Workerist Sectarianism is not revolutionary

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis:

On Easter Monday in 1916, 1200 members of the Irish Volunteers and=20
the Irish Citizen Army seized the General Post Office and other sites in=20
Dublin in the hopes of sparking a general uprising.

The British crushed the rebellion. Nevertheless, it send a shiver of fear=
=20
through the ruling classes of Europe who were in bloody midcourse of=20
W.W.I. W.W.I was supported by most labor and socialist leaders and=20
the Easter rebellion was a warning signal that the class-struggle would=20
soon confront the imperialist warmakers and their socialist=20
collaborators.

During W.W.I, the class-struggle left-wing of the socialist movement=20
was debating issues of national self-determination. The issues raised by=20
the Eastern rebellion became part of this debate. There were broadly=20
speaking 3 positions within this left-wing grouping. One position as put=20
forward by the Polish revolutionary Karl Radek maintained that =93the=20
right of self-determination...is a petty-bourgeois formula that has=20
nothing in common with Marxism.=94 At the other pole was the position
held by Lenin who argued that socialism was inconceivable =93without=20
revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe.=94 Trotsky held a=
=20
position somewhere in the center between Radek and Lenin, stating that=20
=93the historical basis for a national revolution has disappeared even in=
=20
backward Ireland.=94

I will present some significant sections of articles by Trotsky (=93Lessons=
=20
of the Events in Dublin=94) and Lenin  (=93The Irish Rebellion of 19=94)=20
and conclude with my own views on the debate.

--------------------------------------------
Trotsky:

The historical basis for a national revolution has disappeared even in=20
backward Ireland. Insofar as the Irish movements in the last century=20
were popular in character, they always drew their strength from the=20
social antagonism between the rightless and starving pauper-farmers=20
and their all-powerful British landlords. But whereas for the latter=20
Ireland was merely an object of exploitation by agrarian plundering, for=20
British imperialism it was a necessary guarantee of domination of the=20
seas...

It was Gladstone who first set the military and imperial interests of=20
Britain quite clearly higher than the interests of the Anglo-Irish=20
landlords, and inaugurated a broad scheme of agrarian legislation=20
whereby the landlords=92 estates were transformed, through the=20
instrumentality of the state, to the farmers of Ireland--with of course=20
generous compensation to the landlords. Anyhow, after the land=20
reforms of 1881-1903 the farmers were transformed into conservative=20
petty proprietors, whose attention the green flag of nationalism could no=
=20
longer distract from their small holdings...

The experiment of an Irish national rebellion, in which Casement [a=20
nationalist leader, LP] represented, with undoubted personal courage,=20
the outworn hopes and methods of the past, is over and done with. But=20
the historical role of the Irish proletariat is only beginning.
---------------------------------------------
Lenin:

On May 9, 1916, there appeared, in Berner Tagwacht, the organ of the=20
Zimmerwald group, including some of the Leftists, an article on the=20
Irish rebellion entitled "=93Their Song is Ovr"=94and signed with the initi=
als=20
K.R. [Karl Radek]. It described the Irish rebellion as being nothing=20
more nor less than a =93putsch=94, for, as the author argued, =93the Ir
question was an agrarian one=94, the peasants had been pacified by=20
reforms, and the nationalist movement remained only a =93purely urban,=20
petty-bourgeois movement, which, notwithstanding the sensation it=20
caused, had not much social backing=94...

To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by=20
small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary=20
outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie WITHOUT ALL ITS=20
PREJUDICES [italics in original], without a movement of the=20
politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses=20
against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy,=20
against national oppression, etc.--to imagine all this is to REPUDIATE=20
SOCIAL REVOLUTION. So one army lines up in one place and says,=20
=93We are for socialism=94, and another, somewhere else and says, =93We are=
=20
for imperialism=94, and that will be a social revolution! Only those who=20
hold such a ridiculously pedantic view would vilify the Irish rebellion=20
by calling it a =93putsch=94.
----------------------------------------------
While there'=92s much more I have to learn about the history of class=20
relations in Ireland, I tend at this point to agree with Lenin'=92s approac=
h=20
to the 1916 rebellion. Trotsky'=92s approach, while not as schematically=20
sectarian as Radek'=92s, adapts too far in that direction. It represents wh=
at=20
one might call a =93workerist=94 approach, one that Trotsky broke with in=
=20
latter years.

For Lenin, the class-struggle never appears in its pure form where an=20
undifferentiated mass of workers stands opposed to an undifferentiated=20
mass of the bourgeoisie. Mass struggles against capitalist oppression=20
have always involved all sorts of petty-bourgeois prejudices, reactionary=
=20
fantasies and weaknesses and errors. It was Lenin'=92s gift to be able to=
=20
approach such mass struggles dialectically and see the objectively=20
anticapitalist character that defined them. As Lenin put it in the same=20
article, it rests upon the =93class-conscious vanguard of the revolution, t=
he=20
advanced proletariat=94 to express the objectively anticapitalist character=
=20
of the =93variegated and discordant, motley and outwardly fragmented=94=20
mass movement and unite and direct it toward capturing power.

It seems that Lenin'=92s approach to Ireland would also serve to help us to=
=20
understand much of the mass movement in the United States since the=20
1960=92s. Phenomena such as black and latino nationalism, feminism,=20
gay liberation, etc. are not pure expressions of proletarian militancy.=20
They incorporate all sorts of reactionary fantasies, weaknesses and=20
errors, but those in the US left, who like Radek, stood on the sidelines=20
and clucked their tongues at these inchoate movements, were also=20
missing the essential point. The Marxist movement does not set the=20
terms of the class-struggle. It must participate wholeheartedly and=20
unselfishly. That is the way capitalism will be eventually defeated.



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