review: One Man’s Terrorist
It is worth spending some time considering the debates that developed over political programme. The split between the ‘Provos’ and Officials was not just, as the author succinctly puts it, between “soldiers” and “politicians”. But the author does warn against “reading too much” into the “finer details”, ie the politics, and quotes Kieran Conway in saying that it was not the first concern for many IRA volunteers.4 There is quite clearly a certain truth in this, insofar as it is unquestionable that, in the stormy events of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, action spoke louder than words, particularly for a new generation dubbeds the 69ers. However, the split in the IRA and the political debate that emerged were not insignificant and have lasting effects to this day. Contrary to what the newly founded Provisional leadership would argue, Johnston and Goulding - who went on to become leading members of the Officials were not advocating the dropping of nationalism for socialism. Nor were they pushing for a genuine turn to the left. As the author suggests, “If Johnston had wanted to guide republicans further to the left then he was pushing at an open door”.5Their programme was reminiscent of the Stalinist position of the 1930s, proposing an all-class “anti-imperialist” alliance. History here and elsewhere has demonstrated that the working-class is subordinated in such alliances to the interests of the capitalist and middle class leaders. The reality of this programme was played out in the civil rights movement, the potential of which was scuppered by nationalist leaders like Hume. This programme, and variants of it, would be utilised by the Provisionals as well at various stages. It presented the struggle for socialism in stages. That first you fight for Irish unity on the basis of capitalism, then for socialism. This inevitably meant that the question of class was pushed beneath the national struggle in a futile attempt to unite exploiter and exploited. Such a formula crashed against the rocks of sectarianism. For Protestant workers, the prospect of capitalist unification with an economically and socially backward Southern state in which they feared being an oppressed minority was a complete anathema. The adoption of left-sounding rhetoric by the Provisionals would damage the name of socialism by associating it with the armed campaign of the Provos in the minds of working-class Protestants.
“the Great Moment” “Individual terrorism” is the Marxist term for the tactic of assassinating representatives of the ruling class or of the state forces, employed by secretive armed groups. In place of mass action by the working class, these groups substitute their deeds. The working class is expected to provide support, but otherwise simply observe the struggle. Individual terrorism has never succeeded in defeating a modern capitalist government anywhere. Trotsky’s writings on individual terror are quite prophetic in this regard: “By its very essence terrorist 34 l SocialiSt altErNativE l SuMMEr 2020
work demands such concentrated energy for “the great moment,” such an overestimation of the significance of individual heroism, and finally, such a “hermetic” conspiracy, that – if not logically, then psychologically – it totally excludes agitational and organisational work among the masses.”6 The “great moment” for the Provos was always one more push to achieve British withdrawal. This mantra, repeated for 20 years, was never fulfilled. The Provos could never militarily defeat the British state and, conversely, the British state could not militarily quash the Provisionals. It was recognition that the IRA campaign could not succeed – and also recognition that the Protestant population, rather than the British, were the main barrier to a united Ireland – that forced the republican leadership to try to find another road.
armed campaign rife with contradictions Today, a more romanticised view of the Provisional campaign is presented – that of gallant volunteers with the mass of the Catholic population behind them. Reality is more complicated. The blatant contradiction in the IRA campaign was that its greatest military successes were also its greatest political failures. Successfully carrying out bombings and shootings, particuarly when there where civilian casualties, provoked a backlash from both Catholic and Protestant workers – for example, the Enniskillen bombing, which killed 11 civilians on Remembrance Sunday. It was when British imperialism came down in a heavyhanded manner, meting out acts of brutality and repression, that the Provisionals gained sympathy and support. This was most epitomised in the callous role of Thatcher during the 1981 hunger strikes. The terror tactics employed by the PIRA also had the opposite effect to that intended so far as a challenge to the state was concerned. Far from weakening the British state, they gave it space and an excuse to introduce increasingly repressive measures and for those measures to become normalised. The use of diplock courts, plastic bullets and live ammunition all became norms in Northern Ireland. In Britain, when the miners sought to take on Thatcher through their strike action in the 1980s, repressive policing methods perfected in Belfast were used against mining communities.
“one man’s terrorist” The IRA’s support amounted to only a minority of the Catholic minority and, whatever the IRA’s stated intention, the objective result of its armed campaign was to stoke the flames of sectarianism, increasing divisions amongst Catholic and Protestant workers, and to vastly reduce any prospect of its stated aim of “British withdrawal”. The sectarian edge to the Provisional campaign was not immediately obvious when they attacked soldiers and other members of the state's repressive apparatus. The author illustrates a more naked expression of sectarianism emanating from the heads of the
