For many decades, some terrible examples of far left crazy polemics have emerged from the British State. In general, this happens when organisations are not capable of accurately reporting the views of people they disagree with. It looks like the British “Socialist Worker” is sinking into a bog of irrationality over its deeply mistaken policy concerning Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine.
The article below, republished on the Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières Site (ESSF), is written by Dale Street. Comrades on the left in Ireland can observe, perhaps with a feeling of amazed disbelief.
John Meehan June 21 2023
Socialist Worker (SW), paper of the Socialist Worker Party (SWP), is ecstatic.
At last it has found a trade union (the UCU, which organises workers in post-school education) that has passed a motion at its annual congress backing the Stop the War Coalition (StW) line on Ukraine.
True, the motion was passed by just nine votes. True, the motion contained an antisemitic trope jumbling up Ukraine and Israel as imperialist outposts. True, Jewish UCU members critical of the motion have been targeted for antisemitic abuse. True, another, and far better, motion on Ukraine was passed by a much larger majority.
All that is true — but, with the exception of the antisemitic trope (which SW, of course, supports), all of it goes completely unmentioned in SW’s coverage of the UCU congress vote.
True also that the passing of the motion has triggered a wave of revulsion among broad swathes of the UCU membership, with many members taking to social media to condemn the motion and, in some cases, resigning from the UCU in protest.
This applies in particular to people who know what they are talking about. Such as Ukrainian members of the UCU and other academics who specialise in the study of Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe.
In the best traditions of Stalinist slander, however, SW portrays the backlash against the motion as a ruling-class conspiracy.
The backlash, says SW, was the work of “a vast army of pro-Nato trolls. No one should imagine that this was a spontaneous reaction.” NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Latvia, explains SW, recommends “using pseudonyms to mislead social media users”.
SW and its readers should take a reality-check. A statement condemning the motion issued and signed by UCU members (some of them now former members) at the University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies has attracted nearly 300,000 views.
That institution really does exist. Those signatories really do exist. No-one needs to “imagine” this was a spontaneous reaction — it simply was a spontaneous reaction.
The Irish President Michael D Higgins is publicly opposing Dublin government attempts to soften deep public opposition to participation in the imperialist military alliance, NATO.
Speaking at length in a Sunday Business Post interview (June 18 2023) the Irish Head of State (a largely ceremonial post) concisely summarised the main issue :
Ireland’s foreign policy was one of “positive neutrality, and it can be defined very simply as Ireland’s right to belong to any group that it chooses in relation to non-militaristic international policy… If you interfere with that, there’s no difference between you and Lithuania and Latvia.”
Irish Times Online, June 18 2023
Set against the background of Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Higgins has upset the right-wing Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Greens + Gombeens coalition government (FFFGGG). Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin set up a public “consultative” forum examining Irish foreign policy – which is designed to push the Irish state closer to NATO.
To his credit, unlike many left-wing public representatives in Ireland, President Higgins unambiguously sides with the masses of Ukraine against the genocidal Russian invasion.
Supporting, unambiguously, the right of Ukraine to defeat the genocidal Russian invasion with weapons supplied by NATO, does not mean supporting membership of NATO or its aims. Irish Citizens’ Army (ICA) commander James Connolly was a leader of the Easter 1916 Rising – using weapons supplied by the German war-mongers who were at war with the ancient enemy of Irish Independence, British Imperialism. The ICA proudly promoted a famous banner at Liberty Hall, headquarters of the Irish Transport and Geneeral Workers’ Union (ITGWU) : “We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland”.
President Higgins is out of step with current Irish establishment thinking on such matters. He made derogatory throwaway remarks about the chairperson of the Dublin government’s consultative forum, and its chosen experts. :
Michael D highlighted the composition of the panels at the forum saying they include “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it” as well as “the formerly neutral countries who are now joining Nato”.
The President made comments about the forum chairperson British Empire Dame Louise Richardson, and then offered a very qualified apology :
[I think this is best categorised as a Michael D Classic : A Non-Apology Apology]
President Michael D Higgins has apologised for any offence he caused by making a “throwaway remark” about the chair of the Government’s Consultative Forum on International Security Policy being a Dame of the British Empire (DBE).
