On This Day, 15th March

1970

The Communist Party of Ireland was reconstituted

On the 15th of March 1970, the Communist Party of Ireland was reconstituted, with the merging of the Irish Workers’ Party (IWP) and the Communist Party of Northern Ireland (CPNI).

Meetings between IWP and CPNI had been ongoing since January 1969 when a draft statement on forming a “joint Council” was prepared.

The first number of Irish Socialist Review for the year 1970 appears as a journal of The Communist Party of Ireland. This development is
explained by the fact that the Communists of Ireland, hitherto organised into the Irish Workers’ Party and the Communist Party N. Ireland, have come together and reconstituted themselves into a single party, taking the designation The Communist Party of Ireland.

This decision, endorsed at a Congress of delegates of the two Irish Marxist parties, held in Belfast on March 15th, 1970, is of outstanding
importance and significance for all sections of the Irish working class movement.

The unity of the Communists into one organisation takes place at a time when there is the need for the maximum unity of all the forces which stand opposed to the increasing encroachment of the monopolies into the daily life of the people and of the restrictions of democratic and civil liberties by legislation and Government decrees.

The unity resolution endorsed by the two Marxist Parties declared that the Communist Party, N. Ireland and the Irish Workers Party had common origin in the Communist Party of Ireland, formed in June 1933. The separation into two parties was not occasioned by any ideological or fundamental political disagrecments but arose out of the conditions created by the second World War.

In the ensuing years, at all times, the two parties have operated in full agreement about policies and tactics. A joint council of the two parties functioned satisfactorily over a number of years.

Now the important step has been taken for the two parties to end their separate existence and to reconstitute the C. P. I. as an all-Ireland party. — Extract from the editorial of Irish Socialist Review, No. 1, 1970, noting the reconstitution of the CPI.

"Communist Party of Ireland Reconstituted", by Michael O'Riordan. Irish Socialist, 1970.

On This Day: 15th March Events and documents from this date in history