How many left wing groups in Ireland?

by Finghin Thu Aug 08, 2002 17:49

Mandelite's - Social Democracy
Grantite's - Socialist Appeal

by 123 Thu Aug 08, 2002 18:26

better question is... how many actual self-identified 'Right Wing' parties are there in Ireland?

by billy - rts Thu Aug 08, 2002 21:42

hey, just a bit of a correction, there is no 'Irish Anarcho Syndicalist Group', there is however the Anarcho Syndicalist Federation, and also the Anarchist Federation.

by Des Thu Aug 08, 2002 22:11

What about Socialist Democracy and the Labour Party?

by Harry Pollit Thu Aug 08, 2002 22:13

What is the difference between the Communist Party of Ireland and the Communist Party of Ireland Marxist Leninist?
(are the second lot Maoists or something like that).

by someone Thu Aug 08, 2002 23:42

The CPI-ML are/were Maoists all right. Are they still active? I have heard of one or two of their members (ex-members) being politically involved but I had no idea they were still in existence as a group.

by jack Fri Aug 09, 2002 01:27

Sinn Féin?

by jack Fri Aug 09, 2002 01:27

Sinn Féin?

by Comrade Jim Fri Aug 09, 2002 01:59

Where do they get there funding again.......ohh yeah US Business men

by E Fri Aug 09, 2002 09:08

For a fairly definitive list go to:

http://www.broadleft.org/ie.htm

(part of Leftist Parties of the World web site)

by Justin Moran - Sinn Fein Fri Aug 09, 2002 10:29 maigh_nuad at yahoo dot com 086 366 7694

Sinn Féin is a left-wing party and yes, we do get money from the United States, but no we are not the richest party in Ireland (Or even in the top three) and yes American businessmen give us money, but no, not every cent we get from America comes from 'Rich Yankee businessmen' or even a majority.

If Irish-Americans want to contribute to our cause, I'm not turning their money away, many of them were forced out of Ireland either by this State, the British State, or the economic conditions on this island and if they want to contribute to the republican cause which has often, and continues to oppose American foreign policy in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Middle East etc. I'll take their money.

I'll even send them a thank you card.

by conor - ucd socialist alternative Fri Aug 09, 2002 12:52 c_mc_gowan at hotmail dot com

where do you draw the line of "left wing"-the socialist party serves in a reformist capitalist party-but is indeed a socialist party

sinn fein/labour arent

one takes handouts from idiots in the states,has its own army,and has fucked up every deparetment its got into office in the north (thinking health and education)running them in the most right wing tatcherite fashion possible-the other has rurai quinn as leader

fianna fail claims to be republican (a state in which the sovereign power resides in the whole body of the people, and is exercised by representatives elected by them party-so too do sinn fein

by Jon Wilde Fri Aug 09, 2002 13:37 Arkaos at subdimension dot com

Nah, can't be. Private army, and all that.

They've a lot to do before I'd consider them a real party worth listening to.

No more left wing than Bertie and his Brass Neck Band.

by Luddite - Preferably Not Fri Aug 09, 2002 13:54

I didn't realise arming yourself was inherently right wing.

Where does that leave:
The Zapatistas, Sandanistas, Spanish Anarchists, Irish Citizens Army, FARC, Black Panthers, Angry Brigade, African National Congress...................

People can be critical of SF politics and actions for lots of reasons, but the idea that arming yourself is inherently right wing is nonsense.

by silo Fri Aug 09, 2002 14:01

also the s.w.p. front organisations tend to give the impression of more going on than there actually is; for example, a poster saying an event is organised by s.w.p./g.r./a.n.l. etc gives the impression of involving a lot of people to the average joe soap, but it's actually possible (in fact, probable) that it only involves a handful of people.

oh, also don't forget our old pals the spartacists; trotskyites, i do believe. they're the people who try to sell you a paper and recruit even harder than the s.w.p., which is quite an achievement really. and they're completely MAD. you have to support north korea to be allowed in their gang. you know, the way certain american elites support israel - unquestioningly, without qualification, utterly. great fun.

by Brian Cahill Fri Aug 09, 2002 14:12

This is eerily familiar to a drunken conversation I was involved in a few days ago. Here are a few more:

World Socialist Movement
Irish Workers Group
International Socialists (Ireland)

Also, I am fairly sure that Socialist Appeal don't exist as a group in Ireland, although they may have one or two supporters.

