During my tenure as Chaiperson of Newry Sinn Fein, while running the office in Newry, a son of a British serviceman who was shot, came to my wife's door one night, and held a knife to my wife's throat, to wait for my return. I had to report the incident to a C/O in Muirhevnamor, a Republican stronghold, outside Dundalk, at the time. However, it transpired a few weeks later, that a complaint of child abuse, crossed my desk, against the still acting C/O, who had been moved out of another part of the North, because of other allegations, but was still serving in this senior capacity. In subsequent events, before I resigned from Sinn Fein, it became clear to me, that a considerable part of the leadership, was compromized, and I resigned. It further became quite clear to me when MI5 were trying to turn me into an informer, that they had also compromized the Judiciary in Occupied Ireland, because I was told, that they could arrange, that I was would be tried by specific judges, that they controlled. Obvioulsy as a result of their cover-up of child rape and their paedophile networks, MI5 control all of the justice system in Occupied Ireland, and as a result are perverting the course of justice, which is an extremely serious crime. This is obviously happening in the case of the innocent Seamus Daly, with regard to Omagh and also the Craigavon Two. It's the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, all over again. With such damning evidence, how can any British Government, claim to have anything remotely resembling a justice system in Ireland? How can they claim to have anything remotely resembling a democractic system in place, with compromised politicians, in their ruling junta there? How can they claim to have anything remotely resembling a Peace Process of consent, when it 's politicians and political parties, are remotely controlled by MI5? How can they claim to have a genuine police force, when a secret service such as MI5, are the unaccountable overiding authority? Obviously the prosecutors office in Belfast, are aware of all of this and are co-operating with a completley corrupted judicial process? How can any genuine Human Rights activist, campaign for justice in such a corrupted society, which has assassinated human rights lawyers and journalists? If you listen to the tape below the anomalies and contradictions in the internment of Seamus Daly are obvious, as is the case with the Craigavon Two. I ask all readers to contact your local politcian, wherever you are in the world, to campaign to end this nightmare of Britsih injustice in Ireland. Please share this restricted blog and articles as best you can. Please organize a broad front, to protest this monstrous crime against humanity and the mentored networks of Child Rape, being used by intelligence networks, to expand their power-base far beyond Ireland. Please organize internationally, to end this. Please contact the UN to start taking responsibilty. The British are withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights, because of obligations they cannot comply with. Before they do, please bring this to the attention the European Parliament. Please exert whatever pressure you can on the mainstream corporate media, to investigate and highlight this matter further. I make a special appeal to all mothers, not just in Ireland but across the UK, to organize and protect your children. It is not an exaggeration to state, that these MI5 mentored Paedophile Networks of Child Rape, are reaching epedemic levels, across Occupied Ireland and in Britain. It could be your child next! We must organize to stop it.To those who are already helping spread the word, a special thank you. Spread the Word! Protect our Children!
Perhaps because the industrial revolution never happened in Ireland, preceding my political education, I have always had a greater affinity with Tone's term of "the people of no property," rather than the Marxist term "working class." However there is much from my experience, that would confirm Trotsky's observation, "the working class could only trust its own forces in order to achieve." A good example of this, would be the lack of 'consciousness' in the Provo leadership of rural, South Armagh, which comes from my experience of working in Sinn Fein's offices in Newry, dealing with every day issues of the people of Newry. One particular incident stands out for me, with regard to all of this. When Tom Lonergan and I set up the offices in Newry, we were aware of various anti-social issues in the area, as a result of more than three generations of gerrymandered, massive unemployment, of up to 80%, created by the the sectarian, Orange, Stormont Junta. The offices were set up, in the wake of the death of the 10 hunger strikers and the election of Bobby Sands MP, for the purpose of garnering and organizing the people in the area, to effect a revolution in Ireland. Prior to the Hunger Strike and during the dirt strike, a few republican lads and myself, were protesting on Hill Street, outside the offices of Rory McShane, a prominent Social Democrat politician, who regularly passed us, with his fellow suits, sniggering at our protest. These SDLP suits, have now been replaced by Provo suits, who now snigger, at young people's protests, as happened with my fallen comrades on those protests and myself. Because of the re-drawing of the constituency boundaries, Newry became part of the South Armagh constituency, and as a result, heavily reliant for authentic leadership, politically, to South Armagh. One day an ex-IRA volunteer and ex-POW of Long Kesh, who had helped us politically with our work, came into our office and told me privately, that a supergrass, was about to break in Newry, which would betray many volunteers in the area, resulting in long terms of imprisonment for volunteers. Because my work in the area at the time, was being undermined by Belfast leadership, I asked my colleague, to go out to the leadership in South Armagh and explain all of the details carefully and mention, that I asked him to do so. Later I asked him about the results and he told me, that he was told, that there was no credibility attached to the report and had dismissed it. As I have previously written, I was considerably annoyed and as a result, went to Belfast, to clarify the matter but found the leadership there, totally inadequate. I had no option but to resign. I have strong feelings about this matter, but I am not getting into the blame game, there is much to go around, what goes around, comes around. People can decide for themselves. All I can do is strongly advise Irish people, to never forget the lessons of our history or we will definitely repeat them, with considerable unnecessary loss of life. Again, I would ask for the sake of future generations, if you feel remotely anything like I do, please share this article, as this will be mostly censored. I have not named the individual concerned publicly and refuse to do so, for the sake of their personal security. An article below from Wikipedia, gives a rough outline of events, approximately six months later. However, I do feel I am entitled to my opinion on the Paul Quinn matter and other killings in the area. A line needs to be drawn under all past crime in the area, including those who have engaged in being informers, and people need to find genuine forgiveness, for misdeeds committed.The problems in Newry, South Armagh cannot be resolved either by party or personality politics, while the British Occupation will exploit this, particularly when people are divided. I believe old Irish Brehon Law should be applied to these killings, to be adjudicated by the elders of the area, in a non-party political manner. Compensation needs to be made to the victim's families. Policing in this area needs to be carried out, strictly by locals, again, in a non-political manner, without any form of fascist violence. Any future informers to the British, need to be expelled from the area. The community needs to unite or be decimated. Because the British created the problem with their artificial border, there is no place for them in this solution and bringing the SAS back into the area, is treachery. Nobody should have a monopoly on smuggling on any part of the border, as everyone in the area has suffered deprivation as a result of being cut off from their natural hinterland and are entitled to supplement their income. People need to resolve this among themselves, as soon as possible, non-violently, without involving the British or outsiders from Belfast. The bottom line is still Brits Out!
Wiki....
Eamon Collins (1954 - 27 January 1999) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army paramilitary in the late 1970s and 1980s. He turned his back on the organisation in the late 1980s and later co-authored a book called Killing Rage telling of his experiences in the IRA. He was beaten and stabbed to death in 1999 near his home in Newry.
Collins grew up in Camlough, a small, staunchly Irish republican town in South Armagh.After finishing school, he worked for a time in the civil service in London before studying law at Queen's University (QUB). At Easter 1974, as Collins walked home to his parents' home in south Armagh, he saw his father being beaten by British soldiers. He was himself badly beaten when he tried to stop them, and both were detained.
Collins never completed his degree at QUB. After working in a pub for a period, he joined the Customs Service of Northern Ireland, located in Newry. Around this time, Collins got married. He and his wife, Bernadette, would have four children. §IRA career.
Collins joined the Provisional IRA at the height of the blanket protest by H-block prisoners in the late 1970s, which sought Special Category Status for republican prisoners. Collins became involved in street demonstrations at the time and was impressed by the left-wing politics of the new generation of republican leadership that had emerged in the late 1970s. He joined the South Down Brigade of the IRA, based around Newry. This was not one of the organisation's most active units, but it sometimes worked with the South Armagh Brigade, which was the most effective of the IRA's command areas. Collins says in his book Killing Rage that he never felt able to kill anyone himself, but instead became the South Down Brigade's "intelligence officer".
This involved gathering intelligence on intended assassination and bombing targets. His planning was directly responsible for at least five killings, including that of Ulster Defence Regiment Major Ivan Toombs. Many of the bombing targets of Collins' unit were of limited significance. For example, they destroyed the public library in Newry and a pub where a police choir drank after practice.
Collins became noted for his hard-line views on the continuance of armed struggle within the IRA and later becoming part of the Internal Security Unit. On the suggestion of the South Armagh Brigade, he became a member of Sinn Féin in Newry. The South Armagh IRA wanted a hard-line militarist in the local party, as they were opposed to the increasing emphasis of the republican leadership on the political over the military wing of the movement. Collins was not selected as a Sinn Féin candidate for local government elections. In part, this was due to his suspicion of the IRA and Sinn Féin leadership, whom he suspected of running down 'the war'. He had a public dispute with Gerry Adams at the funeral of an IRA man killed in a failed bombing, where Collins was accused of calling Adams a "Stick" (a derogatory name for Official IRAmembers, who were considered traitors by Provisional IRA supporters). InKilling Rage, however, Collins denied the claim, suggesting he only accused Adams of taking actions likened to those of a "Stick".
