SOCIALISM
AND IRISH
NATIONALISM
The public life of Ireland
has been generally so much identified with the struggle for political
emancipation, that, naturally, the economic side of the situation has
only
received from our historians and public men a very small amount of
attention.
Scientific Socialism
is based
upon the truth incorporated in this proposition of Karl Marx, that,
`the
economic dependence of the workers on the monopolists of the means of
production is the foundation of slavery in all its forms, the
cause of
nearly all social misery, modern crime, mental degradation and
political
dependence'. Thus this false exaggeration of purely political forms
which has
clothed in Ireland the struggle for liberty, must appear to the
Socialist an
inexplicable error on the part of a people so strongly crushed down as
the
Irish.
But the error is more
in
appearance than in reality.
The reactionary
attitude of our
political leaders notwithstanding, the great mass of the Irish
people
know full well that if they had once conquered that political liberty
which
they struggle for with so much ardour, it would have to be used as a
means of
social redemption before their well-being would be assured.
In spite of occasional
exaggeration of its immediate results one must remember that by
striving
determinedly, as they have done, towards this definite political end,
the Irish
are working on the lines of conduct laid down by modern Socialism as
the
indispensable condition of success.
Since the abandonment
of the
unfortunate insurrectionism of the early Socialists whose hopes were
exclusively concentrated on the eventual triumph of an uprising and
barricade
struggle, modern Socialism, relying on the slower, but surer method of
the
ballot-box, has directed the attention of its partisans toward the
peaceful
conquest of the forces of Government in the interests of the
revolutionary
ideal.
The advent of
Socialism can only
take place when the revolutionary proletariat, in possession of
the
organised forces of the nation (the political power of government) will
be able
to build up a social organisation in conformity with the natural march
of
industrial development.
On the other hand,
non-political
co-operative effort must infallibly succumb in face of the opposition
of the
privileged classes, entrenched behind the ramparts of law and monopoly.
This is
why, even when he is from the economic point of view intensely
conservative,
the Irish Nationalist, even with his false reasoning, is an active
agent in
social regeneration, in so far as he seeks to invest with full power
over its
own destinies a people actually governed in the interests of a feudal
aristocracy.
The section of the
Socialist
army to which I belong, the Irish Socialist Republican Party, never
seeks to
hide its hostility to those purely bourgeois parties which at present
direct
Irish politics.
But, in inscribing on
our
banners an ideal to which they also give lip-homage, we have no
intention of
joining in a movement which could debase the banner of revolutionary
Socialism.
The Socialist parties
of France
oppose the mere Republicans without ceasing to love the Republic. In
the same
way the Irish Socialist Republican Party seeks the independence of the
nation,
whilst refusing to conform to the methods or to employ the arguments of
the
chauvinist Nationalist.
As Socialists we are
not imbued
with national or racial hatred by the remembrance that the political
and social
order under which we live was imposed on our fathers at the point of
the sword;
that during 700 years Ireland has resisted this unjust foreign
domination; that
famine, pestilence and bad government have made of this western isle
almost a
desert and scattered our exiled fellow-countrymen over the whole face
of the
globe.
The enunciation of
facts such as
I have just stated is not able to-day to inspire or to direct the
political
energies of the militant working-class of Ireland;
such is not the foundation of our resolve to free Ireland
from the yoke of the British
Empire. We recognise rather that
during all these centuries the great mass
of the British people had no political existence whatever; that England
was,
politically and socially, terrorised by a numerically small governing
class;
that the atrocities which have been perpetrated against Ireland are
only
imputable to the unscrupulous ambition of this class, greedy to enrich
itself
at the expense of defenceless men; that up to the present generation
the great
majority of the English people were denied a deliberate voice in the
government
of their own country; that it is, therefore, manifestly unjust to
charge the
English people with the past crimes of their Government; and that at
the worst
we can but charge them with a criminal apathy in submitting to slavery
and
allowing themselves to be made an instrument of coercion for the
enslavement of
others. An accusation as applicable to the present as to the past.
