Make 2013 the yearof resistance!

HE old year is gone and the new one presents us all with both old and new challenges. TheTold order is still firmly in control, imposing massive cuts in services, wages, pensions, and welfare payments.Cuts are are not only coming

through the budget but are announced almost weekly, as the government believes it can do what it needs to do with impunity. At the same time we have to endure the sickening sight of the EU elite speeding through the streets of Dublin in their BMWs and being wined and dined in Dublin Castle. Marie- Antoinette would have nothing on this gang of vultures who have begun to colonise our streets.They are imposing a diet of cuts and

survival on the majority of working people while the rich can still go out to their fancy restaurants, avail of the yachts moored in the Mediterranean, and go shopping in Paris or Milan, while the number of second-hand clothes shops and soup kitchens con-tinues to expand throughout the country.The chairperson of the Labour

Party, Colm Keaveney, voting against the government on aspects of the budget, thereby losing the Labour Party whip, was a welcome develop-ment. This brings to four the number of Labour Party TDs who are now on the margins of the party, though for very dierent reasonff s.Those inside the Labour Party cam-

paigning for “real labour policies” need to move beyond a mere collection of demands and to look at the crisis of the system itself and the limited possi-bilities of change within it.The same can be said of Sinn Féin,

with its appeal to popular sentiment, arguing for a better, fairer capitalism rather than for a mobilisation of the people. It is becoming more and more apparent that electoral considerations and opportunism dominate both Sinn

Féin and leading elements of the United Left Alliance and not only some of those Labour Party TDs who recently jumped ship.What is missing from the political

debate is any sense of a possible alternative direction or way forward. None have articulated any alternative vision of Ireland that the Irish people could feel is possible or that they can grasp and struggle for. All appear to be striving for the politics of the lowest

common denominator, allowing the establishment media to determine what is or is not acceptable, allowing the Irish Times to write their political manifestos.The mobilisation called by the ICTU

on the handing over of the €3.1 billion to bond-holders on 31 March, while welcome, does not go far enough. Elements of the ICTU leadership have

No. 97 January 2013 €1.50

In this issueNew Year statement by the CPIp. 2

Back to the future p. 3

The Baltic Ireland? p. 3

What’s good for business . . . p. 4

Capitalist automation and social dislocation p. 5

Marching into a cul-de-sac p. 6

Gatherings of socialist republicans—a small beginning p. 6

The gambling business: “a state-ment of condence in Ireland and its fi

people” p. 7

Seán Redmond (1936–2012) p. 7

Joe Deasy (1922–2013) p. 8

Frank ConroyCommemoration p. 8

The South African revolution betrayed p. 9

Mind your language p. 10

A worker reads and asksquestions p. 11

Letters p. 12

We are going to make this a year to be spoken of in the days to come . . . There is a great dawn for Ireland.—James Larkin (May 1913).“ ”

ISSN 0791-5217

j/7G@7I1\URQPPX/ Z‘zq

stated that the mobilisation is aimed at supporting the government’s negotiat-ing position with the EU on the promissory notes, while the mountain of debt grows daily.One has to ask what the govern-

ment’s negotiating position is, as they have never clearly dened what theyfi are looking for, while they have con-stantly stated that they will pay the debt and are only looking for a longer period for paying it.The ICTU leadership appear to be

using the debt as some sort of bargain-ing chip in the opening gambit as negotiations begin for Croke Park II. This is more of the “social partnership” mentality: if you don’t hit us too hard in Croke Park II we can deliver our members, and we will do little or nothing about the debt burden.It is an attempt by leading elements

of the ICTU to pull the whole of the trade union movement into line behind the Labour Party in government.This is the road to disaster. It is

their job to serve and defend their

members and their families, not to prop up the rotting corpse of the Labour Party. The demand by two lead-ing trade unions for repudiation of the debt is simply the only way forward. The mobilisation on 9 February must be the beginning of a sustained campaign.This year sees the centenary of a

great class battle in Dublin, the 1913 Lock-Out, when the Dublin employers, backed up by the might of the British empire, locked out thousands of workers and attempted to starve the Dublin workers into submission. Thousands of workers resisted, members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, led by Connolly and Larkin.We can’t allow this decisive moment

in the history of the Irish working class to be reduced to a trip down memory lane, with fossilised, soulless meetings and re-enactments.There are many lessons that we can

learn from 1913. It was the rst majorfi independent action by a edging Irishfl

workers’ movement. Then, as now, the Irish working class faced naked aggres-sion from the ruling elite, backed up by a foreign power. They stood up and resisted, despite all the odds. They remained unbowed and unbroken and went on to play an important role in the struggle for national independence.What history and the experience of

1913 shows is that militant class struggle and international solidarity were and are central components in building the people’s resistance. What is needed today from this generation of trade union leaders is the same leader-ship and courage, to raise the confi-dence and the spirit of working people, as was done in 1913.History will judge them not on how

colourful and fancy their centenary publications or events are but how well they have defended and will defend and mobilise their members and their families against the growing assault upon them by both the internal and the external troika.

[EMC]

To the working people of IrelandNew Year statement by the Communist Party of Ireland

S the old year fades from our memory we can approach the new year with some degree ofAoptimism. Throughout 2012 there were numerous protests and demonstrations right across the country, from Belfast to Cork, from Galway to Dublin, with working people cam-paigning against hospital closures and cuts in services.The big pre-budget demonstration

in Dublin was an important beginning and showed the importance of united campaigning, of drawing the diverse concerns of the people together in a coherent way. It showed that unity of action is our strength, and must be built upon.Today we had a spectacle of ag-fl

waving and pompous speech-making to mark the beginning of the Irish presi-dency of the European Union and forty years of membership of this imperial club, with smug self-congratulation by a political establishment that is devoid of any policies to meet the needs of the Irish people. They will wallow in false praise of their European masters, to show they are such great “Europeans,” as the burden of debt is piled higher and higher on the backs not only of Irish workers but of Greek, Portu-guese, Spanish and Italian workers. Their hoisting of the EU ag overfl Dublin Castle shows that little has really changed and is an expression of their powerlessness.To the people of the North we once

again say there is no refuge or solution to be found in wrapping ags around usfl for comfort. We ask the Protestant sec-tion of our working class to think of who benets and who loses fromfi

