a change can no longer call itself "republican". If there are delegates here who that another republican organization has already done what you fear we are going to do tomorrow. I would remind you that the Army Authority of Oglaigh na hEireann [the IRA],
Army Convention, democratically that Oglaigh remained united in its struggle and is united in fidence in us and our ability to pursue "To leave Sinn Fein is to leave the struggle
The decisions of a General Army Convention are not binding on Sinn Fein Ard-Fheiseanna, but the logic of those who would consider withdrawing from Sinn Fein if we change the abstentionist policy must be applied also to your attitude to the Army. And the logic which would dictate withdrawal of support from Sinn Fein if decisions go against you means that you have already decided to withdraw solidarity from the IRA and the armed struggle. It means that you have decided to stop supporting captured republicans incarcerated in British or Free State prisons or in prisons in Europe and the USA. I do not believe that any republican could take such a decision and then attend this Ard-Fheis.
There is going to be no split in Sinn Fein on this or any other issue.
comrades may decide leave us. Perhaps they have already decided to do so. If this is so it is something I deeply regret. spoken privately to some of the main abstentionism Leinster House [the Irish Parliament] and I am firmly convinced that anyone who leaves us over this issue will regret their decision in the years
To leave Sinn Fein is to leave the struggle. The spectre of a "split" is being raised to panic and intimidate us. It is aimed at unnerving people who want to remove abstentionism but who don't want the price for this to be a split. Talk or speculation about the split is aimed at making people draw back.
This leadership is not going to be blackmailed by any such speculation. We have been elected by you leadership and we will not leading and uniting this party.
In the course of a debate, one may, one's opinions, but it is the quality of the debate and not the vote which has that effect. The question is wider than one of principle or tactic and it is not unique to Ireland nor postpartition Ireland.
It is a question of whether a struggle such as ours can be advanced by opening up another front in a parliathe establishment which oppresses us and the interests we seek to reprent. As such, this question of electoralism as a means of revolutionary struggle has all struggles in areas where parliaments with universal suffrage exist. As with all such questions, the answer lies in people's attitude to those institutions.
Our experience has taught us that our struggle - and this affects every liberation - cannot be built merely on the republican perception of things. We have had to consistently pitch our struggle at the level of people's understanding and we have had to develop it from this common denominator, taking into account, in an objective way, all the forces and factors involved.
It would be much easier, of course, if all the Irish people, or a large section of them, were born with our perception and our view of things, but this is not the case. If it was, there would be little need for a republican struggle. But there is such a need and if we want to win then there is a fundamental need to make it a people's struggle. Of course, if we have no concept of winning we can remain as we are - a party apart from the people, proud of our past but with little involvement in the present and only dreams for the future.
If this is so, it is easy to ignore this problem or to let our own republican view of things blind us to realities. If nothing else, republicans must be realistic, especially about people's
Gerry Adams (DR)
perception (as opposed to our perception) of things. In the 6 Counties, in regards to Stormont or Westminter, a sizeable section of nationalists and republicans feel no affinity with those institutions. In the 26 Counties, it is different. It is a massive mistake to presume that our republican attitude to Leinster House is shared by any more than a very small section of our people, especially the citizens of this state, who might otherwise be open to our policies on all other issues. It must also be clear that the reconquest of Ireland, much less a British withdrawal, cannot be completed without the support of more of these people.
Of course we have a duty to point out to these people the shortcomings and the history of the present system, and we have a duty to win them to our view, but we can only do so at their level of understanding and can only proceed objective reality of their conscious-
We should not reject participation out of hand, but we should always be aware that such rejection may become essential. It all depends on the objective reality and conditions
1918 was such a time. The strategy of 1918 was the correct one. It was a dual power situation. It was much more than merely refusing to attend withholding our consent to be governed by the British when the people -not us, but the people - established an alternative Dail Eireann. (1) But even then republicans made a mistake. To a large degree many of those politicians who represented us in Dail Eireann were not republicans. They did not reflect the interests of the mass of people and they certainly did not represent the interests of the people doing the actual fighting. Thus a majority of them found it the Treaty arrangement. (2)
reason they imthe Treaty with a terrible animal savagery, great cruelty British partition of Ireland upon this Free State and, within a modernised
In 1918, Sinn Fein elected the majority of Irish members of parliament. They then withdrew from the London parliament and proclaimed an independent Irish legislative, the Dail Eiream, under whose formal authority the war of independence was fought.
2. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which accepted partition and association with Britain. It led to a civil war in which the intransigent nationalists, the ancestors of the modern republican movement, were defeated.
21
International Viewpoint 8 December 1986 neo-colonial arrangement, they continue to represent those interests which crucify the Irish people.
At that time, many republicans refused to co-operate in any way with new Free State set-up. At that time, unlike today, abstentionism meant the withholding of all consent to be governed by the new state. As in 1918, this meant much more than merely abstaining from taking their seats.
It meant refusing to co-operate in any way with the new state. It meant a refusal to recognize any aspect of the Free State, its courts (in both civil and political cases), its education system, its labour and agricultural schemes, limited though they were, or even its postal system. But unlike 1918, no political alternative existed during the Treaty period and Liam Mellows' Notes from Mountjoy, which pointed in a clear [left] political direction, was never implemented. By the time the "soldiers of the rearguard" dumped their weapons — not in surrender but in exhaustion and in weary anticipation of another round of hostilities - the offensive was with the Free State. Armed struggle had been the only manifestation of republican resistance. Once that armed struggle ceased as it had to, there was no other form of organized resistance relevant to the needs of ordinary people.
In 1924, Sinn Fein fought its last meaningful election on an abstentionist policy in the Free State. Given the destabilising effect that abstentionism had on a young Free State, plus the widespread though mistaken belief that partition would not last, and coupled with the support that we continued to enjoy despite the vicious cruelty of the civil war counter-revolution, it can be argued that abstentionism was the correct approach at that time. If so, the emergence of Fianna Fail [the more nationalist of the two bourgeois parties], and its subsequent electoral successes with republican support, marked the end of abstentionism as a viable policy in this state. The coercive policies of the Fianna Fail leadership in government are a matter of historical record.
The IRA leadership and a depleted Sinn Fein organization remained on the high ground of abstentionism but yet, at the same time, they were prepared to give at least passive support to another party which was not only prepared to attend Leinster House but was committed to becoming part of the partitionist system. They failed to present the people with any realistic political alternative.
I have talked and listened to men and women who have fought for the Republic since 1914 to the present 22 day. In the last 20 years, in all parts country, I have enjoyed the hospitality of republican households which sheltered the Countess Markieviez, James Connolly, Liam Mellows, Joe McKelvey, George Plant, Frank Ryan, Charlie Kerins, Sean McGaughey, Tom Smith and many others.
I have spoken at monuments to the heroic victims of Free Stateism knelt in prayer at lonely graves in Kerry and Donegal. I know many of those invincibles who spent years in Free State dungeons not just in the '20s, "30s, '40s and the "70s and '80s. Some of them are present here today.
I share their abhorrence colonialism and their detestation of those who govern this part of Ireland in the interests of imperialism. My family were opposed to the Treaty and the Partition Act. Like many Northern republicans, they suffered for their beliefs at that time, not only the 6 Counties but in later years in the glasshouse of the Curragh Concentration Camp and other Free State prisons. "Fundamental need for republican politics"
They witnessed the rise of Clann na Poblachta, [the Republican Party], received republican support when many republicans again made the mistake of leaving the "politics" Sometimes I ask myself if we
The central issue is not abstentionism. It is merely a problematic, deeply-rooted and emotive symptom of the lack of republican poligenerations of republicans to grasp the centrality, the primacy and the fundamental need for republican politics. This truth must be grasped. It is one for many to accept given the conspiratorial and repressive nature of our past, our distrust for "politics and politicans" and a belief that "polities" is inherently corrupt. But once it is grasped then everything else follows logically, especially the need to develop our struggle at the level of people's understanding. peared dogmatic on the question leaderships and generations of republicans have at least passively, and in many cases actively, supported other political organizations campaigns. This is certainly the case with Fianna Fail in the Free State general election of 1932, later with Clann na Poblachta, and in our own time with the late Frank Maguire,
Frank McManus and Bernadette McAliskey and - although some of them will deny it now — it was also the case with Gerry Fitt, Paddy Devlin and Paddy Kennedy. (3) They would not have been so successful on their entry into polities without republican support and in some of the above cases I was witness to, and in most cases opposed to, that support or at least to a "standing aside" being agreed.
