The failure of socialist republicanism in the Irish revolution and its aftermath - Part 1


Irish Socialist Republican Party members (Phoenix Park, 1901). Picture from UCC Multitext Project.



Introduction

Socialist republicanism


The socialist republican movement is that tendency within Irish politics which combines a wish to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a socialist economic system, with a desire to end British rule on the island of Ireland. It has a history going back at least as far as the Fenian movement in the mid-nineteenth century, when the Irish Republican Brotherhood incorporated certain aspects of socialist ideology into its vision for an independent Ireland.[1] It took on a more explicit form with the formation, in 1896, of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, by James Connolly. Although this party never achieved electoral success, being wound up only eight years after its formation, its brief existence helped give shape to a more developed and coherent socialist republican doctrine. In 1909, the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) was formed by James Larkin, following his dismissal for alleged embezzlement from the British-based National Union of Dock Labourers. The ITGWU, which rapidly became the largest trade union in Ireland was, inevitably, strongly influenced by the views of its leaders, men such as Larkin and Connolly. As such, it appeared to be a potentially powerful force for the socialist republican cause. 

Labour movement activists played a prominent role, alongside nationalists and the Roman Catholic Church, in resisting British attempts to extend conscription to Ireland in 1918. However, when the First World War came to an end and a general election was announced for December of that year, the Irish Labour Party, which had been set up in 1912 by leading members of the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC), opted not to field any candidates. This meant that the election would, as far as Ireland was concerned, be a straight contest between unionism, traditional home-rule style nationalism in the shape of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and the advanced nationalism and republicanism of Sinn Féin. It was the latter party which won a landslide victory, virtually wiping out the formerly dominant IPP.

In the 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence, Labour again played a significant role, both in terms of industrial action undertaken in support of the independence struggle and through the activities of many socialists and trade unionists who served as volunteers in the IRA. However, the Irish Labour Party did not oppose the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 and when the Irish Free State was set up in 1922, the party chose to operate within the framework of the new constitution. This conservative attitude towards the constitutional question was mirrored by a more socially and economically conservative stance, as the party and its associated trade unions positioned themselves within the social democratic range of the political spectrum. Socialist republicanism was now effectively banished to various small parties and organisations operating on the fringes of Irish political life. It would never regain the level of strength or influence it had wielded during the years after the formation of the ITGWU up until the establishment of the Free State.

The goal of the socialist republican movement during this period was to establish, throughout the island of Ireland, a 'workers' republic' or, as James Connolly put it in 1896, in the founding document of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, the "Establishment of an Irish Socialist Republic based upon the public ownership by the Irish people of the land, and instruments of production, distribution and exchange."[2] Neither of the two components of this goal – the ending of the connection with the British monarchy in Ireland and the replacement of capitalism with a socialist form of administration – was achieved during the period in question (the Irish revolution and its aftermath under the Free State Regime of the 1920s). The creation of the Free State was viewed by its supporters as a step towards the achievement of a complete severance of ties with Britain, at least in the twenty-six counties over which the new entity had jurisdiction. It was to lead to the creation of another new constitution by Eamon De Valera's Fianna Fáil party in 1937 and the eventual formal declaration of the former Free State area as a Republic in 1949.

For socialist republicans, though, the establishment of the Free State represented a selling out of their goal of an all-Ireland workers’ republic. Responsibility for the failure to achieve a thirty-two county republic, however, cannot be laid solely at the door of the socialist republican movement. Irish republicans of all stripes, whatever their stance on social and economic issues, were opposed to the partition of Ireland. To the extent that the failure to achieve a united Irish republic was a result of the actions or policies of those who sought to bring it about, the socialist republican movement can therefore be, at most, only partly responsible. Furthermore, it may well be the case that no form of action, or set of policies, on the part of any individual or group on the Irish nationalist side of the conflict, could have successfully brought about the creation of a united Irish republic in the early 1920s, such was the level of British intransigence on the matter.

In the social and economic sphere, the aims of socialist republicanism - essentially, the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist form of economy, with some form of democratic control over the means of production, distribution and exchange – were not, on the whole, shared by the republican movement more generally. It was the self-imposed task of socialist republicans to bring about these goals. This, the movement manifestly failed to do. Had the Irish revolution led to the implementation of significantly progressive social and economic policies and reforms, then it might be possible to argue, even without the ending of capitalism and the full establishment of a socialist system of production, that the socialist republican movement had achieved at least some reasonable level of success. However, the regime which came to power with the establishment of the Free State in 1922 was a socially and economically conservative one, with those who had come to hold the reins of power being described in 1923 by the Vice President of the Executive Council, Kevin O'Higgins, as "the most conservative-minded revolutionaries that ever put through a successful revolution".[3]

Most of the historians writing about the failure of the republican socialist movement to have its main aims implemented during this period agree that certain key events – and the response of the Labour movement to those events – were pivotal in bringing about that failure. Specifically, the decision of the Irish Labour Party not to fight the general election of 1918, and the Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress’s implicit recognition of the Anglo-Irish treaty by its decision to participate in the political and economic life of the Irish Free State. The lack of unity amongst those republican socialists who eschewed the constitutionalism and social-democratic politics of the Free State era Labour party are also generally regarded as further reasons for the movement’s lack of success. In spite of the above-mentioned commonalities, three distinct themes, or interpretations, emerge from the arguments of historians around the question of socialist republicanism's failure to gain more traction within the independence movement in Ireland during the revolutionary period, and to succeed in having its policy goals implemented in the aftermath of that revolution.

TO BE CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
[1] W. Delaney, The Green and the Red: Revolutionary Republicanism and Socialism in Irish History: 1848-1923 (Lincoln NE, 2001), pp. 32-34.
[2] J. Connolly, Political programme of the Irish Socialist Republican Party (1896), https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1896/xx/isrp.htm (Accessed: 08 July 2018).
[3] J. Knirck, ‘Were Cumann na nGaedheal ministers really “conservative revolutionaries”?’, Irish Times, 18 December 2014.

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