On Splits

Last Saturday saw the British Labour Party face its first change of leadership in 5 years electing Keir Starmer with 56.2% of the vote (a 28.6 point majority over the Labour left candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey). This was seen as a turn for the party back to the old dark magic of “Blairism” and a triumph by the Labour right who many felt Jeremy Corbyn did not do enough to stop while they continued to plunge a blade deep into his back from the outset.Rightly so this leadership election felt like a massive defeat for any socialist elements within the Labour party, they had lost their champion, their voice. Following the results announcement I saw a lot of comrades in British Labour taking a positive attitude to the crushing blow reflecting back on how far they have come from being a fringe and disjointed group to building a strong organisation, hugely increasing membership and inspiring millions to go to the forge and strike while the iron’s hot.For another portion of the Labour left it was not a “you may have won the battle but you will never win the war” moment. They handed in their JC4PM badges and their gun and went to join a split or offshoot of the various British Communist Parties. Was leaving or splitting the best option though? Can their vision of a socialist Britain be accelerated by a mass exodus to draw a line of demarcation between them and the Labour right or by working within the British Labour party to push more progressive and socialist policies on the pulpit they already have?

The Irish Republican movement is definitely no stranger to a split or walkout and I intend to use this piece to briefly analyse some famous and influential historical splits and their impacts. Hopefully this can help somebody, very much on the fence, make up their mind or encourage others to learn about the history of the below-mentioned movements. 

The first historical split that I would be remiss not to mention is the Sinn Féin split in 1970 where “Provisional Sinn Féin” and “Official Sinn Féin” (later “Sinn Féin - the Workers’ Party”) were formed, following on from the split in the IRA a few months previous into the “Provisional IRA” and the “Official IRA”. As Seán Mac Stíofáin walked up on stage, took the microphone and declared allegiance to the Provisional Army Council, splitting with Cathal Goulding’s Dublin based less militant leadership, there was quite a fervor in the room as necks nearly broke the sound barrier looking from one side of the room to the next in an attempt to see who they knew was siding with who and if anybody was going to start bringing out gentle persuasion devices™.   

While Sinn Féin has now got to the position they are in who knows how sooner they could have gotten to where they are if not for the infighting in the Irish Republican Socialist movement. This led to frustrating scenarios where the Workers’ Party had 2 cumainn in RTÉ and used their influence to attack Sinn Féin rather than focusing on the reactionary policies of the Irish government at that time or the crimes of the British government.

Republican Congress was another famous IRA split, this time from the Anti-Treaty IRA in 1934 to form their own Marxist-Leninist group. The split and the Spanish Civil War helped to drain the IRA of any socialist voice for a generation. The group further split at its first annual congress in September of 1934, just 5 months after its founding. It was of no surprise when the Republican Congress dissolved in 1936. 

Oh boy, where to even get started when it comes to splits in the Trotskyist deviation. There is an old Trotskyist proverb a German socialist told me: “Finally there are two of us, now we can split”. In an Irish context it was only last September when Paul Murphy split off from the Socialist Party to form his own microgroup (RISE) where he too could be king of the castle. But RISE would continue to be part of the Solidarity-PBP umbrella. Anybody not up to date might not know that Solidarity used to be called the Anti-Austerity Alliance which is still part of the Socialist Party. The PBP side comes from the Socialist Workers’ Party, founded as the Socialist Workers’ Network. The Socialist Workers’ Party of course not to be confused with the Workers’ Party which mentioned above was part of the split from Sinn Féin. The Socialist Workers’ Party in 1975 (then the Socialist Workers Movement) did reject a proposal to merge into the Irish Republican Socialist Party which is the political wing of the Irish National Liberation Army who did split from the Official IRA the armed wing of the Workers Party. This is not just to take the piss out of Solidarity-PBP, they had minor success in the February General Election garnering 5 seats, mostly on the back of heavy transfers. It is no doubt however that if the time and money was put into a cohesive movement rather than setting up new organisations then greater support most definitely would have been won.

Of the splits I have touched on, and most I didn’t get to mention, the minority side tended to fall out of favour or strength and at best was only able to chug along on sore feet and hoarse throats. Other initial minorities, most notably the Provisional IRA, took a couple years to surpass their former comrades before gaining an absolute majority. As an interesting aside the Bolsheviks in pre revolutionary Russia got their name from a vote held at their congress where they had the majority (from the Russian Bolshe Больше meaning more/majority) against the Mensheviks (from the Russian Menshe Меньше meaning less/minority) even though outside the congress the Menshevik factor outnumbered the Bolsheviks who would later surpass them and come to power. The British Labour left can draw from this whatever they want and while I’d hope the majority of them stay to continue organising in their unions and bringing forward radical policy in British Labour, I would also love to find out that they finally learned about the Provisional IRA. On a last note there is a lot more than just politics involved in the decision to split, the leading cause is irreconcilable differences in the leaders of factors personally rather than being able to move on. Retroactively groups can paint their reasons for leaving whatever way they want saying one side wasn’t socialist enough, or the other too socialist but keep a lookout in future for when there is a split coming it is often visible in the personal interactions between leaders. One of the best quotes I know is in reference to this very situation from PIRA member Brian Keenan that I’m sure my friends are tired of but I will continue to use ad nauseam where applicable:

“Groups don’t split; personalities just fall out”