So the list so far:

Socialist Party
Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party
Irish Socialist Network
Irish Republican Socialist Party
Workers Solidarity Movement
Socialist Democracy
International Socialists (Ireland)
Socialist Alternative
World Socialist Movement
Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation
Anarchist Federation
Irish Workers Group
Workers and Unemployed Action Group
Spartacist Group Ireland
Communist Party of Ireland
Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist)

There you go, 17 groups and counting. Some of them barely exist at all (World Socialist Movement, CPI-ML, IWG). Of those which have a more certain existence, most of them have more letters in their names than members.

The whole organised left probably has a total membership of not much more than a thousand, heavily concentrated in the Socialist Party, SWP and Workers Party (the last mainly in the North).

by Andrew Fri Aug 09, 2002 14:17

In terms of anarchist and related groups with some sort of web presence there is a full index of these at http://anarchism.ws/ireland.html

Anyone aware of any similar Leninist listing? The SW. SP, etc web pages just seem to list their own organistions and their fronts.

by Brian Cahill Fri Aug 09, 2002 14:23

I have been trying to set up a fairly web guide to the Irish left, socialist, anarchist and whatever else, in the bookmarks section of "The Bell" email list's webpage. The email list was set up as an Irish left discussion forum but it has never really been all that active.

by Andrew Fri Aug 09, 2002 14:44

Brian the bookmarks section of the bell is not accessable to non-members, presuming this is not what you intend you can change this in the settings area.

by Finghin - Socialist Party Fri Aug 09, 2002 15:25

The Socialist Party is an independent revolutionary party, we do not "...serve in a reformist capitalist party".

Sinn Féin are a right wing bourgeois party and should not be considered left wing.

The Labour Party are also a bourgeois party, little difference between them and FF/FG. Certainly not left wing

by Finghin - Socialist Youth Fri Aug 09, 2002 15:27

I believe that the CPI(ML) are still active. They have some members in Galway

by Finghin Fri Aug 09, 2002 15:30

I believe that the Grantite Socialist Appeal do have some members mainly in Belfast though. I do remember one of their members selling their paper on a demo in Dublin recently. But don't say it too loud as they may be witch-hunted!

by Ray Fri Aug 09, 2002 15:32

... of course, its not so long that Labour were a working-class party, and the proper home of all revolutionaries. Funny how a quick purge will change all that...

by Finghin - Socialist Youth Fri Aug 09, 2002 16:07

The Labour Party were in the past a mass workers party with a right wing leadership, when workers moved into struggle they were attracted into the labour party. This was particularly the case in Britain. However a number of factors in the 1990s lead to a bourgeoisifaction of the Labour Party. This occured throughout Western Europe with other Social Democratic Parties also. Workers when they move into struggle will not immediatly join the a revoultionary party, they will however become active in and around a mass workers party. It is not for revolutionaries to abandon the working class and distance themselves from workers. We must intervene into the organisations of the working class and arm them with a socialist programme by convincing workers of the need for socialism. The task for revoultionaries now is to build new mass workers parties that will play the role the Labour Party did in the past.

I recommed the pamphlet "The case for a new Mass Workers Party". It's posted on http://www.syucd.cjb.net

by Ray Fri Aug 09, 2002 16:20

I just think its funny when SP people act as if they would have left Labour anyway, and its entirely coincidental that they were purged by the leadership. It just looks like sour grapes - "Well we didn't want to be part of your party anyway, and besides you're all smelly! We're going to set up our own party, and it'll be a real workers party! Nyaah nyaah nyaah nyaah"

Why can't you just say, "Yeah, we were kicked out, but that has its advantages too. In fact we're probably better off outside than we were when we were a Labour faction. Funny old world, isn't it?"

by Finghin - Socialist Youth Fri Aug 09, 2002 16:29

The fact is that we would have left the Labour Party anyhow because it no longer was a workers party. Our expulsion was an indication of the bourgeoisifaction of that party.