aggressive ag-ying. Do not be led upfl fl a cul-de-sac of ag-waving: those whofl claim to lead you have no answers to your problems of unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and emigration.The British government does not

care how many times their ag ies asfl fl long as you are not marching about jobs or against poverty. Similarly, the gatekeepers of the Northern Executive are not worried about your social con-ditions: they are happy with their Grand Old Duke of York politics.As we face into another year of

austerity, with the wealthy accumulat-ing more and more of our wealth, working people need to take susten-ance, inspiration and strength from our forefathers and mothers who in 1913, in much more dicult conditions andffi under profound hardship, gathered the courage and rallied to defend their interests against great odds. They faced the Dublin boss class, who were backed by the British empire. They rose in a united body and wrote a glorious page in the history of the Irish working class.We now need that spirit to be re-

ignited, and we must make the demon-stration of the 9th of February called by the ICTU as big and militant as possible, to be a day of action against

the odious debt. The trade union move-ment needs to lead and express the growing unrest and militancy of work-ing people in 2012 to rebuild a more self-condent and vibrant labour movefi -ment.We need to build a united people’s

resistance against the odious debt, drawing all the many localised cam-paigns around the country behind a people’s rejection of the debt and the great sacrices being imposed in orderfi to obey this diktat from the big monopolies and nance houses offi Europe—to mobilise against the external and internal troikas.Let 2013 be the year in which

workers throughout the EU link arms and stand together in united struggle. Let us build a united response to defend, enrich and advance national sovereignty, national democracy, and workers’ rights. Our world is beginning to move in a dierent direction, awayff from the values of selshness, greedfi and unbridled individualism encour-aged by this exploitative and inhuman system, towards an economic and social system based on social solidarity, justice, and peace.Let’s make 2013 the year of the

beginning of the reconquest of Ireland by working people.

2

Back to the futureS celebrations of the centenary of the 1913 Lock-Out begin, one feature of workers’ termsAand conditions, then and now, is becoming increasingly clear.One of the reasons for the emer-

gence of the ITGWU was the harsh working conditions of the Dublin dockers and carters, with long hours, poor pay, and casual work at the whim of the foremen. The majority of workers remained unorganised, with trade union membership confined mainly to skilled craft workers.Today again we have a growing

number of casual workers, more and more short-term contracts being offered, more flexibility being demanded.This is happening in all industries

as well as in the health service, tour-ism, financial services, and retail. Transnational corporations are increas-ingly using short-term contracts to fill gaps and cope with peaks.This is a result of the decrease in

union membership throughout the private sector and the increased priva-tisation of services once provided by the state. Trade union density is now

concentrated in the the public sector, which now dominates the ICTU’s thinking and strategy.The debate about casualisation has

been one-sided. It has been sold in the main as the “modern way,” giving parents more time with their children. The day of permanent pensionable jobs has past, and people should have the “right” to work as long as they like.The ISME and other employers’

groups have had a free field in regard to this fundamental issue for workers. The idea has been sold that every indi-vidual who has been made redundant from a permanent job and then sets up a market stall is an “entrepreneur.”We are returning to a nineteenth-

century and early twentieth-century model of employment, where workers could be hired and fired at will. It took decades of hard, bitter struggle and sacrifice by previous generations to establish proper conditions and terms of employment. If present trends con-

tinue, workers will have few rights and instead will be vulnerable to abuse and super-exploitation.The more casualisation that takes

place or is allowed to go unchallenged the more it will undermine workers in permanent jobs. The precarious employment of a growing number of workers will continue to undermine wages and conditions; it will also undermine the whole idea of old-age pensions as a right.Yes, a century later it’s back to the

future, and workers are being driven back. We need to halt the growth of casualisation and precarious employ-ment with a militant and active trade union movement.The lessons of history are staring us

in the face. The very future of the trade union movement depends on its response to this issue. If you don’t resist and are not prepared to defend what you have, you will lose it.

[EMC]

The Baltic Ireland?IKE Ireland, one of the EU’s most highly celebrated anti-labour austerity success stories isLLatvia. Latvia is portrayed as the country where labour did not ght back but simply emifi -

grated politely and quietly. No general strikes, nor destruction of private property or violence: Latvia is presented as a country where labour had the good sense when faced with austerity not to make a fuss.Latvians gave up protest and simply

began voting with their feet as the economy shrank, wages were scaled down, and tax burdens remained decidedly on the backs of labour, even though recent token eorts have beenff made to increase taxes on property.The World Bank applauds Latvia

and its Baltic neighbours by placing them high on its list of “business- friendly” economies, even though at times scolding their social regimes as too harsh even for the Victorian tastes of the international nancial instifi -tutions.Pro-austerity gurus applaud

Latvia’s economic and demographic plunge as the “Latvian Miracle,” depict-ing its austerity and asset-stripping as an economic success. What they mean by “success” is slashing wages and leav-ing the tax burden primarily on labour and lightly on capital gains, without spurring a revolution or even Greek- style general strikes.Latvia is the country that has come

closest to imposing a tax and nancefi model that includes a two-part tax on wages and social benets that are nearfi the highest in the world, while property taxes are well below EU and American averages. Meanwhile capital

gains are lightly taxed and the country has become successful as a capital- ight and tax-avoidance haven forfl Russians and other post-Soviet klepto-crats that has permitted Latvia to “aord” deindustrialisation, deff popu-lation, and desocialisation.Latvians protested against both the

corruption and the proposed austerity following the crash of 2008. This was most evident in the massive protest in Rga on 13 January 2009, attended byī 10,000 people. This was followed by a series of protests by students, teachers, farmers, pensioners and health workers in the following months.A harsh austerity regime was

imposed, and protests did abate. What happened? In a word, emigration.At least one tenth of Latvians have

left since the country became a member of the European Union in 2004 and of the Schengen Area (uni-form immigration area). This exodus accelerated following the economic crash in late 2008. Latvia’s population is small enough for the bigger EU countries to be able to absorb its departing work force.And in fact the country has been

experiencing emigration since 1991, when it broke from the Soviet Union and adopted neo-liberal policies. Yet the country, which can ill aord emiff -gration, saw people leaving in ever greater numbers nearly two decades after independence.Its population of 2.7 million in 1991

dwindled to an ocial 2.08 million inffi 2010, through a combination of emi-gration and a nancial environmentfi too precarious to permit marriage and children.And this ocial number from theffi

census is quite optimistic. Demo-graphic reports originally showed a gure of 1.88 million in 2010, andfi demographers report government pres-sure on census-takers to come up with a number above the psychologically signicant threshold of 2 million.fi

