Irish Labour party has begun to look like a real live political movement. For too long it looked like -- and saw itself as -- the workers' lobby in the bosses' parliament. Now, as the recent party conference held at Liberty Hall, Dublin, on October 14-16 clearly indicated, it has declared frontal political war on Southern Ireland's twin Tory parties, Fianna Fail and Fina Gael, and at last expressed unequivocal opposition to the concept of coalition or "cooperative" government with either.
The most encouraging feature of the conference was the emergence of a strong, determined left wing among the rank and file. It was this which sent the leadership back-peddling furiously towards the left.
In his address, party leader Brendan Corish deferred to the resurgent radicalism on the floor and as many of-his shafts were aimed at right-wingers within the parliamentary party as at the Tories. In particular, his declaration that Labour will put forward two candidates in constituencies where it already has a sitting member will alarm many old servitors who fear lest a running mate draw off some of their firstpreference votes. It is up to the rank and file to ensure by continued pressure that the parliamentary party is not allowed to emulate its British counterpart in ignoring conference decisions once they are taken.
In dominating the conference, the left revealed its strength; it also revealed its most dangerous weakness -- an almost complete lack of theoretical underpinning. Thus, while many delegates were sincerely attempting to find socialist solutions to the problems facing Ireland, there was widespread confusion as to how they should go about it. This was most obvious during discussion on a motion that the party should send a delegation to Brussels to study the efforts :on Ireland entering the Common Market. There was general recognition that the EEC [European Economic Community] is a device of modern capitalism and as such to be opposed. But no one had any idea what concrete form such opposition should take.
Des Geraghty suggested that the party should turn towards the emerging nations and Eastern Europe, forgetting that many of the emerging nations are themselves seeking association with the EEC and that there should be no question of aligning the Irish economy to those of Eastern Europe while Ireland remains capitalist.
Prionnsius Mac Aonghush suggested as an alternative that the delegation be sent to the Second International, overlooking the fact. that the Second International is. itself in favour of the EEC. : . «
The most explicit statement came from Mrs. Mary Sheehan, who asserted: “The | Common Market is simply monopoly capitalism." -But she posed no specific alternative.
No delegates raised the theoretical possibility of a Socialist United States of Europe in which Ireland would be a free and equal participant, because no one had a long-term perspective within the.context of which the Common Market issue could be seen. It was this confusion which underlay the passing of the motion.
The conference agreed to affiliate to the Socialist International Federation (the Second International) with only one dissident voice, that of Rayner lysaght, who correctly estimated that diseased shell as "a cold war institution." Yet it is fair to say that delegates voted for affiliation out of a desire to express their internationalist instincts organizationally, not out of any conscious commitment to the SIF as such. (Few, indeed, seemed. to know what the SIF is.)
They didn't have to go through this experience, but having decided to they have provided themselves with. a mirror in which they can see the degeneration of European Social Democracy, a degeneration which. shall overtake. themselves-if they do not ‘note and avoid the nistakes of the other parties. Militants must ensure that the lessons. are not:‘lost. ; : .
The most significant debates of the conference were those on Lemass's antiunion laws. The: parliamentary party had been less than forthright when the measures were before the Dail. Now, in contrast, there was total-opposition. Dr. Noel Browne, proposing a motion (passed unanimously) calling for the abolition of the Electricity (Special Provisions) Act, 1966, declared that it was no part of Lofoge's duty to help preserve Irish capitalism. Referring to the platform's frequent invocation of James Connolly [executed by the English military in 1916], he reminded them that the Irish
labour and trade-union movement had rejected the teaching of Connolly for the last fifty years. Connolly, he said, was never a gradualist, never believed that a workers republic could be achieved through parliamentary maneuvering. This, placed alongside Corish's linking of Connolly's name to those of Johnston and Norton, fairly indicated the gap between the left and the leadership. It was significant that Dr. Browne received a standing ovation; significant, too, that half the platform remained seated.
Other debates, on education for example, and on the setting up of an all- Ireland Council of Labour, revealed the same desire to guide the party back onto the lines of Connolly's thought. But left-wing militants will have to realize that Connolly's political philosophy. did not consist of a series of unrelated "left" attitudes. He was a scientific socialist whose tactics and strategy were based on a scientific analysis of the objective situation with which he was faced. He would have been the first to point out that without socialist theory there can be no socialist politics. In forums, discussion groups and education classes, the Irish left must get down to the problem of remedying this deficiency.
The conference was a very definite advance for socialism-in Ireland. It was not. an end -- conferences, in the nature of things, never are. But if it is used as the starting point of a determined thrust forward, then it might be a very good beginning indeed.
U.S.