The Politics Of The Red Network

The Red Network is one of three networks that exist inside People Before Profit. We Reds build the main party while putting forward our own distinct working class revolutionary take on things. We think the main party should adopt socialist strategies and tactics.

As a relatively new socialist network we feel there are some misunderstandings about our politics going around - this is our chance to clarify who we are and what we really want.

REVOLUTION

We’re revolutionary socialists. It’s important to point out exactly what we mean by “revolution”. For many Irish workers talk of revolution would conjure up images of 1916 and a small band of heroic fighters taking up arms.

For us revolution is a deeper process that involves tens of thousands of workers taking part in people power protests and strikes, taking over their workplaces and challenging the establishment, pushing forward until we have a new system.

Revolution means changing one system for another. The current system, capitalism, puts the profits of the bosses before the interests of the people. Socialism, on the other hand, represents a huge extension of democracy so that workers get to decide how we use the wealth we workers create.

Anything less than that is just reform of the current system. But why can’t the current system just be “reformed?”

We are for winning reforms - a higher wage here, save a hospital from closure there - but these partial victories are often eroded once struggle drops. A victory for our class on one front is often taken back on another - as long as the bosses and their political servants run the show.

The bosses control society in many ways - they have huge economic power, people like tax exile Denis O’Brien or beef baron Larry Goodman have billions. That economic clout means they can threaten any government to play ball or they’ll use their money to weaken the economy - they can lay off thousands of workers.

They can use that power to engage in sabotage. The class that controls the factories and offices also controls the media. We all know how RTE reports on protests and strikes and the billionaire owned private media is worse.

The boss class - or capitalists - also control what’s called the “deep state”. The Dáil is just a front, a puppet show, but behind the scenes the state is made up of unelected bureaucrats, civil servants, people who are loyal to the bosses and often drawn from the Golden Circle, from the boss class.

When Sinn Féin went into Leinster House after the last election to discuss government formation they had to meet senior civil servant Martin Fraser. Fraser had previously advised the government and recommended austerity during the years after the banking crash.

Any party wishing to form a government meets with the senior civil servants and negotiates a programme for government - within parameters set by the system. That’s the deal. As the saying goes: if voting could really change things, they’d abolish it.

At the moment most workers want to see Sinn Féin kick out Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We’ve had decades of those posh clowns destroying this country and screwing over workers. Socialists want to see the end of these right wing governments too.

But we also have to warn other workers that it’s not enough to just switch out the people who go on the telly and shout at each other in the Dáil - behind that muppet show there’s a whole machine made up of people loyal to capitalism. We have to tell the truth.

Over the last 120 years, across the world, left government after left government has been pulled into managing the capitalist system, discrediting themselves and handing politics back to the establishment.

Just look at Labour over in Britain, Syriza in Greece, the Social Democrats in Sweden, the far left in Iceland or a dozen examples across South America. Why does it happen over and over?

Every single government under this system is a coalition with the right - even a government fully made up of left parties - because the establishment controls the state machine. They control the civil service, the army command and the cops.

The red network is the only network in People Before Profit that offers this clarity on left government and on the rotten Irish state. We think socialists have to be straight with people - worker to worker.

The system cannot be reformed, you can win reforms but they don’t change the system. In every fight for our class we have to point out the reality of the system in a way other workers understand.

We Reds say let’s welcome a left government that kicks out Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We say socialist TDs vote to put Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin in as Taoiseach instead of Simon Harris, we say that Sinn Féin should look left instead of allowing the greedy gombeen goblins in Fianna Fáil into coalition with them.

But we’ve studied the history of the traitorous Labour Party and of the useless middle class Greens and we know that socialists can’t just join a capitalist government as a tiny minority and expect to force that government - that operates within the rules of the current system to break with that system.

So we would support Mary Lou McDonald as Taoiseach from outside her government - offering support on a case by case basis - as long as the government was delivering on housing, on health and on improvements for us workers.

