WSM, ISN, eirigi - What Sort of Ireland Do We Want?

by ronan Sun Mar 04, 2007 15:18

it was an interesting discussion but i was disappointed by eirigi's contribution. whereas dan was very clear to distinguish what exactly he meant by the various concepts he used, daithi was content to use rather vague and semi-mystical concepts such as 'the irish people' without clarification. maybe he provided this later but unfortunately i had to leave for a door shift.

by Joe Sun Mar 04, 2007 15:25

This is an audio of the first 30 or so minutes of discussion from the floor. It's 5.4mb

Part 1 of discussion
Part 1 of discussion 5.69 Mb

by Joe Sun Mar 04, 2007 15:41

This is the rest of the discussion and the speakers coming back at the end. Around 30 minutes and 5.9 mb

Discuscussion and comeback
Discuscussion and comeback 6.97 Mb

by pleasantly surprised Sun Mar 04, 2007 18:52

the eirigi contribution was obviously designed to give an explanation of where they are coming from and paint a vision of the type of society they would like to see.

as an anarchist, i must say i was pleasantly surprised by it. its a pity you couldnt have stayed on til the end. there wwas a good discussion about the complexities of the ideas we were talking about. had a good chat later to him re politics and music etc. sound chap

by w. - wsm - may 1st (pers cap) Sun Mar 04, 2007 22:03

I thought the discussion on voting was a little shallow from both sides. As an anarchist I'm not opposed to voting, I do it all the time at WSM meetings, I'm not even opposed to voting in referendums. Some anarchists seem to confuse opposition to parliamentary democracy with opposition to voting, which leads on to the use of wavey-hands consensus and other regressive decision making techniques.

In relation to representive democracy the ISN (whose talk was thoroughly enjoyable) are fully aware of what the problems with it are but offer the argument that because people have faith in it and fought for it that we should engage with it and not "piss on it". The ISN has claimed to stand in the left communist tradition yet one of the basic positions of left communism is that class struggle can not be built through parliament. The lessons of history from social democrats to european communist parties were mentioned as strawmen I feel, examples of groups whose politcs were supposedly compromised through parliamentary activity - but then we're told that there were fundamental flaws in their politics to begin with, this is not news to anarchists and doesnt prove that electoralism mixed with just the right type of marxism will win the day. The ISN finished up by saying that what they're doing has never been done before which kind of baffled me, there is a huge history of all brands of socialists entering parliament a world of lessons to be learnt from it, the only difference I can see in the ISN is that the claim to be part of a tendency which has always rejected parliamentarianism.

It was argued that telling people not to vote can be seen as anti-democratic, which might be the case if all anarchists did was tell people not to vote, I would hope they stick around to explain the rest of their ideas. Personally I dont tell people not to vote, I prefer to say vote if you want but dont expect anything to change, encouraging people to be more involved in fighting directly for their own interests.

by Fintan Lane - Irish Socialist Network Mon Mar 05, 2007 00:11 fintanlane at gmail dot com

I agree that the discussion on elections was rather shallow, but I think this was simply because it wasn't intended to be the main point of the debate. It arose naturally as the debate/discussion unfolded. For the record, the ISN's basic attitude to voting can be found by clicking on the following link:

http://irishsocialist.net/publications_the_isn_and_elec....html

I do think the discussion on voting became a little sidetracked in the sense that the ISN's belief that voting and participation in elections can occasionally be a useful tactic (one among many) was casually referred to as 'electoralism'. It is nothing of the sort - the ISN has no intention of pursuing an 'electoral road to socialism'. Our belief is that social change will be brought about from below by movements rooted in communities and workplaces; we do not believe that the society we seek can be brought about 'from above' via the current system of representative democracy.

I argued at the meeting that the anarchist position can sometimes be seen (wrongly) as anti-democratic because of the blunt dismissal of representative democracy; unfortunately, this dismissal can sometimes be presented in such a way as to make one wonder whether any difference is seen between representative democracy and, say, dictatorship. Are they equally bad? The problem with putting stickers on rubbish bins during election times that read "Place Your Vote Here" is that it is done in a society where representative democracy is viewed as the real deal, as the highest point of democratic expression. Moreover, the systems of representative democracy that now exist in Europe were won through hard struggle (look at the Chartist movement in Britain or the Catholic Emancipation movement here). For these, and other reasons, representative democracy enjoys popular legitimation.

The role of the organised left, in many ways, is to construct a counter-hegemony. In other words, we've got to convince people that participatory democracy (at the point of production as well as in communities) is more 'democratic' than representative democracy. The division between the WSM and the ISN turns on the approach we take to this task.

Anyhow, hopefully the discussion will continue. The WSM deserve much praise for organising the bookfair, which was great! An excellent crowd and I had many interesting conversations until a throat infection made life difficult. Should probably have eaten as well before going to the pub and should definitely have left a lot earlier than I did - thank god for taxis!

Well done all who were involved in organising this event!

by Andrew Mon Mar 05, 2007 13:00

Debates such as these tend to revolve around exploring the differences between organisations (or if you unlucky organisations denouncing each other over those differences). So the topic of debate on the day pretty much followed the lines I expected it would in that it covered the differences (nationalism, elections) and quickly zoomed in on what seems to be the biggest difference, whether or not elections can be used in a tactical fashion to achieve communism.

I'm not sure what is meant by 'shallow' in the comments above because I thought given the time limits there was in fact quite a bit of depth to that conversation. It didn't simply consist of people attacking straw man positions.

by Fintan Lane - ISN Mon Mar 05, 2007 13:40

Well, what I meant by 'shallow' is that the issue was touched upon rather than discussed in great depth. That said, the discussion that occurred was intelligent and interesting.

by Gregor Kerr - WSM - 1st May branch - pers. cap. Tue Mar 06, 2007 00:23

Re parliamentary democracy - for what it's worth this is my take on the main difference between the anarchist position and that of the ISN. The ISN see the use of elections as one of a host of tactics to be used to bring about socialism. They don't in any way see it as the key or even necessarily as an important tactic but nevertheless believe that it can be used.
But in my view the problem is that the very use of elections is in itself disempowering. If you seriously want to give people the message that it is through self-activity and through self-organisation that socialism will be brought about, how do you possibly square that with asking people to make the journey to the polling station to vote for you.
I would have liked to hear Eirigi's position on participation in elections. To the best of my knowledge they have no intention of standing candidates this time around but is that simply because they're not long enough established or have they come to a view on electoral participation?
As Chair of the meeting, I have to say that it was a pleasure to be at a meeting where political agreements and disagreements were discussed in such a fraternal and friendly manner. Thanks to everyone who contributed and here's to many more such debates and discussions at future Bookfairs and in other fora.

by Noel Conway Tue Mar 06, 2007 13:40

I think the anarchist position is self defeating. In the various referenda in Ireland over recent years left activists were faced with a simple choice for divorce against divorce, for abortion or against, for the peace process or against. For activists to abstain from voting and to support divorce or abortion is in my opinion shocking. The Peace process was more complicated. Likewise, students are often given an opportunity to elect a rep and usually there is a leftist running and a number of conservatives. It does not make sense to not vote in these instinces. The student may be limited in the amount of actual change he or she can make but at least neither will be a lacky for the authorities and government policies. In trade unions the left often have a tu activist running like Des Derwin in siptu. For him to be elected would have shaken the right leadership who are effectively now part of the government through partnership and would have been a challenge to the partnership process. Recently, on indemedia, I see that a catholic nazi is running in the elections in the north. Shouldn't the left have someone running against him and shouldnt anarchists support the left against him? What will happen if this guy gets elected? It could be the start of a catholic neonazi group that could popularise attacks against foreigners. A good left vote in both the north and south will attract more to radical ideas and help groups including anarchists become more popular.

by Libertarian Socialist Tue Mar 06, 2007 13:51

There appears to be confusion amongst WSM members that hand signals are an attempt at removing the act of voting whilst in deliberation.