Internationally we left many former workers parties that had degenerated without being expelled. We saying now that the Labour Party is a bourgeois party is not sour grapes, it is based on a concrete analysis of the situation.

by Ray Fri Aug 09, 2002 16:45

...weren't the two largest branches of the SP's international (the CFI?), ie the Irish and British branches, expelled from their respective Labour parties? In which countries did the local CFI leave the Labour equivalent of their own accord, how big (roughly) were those CFI groups, and when did this happen?
I mean you're really not changing my opinion here, that the major factor in your 'concrete analysis' is the point at which you were kicked out.

(Of course, I can see where you have a problem - you have to say that Labour was a workers party when you were in it, and equally you have to say that its not a workers party - that the SP is the only real workers party - now that you've left. But when everyone else can see what's going on your continued denials make you look a little ... blinkered)

by OK Fri Aug 09, 2002 16:47

Socialist Groups:
Socialist Party (trotskyists CWI)
Socialist Workers' Party (trotskyists IS)
Workers' Party
Communist Party of Ireland (Stalinists Comitern)
Communist Party of Ireland Marxist Leninists (Maoists)
Irish Republican Socialist Party
Irish Socialist Network (exDL members)
Irish Worker's Group (trotskist LRCI)
Socialist Alternative (UCD split from SWP)
International Socialists (Belfast split from SWP)
Red Banner Group (another SWP split)
Socialist Democracy (trotskyists USFI)
Sparticist Group Ireland (trotskyists ICL)
World Socialist Party (Left Communist WSM)
Workers' and Unemployed Action Group
Socialist Appeal (Grant split from CWI, possibly not active in Ireland)

Anarchist Groups:
Anarchist Federation Ireland
Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation
Workers' Solidarity Movement
Industrial Workers of the World

by Finghin - Socialist Youth Fri Aug 09, 2002 17:08

It's CWI (Committee for a Workers International) not CFI.

We left the Labour party not just because most of our leadership was expelled. We left because the Labour party had transformed into a bourgeois party. Workers no longer saw the labour party as their party and were not joining the party. The expulsions of supporters of Militant (and others on the left for that matter) were an indication of this rightward drift of the Labour Party. One thing that is forgotten is that the expulsions took place over a long period of time (about 10 years).

At no time were a majority of Militant supporters expelled, only some of the leading members were ever expelled. We could have carried on with partial entryism (which we had persued for the best part of 10 years) if we still believed the Labour Party was still a workers party but we did not.

It is not childish sour grapes and really is based on a concrete analysis. I think you should read some of our material on 'the case for a new workers party' its on the www.syucd.cjb.net site

by Ray Fri Aug 09, 2002 17:19

I'm not saying its _all_ sour grapes.
But if you ask someone else on the left why the CWI left they'll say something like, "Rightward shift of party, leadership expelled and faction banned, decline in working class membership, etc, etc"
Ask someone in the CWI the same question and they'll give all the same reasons, EXCEPT the fact that they were expelled.
Its the dog that didn't bark, the elephant in the room, the fart in the crowded lift... everyone knows about it, everyone knows it was a major factor, but when you act as if it just didn't happen... you get odd looks.

by Daithi Fri Aug 09, 2002 17:28

From someone who is a Labour member and is still fighting for both socialism and democracy, I would like to suggest that Labour should be included on the list of left-wing groups in Ireland.