We’re not into the mercs and perks that have corrupted so many TDs over decades. Socialists are in the Dáil to do a job - to force as many concessions as possible from the system, by stirring up revolt and by preparing the working class for a confrontation with the system.

When the rich move against any left government, or the establishment state does, we would mobilise workers on the streets and in the workplaces to resist and push them back.

A left government starts a tug of war - the rich pull on one side, we have to be organised to pull the other way. But only a people power revolution offers a way out.

Sinn Féin are a nationalist party - not a working class party.

Sinn Féin talk about balancing the interests of workers and bosses. They say they are “pro-business”. Mary Lou McDonald says Sinn Féin will not tax business into “oblivion” and has a deep interest in promoting successful businesses, which share “common goals” with her party.

She has also described corporate foreign direct investment as a “core component of the investment landscape” and said Sinn Féin has a “vested interest in commercial and business success”. They want to leave the tax haven economy as it is - with a few tweaks here and there.

Speaking to an audience of Dublin business leaders she said: “I want to say to you very clearly: I don’t see our interests at odds. I think we share common interests and common goals.”

They do this at the same time as talking about more social housing and windfall taxes on the energy firms - But when you’re in the middle of a global cost of living crisis you have to choose a side. A better life for working class people means taking the wealth we’ve created back from the rich.

As long as the rich control the wealth we will end up back where we started because they will always push for more - they’re greedy pigs. In fact the whole approach that says the bosses are our “partners” which our union leaders have chased for decades has led to defeat after defeat for the working class.

The rich are our exploiters - not our partners. Partnership has seen the wage share of the economy - the share of the economy going to workers - fall from 70% to just 35%.

And it’s not just the cost of living crisis and housing crisis we have to worry about. At some point soon the global weather chaos caused by big polluting corporations will lead to crop failures and serious conflict over water.

Only a working class revolution offers a way out. You can’t go into “partnership” with a dying system - tying yourself to a system that’s going over a cliff.

What do other networks in People Before Profit say about left government and about revolution? There are 3 networks in PBP at the moment. There’s the Socialist Workers Network (SWN), Rise and the Red Network.

All the networks are made up of committed activists who want to see a better life for working class people and the oppressed. We say that because often debates about theory are presented as “personal” attacks. That’s just silly - these are important strategic and tactical debates and we have to have them out in the open.

While we respect the activism and commitment of people in the other networks, we think they’re on the wrong track.

The SWN are inspired by the politics of Tony Cliff of the British Socialist Workers Party, Rise are a split from the Socialist Party - who came out of the Militant Tendency in Britain.

The Red Network does not take its politics from any of the British Trotskyist groups.

The SWN used to have the exact same position on left government as the Red Network. They were for support for a left government on a case by case basis from outside the government. That way you don’t get trapped by the system and demoralise your own supporters.

But they decided that it was too hard to tell the truth to workers and that they needed a more popular position on left government. To the public they say: “if Sinn Féin meets our red line demands we will go into government” while in private they say “we won’t go in, the red lines will keep us out!”

There are two problems here:

Firstly there’s the insinuation that they want to go into government with Sinn Féin, which they say in private isn’t true. Secondly, they’re suggesting that Sinn Féin might adopt their socialist core demands. That’s just not going to happen.

Their position on left government is an attempt to have your cake and eat it.

You tell the working class you’ll go into government and then in the middle of the negotiations you walk out over some issue you haven’t adequately explained to the public. Most people will be pissed off with the socialists for walking out after you’ve spent years building up an expectation you’re going in.

“Yeah we’re going into government if negotiations go well!” then you don’t do it. And they don’t think Sinn Féin and the establishment media will spin the walkout to make the left look childish? Their strategy on left government is just putting a noose around their own necks for fear of being upfront now.

We can’t think of one single example in the history of revolutionary socialism where lying to workers was considered a “tactic?” From Connolly to Lenin - past socialists were very flexible in their tactics but rock solid in their principles.