W wrote

"Some anarchists seem to confuse opposition to parliamentary democracy with opposition to voting, which leads on to the use of wavey-hands consensus and other regressive decision making techniques"

I dont know anybody who is that naive to think using hand signals are a replacement for voting. Hand signals are simply a means to enhance the deliberative process that leads up to the decision making process.

As democrats we ought to accept that meetings and deliberation will be central to the process of bring about participatory socialism, thus, the use of body language as a means of communication is a uselful technique.

The deliberation that leads up to the act of voting is just as important as the vote itself. The attempt at consensus is a process that accpets that majority voting is often used to rush through decisions that have not been discussed in enough detail. However, most people agree that at time majority voting is the best means to arrive at a decision. However, it is the only means amongst the Authoritarain left.

I personally agree with the ISN on the issue of voting.

Most people tend to see voting in the general election as democratic. Therefore, anyone who calls on others to not vote will be viewed as anti democratic. I think this is one of the main reasons why most people mistakenly associated anarchism with totalitarianism.

If you asked most people on the street whether they think voting every few years is enough to qualify a society as democratic they would probably say no. Most people know that regardless of who is in government the system is not going to change in any substantial way.

However, most people (and correctly in my opinion) would argue that not voting is not the way to solve the problems we all diagnose with the system.

A government without the PD's would make a difference and i would argue with anybody who thinks to the contrary. Thus, i will be voting in the next election simply to add weight to the possibility of removing the PDs.

I am not naive to think it is going to make any huge difference, but i think it will make more of a difference than not voting.

by anarcho - WSM - personal capacity Tue Mar 06, 2007 14:12

The WSM does not advocating voting in elections to parliament - this does not mean that we have anything against voting in general.

We certainly advocated a vote in the various divorce referendums and abortion referendums - indeed we were heavily in campaigning in them all and spent a lot of time knocking on doors trying to persuade people to vote.

We also sometimes advocate votes for positions within trade unions or campaigning bodies. Our own officers are elected by vote.

The difference is that we reject the idea that somebody should be elected to take decisions on our behalf. In situations where we can have a direct say (ie referendums) on the issue, we generally advocate a vote. In situations where there is a reasonable level of mandating and accountability of officers, we also often advocate a vote.

The dail, and other parliaments in capitalist countries are fundamentally anti-democratic in our view. There is no possible way of voting for a particular position or policy - you vote for an individual and cross your fingers that s/he will do good stuff. We get to choose the person, we have no say in policy - who really cares who sits at the top table - it's what they do that's important.

Also, to the person above who advocates voting to keep the PDs out - you should reflect on the absurdity of hoping to restrict the influence of a party that almost nobody votes for anyway - they have about 3% of the vote and since they only run in a handful of constituencies where the wealthy are concentrated, there is pretty much nothing that most people can do to restrict their seats. If you are voting to keep them out of a coalition, you just don't have a say in this - the parties will form whatever coalitions they like after the election, you don't have a vote in this.

by mr. Tue Mar 06, 2007 14:39

Any chance of a transcript, even an abridged one, of this discussion for those of us who can't listen to the mp3s? Seems like an interesting one, regret that I couldn't make it.

by Joe - WSM - personal capacity Tue Mar 06, 2007 14:43

Noel I think you go a long way towards illustrating the problem with electoralism when you write I see that a catholic nazi is running in the elections in the north. Shouldn't the left have someone running against him

If you want to 'stop' a fascist getting elected - a good emotive issue - then logically in Fermanagh rather than voting for the left your going to be voting for Sinn Fein.

If it was some 'protestant nazi' running you'd probably need to vote for the DUP.

A vote for any of the electoral left parties (SWP, SP, ISN) would be a vote for someone who had no hope of getting elected there. In fact it would almost certainly take a vote from Sinn Feing, the party likely to actually 'stop' him getting elected by taking the seat. And elsewhere that party might be the DUP.

Any honest argument that anarchists should drop their opposition to electoralism in such circumstances is also an argument that the left should vote Sinn Fein or DUP or for whatever party was likely to top the poll. When Le Pen made it to the final of the French presidential election some sections of the revolutionary left followed their own logic and voted for Chirac to 'Stop Le Pen'.

An anarchist response to this would be to point out that fascism doesn't come to power through elections so it is pretty foolish to imagine it can be stopped in this way. Fascists are content to use elections but even Hitler never got more that a third of the vote in a free election.

Anarchists have no objection to voting in referendums as these are (flawed) exercises in direct democracy. In fact anarchists played a significant role in some of the referendum campaigns you mentioned.

As W. says above the anarchist objection is not to putting your hand in the air or even writing on a piece of paper. It is to an electroal system under which someone is elected as a representative rather than a delegate for those voting.

Whats the difference?

Well being a representative means that once elected the person supposadly represents the views of the votes. In practise they do what they like. The best the votes can do is at the next election vote for someone else.

A delegate on the other hand has to follow the mandate of those who elected them and can be recalled if they do not.

Thos who constructed our parliamentary system were very, very aware of the difference between these two types of elections. That is why we have a system of representative rather than delegate democracy. They understood that a delegate would always be under the control of those who elected him and as the poor were the overwhelming majority this would mean legislation to redistribute wealth. They also understood that a good fraction of representatives elected on a radical program would be turned by the trappings of power and the rewards offical and unofficial (hte brown envelopes) that went with it. A representative democracy allowed the rich to seem to give power to the poor without having to face the consequences of doing so. It allowed Finna Fail to run on the slogan of 'Health cuts hurt the old, the poor and the handicapped' only to implement the biggest health cuts so far once elected, without fear of come back for five years.

The historical process by which this was imposed is analysed in some detail at http://struggle.ws/once/pd_intro.html Those who fought for democracy were very often fully aware of the differences, we shouldn't make the mistake today of assuming the democracy we have is identical to that which previous generations fought for.

It also should be said that those who formed the trade unions and even many student unions were very aware of the differences between these two democratic forms. This is why those elected in Trade Unions from the level of a union rep up are elected - at least in theory - as delegates and not as representatives. That is they are mandated to implement the will of the membership expressed through either local meetings or union conferences. And - again in theory - they can be recalled if they fail to do so and instead act as a representative. The - in theory - qualifications are necessary because the union leadership - which again is well aware of these differences - has sought out mechanism to make recall more and more difficult to implement.

