How We Really Leave the State of Siege
Critique of “Leaving the State of Siege” by László Molnárfi
By Cillian Ó Riain
Molnárfi’s call to overcome the state of siege that permeates the psychological landscape of Irish communism is a welcome one. The division between communist organisations in Ireland, and their corresponding impotency, is rooted in the legacy of the republican and communist struggle up to now. What has not been destroyed by oppression and betrayal has been co-opted by reformism, and in the absence of new revolutionary struggles our old differences have ossified. This has created a mass psychology of fear and sectarianism which has neutered Irish communism, and in order to advance the revolutionary struggle the siege state must be broken.
Molnárfi is right to call for an end to the siege mentality, and to propose that communists should begin engaging once more in comradely dialogue which is actually consequential and directed at advancing the workers’ struggle. This critique is therefore one of strategy and not of ethos: while his proposal for a Unity Conference and the creation of a united revolutionary center expresses the correct aspiration, his argument supposes conditions that do not yet exist in Ireland. What is needed is a process to create these conditions – a process which centers comradely debate across organisational lines on questions of communist strategy in mass organisations and mobilises communists to apply the results of these debates to the practical activities, and in doing so transform the relations between communist organisations and the workers’ movement.
The State of Siege
Understanding the siege mentality is vital to overcoming it. It is produced through the dialectical interplay of two sources.
The first is rooted in the history of the Irish communist movement, especially in its relation to the republican struggle. This movement has undergone extreme oppression, cooptation, and betrayal in the course of its development, and the corresponding psychological development through these conditions has produced a mindset of fear, suspicion, and insecurity. As such, criticism is often misconstrued as aggression, and authentic revolutionary sentiment in other groups and individuals is downplayed on the basis of organisational affiliation.
The second source is the low level of conscious class struggle taking place in Ireland at the moment. This is a direct consequence of partition, which split the more revolutionary labour movement of the north from the developing labour movement in the south and simultaneously left the national question unresolved. As such, class politics in Ireland has not developed on its own foundations but has always hinged on the national question. The development of the national liberation movement in Ireland led to the capitulation of the armed struggle and the co-optation of the national question by reformist political movements like provisional Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic Labour Party. With the revolutionary labour movement tied to the national liberation movement in the north, what remained of the labour movement in the south was increasingly dominated by social-democratic, reformist forces like the Labour Party and the left-wing of Fianna Fáil.
What exists in Ireland now as a direct consequence of these developments is an unresolved national question and a poorly-developed labour movement which are both dominated by reformism. The corresponding low level of class conscious struggle means that there are very few new questions of strategy and theory in the trade union movement and even less in the revolutionary republican and labour movements. When a psychology of fear and insecurity rooted in the defeat of the Irish revolution is paired with low levels of class-conscious social and political activities from the Irish proletariat, it is no wonder that we are left in a position where criticism is feared and organisations with the potential for genuine revolutionary sympathy are othered, it is no surprise that we exist in this state of siege. What we see here, in the words of Karl Marx, is the traditions of all dead generations weighing like a nightmare on the brain of the living
The Necessity for a Vanguard
The necessity to smash the siege mentality is rooted in the task of communists to construct a revolutionary vanguard organisation. The creation of this vanguard is essential to the success of the revolutionary transformation of society. This is not adherence to any old dogma, but stems from the scientific understanding that the working class needs communist leadership in all parts of its struggle. Without communist leadership and Marxist education, workers’ organisations fail to maintain class independence, fail to centre the question of class in each struggle, and ultimately fail to take advantage of the objective conditions of the general crisis of capitalism and to equip the working class with the correct strategy for its revolutionary mission. Molnárfi makes the correct observation that sects are not the way to build such a vanguard organisation.