Within six months of the rst profi -

3

tests, emigration accelerated and the number of children born in the country plunged as the economy crashed and its government intensied scal austerity.fi fi

Latvia’s unemployment remains high, at 14.2 per cent, despite a signifi-cant portion of its population having emigrated. Its economic collapse was the deepest of any country when the nanfi cial bubble burst in 2008. Flows of hot money had inated its propertyfl market to world record levels, thanks to its neo-liberal minimal taxation of property, complemented by heavy taxa-tion of labour.Given how deep the plunge was,

there was room for the inevitable bounce thereafter, hailed as a recovery. When one looks at the details, however, the so-called recovery is seen to have been centred on four sectors.First is Latvia’s oshore bankingff

industry, which attracts and processes capital ight. Latvia became a majorfl destination for Russian oligarchs’ hot money. The government revealed its intention to defend this oshore bankff -ing at all costs, including imposing austerity on its people, when it bailed out the country’s biggest oshore bank,ff Parex.The European Commission and the

IMF gave a massive foreign loan to Latvia that in part enabled the govern-ment to function after bailing out Parex and thus its correspondent (off-shore) accounts and the continued

payment of above-market interest rates to “favoured” and “well-connected” customers.Latvia has carved out a substantial

niche in the global money-laundering system. According to the Bloomberg economic news service, “as non- European inows into Cyprus stagfl nate, about $1.2 billion ooded into Latvia infl the rst half of the year. Non-fi resident deposits are now $10 billion, about half the total, regulators say, exceeding 43 per cent in Switzerland, according to that nation’s central bank.” These are big amounts in view of the fact that Latvia has only about a quarter of Switzerland’s population and merely a tenth of its GDP.Secondly, Latvia’s emergency res-

ponse to the crisis was to step up the cutting of forests. It inherited massive woodland reserves from the Soviet policy of converting farmland to forest. That patrimony is being cleared. Given Latvia’s northern latitude, it takes ftyfi to a hundred years to replace trees to maturity, so this resource cannot be in-denitely susfi tained.Thirdly, the fact that Latvia’s

economy has been deindustrialised over the past two decades means that almost any increase in post-crash manufacturing represents growth in percentage terms. Latvia has virtually no eective labour protection and onlyff the weakest unions to campaign for decent working conditions and wages

(or even sometimes to be paid at all).Wages can be pushed down from

what were already poverty levels, while businesses employ labour in any fashion they see t, without regulatoryfi structures to protect workers. At the same time Latvia’s labour costs are far higher than are economically necessary, thanks to labour and social taxes designed to keep capital gains and property taxes comparatively low.Even so, wages and “exibility” havefl

made Latvian labour cheap enough to encourage some enterprise. While there are real centres of innovation and entrepreneurial talent, they mostly succeed in spite of government policy, not because of support from it.Fourthly, there has been growth in

the previously underdeveloped agricul-tural and transit industries.Latvia still has a well-educated

population, and its skilled workers are known for their creativity and atten-tion to detail. With better economic policy, less anti-labour tax policy, less subsidy of property and nance andfi more investment in innovation the Latvian economy could be a success.In the meantime the political and

policy-making elite call austerity and emigration “stability” and even “econ-omic growth and recovery,” as long as people don’t complain or demand an alternative.Sound familiar?

[COM]

What’s good for business . . .E often hear it said that what’s good for business is good for the country. Indeed this hasWbeen the policy dictum of most governments, and certainly the European Union, for the

last few decades.In an article last July, Socialist

Voice looked at the top fty companiesfi in Ireland and concluded that only nineteen were Irish, and of these nine-teen only six could be considered to be mainly involved in the domestic economy, dependent upon domestic demand. The rest are part of the monopoly capitalist system, with interests tied to international capital and speculation.Let’s look now at one industry in

particular and ask the question, Is what’s good for those companies good for us?A recent report by the Institute for

Agriculture and Trade Policies on speculation in agricultural commodities shows the massive growth of com-modity speculation (importantly, agri- commodities and oil) and concludes that this has directly led to the increase of 83 per cent in food prices between 2005 and 2008, with prices for maize nearly tripling, for wheat increasing by 127 per cent and rice by 170 per cent between January 2005 and June 2008.

The graph below tracks the spec-tacular rise of speculation in com-modity futures pricing as it has tried to absorb the masses of accumulated capi-tal that the wealthy possess.The institute’s report sees this

growth in speculation as a contributory cause of the more than thirty food riots in the world that took place in 2008, the increase in absolute numbers of

people living in extreme poverty, and the increase to close to 1 billion in the number of people living in extreme hunger. (The full report can be read at www.politicaleconomy.ie.)But how is Ireland involved in this?

you might ask. Well, a number of lead-ing “Irish” companies—Kerry Group, Glanbia, and ABP Food Group—are heavily involved in these activities. So, as prices continue to rise and they con-tinue to speculate and prices continue to rise in a continuous bubble, the eect this has on us is that the prices offf staple foods go up. It becomes harder for us to feed our families.In the purchasing of their raw

materials, these companies will pass on the increased costs to customers, resulting in ination. With much of thefl world’s basic agri-commodities monop-olised, markets can easily be manipu-lated to the benet of specufi lators through the controlled release or with-holding of the product.For example, three-quarters of the

global grain market is controlled by the

4

Size of the commodities futures market (in billion

dollars) v. Standard and Poor’s GSCI spot price index

Sources: Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, CFTC Commitments of Traders Supplements, calculations based on CFTC COT/CIT report. Figures represent annual averages; figure for 2008 is an average up to 1 July 2008.

four “ABCD” rms—ADM, Bunge,fi Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus—with more mergers occurring.Drought is actually good for these

companies, as it drives prices up, as seen by this quotation from an econ-omic report: “After a doubling in quar-

terly prots helped by the impact offi drought . . .”We have seen the massive increase

in food prices before the crash, and since 2010 they have begun to climb again. So, the success of speculative activities—which will be celebrated as

part of an Irish “recovery”—actually hurts working people in Ireland and globally, not to mention the eect thatff the monopoly production of agricul-tural produce is having on the environ-ment.

