Mayday Statement from the Communist Party of Ireland

The Communist Party of Ireland sends May Day greetings to the Irish working class, to all anti-imperialist and progressive organisations, to the international Communist movement, to all those struggling against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and native capitalism, and to those actively struggling to build socialism in their workplaces and communities. 

We send fraternal greetings and solidarity to the heroic people of Palestine in their continued struggle against the genocidal actions of Zionist settler colonialism who are supported by the NATO/EU bloc, including the Irish government which continues to allow the weapons of genocide safe passage through Irish airspace.  

We send greetings to the peoples of Lebanon and Syria who are also resisting Zionist expansionist aggression and to the people of Yemen, who have stood steadfast in support of Palestine in the face of US and British bombing and military aggression. 

We send greetings to Cuba, a country which refuses to abandon its revolutionary path in the face of increasing economic and political pressure from US imperialism. 

Despite the outcry of millions of people throughout the world who continue to mobilise against the genocidal war being waged against the Palestinian people, bourgeois capitalist governments throughout the NATO/EU bloc continue to support the Zionist onslaught. At the same time, these same governments warn against the dangers to 'democracy' as they ignore the democratic demands of their own oppressed peoples.  

There is now a growing rift between what the masses of working people are demanding and what the imperial powers are willing to concede. 

Since the 2008 crash, the European working class has been strangled by austerity, while the financial oligarchy amasses obscene wealth. The climate crisis, born of capitalism’s rapacious exploitation, now brings famine, floods, and fires, threatening millions around the globe. 

And how did the EU respond to this global existential crisis? By tightening the dictatorship of finance capital. Long before Ireland joined the EEC, now the EU, the Communist Party of Ireland identified it as a weapon of monopoly capital, designed to crush national sovereignty and impose the will of bankers. After the 2008 crash, the EU forced Ireland to pay 42% of Europe’s banking debt, resulting in savage cuts to social spending. Unemployment, poverty, homelessness, housing shortage, emigration and suicide rates rapidly increased as a result. 

The EU is a vehicle for the rule of finance capital and we oppose it, not on the basis of nationalism, but by highlighting the detrimental aspects of membership to national democracy, sovereignty, and accountability. 

Throughout the EU, at state level, formal bourgeois democracy still exists, but it's content has been further hollowed out. The inability of national bourgeois parliaments to deal with the economic and social results of EU policies have led to calls for national sovereignty among the masses. These calls have been denounced as narrow nationalism by the political establishment, conservative and social democratic alike, as well as the media in most EU states. This had led to an increased sense of powerlessness and alienation among sections of the working-class and working people, leaving them open to the false and empty promises of fascism.  

Since the general elections,north and south of the British imposed border, both governments have continued with the same old policies of pandering to the needs of the wealthy. Homelessness continues to grow, waiting lists for medical and essential services continue to grow, schools continue to struggle with tighter budgets. Working class communities continue to be scourged by organised crime as despair deepens. 

Fascist parties exploit this despair. They rail against the “elites”, but never name capitalism as the enemy. Instead, they scapegoat migrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and other social minorities. As Dimitrov warned 90 years ago: “Fascism acts in the interests of the extreme imperialists, but it presents itself to the masses in the guise of champion of an ill-treated nation, and appeals to outraged national sentiments.” 

In Ireland, fascism has always been a tool of British imperialism. In the 26 counties, fascists distort our anti-colonial struggle, posing as patriots while colluding with pro-British loyalists and MI5-linked far-right networks. They blame refugees for housing shortages, yet it is capitalism, not migrants, that denies workers homes and hospitals. 

Engels exposed this tactic long ago: in “The Condition of the Working Class in England,” he showed how the bourgeoisie pitted migrant Irish and native English workers against each other to keep wages low and profits high. Today’s fascists play the same game. In the British occupied 6 counties fascist paramilitaries are linked to the most reactionary elements of the British ruling class. 

Dimitrov also warned us that fascism does not seize power overnight. First come the “preliminary stages” where bourgeois governments enforce reactionary measures which eases the path to power for fascism. 

Governments across the NATO/EU Bloc have restricted the right to protest against the Zionist genocide in Palestine. In Germany and Britain, the very act of condemning the genocide has been all but criminalised. The right to free speech has been seriously curtailed as is shown by the attacks on Irish language rap group Kneecap, because of their opposition to the genocide, with Taoiseach Michéal Martin joining the Zionist attack on free speech. Police brutally attack pro-Palestinian and Climate Change activists. In Dublin on Mothers’ Day a sit-down protest by women, held in solidarity with Palestinian mothers, was violently broken up by the police. 

The imperialist powers are moving forward with their plans for war. The EU, which could not find the money to deal with homelessness, unemployment, poverty and crumbling social services, now proposes to spend billions rearming and preparing for war. In Ireland the struggle against war preparation includes the campaign to defend and deepen neutrality. Securing neutrality would be a significant defeat for the Irish political and military establishment, and a major undermining of their subservient relation to both the EU/US political and military industrial strategies.  

However, neutrality cannot be defended unless the Irish state has political and economic sovereignty. Only socialism guarantees economic and political sovereignty. The present comprador government is committed to undermining Irish neutrality despite the overwhelming majority of the people opposing any such moves, once again demonstrating that bourgeois democracy is a sham. 

Our task as communists is to ideologically fight against fascism among the working-class by exposing the real enemy, capitalism. We must expose the true nature of the EU as an instrument of monopoly capitalism. Finally, we must raise high the red banner of socialism, the only alternative to capitalism. 

Onwards to the Socialist Republic and the liberation of the International working class!

 
--

James Corcoran

General Secretary

Communist Party of Ireland

http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/

https://socialistvoice.ie/