We are told that the
English
people contributed their help to our enslavement. It is true. It is
also true
that the Irish people duly contributed soldiers to crush every
democratic
movement of the English people from the deportation of Irish soldiers
to serve
the cause of political despotism under Charles I to the days of
Featherstone
under Asquith. Slaves themselves, the English helped to enslave others;
slaves
themselves, the Irish people helped to enslave others. There is no room
for
recrimination. We are only concerned with the fact---daily becoming
more
obvious---that the English workers who have reached the moral stature
of rebels
are now willing to assist the working-class rebels of Ireland, and that
those
Irish rebels will in their turn help the rebels of England to break
their
chains and attain the dignity of freedom. There is still a majority of
slaves
in England---there is still a majority of slaves in Ireland.
We are under no illusions as to either country. But we do not intend to
confound the geographical spot on which the rebels lie with the
political
Government upheld by the slaves.
For us and ours the
path is
clear. The first duty of the working-class of the world is to settle
accounts
with the master-class of the world---that of their own country at the
head of
the list. To that point this struggle (the Dublin Lock-Out), as all
other
struggles, is converging.
· Irish Worker, November 29, 1913. [In 1893, two miners were shot by the military at
Featherstone,
Yorkshire,
during a strike. Their deaths profoundly moved the Labour movement
of the time.]
Finally, let us
say that we are sick of the canting talk of those who tell us that we
must not
blame the British people for the crimes of their rulers against Ireland.
We do blame them. In so far as they support the system of society which
makes
it profitable for one nation to connive at the subjection of another
nation
they are responsible for every crime committed to maintain that
subjection. If
there is any section of the British people who believe that Ireland
would be justified in ending the British
Empire in order to escape from
thraldom to
it, then that section may hold itself guiltless of any crime against Ireland.
· Workers' Republic,
March 25, 1916.
But whilst refusing to
base our
political action on hereditary national antipathy, and wishing rather
comradeship with the English workers than to regard them with hatred –
we
desire with our precursors the United Irishmen of 1798 that our
animosities be
buried with the bones of our ancestors – there is not a party in
Ireland which
accentuates more as a vital principle of its political faith the need
of
separating Ireland from England and of making it absolutely
independent. In the
eyes of the ignorant and of the unreflecting this appears an
inconsistency, but
I am persuaded that our Socialist brothers in France
will immediately recognise the justice of the reasoning upon which such
a
policy is based.
1. We hold that
`the
economic emancipation of the worker requires the conversion of the
means of
production into the common property of Society'. Translated into the
current
language and practice of actual politics this teaches that the
necessary road
to be travelled towards the establishment of Socialism requires the
transference of the means of production from the hands of private
owners to
those of public bodies directly responsible to the entire community.
2. Socialism seeks
then in the
interest of the democracy to strengthen popular action on all public
bodies.
3. Representative
bodies in Ireland
would express more directly the will of the Irish people than when
those bodies
reside in England.
An Irish Republic
would then be
the natural depository of popular power; the weapon of popular
emancipation,
the only power which would show in the full light of day all these
class
antagonisms and lines of economic demarcation now obscured by the mists
of
bourgeois patriotism.
In that, there
is not a
trace of chauvinism. We desire to preserve with the English people the
same
political relations as with the people of France,
of Germany or of any other country; the greatest possible
friendship, but also
the strictest independence. Brothers, but not bedfellows. Thus,
inspired by
another ideal, conducted by reason not by tradition, following a
different
course, the Socialist Republican Party of Ireland arrive at the same
conclusion
as the most irreconcilable Nationalist. The governmental power of England
over us must be destroyed; the bonds which bind us to her must be
broken.
Having learned from history that all bourgeois movements end in
compromise,
that the bourgeois revolutionists of to-day become the conservatives of
to-morrow, the Irish Socialists refuse to deny or to lose their
identity with
those who only half understand the problem of liberty. They seek only
the
alliance and the friendship of those hearts who, loving liberty for its
own
sake, are not
afraid to follow its banner when it is uplifted by the hands of the
working-class who have most need of it. Their friends are those who
would not
hesitate to follow that standard of liberty, to consecrate their lives
in its
service even should it lead to the terrible arbitration of the sword.
· L'Irlande
Libre,
Paris,
1897.