The creation of a communist sect which sets for itself the task to go to the working class and grow its organisation has never led to revolutionary victory. The working class is, by the conditions of its existence, engaged in struggle right now against capitalist social relations, even if the workers themselves are unaware of this fact. It is not the role of communists to create a communist current or sect and engage in its own unique, parallel struggle, but rather to provide leadership and revolutionary education to the working class in their existing struggles so that they may advance in the direction of their own self-emancipation, towards proletarian revolution and the communization of society. Therefore, the cause of communism only marches on when advanced representatives of the working class organise themselves into a communist vanguard which grows out of the activity of workers in struggle, not one which forms independently of that struggle and seeks to impose its own leadership onto it.
The Unity Conference
Molnárfi opens his strategy for the construction of a communist vanguard with a proposal for a Unity Conference, a mass meeting of socialist revolutionaries to unite against the dominance of reformism in Ireland. The proposal hinges on four points:
- This would be a conference of “consensus decision-making”, meaning blanket principles opposing reformism would be arrived at through debate and decided upon by vote of the vast majority.
- That delegates to this conference would accept that unity can only be achieved through pre-existing “political centers”, with Molnárfi naming the Communist Party of Ireland and People Before Profit as the only two possible political centers around which to organise.
- That there should be a general respect for multi-tendency socialist plurality.
- That delegates should believe in freely-elected Workers’ Councils as the basis for the socialist mode of production.
The call for a Unity Conference is misguided. I agree with the spirit of such a conference, but only insofar as our starting point should be the understanding that a lot of preliminary work needs to be done to create conditions such that the siege mentality is already broken prior to any such conference. If we accept that Irish communism is moving through a state of siege, and we accept this siege state as a barrier to the construction of a vanguard organisation, then we must also accept that the siege state must be broken before any Unity Conference can take place, and furthermore that that any Unity Conference taking place under present-day conditions would not result in the creation of an effective vanguard.
Molnárfi takes the Unity Conference as his starting point, failing to understand that in order to reach a point where such a conference is productive or even possible requires a process which must first break down the state of siege, and in doing so fundamentally transform the existing relations between Irish communist organisations and the workers’ movement. By the time this process has created the conditions for a qualitative leap in the form of a Unity Conference, the organizational and ideological landscape will have been so fundamentally transformed as successive steps of quantitative change that Molnárfi’s base assumptions will have been rendered outdated and invalid.
This strategy assumes that the conditions for a Unity Conference already exist and that what needs to be done is to convince communists of the vitality of this plan, failing to realise that if such conditions existed to call an effective Unity Conference, we would not be living in the political and ideological landscape which compelled Molnárfi to propose this strategy, i.e. we would not be living in this state of siege. The idea to center a Unity Conference at this stage in the strategy for the creation of a communist vanguard fundamentally disregards the need for the transformation of the state of Irish communism through the process of conducting an active study into the workers’ movement, a study which must stimulate dialogue and discussion over questions of tactics, strategy, theory, and ethos if it is to be effective.
The Construction Process
As opposed to centering a Unity Conference in the strategy for breaking the siege mentality and building a vanguard organisation, we should instead focus our efforts on breaking the siege state by negating the conditions of its reproduction. If the siege state is defined as and reproduced by an aversion to inter-organisational dialogue, an atmosphere of disproportionate suspicion, a hostility to criticism, and a stagnation in practical activity, then its negation is process which stimulates dialogue, welcomes criticism, and applies common strategy in mass organisations on a cross-organisational basis. Such a process, which I call the Construction Process, would encourage different communist organisations to criticise each other freely, and to issue counter-criticisms in response in a comradely atmosphere, with the intention of deciding how best to implement communist strategies in mass organisations and of closing the gap between our various programmes.
The Construction Process, if carried out in a principled and communist manner, would tend towards the creation of a programme suitable for Irish communism. This programme would provide the basis for a productive Unity Conference, not simply because the process that creates it will also have created conditions of communist fraternity and broken down the siege mentality of Irish communism, but also because any communist opposition to this programme would have to justify itself through debate, adding to the mountain of lively debates, articles, and ideological struggles that form the basis of the programme. As such, any criticism of the programme would not be a rejection of revolutionary communism in Ireland, but a constructive step towards resolving the contradictions in our movement and creating a truly revolutionary communist programme.