[NL]

Capitalist automation and social dislocationgeneral tendency of the capitalist economy is that the competitive pressure on rmsfi toAmake prots, and maintain protability, forces them to nd new technologies that savefi fi fi

on the total cost of production. Investment under capitalism takes place for prot only, not tofi raise output or productivity as such. If prot cannot befi

su ciently raised throughffi (a) more labour hours, that is, getting in more workers or making existing workers work longer hours (or both), or (b) intensifying the eorts of existingff workers through speed-up and eciency drives, thenffi the productivity of labour can be increased only by better technology.Workers with better machines tend

to produce more surplus value than those who have less eective machines,ff or no machines. So, in Marxist terms, the “organic composition of capital” (the amount of machinery and plant relative to the number of workers) tends to rise over time.A report in Business Week for

November illustrates these trajectories in the heartlands of capitalist develop-ment, the United States and China. (It is not unreasonable to describe signifi-cant sections of the Chinese economy as capitalist.) For example, in Great Wall Motors, a manufacturer of trucks and SUVs, Swiss-made robots almost alone construct the body and frames of the vehicles. Approximately $161 million has been invested in recent years in mechanising four plants with 1,200 robots.The average price of a factory-oorfl

robot is $50,000, before installation. But, as the general manager of Great Wall reported in Business Week, “with automation, we can reduce our head count and save money . . . Within three years, this cost will be completely paid for in savings from reduced worker wages.” After the robots were added, the number of welders at Great Wall Motors fell from 1,300 to about 400.China’s car industry has led the

automation wave, particularly at its joint ventures with General Motors, Honda, and Volkswagen; consumer electronics, food and beverage process-ing and the plastics and textile industries are all following suit. One factor driving the switch to robots is the problem of labour shortages, which are common and are driving up wages, which are now in the region of 20 per

cent annually in recent years. (China is not necessarily the hotbed of cheap labour it once was.)An increase in labour costs puts

pressure on rms, so they change theirfi production processes to lower their costs of production. For the textile industry, facing ever-narrower margins, automation may be the only alternative to shutting down or moving. While some factories move to Cambodia or Viet Nam, with their lower wages, some seek to secure extra surplus value from their workers through upgrades in technology. One Chinese textile manufacturer in Dongguan, after spending $1.9 million for twenty-nine stitching machines, reduced the work force from 140 to six. Average wages of $450 a month had previously been rising by 20 per cent a year. Unlike workers, the factory owner reported, “machines can run 24 hours a day, with very little downtime.”It is not just labour shortages but

workers’ militancy that has sped up the automation trend. Labour unrest at Foxconn Technology Group, the iPad and iPhone contractor, which employs more than 1.4 million people in China, has forced shut-downs at its facilities in Taiyuan and Zhengzhou. Those demon-strations followed the spate of suicides at its Shenzhen factory in 2010. Last year the company announced the ambitious goal of adding a million robots to its Chinese factories within three years. Foxconn will have at least 30,000 robots in China by the end of the year. In car factories, micro-processor plants, and fullment warefi -houses, a single robot can now handle tasks that once took hundreds of person-hours to complete.All this, of course, ows from thefl

anarchy of capitalist production and

the competition between individual capitals. And, in turn, the resultant drive for automation results in social dislocation. As time goes on, companies become more productive or more ecient,ffi through intensifying the exploitation of labour power while at the same time

reducing the number of workers required. The widening of the “reserve army of unemployed” drives down wages and disciplines the existing labour force.Furthermore, such technological

innovations tend to cheapen labour through de-skilling. Technology in the work-place has frequently been used to undermine and undercut skilled labour. Ford’s assembly lines in Detroit, for example, were introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century partly to help lessen the company’s reliance on militant and autonomous craft workers organised in the IWW. Through the breakdown and fragmentation of previously skilled jobs into routine, easily learnt tasks, high-wage craftsmen with years of training were displaced by cheap, un-skilled immigrant labour.Even today’s mainstream econo-

mists concede that the high unemploy-ment rates in the United States and Europe are at least partly attributable to the rise of machines. “There’s no question that in some high- prolefi industries, technology is displacing workers of all, or almost all, kinds,” wrote Paul Krugman in the New York Times on 9 December, and he added that “many of the jobs being displaced are high-skill and high-wage.”Under capitalist social relations of

production the potential social benetsfi of technology are negated and are directed into ends that serve only the private interests of prot-chasing capifi -talists. Only under a system of socially planned production, where the social product is owned, controlled and dis-tributed by those who produce it, can the real benets of technologicalfi advance for society be truly realised.

[NC]

5

Marching into a cul-de-sacHE continuing protests by loyalists in Belfast and a few other areas of the North are a fall-Tout from the decision by Belfast City Council to restrict the ying of the British ag fromfl fl

City Hall to fteen times per year. The spokespersons for the protest have been calling for thefi ag to go back up, and for a return to direct rule from London.fl

The protest almost des-troyed the Christmas trade and may even have resulted in the closure of some small businesses, with a consequent loss of jobs.Before the vote was taken

the DUP had been distributing leaets around Protesfl tant working-class districts, raising the temperature about the ag.fl They have their eyes set on dis-lodging the Alliance Party MP Naomi Long, who won the seat in the British House of Commons for that area. The DUP are hoping to under-mine her and win the seat back.Other factors at work in these areas

include the role played in the past by some of today’s leading loyalists as hired guns for the British state and its military intelligence. They are con-cerned with the Historic Truth investi-gations in past suspicious killings carried out by loyalists with clear col-laboration with the state’s repressive forces.They are using the deep alienation

felt in these and other working-class communities throughout the North against the savage cuts in services and state investment. Former para-militaries, now “community workers,” are also using it in the hope that money will ow into the projects theyfl run and control.While this is happening, the

physical-force tradition within the nationalist community is also attempt-

ing to up the ante and to capitalise on the alienation felt by people in that community because of what they see as the failure to come up with the “peace dividend.”They still labour under the illusion

that Britain gives a damn about the North of Ireland and what happens there. Their actions against prison warders and others will have no eectff on the British but have a very immedi-ate impact on the Protestant com-munity, fuelling the res of secfi tarian-ism.The British simply don’t care: such

