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Collins vs De Valera

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  • Registered Users Posts: 25,906 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    It existed in the 60's, 70's & early 80's as well.

    You had People's Democracy which was led by people like Michael Farrell, Eamonn McCann & Bernie Devlin. You had the Officials & the National Liberation Front, you had the Irish Republican Socialist Movement which included the IRSP & INLA. The Repubican Socialist Collective & Irish People's Liberation Organization.
    The Provos even tho they were not a Socialist movment per say, their main objective was the establishment of Democratic Socialist Republic.
    All true (though I'm not altogether sure how socialist a Democratic Socialist Republic established by the Provos would have been).

    But none of these movements acheived much electoral traction. In fairness, this was partly because some of them didn't pursue the electoral path. Still, while we can say that there were definitely soclalist movements in Ireland at the time, any claim that they enjoyed "widespread support" or represented real "potential for socialist revolution" would have to go into the "dubious" column.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    In the late 1960s & early 70s, countless fringe groups tried to establish parties or movements with a left wing agenda.
    A room would be booked, amateur notices would be stuck on lamp-posts or elsewhere, and the organisers hoped for the best.

    It was said that they were sure of at least three attenders;

    one from the Garda Special Branch,

    One from the US Embassy,

    One unpaid member of the faithful, honoured to report to Archbishop McQuaid.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,875 ✭✭✭Edgware


    It existed in the 60's, 70's & early 80's as well.

    You had People's Democracy which was led by people like Michael Farrell, Eamonn McCann & Bernie Devlin. You had the Officials & the National Liberation Front, you had the Irish Republican Socialist Movement which included the IRSP & INLA. The Repubican Socialist Collective & Irish People's Liberation Organization.
    The Provos even tho they were not a Socialist movment per say, their main objective was the establishment of Democratic Socialist Republic.
    Put the whole lot together and they wouldnt fill the back room of the local public house.
    No widespread support with a few attention grabbers


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    It's not nonsense it happened. It was a huge split in the Socialist movement, and the next big split was the Sino-Soviet split, but this was long after the left-wing Socialists were buried.
    I don't need to talk about the "White Army" as they were just Imperialist scum, but the more interesting struggle during the civil war was between the right Socialists vs the left Socialists. The Bolsheviks were time & time again having to put down left-wing uprisings between 1918 - 1924 by the left Socialist Revolutionaries (Left SR) & the Revoltionary Socialist party, as well as the Anarchists & the Kronstadt Sailors.
    FFS the person who shot Lenin, Fanny Kaplan was a Socialist Revolutionary Party member. And you are trying to tell me the Bolsheviks had no opponents from the left? Kaplan reminds of Corday, the French Revolutionary who stabbed Marat. And fair play to both women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_uprisings_against_the_Bolsheviks

    Lenin even wrote a book called "Left-Wing" Communsim: An Infantile Disorder. Which in it he attacks people like Luxemburg, Pannekoek & Gorter. He also claims Communsim must relate to & win over the Lloyd George's (Liberals) & Churchills (Conservatives), which probably shows how delusional he was in that regard. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/


    How you can sit there & deny that Lenin never suppressed works by Marx & other Socialists is be on me. You seem to have a good grasp of the Russian Revolution & Civil War. You seem to want to put all blame on Stalin for mass killings & make Lenin out to be perfect with no flaws.

    Leninism or Marxism-Leninism was a distortion of Marxism not a natural progression of it, Lenin was more worried in furthering his own class interests which was that of the radical intelligentsia, which he did very well, rather than furthering the intrests of the working class, who if they always had to rely on people like Lenin would never be able to liberate their class.

    http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-lenin-distorted-marxis.html

    https://www.researchgate.net/post/In_what_way_is_Lenins_interpretation_of_Marx_a_departure_from_Marxs_thought



    https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/left-srs/

    Trotsky himself oppossed a lot of Lenins ideas until the October Revolution when he jumped on board the bandwagon. But Trotsky was another of the radical intelligentsia and his class interests were tied closely to Lenin's.
    I think why Stalin's violence was less subtle than Lenin's reign was because he was not apart of that class and he came from a more working class - lower middle class background, and it's maybe one of the reasons for his paranoid state of mind & why he purged the intelligentsia class, people like Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev & Smirnov.
    But whatever about Stalin's crimes, Lenin mustvhave been the first dictator in Europe in the 20th century who formed a secret police & death squad in the Cheka. He used state power & the techniques of control & repression masterfully to crush any opposistion that got in his way.
    And this version violent, authoritarian communism is the version that swept third world countries engaged in legitmate liberation struggles like Vietnam, Angola, Palestine & Cuba, and they & wanted a new order to replace the old imperialist systems & Bolshevik communism with it's anti-imperialist slogans was very intriguing to these countries, it's why the Irish Republican movement adopted it in the 1960's.

    I really don't have time to go through all of this stuff - I have done it on many occasions before on different forums - including here -

    https://www.politics.ie/showthread.php?260262-7-November-1917-Revolution-in-Russia-100-years-ago-today


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,434 ✭✭✭Jolly Red Giant


    It existed in the 60's, 70's & early 80's as well.

    You had People's Democracy which was led by people like Michael Farrell, Eamonn McCann & Bernie Devlin. You had the Officials & the National Liberation Front, you had the Irish Republican Socialist Movement which included the IRSP & INLA. The Repubican Socialist Collective & Irish People's Liberation Organization.
    The Provos even tho they were not a Socialist movment per say, their main objective was the establishment of Democratic Socialist Republic.

    While the was a significant increase in support for socialist ideas in the late 1960s - it was nothing on the scale of the revolutionary period.

