Class relations in the War of Independence [1971]
[This article by Desmond Greaves, with the title “The Great Betrayal Fifty Years Ago”, was carried in the December 1971 issue of the “Irish Democrat”. That month was the 50th anniversary of the so-called Anglo-Irish “Treaty”, agreed on 6 December 1921. The article gives in succinct form what Greaves regarded were the key class relations of the Irish War of Independence period. The “ructions in Belfast” refers to the Provisional IRA campaign, which had commenced a year before, and British and Loyalist reactions to that.]
Fifty years of partition. What a fate for any country. Two generations have grown up who never knew Ireland one country. Nor, since so many take partition for granted, do they grass that the blow it has struck Ireland is mainly economic.
The ordinary man does not think of economics beyond his wage packet. The broader issues of policies to safeguard the wage packet are left to shop-stewards, Union and political activists. Yet that is the great indictment of partition. It has stifled the development of the two parts of Ireland, and provided the means by which young Irishmen, discontented with their lot, blame their own country instead of English imperialism.
The average man who is opposed to partition blames Collins and Griffith. If arising out of the ructions in Belfast there should come another betrayal, no doubt the blame will be placed on individuals. But it should not, since individuals are merely spokesmen for the interests of classes.
Arthur Griffith was all his life the spokesman of the Irish capitalist class. This class sought an accommodation with imperialism which would safeguard its ability to pluck its own labourers and safeguard its own market – all under the umbrella of English imperialism which would come in when requested to quell any revolt.
But first the Six-County Unionist counter-revolution and then the squeeze put on the whole of the Irish people during the First World War, showed that imperialism was not prepared to accept even an Ireland on his knees; they wanted us on our backs.
So under the leadership of the small capitalists’ party, Sinn Fein, the main body of the capitalists accepted and tolerated the need for revolution, though they did little fighting, and were always ready to do a deal once England showed signs that their needs would be met.
It was hard for them to do the deal however. The official large capitalist party, with its strong landlord influence, was led to utter ruin and discredit by Redmond. The capitalist class of Ireland was thus without a party. It had to temporise, lie in wait, and see if it might be possible at any point to seize or penetrate Sinn Fein.
This would be possible on one condition, namely that Sinn Fein did not come under the influence of working-class ideas. While it is true that after Connolly’s death there was terrible opportunism in the Irish Labour Party, it would also be true to say there was a strong socialist trend, infinitely stronger than it is today.
In 1971-21 for example nobody in the Irish labour movement would have thought of condemning the Russian Revolution. Quite the contrary.
But this was not the kind of revolution the small capitalists or the agents of the larger capitalists within Sinn Fein wanted. Like the big capitalists the smaller capitalists wanted a limited revolution. They wanted complete separation, and in this they differed from the big fellows, but they didn’t want the working class to take matters further and allow control to pass into the hands of the workers.
For that reason they strove to limit Labour influence. They refused an agreement with Labour in the election of 1918. But they accepted an agreement with the Six-County Redmondites.
In the midst of the Tan war, Griffith assured British investors that their holdings in Ireland would not be nationalised. When the Trade Unions objected they were ignored.
When Labour in early 1921 put forward its plan for total conscription of men and industry to save the nation, that too was ignored and Labour was again kept out of the electoral struggle.
The truce came. Already their refusal to rely on “the numerous and respectable class the men of no property” had strengthened capitalist influences within Sinn Fein.
These were gradually demanding a more compromising policy. The negotiations in London touched on all kinds of things. One thing is certain. They did not touch on a united independent Irish Republic.
The middle class betrayed the Republic for fear of the workers of Ireland, not for fear of English imperialism.
Griffith and Collins were not cowards. They were middle-class politicians. They had deliberately accepted guerilla warfare as the only alternative to the mass action of the working class. When they found it was not possible to defeat imperialism without that mass action, they rejected Labour’s overtures and made a deal.
In the resulting split the big capitalists captured one half of Sinn Fein, and a few years later, when De Valera formed Finna Fail, they captured that as well, though the lines of policy each section advocated were of course by no means the same.
The story of the struggle of 1919-22 has many lessons today. There are voices being raised calling for a fresh “Treaty”, a new partition in which Dublin would accept the direct annexation of four counties to England, in return for Tyrone and Fermanagh. This is what Is being furthered by the misguided men, worthy as are their intentions, who are advocating direct rule.
Any such fresh partition would have the same effect as the last one. It would split and disillusion the Irish people, wreck the patriotic movement and help England to hold Ireland for another fifty years.
Let us learn the lessons of 1921 – no fresh partitions, no direct rules, no federal solutions; test every course of action by one criterion, will it help or hinder the establishment of an Irish Republic, one and indivisible.