Revolutionary Marxist Group (Ireland)

Bulletin, publication of the Belfast R.M.G., from 1972

Revolutionary Marxist Group was a Trotskyist organization in Ireland during the 1970s.[1]

Its origins lay in the 1971 split of United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) supporters from the League for a Workers Republic. Many of the initial group had formerly been in the Young Socialists, along with some others who attended discussion meetings (such as Charlie Bird and Butch Roche) but who tended to drop off later when the RMG name was adopted and democratic centralism set in. In 1972, they joined with a loose grouping in Belfast to form the Revolutionary Marxist Group, mainly under the influence of D.R. O'Connor Lysaght (known as Rayner Lysaght) [2] and Anne Speed, and her then partner. In 1974, the organisation affiliated to the USFI.[3] The RMG campaigned against internment in Northern Ireland and took part in several public protests against it. [4]

The theoretical journal of the group was Marxist Review.[5] The group focused on supporting a united Ireland and on gaining influence in the student movement.[3] The RMG rejected the Éire Nua plan put forward by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill, arguing EN was "too tied to the bourgeoisie". [6] Marxist Review also criticized the ideas advocated by the conservative Irish writer Desmond Fennell, arguing ""Fennellism" is essentially idealistic and ultra-clerical"; [7] they also accused Fennell of being anti-feminist and anti-trade union. [7]

The RMG was strongly pro-feminist,[8] and RMG members took part in the "Irishwomen United" group in 1976, along with members of People's Democracy and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. This was a left-wing, anti-clerical, radical feminist group that called for the legalisation of contraception and abortion, equal pay for Irish women, and secular community-controlled schools. [9]

In 1976, the group changed its name to the Movement for a Socialist Republic, and in 1978 it joined Socialist Democracy.[3]

Publications


Dublin; Revolutionary Marxist Group.

Revolutionary Marxist Group.

Dublin; Revolutionary Marxist Group.

Dublin; Plough Book Service for Revolutionary Marxist Group.

Dublin, Plough Books (Movement for a Socialist Republic), [1976].

Jan Kavan. Dublin : Movement for a Socialist Republic [1975?].

Dublin : Movement for a Socialist Republic, [1976].

Norman Gamboa. [Dublin?] : Movement for a Socialist Republic, 1976.

Belfast : Peoples Democracy with the Movement for a Socialist Republic, 1977.

Dublin, Women's Commission, Movement for a Socialist Republic, 1977.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.trotskyana.net/LubitzBibliographies/Serials_Bibliography/zsn-bibl_index_org_affil.pdf
  2. ↑ Bob Purdie and Austen Morgan, Ireland:Divided Nation, Divided Class.Ink Links, 1980, ISBN 0906133203, (p.12).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Robert Jackson Anderson, International Trotskyism, 1929-1985
  4. ↑ "Rights Protest Marches Planned", Irish Independent, August 9th, 1975, pg. 16.
  5. ↑ Report of the Socialist Party of Ireland
  6. ↑ "Éire Nua: A Critique" in Marxist Review, January/February, 1973, (pp.1-3).
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Robert Dorn, "A New Ireland or Fennell's "Third Reich"?" in Marxist Review, January/February, 1973, (pp. 4-5, 34).
  8. ↑ Margaret Ward and Joanna McMinn. A Difficult, Dangerous Honesty: 10 years of feminism in Northern Ireland. Women's News, 1987 (pg.17).
  9. ↑ Yvonne Galligan,Women and Politics in Contemporary Ireland: from the margins to the mainstream. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998 (pg.55)