Whenever they had to retreat or make a temporary compromise they told the truth to workers about what they were doing and why they were doing it.

They never treated the working class as a bunch of kids to be “tricked” into supporting the socialist left. That’s because no revolution can be successful without the working class being “in on” the revolution.

The 40 something thousand people who vote radical left need to be engaged by us in a constant process of debate and discussion to raise their political level - while pulling them into struggle.

Of course we know most people don’t join a revolt until they feel there’s no other choice, a left government is part of that process of education, workers will learn from the experience of a left government that left government is not enough.

But whether the experience of a left government leads to mass education or massive demoralisation depends on there being a layer of working class leaders who are already clued in from the get go and can explain the failings of a left government in workplaces and communities, day in, day out.

Where is the strategy for building that layer of workers? It never happens automatically and history always punishes those socialists who believe it does.

The SWN have also shifted their internal position. They may not actually want to go into government with Sinn Féin, they’ll just tell everyone they do, but they do now say that you can go into government “with a Corbyn type”.

The argument is that revolutionary socialists could join a government with softer left groups and then try to pressure the softer left to challenge the system. The argument goes that you call on workers to mobilise on the streets and in their workplaces and then “rupture” the system.

But the soft left “Corbyn types” will always sabotage any attempt to go beyond the current system. That’s why there isn’t one single example of this working, anywhere. Not one. Now that says something. It’s not very scientific to propose made up strategies that have never worked is it?

And anyway who in Ireland is like Jeremy Corbyn? Irish Labour are just an establishment party, the Social Democrats are a tame offshoot of Labour. The argument that you can go in with these timid reformists and break the system from inside a capitalist government is really just a way to justify the SWN’s external line on Sinn Féin so they don’t feel inconsistent.

Many SWN members will tell you that they agree with the Red Network’s view on revolution and the state but then they keep that a secret at small socialist meetings inside People Before Profit.

They don’t understand that they don’t actually agree with us - because we’re for being straight with workers in public.

And small socialist theoretical meetings inside the larger party might be good for educating tiny groups of students (even then they get a very abstract education) - but real education is tied to struggle and about being open with our periphery and bringing them into debates on tactics.

The red network believes you can be upfront with workers and do it in everyday working class language. We’re not “ultra-left” - which used to be a way to describe groups who just used radical language but had no connection to the working class. They’d reject working in parliaments and local councils or working with other groups in united front movements.

The Red Network is strongly for using local councils and the Dáil as a platform to mobilise workers and to take down the current system. We were also the first to raise the need for a Cost of Living coalition that was built like the water movement, as a united front.

Just take a look at our page, Rebel Telly, it talks to workers in their own voice. We’re not “ultra-left”. It shows how far the debate has drifted that we could be accused of being ultra-left.

The other network, Rise, are for a very similar position to the SWN. They are for the idea of a “ruptural” government. That might sound a bit abstract but what they mean is that revolutionary socialists go into government under this existing state and using protests and strikes break the system from within government.

The problem with this is that a Dáil majority of socialists is so far off that the revolution would have been and gone by the time it happens. It took 32 general strikes for left party Syriza to rise in Greece. During the water movement we saw this on a much smaller scale when the protests led to the far left rising to 9% in polls.

The level of struggle required to fill an entire parliament with socialists would have sparked a confrontation between workers and the establishment long before you form a traditional government.

In reality all that is on offer is another government coalition between revolutionaries and reformists.

Catholics believe that the communion wafer becomes the body of Christ. This is called “transubstantiation”. Not once has some magical act of “transubstantiation” turned some Labour type of government into a revolutionary government because a handful of socialists joined it or there were protests and strikes. Not once.

Protests and strikes have forced concessions from such governments but never once transformed them into something they’re not. Anyway, enough of that. So, what do the Reds say?

We understand that getting rid of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is the most important task of today. But we also don’t forget about revolution just because it’s not on the cards today or tomorrow. You see if you are a “stagist” - treating class struggle as different “stages” separate from each other - you disarm the working class.