It is quite ironic that for all our supposed oppostive to democracy and all our 'naivety' anarchists invariably have a much better knowledge of the importance of the different democratic forms than our critics. Again teh text at http://struggle.ws/once/pd_intro.html is well worth a read

by Joe Tue Mar 06, 2007 14:46

We are hopping the speakers post there notes but we have no plans to transcribe the discussion. However anyone reading this would be welcome to.

by w. Tue Mar 06, 2007 15:07

I have been to many meetings of various groups (mostly now defunct) where the consensus model of shaking hands was a substitute for voting. This means that to pass a decision the debate would have to go around and around, it's not that I don't understand consensus but I think rather that I've experienced it in different situations than you may have.

by éirígí Tue Mar 06, 2007 15:55

éirígí's contribution to the 'What type of Ireland we want' discussion at the Anarchist Book Fair

Comrades,

Firstly, I would like to say that, on behalf of éirígí, I am very glad to have the opportunity to be here today to contribute to this session. I want to thank the organisers for extending us this invitation.

By way of addressing the substantive themes of today’s engagement - that of the question both as to the type of Ireland/World we want, and the nature and form of revolution - I would like to give an overview of what éirígí is, and of the rationale for its existence.

éirígí is a Socialist Republican organisation. We are therefore for the liberation of Ireland, and for the liberation of all of the people in Ireland. For this we make no apologies. A central element of our political philosophy is that there can be no just political system in Ireland that has as any part of its theory or practice an acceptance of the right of an imperial power, through its armed forces and political administration and institutions, to interfere with and negatively influence the development of the economic, social, cultural and political life of this island.

That said, we reject absolutely and utterly the narrow nationalist notion that the interests of the people of Ireland are somehow to be served by the mere substitution of Irish masters for that of British ones. We are only too aware of the fact that masters are masters; it is only this which is of importance to us - the fact of their nationality is not.

In this regard it is very instructive that we remind ourselves of the incisive words of James Connolly when he said that:

“Ireland as distinct from her people, is nothing to me: and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for Ireland, and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation brought upon the people of Ireland – aye, brought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is in my opinion, a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he loves that combination of chemical elements he is pleased to call Ireland.”

We therefore reject absolutely the notion that somehow there can be any commonality of interest between the capitalist and working classes of Ireland, or indeed between the capitalist and working classes of any country. There is, and can only be, antipathy and conflict between both - as the interests of the former are served by the enslavement of the latter. And enslavement it is, no matter what reforms are introduced to lessen the weight and burden of the alienating, if metaphorical, manacles that the worker continues to wear.

One need only take a cursory glance at the world today to see the extent of the slavery that exists. The polarisation of the world into those who do and do not have access to the resources necessary for survival and an economic & social standard of living befitting membership of the human race is as marked today as it has ever been in the history of mankind. The processes that underlie this fact have directly given rise to a scenario whereby humanity as a whole finds itself poised precariously in the balance.

The human condition at the beginning of the 21st century very clearly illustrates the nature of social reality as experienced on earth today. While the range of human needs can in no way be reduced to material need alone, it is a fact nonetheless that the quest for wealth at the expense of others that underpins capitalist ideology is the primary source of the very real misery and poverty faced by the majority of people throughout the world.

It is true that the reality of a highly impoverished existence as experienced by a majority of people in other parts of the world is not directly comparable to that experienced by people in Ireland and the so-called ‘developed world’ generally. However, given that Ireland is very much enmeshed in and part of the global economic system, it is an undeniable fact that Irish society is governed by the same economic and social principles at the heart of the capitalist system that dominates human economic and social relations throughout the world. It is therefore to be expected that the same cause and effect relationship witnessed elsewhere between the accumulation of wealth by small numbers of people and the relative economic and social impoverishment of a majority will be evidenced in Ireland.

It is an undeniable fact to say that, relatively speaking, 21st century Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet, what does this economic fact mean for the people of Ireland in terms of quality of life and access to the resources necessary for a happy and fulfilling existence?
Despite unprecedented economic growth, Ireland is blighted by profound social inequalities that threaten the wellbeing and, indeed, the very fabric of society.
One may therefore legitimately ask how and why a country can be extremely wealthy and yet, at the same time, experience such levels of poverty, social exclusion and general dysfunction and malaise etc.? How can it be that as a society we are producing more, working harder and overall, that the people who create the wealth are getting an increasingly smaller share of that very wealth?

The answer is to be found in the contradiction at the very heart of the economic system known as “free-market capitalism”; the underlying problem in Ireland, as in the rest of the world, is “the problem of capitalism”.

We are very much of the belief that the liberation of Ireland, in its fullest sense, is integral to the liberation of all peoples and to the advancement towards the establishment of a socialist dispensation in Ireland and throughout the wider world.

Indeed, in explaining exactly why the British system must stay in Ireland and defeat those who would resist its presence and influence, the British Conservative MP John Biggs-Davidson very much acknowledged this when, in the 1980’s he stated that: “If we lose in Belfast, we may have to fight in Brixton and Birmingham”. It is exactly this proposition and potential that has always exercised and animated Socialist Republicans in their struggle against the British occupation of a part of Ireland.

The struggle against this injustice cannot be dissevered from the struggle against all other injustices. Either we are against all injustice or we are against none.

I am an Irish Socialist Republican by accident of geography only. I am a Socialist Republican because I am, and always have been, against injustice. I see the people of Belfast, Brixton and Birmingham not as my enemy but as my brothers and sisters.

The more defeats that are inflicted on the notion of Empire, the nearer we approach the creation of its antithesis – that of a state whereby society and the individuals that comprise it are truly free.

Our fundamental position then is that poverty, exclusion and conflict both in Ireland and internationally, are caused primarily by the joint system of capitalism and imperialism. This system, which is based upon the exploitation and expropriation of the majority by a minority, will never allow the bulk of humanity to fulfil its potential. It is only by replacing this system with one based upon co-operation rather than exploitation that true human freedom can be achieved. To our mind, a Democratic Socialist Republic would be such a system.

éirígí’s position vis-à-vis social change is that the realisation of the objective of a Democratic Socialist Republic in Ireland requires change of a revolutionary nature. What is required is a reversal of the ‘top down’ approach to politics and the administration of power, to one that is broad based and ‘bottom up’, reflecting as it must the active participation and control by people of the resources and power necessary for the fulfilment of human economic and social need.

What is required then is that those who produce the wealth in society are in control of that wealth, to do with it as they collectively see fit. It is our firm contention that anything short of economic control by workers over the resources that produce and are produced by their labour will always be insufficient as a means to the end of creating a society based upon real democracy & liberty. Achieving the vision of social equality and an end to want and poverty will only ever be possible when a majority take control of their own lives and the wealth they generate, and use both in the interests of creating a society that will meet the needs of all people.

