IRELAND THE TRUTH ABOUT THE STALINIST- CONTROLLED CONNOLLY ASSOCIATION

WITH its malicious attacks on the Socialist Labour League increasing, many people, especially Irish workers in industry, want to know the truth about the Connolly Association, and what policy and ideology its paper, the Irish Democrat, really represents.

Before its attacks on the League the Connolly Association seemed to many to be simply a loose left-wing Irish group who sporadically campaigned for the ending of Partition.

And though James Connolly’s socialist teachings never appeared in the Irish Democrat, nobody attached anything sinister to their absence, except to think it somewhat strange that Connolly’s dynamic solution to Ireland’s problems had been rejected by those who named their organization after him.

Now at last, with its bitter invectives against the Socialist Labour League, the true character of the Connolly Association is being exposed, and what we see is not a nationalist organization, but a sordid Stalinist set-up, operating Stalinist policies, and directly controlled by the Communist Party from King Street.

And if there are any doubts about this, a quick look at the Connolly Assocation’s record should dispel them.

Join the British Army During the war the Connolly Association pleaded with Irish workers to join the British Army and fight for ‘freedom’ under the Union Jack.

Years later, in 1953, after the death of the bureaucratic monster Stalin, the Irish Democrat in a long article paid glowing tributes to his life and deeds . . .. some deeds. But

In the 1930s the Marxist movement progressed because of the heavy defeats which the working class sustained on the industrial and social fronts. Mr Parry assumes that the present movement will progress further than that of the 1930s, when, in the 1950s the working class has made considerable social and industrial advances. The recent election has shown that workers are not prepared to support left-wing policies in comparatively prosperous times. To talk of a massive Marxist renaissance in such a context is therefore totally fallacious.

Inteliectuals are invited by Mr Parry to ‘learn from, and participate with the growing body of Marxist workers in fashioning an organization for the overthrow of capitalism.’ Does he really think that humanist intellectuals will join his narrowly sectarian conglomeration of irresponsible strikemakers, in which they will be treated as inferior beings whose names can be used to boost the intellectual standing of the Socialist Labour League?

The valid role of the thinker as a fearless and uncompromising propagator of truth would be completely forgotten. Parry also talks of intellectuals enriching Marxist theory. But The Newsletter has not made a single contribution to the theory of Marxism. Is this any inducement to thinkers to join your League?

Students who join the Socialist Labour League will become, as Mr Parry has become, controlled lackeys of a movement in which original thought is trammelled by the dictates of a leadership which considers itself to have a monopoly of the theories and ideas necessary for the establishment of a mass Socialist movement in Britain.

Liverpool University G. Vernon M. Ashton BILL PARRY REPLIES THE unsubstantiated assertions of Mr Vernon and Mr Ashton concerning my integrity and the attitude of the SLL towards intellectuals, hardly warrant reply.

If, as they claim, “The valid role of the thinker’ is to be ‘a fearless and uncompromising propagator of the truth’, our correspondents fail miserably in their self-appointed mission.

Where have I equated the ‘New Left’ with the ‘SLL?’ Which intellectuals ‘are treated as inferior human beings?’ When have SLL members been ‘irresponsible strike-makers’?

Let us look, with our Liverpool friends, very briefly, and perhaps a little schematically, at current and historical facis. 1931: Labour suffered resounding defeats in the election. Many from the intelligentsia began to turn towards Socialism as a result of the moral and intellectual waste-land created by unemployment and the rise of Fascism. 1959: Labour suffered heavy defeats in the election. Many from the Universities are turning towards Marxism as a result of the vacuum left by the decline of Stalinism and the rightward turn in Europe.

The British working class is strongly organized, has suffered no major defeats and industrially is extremely confident. Stalinism is both impotent and unwilling to lead in the present situation.

Failure to grasp these new factors is tantamount to turning one’s back on the enormous prospects for the real advance of the working class.

What pessimism to say, at least implicitly, that intellectuals will only move when the working class has been ground to dust! Especially in view of the anti-H-bomb campaign, the New Left, and, on a smaller scale, but more significant, of the advances made by the SLL in the universities.

If Messrs Vernon and Ashton have not even noticed the changing climate in University Socialist circles, it proves that it is they who are underground—which would explain their mole-like contribution to The Newsletter.

With a more varied vocabulary of invective, our correspondents should well qualify as professional poison-pen writers.