Despite his militarist convictions, Collins found the emotional strain of the IRA campaign, along with the pressure from the security forces, intolerable. On two occasions, he was arrested under anti-terrorism legislation, held in Castlereagh holding centre for seven days, and subjected to 24-hour interrogation. On the second of these occasions, in 1985, the Royal Ulster Constabulary were enraged by the killing, on the day of Collins' arrest, of nine of their colleagues in an IRA mortar attack in Newry. Towards the end of his time in custody, Collins reportedly "broke" and said that he was prepared to co-operate with the police.
In his book, Collins says that the strain of the interrogation exacerbated doubts that he had already had about the morality and direction theIRA campaign. He argues in his book that the republican leadership had already decided that the "war was over" by the mid-1980s and was already manoeuvering Sinn Féin to participate in what later became theNorthern Ireland peace process. §"Supergrass"
Subsequent to his arrest, Collins became an IRA supergrass, on whose evidence the state could prosecute large numbers of IRA members. Collins was held with other paramilitary informers in the Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast. After an appeal from his wife, however, who remained a republican supporter, Collins retracted his evidence against former colleagues. In return, he was given a guarantee of safety by the IRA, provided he de-briefed the organisation on his experience. Collins agreed and was then transferred to the republican wing of the prison.
As a result of losing his status as a protected informer, Collins was then charged with several counts of murder and attempted murder. When tried, Collins was acquitted due to a lack of evidence other than his own confessions, which he had since retracted. He then spent three months being interrogated by the IRA and was eventually allowed to relocate to the Republic of Ireland, but was not allowed to travel north of Dundalk. §Post-IRA life
Collins moved to Dublin and squatted in a deserted flat in the working class Ballymun area of the city. At the time, the area was experiencing an epidemic of heroin addiction and Collins volunteered to help a local priest, Peter McVerry, who ran programmes for local youths to keep them away from drugs. After several years in Dublin, Collins lived in Edinburgh, Scotland for a period, where he ran a youth centre. In 1995, he moved back to Newry. An IRA order exiling him from Northern Ireland had not been lifted but with an IRA ceasefire in operation, he judged it safe to move back in with his wife and children. In 1995, he also appeared on British television to tell his account of his experiences in the IRA.
In 1997, he co-authored 'Killing Rage', with journalist Mick McGovern, an exposé of the IRA and the Troubles. He also contributed to the bookBandit Country by Toby Harnden about the South Armagh IRA. In 1998, Collins gave evidence against leading republican Thomas "Slab" Murphy, in a libel case Murphy had brought against the Sunday Times, over a 1985 article naming him as the IRA's Northern Commander.[5] After his testimony, Collins was heard to shout, "No hard feelings Slab". In the immediate aftermath of the trial, Collins' home was attacked and daubed with graffiti calling him a "tout" (slang for informer). Since his return to Newry, his home there had frequently been attacked. His family home in Camlough was burned to the ground. Threats were made against his children, who were bullied in school. Graffiti was painted on the walls of the streets where his family lived. §Death
Eamon Collins was murdered on 27 January 1999, while walking his dogs near Barcroft Park, Newry. He was stabbed and beaten so badly, that police initially thought he had been hit by a car. One reason is thought to have been revenge for Collins' writings against the IRA and for his court testimony in Dublin against Murphy.[1][6] The Sinn Féin chairman of the local Newry district council, Brendan Curran, a one-time PIRA volunteer, stated "As far as I am concerned, Eamon Collins was a dead man walking. I am not sad at his death. He will not be missed. I have no feelings for Eamon Collins.". Gerry Adams stated the killing was "regrettable" but added that Collins had "many enemies in many, many, many places". Collins' death is attributed at the CAIN website to "unknown republicans". Collins is buried at Monkshill Cemetery, Newry, not far from Albert White, a Catholic officer of the RUC, whose assassination Collins engineered.
Trotsky and the struggle for a Revolutionary International (1933-1946) – Part One Written by Patrick Larsen
The figure of Leon Trotsky has created a new wave of interest among historians and writers of all types. Recently two new books about the Russian revolutionary have appeared; the first being the work of U.S. Professor Robert Service and the second of Bertrand M. Patenaude, a historian at California University. Both of them belong to that class of commercial literature typical of the bourgeoisie, full of factual errors, which tries to present Trotsky as an authoritarian politician who only lost to Stalin because he lacked tactical skills. Introduction
Another work, much more sympathetic in its style and its content, is the new novel by Leonardo Padura, “The man who loved dogs”. It tells the stories of Trotsky and his assassin, Ramón Mercader, both stories projected on the life of Iván, a Cuban who represents the post-revolutionary generation on the island.
We have dealt with this important contribution elsewhere. But although it has great value in reclaiming the general legacy of Trotsky, it does indeed contain some mistakes in the appreciation that the author has of aspects of Trotsky's political activity.
The main reason is that the majority of facts about his life which are presented in the book have been taken by Padura from Isaac Deutscher's trilogy – The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Armed and The Prophet Outcast. This biography, although it contains some interesting facts, has the major disadvantage of having been written by a person who lacked a firm comprehension of the method of Trotsky. He therefore fell into a whole number of misinterpretations of key elements of his life, especially concerning the last phase of it.
What all these books have in common is the absence of a serious analysis of Trotsky's attempt to found a new revolutionary international, the Fourth International. All of them regard it with a certain suspicion, emphasizing its reduced numbers, its isolation from the working masses and the splits which took place in the movement.
While most of Trotsky's biographers were full of praise for his great literary works such as My life or the History of the Russian Revolution they never understood why the creator of the Red Army spent countless hours of his last years writing letters, critiques, manifestos and programmes which only reached a handful of people and in many cases dealt with practical questions in the day-to-day work.
In our opinion this great flaw was mainly due to the fact that all of these writers were intellectuals on the margins of the workers' movement. They did not have the knowledge or the experience of aparticipant and consequently their books were not written with the methodology of a revolutionary militant.
However, when one reads the hundreds of letters that Trotsky wrote to create and train a new Marxist leadership, and when one studies the activity of his followers during the Second World War, it is impossible not to be impressed, faced with the magnitude of the lessons that this epoch contains for the future.
The objective of this article is, on the one hand, to serve as an introduction to the reading of Trotsky's last writings, and on the other hand also to extract the principal lessons of the attempt to create a Fourth International. For reasons of space, we cannot go into a detailed analysis of the subsequent history of Trotskyism and we will therefore limit ourselves to give an overview of the main reasons for the decline of the Fourth International after the end of WW2. For a more complete history, we recommend the work of Ted Grant:History of British Trotskyism, The origins of the collapse of the Fourth International by Fred Weston and The theoretical origins of the degeneration of the Fourth - Interview with Ted Grant.
In the work of researching the material for this article, it has been necessary to reclaim the real Trotsky, buried under a mountain of distortions and manipulations. By saying this we are not only referring to the monstrous lies of Stalinism nor only to the caricature presented by the bourgeois historians. We also refer to the “theoreticians” of the small self-styled Trotskyist sects, who have hijacked the name of the great revolutionary.
Always fond of internal rows and personal antagonisms, these gentlemen always had a modus operandi, a style and a life completely separated from the real mass movement. Their hysterical denunciations and their schematic views never allowed them to enter into contact with the living workers' movement and consequently they gave a very bad name to Trotskyism; something which has alienated many workers and made them refuse to collaborate with the 4th International and its subsequent fractions.
Trotsky himself, who had a profound knowledge of the psychology of the masses, did everything to throw out sectarianism and educate the cadres in the Bolshevik method of winning the majority. In this article we will show how he made several attempts to push his followers towards the mass organizations, not only to influence them, but also to constantly renovate his own movement, give it new life blood and break with the vicious circle of the small-group environment. “The most important work of my life”
It was in the year of 1933 that Trotsky came to the conclusion that a new revolutionary international was necessary. Before this, he had maintained the position of building an opposition within the official Communist Parties in order to fight for a genuine Marxist programme. But it was a huge political event which made Trotsky change his mind: the catastrophe in Germany, where the crazy “theory” of the Third Period and the consequent refusal to form a united front with the Social Democrats, whom they called “social-fascists”, which opened the gates for Hitler to come to power.
From that moment on, Trotsky came to the conclusion that the Party and the International not only had been incapable of taking a correct stance in the decisive moments. They had also been organically incapable of learning from their mistakes and they had proclaimed the big defeat of the German working class as if it was a victory (“After Hitler, our turn!”). He therefore thought that such an organization was doomed and could not be reconquered as an instrument for the proletarian revolution.
Contrary to his biographers, Lev Davidovich considered that the task of forging this new International was the “greatest work of his life”. In 1935, in one of his lesser-known works, Diary in Exile, he wrote the following:
"And still I think that the work in which I am engaged now, despite its extremely insufficient and fragmentary nature, is the most important work of my life—more important than 1917, more important than the period of the Civil War or any other.
“For the sake of clarity I would put it this way. Had I not been present in 1917 in Petersburg, the October Revolution would still have taken place—on the condition that Lenin was present and in command. If neither Lenin nor I had been present in Petersburg, there would have been no October Revolution: the leadership of the Bolshevik Party would have prevented it from occurring—of this I have not the slightest doubt! If Lenin had not been in Petersburg, I doubt whether I could have managed to conquer the resistance of the Bolshevik leaders. The struggle with ‘Trotskyism’ (i.e., with the proletarian revolution) would have commenced in May, 1917, and the outcome of the revolution would have been in question. But I repeat, granted the presence of Lenin the October Revolution would have been victorious anyway. The same could by and large be said of the Civil War, although in its first period, especially at the time of the fall of Simbirsk and Kazan, Lenin wavered and was beset by doubts. But this was undoubtedly a passing mood which he probably never even admitted to anyone but me.”