The founding document of the Irish Republic, the 1916 Proclamation, is a document that reflects socialist principles and the central idea that the people of Ireland have a right to “the ownership of Ireland”. It states that the responsibility of government is to “pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally”. In fact, the 1916 Proclamation views the extent to which these conditions are achieved or not as being the criteria against which the very notions of independence and democracy etc. must be measured.
It is self-evident that 21st century Ireland is a place where these objectives have yet to be realised.

The truth is that they do not form any real part of the vision that those in power have for Irish society and a majority of people in it. This is so because those who exercise power over the economy and the political system are merely living up to the expectations of the capitalist doctrine they subscribe to.
With regard to the question of ‘How to get to a revolution?’, I would firstly like to say that I believe that initiatives and gestures such as this one emanating from the Libertarian community are vital if we are to have any hope for the creation of a political current of real and deep revolutionary potential in Ireland. It is not only natural that Libertarians, Communists, Socialists and Republicans would engage in dialogue. It is of vital importance that they do so.

It is éirígí’s firm conviction that it is only through the construction of a social movement or coalition founded upon the collective action of local communities, organised labour, cultural organisations, campaigns groups, and political parties etc. that a society based upon the principles of human co-operation, solidarity and true social justice can be established and sustained.

We are very much of the opinion that an empowered people with control over the resources necessary for the betterment of society will be far more capable than any political class ever could be of addressing those things that are necessary for an existence that is fulfilling and contented.

With this in mind let me state then that we believe that electoral and parliamentary politics alone cannot deliver the type of change required in Irish society. The lessons of history indicate that the sustained transformation from a capitalist to a socialist system cannot be achieved without the active support and participation of the mass of the people. The task of building the forces necessary for social revolution requires that the forces and momentum for change be built from the ground up. As a reflection of this we see radical campaigning as having the potential to empower, politicise and mobilise the people, who alone can provide the dynamic for such a transformation. Through campaigning on political, social, economic and cultural issues, éirígí is trying in earnest to contribute to that dynamic.

The construction of this movement or coalition cannot be restricted to the island of Ireland. The fight against capitalism and imperialism is by necessity a global one. The emergent global justice movement represents a real and growing bulwark to oppression and exploitation throughout the world. We in éirígí believe that it is from within this movement that a new and truly progressive era of international co-operation and solidarity will emerge.

With regard to working to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves as revolutionary political activists, we in éirígí are deadly serious. We are deadly serious about resisting those who would enslave and limit the horizons of humanity to the level to which they have been reduced and restricted. We are deadly serious about the fact that the global capitalist system must be destroyed and replaced by one that is becoming of the potential inherent in humankind.

In conclusion, may we echo the words of the Russian revolutionary Peter Kropotkin:
"Yes: death--or renewal! Either the state forever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is...death! Or, (alternatively), the destruction of the state and new life starting again in thousands of centres on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of the free agreement. The choice lies with you!"

The choice lies with all of us here. It lies with us whether we set our hearts, our minds, our bodies to the collective task of, as James Connolly declared, the creation of a “free federation of free peoples”, of which a 32-county Democratic Socialist Republic is an indispensable part.

Go raibh maith agaibh

by Ois Tue Mar 06, 2007 19:00

If you listen to the talk you'll see that this text is the basis of the talk and not the talk itself. Also there are a number of things in this that are badly phrased and unclear, so I don't stand over them and ask that it not be treated as an article. Its a draft of a contribution to a discussion. i.e. It's extremely flawed.

Also a lot of it is plagiarised.

---------------------------------------

What kind of Ireland do we want?

I found it difficult to prepare for this talk. So forgive me if it’s not very good. Hopefully, the discussion afterwards will probably be better.

Those of us on the revolutionary left have all experienced in facing the accusation: ‘you lefties are always against everything, you’re anti this and anti that, but what are you for?’ I’ve never found this a difficult question to answer, I am for a lot of things, I am for sexual equality, I am for production for need, I am for people having to work less in order to be able to spend more time with their families, with their friends, I am for friendship, family, companionship, loving relationship, I am for community and solidarity. I could sit here for 20 minutes easily describing all the things I am for. I could sit here and talk about all the hopes and dreams I have of a better Ireland. I could sit here and describe all the things that have inspired me to spend countless hours of the last 5 or 6 years of my life working for a revolution that seems so far away.

But, obviously that is not what I am here to do. And this is why I found this difficult to prepare: How do I describe all the hopes we have for an anarchist society without sounding like either a hippy, an idle dreamer, without sounding like a raving ultra left lunatic and more importantly without diminishing these hopes that have kept the workers revolutionary movement alive for the last 150+ years, without making them seem frivolous, without making them seem meaningless.

When people ask me “what are you for?” They often seem almost intimidated that I don’t think that anarchist politics are meaningless. Anarchism is an expression of my hopes and I talk about it as such. Anarchism is a revolutionary movement; it’s not a lifestyle or fashion choice.

Nowadays, we are bombarded with choice after choice after meaningless choice: Pepsi or coke, nike or addidas, deep pan or crispy base pizza, mars or snickers, the independent or the times. And this extends to politics, fianna fail or fine gael, labour or sinn fein, the pds or the greens? And they all offer us different things say that they are for this or that. I often get the feeling that when people tell me they are tired of hearing what I am against they want to hear what I am for they expect me to compete with politicians. They expect me to sell them my politics with a few promises, well I can tell you the WSM will not cut the lower rate of tax by 1%, we will not increase pensions to 300euro, nor will we quench your thirst, we are not the right way to start the morning and I can honestly tell you that food will not taste better when you put it all together with anarchism. We are not interest in people passively consuming our ideas. So if there is anyone who is here expecting a series of what we would change election promises I’m afraid I can’t offer you any.

Now don’t get me wrong I don’t mean to denigrate these choices of Pepsi or coke, nike or addidas, deep pan or crispy base pizza, mars or snickers, the independent or the time, the ability to make consumption choices is important. When we can’t choose what books to consume, that’s a big problem. And, to be fair, we have the power to make a number of significant decisions like who our friends or partners are. We have some degree of power over the decisions about whether to have kids, where to live, what career to pursue, but even the power to make these basic choices are areas of struggle. Regardless, all these decisions are purely personal. We get to make choice in today’s society but we do not have any choice about what kind of society we live in. We get to make personal decisions as individuals separate from society; we do not have the power to make collective decisions as members of society.

We do not get to make the decisions about what we produce, when we produce it or how we produce it or about when, where and how we distribute it. We do not get to make the decisions about how our natural resources are used nor do we get to make decisions about how our labour is used. We do not make get to make the decisions about how our neighbourhoods are developed: About whether or not the local children’s hospital is shut down as is happening in Crumlin, or about whether an incinerator is built there as is happening in Ringsend, or about whether a dangerous pipeline is built as is happening in Rossport. We do not get to make decisions about how we deal with anti-social behaviour; we do not have control over the police as has been made clearly evident a number of times most recently with regard to the death of Terence Wheelock. I could continue all day listing the aspects of our lives that we don’t have control over.

It’s clear that something has to change. It’s clear that we need to change something. It’s clear that society seems to be running out of control. Almost everyone seems to be in agreement with that we need to change society.