I would have far more qualms about groups like the Spartacists being described as "left-wing".

by Irony is dead Fri Aug 09, 2002 17:53

The comrade from the SP seems to infer that the British Labour Party suddenly became a bourgeois party. Why? In fact Lenin made the point at the start of the 1900'a that it was a bourgeois-workers party. Nothing has changed there. It always has talked reform but then managed capitalism on the ruling class's behalf. It's commitment to left phraseology has always been a paper ones - its reforms pushed from below and usually from outside the LP. Militant were kicked out by Kinnock and Co as a distraction from defending the miners and taking on Thatcher.

by MalachyX - unaffiliated Fri Aug 09, 2002 18:07

I hope we have more success than just getting our organisations on this list. Lets make a list of our successes!

by Brian Cahill Fri Aug 09, 2002 18:27

1) "Irony is Dead" gives us a particularly crass piece of religious thinking. Lenin described the British Labour Party as a "bourgeois-workers party" 100 years ago, so it must still be one now! As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end, amen.

An inability to recognise change when it is staring you in the face does you little credit. Of course Labour was never a socialist organisation, still less a revolutionary one. But it was a working class organisation. Its members were workers, it was financed by the working class, and workers used it to fight for reforms and to defend those already won despite the reluctance of its leadership. Can anybody seriously argue that "nothing has changed"?

New Labour is a party of big business. No pretence is made of wanting even the most minor of pro-working class reforms. In fact New Labour is introducing a more thorough programme of privatisations and attacks on the working class than Thatcher. The working class membership has been nearly eradicated, replaced by the comfortable middle classes. More and more of the party's funding comes directly from business. What little party democracy there ever was has been destroyed. The few remaining old fashioned Labour right wingers like Roy Hattersley have travelled to the left of the party just by standing still.

But for "Irony is Dead" (and the rest of the SWP) regurgitating a 100 year old quote from Lenin removes the need for actual thought or analysis.

2) In most Western countries a very serious shift has taken place in the nature of the mass Social Democratic and Stalinist parties. Under huge ideological assault during the 1980s and 1990s they mostly moved drastically to the right or disintegrated. As this happened, the CWI left those parties. In a few cases we were, to use a nice euphemism, helped on our way.

The CWI, by the way Ray, is organised in 38 countries and the Irish Socialist Party is not even close to being the second largest section.

3) On a less serious note, OK you have just been borrowing from Nico Biver's "Leftist Parties of the World" site. I'm afraid that I really can't let you have Red Banner (a magazine rather than a political organisation), the IWW (a union) or Socialist Appeal (which doesn't have an organisation here, only a couple of supporters of the British organisation). So you are stuck back at 17.

4) Thanks for the pointer, Andrew, I'll try to sort the problem with the Bookmarks out now.

by Irony is dead Fri Aug 09, 2002 19:47

The point made about Lenin calling the LP a bourgious-workers party is that it never was a workers party - unless you are trying to insinuate that it became a workers party - allowed the militant to organise, and ceased to be one when it kicked 'the paper' out. In its history the LP has vacillated left and right and maintained 'loyalty' of workers through its connection with the trade unions. Reformism has not died with the shift to the right of the LP - one of the reasons the SP cannot assume to build its purely electoral base in all but isolated areas. The theory that the LP became bourgious only fits if you have to explain why you have been dumped out of it.

by Why the fuck do you want to know this anyway????????????? Fri Aug 09, 2002 19:51

I'm not entirely sure but I think Gluaiseacht is left-wing anarchist.

by Des Fri Aug 09, 2002 19:54

The Labour Party fighting for socialism, have you completely lost touch with reality? don't you remember the "rainbow coalition", the "tax amnesty" to the "elite" of the country. If you really believe that, you should get Ruairi to pay for you to visit the nearest shrink.

by H.Pollitt Sat Aug 10, 2002 12:04

World Socialist Party would have more in common with anarchos than the groups they have been put in the same category as.
I would include S.F., P.U.P., R.S.F., R.W.G. (well if you include the I.R.S.P.) and wasn't there a split from the Worker's Party going under the name Official Republican Movement.
Didn't Red Action continue here under another name?
What about Green groups?

by H.Pollitt Sat Aug 10, 2002 12:04

World Socialist Party would have more in common with anarchos than the groups they have been put in the same category as.
I would include S.F., P.U.P., R.S.F., R.W.G. (well if you include the I.R.S.P.) and wasn't there a split from the Worker's Party going under the name Official Republican Movement.
Didn't Red Action continue here under another name?
What about Green groups?