“Thus I cannot speak of the ‘indispensability’ of my work, even about the period from 1917 to 1921. But now my work is ‘indispensable’ in the full sense of the word. There is no arrogance in this claim at all. The collapse of the two Internationals has posed a problem which none of the leaders of these Internationals is at all equipped to solve. The vicissitudes of my personal fate have confronted me with this problem and armed me with important experience in dealing with it. There is now no one except me to carry out the mission of arming a new generation with the revolutionary method over the heads of the leaders of the Second and Third International. And I am in a complete agreement with Lenin (or rather Turgenev) that the worst vice is to be more than 55 years old! I need at least about five more years of uninterrupted work to ensure the succession."[i] The first steps: The bloc of the four
According to Trotsky, the new international would of course not fall from the sky from one day to another, but would be the result of a process of formation. It would include different sectors of the workers' movement who had arrived at the same conclusion or were drawing close to it. The degeneration of the Third (Communist) International and the bankruptcy of the Second International, in the context of the rise of fascism and the worst crisis in the history of capitalism created a vacuum on the political scene.
It was in such a situation that Trotsky received with great enthusiasm the news of the formation and the rapid turn to the left of the ILP, the Independent Labour Party of Great Britain. The leaders of the ILP were even for a short time flirting with the idea of setting up a new revolutionary international, although they subsequently abandoned that position. Other organizations, especially left-wing splits from the Socialist parties in Europe, were coming closer to the very same conclusion.
The followers of Trotsky, the Bolshevik-Leninists, participated in that debate and in the conference which was held by fourteen labour organizations and parties in Paris in August of 1933. This meeting had certain similarities with the conference of Zimmerwald in 1915, which, in spite of the enormous theoretical confusion, organized those who opposed the First World War. Just as in Zimmerwald, in the Paris conference a left and a rightwing appeared. The adherents of the left were four organizations who came out signing a declaration for a new International. These included, apart from the International Left Opposition, the SAP of Germany and two Dutch organizations, the RSP and the OSP.
This initiative, in spite of the programmatical limitations and the subsequent disagreements, showed how Trotsky was absolutely willing to collaborate with other groups, even with people who came from other traditions within the workers' movement. He was never afraid of an open and honest discussion with groups or individuals who were moving in the direction of Bolshevism. However, at the same time he insisted on transparency and honesty on the part of his allies and reserved the right to always put forward his own position:
“Revolutionary irreconcilability consists not in demanding our “leadership” be recognized a priori, not in presenting our allies at every occasion with ultimatums and threatening with a break, with the removal of signatures, etc. We leave such methods on one hand, to the Stalinist bureaucrats, on the other to some impatient allies. We realize full well that disagreements between us and our allies will arise more than once. But we hope, more than that, we are convinced, that the march of events will reveal in deeds the impossibility of participating simultaneously in the principled bloc of four and in the unprincipled bloc of the majority. Without resorting to any unbecoming “ultimatums”, we claim however our full right not only to raise our banners but also to state openly to our allies our opinions regarding what we consider to be their mistakes. We expect from them the same frankness. Our alliance will thus be strengthened." The French Turn
Trotsky was completely conscious of the weakness of his forces, not only from a numerical point of view, but also from the point of view of the lack of political experience of his followers. In one of the discussions he had with a visitor in his house in April of 1939 he explained it in these terms:
“We have comrades who came to us, as Naville and others, 15 or 16 or more years ago when they were young boys. Now they are mature people and their whole conscious life they have had only blows, defeats and terrible defeats on an international scale and they are more or less acquainted with this situation. They appreciate very highly the correctness of their conceptions and they can analyze, but they never had the capacity to penetrate, to work with the masses and they have not acquired it.”[ii]
This was one of the main reasons why he began to recommend a sharp turn towards the Socialist parties, and especially their youth organizations, beginning in France. In his opinion, the Trotskyists should enter these organizations to win the best proletarian elements. This tactic, which was later referred to as “entryism”, was not only about getting a numerical growth in terms of militants, but also about giving new life to the internal regimes of the Trotskyist groups.
This was a vital point for the educating of Marxist cadres in the harsh school of the class struggle. From the Old Man's point of view, it was not sufficient merely to comment on the life of a party from the perspective of an external observer. On the contrary, it was crucial to converge with the masses in revolutionary action, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the left against the right:
“It is not enough for a revolutionist to have correct ideas. Let us not forget that correct ideas have already been set down in Capital and The Communist Manifesto. But that has not prevented false ideas from being broadcast. It is the task of the revolutionary party to weld together the ideas with the mass labour movement. Only in this manner can an idea become a driving force.
“A revolutionary organization does not mean a paper and its readers. One can write and read revolutionary articles day in and day out and still remain in reality outside of the revolutionary movement. One can give the labour organizations good advice from the sidelines. That is something. But that still does not make a revolutionary organization.(...)
“In relation to the Socialist Party, the League has shown not only insufficient initiative but also a hidebound sectarianism. Instead of taking for its task the creation of a faction inside the SFIO just as soon as the crisis in the latter became obvious, the League demanded that every Socialist become convinced of the correctness of our ideas and leave his mass organization to join the group of La Verite readers. In order to create an internal faction, it was necessary to pursue the mass movement, to adapt oneself to the environment, to carry on a menial daily work. Precisely in this very decisive field the League has not been able to make any progress up to the present – with very few exceptions. A great deal of valuable time was allowed to be lost. (...)
“The criticism, the ideas, the slogans of the League are in general correct, but in this present period particularly inadequate. The revolutionary ideas must be transformed into life itself every day through the experiences of the masses themselves. But how can the League explain this to them when it is itself cut off from the experience of the masses? It is necessary to add: several comrades do not even see the need of this experience. It seems to them to be sufficient to form an opinion on the basis of newspaper accounts they read and then give it expression in an article or in a talk. Yet if the most correct ideas do not reflect directly the ideas and actions of the mass, they will escape the attention of the masses altogether” (Trotsky, The League Faced with a Turn, June 1934[iii])
Afterwards, Trotsky made the same recommendations for his followers in England concerning the ILP and in the United States concerning the Socialist Party. In many cases his followers received the advice with a lot of conservatism and opposed entering the organizations in question, or in some cases only a handful entered and did so too late to influence the left-wing tendencies that were developing in the rank and file of the Socialist parties. Trotsky and the Spanish Revolution
The country where this refusal on the part of Trotsky's comrades to accept his advice generated most controversy was Spain. The study of Trotsky's position in regard to the Spanish Revolution could merit a whole article or a book apart[iv], but in this occasion we will limit ourselves to the most important lessons.
Since the proclamation of the Second Republic in April of 1931, Spain had lived through a revolution of enormous dimensions in all spheres of social and political life. The subsequent incapacity of the republican-socialist government to keep its promises, especially the agrarian reform which would have benefitted the poor and exploited peasants, led to the electoral defeat of the left in the elections of November 1933. What followed afterwards is known as the “bienio negro” (the two black years).
The heroic resistance on the part of the workers, when faced with the entry of the ultra-right-wing CEDA party in 1934, represented the beginning of the armed insurrection and the proletarian commune in Asturias. This experiment was only cut across by the ferocious repression on the part of the army, led by general Franco. This was the very same officer who led a new coup d'etat in July of 1936 with the aim of destroying the revolution once and for all. But the brave workers of Catalonia and in other parts of Spain rose up and prevented a Fascist victory. In effect they made themselves the masters of Barcelona and other parts of Spain. Thus the Spanish civil war commenced in July 1936 and lasted for three years, up until Franco's final victory in April of 1939.
This was the context in which Trotsky tried to build a revolutionary party which could play the same role as the Bolshevik Party had played in Russia in 1917. A victory for the revolution in Spain would have acted as a real earthquake, which in turn would have changed the whole balance of forces internationally. That is why the amount of attention which Trotsky paid in dealing with the Spanish revolution, (something that the majority of his biographers ignore), is completely justified.
From 1930 onwards, one of his old friends, his former secretary, Andreu Nin, had been living in Spain. Nin was a relatively experienced cadre who had been many years in the Soviet Union, working as the President of the Profintern, the Federation of red trade-unions. From his arrival in Spain, he began to correspond with Trotsky about the problems of the revolution and the tasks of the Spanish communists. Nin began to develop more and more differences with the Old Man. While the former wanted a fusion with the right-wing-Communist group of Joaquín Maurin on an eclectic programme, Trotsky insisted on maintaining ideological clarity and discipline.