But, when you hear people say how we should change our society, what we should do. They are almost always talking about what the government, the bosses, the ‘great men and women’ of society should do and how we should support them or lobby them over that. But, when anarchists talk about what we need to do, we are talking about what the ordinary people of the world should do; all us together, what we should do. We aren’t asking anyone to do anything for us and we aren’t asking for support in doing anything for anyone. We don’t want to elect anyone or be elected by anyone. And we don’t want to fight on behalf of some fancy idea like ‘the Irish nation’. We want to fight on our own behalf, for our own interests so that we get to have control over our society, over our own lives.

Anarchism is about taking control over our lives. It is about being able to make the decisions that affect us. It is about having participatory direct democracy in our workplaces and in the places we live so that we can make the decisions that affect us. It is about taking on the powers-that-be in struggles that are democratic and empowering, where we are able to make the decisions. It’s about building a means of making collective decisions about our lives.

As we struggle collectively, we build a movement where we can make collective decisions. As anarchists, we want to keep on struggling against the-powers-that-be until we abolish them. We’ll keep on struggling until we live in an Ireland where we can make the decisions about what we produce, when we produce it and how we produce it and about when, where and how we distribute it, about how our natural resources our labour is used, about how our neighbourhoods are developed, about how we deal with anti-social behaviour. We want an Ireland where each and every one of us has the power to decide how we organise and structure our lives, individually and collectively. This is the kind of Ireland we want. Moreover, we are building for a revolution to bring it about in our everyday struggles to increase our collective power today.

Anarchists have always seen the initial framework of an anarchist society as being created today under statism and capitalism when working class people organise themselves to resist hierarchy.

As Emma Goldman said "Anarchism is not . . . a theory of the future to be realised by divine inspiration. It is a living force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions."

Anarchists have always seen the possibility of a new society as being linked with the need of working class people to resist the evils of capitalism and statism. In other words, as being the product of the class struggle and attempts by working class people to resist state and capitalist authority. Thus the struggle of working class people to protect and enhance their liberty under hierarchical society will be the basis for a society without hierarchy.

Anarchism draws upon the autonomous self-activity and spontaneity of working class people in struggle to inform both its political theory and its vision of a free society. The struggle against hierarchy, in other words, teaches us not only how to be anarchists but also gives us a glimpse of what an anarchist society would be like, what its initial framework could be and the experience of managing our own activities which is required for such a society to function successfully.

The process of resistance produces organisation on a wider and wider scale which, in turn, can become the framework of a free society as the needs of the struggle promote libertarian forms of organisation such as decision making from the bottom up, autonomy, federalism, delegates subject to instant recall and so on.

In struggle we create the means by which we can manage society. By having to organise and manage our struggles, we become accustomed to self-management and self-activity and create the possibility of a free society. Thus the framework of an anarchist society comes from the class struggle and the process of revolution itself. Anarchy is not a jump into the dark but rather a natural progression of the struggle for freedom in an unfree society. The contours of a free society will be shaped by the process of creating it and, therefore, will not be an artificial construction imposed on society. Rather, it will be created from below up by society itself as working class people start to break free of hierarchy. The class struggle thus transforms those involved as well as society and creates the organisational structure and people required for a libertarian society.

Now some of you might be thinking that’s all well and good in theory but is it true. Does class struggle actually throw up new forms of social organisation. And the answer is yes, it does.

Let’s take for example the 1953 East Germany Uprising. During this uprising against the Bolshevik government in East Germany a nationwide network of workers councils sprang up. But where did they come from.

The spark for the uprising was an attempt by the government to intensify production and lower wages. East Berlin workers immediate reaction was to down tools and walk off the job. This instinctive demonstration of militancy soon developed into a city wide strike.

The resistance soon spread; in virtually every town and city a general strike was proclaimed, all over East Germany workers formed factory and strike committees which quickly developed into workers councils.

Or take the limerick soviet in 1919. In April 1919 during a period of high levels of workers militancy (the ITGWU, claimed 3,000 members in Limerick City alone, and the local Trades Council had been publishing 'The Bottom Dog', a weekly working class paper for two years) the British army occupied the City area and declared martial law. This was in retaliation for a policeman's death during a failed IRA rescue.

The Trades Council called a general strike in protest to the Army occupation. For the next two weeks the Council ran the city. No shop opened without their permission. Food prices were regulated to stop profiteering. Only transport authorised by the Council was able to move through the city. The Council even issued its own money.

Or if we go further back to the first Petrograd soviet in1905 we can see it emerged out of class struggle. It emerged after a rich man named Georgy Nosar approached the anarchist Voline saying that he could provide strike relief funds for the striking workers, but did not know how do distribute them. So Voline and Nosar organised it so that workers from the various plants would delegate someone to go to a meeting to organise the distribution of the strike relief funds. It was these meetings and this system of delegates that became the 1st soviet.

Or more recently, take the famous Zanon factory recovery in Argentina in 2001.
It began with two or three people from the factory going on demonstrations for workers laid off in a nearby factory and organising with fellow workers in the factory through workers assemblies. As the assemblies became more established they started making demands. The first thing they won was a common lunch break for all the workers, this facilitated further organisation. By 2001 when all the workers in Zanon were laid off these assemblies were sufficiently established to enable the workers to take over the factory and run it themselves. When they did so they changed the name to FaSinPat for Fábrica Sin Patrones, "Factory Without Bosses". The factory has since contributed greatly to the surrounding community. For example, in 2005, the factory voted to build a community health clinic which the community had been demanding for two decades; the factory built it in three months. The factory has also been instrumental coordinating with 263 other self-managed companies in order to advance the movement for workers self-management.
Obviously there all of these new organizations I’ve mentioned. But they do show it is from struggle today that a better society will develop. And that from seemingly small struggles great things can develop. I remind you that the struggle in the FaSinPat factory began with two guys carrying a banner on workers demos and trying to organize with their workmates in assemblies.
The present state of affairs is based on the oppression, exploitation and alienation of the working class. This means that any tactics used in the pursuit of a free society must be based on resisting and destroying those evils. This is why anarchists stress tactics and organisations which increase the power, confidence, autonomy, initiative, participation and self-activity of oppressed people. this means supporting direct action, solidarity and self-managed organisations built and run from the bottom-up.

That is why we in the WSM are involved in workplace struggle, in Shell to Sea, in the Terence Wheelock campaign, in anti-War movement, in the pro-choice struggle. It’s why in the struggles against service charges we argued against electoralism and for collective direct action. When we struggle together we gain the power to make the decisions that affect us. It is only by fighting our own battles, relying on ourselves and our own abilities and power, in organisations we create and run ourselves, that we can gain the power, confidence and experience needed to change Ireland for the better and, hopefully, create a new and better Ireland in place of the current one.

by Mlac Wed Mar 07, 2007 00:49

Good to see three different organisations being able to have a discussion without resorting to dismissing each other. This is the way forward for the Left. Let's find the common ground and work together. Hopefully we see more of these events shared by different organisations in the near future.

by P Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:14

"Some anarchists seem to confuse opposition to parliamentary democracy with opposition to voting, which leads on to the use of wavey-hands consensus and other regressive decision making techniques."

