This website is primarily about ideas. It exists to ensure we retain the traditions of the past, and that we apply the lessons learned to the problems we face today.
For the three decades between 1968 and 1998 Northern Ireland was wracked by conflict-the period which became known as “The Troubles”. Over 3700 died and 100,000 were injured before the paramilitary ceasefires in 1994 and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought the worst years of violence to an end.
Over the years of the conflicts tens of thousands of activists in the workers’ movement-trade unionists and members of anti-sectarian left political parties and groups-stood against sectarian division and in defence of workers lives. Comrades grouped around the newspaper “Militant” in the 1970s, who in time established the Socialist Party, were often central to organised efforts to oppose sectarian division and sectarian attacks. Opposition to sectarianism was taken into the workers movement as was opposition to the repressive actions of the state. Comrades fought for an alternative to the misery and hopelessness in working class communities and put forward a progamme of workers unity and socialism. Other left groups and parties also played a positive role, but not all.
Those who have fought, and continue to fight, for workers’ unity have stood against the stream for decades. In such circumstances it can be difficult to retain faith in the future and to continue the struggle. As Leon Trotsky explained in an interview in 1939: “We are in a small boat in a tremendous current. There are five or ten boats and one goes down and we say it was due to bad helmsmanship. But that was not the reason it was because the current was too strong. It is the most general explanation and we should never forget this explanation in order not to become pessimistic we, the vanguard of the vanguard” (Leon Trotsky “Fighting Against the Stream”, April 1939. Published in “The Fourth International” [New York], Vol 2-4, May 1941, pp.125-137. Available Leon Trotsky Internet Archive 2008)..
Workers’ unity and socialism offer the only way forward. The ideas of genuine Marxism are our guide. All those who hold to these ideas, and who recognise the challenges that lie ahead, must cooperate and unite whenever possible, to “shorten the path to the future”. Then we will no longer be standing against the stream but will make our own history.
“Those who retain the traditions of the past can shorten the path to the future. It is the advanced layer of the working class, the shop stewards and class-conscious activists, those who remain active when mass struggles subside, who carry the best traditions and whatever lessons they have absorbed from those struggles into future movements. Above all it is the role of Marxists to consciously assimilate the lessons of past movements, of defeats as well and as much as, of victories. The revolutionary party acts as a memory for the working class using its history to help work out a strategy”.
On the one hand we have to defend the far-reaching conclusions that flow from the history of the workers movement: the inability of reformist ideas and methods to resolve the national problem and overthrow capitalism. On the other hand we face the more elementary task of defending the idea of struggle, of rebuilding combative trade union organizations in the workplaces and of helping the movement take the first steps towards independent political action”.
Towards Division not Peace, Socialist Party, 2001
About the Editor
Ciaran Mulholland has been active on the left since January 1980 when he attended a meeting of Ballymena Young Socialists. Until 2019 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Ireland and an alternate member of the International Executive Committee of the Committee for a Workers International. Today, he works with others to build an anti-sectarian left alternative to the main political parties in Northern Ireland, parties which are based on sectarian division. He works with other comrades in the Internationalist Standpoint initiative in the necessary task of building a mass world party of revolution.
Contributions to Against the Stream
The purpose of this website is to share ideas and stimulate debate. For now all the articles are written by myself (or jointly authored in a few cases). The comments box is open beneath all articles. If anyone wishes to submit an article for publication contact me on ciaranmulholland1917@gmail.com
Note on sourcing and attribution
Many of the articles on this website were first published elsewhere. Sources include the websites of Internationalist Standpoint, Militant Left (the Committee for a Workers International in Ireland or CWI), the Socialist Party (International Socialist Alternative in Ireland) and Rupture (the political journal of RISE). All of these groups come from the CWI tradition, and until 2019 were part of one united group in Ireland, the Socialist Party. Articles will also be sourced from the website of the Workers International Network (WIN). Many of those involved in WIN have a background in the CWI but not all.