When you reach the next “stage” you find that there aren’t many workers clear on what happened and why it happened. When you know the Irish revolution is out there in the future you have to fight the day to day battles of the present but build up the ranks of workers who know what this rotten system is and why it has to go.

We want to operate on two tracks - one is pulling masses of workers into struggles that give them confidence and open them up to socialist ideas. The other track is building up layers of working class socialists who can help other workers and give them a lead.

That means sometimes saying difficult things now to get rewards later. Like being honest about left government so workers are prepared for what’s coming.

Revolution breaks out when people feel they’ve run out of options, they’ve tried left government and it didn’t work, when the ruling class are fighting among themselves and there is such an intense economic or political crisis that workers feel there’s no way out.

Loads of workers and poor people flood onto the streets all excited and finding joy in their new power. But all the old parties, all the conservative union leaders, all the people leading NGOs, they all try to jump in and divert the movement.

If there aren’t enough revolutionary socialists in place before that moment comes then the revolution will be led by people who will destroy it. Socialists aim to deepen a revolutionary crisis and create a situation of “dual power” - that means that there is an alternative state to challenge the old one.

How does that work? Imagine a general strike. If the workers elected a decent strike committee and shut the country down then the workers would have to decide if bread was made or what transport should be allowed to run.

The more organised the strike is and the more disorganised the government is the better. But this is a “dual power” situation. There’s the old state that works for the rich and the workers are creating their own decision making centres.

But us Reds want those decisions made by grassroots workers, not bureaucrats as in most unions. We’d like to see circles of workers take over their workplaces and strike. A general strike run by delegates from occupied workplaces is the seed of a new democratic state that is run by workers and for workers.

Revolution is when the dual power situation is won by the workers and they set up their own workers’ democracy. Delegates would be elected by popular vote and subject to recall - and they’d be on a workers’ wage instead of the bloated wages the TDs get.

Counter - revolution is when the dual power situation is won by the old boss’s state and they come down on workers like an iron fist.

Ireland might be far from revolution right now but with economic crisis and climate crop collapse on the way, bread riots might not be as far away as some think. The point is we need to be ready.

To be ready the left needs to be made up of workers who are rooted in workplaces and communities and identified as fighters, as socialists.

CENTRE THE WORKER

For decades the left has been in retreat. What they call “neo-liberalism” - privatisation, outsourcing, the destruction of public services and erosion of worker’s rights - pushed back the working class. But victorious movements like the water charges and the growing global strike wave now show there’s still fight in our class!

Wherever the working class has been pushed back the left has retreated into the colleges, becoming a left made up of students and lecturers more so than a left of workers. The socialist left here in Ireland made a massive stride forward when People Before Profit was set up.

We broke out of the left ghetto and started relating to the struggles of working class people out in the communities. We wanted to leave behind the legacy of the Thatcher, Reagan and Haughey years!

Some of us in the Red Network were members of the SWN (which was then called the Socialist Workers Party) when People Before Profit was launched. We argued hard for a new left that went out into working class areas and fought hard for those areas. Red Network members are from those areas, so of course we always fought hard for our friends, families and workmates. We always will.

We built campaigns, nationally like on the bin tax, and locally to save bus services or respite care. We won over a pool of blue collar working class people - particularly in Ballyfermot and Dun Laoghaire. Later bases were established in places like Clondalkin and West Belfast.

The key thing that attracted workers to the party was that it talked to people where they were at. And while some leading members played down socialist politics most of us working class members were upfront to people about being socialists. We understood you could build broad and be a socialist at the same time.

You could win the ear of workers by being seen as the best fighters locally - but you could also start to make socialism appealing by attaching it to what was obviously a movement of working class people fighting for change.

