At its Ard Fheis (Annual Delegate Conference) in November 2023, the Workers Party adopted this political resolution
This is part one of a four part political resolution which was discussed and agreed at the Workers Party Ard Fheis
The vision of a free, equal and socialist society has sustained the Workers Party over many years of struggle, often in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Despite the promises in the early 20th century, inspired by the revolutionary ideas of James Connolly and others, the hopes for the radical transformation of society and the creation of a genuinely egalitarian society were crushed. In the period immediately after 1916 the seeds of the new Ireland were sown: opposition to class politics; subjugation of the rights of workers and women to the demands of the nationalist bourgeoisie encapsulated in the phrase that labour must wait.
During the Dublin lockout the work of Connolly and Larkin and the struggling workers were attacked by Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein. William Martin Murphy who threatened to starve the employees into submission was also a prominent nationalist.
A scheme to assist strikers’ children drew down the wrath of the Catholic Church. . Post 1916 Sinn Fein commenced to create a new nationalist mythology largely devoid of social content. Gripped by a nationalist purism it was at pains to illustrate that it was no threat to the social order and ignored the economic system and social relationships. While some republicans argued for the primacy of class over nation, they were minority voices.
While some republicans argued for the primacy of class over nation, they were minority voices. There was a shift from the revolutionary politics of 1913 to nationalism. The radical vision of Connolly and his comrades was deliberately displaced by bourgeois Catholic nationalism. A new myth was created which promoted the cult of romantic nationalism and submerged the political, social and economic demands of revolutionary socialism. That myth has dogged attempts since then to emancipate the working class.
The creation of a parliamentary political system based on two parties arising out of the civil war, both committed to the preservation of the capitalist system of exploitation and the power of the Catholic Church, ensured the development of a deeply unequal and conservative society divorced from the needs of the working class. A weak and reformist Labour Party, prepared to ally itself with the bourgeois class, failed to weaken the grip of the Church and capitalist state and betrayed the hopes of the working class. The line of march, dictated by the ruling class, was inequality, exploitation and oppression. The message: labour must wait.
For nationalists, the nation is more important than class, for socialists the primacy of class is central to the struggle for liberation and socialism. The unity of workers who have nothing but their labour power to sell is more important than the cultural, ethnic, racial or national divisions which separate them. Lenin stated that Marxism cannot be reconciled with nationalism, be it of the “most just”, “purist”, “most refined and civilised brand”.
The Workers Party challenged that bourgeois nationalist consensus. It demonstrated that capitalism is an anarchic and crisis-ridden system based on production for profit and that only a socialist system stands for the satisfaction of peoples’ needs. That powerful challenge was defeated, not from without but from within, by those who lost faith in the socialist vision and abandoned it for opportunism and the illusions of social democracy. Our Party remained committed to its principled positions. Time and again, most recently in 2019, a faction seduced by opportunism, social democracy and the siren call of nationalism, attempted to achieve what our enemies could not, the destruction of the Party and a reversal of our political line and ideological principles.There are many contemporary problems facing our society. Despite the narrative presented in the mass media, ours is a class-based society, with unrestrained attacks on the social and economic conditions of workers and their families; the impoverishment of working people; the increased power of the monopolies and multinational corporations; the continuing attacks on living standards, labour rights, social protection, health, education, public employment and the provision of public services.
However, in recent months we have increased militancy (and successes) by trade unions; a determination to struggle for proper pay, conditions and pensions for workers; against low paid, precarious and casualised work; against the privatisation of public services. There has been protest on housing, homelessness, health and social care, public transport, education, childcare, workers’ rights, the cost-of-living crisis, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, fascism, the environment and war, to mention but a few.
These are protests which are worthy of the support which the Workers Party has given. But protest alone is not enough. Campaigns on single issues are often used to set worker against worker. It is the duty of a Workers Party to demonstrate the common thread between these struggles. Poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression are inherent in the nature of our social order, capitalism, a system which must be abolished and cannot be reformed.
The capitalist system is in crisis. While it has exhibited adaptability to changing circumstances it is incapable of overcoming its cyclical crises and contradictions and cannot resolve the fundamental conflict between the social character of production and its private appropriation.
Socialism remains the only alternative for the emancipation of labour and the working peoples of the world. It is the mission of the Workers Party to struggle for workers’ power and the construction of socialism in Ireland. This will be achieved by politicising and raising the class consciousness of the working class, by transforming protest into the politics of class struggle and by coupling the struggles for social, economic and political rights and demands with the battle to create a socialist society