actions have no eect on their political,ff economic or strategic interests; but if the reactions come from within the shared space in the North then we have to ask what is the point of it all.The Belfast Agreement was for a

number of things:• guaranteeing the Union, which all unionists appear to believe is in ques-tion, while a small section of national-ists believe instead that it has consoli-

dated it—they can’t both be right;• creating a “shared space” and power-sharing political arrangements—but it has turned out that the DUP and Sinn Féin divvy up the spoils handed over by London to their respective electorates;• creating the political con-ditions in which disagreements could be resolved without resort to violence—but they

appear to have no strategy for moving beyond the status quo.As the CPI has pointed out many

times, what is needed is a political strategy that can embrace a number of clear goals that can transcend the present agreements: to advance the democratic goal of national unity, break down sectarianism, and engage with the Protestant working class and demonstrate that their social and econ-omic conditions can be secured only when political power rests at the near-est point of democratic accountability.The people of the North of Ireland

are triply marginalised: they have no inuflence to change their social con-ditions in London; they have no inufl-ence in the EU; and they have as much inuence in Dublin as the rest of us.fl

What loyalists and physical-force republicans have in common is that they have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing but instead are determined to walk into the future backwards.

[PW]

Gatherings of socialist republicans—a small beginning

The CPI hosted a series of seminars over a period of three months at the end of last year, with invited speakers giving talks on agreed topics.The seminars followed from the public meeting “21st-

Century Republicanism: What Does It Mean?” By agree-ment, attendance was by invitation. The meetings brought together republicans, communists and non- aligned left activists from around the country, north and south.The topics covered had been agreed in advance: “Why

class matters,” “The state as an instrument of class power,” and “Imperialism’s strategy and relationships in contemporary Ireland.” At each seminar three speakers addressed the topic, from dierent viewff points and experi-ences, to allow for a range of views to develop and be debated.The seminars did not just deal in theory but attempted

to apply the analysis to the development of Irish history as well as to contemporary struggles, in particular to try to get beyond the politics of “betrayal” by individuals or parties and to understand politics and developments in terms of the class interests that shape people’s actions.As part of the nal seminar there was an evaluation offi

what had been achieved and of what next steps could be taken to move co-operation forward and bring the fruitful and informative ideas and issues to a wider audience.Those attending were all committed to keeping the

process going, to deepening our understanding of the res-ponses needed, and to developing answers that give hope to our people in the face of the massive crisis engulngfi the capitalist system.The CPI was given the responsibility of compiling the

suggestions made and drawing people together early in the new year to move the process on to the next level.

6

The gambling business: “a statement of confidence in Ireland and its people”!

N December 2012 the manager of a rural post o ce in Co. Carlow was sentenced to threeffiIyears’ imprisonment for stealing €1¾ million from his place of work over a period of four-teen months. He was not using the stolen money to buy a new house or car: he was using it to feed a compulsive gambling addiction.He frittered away all the money he

stole in an on-line account with Paddy Power. He was often wined and dined by employees of the company and taken on outings to sports events. Once he gambled €40,000—the equiva-lent of his annual salary—on the out-come of an obscure football match in Norway.Only two months before the man

was convicted, Paddy Power announced the opening of its new head office in Clonskeagh, Co. Dublin, which cost €10 million. It’s claimed that six hundred new jobs are to be created there by 2015, in the areas of “social media, quantitative research, risk management, and on-line marketing.”Enda Kenny announced the jobs

with one of his vacuous clichés. “This is a statement of condence by Paddyfi Power both in Ireland, in its people and in particular in our young people,” he beamed, before being herded o byff his minders.Gambling is an exploitative

industry. It does not create wealth but merely transfers it out of the pockets of weak and vulnerable people and into the hands of capitalist vultures. Naïve and desperate people are drawn towards gambling by the belief that they can instantly solve their nancialfi problems.This illusion is compounded by the

intensive advertising and marketing by the gambling industry, which preys on people’s weaknesses. According to Gamblers Anonymous, many compul-sive gamblers think of themselves as morally weak or worthless. There are countless harrowing stories of compul-sive gamblers impoverishing them-selves and their families with their addiction.

Yet the Taoiseach thinks the expan-sion of the gambling industry is a statement of condence in the Irishfi people!Of course Kenny and other right-

wing politicians will try to justify the gambling industry on the grounds that it creates jobs. But could this logic not then be applied to drugs, and prostitu-tion? He was quick to lead the charge to close down the head shops in his home town of Castlebar; and I’m sure he doesn’t believe that pimps are legitimate job-creators. So why the hypocritical position on gambling?The dierence is that the gamblingff

industry is embedded within Irish poli-tics. A former Fine Gael minister, Ivan Yates, owned his own chain of betting shops. A former Fine Gael councillor, John Mulholland, runs many bookies’ shops in the west of Ireland. Dodgy horse-breeding magnates, such as J. P. McManus and John Magnier, have been welcomed into the bosom of Irish politics. Fianna Fáil infamously used race meetings as fund-raisers for their sleaze and were more than happy to use public money to subsidise the gambling industry.In many ways the massive growth

of Paddy Power summarises modern Irish capitalism. It will not invest in

anything that is socially useful unless it is protable. Financial services andfi turning tricks with money are in-credibly protable and thereforefi attract most investment.As with banking, gambling has been

massively deregulated over the last twenty-ve years. The main street offi every city and town in Ireland is littered with bookies and casinos. A look inside any of these will reveal a melancholy atmosphere of mainly working-class men losing money that they and their families desperately need.And gambling can now be done on

line or by phone, twenty-four hours a day. Even people with good jobs and a comfortable standard of living are sucked into the world of gambling by the promises of more and more. Bookies will take bets on the outcome of anything, from virtual roulette to reality television.Gambling has completely

penetrated sport and is corrupting it. It is impossible to watch any sports event today without hearing about odds and the prices of various results. Like banks, Paddy Power employs some of Ireland’s best and brightest.These mathematicians apply proba-

bility theory and statistical analysis to the huge amount of data gleaned from local bookies to assess risk and to ensure that the house always wins.In any logical society these gifted

minds would be used for something socially useful, but in Ireland they are used to exploit people and increase prots for bookies. Just like capifi tal-ism, gambling brings out the darker desires of people, such as greed, selshfi -ness, and rampant individualism.