The real building began after the bank bailouts - we fought on the household tax, we built campaigns with home help workers, we supported dozens of strikes like the ones at MTL down the docks and at Coca Cola. We helped workers’ occupations from Waterford Glass to Thomas Cooks. But it was the water charges movement that really brought tens of thousands onto the streets and raised the profile of the left.

Movements like that are a window of opportunity, they give you a chance to rebuild the left and bring in lots of workers. We spoke to rooms full of workers all over the country. But by 2016 the water movement was done and it was time to change front.

The repeal movement was hugely popular in working class areas, but the activist base of the movement was much more college educated, white collar and middle class. The climate movement had a similar composition.

The left began to change again.

The decline of mobilisation in working class areas, low turnouts in council elections and the changing class of people who were active meant a changeover in the activist base of the left too. Those of us who wanted to “centre the working class” were told to “drop class anger” and appeal to white collar workers.

We were told that anger sounded like “moaning” and that the left needed to soften its image to target “white collar workers”. We understand that the working class consists of blue collar and white collar workers - but the left shouldn’t bend to the less class conscious layers of workers, who often think of themselves as middle class.

There should have been a clear focus on maintaining our blue collar working class activist base while engaging with more white collar, middle class and student based movements. We Reds want students to take part in the socialist left - but workers have to be at the heart of everything we do.

We want to recruit students who understand that and are willing to put workers to the fore.

As the class composition of the left changed more and more academic jargon crept in. You’d see an article and think “no one I know from me area would read that!” Like attracts like. That’s just the way things work.

A left that’s full of workers and gives off the whiff of being a working class left will attract more workers. A left that’s full of academics and students can put workers off coming to meetings and getting involved. The culture of the movement is different.

A student based left will attract more students. The moralism of student politics is also off putting to most workers. The student left often talks down to workers and uses jargon and when workers use swear words or talk the way we talk there’s a pile on to criticise and condemn.

The Red Network is a working class network. We want the left to be led by workers, made up of workers and talk like workers. That means a serious strategy for winning union members and training them up in rank and file socialist strategies and tactics in the unions.

That means putting more workers on left platforms, getting more workers to write jargon free articles and promoting working class voices. Like attracts like. A party made up of workers will attract more workers.

The left retreats into the colleges everytime struggle dips. Students play an important role on the left - they can often move very quickly into struggle. Many students these days have to work. But if student movements don’t connect to workers’ struggles they fall as quickly as they rise.

It’s more difficult to get masses of workers moving but when they do move movements can be more sustained and more of a problem for the powers that be. An occupied college has great symbolism, but that’s about it. An occupied workplace shuts down the profit system.

The leadership of the left being in the hands of academics is a legacy of defeat. We have to change that if we want to start winning. Some will say this is an attack on theory - what’s called “workerism” - but we want more socialist theory, made more accessible to workers.

Strong working class socialist parties of the 1930s had students and academics help workers to take a lead .They put workers at the centre of everything they did. That’s what we want.

We are active on every issue that matters from the Cost of Living crisis to the climate crisis - but in all these movements we bring to the fore the power of workers to challenge the corporate system. We also challenge groups that consciously or unconsciously belittle the role of workers.

Every working class movement gives us a chance to bring more workers into the left, but they’ll stick around if they sense that the left is already made up of workers just like them. The Reds are out to get that.

YOU GOTTA SPELL OUT WHAT YOU WANT AND YOU GOTTA FIGHT FOR IT!

Struggle or theory? Strikes or strategy? We need both if we are to win - yet many activists set them against each other. The first step in building a revolutionary working class movement is to get workers fighting back.

That’s the ABC of socialism. When workers fight we feel more confident and a window of opportunity opens to convince workers of an alternative system. But every protest or strike in history raises strategic and tactical questions.

A worker might sense that the union leaders are getting ready to betray them. What do you do? You can’t walk away from the strike, you can’t leave the union, but how do you organise to tackle that obstacle?

And isn’t it feckin’ obvious that a worker who has been on strike before and has dealt with those problems before, who has read up on past strikes and knows their stuff, isn’t it obvious that they should pass that on to other workers and teach them what they know?