    The Peoples Democracy had the potential to establish a significant base for socialist ideas - but then blew the opportunity by siding with republicanism when the Troubles started.

    As for some of the more fringe republican elements - they spent most of their time feuding with one another.

    Last point - the Provos were a right-wing split from SF - they had to adopt a left facade otherwise they would not have been able to build any base of support in working class Catholic communities.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    I agree it wasn't as big as the revolutionary period, maybe only about 10 - 15% the size but it was largely confined to the North.

    In the early 70's People's Democracy was a founding member of the Socialist Labour Alliance, along with other left-wing groups like Young Socialists, Revolutionary Marxist Group, League for a Workers Republic & I'm pretty sure the Irish SWP was in it.
    I think it was inevitable PD would get bunched in with Republicans, it would have been easier to stay neutral to British Unionism & Irish Nationalism had events like the Falls Curfew, Internment & Bloody Sunday not happened.

    Yes that's true but the left has always had problems when it comes to unity, unlike the right & not just in Ireland but in general. Social Democrats & Communists in Germany were fighting each other while the Nazi's & other right-wingers made a coalition government, the left-wing Republicans in Spain with anarchists & communists were fighting each other for control, which brings me back to 1918 & the left-wing socialists, social revolutionaries & anarchists against the Bolsheviks. I know comparing the Officials, Provos, INLA & IPLO isn't exactly the same thing, but contrast the divisions between these groups to the CLMC with the UVF,UFF & RHC all co-coordinating activity together, even tho they also had feuds they were still able to unite around a common goal.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    Edgware wrote: »
    Put the whole lot together and they wouldnt fill the back room of the local public house.
    No widespread support with a few attention grabbers

    I'm going to spare ypu the embarrasement of you know not knowing who PD were. The filled roads of then of thousands of people which the SDLP grew out of.

    Were you in a public house when you typed this drivel?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,592 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    I'm going to spare ypu the embarrasement of you know not knowing who PD were. The filled roads of then of thousands of people which the SDLP grew out of.

    Were you in a public house when you typed this drivel?

    Mod: Please keep replies civil, the thread is quite an interesting read and let's try to keep it that way. That goes for everyone.

    It has however gone wildly off topic and if the interest for continuing the discussion is still there I might split out the last few pages into a separate thread?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    While the was a significant increase in support for socialist ideas in the late 1960s - it was nothing on the scale of the revolutionary period.

    The Peoples Democracy had the potential to establish a significant base for socialist ideas - but then blew the opportunity by siding with republicanism when the Troubles started.

    As for some of the more fringe republican elements - they spent most of their time feuding with one another.

    Last point - the Provos were a right-wing split from SF - they had to adopt a left facade otherwise they would not have been able to build any base of support in working class Catholic communities.

    I wanted to bring this point up again. That it wasn't just splinter groups in the feuds but like 90 - 95% of the feuds took place in Belfast.

    The Provos & Sticks had a thing in March 1971 were the Provos burned down a Sticks HQ which was a pub on the falls & the Sticks shot dead Charlie Huges a Provo commander of a Battalion.

    The 75 Stick-Provo feud took place in Belfast when Billy McKee & Twomey wanted to avenge Hughe's death & they both hated the Sticks anyway, people were killed in that feud.
    As did the INLA-Stick feud the same year also took place in Belfast, the only action outside Belfast was when Sean Garland was shot in the leg by a INLA Volunteer in Dublin. 11 people in total were killed in those 2 feuds in 75.

    The IPLO - INLA 86-87 feud mainly took place in Belfast, 12 people were killed in that feud, only 2 died outside Belfaast, that was in the ambush Gerard Steenson set up for Ta Power, John O'Reilly & Hugh Torney in a Hotel in Dundalk, Torney got away with a bullet in the arm.

    The so called "Night of the Long Knifes" only took place in Belfast when the Provos wiped out the entire IPLO Belfast Brigade in one night 31st October 1992.

    And the internal INLA feud of 1996 mostly took place in Belfast as well, with Hugh Torney's death ending the feuds.

    And I think the same is true for most Loyalist feuds as well.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    Mod: Please keep replies civil, the thread is quite an interesting read and let's try to keep it that way. That goes for everyone.

    It has however gone wildly off topic and if the interest for continuing the discussion is still there I might split out the last few pages into a separate thread?

    Good idea.

    As for this topic.

    Dev has to win. He never became a dictator & managed to keep us safe during the most bloody event in human history.

    Collins for all his great ideas, split the country, if he pushed harder he probably could have got some places on the border like Derry, South Armagh, Newry & counties Fermanagh & Tyrone into the Fres State. Plus he was showing signs of a military dictator.

    I probably dislike Dev more, I hate him for what he did to the Republicans in the 40's on hunger strike & the ones he executed.

    But as a leader Dev clearly wins hands down.

    I found this clip on YT of Dev speaking on the night before Kevin Barry's execution, a huge event in Irish 20th century history, thought people would find it intresting..



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  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    Ah yes, a bit of a hypocrite alright but at the end of the day he was trying to hold on to power in the same way as the British had.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    Ah yes, a bit of a hypocrite alright but at the end of the day he was trying to hold on to power in the same way as the British had.

    Dev or Collins? Because both could probably be accused of wanting to hold on to power & being hypocritical.


  • Registered Users Posts: 196 ✭✭Ascendant


    Dev or Collins? Because both could probably be accused of wanting to hold on to power & being hypocritical.


    Has there been many leaders who haven't wanted to hold on to power? Cincinnatus is famous for being the exception, after all.


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