by red Sat Aug 10, 2002 15:56

There are some points about our work internationally in Labour and Social Democratic parties. We did decide to leave (although being pushed helped to convince us) At the time we suffered a split over the decision with some sections splitting. The Grant / Woods side decided to remain within the Social Democracy.
But for us it is by no means dogmatic. We still work within workers paries where they exist. By definition of workers parties we mean parties which are working class, not the leadership.
For example we work inside the Workers Party in Brazil which are by no means revolutionary but are a workers party. And In Holland we have councillers in the Socialist Party an ex Maoist party.
As for the decision it could be argued the brits were a little slow off the mark and should have done it during the poll tax campaign although in Ireland I think it was timed correctly and with the election of our first td within a year of launchinbg the party. For me personally I don't think I would have ever joined labour. And I think alot of members who joined since the SP came about would say the same.

by red - sp Sat Aug 10, 2002 16:03

Q. How many swpers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. You don't change it you SMASH!!! it.

Q. How many Militants(SP) does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. The answer is socialism

Q. How many anarchists does it take to change a lightbulb.

A Kronstat

Q How many sparts does it take to change a lighbulb.

A One, to keep an eye on the petty bourgeois reformist fake lefts trying to do it.

Any more?????

by conor - ucd socialist alternative Sun Aug 11, 2002 17:25 c_mc_gowan at hotmail dot com

this "how many parties can we fit in the left" posting does show how truly fragmented the left is

by the way,we just split from the swp-add us onto the list??

by Vitor Mon Aug 12, 2002 15:58 ladiesman_v at hotmail dot com

Hey,mi from Brasil and I come to this site pretty much every day,im fascinated by the way that irish rebellian organisation works,but I need some explain...can anyone send me an email,get in touch with me plz...? I really would liket o understand some of the arguements I read here better
Thank you
Vitor

by micko Mon Aug 12, 2002 16:29

69 eugene street...remember them? :)

by Paul Kinsella - ATGWU (Personal capacity) Mon Aug 12, 2002 21:00 paulkinsella53 at yahoo dot com 53 Lorcan Grove, Santry, Dublin 9, Eire 087 - 9748511

What about the Green Party? Although the Greens have never described themselves as Socialists or even 'Left' - Indeed while the Greens themselves say that they're neither 'Left' nor 'Right', many of their policies would be classified as 'Left Wing'. Yes they would be reformists not revolutionaries, but then so are the Labour Party who are classified as 'Left Wing'! Can someone explain the inconsistency here?

by OK Tue Aug 13, 2002 15:29

I don't think that either the LAbvour PArty or the Green Party are workers' parties, and therefore cannot seriously call themselves left wing.

The greens have some very vicious anti-working class policies. They support double taxation and even support putting tax on 'junk food'. The Greens are a regressive force that want to take the world back a few stages.

by Ray Tue Aug 13, 2002 16:59

I'd sooner side with the Greens than with the Sparts. Defence of the 'deformed proletarian states'? No thanks.

by red Thu Aug 15, 2002 01:03

what ray you would support the greens over the sparts! You must be a bourgeois labourist reactionary green facist. your name is going straight into the proletarian class traitor black book. After the revolution you'll be sent straight to the re education centres, and lets see if we can't get you a nice american accent while were at it, labourite!!!!

by Communist Republican - WIC Sat Jul 19, 2003 23:23

CPI(ML) is not Maoist but followed the Party of Labour of Albania and its leader Enver Hoxha.

The Albanian and Chinese parties split after Nixons visit to China and Mao theory of "Three Worlds"

CPI(ML) supports the DPRK in its struggle against US imperialism.

More info at www.mltranslations.org

by sean Thu Sep 04, 2003 00:01 sean_p_butler at yahoo dot co dot uk

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND (MARXIST-LENINIST):

Who are these guys. What do they stand for and where are they based