This is the working class teaching the working class in the course of our struggles.

There’s been 150 years of working class strikes, protests, riots and revolutions. Socialists like James Connolly summarised their experiences. We have to be the memory of the working class and constantly remind other workers that this game has played out many times before.

The Red Network wants to create a left that’s made up of workers who have been through struggle and aren’t afraid of passing on what they know to other workers. In fact we should be proud of the struggles we’ve been through and proud to help other workers understand the strategic and tactical problems they’ll face. Socialist workers should be confident.

When the cops come along to a strike and say “there’s an injunction on this picket you have to let the trucks pass!” Straight away there’s an argument about what to do. Respect the law? But the law is wrong.

Socialists would argue the law is written by the rich for the rich and disobeying it depends on numbers - like when 70% didn’t pay their water bill. You can break the laws of the rich if you’ve got numbers with you.

A lot of workers might have faith in the union bureaucrats at the start of the strike and it might be hard to tell them the truth about how the leaders will act. But you have to have those difficult conversations because later workers will say “they told the truth!”

Now some of you will be thinking “this stuff is obvious!” but if it’s so obvious why do some socialists, like the SWN, argue against it despite us having to do these things day to day?

Leading socialists in the main party often say “we don’t teach the workers, struggle teaches!” - implying that the appropriate strategies and tactics will just materialise automatically in the course of struggle. But that just isn’t the case.

Workers who’ve been through previous fights need to pass on what they learned - but more than that they have to help other workers connect the dots and see how each fight connects to the whole system and why capitalism needs to go.

Of course those who say “put socialist politics to the fore” but then go and spout socialist politics using academic or middle class jargon that most workers don’t understand - that’s useless too!

Blind struggle is useless as is abstract socialism.

The Rise group often talk about “eco-socialism” in an abstract way. Their arguments are pitched to student layers who are active on the environment. They’ll tell you that they’ll recruit students now and then teach them to engage with working class areas later.

The SWN often take the blind struggle approach. They argue that “struggle educates” and downplay disagreements within movements. This leads to a frenetic style of campaigning where the hope is that people join because they see you as the nice folk doing loads of work.

Staff get burned out and often complain about “freneticism”. But the problem is connected to the politics.

Now don’t get us wrong, the first step to winning the respect of workers is to roll your sleeves up, take a lead and work hard to get resistance moving. But that’s just the first step. When workers take that first step you then need to take the next step - and the next.

Nothing in history happens automatically. Strikes and protests don’t automatically create more socialist workers. You have to fight for that. You have to persuade. You have to convince.

Some SWN members don’t agree with this blind struggle approach, but they don’t call out those that do, even when they falsely describe activists who want socialists politics as just wanting to “wave red flags” or “talk about revolution on the doors!”

The SWN often maintains a division between the SWN and the main party - for People Before Profit they play down socialist politics and then the SWN offers very abstract socialist educationals and abstract articles written in academic jargon.

Their leaders are divided. The more one group raises socialist points in a jargony way the more the others push for blind struggle as an antidote.

The more blind struggle, frenetic style campaigning causes organisational and political chaos the more the other gang push for more socialist politics. They both get something right and both get something wrong. They both feed each others one sidedness.

Academics unconsciously undermine workers. By arguing for blind struggle they downplay the need for workers to have our own theory. But then when theory is needed the academics are always the only ones who can supply it. They don’t even see they’re doing this because of the class they come from.

They are used to students listening to them and so they think they can turn the left from one issue to another on a whim - as if reality emanates from their ideas. They downplay workers’ own ideas but not their own.

This creates a frenetic chaotic organisation. Every small party will have moments of intense activity and frenetic campaigning. But not all day, every day. And there has to be a way to limit it - through division of tasks, more control by members, clear strategies.

The class structure of the system - where the middle class do the thinking and the workers do all the work - is replicated on the left. We should be challenging this, not unconsciously replicating it.