[BG]

Seán Redmond1936–2012

Seán Redmond, former general secretary of the Connolly Association, died on Saturday 15 December at his home in Drumcondra, Dublin, at the age of seventy-six, having been ill for some time. Seán came from a radical Dublin family. His grandfather,

Jack, was the rst president of what is now the TEEU. Hisfi father, also Seán, was a member of the IRA, of the CPI from 1933, and of the Republican Congress.In the late 1950s the family had to emigrate to England,

and Seán and his brother Tom became active in the Connolly Association in London. Together they also joined

the Communist Party of Great Britain. The Connolly Association had launched its campaign to expose the iniquities of the Stor-mont unionist regime among Brit-ish labour, trade union and liberal circles. This campaign was based on the concept that the movement to end partition and bring about Irish national unity and indepen-dence needed allies in the British

7

labour movement and the support of progressive public opinion in that country.In the early 1960s Seán became general secretary of the

Connolly Association, and for the rest of that decade he did outstanding work in publicising the lack of civil and demo-cratic rights in the the Six Counties and the responsibility of successive British governments for this. He represented the association on the executive of the National Council for Civil Liberties and of the Movement for Colonial Freedom.Because of his work in those years Seán Redmond may

validly be considered one of the progenitors of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which destroyed unionist hegemony. He later wrote the pamphlet Desmond Greaves and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, which described the solidarity work in Britain in which he had played a leading part until the mid-1970s.This pressure from progressive British public opinion

paralleled the pressure that came from within the North itself when the civil rights movement got going there in the period 1968–1970.On returning to Ireland, Seán worked as an ocial withffi

the Local Government and Public Services Union, then with the Irish Municipal Employees’ Trade Union, both now part of Impact. He was one of the most inuflential organisers of that union and was greatly respected in Dublin labour and trade union circles for his political shrewdness, good sense, and political and industrial experience. He wrote the union’s ocial history, ffi The Irish Municipal Employees’ Trade Union, 1883–1983, as well as Belfast Is Burning, 1941, the story of the assistance given by Dublin Fire Brigade following the German fascist bombing of Belfast.

In the 1980s, together with some colleagues in other unions, Seán helped establish Trade Unionists for Irish Unity and Independence. As well as being a full-time trade union ocial he was active in the Irish Anti-Apartheid Moveffi -ment, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the committee of the Desmond Greaves Summer School, and the Irish Labour History Society.The attendance at Seán’s funeral in Glasnevin Cremator-

ium was a tting tribute to this outstanding socialistfi republican.

[PW]

Joe Deasy1922–2013

Joe Deasy was born on 12 July 1922 opposite the railway works in Inchicore, Dublin. His father was an active Labour and union man and inuflenced Joe’s subsequent career.He began his working life as a railway clerk

in 1941 and in those poverty- stricken war years saw the need for strong trade unionism and for spreading socialist ideas. He held elected positions in what is now the TSSA and Dublin Trades Council.Active in the Labour Party, Joe was elected a

councillor in 1945 and, at the age of twenty-two, was the youngest one in the country. He served on Dublin City Council with Big Jim Larkin and has written of this memorable association as they raised issues of slum clear-ance and health services.The Labour Party’s participation in the inter-party

government of 1948 with Fine Gael and Clann na Poblachta disillusioned many in the labour movement. Joe joined the newly formed Irish Workers’ League (a forerunner of the CPI) in 1951. In the Cold War hysteria of those days this was a dicult and demanding choice. He was blacklisted from allffi union positions and, with the rest of its members, faced

hostility at public meetings and when selling papers. An infamous episode was the closing of the Ballyfermot grocery co-operative stores by clerical boycotts and abuse. Joe and some IWL colmrades had been on the management committee. Both a thinker and a writer, Joe wrote Fiery Cross: The Story of Jim Larkin (1963) and James Connolly: His Life and Teachings (1966), before labour movement studies became fashionable. Joe returned to the Labour Party in 1977

but retained his commitment to the socialist ideas of his youth. This also allowed him to return to trade union activ-ism in his branch and in the trades council. On retirement he allowed more time to elected positions in the Labour History Society and writing for its journal, Saothar.Joe enjoyed life and had a repertoire of labour songs and

enjoyed singing them. His other passion was the theatre, which stemmed from his own involvement as a youngster in the New Theatre as actor and budding writer. A complete man.

[TR]

Frank Conroy CommemorationN 16 December a commemoration for Frank Conroy, a Spanish civil war hero who died onO28 December 1936 ghting with the International Brigade defending the Spanish Repubfi lic

against Franco, was held at the Republican memorial in Kildare before a large crowd.The Frank Conroy Committee

organised this rst commemorationfi because little attention has been paid to this Kildare republican socialist.The commemoration began with

Brian Leeson of Éirígí introducing Seán Edwards of the CPI, who spoke of the life of Frank Conroy after drawing attention to the parallels that can be drawn between Conroy’s causes and

today’s struggle, in particular his battles against the Blueshirts while in the IRA and against the fascists in Spain and his commitment to the ghtfi against attacks on the working class.

8

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He pointed out that today we have far too many examples of such attacks.The main speaker, Harry Owens,

said that “after the sudden nancialfi collapse of the great 1920s boom, with banks collapsing in the 1930s, the American and European governments cut back on welfare and the tiny dole payments, while employers cut wages and jobs.Here in Ireland the right, control-

ling state power, fought against workers’ right to join a union. The left, and those republicans who stood with them, defended tenants from eviction, the unemployed, and the underpaid.