Nice to see how dismissive you're being there W. That's what everyone loves so much about younger members of the WSM. If you're an anarchist against consensus decision making, I'd hate to see an Ireland where you had any sort of influence/power. Voting is always an option if a consensus decision can't be reached. Just gets away from the male-inspired view that mob rules.

Grow up.

by Sean Mallory - WSM (pers cap) Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:35

I think consensus is a good idea for certain situations as it encourages discussion, it is rarely used properly and i think groups should always reserve the right to vote particularly on issues such as what time something should happen or debates with diametrically opposed views such as a debate on something like the death penalty or when it becomes clear that a consensus will not be reached. I wouldn't call attempts to create new forms of inclusive decision making regressive. All this said I would go for voting over a bad consensus model as it allows individual people to dominate

I do think consensus only decisions remove human creativity as it reduces the decision to the lowest common deominator. This must be balanced with the need to be inclusive

by anarcho - WSM - personal capacity Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:57

"Nice to see how dismissive you're being there W. That's what everyone loves so much about younger members of the WSM.....Grow up."

Brilliant, a complete dismissal of an opinion based upon the age of the person with the opinion! As somebody who dislikes consensus based decision making very much, but doesn't mind the hand gestures used in large meetings, I'm currently giving you a big cyber-thumbs down.

by antiwar Thu Mar 08, 2007 13:28

Interesting discussion this as it mirrors a debate currently ongoing within Anti-War Ireland. Anarchists on both sides there too!

by w. Thu Mar 08, 2007 15:37

I shouldn't engage anonymous posters but here you go anyway.

I have no problem with trying to work out a consensus through debate, amending motions etc. but I still find that following this a majority vote works much better for decisions rather than what I term "wavey-hands consensus", it has nothing to do with my supposed-youth. I've been involved in political organising for 6 years now, I go with what works for maximum democracy and efficiency. The idea that majority voting on a decision is "mob rule" and a male idea doesn't actually hold much weight.

There are much more important points to be discussed rather than nit-picking and using inuendo about peoples age and gender. If an anarchist wants to outline the position for not voting beyond calling it "mob rule" I'd be happy to debate it.

by loki Thu Mar 08, 2007 17:47

at any meeting i was at i always had a feeling at the back of my mind that the waggly hands thing was just another way of putting your hand up voting style - if there were people that didnt agree with the 'consensus' reached they simply didnt say anything and just sat back and didnt interact at the meeting (and there was always a good few), while the same five or six people did all the talking and point making

not sure what the answer to that is

by sho - rag - personal capacity Fri Mar 09, 2007 23:18

i feel like i shouldn't contribute here, because i wasn't at the meeting, nor have i listened to the audio files yet, but i'd just like to add what i think about my experience of decision making (not 6 years worth admittedly!).

i'm in rag, although i don't claim to represent the views of all the other women in the group, nor do we have any external stated position on this. i really stand by consensus decision making, and we have a policy for meetings that decisions are reached by consensus. if consensus is not reached after a certain process, we will vote on an issue. i stand by it because i think that if someone is against something, and it affects them, then they shouldn't be forced into it, there is almost always a way around or a comprimise that can be reached that pleases everyone, in fact the compromise often turns out to be the better way, as it appeals to more people's points of view - it can be that dissenting voices are representitive of something that we were going to come up against afterwards anyway. i do think that being committed to consensus decision making involves sensitivity within the group and awareness of group dynamics. it is not something to be taken lightly. in the time that i have been in the group, we have only resorted to voting once - for the name of the magazine, and then, people changed their minds and nothing was really resolved by the vote (make that "votes"... we got very carried away and evolved some weird complex process on that night of nested voting, votes within votes, voting to eliminate... ;-)
i have never experienced a situation whereby the hand wave was used as a substitute for a raised hand - but now i can see how that might happen - it's ridiculous - that's not consensus. consensus is discussion based. it involves making sure meetings are properly facilitated and making sure everyone's voice is heard.

by Ois Sat Mar 10, 2007 01:18

Fair enough w is being ridiculous when he says that hand waving is 'regressive'. But from his other posts you can see that he doesn't actually think that hand waving is regressive but rather that although consensus should be aspired to but that voting is also important.

A good example of this are a number of meeting I have been at where there seems to be a consensus, becasue the people who are talking all agree with each other, but then when you take a vote you find that only a minority or a small majority of people actually agree with the 'consensus'. And for the record I have met a large number of people who think that you should need complete consensus in order to make a decision, i.e. that consensus is a substitute for voting.

But the reason I posted was to tell P. to cop themselves on. That they have no business anonymously attacking someone for being young. I'm sure this type of activity would surely qualify as being 'male'. It sure as hell in domineering, disrespectful and authoritarian.

by 20 digits Sat Mar 10, 2007 01:59

I meeting where you have many people wavey hands is good to move the meeting on. Its not good for important the importants stuff. In wavey hand meetings the importants stuff is usually sorted outside the meeting by others nd the wavey hand stuff is for show. Lets people feel their involved in the process ut in my experience they are being lead.

What W is talking about is dry as biscuits and many are turned off by meetings that take hours to split hairs.

But sometimes it needs to be done.

Voting sucks as there is always losers and losers are never happy.

by ISN Sat Mar 10, 2007 14:42

What do we want?

First of all we have to define our goal. For the ISN, our goal is to create a socialist democracy. That means, above all, democratic control over the economy.

To be more specific – in order to have a socialist democracy, the key sectors of the economy have to be under social ownership and control. We don’t have to nationalise every last corner shop, but the banks, the major industries and so on have to be taken over – leaving them in the hands of big business means abandoning the goal of economic democracy.

This doesn’t mean creating a centrally planned economy like the old Soviet Union. A real socialist democracy would be as far from that model as you can imagine. It has to base itself on direct participation by the working class in decision-making.

To prevent a system based on democratic planning from clogging up with bureaucracy, power has to be de-centralised as much as possible. The big decisions about economic production, setting the broad out-lines, should be made at national level. But there shouldn’t be any question of directing everything from the centre.

Depending on what’s most practical, decisions should be made at a regional level, or by a whole industry, or by a factory, or by a unit within a factory. At every level, power should be in the hands of elected delegates who are accountable to the people affected by those decisions.

There’s no question, a system run along these lines would be complicated, it would take a lot of work. But any system that runs a modern, industrial economy has to be complex. There’s nothing simple or straightforward about capitalism.

There’s no denying either, there would be problems, there would be draw-backs. We’re not talking about creating a perfect system, and anyone who tells you that we can make a perfect system is a charlatan. We’re talking about creating a system that’s better than capitalism, with all the problems it causes.

It should be obvious that a system like this would require new political structures. The very limited form of democracy that we have needs to be expanded radically. Political power has to be de-centralised along with economic power. Whenever possible, decisions should be made at a local level, by delegates from the communities that are affected by them.

That’s not always possible, of course – some decisions have to be made at a national level or not at all. And there has be some kind of central body that can adjudicate between different interests. It’s pure fantasy to think that all social conflicts will go away once capitalism is removed from the picture.