In the context of a college, where people might get lost in books, saying “get out and fight!” fits the situation. But when you go to a meeting with workers who are already ready to fight, downplaying their political development weakens them.

Workers who’ve taken step 1 and are fighting then come to the left and say “now we need step 2!” and they’re told to just keep fighting and it will all just happen in struggle. They burn out. They leave.

The Red Network is different from the other networks. We want to be upfront about socialist politics but in a working class accent. At the same time we are constantly at the heart of every protest movement that’s going. You have to do both.

Working class socialist education isn’t about sitting around at academic meetings talking about the past in a disconnected way - it’s about giving people the practical, theoretical, strategic and tactical tools they need to take on the establishment in the present.

Socialists may not have “all the answers” but after 150 years of working class struggle we’ve got a lot of them. We should be proud of that. We know what the state is, we know the cops aren’t on our side, we know why an economic crisis happens, we know how union bureaucrats act.

Some will argue that the “Marxist method” is only about “expressing” what the people are already demanding. But if we just express what people are already calling for then you’re never at the front of the movement trying to lead it forward.

Labour type parties take this to an extreme when they say they represent the vast majority of workers. But for socialists we can’t represent strikers and scabs, left wing workers and reactionary workers. You have to choose.

We have to organise the most forward looking and help them win over others.

Socialist politics has to be about looking at the situation you’re in, assessing it clearly and then going out and winning workers to your position. Decide what you want, go out and win people. Fight for it.

The Red Network understands both how to enter into movements we didn’t start to become the expression of that movement but we also set out to win people to revolutionary socialist politics.

TACTICS MATTER (BUT DON’T BULLSHIT PEOPLE)

You can’t just stand on the sidelines and call for revolution. No worker in their right mind would respect you. Some try to make a cartoon caricature of the Red Network and say we just want to “wave red flags” and “talk about revolution on the doors!”

We have an elected Councillor, Madeleine Johansson, as a member. She knows how to go out and win over working class people. In fact she got re-elected during a council election where many on the left were wiped out and she successfully ran many an election campaign for TD Gino Kenny.

We know that you need tactics - you need to learn to work with other groups and form alliances on issues that matter to working class people. You need to look at the situation and decide what issues will grow and then initiate campaigns.

This is what we did on the water charges - it was People Before Profit who called together a meeting of some unions and parties like Sinn Féin to call the first Right2Water protest. The same with the Cost of Living Coalition. A red network member was on the steering group of Right2Water.

In fact it was the Red Network that called the first protest on the cost of living by picketing the Green Party HQ in Dublin central while we put in motions into People Before Profit asking for a united front on the cost of living when the party was still focused on climate actions.

We want to see as many working class people fighting back as possible - and then we want to argue for socialism when we have their ear. Beating water charges was important - but as long as the state is controlled by the wealthy they will claw their money back another way.

You could get depressed and say “Ah sure what’s the point then?” The point is to see every battle against the system as preparing us for the biggest battle of all - a revolution. And to win a revolution we need far more socialist workers.

You don’t win workers over by standing on the sidelines, but you won’t win them over if you aren’t clear what you want either. Tactics are important, but don’t bullshit people.

Tactically it’s good for us to build big movements, to give workers confidence, to show we can push back the ruling class. We win credibility. Then when you talk to other workers they listen.

So we don’t agree with Sinn Féin on the ultimate goal, they think you can please workers and bosses. You can’t. But by working with them on the streets in protest movements we actually take a step towards our goal by bringing their working class supporters out into action.

You get to win over their supporters and pull them away from the leaders.

The same thing goes for elections. We don’t think you can vote capitalism out of existence. But having socialists in the Dáil and in local councils not only delivers for workers in the day to day cases our representatives take on but they can use those stages to talk to more workers.

