A Comment on the Right2Change Policy Document

national | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis Tuesday December 08, 2015 20:39 by Paddy Hackett

Stalinism Raises Its Ugly Head Again!

The piece is a brief criticism of the policy document of the Right2Change movement. It highlights its anti-working class nature and its effort to save capitalism by reforming it.

The policy document of the Right2Change movement shows it to be merely a nationalist movement. This explains why it is supported by the Sinn Fein party. Indeed it echoes some the sentiments of the old Eire Nua document which I recall studying when I was long ago a zealous member of Sinn Fein. In those days, unlike now, it was not easy being a member because of harassment, among other things, by the Special Branch. In addition it was not as fashionable to be a member as it may be today.

The policy principles outlined by Right2Change is an effective denial of the need for a communist revolution. It represents a defense of capitalism. It offers a programme that suggests that capitalism can serve the interests of the working class and that there is thereby no need for communism. It suggests that capitalism can be restructured in such a way as to meet the needs of the Irish working class. It deceives workers by falsely claiming that it's ten point policy principles are realisable within capitalism -----within the EU. Ironically it fails to point out how Syriza in Greece was unable to even secure debt restructuring from the EU.

The Right2Change does not understand that communism is an historical necessity because capitalism is inherently limited and thereby unable to realize programmes such as the ten principles of Right2Change. The objective conditions for the replacement of capitalism with communism now exist. Indeed capitalism cannot even meet the needs of much of the capitalist class itself. The 2008 financial collapse is undeniable evidence of this. Capitalism is an obsolescent system that has not been overthrown because of the failure of the working class to successfully develop political class consciousness --communist consciousness. To realize this political consciousness requires a revolutionary proletarian party that promotes an anti-capitalist programme.

The ten principles outlined in the policy document are not realizable under capitalism. The document advocates an idealistic capitalist Utopianism as a solution –a mere abstraction. Among the more radical aspirations featuring in the document is that the Irish working class shares responsibility with the indigenous capitalist class for the better functioning of the Irish economy:

“We will establish a new basis for supporting indigenous enterprise through job creation agencies through a programme of Companies of Excellence which can lead the modernization of the indigenous sector; in these companies employees and employers accept co-responsibility as the fundamental principle of managing the company…”

But even if such a project was achievable, in itself, the Irish economy would still be subject to the law of value as manifested in market relations. Consequently it would be subject to the constraining laws of capital --the very same laws that led to the recent economic crash. This means that this restructured economy cannot escape exposure to the devastation of capitalism's cyclical process.

From the foregoing it is clear that the Righ2Change programme advocates an alliance between the working class and the native Irish bourgeoisie. This alliance is proposed in the interests of sustaining capitalism by supposedly restructuring it. But in actual fact this alliance with the native bourgeoisie is intended as an anchor by the Right2Change to keep the working class down. The current leadership of this movement advocates such an alliance because of its fear of the working class. It effectively envisions the indigenous bourgeoisie as the force that will prevent the working class from proceeding towards social revolution. In 1917 the Russian bourgeoisie played this treacherous role. But the the indigenous capitalist class has already formed an unbreakable alliance with the imperialist bourgeoisie. Consequently the Right2Change proposed alliance is impossible. Given this the Rright2Change is essentially no different from the traditional bourgeois parliamentary parties embedded in Ireland.

Given the frailty of the Irish working class there is no possibility of its being able to create the kind of capitalist utopia advocated by this policy document on a small island with a relatively weak economy. It's encirclement by the big capitalist powers (the EU) can only but guarantee the savage crushing of such a state with the help of the indigenous bourgeoisie. Revolution in Ireland must form an integrated part of the European revolution. There can be no insular Irish communism –no socialism in one country. No Stalinism!

Then there is the question of the general character of this Movement. If it's allegedly diverse elements share such a general and radical programme as that of the Right2Change then it makes no sense that these autonomous elements continue to exist as independent entities. There is no reason as to why they do not form themselves into a unified petty bourgeois party. It is also questionable as to whether, if it was elected into bourgeois state power, the Right2Change would even seriously struggle to realise its declared policy principles. Righ2Change is the Irish light version of the Greek Syriza party. However, unlike it stands little chance of making the electoral gains of Syriza. Syriza and Right2change are forces designed to obstruct the revolutionary development of the working class.

To finish: The Right2Change policy document resembles the old Stalinist document of the Communist Party called The Peaceful Road To Socialism. Perhaps Right2Change will even announce its adherence to the old Stalinist stages theory doctrine. Stalinism is dead! Long live Stalinism!