Where now the essence of struggle is hindered by the entrenchment of organisational and ideological forms, the Construction Process provides these forms with real content, and in doing so removes the basis for the disorganisation, separation, and ideological confusion in the organisational forms of Irish communism.
Consensus Decision Making
While it is true that any conference hoping to unite an effective vanguard organisation across organisational lines should reach its resolutions through consensus, it would be foolish to suggest that any consensus could be reached if such a conference were called today. Again, if we existed in the political, social, and moral climate that would enable delegates of Irish communism to reach decisions via consensus, we would not exist in a climate where proposing such a conference is a radical idea. But the conditions simply do not exist. They can only be produced through a long and active process of debate, discussion, and shared practice, through the Construction Process. If Molnárfi would like to end the state of siege, I suggest we start the conversation here. What concrete measures can be taken right now to begin this process? What are the most glaring questions facing Irish communism today, and what are their social bases?
Political Centers
Molnárfi puts forward two potential paths for creating the conditions to overthrow the dominance of reformism in Irish left-wing politics.
The first plan is to join the CPI, on the condition that the CPI amends its constitution, as outlined in Section V of Molnárfi’s piece.
The second plan follows from the scenario where the CPI refuses to make these constitutional amendments, and suggests for communists to join PBP in a factional manner, similar to the way that the Democratic Socialists of America structure their caucuses.
Molnárfi asserts here that “there is no other way”, because “historical materialism… (deals with) real-life conditions” and not abstractions. According to this idea, we must either choose to merge into a transformed CPI, or recreate the goals of Red Network in forming a revolutionary opposition within PBP before their eventual split. I am confident that studying the reasons behind that split will reveal the flaw in that particular plan.
It is stated as fact that left-wing political activity already converges upon these two political centers, and that we would be condemning ourselves to the sidelines of history if we attempt to organise outside of this orbit. There are a few flaws in this idea. The first is that it is centered entirely around Dublin. While it is true that a lot of left-wing political activity in Dublin orbits around the CPI and PBP, this is simply not true for the rest of the country. In Cork City, for example, the Connolly Youth Movement has emerged as a sort of revolutionary political center, while the reformist activity tends around decentralised, non-party community organisations. The CPI has no presence in Cork, and while the PBP influence definitely exists in the reformist activity, it is much less solid, and does not amount to a political center. Across the country, revolutionary and reformist politics alike tends to organise around informal coalitions of a broad range of revolutionary and reformist groups respectively.
The other major flaw in the concept of political centers is that it confuses the actual goal of communist organisation. In following the plan to change the structure of the CPI and join en masse, the contradictions which define the organisational landscape of Irish communism are papered over, and what is created is an ideologically confused, internally divided, and politically neutered organisation. Why create a large organisation of ideologically and strategically distinct tendencies? We are we not trying to create an organisation of like-minded people constituted on some basic “revolutionary” principles. Such an organisation is incapable of providing the kind of leadership and clarity that a vanguard organisation must provide.
What we are trying to create is a revolutionary vanguard party, one which is thoroughly educated in the history of the economic, political, and social development of world capitalism, one with a complete understanding of Marxism and the social basis of developing class society, one which is strategically educated and tactically creative, one which is rooted in a deep, rich basis springing from an active workers’ movement. This basis can only come about through the Construction Process and the carrying-through of this process into shared practice in mass organisations and trade unions. To have the “political center of revolutionary socialist politics” in Ireland be a behemoth of tendencies who vary in strategy, here executing propaganda of the deed, here agitating for the republican struggle, here seeking election, all somehow obeying democratic centralism, is to organise around no political center at all, but would instead amount to the liquidation of any organisational coherence that exists within Irish communism at all. Let us discuss and debate the old differences and prioritize discovering the new differences for sure, but it serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever to have this process occur internally in a large, multi-tendency political organisation, except perhaps for resources.