A clarification issued by his office on Monday said President Higgins referred to Prof Louise Richardson of Oxford University and her “very large letter DBE” in a casual manner during the course of a long interview, which was published in the Business Post on Sunday.
The references to the DBE were received in some in some quarters as the President disparaging the objectivity of the Waterford-born academic, in advance of her chairing the forum.
The statement from Áras an Uachtaráin referred to President Higgins looking through a copy of the programme for the forum at the time of the interview. It said he was referring casually to the fact that almost every reference to Prof Richardson in the programme was in a bold typeface, with DBE in capital letters after her name.
Irish Times Online, June 18 2023
This spat is unlikely to benefit the Dublin government. The public pressure against the British Empire Dame Richardson should continue. We offer two further items of evidence meaning Dame Richardson should immediately withdraw from the role given to her by the forelock-tugging Dublin Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.
Dame of the British Empire Richardson opposed the campaign of H-Block/Armagh political status prisoners, backing the terrorist policy of the Thatcher British Government
When a protestor left a sign on the doors of Oxford’s University Church reading ‘Rhodes, You’re Next’, there was little doubt that the monumental Black Lives Matter movement, sweeping the world after the death of George Floyd, would next be turning its attention to the statue of the imperialist figure adorning Oriel College’s entrance arch. With the pulling down of a statue of Edward Colston in Bristol only days earlier, a fresh series of protests, beginning on Tuesday 9th June, sought removal of the controversial monument of Cecil Rhodes, fuelled by the 19th century mining magnate’s association with colonialism and racism on multiple accounts. On the 12th June, the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, released an open letter that reached no binary view about Rhodes’ legacy, though did warn against “hiding our history” and indicated little accord to the aims of the protestors. Her statement was also later criticised by fourteen dons at the University who wrote that it was “inappropriate” of Professor Richardson to “ventriloquise” the anti-apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela, by using his words to defend a colonial-era statue. (1)
British Empire Dame Louise Richardson Must Go Now!
This excellent statement diagnoses a political blight – False Pacifism – which has entered the bloodstream of significant parts of the Irish left and trade union movement. We are dealing with an international phenomenon :
May Day is not only International Workers’ Day but also a day of solidarity with the oppressed peoples and civil disobedience against war. For example, one can remember the 1971 May Day protests against US imperialist aggression in Vietnam in Washington. During that time, the antiwar movement’s stance was clear: halt the war, complete the withdrawal of American troops, and support the right of the Vietnamese people to self-determination. Nowadays the Left is also leaning toward pacifism but its present iteration is much more ambivalent. While it still highlights issues of American imperialism, the prevention of nuclear war, and condemns militarization and war as means of resolving conflicts, it faces challenges in precisely identifying the aggressor and exhibits a willingness to tolerate Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory and the continued presence of Russian troops there. Thus this version of pacifism is deprived of real solidarity with the oppressed peoples.
This year we also participated in the 1st May parade in Ghent with a beautiful group of Ukrainian people and solidarity Belgians.
With a clear message: Russian troops out of Ukraine, stop the bombing. Solidarity with Ukraine and its people! We will continue to take action as long as necessary.
We also continue to shake the high tree of the trade unions and the progressive movements: come out of your room, show your solidarity with Ukraine, in words but especially in deeds!
We thank the fine people of Peace for Ukraine-Ghent, the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine, Ghent4Humanity Refugee Support, SAP Anti-capitalists and all the other people who were there, but also all the participants at the parade and by the side who showed their sympathy.
Dublin Council of Trade Unions (DCTU), organisers of the May Day march in Ireland’s capital city, made sure that nothing politically worthwhile was said from the platform about Ukraine. Mick O’Reilly spoke about “War and Peace” – at best the speech was woffle; at worst it was a left-evasionist exercise which avoided making a clear call for the immediate withdrawal of the Russian genocidal troops from Ukraine, or demanding an end to the murderous Russian bombing of civilian targets (including hospitals and schools) in the invaded territories.