In the course of the year 1934, the same phenomenon of radicalization of the Socialist Youth which had been seen in France was repeated in Spain. The Spanish Socialist Youth even reached a point where they invited the Trotskyists to enter the Socialist Party in order to “bolshevize” it[v]. The main leader of the Socialist Party left, Largo Caballero, who organized his followers around the paperClaridad, spoke in favour of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and quoted the writings of Lenin on more than one occasion. But instead of grasping this historic opportunity, Nin and his friends opposed Trotsky's call to enter the PSOE and the FJS (Socialist Youth Federation). The Stalinists were more intelligent and they managed to make a fusion between their own miniscule youth organization and the Socialist Youth, thus conquering a solid base in the working class youth.
The fusion of Nin's group (Izquierda Comunista) with Maurin's Catalan group (The BOC), led to the formation of the POUM (The Workers' Party for Marxist Unification). Although it was very much accused of being Trotskyist by the Stalinists and although its members showed a lot of courage during the civil war (including Nin himself who was brutally tortured and murdered by the Stalinists), the POUM was never a Trotskyist party. Instead of carrying out the revolution from below, building the power of the workers' and peasant committees, it vacillated between reformism and revolution.
It recognized the legitimacy of the Catalan bourgeois government, the Generalitat, and even entered it with Nin as Minister of Justice. They accepted the dissolution of the militias and the disarmament, something which the government was promoting with the excuse of creating a single professional army. The leaders of the POUM also decided to call upon its militants to abandon the barricades during the famous May Days in Barcelona in 1937, when the Stalinists attempted to destroy workers’ control in the Telephone Exchange.
All these actions were severely condemned by Trotsky who in the last instance explained the defeat of the Spanish Revolution by the lack of a genuine revolutionary party. In his brilliant, unfinished article Class, Party and Leadership, he pointed out that the destruction of the Spanish Revolution was in no way due to a “low level of consciousness” on the part of the working class, but rather due to the betrayal of the leaders:
“The workers’ line of march at all times cut a certain angle to the line of the leadership. And at the most critical moments this angle became 180 degrees. The leadership then helped directly or indirectly to subdue the workers by armed force. In May 1937 the workers of Catalonia rose not only without their own leadership but against it(...)
“The proletariat may “tolerate” for a long time a leadership that has already suffered a complete inner degeneration but has not as yet had the opportunity to express this degeneration amid great events. A great historic shock is necessary to reveal sharply the contradiction between the leadership and the class. The mightiest historical shocks are wars and revolutions. Precisely for this reason the working class is often caught unawares by war and revolution. But even in cases where the old leadership has revealed its internal corruption, the class cannot improvise immediately a new leadership, especially if it has not inherited from the previous period strong revolutionary cadres capable of utilizing the collapse of the old leading party.(...)
“Victory is not at all the ripe fruit of the proletariat’s “maturity.” Victory is a strategical task. It is necessary to utilize the favourable conditions of a revolutionary crisis in order to mobilize the masses; taking as a starting point the given level of their ‘maturity’ it is necessary to propel them forward, teach them to understand that the enemy is by no means omnipotent, that it is torn asunder with contradictions, that behind the imposing facade panic prevails. Had the Bolshevik party failed to carry out this work, there couldn’t even be talk of the victory of the proletarian revolution. The Soviets would have been crushed by the counter-revolution and the little sages of all countries would have written articles and books on the keynote that only uprooted visionaries could dream in Russia of the dictatorship of the proletariat, so small numerically and so immature. [vi]
Incredibly, these very same arguments about a so-called “immaturity” and “low level of consciousness of the masses” are used by reformists in relation to the Venezuelan revolution today. Their aim is to hide their own incapability of completing the revolution by expropriating the capitalists, the bankers and the landlords.
Just as in Spain, in Venezuela the central problem is the lack of a real Marxist leadership which can guide the revolution. And as in Spain, the activity of the Venezuelan masses was also 180 degrees in contradiction with the activities of the reformist ministers during the 11, 12th and 13th of April 2002. While the latter were in hiding or fleeing from the coup d'etát, the masses courageously opposed the coup, taking the control of the streets and fraternizing with the revolutionary elements in the army.
But precisely as with the Spanish revolution, in Venezuela the revolution is running the risk of a defeat, because there is no mass Marxist leadership to drive all the energy of the masses towards the taking of power. The debates with the leaders of the American SWP:The method of transitional demands
The largest party of Trotsky's movement was without doubt the American Socialist Workers' Party. Its leaders had followed his advice and in a short space of time they had managed to make a successful fusion with the centrist party of A.J. Muste (The American Workers' Party), in reality with the purpose of winning the followers of the AWP over to Trotskyism, without allowing any political concessions. Afterwards they had entered the Socialist Party and effectively won over its youth organization, the Young Peoples' Socialist League. They had also managed to conquer important positions, as the one in Minneapolis, where they led the famous Teamsters Strike in 1934. The SWP had a membership of around 2,000 towards the end of the 30s.
However, Trotsky was completely aware of the theoretical shortcomings of the SWP leaders. He tried to prepare them for the great events that lay ahead by providing them with an insight to the dialectical method of analysis and a militant attitude towards the intervention in the mass movement. During 1938 and 1939 he held various discussions, with Cannon, Shactmann, Vincent Dunne, Joseph Hansen and other leaders of the American party.
The debates lasted for whole days at a time and had a widespread character, not just dealing with the particular problems of the practical work in the United States, but also about general problems of revolutionary tactics and strategy. The notes taken from the discussions were subsequently published and they constitute a real goldmine of lessons for revolutionary work.
The main point which ran through all the discussions was the methodwith which one could connect with the most active layers of the masses and consequently, the transitional demands to win them over. At that time, there was an increasing mood in favour of united proletarian action, but the class lacked a party on a national level.
Reflecting this mood, the LNPL (Labour's Non-Partisan League) was launched as a political instrument of the workers. However, the LNPL was launched by trade union leaders who merely wanted it to restrict it as being an office under their bureaucratic control which would recommend the vote for the bourgeois candidate Roosevelt. The SWP leaders were doubtful as to whether they should participate in the LNPL but Trotsky insisted on the struggle for “a policy which enables the trade unions to put their weight on the balance”.
He explained that it was necessary to counter-pose revolutionary demands to those of the reformists within the LNPL, in a concrete and audacious manner which could be understood by the workers:
“We are for a party, for an independent party of the toiling masses who will take power in the state. We must concretize it—we are for the creation of factory committees, for workers’ control of industry through the factory committees. All these questions are now pending in the air. They speak of technocracy, and put forward the slogan of ‘production for use.’ We oppose this charlatan formula and advance the workers’ control of production through the factory committees. (...)
“We say, the factory committees should see the books. This program we must develop parallel with the idea of a labour party in the unions, and workers’ militia. Otherwise it is an abstraction and an abstraction is a weapon in the hands of the opposing class. (...)
“Naturally we must make our first step in such a way as to accumulate experience for practical work, not to engage in abstract formulas, but develop a concrete program of action and demands in the sense that this transitional program issues from the conditions of capitalist society today, but immediately leads over the limits of capitalism (...)
“Then we also have the possibility of spreading the slogans of our transitional program and see the reaction of the masses. We will see what slogans should be selected, what slogans abandoned, but if we give up our slogans before the experience, before seeing the reaction of the masses, then we can never advance. .”[vii]
Faced with the scepticism, especially on the part of Shactmann, Trotsky pointed out that the slogan for a workers' militia was a necessity inherent in the concrete situation of the United States, even though this country was very far away and the threat of fascism seemed quite distant. He underlined that on the one hand the events of Europe would have a huge impact on the consciousness of the North American workers and on the other hand that the workers' militia could be proposed in a concrete way to protect shop stewards and picket lines from scabs and the bosses’ armed gangs.
Another controversial point was about the Ludlow amendment, by a bourgeois member of congress proposing a referendum on the participation of the United States in the Second World War. The schematic and abstract way of thinking of the SWP leaders had led the party to reject every attempt of using this slogan in favour of the referendum.
Trotsky opposed himself directly to Cannon and his colleagues and gave them an important lesson on how to tackle the question of democratic demands and connect them with the struggle for socialism. In the first place he explained that, until you can overthrow the bourgeois democracy, you have to take advantage of the means that it gives to you (regardless of how limited these are), in order to mobilize the masses in favour of your programme.
Of course he did not for one instance believe that a referendum could stop the outbreak of the war, nor decide whether the United States would take part in it or not. But Trotsky maintained that “We cannot dissipate the illusions [of the masses] a priori, only in the course of the struggle”. He added that it was crucial to say openly to the masses that the revolutionaries would fight side by side with their class brothers and sisters in favour of this referendum proposed by Ludlow, showing in practice that he wasn't really interested in realizing it, and that the working class could only trust its own forces in order to achieve such a referendum.
The words of Trotsky about the Ludlow amendment could perfectly have been written yesterday about the democratic demands in Tunisia and Egypt, where millions are struggling against the remnants of the dictatorships of Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. It is a good answer to all those sectarian elements who reject the necessity of giving support to democratic demands, among them for a Constituent Assembly.
In all these discussions we can observe the dialectical method of Trotsky in contrast with the mechanical ideas of sectarianism.
[iii] Writings of Leon Trotsky: The league faced with a turn, June 1934
[iv] Among the writings that analyze Trotsky's position on the Spanish Revolution, I would like to highlight the introduction written by Pierre Broué to the Spanish edition of his works on Spain and also the article by Juan Manuel Municio, “Trotsky, La izquierda comunista y el POUM” published in Marxismo Hoy No. 2, 1995.