In addition the socialist priest Michael O’Flanagan also stood here in Kildare in 1935, one year before the outbreak of the Spanish war, when he inaugurated this monument to seven workers shot in the Civil War for being caught with weapons. Franco would be shooting Spanish workers caught with weapons a year later, resisting his rebellion against Spain’s newly elected republican government.Barely fteen years separated thesefi

similar policies of Irish and Spanish army authorities.Why did these Irish republicans and

leftists, such as Frank Conroy, go to ght in Spain? Frank Ryan was askedfi this by the Gestapo when he was cap-tured in March 1937. “Because it’s the same ght in both places,” he replied.fi

At Lopera in Córdoba the edglingfl Irish unit in the 15th International Brigade went into action as part of the French battalion, sent south on Christ-mas Eve, 1936. On 28 December they advanced uphill to a town where they were bombed by enemy planes and heavily machine-gunned by the

fascists. Even experienced ghters,fi such as Ralph Fox and the poet John Cornford, were killed, as were Frank Conroy, Johnny Meehan, Henry Boner, Jim Foley, Tony Fox, Leo Green, Michael Nolan, Michael May, and Tommy Woods. Frank Conroy’s body and those of his dead comrades lie somewhere in the hills around Lopera today.The Western “democracies” pre-

ferred to let Spain fall to fascism than to help a fellow-democracy defend itself till their policy led the world into war.Our challenge, said Harry Owens, is

to turn today’s crisis into a trans-formation to abolish control by the elite who caused it and end the bail- outs and tax scandals of our million-aires, to make our country move towards the vision of Father O’Flanagan and that Frank Conroy fought and died to help the Spanish people achieve. For if the elite do sur-vive in power we will have failed; then we will hear those tragic words of Michael O’Flanagan, “They have fooled you again.”

The South African revolution betrayedHE recent conference of the ruling African National Congress of South Africa showed aTheadlong retreat from the ideals of the 1994 revolution that was to end apartheid. The

South African ruling class, even with a black face, deepens its collaboration with Western capital and the neo-liberal agenda. Yet for the black majority, de facto economic apartheid is very much a fact of life.Nationalisation of the country’s

natural resources is a central demand of mineworkers. The conict isfl between miners, who work deep inside the bowels of the earth for little pay, creating most of South Africa’s wealth, and the international capitalist mine- owners.Yet the ANC now proclaims

nationalisation of the mines to be “off the agenda.” Instead it proposes “reforms” that maintain the existing exploitative arrangement. One of these is the creation of a state-owned mining company as a partner of private capital in mining ventures that will further enrich the ruling class and their inter-national business associates.The ANC now espouses an openly

pro-nancier monetary and scalfi fi policy. Its emphasis on decit reducfi -tion as the linchpin of its scal policyfi conforms to the neo-liberal agenda, which penalises workers and benetsfi the wealthy.The ANC’s monetary policy again

shows disregard for workers’ interests, championing inafltion targets over employment and growth. Signicantly,fi a recent open letter from South African business leaders urged the ANC to adopt precisely this policy.The ANC says it will encourage cor-

porations to reinvest some of their prots to generate economic growth,fi without saying how. In fact under ANC leadership businesses in South Africa retain their megaprots. This sectorfi sat on roughly €50 billion in mid-2012, the highest level since 1995, without stimulating real economic growth. Since 1994 there has been no economic progress for the mass of South Africans.The president of South Africa and

of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, warned against deviation from this anti-worker

policy—a reference to the institutional violence with which his government has beaten down labour discontent throughout South Africa.The ANC’s conduct regarding the

Marikana massacre is a case in point. This incident on 16 August last, when forty-nine peaceful platinum miners striking against their inhuman working conditions were shot by the police, has been compared to the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. Most of the victims were shot in the back, far from police lines. Similar strikes at other mines

9

made 2012 the most turbulent year in the country since the “end of apart-heid.”The wildcat strike at Marikana was

not sanctioned by the National Union of Mineworkers, which is aliated toffi the Council of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which in turn is part of the ANC.It was led by a dissident union, the

Association of Mineworkers and Con-struction Union. The existence of this breakaway underlines miners’ anger with COSATU, which is seen as limit-ing itself to wheeling and dealing with the ANC, giving mine- owners a free

hand to exploit workers.The deputy president of the ANC,

Cyril Ramaphosa, called the Marikana strikers “criminals” and urged the authorities to crack down on them, so contributing to the conditions that led to the subsequent massacre. Ironically, Ramaphosa, heir-apparent to Mandela in the wake of the 1994 revolution, was the founder of the NUM. However, he left it to establish his powerful corpor-ate empire, aligning himself with former supporters of the apartheid regime. The poacher became an enthu-siastic gamekeeper.Uprisings by organised labour in

South Africa symbolise the corruption of the ANC ruling establishment, which has now abandoned the ideal of social justice and freedom, its one-time bailiwick. It has imposed a neo-liberal economic agenda on South Africa while simultaneously purging dissenting voices and suppressing workers’ upris-ings.The ANC has betrayed the faith

placed in it not only by South African workers but by Irish and international anti-apartheid forces, whose support was crucial in enabling the ANC to gain its present position of power.

[TMS]

Mind your languageHE year 2012 ended in rather strange circumstances. The Mayan “long calendar,” asTinterpreted by some people, announced the end of the world on or around the 21st of

December. The Daily Telegraph of London stated that, sadly, their edition of the the 20th might be the last we would ever read. (For many people, that fact alone would have been a good reason for welcoming the end of the world.)Bizarrely, and sadly, there were

reports that NASA had been besieged by people wondering whether they should commit suicide. On a humorous note, some people stated that while they believed that the world was going to end on the appointed date they were still going ahead with their Christmas shopping.Others—including Mayans—inter-

preted the calendar as merely marking the end of a cycle. The new cycle was to usher in an era when Earth and its inhabitants would undergo a physical and spiritual transformation.Looking for signs of this spiritual

transformation at the beginning of our new year would quickly lead one to become a disbeliever. The Guardian on 1 January 2013 had an article in which the US ambassador to NATO advised us that Europe wasn’t spending enough

on armaments, and that savings made by the withdrawal from Afghanistan should not be spent on other parts of the budget. I presume he meant health, education, and other social areas.In the nancial section of the samefi

paper it was reported that Venezuela was home to the best-performing stock market in the world, and also that its economy grew by 5½ per cent in 2012, as a consequence of government expen-diture on homes for the poor and on pensions. The article then contradicted itself by stating that all this happened despite the policies of President Hugo Chávez. Yet these housing and pension schemes, and many other social pro-grammes, are the very policies that have been implemented by the presi-dent and his government.Another article late in 2012 used

the word “lavish” to describe Venezuela’s spending on these pro-grammes. This word has connotations of wastefulness and extravagance. It rarely appears in our media to describe, say, protsfi, or the bonuses paid to bond-holders.The western media repeatedly

mention the fact that the Venezuelan vice-president, Nicolás Maduro, is a former bus-driver and trade union ocial. The inference seems to be thatffi such qualications make him ill-fi equipped to take over the reins from the president.Apart from the “classist” aspects of

this view there is no evidence that he could make a worse mess than that made by the so-called economists of the world. The Venezuelan economy before Chávez was a disaster area; an ex- soldier has turned it into one of the most progressive countries in the world. There’s no reason to believe that Maduro cannot keep up this progress.

