Economic Resistance

Many thanks to Conor McCabe for scanning and forwarding this to the Archive.

This document joins another in the Archive from the same series. Issued by Sinn Féin in the early 1980s it offers an oversight of the thinking of that party with respect to Economic Resistance.

The pamphlet opens with the following declaration:

THE REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT seeks to establish a 32 county democratic socialist republic. Its two largest constituents, the I. R.A. and Sinn Fein, strive to hasten the institution of such a republic where ‘all the children of the nation will be cherished equally’.

Both the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein play different but convergent roles in the war of national liberation. The Irish Republican Army wages an armed campaign in the occupied six counties while its elements in the 26 counties play a supportive role. Sinn Fein maintains the propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement. While Sinn Fein must support the war effort by nationalising the struggle in political terms, the organisation has a responsibility to advance the movement’s social aims.

The movement must have a vital mass organisation of the Irish people on its side with which to confront the reactionary elements in the country who will attempt to stop us advancing beyond a British withdraw.al” situation and on to the socialist republic. Such a mass organisation will not be built purely by calling on the Irish people to support the IRA. The exploited masses must be made to identify with the national liberation struggle because they see a successful conclusion of the war as being essential for their own social and economic liberation.

And:

It is the purpose of this lecture to identify the groups external to the Republican Movement who suffer under imperialist and capitalist rule in Ireland and to direct republicans as to how they can best organise such groups in their actual or potential resistance to injustice. Such organisation is not undertaken for opportunist reasons. The Republican Movement does not seek such involvement because of the laurels that might accrue, but because republicans have a duty, based on sound and long established, principled policy, to assist the people in their struggle.

The groups who most steadfastly have supported the Movement historically are the workers, and small farmers. The significance of this should not be missed. Ever since 1798 it has been the poor who have constituted the bulk of the membership of the Republican Movement. In the first part of this lecture proper we will deal with these two groups. The reason for this is that small farmers and workers are repressed as social groups or classes. The other areas we will deal with such as anti-nuclear power committees are ‘interest’ groups and as such require a different approach.

The document is broken into a number of parts. The first deals with ‘The working class and the trade unions’, the second with ‘Women and Youth’. The third is ‘Culture and Environment’. Each addresses various aspects of the areas considered. For example the first area, ‘the working class and trade unions’ offers this analysis:

The working class is made up of wage and salary earners and their dependants. A wage earner is someone who sells his/her labour to the capitalist. People such as doctors are not working class. They mostly aspire to an upper class position. But leaving out the snobbery inherent in ·the professions, something else excludes them from the working class. The person who sells his labour is exploifted by that alone, because such people are robbed of the wealth generated by their labour. ·in· other words they are denied control over the profit from the sale of goods which could not have been produced but for their efforts.

It is the basic exploitation of wage labour by the capitalist class which means that no matter how good wages and conditions might be the worker is still exploited. This must be remembered while we move into the details of the repression of the workers.

The Summary argues:

The lecture has attempted to point out the areas where republicans should move on social agitation. The lead in paragraphs of each section seek to justify such agitation while the points listed are a rough guide to more specific activity. In all the sections only sketches are provided of issues that are extremely serious and complex. A real understanding leading to effective involvement will really only result when republicans get to work on the issues raised.

It may seem that too much is being demanded, that resources will be stretched too far.

Let’s be practical. It is realised that in many areas the organisation does not have sufficient membership or experience to launch large-scale-efforts on the topics dealt with in the lecture. It is necessary for every area to identify how best its resources and talents may be used.

Such social agitation raises the profile and credibility of the movement and will assist in recruitment and electoral support.

The Movement has long ago advocated the building of an Economic Resistance Movement and it is to such building that agitation must be directed.

The successful establishment of a mass Economic Resistance Movement ·will give us the weapon we need to attain complete victory…

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