Molnárfi claims that “this unity would overwhelmingly be a matter of organisationally formalizing what is already concretised in practice through close cooperation”. This claim is utterly false. If by “close cooperation” Molnárfi means sharing a footpath during a protest, then perhaps this claim has some validity, but in every area where it matters, from doorknocks to campaigns, from organising to publishing, there is anything but “close cooperation”. We should be setting in motion the process for building such cooperation as the basis for coalition and eventual unity, but presupposing that such cooperation already exists, Molnárfi is reasserting his base assumption that Irish communism exists in the conditions that would render any Unity Conference possible. Molnárfi mentions resources, stating that PBP and CPI both have access to sizable resources with which to conduct our work. Is this truly as big a consideration as it is made out to be? It is true, compared with the existing system of sects, CPI and PBP have more resources. But is merging into a political center substantially more effective than committing to mutually fund the Construction Process? Surely those organisations dedicated to building this movement would be capable of pooling together enough resources to host a website, print a pamphlet, or rent out event space?
Mutli-Tendency Socialist Plurality
Molnárfi speaks of “respecting multi-tendency socialist plurality” as a rule. While I disagree with the assessment that the different trends in Marxism have long since had their material and social basis eroded, I do think there is a kernel of truth within this idea. It is true that many sects of modern Marxism are defined not by their political line, programme, or strategy, but rather by historical differences that no longer reflect modern Irish conditions, even if ideologically similar organisations do tend to behave tactically in similar ways. Because of this, I believe that we should be making more of an effort to understand why these other tendencies subscribe to their specific “-ism”, rather than writing it off instantly. However, the way that the antagonisms between these sects are resolved is not through merging them all into a blanket organisation and “respecting” their factionalism on the basis that this blanket organisation will encourage debate between factions.
Why merge into a loose conglomeration of “revolutionaries” when there is no social basis for this merger? If the argument is that this merger is contingent on the stimulation of debate and discussion, why not begin this process now while we maintain our organisational distinction? Is it not better that the workers and what exists of the socialist movement see various groups engaged in comradely debate and coming together on a principled basis with a long paper trail behind them to prove the vigor with which their unity was reached, rather than creating a large, disorganised mess and letting them watch us tear each other apart?
A revolution requires a truly disciplined and united vanguard party, one which can provide clear and well-studied answers to the workers carrying it out. A large, vaguely revolutionary, multi-tendency political organisation is absolutely unable to produce these answers or provide any clear leadership, as the organisation is literally defined by its “socialist plurality”. The “-isms” that constitute this plurality are not merely decorative. Each tendency does indeed have its own programme, its own set of strategies, and its own style of leadership. Molnárfi would do well to remember that, although it is withered, there is indeed a social basis that shapes which organisation belongs to which tendency. The class composition of the organisation’s membership, the political history of the organisation, the attitude of the older members, the various campaigns and social movements which that organisation has and does move in, and more factors all determine, to some degree, the tendency which that organisation follows, and its relationship to other organisations of other tendencies.
There is a useful kernel in the idea of political centers. The idea that there should be a central structure for coordinating the campaign for rebuilding Ireland’s communist movement is a good idea. A campaign which seeks to set the Construction Process in motion needs to have good organisation, good methods for pooling resources, and for documenting and publishing the developments in this process. This is the kind of campaign which Tromlach has decided to build. A long process of debating, studying, and making and rectifying errors has concluded in a resolution that it is exactly this kind of work that Irish communism needs, and Tromlach endeavors to restructure in order to make this happen. I encourage Molnárfi to join in Tromlach’s efforts to start this kind of campaign, to set the Construction Process in motion. Tromlach resolves to become an organisation not strictly bound to one organisation or another, and neither existing as a sect, but rather as an open committee for Marxists who are truly dedicated to creating the kind of process that Irish communism needs to come together and organise.