It’s fine to say that all the decisions should be made by worker councils and community councils – but what if councils in different parts of the country disagree with one another? You need to have a national assembly of some kind with the power to settle disputes and make policy for the whole country.

We’re talking about an assembly that would be very different from the Dail or the House of Commons. No doubt the structures involved would differ from one country to another – capitalist democracy takes on different forms in different countries, so there’s no reason to think socialist democracy would be any different.

One suggestion that I find attractive is the idea of a two-chamber system – one chamber would be directly elected, while the second chamber would be made up of delegates from the councils around the country. Whatever structure you adopt, there have to be safe-guards to prevent the formation of a political elite that’s cut off from the people it represents.

What those safe-guards would be has been clear since the time of the Paris Commune in the nineteenth century. Elected delegates should earn no more than the average working-class wage. There should be term limits to make sure you get a rotation of people at the top. And there should be structures that allow the re-call of delegates if they break their mandates.

There’s another thing that would be very important to make a system like this function. I’m talking about separation of powers. Often the radical left has neglected this idea, probably because they connect it with the practice of capitalist democracy. Usually, the separation of powers only exists in theory under capitalism. It goes to the wall when the stakes are high enough.

We’ve seen that with the record of the British state in Northern Ireland. When the military wing of the state gunned down peaceful protesters in Derry, on orders from the political wing of the state, it was up to the judges to hold them accountable. Of course, Lord Widgery did nothing of the sort. And Lord Denning had the same attitude with the Birmingham Six.

But that doesn’t mean the idea of putting checks and balances into the system is worthless – it just means that it doesn’t function properly under capitalism. In a socialist democracy, there will have to be a legal system that’s distinct from the political system, with the job of upholding a constitution that guarantees basic democratic rights. Sometimes minority rights have to be defended against the majority. That won’t change simply because capitalism is gone.

What social forces can we base ourselves on?

Well that’s an out-line of the goal we should be aiming towards. There’s plenty more that could be said about this, plenty of gaps to be filled, plenty of questions that we need to be able to answer. But that’ll do for now.

The next question is, how? To begin with, what social forces do you base yourself on? Socialists of all sorts, from social democrats to anarchists, have always argued that the key social force is the working class. That view has come under attack in the last few decades, from within the Left. There’s two broad lines of argument here – a negative one and a positive one.

According to the negative argument, there’s no point appealing to the working class, because it’s a busted flush. In countries like Ireland, the working class doesn’t have enough social weight to carry through a left-wing project of any kind, never mind a revolutionary one. Any political movement that wants majority support has to win over the middle classes, and that rules out radical policies.

There’s a grain of truth in this, and a whole heap of distortion. It’s true that there’s been a change in the make-up of the work-force right across the developed world. In most countries, the number of industrial workers has gone down, and the number of white-collar workers has gone up.

But the conclusions that people draw from this are very dubious. There’s no reason, in principle, why white-collar workers should be hostile to socialism. And there’s plenty of evidence to show that they can be won over by the Left and the workers’ movement. There’s a casual assumption that everyone who doesn’t get their hands dirty when they work is very affluent and very conservative. That assumption doesn’t have any basis in the real world.

The whole discussion we have about class is distorted by the existence of a class society. Obviously, the dominant class is able to promote ideas that help prop up its position. Convincing people that the working class is a powerless minority is a great way to convince them that there’s no alternative to the status quo.

But there’s a more subtle form of distortion, which exists because the people who take part in the discussion about class, academics and journalists for the most part, don’t represent society as a whole. The number of working-class people who can make it into those professions is still very small. So that has a big influence on what people say.

That helps explain why there was so much confusion earlier this year, when an opinion poll in Britain showed that fifty seven per cent of people consider themselves working class. It didn’t make any sense to the experts, it went against all the received wisdom. It never occurred to them that maybe people know better than the experts about their own position in society.

Let’s not forget, though, that when we start talking about the working class, there’s a linguistic problem. When socialists use the term, they usually mean anyone who earns a wage or a salary, anyone who has to sell their labour to survive. The everyday sense is a lot more restrictive.

There’s a bit in the Adrian Mole diaries when Adrian starts taking an interest in left-wing politics. He gets “The Condition of the Working Class in England” by Frederick Engels out of the library. When his dad sees it, he blows his lid and says “I’ve worked long and hard to drag this family into the middle class, and I’m not going to have my son admiring proles and revolutionaries!”

After reporting the scene, Adrian writes in his diary: “Dad is kidding himself if he thinks we’re middle class. He still puts HP sauce on his toast at breakfast-time.”

I’m sure anyone could come up with their own example. That’s an attitude that the Left has to reckon with, people have their own common-sense definition of class and you can’t just ignore that.

But it doesn’t need to be a huge problem. What matters to the Left is political identity, not cultural identity. People can have a really strong sense of themselves as being working class, but still vote Fianna Fail, or BNP for that matter.

Let’s say a group of teachers go on strike, it’s a long struggle but they win in the end, they make some gains, and they become radicalised in the process, from then on they identify with the Left and the workers’ movement, they’re open to socialist ideas. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter a damn then whether they call themselves middle class or working class.

There’s another argument though, a more positive argument, that was very popular in the 70s and 80s. What people said was, instead of relying on the working class, the Left should put its faith in the new social movements that were coming forward. Either they based themselves on a different social identity, like gender or race, or they based themselves on an issue that cut across class boundaries, like peace or ecology.

It should have been clear at the time that this was a very short-sighted view, and it certainly is now. A movement like feminism may hope to base itself on women as a whole, but it can’t help being affected by class divisions and class conflict. In most countries the feminist movement has split between activists who are happy with legal equality and activists who want more, people who want the kind of economic change that can make equal rights into a reality for working-class women.

You get the same problem with the Green movement. You can’t talk about protecting the environment without taking a stand on the way the economy is organised, so on the one hand you get the Irish Green Party telling us “Greens mean business”, and on the other hand you get eco-socialists who reject capitalism. Social movements can’t exist outside of class politics.

But there is an important point here that shouldn’t be over-looked. In the not-so-distant past, the workers’ movement was effectively the only social movement. That time is long gone. Movements like feminism and ecology have to be welcomed as equal partners.

Political organisation

So how is the working class going to change society? What kind of organisation does it need? There’s a lot of distrust these days when you start mentioning “parties”. Some people appear to think that any kind of political organisation and leadership is authoritarian by its very nature.

We disagree completely with this view. You have to ask yourself – what’s the alternative? People might say “spontaneous action by the working class”. That’s all very well, but in practice, there’s no such thing as “spontaneous action” in the pure sense of the term.

Any time there’s a strike or an occupation or a mutiny, somebody has to take the initiative and give a lead to the others – you never get a situation where several thousand workers all decide at the exact same time to go on strike. When we call something “spontaneous”, we really mean that it was initiated by people who weren’t recognised political activists.

Socialist revolution as we understand it isn’t going to happen without political organisation. A spontaneous protest movement may be able to bring down a government, but it won’t be able to lay the foundations for an alternative society. There’s too many wrong turnings that can be taken along the way.

