Ireland too, the rising did not go The government was Kelley and Deasy, were ar- trial of several Irish On November 8 Marx recorded: proletarians - for first, a violent. and anti-English
number of working men able to vote.
members of the International spoke at Reform League meetings for support of the Fenians and on November 19 the Council of the International drew up an Address demanding the commutation of the death sentences passed on the Manchester prisoners.
At this meeting Council members affirmed the right of the Fenians to use physical force. William Morgan
those working class "applauded insurrecabroad but denounced it in Ireland, " and John Weston said, "The crime of starving the Irish was far greater than the accidental killing of one man in trying to rescue the Fenian prisoners."
revolutionary on Eugene Dupont, "The English working men who blame the Fenians commit more than a fault, for the cause of both people is the same. They have the same enemy to defeat, the territorial aristocracy
Four days later, Allen, O'Brien and Larkin walked to the gallows and into
Tas the Manchester martyrs. Frederick Engels, whose Irish wife
Fenian supporter, Manchester comparing the heroism of the rescue of Deasy and Kelly with John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid which resulted in Brown's execution and the outbreak of the
"The Southerners had at least the decency to treat ].Brown as a rebel whereas here everything is being done to transform a political attempt into a common crime.
Although Marx and Engels were critical of some of the Fenian leaders and their "stupidities" which resulted
from their conspiratorial methods particularly the Clerkenwell prison bombing, which killed a dozen and injured over 100 working class people - they thought that:
"Fenianism is characterised by a socialist tendency (in a negative sense directed against propriation of the soil) and by being a lower orders movement.
Even though the Fenians lacked a clear social programme the nature of exploitation meant that the struggle England was social as well political. Council members also made clear that the situation in Ireland was not the same as that in England. In reply to the trade union leader Ben Lucraft, the Fenians' use of physical force and the fact that the Irish in Britain had participated little in the Reform agitation, John Weston (a socialist) asserted that centuries of oppression in Ireland could not be cured by English demands for parliamentary reform:
"a government that had trampled upon the rights of the people could never be reached by moral suasion but by physical force resistance."
The International not only quivocally supported the right of the Irish Republicans to domination by any means, it also led to the campaign for the amnesty of Irish political prisoners. Fenians like O'Donovan Rossa were under such barbarous and rigorous conditions that several died others went insane.
Marx's daughter Jenny was one of the most dedicated advocates of the Fenian prisoners. On October 1869 a large amnesty demonstration marched from Trafalgar Square to
INTERN: WORKING MENS ASSOCH: 1'5351 the For deg of Jamung: for Geo Coger Membership card for First International Hyde Park under the slogans "Justice for Ireland" People" phasise the key importance of the rish struggle: very clear. Its first need is to en- courage the social revolution in the ap- nust be struck in Ireland very in Ireland ly as resolutions which will affirm that. as justice, it is a precondition to the who criticised plete separation if need be." and bands playing Irish tunes. une- resist British one another the hand of friendship, adding: energetic efforts, confined and please. lead in attempting to 24 Labour League
INTERN ARBEITER ASSOCI ASSOCIE INTERN: DOPERAL. MEMBERS ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION CARD. A W. Melu : Rant Care imilh.t Ар ронд. Wkcuma: tional itself, and "The Land to the Marx advocated Marx continued to em-
"The attitude of the International Association to the Irish question is england. To this end a great blow
The General Council's resolutions on the Irish amnesty serve on-
Tan introduction to other apart from international emancipation of the English working class to transform the present forced union (Le. the enslavement of Ireland) into equal and free con-
Sits banner. federation if possible. into com-
birth
On March 17 1870 yet another Coercion act was passed conferring emergency powers on the authorities
Marx in Ireland. By 1872 there were still 42
Tand in November an amnesty demonstration was called in Hyde Park by the Inter-
despite a government ban on it. About 30,000 gathered, many of them Irish with their own banners
commented that English dismissed and Trish workers were "now offering
"The Irish, thanks to their have saved the right of the people of London to hold meetings in parks when and how they
The International also played the
establish a labour party uniting English and Irish workers by founding the Land and
Tin 1869 which published an Address... to the WorkSocialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p29
/ASSOCIATION INTERN: DUVRIERS was admitted a Senderon. Derident of Centrol Tramit
Hussees Tresere Cavegmading Serelucr fig Frene.
firement: Italy Baionel, •rylaut Homever Grag Secondart ing Men and Women of Great Britain and Ireland including demands for land nationalisation and abolition of the standing army. In the Interna-
however, Engels and right of Irish members to set up their own sections:
"There was the fact of seven centuries of English conquest and op pression of Ireland and so long as that oppression existed it would be an insult to Irish working men to ask them to submit to a British Federal Council."
A demand for the release of the remaining Fenian prisoners was included among the resolutions British Section of the IMA held at Manchester in 1873. It also "asserted the right of the working class to use force in order to realise its demands" and called for the nationalisation of the land and all means of production was well as adopting the red flag as
The First International marked the
Cof revolutionary socialism in Britain out of the old working class radicalism. Throughout its existence
Tand Engels fought to give Ireland prominence in its stratgey
Othe consciousness of the British working class.
British Workers and Ireland
Today
An oft quoted passage of Marx —
Aby many self-proclaimed "Marxists" of today as irrelevant —
provides the best summary for these
three historical articles:
*I have become more and more
convinced - and it remains a matter of driving the point home to the
English working classes - that it
can never do anything decisive
here until it makes a decisive break
with the ruling class on its policy
on Ireland, until it not only makes
common cause with the Irish but
actually takes the initiative in
ONE of the lighter moments at this year's Congress of the japanese Communist Party (Active). Among the more entertaining articles in their September newspaper is one headlined "Revive Nankatsu spirit which means to choose death before surrendering and reconstruct leftist forces by ourselves". No
dissolving the Union... Otherwise the English people will be kept in tether by the ruling classes because they will have to establish a common front with them against Ireland."
