Many shades of Republicans and other groups/parties on the Left, have been calling for a coming together of the broader Left for some years now. Recently though, the calls for “unity of purpose” appear to be a bit more prolific, on social media and public speeches.
Eoghan O’Neill, writing in the Communist Party of Ireland’s magazine, Socialist Voice, has also expressed his view on the same theme. In the July issue, Comrade O’Neill called for the Left to actively support Sinn Féin in the coming general election in the 26 counties.
While we know that alliances are a necessary part of building both the group and within the wider population, we are often curtailed by political prejudices and can feel threatened when it comes to actually doing it or trying to think about doing it.
Historical events, experiences, ideology, class, politics and egos are all in the decision-making mix. All of these things can influence our thinking, negatively or positively. But life and political events are always on the move and will never wait around for endless prevarication or wrong decisions. So, in this particular case, that is, electoral support for Sinn Féin, how do we ensure that we don’t detach ourselves from our anti-imperialist and class base among the Left and Socialist Republicans?
We (the authors) are not averse to “hitch-hiking” on and using bourgeois electoralism, to further our revolutionary building for a people-driven 32-county Socialist Republic. But we think that it can only be used in conjunction with building a parallel power base, based on radical participatory democratic councils, in every area, village and town in Ireland. It’s a strategic imperative, that a new “decentralised democracy” of and by the people, is built. This would have to be a central prerequisite to supporting Sinn Féin or using the bourgeois electoral system.
By building a decentralised democratic system, the working class will come to understand that bourgeois democracy does not work for them. But even more importantly they will come to realise that the world of economics and politics is their business and that by building for a participatory democracy, they will be the purveyors of real and sustainable change in their lives. This will surely rupture the old political dynasties and accentuate the contradictions and limitations of narrow bourgeois electoralism.
All of the above thinking is predicated on our belief that the Sinn Féin leadership, party apparatchiks and wannabe professional politicians are desperate to be tied by a thousand threads to the capitalist economic and political system. Their wider support base, on the other hand, might well be more susceptible, eventually, to our message.
What’s more, any move to give Sinn Féin “unconditional support” in the next elections has the potential to cause even bigger ruptures in the broader Socialist Republican groupings already out there, whatever about Left groups. This strategy of support for Sinn Féin will require a long learning process, with no guarantee of success or that the many groups out there would ever buy into it, especially if Sinn Féin goes into coalition with Fianna Fáil, supports NATO, or the EU and their austerity policies
We would be delighted with any divisions that can be caused in the local ruling class and especially where it advances our struggle to replace capitalism with Socialism. But to give unconditional support to Sinn Fein in the upcoming Southern general election, to cause maximum divisions in the Southern ruling class is, we believe, a bit of a stretch. However, it would be an interesting dialogue to have among comrades to tease out the mechanics of how this might evolve in practice.
The broader question might be: do we even need to be involved in electoral politics to build radical local councils/committees, or to deepen organic links between Left groups and push the Sinn Féin membership as far left as possible? This too would be building a working-class movement outside of electoral boundaries, to deepen and develop class-consciousness along with democratic principles and practices.