[v] For a more detailed historical analysis of the development of the Spanish Socialist Youth, I recommend the following work: Pierre Broué: The Spanish Socialist Youth (When Carillo was a leftist), published in Revolutionary History, 2007.
NewsFlash Newry/South Armagh Willie Frazer was caught on NightVision putting Conor Murphy up the pole in South Armagh, while removing the Irish tricolur from poles, before Saint Patricks Day. Reports are also coming in, that Sinn Fein have offered the RUC/psni the use of a portacabin to use as a canteen while they are removing dissident posters from the poles in the area. It will be very tricky, with an election looming, so every election poster, has to be strip searched and their anal cavity probed, for boobies. One traditional smuggler, who wishes to remain anonymous, said, "We have offered one of our biggest portacabins for use by the RUC/psni so they can all have a cup of tay and we'll throw in a drop of discount whiskey as well. We are also offering them discount cigarettes and diesel. It's one of our biggest portacabins and 20 RUC men could fit in there at a time. You could also throw in a few PSNI women if they are fit enough. However we want it back in time for the General election, so we can use it outside a polling station. We are also offering to send over a few of the Bhoys, for entertainment. Willie Frazer asked us to help them out, so that they can remove all the dissident posters and Tricolours in South Armagh. We can also supply them with a bit of Waccy Baccy and anti-depressants, to keep their spirits up. He also said that Willie and his loyal brethern, can also use it for a night, on their motorcade to Dublin, while British drones overhead, can escort it all the way to Dublin using the backroads across the border, round Cross. We've also offered Willie a few of our Bhoys for the night and for the Craic"
How Governments Twist Terrorism
States craft terror definitions and designations to absolve themselves and satisfy their constituencies. By Philip Giraldi March 12, 2015 "ICH" - "American Conservative" - The Washington Post reportsthat “terrorism trend lines are ‘worse than at any other point in history.’” But what is terrorism? It has frequently been pointed out that “terrorism” is a tactic, not an actual physical adversary, but it is less often noted that a simple definition of what constitutes terrorism is hardly universally accepted, while the designation itself is essentially political. The glib assertion that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter fails to capture the distinction’s consequences as the terror label itself increasingly comes with a number of legal and practical liabilities attached. Describing an organization as terroristic in order to discredit it has itself become a tactic, and one that sometimes has only limited connections to what the group in question actually believes or does. The bone of contention in defining terrorism is where to draw the line in terms of the use of violence in furtherance of a political objective. In practice, it is generally accepted that state players who employ violence do so within a social framework that confers legitimacy, while nonstate players who use political violence are ipso facto terrorists, or at least susceptible to being tagged with that label, which confers upon them both illegitimacy and a particularly abhorrent criminality. But some on the receiving end of such a Manichean distinction object, noting that the laws defining terror are themselves drawn up by the governments and international organizations, which inevitably give themselves a pass in terms of their own potential liability. They would argue that established regimes will inevitably conspire to label their enemies terrorists to marginalize both resistance movements and internal dissent in such a way as to diminish the credibility of the groups that are so targeted. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently been doing precisely that, and one might reasonably argue that government use of violence is often in practice indistinguishable from the actions of nonstate players. Some common dictionary definitions of terrorism include engaging in “the systematic use of terror,” surely an indication of the inscrutability of an issue when the word must be used to define itself. The United Nations has been unsuccessfully negotiating a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism since 2002 that would define terror as causing death or serious injury or destroying or damaging public or private property “to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.” The United States Federal criminal code uses similar language, as does the Patriot Act, with the key elements being the use of violence or physical destruction to “intimidate or coerce” a civilian population or an existing government. Governments are aware of what can be accomplished by invoking the word “terrorism.” The diplomacy-averse United States frequently hides behind the label, as it is prohibited by law from negotiating with groups so-labeled, and thereby avoids having to confront the possible legitimacy of what they represent. And it also justifies a uniformly violent response, which is invariably described as self-defense. Fourteen years ago the “global war on terror” was used to justify wholesale American intervention in predominantly Muslim countries. A number of European countries, including France and Britain, have followed the example of the two Patriot Acts by introducing antiterrorism legislation that provides special police and intelligence service authorities that limit normal legal protections in terrorism cases. The broadly written laws have largely rendered the authorities immune from either regulation or prosecution, and governments in the West have generally been reluctant to allow any third-party inquiries into the related behavior of military and police forces. In the United States the state secret privilege, originally intended to prohibit the exposure of classified information in court, has been used to completely derail judicial proceedings relating to offenses allegedly committed by the government in terrorism cases. And critics of the essentially hypocritical double standard used in defining terrorism certainly have a point. One might reasonably argue that the use of drones, in which “signature” targets are killed because they match a profile, fits comfortably within the definition of terrorism. During 2003-4, American Army and Marine forces in Fallujah sometimes shelled and bombed targets in the city indiscriminately and were certainly responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths. The Israeli Defense Forces killed thousands of civilians in two incursions into Gaza as well as several attacks on Lebanon. There was no declaration of war to justify the use of armed force in either case, and independent observers noted that many of the civilian casualties could have been avoided, normally a defining factor that makes an incident terror. Both Israel and the United States turned the tables on the situation by referring to their opponents and victims as “terrorists.” There has been no accountability for the deaths because it was two governments that carried out the killing. In a world seemingly obsessed with terrorism it was inevitable that something like ananti-terrorism industry would grow dramatically. Every television and radio network has its own stable of pundits who pontificate on every violent incident, and there also are well-compensated freelancers, who describe themselves as experts, such as Evan Kohlmann and Steve Emerson. Emerson recently had to apologize after claiming that Birmingham, England had a number of no-go areas controlled by local Muslim extremists. It should be no surprise that lawyers have now also gotten into the game. In 1996 Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which allows victims of terrorism to file civil suits in federal and state courts against sponsors or supporters of terrorism. Once you have a group or individual labeled as terrorist, or providing assistance to terrorists, there are a number of options you can pursue. The burgeoning antiterrorism industry appears to be in some ways linked to the increasing employment of Lawfare, which uses the legal system to wage war by alternative means, making it possible to obtain a favorable judgment and damages from the assets of a recognized terrorist organization. Such litigation benefits from favorable legislation in the United States that makes terrorism a worldwide crime subject to U.S. judicial review. Recent court cases have involved both states that allegedly sponsor terrorism or actual organizations that are now parts of governments that either currently or at one time were perceived to be terrorists. Many of the groups targeted are enemies of Israel, and the Israeli Lawfare center Shurat HaDin is most active in pursuing such litigation. In a recent case in New York City, the Palestinian Authority was successfully sued by a group of Israelis and Americans over terrorist attacks that took place in Israel in 2002-4. If the appeal fails, the Palestinian Authority will be required to pay $1 billion in damages and will be bankrupted, with negative consequences for the United States, which has been seeking to create a viable government on the West Bank. The U.S. Department of State identifies four countries as state sponsors of terrorism, making them prime targets for sanctions and other legal action. They are Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Iran. Cuba is an anomaly as it has not threatened anyone in decades but remains on the list due to the deep passions within America’s politically powerful Cuban Lobby. Sudan likewise should not be so designated, as even the U.S. government admits that it is cooperative on terrorism issues. This leaves Syria and Iran, both of which are regarded as state sponsors of terrorism even though both are themselves victims of terrorist attacks carried out by groups supported by the United States. They are on the list because they harbor or cooperate with Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. All three groups consider themselves to be resistance movements against the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, but Israel regards all three as terrorists, a view shared by the United States on the state department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list. That viewpoint is not necessarily shared by many European governments, which regard the organizations as having evolved into legitimate political parties. There are also thousands of individuals and groups considered to be terroristic or criminal, collected by the U.S. Department of Justice on its Special Designated Nationals List. Individuals and organizations on the list have their assets blocked and are subject to other punitive action by the United States government. Being designated by the Department of the Treasury or state does not necessarily mean that someone or some organization was actually involved in terrorism. The Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity, was declared a terrorist organization in 2001. Its officers were convicted and imprisoned in a 2008 trial because the Treasury Department determined ex post facto that it had given money to Hamas before that group was itself named as a terrorist organization. Inclusion on the State or Treasury lists can mean that there is solid evidence of wrongdoing, but it can also represent mere insinuations or a strong desire to see a group singled out for punishment. In any event, once a group or person is designated for a list, it is difficult to get off. Organizations that have not engaged in terrorist activity for many years remain on the list while other groups that are active escape censure. Recently, the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian terrorist group thatkilled six Americans in the 1970s, was removed from the list under political pressure from Congress and the media. Again, Israel was involved. MEK is an enemy of the current government in Tehran and is itself an important component of the Israeli intelligence effort against Iran, having been involved in the fabrication of information suggesting that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program as well as participating in the assassinations of Tehran’s scientists. So what terrorism actually consists of very much depends on one’s perspective, rendering the word itself largely meaningless. But those who are listed as terrorists experience real consequences even accepting that the designation is both selectively applied and politicized. The United States and Israel in particular use the terrorism label to demonize opponents, drum up fear, and generate popular support for security policies that might otherwise be unpalatable. They also justify their own behavior by asserting that they occupy the moral high ground in the defense of the world against terror, a claim that certainly should be regarded with considerable skepticism. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest
One of the principal reasons, that I resigned as chairperson fo Newry Sinn Fein and later from Sinn Fein itself, was that I suspected a considerable proportion of my colleagues, at that time, were spies and British informers. However as with a good friend or comrade, whom we would give the benefit of the doubt, I was not going to shout it from the rooftops, for obvious reasons. Again when the Bad Friday Agreement was signed, and discussing it later with colleagues, I disagreed, but for the sake of giving peace a chance, I was prepared to wait and see. It is now 20 years since it was signed, and there is far greater clarity, around all of these matters, with solid proof that all of my suspicions were not simply paranoia.
