[Marxism] RE: Marx, Engels and the National Question

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I am not sure how true the statement below is. Certainly it could be argued
that the failure of the left in England, Scotland, and Wales to champion the
cause of Irish freedom sealed their own fate as relatively reactionary
class-collaborators. At the same time, the failure of the left in the UK to
champion Irish freedom has, at various junctures, hindered somewhat severely
the Irish revolutionary cause. For example, during the Dublin lockout in
1913 the failure of the organised working class movement in England to show
solidarity (financial and political) with the demands of the Revolutionary
Irish ITGWU was certainly a factor in the latter's eventual defeat. In more
recent times, the failure of the left in Britain to effectively organise and
champion demands for the political, and national aims of the Irish
revolutionary movement (not to mention the basic human rights of the
northern Irish populace), without cowtowing to their alleged 'support base'
in the reformist and imperialist British Labour party, certainly weakened
the force that the latter's campaign may have had with the former's
effective backing.
In Northern Ireland itself, the organised left (which, in various political
manifestations, has not always been so small as Lueko suggests), definitely
impacted, arguably extremely adversely, the aims and the strategy of the
Irish Republican movement, by economistically 'playing' to their alleged
support base in the (unionist-dominated) trade union movement of the North,
and by thoroughly misunderstaning the nature of class struggle in Ireland.
In my view, with the  principled, organised, and effective support of the
working class movement in the UK for the aims of the Irish Republican
movement, the last few decades in Northern Ireland may have been markedly
less brutal. This is not to suggest that all of the political left in
Britain was ineffective and unprincipled- there were notable, and admirable,
exceptions.

LUEKO WILLMS WROTE:

> While I agree with you that it is crucial for any working-class
> organisation in Britain to champion Irish freedom, I think that the
> failure to do so of large parts of the small revolutionary groups in
> Britain to do so was more a factor deciding their fate, but not yet  the
> fate of British imperialism. I think they were still to small to  have a
> real weight in the objective situation.

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