The Norwegian Red Party (Rødt) is a radical left organisation which has a significant electoral base. In the 2021 parliamentary election, the party achieved its best result ever, with 4.6% of the vote, securing eight seats in Parliament.
The party’s excellent policy statement on the Russian imperialist ethnic-cleansing invasion of Ukraine avoids woffle and whataboutery, offering a clear policy guide to the radical left in Ireland and foreign fields :
Without arms supplies, Ukraine would have been overrun and subjugated by a chauvinist, right-wing nationalist Russian regime that has openly declared its imperialist ambitions. Therefore, it is right to provide arms to Ukraine in its struggle for independence and peace when Ukrainians ask for them. These weapons must not be used outside Ukrainian territory. The Red Party assumes that the government has obtained an end-user declaration from the Ukrainian government to ensure that Norwegian weapons are only used by the regular Ukrainian forces within Ukrainian territory.
The Red Party strongly condemns Russia’s aggressive attack on Ukraine, which is in violation of international law. It represents an act of imperialism that goes against everything the Red Party stands for. We support Ukraine’s independence and defensive struggle.
“‘WE’RE GONNA WALK on this nation, we’re gonna walk on this racist power structure, and we’re gonna say to the whole damned government — “STICK ‘EM UP MOTHERFUCKERS.’”
WITH THIS QUOTE from a film of the Black Panthers, Eamonn McCann, launches the Haymarket edition of his classic study of Derry and the North of Ireland Troubles, War and an Irish Town, taking us back to those heady days when so much change not only seemed possible, but likely to happen.
This is an especially timely reissue when the question of a united Ireland is again on the table.
Those in Derry that 1968 night cheering the Black Panthers’ words shared a common goal: the fight against inequality and repression, whether on the streets of Derry or Chicago where Black activists were “then under murderous assault by the feds and local police forces across the US.”
In those years, from Vietnam to Yugoslavia, Chicago to Mexico and many other places, the world was filled with students, workers, communities fighting back. McCann argues that “Each upsurge of struggle sent out a flurry of sparks which helped ignite struggle elsewhere.”
He situates The Troubles in the North of Ireland in this time of international struggles. Those who were there for those struggles should read this latest edition, with a new introduction by the author, to reconsider what happened and why we did not win. Those who were too young at the time can read about those exciting times and what lessons can be learned for the future.
On the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, February 24 2023, 12 elected left-wing Oireachtas members had a letter published in one of Ireland’s main daily papers, the Irish Times. A number of correspondents rejected the contents of this letter.
On the same day two party leaders, Sinn Féin President MaryLou McDonald and Ivana Bacik of the Labour Party brought an opposite message to thousands of protesters in Dublin’s O’Connell Street.
Both Bacik and McDonald clearly backed occupied Ukraine against the Russian imperialist and ethnic-cleansing invader.
Putin must immediately withdraw his army and end his criminal invasion
The Ukrainian people are foremost on our minds as they suffer under and resist the Russian invasion. Anyone who considers themselves an opponent of imperialism should be in support of their resistance.
We in the ILWU — socialists, anarchists, feminists, trade unionists, anti-imperialists — have watched with dismay, however, as many on the Western left who have campaigned vigorously against US imperialism have failed to recognise the need to do the same with respect to Russian imperialism. If Ukraine has the right to self-determination and to resist the dismemberment and partition of their state then Irish socialists should expend their energy on seeking out practical means of supporting the Ukrainian people’s struggle. This struggle echoes the same fight Ireland undertook over a century ago.
Some left-wing organisations oppose deliveries of weapons to Ukraine. They are fast becoming isolated in the international labour movement. Trade unions, social movements, and organised left-wing parties across the European continent are mobilising in support of the Ukrainian right to self determination.
Indeed some left-wing organisations oppose deliveries of weapons to Ukraine. They are fast becoming isolated in the international labour movement. Trade unions, social movements, and organised left-wing parties across the European continent are mobilising in support of the Ukrainian right to self determination.