The ex-soldier is now very ill, and there has been an invasive and at times ghoulish campaign in the media con-cerning his health. There have been accusations of secrecy and a cover-up by the Venezuelan government—all this despite the fact that regular up-dates are issued by the Ministry of Health. The possibility is that, as with all serious illnesses, it is very dicult,ffi even for the medical experts, to predict its course.Hillary Clinton has just gone

through a dicult health proffi cedure

10

Madge Davison: A Revolutionary Firebrand

Lynda Walker (editor), Madge Davison: A Revolutionary Firebrand: Recollections (Belfast: Shanway Press, 2011).

£6 (including postage) from Unity Press, PO Box 85, Belfast BT1 1SR. Cheques payable to Northern Area Trading.

but in contrast was not subjected to anything like this sort of speculative reportage.What we have not seen on our tele-

vision screens or in our papers are the pictures of tens of thousands of people in Latin America praying for the recovery of President Chávez.The Latin American television

station Telesur recently covered these ceremonies in El Salvador, Chile,

Ecuador, Colombia, and of course Venezuela. The poor, to whom the president represents hope, were there in large numbers, but they were not the only ones. Good-will messages have been oodfl ing into Venezuela from all around the world.There is a Mayan saying that “when

an eagle falls, the vultures will come to feed on its carcase.”

[RCN]

A worker reads and asks questionsBertolt Brecht

Translated by Jack Mitchell

As we brace ourselves for the budget, which will continue to dish out austerity for working people and riches for the bankers and politicians, we suggest taking a moment to reect on who exactly produces the wealth in any society,fl including ours.

Who built seven-gated ThebesIn the books you’ll nd the names of kings.fi

Was it the kings that lugged those hunks of rock?And what of Babylon, so often demolished?Who rebuilt it time and again? In whichOf golden Lima’s houses lived its builders?On the day the Chinese Wall was nished wherefi

Did the masons go in the evening? Great RomeIs full of triumphal arches. Who raised them? Over whomDid the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium of the songsPalaces only, for its inhabitants? Even in fabulous Atlantis,The very night the sea swallowed it,The drowning still bawled for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.All alone?Caesar defeated the Gauls.Didn’t he have so much as a cook with him?Phillip of Spain wept when his eetflSank. Did no others shed tears?Frederick the Second won the Seven Year War.Who else?

A victory on every page.Who cooked the victory feast?A great man every ten years.Who paid the bill?

So many accounts.So many questions.

11

SOCIALIST VOICE

SYMBOLIC HUNGER STRIKE BY BANGLADESHI GARMENT WORKERS

5 January 2012

Dear friends and comrades,Greetings from the National

Garment Workers’ Federation, Bangla-desh.We are in the continuous process

and actions to establish garment workers’ rights and addressing others issues. Your support and co-operation will encourage us. In the attached lefi there is a picture of our action program.Amirul Haque AminPresidentNational Garment Workers’ Federation

Demands: immediate arrest and trial of Tazreen Fashion’s owner and other culprits of factory re, paymentfi of wages-allowances and compensation to 15,000 workers of Hallmark Group, placing and passing in Parliament the amendment to Labour welfare founda-tion act and Labour law, establishing “safe work place” in garment sector and implementation of free trade union rights.Several hundred Garment workers

observed symbolic hunger strike today, January 4, 2013 demanding immediate arrest and trial of Tazreen Fashion’s owner and other culprits for responsi-bility in killing of 112 workers in factory re, payment of wages-fi allow-ances and compensation to 15,000 workers of Hallmark Group, placing and passing in Parliament the amend-ment to Labour welfare foundation act and Labour law, establishing “safe work place” in garment sector and imple-mentation of free trade union rights. Organised by National Garment Workers’ Federation (NGWF), the sym-bolic hunger strike was held in front of National Press Club in Dhaka city from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.NGWF President Amirul Haque

Amin presided over the program was addressed by General Secretary Ms Saa Parveen, central leader Md Farukfi Khan and Ms Sultana Akter.

General Secretary of Workers’ Party of Bangladesh Comrade Anisur Rahman Mallick, Co-ordinator of SKOP Dr Wazedul Islam Khan, former General Secretary of Jatiya Sramik League and Chairman of BNC Babu Roy Romesh, Babul Akter, Md Raq,fi Jahanara Begum and Mohammad Ali addressed the program expressing soli-darity with the hunger strikers.1. The NGWF at the program

warned to announce to submit memo-randum to Home Ministry if all cul-prits, including owner of Tazreen Fashion, are not arrested immediately for their responsibility in killing 112 garment workers in factory on Novem-ber 24, 2012. The speakers demanded publication of list of workers who were killed in Tazreen re, arrangement offi proper medical treatment for the injured and payment of compensation on the basis of “Loss of earnings.”2. The speakers demanded immedi-

ate payment of wages, allowances and compensation to 15,000 workers of Hallmark Group, which the owners closed down sine die on October 10, 2012. The owner of Hallmark Group was arrested for a massive bank scam through which he squandered taka 27 billion bank money. In case of non-compliance of the demand, memo-randum will be submitted to concerned ministries, including the Labour Ministry.3. From the program, the Govern-

ment was urged to place and pass in Parliament the amendment to the Labour Welfare Foundation Act 2006

since the law was incomplete.4. The Government was also urged

to place and pass in Parliament the amendment to the Bangladesh Labour Law 2006. The workers will be forced to announce tougher action program if the amendments to the laws were not carried out accordingly.5. The speakers demanded from the

program that factory owners, Govern-ment, BGMEA and buyers should ensure “safe work place” in garment sector so that not a single worker dies in factory re or accident in the future.fi Besides, all foreign companies, who source RMG products from Bangla-desh, should sign the memorandum of understanding on health& safety.6. Stressing the need for accepting

trade union rights as a basic right of the Garment workers, the program demanded implementation to this demand.

12

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