Karl
Carlile
The IRA and The Good Friday
Agreement
The recent farce at Stormont which resulted in the
establishment of a six county government that lasted a mere ten minutes raises
questions as to the real political nature of Sinn
Fein/IRA.
Sinn Fein/IRA by actively supporting the Good Friday
Agreement has openly accepted partition. Its entrance into the erstwhile six
county executive means that Sinn Fein/IRA has agreed to administer a
reconstituted partition and use state power against any threat to the existence
of partition.
Sinn Fein has effectively abandoned its official
republican programme and its armed struggle. It has agreed to actively
participate in administering the
oppression of the “nationalist” section of the working class in
particular and the working class of the six counties in general. Up to now, this
present period of apparent overt betrayal of republican doctrine, Sinn
Fein/IRA’s promotion of imperialist oppression assumed a more disguised form.
Due to the exhaustion and demoralisation of the “Catholic” masses partly as a
consequence of both Sinn Fein/IRA’s conservative leadership and organisational
forms it can now abandon its formal adherence to republican principles while
increasing its electoral support. This exhaustion is a consequence of the
continuous organised violence directed against the Catholic masses by the
British state over the last thirty years together with the reactionary
leadership provided by the SDLP and Sinn Fein/IRA.
Sinn Fein/IRA is facilitating the advancement of the
class interests of the bourgeoisie through its programme to reconstitute the six
county state in accordance with the new objective conditions that obtain both
nationally, regionally and globally.
Consequently there is no question of the present
settlement meaning, as has been claimed by Bernadette McAliskey and others, a
defeat for the “nationalist community”. Instead an adjustment is being made to the
character of the six county statelet in correspondence with the changing
politico-economic context within which it is organised. In short an adjustment
is being made to the form of class rule in the six counties, the Irish Republic
and Gt. Britain.
Concerning the “Catholic” section of the working
class the new adjustment will simply mean a change in the form of its national
oppression. There is no question of this constituting defeat. Indeed the popular
upsurge of the Catholic masses in the North against national oppression
experienced defeat a considerable time ago. This defeat manifested itself in the
form of the growing hegemony of the conservative forces, in the form of the SDLP
(including its precursors) and Sinn Fein/IRA, over the “Catholic” masses in the
face of the savage imperialist response to that insurrection. The latter
response manifested itself as the increased mass terror of the British state in
the form of internment, the active oppression of the British Army and its
paramilitary loyalist gangs against the “Catholic”
masses.
The political role of Sinn Fein/IRA as a key player
has been changing. Sinn Fein/IRA’s bombing and shooting is the form through
which the popular insurrection of the “Catholic” masses was subverted in the
interests of imperialism. Civilian bombings and attacks on state and loyalist
military forces by elitist “republican” organisations were the subversive form
eventually assumed by the spontaneous potentially revolutionary revolt of the
Catholic masses. In this way a positive popular challenge to the system was
subverted in this reactionary form --in the form of Sinn Fein/IRA, the SDLP and
other minor elements. The place for a revolutionary communist movement was
filled by the reactionary politics
of Sinn Fein/IRA. When this form of petty bourgeois politics had served its
purpose by nihilistically assisting in the destruction of popular revolt in the
North the traditional role of Sinn
Fein/IRA was no longer called for. Sinn Fein/IRA was now required by capitalism
to play the new role of leading sections of the “Catholic” masses into
constitutional politics by actively promoting continued partition around the bourgeois peace process. Its
purpose was to lead the “Catholic” masses into acceptance of partition under the
guise of an apparently new and promising settlement, the Good Friday Agreement,
that was presented by Sin Fein/IRA as the embryonic form of a thirty two county
Irish republic. The latter illusion was, in some degree, the product of an
elaborate ideology constructed by the bourgeoisie and sections of the petty
bourgeoisie (Sinn Fein/IRA, sections of the mass media
etc.).
To suggest that the GFA constitutes a defeat for Sinn
Fein/IRA is to entirely misrepresent the real character of the current
situation. What is mistakenly defined as a betrayal of republican principles is
simply a continuation of Sinn Fein/IRA’s pro-imperialist politics in another
form. At present Sinn Fein/IRA is
simply seeking the best terms from
the ruling class in exchange for their acceptance and active support for a new
variety of national oppression of the “Catholic” masses and the Irish working
class as a whole–a form that shall enhance bourgeois political stability and
thereby the conditions for the exploitation of the labour power of the working
class. Unionism, on the other hand, is seeking to minimise the concessions
offered to Sinn Fein/IRA. They are seeking to force Sinn Fein/IRA to change tack
for as small a price as possible. Complementing this the Blair government, as
has been implied above, is seeking a new form for the continued national
oppression of the six county masses that corresponds with changing overall
objective conditions. However both
seek this adjustment in such a way as to concede as little as possible to Sinn
Fein/IRA. London is using Ulster Unionism as the means by which it can minimise
any concessions granted to Sinn Fein/IRA. To argue that the nationalist
community will have been defeated by the implementation of the GFA is mere
ideology designed to conceal the real nature of political development in Ireland
and Britain while sowing despair and passivity within the ranks of the working
class. The situation is that the “nationalist” working class will continue to be
essentially exploited and oppressed. The difference is that the conditions of national oppression
will have undergone adjustment. This adjustment is intended by imperialism to
enhance the conditions for the further exploitation of labour
power.
The more Sinn Fein/IRA surrender the old traditional
obsolescent form of its politics
and the less it gets in return is not necessarily a defeat for it. It simply
means that it has been forced to change the form of its politics on conditions
less satisfactory than it had perhaps hoped. The point is that Sinn Fein/IRA is
settling and going to settle. The question is the price at which it will settle.
It is this process that is currently taking place. The substance of the politics
of Sinn Fein/IRA has not been changing –just the form. Sinn Fein/IRA is a petty
bourgeois organisation that
ultimately serves the interests of imperialism in particular and capitalism in
general. However given its petty bourgeois character Sinn Fein/IRA’s politics
tend to have a zigzag character --a
function of the changing balance of class forces at any given time.
The upshot is that Sinn Fein/IRA was never essentially a
revolutionary political force representing the class interests of the Irish
working class north and south of the Irish border. Thereby it was incapable of
leading a struggle of national determination of the Irish people because of its
political character. Its present machinations around the GFA provide clear and
unadulterated evidence of this. The real reactionary nature of Sinn Fein/IRA is
being increasingly exposed as events unfold.