National liberation strategy to get together in a "Republican Congress" (4) or some structure such as that and put such a coalition forward as an immediate alternative in the struggle for the leadership of the Irish working class.
in the Irish elections
Q. What does a "Republican congress structure" mean exactly?
A. I think that it is still a bit too early to say. But one very interesting thing has happened recently. That is, John Mitehell, the general secretary of the retail clerks union IDATU [Irish Distributive
The following interview was given to Gerry Foley in Belfast just before the May 15 local elections in
Northern Ireland by John McAnulty, a leader of People's Democracy (PD), Irish section of the Fourth International and a member of the Belfast City Council at the time. It deals with the questions of strategy posed by the series of local elections that ended with the Southern Irish local elections on June 20. On the results of the PD campaign in the South, see back page.
Question. The mass movement in support of the Republican prisoners in
H-Blocks in 1980 and 1981 shook up the pattern of Irish politics quite violently.
Here in the North, it turned the situation upside down, with the revolutionary nationalists winning over 40% of the vote of the oppressed population. In 1980, one of the first indications of the possibilities were the local elections, in which you, along with another PD candidate,
Fergus O'Hare defeated the politicians who had tried to justify their opposition to the struggle of the oppressed population in the name of socialism and class unity. Now new local elections are coming up, both in the North and the
South, only about a month apart. How much progress has been made in the past five years toward building a mass alternative for the exploited and oppressed, both North and South?
Well, we have reached a stage where the question of where from here is more and more acutely posed. We need a whole new strategy the national movement. We have got a massive Sinn Fein vote in the
North. In the South, it's much smaller but growing. We have very widespread for republicanism and national independence. And now in the
North in particular, we are getting the response from the imperialists and their allies. We have new laws aimed at the rights of political organizations, laws that could make elections a farce by disenfranchising up to about a third of the
At the same time, Sinn Fein have these local elections, aiming essentially to consolidate their support.
also been some internal debate about the military struggle. That shows there is a great deal of searching to be done in order to meet the challenge of all these attacks, which are coming against background of growing crisis. The anti- imperialist movement has to organise and lead a fight back.
Q. So, what proposals about strategy
16 are you trying to put forward in these question quite a while ago. In fact, what we are proposing is an extension of the fight we have been waging in defense of democratic rights. We fought a long campaign against attempts to exclude ourselves and Sinn Fein from the Council. Outside the council, we tried to organize campaign against these attacks democratic rights, and we also held a series of discussions with other anti-imperialists about the whole question of strategy and a united fight back
Unfortunately, moved too quickly. for us to have any chance to get a united-front structure in this election. The best that we were able to do was to reach a fraternal understanding with Sinn Fein, whereby they would call on their supporters to give us their transfers (2) where we are running. We will also call for transfers to them and a straight vote for Sinn Fein where we are not running.
Q. Do you have any specific proposals for the Southern local elections?
We would like to see a common slate of anti-imperialist candidates based on a platform independence, and socialism. Unfortunately, we do not have the time now to make much progress on that either. So, our intervention there will be similar to what we are doing here. We'll stand a candidate or two of our own, and we'll work in Sinn Fein campaigns.
Q. What are you looking forward to in the next parliamentary elections in the South, which aren't terribly far
I think that there are two key issues. One is the collapse of the Southern Labour Party, and the other is the New Ireland Forum. (3) I don't think that it
Sinn Fein to go forward class alternative. But it could possible for Democracy, and working-class campaigns and Administrative Trade Union] took the initiative in organizing the Trade Unions for Irish Unity and Independence. He's going to raise the question of independent working-class political representation. So, it is clear that a current exists that could play an important role in restructuring the working-class struggle. It is also clear that the left in Sinn is taking a strong interest in this development.
Q. But precisely what sort of unity are you looking for in the elections?
It was the experience of the mass struggle in the H-Block campaign that gave impetus to the search for unity and attempts to offer an alternative in elections. What we need is a new round of mass struggle to consolidate extend these changes. But the impulse for that is not very likely to directly, because they have always taken pragmatic attitude to mass
We think that we can make progress toward anti-imperialist unity, including in the elections, by continuing propaganda on this question, and by taking of the opportunities for discussions with Republicans that do exist, and by helping them to link up with specific working class struggles. We are building up a basis.
Q. But how do you propose to focus this in the elections?
A. I think that the issue may be an alternative to the New Ireland Forum. I think that we need at the very least a common program that links the economic exploitation of the workers with the political domination of the country by Britain, that takes all the economic
The new laws require iron-clad personnel identification of the sort that young, and the oppressed often do not have. systems, voters can cast preferences in for more candidates than the number of seats candidates in higher order of preference are elected or eliminated. of the national question in Ireland promoted by the incumbent Dublin government.
An attempt to form a united front of the social front of social action around the Republican movement.
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985
arguments of the New Ireland Forum and turns them on their head, that says that the only way to a better life for Irish workers is the freedom of the country and control of the economy by the working people.
Q. How do you see the link between the struggle against national oppression as it exists in the North and as it exists in the South?