Some republicans believe that politics is the property of the establishment, that so-called "constitu-
In" and politics are the same thus that politics are inherently corrupt and corrupting. The logic of this is that de Valera [the of Fianna Fail] was okay went into Leinster House, or that the opportunism of the Clann na Poblachta leadership only occurred after their entry into the Free State parliament. If we still believe that then we don't know our own history have little concept of the class nature of this struggle.
The great and most recent example of the corrupting nature of "politics" which is often quoted by some of our membership is the Sticks. (4) Indeed, in the past few weeks some republicans who should know better have actually referred to some people on this platform as Stickies. Oh ye of little faith! Of course, it is easy to hurl abuse - sticks and stone may break our bones - it makes headlines in the media but it also makes this more difficult to resolve. To compare us with the Stickies is an obscenity. To talk of "only the personalities being changed" and of believing that the British can be talked out of Ireland"
It is a sign of the maturity of this from publicly answering these remarks and it is a sign of our comradeship that we forgive those who made such
For anyone who has eyes to see, it is clear that the Sticky leadership had abandoned armed struggle as a form of resistance to British rule as part of their historic new departure into British and Free State constituionality. Any vestige of armed struggle that continued after this decision was localised and mainly initiative of elements which later
Fitt, Delin and Kennedy were originally "Republican Labour" politicians who came to collaborate with the British establishment in the name of "working-class" material interests.
4. The ex-Official Republicans, now the "Workers Party. They were called "stickies" because they introduced stickon badges. They followed the same route to pro-imperialism as Fitt and Devlin, but combined this right-wing workerism with virulent Stalinist sectarianism.
International Viewpoint 8 December 1986 formed the now almost defunet
LET INLA. (5)
and 085'Y most important task facing us at present. While consolidating our base in the 6 Counties, we must develop a popular struggle here in Counties to complement the struggle
6-County area. Of necessity this means, in order to advance at the level of people's consciousness, the abstentionism in regard to Leinster House. You may not do this tomorrow but one thing is certain: as Sinn Fein continues to devunderstanding of the needs of this struggle, you are going to do it, sooner rather than later and your leadership is going to be back here year after year until it has convinced you of this necessity.
But no generation of republicans could or should ever merely absorb the teachings of previous generations. Those who were successful in the past in advancing the republican cause, even by one inch, updated and modernized the teaching and experience of their predecessors. This is what Connolly did - and it is what we
We have to develop a coherent social and political philosophy which provides a rationale for consistent political as well as armed action. Such a process is one of continual reinterpretation response to constantly changing social and political reality.
Mar a deirtear i nGaeilg 'An te nach bhiuil laidir ni folair a bheith glic'. [As we say in Irish, "those who are not strong must be clever."]
We have at all times been more committed to rebellion than to revolution. The cement together until recent times, physical force was applied in isolation, unsupported by organized political sentiment in the country. "The development of strategies which can succeed"
years I have, sideration to question of abthe alternatives in great depth sidered the things, an that cal policies, ( our organizafaced up to by us. upon all of us.
I say estimated. tailed in other addresses, will initiate an increase in our party membership and could change the political complexion of this party. It is important therefore that those who wish to change abstentionism recommit themselves to republican struggle must our
We are a republican party for self-determinastruggle tion, of
British
Ireland and rule to the political and bringing to for the economic necessary of well-being and security this nation.
seats.
gains as
Irish
National Liberation
Army,
5.
1975 by a section of the offounded in ficial republican movement that opposed rightwing course taken by a majority the of the leadership.
23
International Viewpoint 8 December 1986 dence struggle in the particular circumstances currently existing.
Republican TDs [Teachtai Dala, members of parliament] will act, in consultation with the grassroots, on the direction of the Ard Chomhairle. They will vote in the interests of their constituents, our struggle and this party. I am totally opposed to this party becoming involved in any coalition, at any time, with any of the establishment parties in Leinster House. If we, at times, agree on specifics or if we vote along similar lines, that is fair enough and is acceptable. "Anti-people policies of successive Dublin governments"
The failure to build a republican base in this state has meant that the anti-people policies of successive Dublin governments are implemented with almost no opposition and that the lowering of national spirit and the pretence that this state is a nation goes on unabated. Partition is virtually a fact of life here for many people who feel powerless.
