International Republican Socialist Network
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    • Statements 2013>
      • Scottish Independence: The View from America
      • IRSN Arbroath Commemoration Statement
      • IRSN to Commemorate 100th Anniversary of the Irish Citizen Army
      • IRSN Solidarity Statement to Annual SRSM Glencoe Rally
      • Remembered Always With Honour and Pride: Gino Gallagher
      • Twenty-Six Years Since the Death of Ta Power
      • International Republican Socialism – 2013
    • Statements 2012>
      • Remembering Seamus Costello
      • Remembering John MacLean
      • African Liberation Day 2012
      • Occupy St. Patrick's Day!
    • Statements 2011>
      • Solidarity to our Sisters and Brothers in Kenya on African Liberation Day
      • IRSN Solidarity Statement to the May 8th John MacLean Rally
      • Defend Libya as it Confronts the Plots of the Imperialists
      • San Francisco St. Patrick's Day 2011 Parade Anti-Imperialist Contingent
      • Solidarity with the Working People of North African and the Arab Nation
      • IRSN Statement to the SRSM Ard Fheis
      • Commemoration of Scottish Revolutionary John MacLean
    • statements 2010>
      • On the Passing of Peace and Freedom Party activist Tom Conduit
      • Ireland and the British Left
      • San Francisco St. Patrtick's Day Parade Presence
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      • IRSN 2010 Holiday Book Drive Success
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    • statements 2009>
      • Burns Night & Republican Socialist Convention Report
      • Burns Night Statement 2009
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      • Reflections on the Current Economic Crisis
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      • Whither the Irish National Liberation Army?
      • African Liberation Day Solidarity
      • Free The Cork 5
      • McIlroy for Congress
      • YOUTUBE: Candidate Mary McIlroy of the IRSN
      • Solidarity with the Libyan Revolution
      • Sponsor an IRSPoW
      • Solidarity Message for the Commemoration of the Century Anniversary
      • Solidarity with the Puerto Rican Struggle for National Liberation and Socialism
      • Update: IRSN Comrade on Peace & Freedom Ticket
      • IRSN Anti-War Action
      • IRSM Gives Up Armed Struggle
      • May Charles Made Her Transition to join the Ancestors
      • IRSN MacLean Commemoration Statement
    • statements 2008>
      • Burn’s Night Social
      • George Habash Remembered
      • Reform or Revolution? The Answer Remains Unchanged.
      • Preparing for the Iron Heel
      • Final Salute to Brendan Hughes and a Republican Socialist Martyr Remembered
      • Irish Republican Socialist Arrests
      • Statement in Support of the Interned IRSM Members
      • Cork Five RSPOWs Defended in San Francisco St. Patrick's Day Parade
      • Pacific Northwest Actions
      • THEY AREN’T “OURS,” BUT BRING THEM HOME ANYWAY
      • May Day 2008
      • IRSN Join March Demanding Open Borders in May Day Demonstrations
      • IRSN Comrade Guest Speaker at Sacramento Community College
      • IRSN Recognized for Linen Hall Library Support
      • IRSN Message to African Liberation Day Celebration in London
      • Christopher 'Crip" McWilliams Near Death
      • Reflections Without Borders - Who We Are
      • HOUSING IS RIGHT
      • Demanding Choices, Not Options
      • Release of Breton Comrades Hailed
      • Solidarity Message for Annual MacLean Rally
      • Salute Thirty-four Years of Republican Socialist Struggle
      • Long Live the PFLP After 41 Years of Struggle
      • Arrests of Alledged INLA Mambers
      • Fallen Martyrs of Irish Republican Socialist Struggle Honoured
  • Documents
    • I have come to preach revolution
    • The Ta Power Document Scandal
    • Remembering the Founding of the IRSCNA
    • Revolutionary Political Action
    • Lessons from 40 Years of War
    • PEADAR O’DONNELL: IRELAND’S NEGLECTED REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST
    • Armed Struggle and the Fight for a Scottish Workers’ Republic
    • 2008 CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM
    • 30 YEARS WITHOUT SEAMUS COSTELLO
  • Formation of IRSN
    • Creation of the International Republican Socialist Network
    • A Tradition Winds Towards It's End
    • What Happened and Where Do We Go From Here
    • Wither the IRSCNA? Wither the IRSP?
    • New Group Formed From Split in the Irish Republican Socialist Movement
    • The Way Forward
  • Workers Republic
    • EDITORIAL2
    • The Republican Socialist Tradition and the Pursuit of Armed Struggle
    • Reclaiming Marxism for the Working Class, Historical Materialism
    • Drugs and the Revolutionary
    • Revolutionary Political Education in a time of ‘Peace’:
    • New Quebecois Left Party
    • Editorial 1
    • CYMRU: republican socialist re-groupment in wales
    • MANNIN: A Look Back On Manx Republican Socialism
    • BREIZH: Emgann Leads Breton Republican Socialist Struggle
    • ALBA: The RCN, Crown Powers and an Anti-Imperialist Agenda
    • ALBA: RCN Statement on the Split in the Scottish Socialist Party
    • PUERTO RICO: Socialism & the National Vindication of Puerto Rico
    • IRELAND: Irish republican socialism stumbles on its way
    • CATALUNYA: A rich revolutionary heritage
    • EUZKADI HERRIA: New Hope Found Amidst Recent Errors
    • News in Brief
  • Connolly Forum
    • Introduction - CF Issue 1
    • Connolly: A Biography
    • James Connolly and the IWW
    • James Connolly and Working Class Culture
    • JC: To Irish Wage Workers
    • JC: Old Wine In New Bottles
    • JC: We Only Want the Earth
    • James Connollys Contribution to International Socialism
    • Editorial CF 2
    • JC: Physical Force in Irish Politics
    • James Connolly: An Appreciation
    • JC: What Is A Free Nation?
    • Connolly’s Strategy for the Easter Rising: Should the Irish Working Class Have Stood Alone?
    • JC: What Is Our Programme?
    • The Irish Citizen Army After 1916
    • JC: We Will Rise Again
  • Contact

