Revisionist Marxism in Ireland: The Party

Abstract

This article looks at the revisionist development and modernization of the political movements representing the anti-nationalist Marxist school. It looks at the political evolution of these movements and considers, amongst other things, attitudes and stances on political violence in Ireland, partition and Ulster unionism. It examines the constant of ‘revisionism’ that has featured prominently in the history and development of the Official Republican Movement. In charting the ideological transition from Official Republican Movement to Democratic Left, it argues that the concern was to win legitimacy in all relevant political processes—which most definitely included the processes of government. It argues that this represented a determined pursuit of and desire for respectability. ‘A Southern Agenda’ involves discussion of the New Departure, the quest to find a social and political platform relevant to the needs and understanding of the Irish people in the late 20th century, and the radical republican response to what was considered to be anti-Connolly politics and an anti-Connolly critique of the Northern Question. The article then examines: the questioning by the Official Republican Movement of Irish nationalism and its role within Irish political life; the desire to undermine the pursuit of the Irish national project; the Workers’ Party's concentration on the Irish Republic rather than on striving for a united Ireland; the ideology, political organization and strategy that the Workers Party adopted; and the reasons for the successful political profile of the Workers’ Party in the state during the 1980s. The second part, ‘Communist Denouement’, explains the response to the collapse of the Soviet Union: the undermining of the ‘Soviet model’; the reaction within the Workers’ Party to the Soviet crisis; and the felt need to distance a changed party from a perceivedly discredited Marxist ideology. ‘A New Party’ reviews the failed attempt to reconstitute the Workers Party from 1990, initiated by party leader Proinsias de Rossa and others (including Henry Patterson and Ellen Hazelkorn). The next section concerns the drift towards a new political party, namely Democratic Left. The following section focuses on the electoral battles between Democratic Left, the Workers Party and the Labour Party.