The Second War destroyed the Irish Republican Army just as surely as it had the Wehrmacht, yet within just over a decade it was preparing for a new campaign.
For republicans this is seen as the mythical Phoenix that returns to life out of the ashes. Not a particularly happy analogy, since the bird is destined to return to ashes.
All republican attempts to develop political strategies to advance their programme of an independent and unitary Irish State have led to the effective abandonment of that goal.
Such betrayal has revealed a minority willing to challenge the betrayal through renewed armed action. This in turn is defeated - resulting. in a search for lessons from the defeat and renewed interest in politics.
The element of truth behind this alternating cycle of military action, defeat, political reappraisal, betrayal and renewed military action hides underlying political developments.
There was now, for example, no possibility of armed action against the previous number one enemy - the Free State traitors, of whom IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell had said:
'Of all parliaments beyond all comparison the WHOSE shameful and abandoned of all sense of virtue, principle or even common decency, was the Dublin government.'
Now after the crushing defeat by that government, prompted by the IRA campaign in Britain, the republicans had only one target left -the North.
In 1949 therefore the Bodenstown commemoration was informed that The aim of the Army is simply to drive the invader from the soil of Ireland and to restore the sovereign independent Republic proclaimed in 1916. To that end, the policy is to prosecute a successful military campaign against the British forces of occupation in the Six Counties.'
The IRA attempted to evade possible repression from the Southern State by repeating that its activity was solely directed to Britain, although once again to no avail. Right wing and Catholic
The first IRA general army convention after the war in 1948 ruled out military activity in the South and decided to prepare for a campaign on the North.
It also concluded that it needed political support that would not conflict with its policy of abstentionism. It therefore decided to take over Sinn Fein and the IRA army council instructed members to join.
From now on the history of the two organisations became inextricably entwined. IRA men took the leadership and a new • constitution and programme was drawn up, vetted by sympathetic clergy to ensure there was nothing in it that would conflict with Catholic teaching.
The right wing and The target shiftedito Britain but an armed campaign, fought on the most unfavourable terrain, made no sense even in the blinkered military terms in which militarist republicans thought. Catholic character of the party reflected the views of the leaders of the IRA who favoured the social teachings of church and disapproved of the welfare state.
This not only reflected the wider conservatism of Irish society but also the mounting worldwide tide of reaction from the developing cold war.
The conservatism of Irish society is itself only comprehensible as a reflection of the Irish State's position in the
Far from the neutrality of the Irish state during the Second World War revealing its truly independent character, the war had shown the small Irish State to be utterly dependent on the big imperialist powers, and on Britain in particular, which could have brought the State to its knees in a matter of months.
The availability of the North to the allied imperialist powers and the biased neutrality practised by De Valera obviated the need for an allied invasion.
Following the war the marginal status of the State which had failed even to develop its own independent currency was revealed by its missing the long post war boom that developed in the rest of the developed capitalist world.
This failure was not a result of wrong economic policies but because Ireland was not already a developed capitalist economy. The attempt, begun in the thirties, to make it one, through import substitution and creation of a genuine native capitalism, was instead coming to grief.
The imperialist subordination of the Irish economy in a situation where capital accumulation was taking place primarily in the already advanced economies, and in economic sectors in which Irish capital was truly Lilliputian, meant that the very existence of the State came under threat.
This was not from armed imperialism but from its more powerful economic and social forces. The State's underdeveloped status was revealed in a balance of payment crisis in the 1950s.
Ironically the situation would have been worse had it actually had its own currency. This dependence on Britain limited the decline, while ultimately being the nexus of the problem.
As a result emigration mounted. By 1957 178,000 people had emigrated in the previous four years and in that year a further 60,000 did so, still leaving 78,000 unemployed. The youngest and most vital in the population emigrated - strengthening the most conservative and reactionary forces within society Ballot box and Gun
The rise of Clann na Poblachta, formed in 1946 by former IRA leader Sean MacBride and the encouraging performance of a republican candidate for President in 1945, Patrick McCartan, gaining 200,000 votes, showed that there a republican constituency outside Fianna Fail still existed.
In 1955 Sinn Fein won 152,310 votes in the Westminster elections and got two prisoner candidates elected. Two years later it won 65,640 votes in the general election in the Southern State and also got two TDs elected.
In the meantime on 12 December 1956 the IRA launched Operation Harvest, the culmination of five years' planning, when four IRA units totalling attacked targets in each of the occupied six counties.
The following campaign was by and large restricted to the border, the fear of unionist reprisals in Belfast deterring action there.
No British soldiers were killed, six RUC men lost their lives and so did twelve republicans, evoking, in the case of Fergal O'Hanlon and Sean South, a large display of sympathy North and South on the occasion of their funeral.
The campaign itself however was a flop and the election that recorded Sinn Fein's gains also resulted in the return to power of Fianna Fail, which did what it does best and clamped down on the IRA by introducing internment, following the example set by the unionist regime at Stormont.
From 341 incidents in 1957, activity fell to 26 in 1960. In the British general election in 1959 the Sinn Fein vote halved to 73,415 and in 1961 the same happened to the vote in the South, which fell to 30,529, with 14 of the 21 candidates losing their deposit.
Republicans could provide a vehicle to express protest at the alienation of sizeable sections of the Irish people but no means to effectively overcome it.
Finally the IRA dumped arms and acknowledged defeat, honestly admitting that the reason was lack of support from those they wanted to free.
The defeat for the republican movement was total. Sinn Fein was firmly under the control of the IRA. The defeat for the armed campaign of the IRA was thus its defeat also.
And this was a decisive defeat. The IRA had begun by proposing a second round against the Free State traitors but had been forced to abandon it because there was no support for such an adventure.
The target had shifted to Britain but an armed campaign, being fought on the most unfavourable terrain, made no sense even in the blinkered military terms in which militarist republicans thought.
The bombing campaign in Britain had been a disaster.
Now the only strategic alternative left to physical force republicanism had been an abject failure, again admittedly from a lack of support. There were no targets left.
Of course the historical impasse wasn't fully understood. People consoled themselves with thoughts of a new Northern campaign, but the inescapable logic of events did force a rethink.
This was to be the most fundamental rethink in the movement's history which promised a break from the inherent limitations and failures of republican politics.
To be continued
page 21 of the scan
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