The British Dirty War in Occupied Ireland is still ongoing, in all it' s subtle guise, since 1970, with varying degrees of intensity, in almost every part of British administration in Ireland. Gerry Adams is credited with masterminding the resistance, known as the long war, which is utter rubbish. Knowing this man at close quarters for almost 35 years, believe me, he does not have the intellectual capacity or vision for such an endeavour. However, he does have the manipulative skills, learned, surviving an abusive home, to orchestrate it. The end result of both the British Dirty War and the Long War, was that they both synchronized, to enable collaborators, to rise in the ranks of the Republican Movement, to become the leadership of Provisional Sinn Fein, now known as Sinn Fein, or more accurately in reality, as John Borgonovo termed it, the Anti-Sinn Fein Society.
The proof of this, is that in the last couple of months, we have had Martin McGuinness, the right hand man of it's President, declaring publicly, that his politcal work is inspired by the Queen of England, something any republican child, will tell you is the total antithesis of republicanism, world wide. We also had Gerry Kelly, the chief enforcer of the Bad Friday Agreement on the ground, calling on Irish people to become informers and spies for British Occupation Forces in Ireland. We also had Conor Murphy, their MP from South Armagh, also calling on Irish people to become spies and informers, while a young lad who voiced opposition to the Murphy's, was battered to death, in true fascist fashion, for simply voicing opposition to the Murphys in South Armagh.
During the party’s annual conference, currently being held in Derry, they passed a pro-choice policy on abortion and the party has also enabled a gay rights agenda, which have given it a liberal veneer for the electorate. However, like their Blueshirt fellow travellers in the south, their core policy is Neo-Liberal or Corporate fascism, mirroring the steel fist, in a velvet glove, of Thateherite policies of austerity from the British Tory Party. Deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, tried to disguise this yesterday, in a deceirful speech to the conference, trying to rationalize Sinn Féin opposing austerity cuts in the south of Ireland, shile it was implementing draconian austerity policies from the Stormont Junta. Meanwhile Gerry Adams the President of the 'Anti-Sinn Fein Society' has confessed recently, that he spends his free time, cavorting naked with his dog on a trampoline, while also making love to trees, which are all meant to divert Irish people with"Cuddly Eccentric Gerry,"from the fascist core of his party's neoliberal deception.
Irish Blog believes that under these circumstances, resistance must continue against the British Dirty War in all of its elements within the fascist, sectarian, Orange State and organize the defence of Irish working class people. It needs to be a resistance, that takes extreme care, to avoid at all costs, innocent civilian casualties, to enable the agitation, education and organization of the Irish people, to create the masses on the street of the Civil Rights Campaign. This is what is needed to fundamentally change, this dysfunctional society and gain freedom for our people. Only militant, mass action, will force the conditions necessary, for a total closedown of industry. The principle problem in Ireland is partition, not just north/south but also the sectarianism, that divides working people and the people of no property, by British Occupation Forces, with the help of the 'Anti-Sinn Fein Society,' who as political collaborators, are part of the problem, not the solution, enabling the widening gap, between rich and poor all over the island.
While opposing the British Occupation, we also need to fight the EU state in the south and its various corporate fascist, entities like Irish Water. The Ireland worth fighting for, is the Ireland, for the people of no property, to be materially free in fraternity with every other Irish person. We must become self-supporting through our own contribution and labour of love, for all our people, in liberty, equality and fraternity. The way to Freedom is using the natural resources of Ireland, her land and sea, first for the ordinary people of Ireland and later bartered transparently, with other free people, who have earned their freedom. This is the price and way of freedom, there are no shortcuts. The alternative, is at best, the impending Orwellian nightmare, that extinguishes the Spirit of Freedom or worse, the fascist, nuclear, holocaust, aggression of Imperialism.
SPIES, INFORMERS AND THE ‘ANTI-SINN FEIN SOCIETY': THE INTELLIGENCE WAR IN CORK CITY, 1919-1921
John Borgonovo’s Spies, Informers and the ‘Anti-Sinn Fein Society': The Intelligence War in Cork City, 1919-1921
John Borgonovo is among a handful of international historians to have studied Ireland’s War of Independence with the focus on a specific part of the conflict, in this case the crucial Intelligence struggle in the south-western region of the country, notably in Cork City and County. This revealing new account shines a bright light on this dark and murky covert world of espionage and counter-espionage, of competing spy-rings and networks, and examines in detail the belligerent role played by sections of the British Unionist minority in Ireland, in particular through active collaboration with the British Occupation Forces both as spies and counter-insurgents. With many tens of thousands of Irishmen having served in the British military and paramilitary police forces, both in Ireland and overseas, and with the Unionist minority in Ireland reliant on continuing British rule in order to maintain their `colonial’ privileges, it is hardly surprising that the British found a rich vein of sympathy and co-operation within this frequently militant population, as they struggled to control the majority of the Irish people and their support for Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), mandated as both were by a string of electoral landslides – which of course the British refused to recognise.
Borgonovo’s book will be a revelation to many readers unaware of the activities of the broad Unionist community in `southern’ Ireland during the 1916-1923 Revolution, in stark contrast to their more obviously violent and infamously anti-democratic `northern’ compatriots. While Unionist terrorist organisations like the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) are well known and documented their counterparts in other parts of the country are largely forgotten, and Borgonovo looks at the `Anti-Sinn Fein Society’ as well as several other shadowy groups linked to the British Forces (plus numerous individual informers, traitors and collaborators). Their wide range of counter-insurgent activities, spying, kidnapping, torture, assassinations, house burnings and multiple murders, are presented in detail and with a great degree of fairness and contextual placement. Borgovono goes out of his way to present all arguments, often giving the benefit of the doubt to individuals where circumstantial evidence alone would point to guilt. His use of original source materials is scrupulously detailed and no statement or claim is made without solid backing. Where tentative suggestions are made, or facts remain unclear, he does not hide the fact but rather draws attention to it, clearly leaving it up to the reader to decide themselves based upon the evidence. This kind of academic honesty is highly refreshing and is one of the real strengths of the book.
Borgonovo also addresses the case made by others, most notably the controversial right-wing writer Peter Hart in several of his more infamous publications, that there was a sectarian and racist element to the Irish Revolution in the Cork region, and that the IRA deliberately targeted civilian members of the British Unionist minority in the area. This claim has been taken up by a number of British Neo-Colonial historians in support of Britain’s case that it had the right to rule Ireland, to the benefit of the Irish people, and has been described by them as a campaign of `ethnic cleansing against Protestants’. To Borgonovo’s lasting credit he methodically demolishes this particularly nasty and insidious web of anti-Irish propaganda, stripping it of all pretence to academic integrity, and showing it to be the politically motivated counter-factual history that most rational people know it to be. For taking on the lunatic fringe of British apologist historians, and their Irish offspring, and showing the false and worthless nature of their conspiracy theories we should be eternally grateful to Borgonovo.
We need more studies like this.
For those wanting to know more about the particularly bitter struggle in the Cork region between the Irish Republican Army and the British Occupation Forces during the War of Independence, Meda Ryan’s award-winning ‘Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter’ is an excellent place to start.
Catholics are leaving the PSNI police in numbers and fewer are applying to join, new figures have shown.
The latest statistics show that, although the population of the Six Counties is 48 per cent Protestant, more than two in three of the current PSNI membership are now from that community.
Three in ten are Catholics, but the rate should be 50% higher than that according to the Patten reforms which converted the old RUC into the current PSNI.
Recruits to the force are once again disproportionately Protestant. after 50:50 recruitment system was scrapped four years ago following sustained criticism by unionists that it “discriminated” against Protestants.
The rebalancing of the PSNI workforce had been a key factor leading to the SDLP, and later Sinn Fein, supporting the new PSNI. At one point, just 8 per cent of RUC officers were Catholic.
SDLP Policing Board member Dolores Kelly said the drop off in Catholic PSNI is worrying.
“It is a matter of great concern that after all the work done to encourage young Catholics to join the police,” she said. “We want exit interviews. We want to know why everyone is leaving, what their reasons are.”
Unionist Policing Board member Ross Hussey has suggested that the flight of Catholics from the PSNI is due to the threat of “republican violence”.
“As was the case with the RUC, any disincentive for Catholics to join the PSNI is due in large part to the ongoing campaign of republican violence and in particular the active targeting of police officers from a Catholic community background,” he said.
“We believe that the best person for the job should be appointed to a job, regardless of colour, class, creed or gender.”