A. Just recently, The British authorities have announced that they won't be building a pipeline to bring gas from the South. The implication of that is that there isn't going to be any infrastructure, there isn't going to be any industry around local structures or linked
What we are going to see in the North will be the growth of a giant pool of establish us as a sort of a Hong Kong of Europe. That has big implications for workers both North and South, and also for the British working class. A lot of experimenting is going on now about how to resist this.
have to intervene in these
There is a sort of seizzors crisis in the Irish workers movement. Political conscinationalist workers with experience in the republican struggle. But it is in the North that the weight of the economic crisis has fallen most heavily. The social workers is much greater, but their political consciousness is not so developed. It is going to be quite a battle to bring these two things together. But I think direct personal intervention by Northern workers in the South will help, as it did during the H-Block campaign.
Q. It is also true now that a significant proportion of workers in the South are nationalists from the North.
Yes. And in a number of areas Northerners have taken the lead because of their political consciousness and experience.
Q. What about the attempts John Mitchell's union to organize workers
I think they can organize in the North, but I think it will be a rather slow process. But there is a more general contribution they can make. A lot of the campaigns that are going on cannot traditional trade-union methods. One of the strengths of IDATU in the South is that they have been willing to turn to political groups for help and they have been willing to go to the community for support. That is a lesson that has yet to be applied in the North. It could have a dramatic effect here.
Take the strike just recently at the
Victoria Hospital, employer in West Belfast, the nationalist International Viewpoint 15 July 1985 area. The local "supporters of the British Militant group are active in it. They are trying to use the traditional strike methods. But the struggle needs an enormous among of community and political support, and it's the republicans and socialists who understand best how to accomplish that.
Q. What about the organization of youth? You could see the beginnings of a youth movement in the H-Block
The youth most active in the H-Block campaign joined Sinn Fein. But the traditional Republican youth organization, the Fianna, political form of organization. It was in fact largely disbanded during the Hcampaign. separate youth movement. What the youth then did was throw themselves into the big electoral battles. But these were too widely spaced out, and a lot of them fell into inactivity.
The youth radicalization is still there but it is scattered. There are no structures for nationalist youth specifically. There is a big cultural movement around the Irish language, which some people only PD that is raising the question of an independent youth organization.
There is also a specific youth problem. There has been a sort of political collapse among the most demoralized youth that has led to a kind of nihilistic move-
"The Hoods." terrorizing the nationalist neighborhoods.
Q. That is precisely the thing that the rise of youth organization in the H-Block committees stopped. There have been stories that the Republicans are resorting to punishment shootings now to
A. That's another debate shows the tensions in the Republican movement. Gerry Adams [the top leader of Sinn Fein] condemned punishment shootings and pledged that the movement would not use them. And then, right after that and on the eve of an election, a guy identifed as a criminal element was shot dead. That provoked a furious actually organized hunger strikes outside the Sinn Fein offices. The whole thing cut across the valuable work that Sinn were actually doing. In Lenadoon area, they had set up a very significant committee. They were trying to do things to improve the area and at the same time to identify and oppose the criminal elements. When the IRA resorted to punishment ignoring the broad democratic committee that existed, it cut the ground out from under them..
This is a specific case of the general problem that Sinn Fein by itself can't represent the whole movement. So, when they try to use the Republican structure against the Hoods, they fail because they don't have the political authority.
Q. Do you see the Republican movement continuing to evolve toward mass revolutionary forms of organization?
A. They have not yet resolved their main contradiction and as they try to use more political methods, they get caught tighter and tighter in it. One of the lessons the Republican movement took from the H-Block campaign was an understanding of the gains that could be made by participating in elections.
But that had to be squared with their
Danny Morrison's formula of the armalite and the ballot box was an attempt to do that. What this seems to have meant originally was that election campaigns involved more people and that was good in itself, but it also meant more support for the military campaign and therefore more activity by the military wing.
In practice, it hasn't worked that way
The British and Southern governm reacted to the Sinn Fein election successe by stepping up their pressure and maki their repression more selective. As they get a clearer intelligence military organization, they are hit it harder. It becomes more and mon difficult to carry out an extended mill tary campaign. That leads to all sorts of contradictions. It leads to discontent among the fighters, who feel that the enough support. It question of what are going to do with your mass support. You can't transform them all into soldiers.
It seems to me that what has bees missing from Sinn Fein's concept is th understanding of mass struggle, the idea that once people vote for you, you can move on to encourage them to organize and make them a real force. That hasn't happened. That also guide people politically without directly controlling them, and being able to find programmatic bases for unity broader than your own organization. The Republicans still seem far from that. It is impossible to say how quickly they will progress on
The new left leadership is anxious to maintain the unity of the movement. And that is very responsible, because a lot of the differences that exist are the result of a lack of political developwhich can be overcome discussion. The problem is that this
La sort of consensus politics that makes it difficult to clarify lessons. Also, they and we, do not have unlimited time. So I expect that the political initiatives will continue to come outside the Republican movement, as they generally have in the past.