In this, the 70th anniversary year
Proclamation, 23 per cent of our people employed in the 6 Counties. In the 232,448 people unemployed. 74,000 of these are under 25 years of age. The official figures nationally amount to almost 400,000 people suffering the misery and poverty unemployment - a massive indictment of British rule in the 6 Counties and neo-colonial rule in the 26 Coun-
Not only is the Dublin government exporting the human wealth of our greatest national resource - our youth - it is also exporting our material wealth. In the past 12 months, the wealthy ruling class, in an overwhelming vote of no confidence, has shifted more than £1.5 billion out of this state.
Michael Noonan recently boasted that Dublin has a pro-business government and a pro-business opposition and that not many other countries could say the same. Most other governments would be ashamed to make such a boast. Mr Noonan, like his cronies, is not renowned for his sense of national pride.
He and his cronies are place seekers, shoneens and yes people who have neither the virtue, the sense, nor the ability to govern us. In every sphere they have failed to provide leadership to our people and they have the gall to boast about it.
They continue to foist the dictats 24 of the EEC upon us while the agricultural sector, like other sectors of the economy, is belatedly beginning to view EEC membership as damaging They sign the Single European Act -due to go to Leinster House before Christmas - and signal the greatest single retreat from sovereignty ever made by the 26-County state.
This Act effectively binds Dublin a NATO view of international affairs.
It is no surprise that the Coalition has been reluctant to call for the closure of Sellafield. It produces the plutonium for Trident missiles and the new EEC treaty commits Dublin to "maintain the technological and industrial conditions"
Sinn Fein demands the closure of Sellafield and a complete end to the dumping of radioactive waste in the Irish sea. We indict the Dublin government for its refusal to halt this infringement upon the basic rights of this
We also indict Garret FitzGerald for the mess he made of the divorce referendum. His performance in that campaign was vintage FitzGerald: bumbling, no sense of timing absolutely amateurish. He proves that the only thing that is worse than a wishy-washy pseudo-liberal is an incompetent wishy-washy pseudo-liberal.
and historie example of Dublin subservience to lies, of course, in the Hillsborough Treaty the Anglo-Irish Accord]. A year ago this month, the news was dominated by this event. Everything was to change: nationalists nightmare was over, we had a framework through which nationalist aliena-
Instead of peace restrict the meaning of the word "peace" to absence of violence - this experiment has, so far at any rate, exploded in the face of its proponents, who range from the political gurriers in the Dublin establishment to their Northrepresentatives in the SDLP leadership, to lukewarm British godfathers whose support for and understanding of the Treaty is how far it their interests. confrontation with the loyalists, designed to split the loyalists and create a pragmatic leadership which would be bold enough to do an internal deal with the SDLP, has temporarily subsided for a number
At our Ard-Fheis last year, before Hillsborough, I warned about a violent loyalist reaction and I pointed out that such a reaction was needed, and indeed that it would be deliberately provoked by Dublin and the SDLP, in order to exaggerate the substance of the Treaty as far as concessions were concerned and also to camouflage its pro-British bias.
Hillsborough Treaty, mediocre agreement by Dublin to assist Britain to govern part of Ireland as a British colony, is not designed to redress the historic injustices petrated against the Irish people. It has not been worth the loyalist reaction it has provoked. There is ample evidence to link the resumed loyalist sectarian assassination campaign with Hillsborough and there responsibility on the likes of [SDLP leader] John Hume, who has said that a united Ireland is not worth the loss of one life, to explain to the nationand why they are being evicted from Treaty. Is the political survival of the really worth it? survival justify the renewed pogroms "Stop spending millions on maintaining Britain's border"
Mr Haughey says that he is going to renegotiate the Hillsborough Treaty. He needs reminding that no Irish person has the authority to negotiate or renegotiate any treaty about any the British government while that government claims jurisdiction over any part of Irish national territory. While they continue to do this, Irish people, and Irish political leaders, are duty-bound not to help Britain to maintain partitionist status quo. This means that if Mr Haughey is serious he will stop spending millions of Irish maintaining Britain's border. In this regard we pay more than the British themselves. It means that he would stop
Irish citizens into the hands of the British. It means that he would send the British ambassador home and recall the Irish ambassador from London.
Sinn Fein is the only party in this country which is totally committed to securing a complete British withdrawal from Ireland. It is only a matter of time until we assist the government in taking this inevitable course of action which will be hastened by the actions of 0glaigh na hEireann, [the IRA] the spearhead of republican resistance in Ireland. It is only a matter of time until the British are forced to get out of our country. And when they do, then, and only then, will the basis for peace, unity, prosperity and democracy be established in our country. •