It’s vital to have an organised political force that can give a lead to the working class. The Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci had a nice way of putting it when he said the party should be the “collective intellectual” of the working class. In other words, it should be the place where activists from all the different social movements come together, discuss their own experiences and look at what’s happened before, what previous generations have done, drawing conclusions and coming up with a political strategy based on those experiences.

Every revolution and mass movement that we’ve seen, over the last hundred years and more, has taught us one important lesson – social struggles are always uneven, they have their ebbs and flows, they don’t continue at the same level all the time. That’s only natural – going against the grain of the social order is never easy, it always brings trouble for the people who take that path, often very serious trouble.

Radical movements usually reach a peak, then they begin to retreat if they don’t make the crucial breakthrough. You need to have a political force that can concentrate the energies of all the different social struggles into a challenge for power.

Of course, that begs the question – what kind of political force? A lot of the distrust towards the whole idea of parties and leadership is very understandable, when you look at the kind of parties the Left has often produced. So for starters, one thing should be clear – it doesn’t have to be a single party that plays this role.

It’s unlikely that one organisation can represent all the currents of opinion, even among the most radical sections of the working class and the social movements. So when we talk about an “organised political force”, it could be an alliance of parties.

There also has to be pluralism within parties, there has to be room for different currents of opinion. The model of a tightly centralised, monolithic organisation has to be ditched. Members need to have the right to organise themselves into factions or platforms, putting across their own point of view.

Another thing is vital – members of a party should have the right to disagree with the majority line in public. Even with small organisations, it’s not healthy when debate is kept behind closed doors, it creates the potential for abuse by the leadership. But once you start talking about mass politics, it becomes very damaging.

If you have worker councils, or radicalised trade unions, where a big chunk of the membership belongs to a political party, it will completely deform the democratic functioning of those bodies, if the party activists go off on their own, make a decision, and then try to impose that line by presenting a united front. There has to be give and take.

That feeds into a broader question, how any organisation should see its relationship with the working class. Very often, parties have acted as if they can work out the correct programme, then go to the masses and tell them what they should do. That attitude has to go.

All we can hope to do is work out a provisional programme, a starting-point for discussion based on past experience. We have to be listening out for the demands emerging from social movements and adapt our own programme to take account of those demands. Our job is to help people find their own voice, not to speak on their behalf.

Elections

I’ve said already that one of the ISN’s main goals is to create new political structures, that allow much more room for mass participation than the form of capitalist democracy we have at present. So if that’s our goal, then why do we participate in the existing structures, as we have done already, as we will be doing again this year? Why not attempt to build a mass movement outside of electoral politics?

As I understand it, the case for abstention from parliamentary politics is based on two assumptions, both of which I find unrealistic. The first assumption is that you can create new political structures without participating in the old ones in any way.

There’s a lot of political experience that suggests this is not a viable strategy. In countries like France and Italy, the New Left of the 1960s usually followed an abstentionist path; it wasn’t the only reason why those forces were unable to mobilise enough support to carry through the kind of revolution they had in mind, but it certainly made a big contribution to that failure.

We have to recognise the fact that parliamentary systems in the developed world have put down deep roots, they’ve been in place for decades if not centuries. That doesn’t mean they’re invulnerable, not by any means, but it seems very unlikely that we can simply by-pass them.

The second assumption probably helps to under-pin the first. I’m talking about the assumption that once you get involved in electoral politics, sooner or later you will be forced to abandon radical goals and find yourself sucked into the logic of managing the system.

At a first glance, the history of the socialist movement in the twentieth century would seem to confirm this view. Not only have the social democrats been converted into pillars of the capitalist order, but the big Communist parties of western Europe have been happy to serve in governments that posed no threat to capitalism whatsoever.

But we need to look a bit more closely. It’s not very surprising that an organisation like the British Labour Party has evolved into such a conservative force. Whatever about the views of a section of its membership, Labour has never been led by people who thought seriously about replacing capitalism with socialism.

If you want to judge the record of parliamentary socialism, it’s better to look at the experience of parties that weren’t happy to rule over a capitalist society, parties that actually considered in practical terms how they might bring about a transition to socialism.

There are quite a few example of parties like that, and one thing stands out from their record – they all believed that it was possible to take control of the state through the ballot box, then use it as a tool to transform society.

We don’t have time to go through a detailed historical survey, so it’s best to look at one very striking example – the government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Allende and his allies in the Popular Unity coalition acted on the assumption that they could use the structures of the Chilean state to carry through their programme.

So you have all kinds of statements from leaders of the government, praising the Chilean army for its loyal, patriotic attitude, statements that appear hopelessly naïve when you remember what happened in September 1973. That went hand-in-hand with a belief that there was no alternative to relying on the existing state: in the last days of the government, when one of his advisers said to Allende “only the direct action of the masses will stop the coup”, apparently he responded by saying “how many masses does one need to stop a tank?”

The experience in Chile had the effect of terrorising the European Left. In Italy, the Communist Party was on the brink of taking power through the ballot box in the mid-70s. When they saw what happened in Chile, they decided to pull back and offered to form a grand coalition with the right wing – they expected a coup if there was a left-wing government elected to office.

Going down that road means abandoning any idea of transforming society. But there’s a very different lesson that can be drawn from what happened in Chile. It shows that you can’t take over the capitalist state and use it for socialist purposes – it’s not designed for that job.

You have to assume that most people in the upper ranks of the state bureaucracy, the leading civil servants, judges and army officers, will be completely hostile to the radical Left. The only way to overcome that opposition is by mobilising people outside the structures of the state, and by appealing to the people who are employed by the state over the heads of their bosses – including the soldiers.

So that points towards a very different approach to parliamentary politics. It may be possible for a radical party or a radical alliance to win at the ballot box. But that won’t give them the power to change society. Elections can be a spur to mass mobilisation, and they often have been. But without that mobilisation, it doesn’t matter how many votes you win.

That’s the attitude of the ISN when we take part in elections. We don’t claim for a moment that it’s going to be easy, we know very well what the dangers are. But it’s just not true to say that this approach to electoral politics has been tried again and again and failed every time – in fact, it’s barely been tried at all.

Our view of elections is rooted in our whole concept of socialist democracy. We don’t believe that change can be delivered from above by a parliamentary elite or a vanguard party. To quote Rosa Luxemburg: “Socialism by its very nature can’t be introduced by decree or proclamation. The whole mass of the people must take part in it.” The role of socialist organisation is to make that possible.

by sean - irish republican Fri Dec 12, 2008 22:27 sean.conway at talktalk dot net 45688 55555555555

i am proud to be irish and proud to say we have still irish men to go on with the fight for irish freedom there is only one solution 8 the problem take the brits out of ireland sean shankill estate

by sean - irish republican Fri Dec 12, 2008 22:37

i will support any organisation that is prepared to take the brits out of my my country by brits i mean brits that doesnt mean protestant people they r as much irish as what i am if they only realise that fact wolfe tonne wuz a protestant by the way so wuz st patrick