The sequel to the events described above has been dealt with in a book Troublesome Business by Geoff Bell which demonstrates the continuing impact of Irish affairs on the British labour movement. It underlines the validity today of Marx's conclusions of 1869.
The leadership of the British working class, as represented by the Labour Parly and the Trade Union bureaucracies, has not broken with the ruling class policy on Ireland. Indeed, it has often been instrumental in carrying it out. The same Labour leadership has kept the British working class ideologically manacled to the ruling class in every way - but particularly by adherence to its imperialist designs as manifested in the Malvinas war, the submission to NATO and the garrisoning of the six wonder they don't find much to laugh about.
counties of North East Ireland
This is to be expected of the Labour Party reformists. More treacherous is the attitude of so-called Marxists both inside and out of the Labour Party who conceal their contempt and hostility to the national liberation struggle behind abstract phrases about "workers' unity".
Real workers' unity, within Ireland, or between Irish and British workers can only be forged on the basis of the struggle against imperialism. That means Marxists must either support those forces engaged in actual struggle with imperialism, as represented by the British State in north east Ireland, or they must oppose those forces and thereby contribute to the maintenance of imperialism.
There is no half-way house. A refusal to give support to the political campaign of Sinn Fein or the armed struggle waged by the IRA denies the whole nature of British imperialism as a continuing spearhead of reaction throughout the world. It also denies the history of the common struggle of
• Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p30
British and Irish workers as outlined above.
Many of the historical parallels between the period we have covered and the present day are too obvious to need re-iteration. It is sufficient to say that as Sinn Fein follows in the footsteps of the United Irishmen, Young Ireland and the Fenians, British revolutionaries must follow the United Britons, the physical force Chartists and the First International if we are to achieve the unity necessary to establish Socialism on both shores of the Irish Sea.
The criminal failures of the radical left, and particularly of Marxists, to put Ireland again on the agenda of the mass labour movement is now being slowly redressed. We must confess that in the final analysis, this is not primarily due to the efforts of British revolutionaries, but to the determination, tenacity and costly sacrifices of Irish Republicans.
Neasden occupation:
NHS) new focus for fighting cuts A NEW focus for the fight against NHS cuts and closures has come with the decision of staff, supported by local campaigners, to occupy the 83-bed Neasden geriatric hospital.
The occupation, which began on October 17, was both a warning shot across the bows of Brent District Health Authority, who were to decide on the closure a few days later, and a preparation to defend the hospital and its elderly patients if the DHA voted to axe it.
A staff committee immediately took control, putting a 24-hour picket on the hospital gate, and drawing up a list — with a roque's gallery of "mug shot" photographs - of the senior management and administrators now barred from the premises.
Under this new "workers' control", the care of patients is continuing as normal; it is management who wish to disrupt this, uproot the hospital's long-stay patients, inconvenience relatives, and cut back the District's capacity to care for the elderly by shutting the hospital.
Brent management had made it clear that they wanted to close Neasden: but they could not agree amongst themselves on an explanation. While some argued that the closure was needed to cover the cost of this year's pay awards to nurses, others claimed that it would free extra cash to fund a new "resource unit".
In the event, management cobbled together only a primitive 3-page "consultative document" including plans to close 'C' ward at Neasden by Christmas, and the whole hospital by next summer.
For hardliners at October's District Health Authority meetings, this was quite enough: but many DHA members were dissatisfied, and after an 8-8 split, the closure was eventually ratified only by the casting vote of the government-appointed chair.
The reality 15 that the Neasden closure is one of the consequences of a brutal 52m cut in Brent's health spending this year, and a continuing rundown of the District as part of the 10-year plan of the NW Thames region.
By JOHN LISTER
In other Districts, hospital occupations have been successful in preventing closures: Hayes Cottage and Northwood & Pinner hospitals in London, and Rivermead in Oxford have been saved, while many more have been kept open - and patients defended - long after the planned closure date.
The Neasden occuption, officially | picket rota. Biggest victory A MAJOR victory against the privatisation of ancillary services in the NHS has been notched up by health workers in Sunderland.
Determined, escalating strike action across the District has forced the District Health Authorily to declare that it will put no more services out to competitive tender unless they are given a legally binding instruction from Social Services Secretary Norman Fowler. So far the Tories have been able to impose their privatisation policies on health authorities without getting their hands dirty in this way: it is open to doubt whether Fowler will now issue a Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p3l
Occupation Committee: Neasden Hospital, Brentfield Rd, London NW10. SAVE NASDEN HOSPITAL UNIT< + FIGHT
backed by NUPE and COHSE, has excellent support from the local community: it is a real chance to hit back against cuts and closures that are hitting health services across London. The occupation could well be a long one: campaigners are urging health workers and supporters to volunteer for regular duties on the against privatisation
formal instruction. The demand that all DHAs make similar demands of the government before moving ahead with further privatisation could potentially halt the whole process of sackings, wage-cutting and profiteering by private firms. Health workers in many areas could be mobilised on this issue as a part of the tight to combat private firms and job-cutting "in-house" contracts. What has been described as an "uneasy now been established DHA to suspend the tendering process. This surrender came in the wake of an escalation of industrial action by health unions in the district, which had been trig-