Reform or Revolution? The Answer Remains Unchanged.

 

Today is "Super Tuesday" in the
US; a day when Presidential primaries in many of the nation´s states will significantly influence choice of the major parties´ candidates for the Presidency next November. Some believe history is in the making because the Democratic Party race has come down to a decision between a male candidate of African descent and a woman of European descent and that party appears likely to win the eventual contest against the Republican Party candidate. In this contest, the comrades of the International Republican Socialist Network see not a historical advance, however, but yet another election offering the working class no option other than one or another member of the ruling class.

The election of Barak Obama will not be an end the double oppression of workers of color, any more than the naming of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court did; nor will the election of Hillary Clinton end the double oppression of women workers anymore than did the election of Margaret Thatcher in
Britain
. Accordingly, the comrades of the IRSN have no interest in either candidate.  They represent, for us, but a continuation of our class oppression. Racism and sexism are but devices whereby capitalism impedes the development of class consciousness among working people. For class conscious workers there is only one division of any importance, the class divide. Those who mistakenly believe the election of a capitalist candidate of their own ethnic background or gender is of consequence for them as working people only demonstrate the extent to which they remain under the sway of bourgeois ideology.

Likewise, the contest between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party holds for us no interest. Those who view such matters through the prism of a spectrum of political perspectives ranging from Right to Left and mistakenly believe that those furthest to the Left within that  spectrum are somehow "closer" to those of us within the revolutionary socialist movement remain under the influence of the hegemony of bourgeois ideology. Revolutionary socialists are not a further step to the Left along the political spectrum that includes the Republican and Democratic Parties; we are, in fact, not on that spectrum at all. Instead the entire spectrum, from Right to Left, exists only within the confines of the capitalist order and, insofar as our position stands for the overthrow of that order, we have nothing in common with those whose political positions can be mapped within its confines.



Today, as we confront capitalism in its present form, decadent and deeply immersed in crisis, we have nothing to be gained from alliances with competing sections of the capitalist class that might have once formed tactical options for the working class movement. Capitalism has shown itself incapable of being reformed such that it can serve the interests of the working class and this is not the time to encourage such delusions among those sections of our class whose consciousness is less well developed. Those within the socialist movement who perpetuate the myth of capitalist reform through electoral participation on the basis of a minimum program or encourage working people to believe that they have an interest in whether one or another bourgeois candidate is elected are failing in the most urgent task confronting us today; the task of raising the consciousness of our class as a whole.

While there is room for genuinely revolutionary activists to differ on the viability of pursuing electoral intervention as a tactic for socialists to pursue, there is no room whatsoever for actions or propaganda that encourage working people to cling to myths concerning the ability of capitalism to be reformed in the interests of working people. Neither is there room at this juncture for those who would promote the view that working women have any interest in the advances made by bourgeois women, nor those who promote the view that working class people of color have an interest in the advances made by members of the bourgeoisie from similar ethnic backgrounds. Instead, it is the responsibility of all socialists to, at all times, insists on the liberation of all members of our class from oppression, including the additional oppression caused by racism, sexism, heterosexism, or sectarianism.



Because our class is both female and male, we must consistently reject sexism; because our class is multi-ethnic, we must consistently reject racism; because our class includes various expressions of sexuality, we must reject heterosexism. However, while combating these forms of oppression which the capitalists use in their attempts to render us divided and weakened consistently, we must be equally consistent in pressing forward the thing that remains central to all of these struggles-the necessity of liberating our class from oppression and exploitation by the capitalist system. Accordingly, we must reject any attempt to sway sections of our class to align themselves with sections of the ruling class.

Whether choosing to vote for a socialist candidate as a means of propaganda or "voting with ones feet" by staying away from the polling booth in a rejection of the sham of bourgeois democracy, what remains the responsibility of all of us who stand beneath the banner of revolutionary socialism is that must do whatever is in our power to raise class consciousness among working people. To do that, we must consistently oppose the myths that bourgeois democracy offers any genuine options for the working class or that working class people can win liberation through pursuit of a liberal political agenda.  The vile scourges of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and sectarianism must be eradicated, but only the overthrow of the capitalist system, in the interest of which these ideologies are perpetuated, can bring about that eradication.

Peter Urban
Comrade, International Republican Socialist Network

Feb 2008
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