But there is a growing sense that the PSNI remains “a cold house” for northern nationalists. It was revealed this week that plans are afoot to remove the Patten-era requirement for PSNI members to declare membership of the Orange Order and other secret anti-Catholic organisations.
The Orange Order has said a PSNI review of the rule came after “continual and extensive lobbying” by senior Orangemen. The order’s monthly paper, the Orange Standard, also said it believes membership of the GAA (Gaelic sports association) and other ‘nationalist’ signifiers should have to be declared under the present policy.
A spokesman for Sinn Fein said: “The requirement to declare a belonging to a set number of organisations for PSNI officers it is still as relevant today as it was when this was first enacted.”
BOYCOTT
There have been other signs of declining nationalist confidence in the force recently.
A meeting of the Magherafelt Policing and Community Safety Partnership had to be cancelled this week after it was boycotted by nationalist representatives.
The ‘watchdog’ body - one of 26 across the north - has been at the centre of controversy since the family of murdered GAA official Sean Brown, urged elected representatives not to attend in protest at the PSNI’s handling of his inquest.
And in south Armagh, a sizable protest took place last weekend at the rise of “criminality” in the area and the failure of the PSNI to engage in local policing. Sinn Fein Policing spokesperson Gerry Kelly said he had raised the issue at a meeting of the Policing Board.
He said he also ‘quizzed’ the PSNI about unacceptable delays to coroners’ inquests and stalling tactics in the case of police informer Gary Haggarty.
“I will be demanding answers to these issues from the senior management of the PSNI and will continue to hold them to account until these matters are satisfactorily resolved.”
Arthurs Attacks SF Leadership
One of the most senior ex-Provisional IRA figures in the North has said that the nationalist community should not pass on information or “collaborate in any way” with the PSNI.
In an interview with the Sunday Tribune, Brian Arthurs, a former commander of the Tyrone Brigade, said Sinn Fein and “other constitutional nationalist parties” were wrong to say that the PSNI should be supported.
Arthurs, who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, said he had supported the Good Friday Agreement but had become very disillusioned with the failure to progress towards Irish unity.
Similar comments were voiced by Peter McCaughey, another former senior Provisional IRA member from County Tyrone. Both men disclosed that they had left Sinn Fein two years ago after a major split in the republican movement in Tyrone.
Five Sinn Fein cumainn, and 90% of the East Tyrone brigade, left in the move. Arthurs said: “No one can deny that there have been changes in the North but it is an equality agenda being pursued. People did not die, they did not take up arms, for equality. They did so for Irish freedom.
“Yet a huge 100 million pound MI5 building has been built in the North and 5,000 British soldiers remain here. A special British military intelligence unit has just been deployed in Derry.
“David Cameron told the Tory party conference that he was prime minister of Britain and Northern Ireland. He stressed the importance of the union and said, ‘together is how we must remain’. Republicans cannot see Irish unity in any of this. It should be remembered that, as republicans, we were committed to fight on until Britain made a declaration of intent to withdraw from Ireland.”
Arthurs and McCaughey both come from prominent republican families. Arthurs’ brother Declan was one of eight IRA men shot dead by the SAS in Loughall in 1987. McCaughey’s brother Martin, and another IRA member Dessie Grew, were killed on active service by the SAS in 1990.
A number of independent republican societies - named after the 1916 leaders and other republican martyrs - have now been formed in Tyrone. “We have six societies with around 200 members and we are in the process of forming another six,” Arthurs stated.
He said the societies were “committed to upholding the ideals of the 1916 Proclamation and Irish national self-determination” and were made up of new young members and veteran republican activists.
The societies held a rally, attended by 1,500 people, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Martin McCaughey and Dessie Grew earlier this month. Peter McCaughey said he was “extremely disappointed” with Sinn Fein’s condemnation of those who remain involved in ‘armed struggle’.
After the Real IRA bomb attack on the Ulster Bank in Derry, Martin McGuinness called those responsible “conflict junkies” and “neanderthals”. After the murder of two British soldiers at Massereene last year, he condemned the killers as “traitors to the island of Ireland”.
Peter McCaughey said: “Was my brother a ‘conflict junkie’, a ‘neanderthal’ or a ‘traitor to the island of Ireland’? That is what Martin McGuinness would call him if he was killed on active service today. My brother was a freedom fighter. He fought for a united Ireland. That goal is still there and remains deeply cherished by republicans in Tyrone.
“We were disgusted when Martin McGuinness stood at the gates of Stormont with the chief constable of the PSNI after Massereene and demonised republicans. He did not speak for us.”
Brian Arthurs said the nationalist community should not “pass on information or collaborate with the PSNI” as Sinn Fein and the SDLP urged: “Young people now, just like young people during the previous phase of conflict, will continue to be attracted to the republican struggle.
“It can be argued that an armed campaign is not advisable at this point in time but it will never be right to inform on those who decide otherwise. Informing on republicans will lead to their families being oppressed by the state. It will lead to the arrest and incarceration of volunteers and, at worst, to their death.
“It was wrong to pass information to the police 20 or 30 years ago and it is wrong now. The graveyards are full of young republicans put there because a small minority of the nationalist community passed information to the British forces.”
Arthurs said the independent republican societies in Tyrone were “non-party political” and were not linked to Republican Sinn Fein, the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, or eirigi.
Arthurs and McCaughey said that, despite long-standing reservations about the direction of Sinn Fein’s strategy, they and others had remained loyal to the leadership because they didn’t want to split the movement.
“Two years ago, it reached the point that we couldn’t stay,” McCaughey said. “We were told at a meeting in Tyrone that Sinn Fein’s support for the PSNI wasn’t just a written policy, we had to implement the strategy in full or leave. So we left.”
McCaughey had been a Sinn Fein member for over 20 years. He served four years in the H-Blocks for possession of weapons. Arthurs is a former election agent for Sinn Fein MP Michelle Gildernew. In 1995, he was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment for possession of explosives. He was released five years later under the Good Friday Agreement. He was arrested in connection with the 2004 Northern Bank robbery and released without charge.
In 2007, he was charged with obtaining money fraudulently in relation to a mortgage application. He was acquitted. He is currently facing the same charges again and has pleaded not guilty. His request to be tried by a jury, rather than a Diplock court, was refused. He is appealing that decision to the House of Lords.
First of all I would like to wish Tommy McCabe, a full speedy recovery, having said that, I am not going to lose any sleep over it, and this why. There are two basic rules, that every child in the constituency of Conor Murphy, in Newry South Armagh learn at a very young age. First you do not Tout, or become an informer, to British Occupation forces. Number two, you do not remove flags or posters, from poles in the constituency, unless you are a foolish British soldier or an idiot member of their Occupation forces. You will not have much sympathy, from any Irish person, who is remotely republican, if something happens to you as a consequence. I've no doubt that when Tommy recovers, he will at least feature on page three of the Sun, when he makes a full recovery, as part of British propaganda, to replace their page three dolls. I hope he has learned a lesson from it, and the next time someone orders him to do some pole dancing, or remove a tricolour or poster, he tells them to do their own dirty work themselves. As anyone who reads my articles will already know, I have regularly opposed in the strongest terms, violence of any sort, against any civilians, from whatever quarter it comes. This is not the road to liberation and I disagree vehemently with kneecapping. I believe there are far more progressive ways of dealing with anti-social behaviour, with the legalization of drugs, and rehabilitation, as a progressive step, in the right direction. Now like most Republicans in the US, many Irish republicans believe, they have the right to bear arms, particularly in that part of Ireland, where the British are still conducting their Dirty War against Irish people. Proof of this has come recently, from the British Viceroyal's office, confirming, they have their own specialists inside the prison, where Irish POWs are tortured, stripped searched and anally probed, to break down their political resistance, psychologically. As has been fully described in British handbooks of how to conduct Dirty War, part of their strategy includes bringing this into the politics of British Occupied Ireland and use tools like Conor Murphy, to break Irish resistance, along with the compliant fools of his party colleagues. As a former chairperson of their party in Newry, it took a while for me to cotton on to what was happening, after which I resigned, as a point of principle.As someone who was involved in setting up their first two offices in Newry, along with Tom Lonergan, I do have experience with regard to the issues that confronts Conor Murphy. First of all, let me categorically state, that those offices were never created for the purpose of collaborating with British Occupation forces, no matter what uniform they wore. Secondly I can categorically state, that it never happened on my watch in Newry, and I am certain it never happened on Jim McAlister's watch in Camlough or elsewhere, as it would totally defeat the purpose of the many sacrifices made by thousands of Irish republicans and would break the ethics of the struggle. Our voluntary, unpaid function, was to assist ordinary people, with everyday problems and with issues related to the Housing Executive. I had one occasion, outside of the office, where I had a dilemma about this. I lived most of time in Newry, in North Street Flats, which were apartments of several floors. One day a mother from a ground-floor apartment, requested my help, because, she believed a bomb had been left in a dustbin right outside her front door, which was completely surrounded by apartments on all sides. I knew that no republicans had left it there, and the only ones who would do such a thing, would be one of Willie's mob. I also knew that it was potentially fatal, to lift the lid. I actually could hear, as she had told me, something ticking inside the bin. So I gently lifted the rather large bin and carried it into the middle of the square. Unlike the Tommy McCabe incident, I did not ask someone else to do it. Having moved it, I warned all of the children in the