Support Irish State Mine Clearance in Ukraine
The ILWU makes this statement to publicly register our support for Irish assistance, by the Irish Defence Forces, with mine clearance in Ukraine. Mine clearance is humanitarian work that will save lives, will clear land to enable farming, and will make towns and villages habitable once again. Defence Forces personnel will use their specialist demining skills to train Ukrainians in this activity.
Neutrality is not an option as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues at the heart of the European continent. This writer explains “If a passerby saw a man relentlessly beating a child on a street corner, we would expect the witness to try to stop it. Neutrality is out of the question. On the contrary, we would deplore the moral turpitude of inaction.”
Neutrality is not an option as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues at the heart of the European continent. This writer explains “If a passerby saw a man relentlessly beating a child on a street corner, we would expect the witness to try to stop it. Neutrality is out of the question. On the contrary, we would deplore the moral turpitude of inaction.”
As an independent voice who follows Russian media very closely, I am well acquainted with what Putin and his propagandists “actually say.” The major TV channels are full of commentators recommending that countries like Poland, Germany, or the United Kingdom be nuked. The Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, one of Putin’s closes allies, now openly calls for “the fight against Satanism [to] continue throughout Europe and, first of all, on the territory of Poland.”
Indeed, the official Kremlin line describes the war as a “special operation” for the de-Nazification and de-demonization of Ukraine. Among Ukraine’s “provocations” is that it has permitted Pride parades and allowed LGBTQ+ rights to undermine traditional sexual norms and gender roles. Kremlin-aligned commentators speak of “liberal totalitarianism,” even going so far as to argue that George Orwell’s 1984 was a critique not of fascism or Stalinism but of liberalism.
In the year since Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine, large developing countries like Brazil, India, and South Africa have sought to remain above the fray. Yet, as with Western “pacifists,” these countries’ non-alignment amounts to tacit support for imperialism.
Left-evasionist and tankie political activists everywhere are promoting a Seymour Hersh post claiming that the USA ruling class blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline which is designed to allow Russia to supply Germany with Natural Gas, by-passing Ukraine.
In Ireland, Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit [PBP], Dublin South-West) highlighted this story on the grounds that Seymour Hersh is “one of the world’s best journalists”. In December 2022 a pro-PBP publication, the Irish Marxist Review (a well-produced and often interesting journal published by the Socialist Workers’ Network) carried a Maurice Coakley article which stated “the US Navy were the only force likely to have carried out the attacks on the gas pipeline”. (Maurice Coakley’s article is here : https://irishmarxistreview.net/index.php/imr/article/view/479/464)
Seymour Hersh, decades ago, was a credible journalist. Today he is a conspiracy nut. One correspondent on Paul Murphy’s facebook page, James Doyle, observes “This is all nonsense. For example, Why would the US use a Norwegian aircraft rather than a fake fishing boat in a supposedly covert operation. For those who refer to Hersh as a “respected journalist”, you should know that he thinks the Osama Bin Laden operation was fake and Assad never used chemical weapons in Syria. A good journalist in his day, but sadly has gone off the rails into a rabbit warren of attention seeking conspiracy theories.”
Is this dispute important? It is. In the activist Revolutionary Marxist tradition, theory is needed as a guide to action.
John Meehan February 16 2023
“Left” organisations and personalities retail Hersh’s Nord Stream story uncritically, because it is what they want to hear. Dogma beats inquiry. Innuendo and false claims beat solidarity with the victims of Russia’s scorched-earth war on populations, in Syria in 2014 and 2017, and Ukraine in 2022-23.
Re-forming critical public spaces means challenging the “great men” of the “left” when they offer blinkered, one-sided and untruthful explanations for the dangerous, uncertain realities we face.
Simon Pirani, The Nord Stream Pipeline Explosions – Challenging False Narratives.
The claim that the Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up by U.S. special forces, made last week by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, is being used to reinforce false narratives about Russia’s culpability for the war in Ukraine.
On 26 September last year, explosions damaged three of Nord Stream’s four pipelines, which run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, and sent a large cloud of methane into the atmosphere. Russia has blamed the United States; western media suspected Russia itself of sabotage.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 