vicinity, to stay well clear of this threat. I then had the problem of how, if it was a bomb, to defuse it. During my may interrogations In Gough Barracks, mostly by MI5, I was aware from the outset, that I was being profiled, as either a dove or a hawk, for future reference. I conducted myself, in such a way, as to pass the attitude test, without divulging any information whatsoever, that would betray my community or comrades. At the end of one of my three-day detentions, they gave me a phone number to call if I should change my mind. Now I have been interrogated so many times in my life, that I have lost track of it all, but it would be scores of times. Now I was also evaluating them, just as much as they were me. They knew for instance, that I loved hurling and wanted to talk about that, but I politely avoided this. However I came to the conclusion, that not all of them were rotten, and I have to be fair and say, that not all cops are malign, but like politicians I do not trust them. However in this dilemma with the potential bomb, I knew it would seriously compromise my community, if I called the RUC and asked for a bomb disposal unit. I knew any information, no matter how insignificant, would eventually find its way, to people like Willie Frazer, the UVF and British death squads, roaming Ireland. It is also a critical factor in the event of any civil war, caused by the British Occupation. So I called this MI5 number and asked them to send a bomb disposal unit. To this day, I do not know if it was a real bomb or not, I also taped the conversation for transparency reasons. This was the one and only occasion I phoned British Occupation forces in Ireland, it was my responsibility, as I was the only person at that time, taking problems in the Provisional Sinn Fein office. Which takes me to Murphy's dilemma. The RUC/psni are a British force, they are headed by an ex-RUC man. Whether or not, he belongs to the Orange Order, is a matter of debate. There is an old saying in Ireland to the effect, that blood is thicker than water, which at the end of the day, I feel holds true. In almost every British ex-colony worldwide, as a result of their divide and conquer policies, there has been a civil war in almost all of them, as a result of their legacy. Sadly the DNA of blood, is where the lines are drawn. So when Murphy and his party are calling on Irish people to become informers to British Occupation forces, they are I believe being sociopathic.We already know of the many victims of Murphy policing in Newry South Armagh. There are numerous examples out there, of the Political Policing, that exists within the RUC/psni. Murphy policing, has involved death threats issued, to censor free speech and any alternative, legitimate, political activity. There is also the matter of Paul Quinn. So these are some of the problems. My own expereince has taught me, that policing at all times must be apolitical. That it is primarily a community matter, to be decided and conducted by communities. In the village, I currently live in, this is the reality and it works well. The policing needs to reflect all interests within the community, decided by a dialectic uncensored, taking as much time as is necessary to decide, with every voice listened to patiently. The experience of elders, is very important in this. Women, particularly mothers, have much to contribute in this. In the event of serious or violent crime, then yes outside forces need to be brought in, with total transparency, which must be apolitical. The village should at all times, have a right to witness any aspect of custody or actions taken during this process, including interrogation and detention. Certain males and females need to be appointed, with the approval of all the community for purposes of physical restraint, in cases of violence. Domestic violence also requires counselling by both women and men. Laws and bylaws, need to be clearly stipulated and displayed in public places, so that there is no misunderstanding. Civic classes need to undertaken by the whole community, with discussion groups, to patiently tease out, differing views. As I have said previously, the British Empire, was built on piracy and smuggling. They should not under any circumstance have a monopoly, on the artificial border, they created within the small island of Ireland. Smuggling is as old, as the oldest professions of banking and prostitution. It's a fact of life, created originally by poor people, to augment their paltry existence. I believe no one or any party should have a monopoly in this reality but British Occupation will exploit these common divisions, within communities, to divide and conquer. Anyone who co-operates with the British, exploiting these divisions or betraying the details, is betraying their own community.We Irish people need to learn to practice solidarity. The reason England conquered Ireland, is that they learned from the Roman empire, the importance of sticking together in close formation, while Celts went into battle mostly as individuals. We can have our division but it should be agreed, that they are resolved without violence among ourselves, in a dialogue and uncensored disagreement, for however long it takes. Violence is an admission of defeat and disqualifies the party from any civilized debate. Paddy Barry, my first father-in-law, who joined the travelling community, from a farm in Kilkenny, when he fell in love with Norah Barry, the daughter of Maggie Barry, who was Queen of Gypsies, once said to me, there is no nature left in people these days at all. Nature is something picked up from being around nature and animals. It's the bond that keeps a tribe together. Tribes that stand the test of time and all the challenges of globalization, have a strong Elder element, because it has much experience, the most valuable thing in Life. Commonsense evolves with it and they both appear to be rare commodities these days. Newry & South Armagh, might reconsider the importance of these values, if it is not to tear itself apart, with the manipulation of outside British interference. They are important values to be passed on to the next generation, instead of pure individualism, short-sightedness, selfishness and self-centredness. We are all selfish to a lesser or greater extent, but there is such a thing, as intelligent selfishness, that can benefit the whole community. The Barrys lived outside Crossmaglen for many years in a caravan. They had a very big family, whom they fed with a bit of smuggling, selling turf and butter. along with Maggie singing at the many fairs around the place.They were treated well by both the Protestant and Catholic communities around the area. Smuggling, bartering, prostitution, haggling, squabbling, bullying, are elements of human life, as old as time. Disputes need to be settled by a community of leaders, who listen carefully to the many sides of every story and adjudicate, with the benefit of experience. This people power should not be given away, to outsiders or politicians, who are motivated almost exclusively by self-interest and greed, who will always divide to get their way. We need to learn again and teach the value of respecting the Elders, instead of her Majestys brute forces or the whole community will perish, to the modern day sanitized, ruthless pirates, the Corporations. The Community needs people to empower themselves, to provide leadership with clarity, decisiveness, responsibility, communication skills, that realizes the importance of listening, as well instructing and above all patience to recognize the truth or essence, as much as possible. It's a big ask but if we really want an Ireland, that reflects th aspirations of 1916, we will work for it. I also reluctantly agree, that Irish republicans, do have the right to bear arms, strictly for defensive purposes, because, unfortunately, the invader is armed to the teeth. People also have the right to fly whatever flags or posters they want, and people who remove them, do so at their own considerable risk. Murphy if you don't like my pole dancers, go fuck yourself and don't be making a Blueshirt out of poor ould Tommy, with your propaganda! Below is an article from a newspaper, that many traditional Irish republicans, were very fond of. Unfortunately I heard last week, that there was some sort of issue, with censorship of the family of Mairead Farrell. I am not fully aware of all of the details but I do hope for the sake of Unity in the Movement, that it is sorted out by now. For those reasons, I will not comment further, until a solution is reached. I hope for the same in South Armagh but we have to stand up for ourselves, we are not sheep! Principles before Personalities!
Sinn Fein has warned that a lack of confidence in the PSNI police is encouraging illegal activity in border areas.
Local Sinn Fein MP Conor Murphy spoke out after the son of a prominent republican was injured in an attack outside Crossmaglen on Wednesday.Frank McCabe Jnr (pictured) suffered injuries to the arms and face when a pipe bomb exploded at around 5am on Wednesday morning. The device exploded as he attempted to remove a poster labelling a family member as a ‘tout’ from near the family home.
Sinn Fein said there had been death threats against his father, Frank McCabe Snr, as well as Mr Murphy himself in recent weeks.
The incident represents a worrying development in a battle for public support in the South Armagh and North Louth region.
British forces have long promoted criminal activity as a tactic to undermine and challenge republican communities. South Armagh was itself once referred to as ‘bandit country’ by journalists who demonised the area as a hotbed of crime and insurrection.
The PSNI, and formerly the RUC, have traditionally avoided patrolling the staunchly republican area for fear of IRA attack. While the Provisional IRA has long since disbanded in the area, a breakaway armed group known as Oglaigh na hEireann has operated in the area in recent years.
Sinn Fein has alleged that some of those currently involved in illegal activity in the area are linked to Oglaigh na hEireann, who they describe as an “unrepresentative militarist faction”. The party called for a show of solidarity from its supporters on Sunday in the wake of the attack and the threats against its members.
“This area is a republican heartland and bedrock of support for Sinn Fein’s peace strategy,” it said. “The party’s electoral strength in the area, and widespread respect for the local republican leadership was a central element in Sinn Fein’s decision to support policing in 2007.”
But it said here had been a “sinister and systematic upswing” in illegal activity across the area, which the PSNI and Gardai police across the border had failed to act against, “despite the active support of local people”.
And Mr Murphy warned of “another agenda” being operated by the PSNI to oppose Sinn Fein’s political strategy.
He said that “criminals” were being “protected by the protocols which govern policing in the north, in particular the way the PSNI respond to reports of criminal activity”.
Newry Armagh Assembly member Megan Fearon added, “While it is the Tories who have imposed austerity cuts to public services it is the PSNI who are responsible for scrapping neighbourhood policing in south Armagh.
Another work, much more sympathetic in its style and its content, is the new novel by Leonardo Padura, “The man who loved dogs”. It tells the stories of Trotsky and his assassin, Ramón Mercader, both stories projected on the life of Iván, a Cuban who represents the post-revolutionary generation on the island.
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