Red Network member and Cllr Madeleine Johansson says:

“In my role as a PBP councillor I have learnt a lot about what it means to be a socialist and an elected representative. I have learnt that you have to resist the pressures that come with being elected - to “play the game” or soften your politics to “get things done”. I believe that we need to stand firm against that pressure and remember that we use state structures to build movements, openly promote socialist ideas and to expose the ruling class - not to manage a capitalist system that’s failing working class people and destroying the planet.”

If a big movement like the water movement comes along and then workers think “I want to vote for people who speak for this movement!” and you don’t stand in elections because you think “well I’m not for elections I’m for revolution!” you’ll be further than ever from the revolution.

If you don’t stand then someone who will betray workers will stand instead. For most workers the argument will be the other way around - they think that change can come from changing the staff of the Dáil. But as long as most workers believe that you have to use elections to talk to them and convince them otherwise.

That’s what tactics are. But what about lying to workers? Is that a tactic? Listen, you gotta be practical. Sometimes socialists are going to have to lie - to the cops, to your union leader, to a judge: “Yeah I promise I won’t protest again!” (immediately grabs a megaphone!)

But you can never lie to our class - the working class. To repeat: tactics are important but you can’t bullshit people. The development of a working class leadership means a constant conversation with the most militant workers who may still be outside the ranks of the left.

That means you can’t for example tell workers you’re going into government in public and then have internal meetings where you chat about Lenin and his view on the state in an abstract theoretical way.

The idea that “first we bring workers out on the streets, then we walk out of government talks, then workers will march for our core demands!” is all premised on struggle automatically bringing workers over to our side without the difficult and constant work informing and educating workers.

Imagine going into war and not telling anyone except an elect few what the plan was? It’s elitist and it is very patronising. It’s saying workers won’t understand our tactics. But we in the Red Network are workers and we think we can talk to other workers.

We know our audience because we are the same people - we are Community Employment workers, teachers, welders, lone parents, we’re security guards, building workers. We are the working people.

Our unions are run by a bureaucracy that’s loyal to the system and will betray rank and file workers. You can say “well let’s leave the unions!” and weaken your workplace. But you’ll just sew depression and weaken our class. That’s not tactical.

Instead we say build a rank and file network in every union so that we can organise to unite everyone that wants to fight back. That’s tactical and that’s how we win over our workmates. Step in and organise the union branch, get to be the shop steward, be open that you organise like this because you’re a socialist.

Security worker Francis O’Reilly joined the Red Network to give a lead to other security workers. He says:

“I joined the Red Network because the group supports workers rights and building stronger bottom up unions and wants to bring sharp working class revolutionary politics in everyday people’s language!”

The Red Network is tactical and organised in a way that empowers workers who join us.

BE A LEADER

“We don’t teach the workers, struggle teaches!” You hear that a lot in People Before Profit. Downplaying the role of politics day in, day out. But if socialists don’t use their experience and knowledge to help other workers not make the mistakes of the past then what’s the point of organisation?

Should every struggle start from scratch? That’s bullshit. And no socialist actually does that in practice because you have to for example warn an anti-eviction protest that the cops are coming and what the cops are likely to do based on past experience and an understanding of the cops as an institution.

So if your theory contradicts the practical needs of the working class movement then it’s a useless theory. But it does play a role in belittling working class socialists, telling them to avoid theory and thereby leaving the movement in the hands of those whose job is theory - academics.

The Red Network follows the great examples set by working class socialists like the Italian Antonio Gramsci - he said “Agitate! Educate! Organise!” Every workplace or working class community should be more active, more aware and more organised after socialists turn up.

A working class socialist should be the most respected person in their workplace and community when it comes to fighting back. They should use that to give a lead on issues and to raise the level of politics as often as they can.

We need to throw out all the stock phrases that confuse and demoralise workers. Every worker that gets active with the left should be seen as a new leader, both a leader in their workplace or community but also a leader on the left.

We should recruit working class leaders from strikes and protests and where we can’t find them we should create them from our own ranks - encouraging socialists to go out and initiate the fight.

When you’re middle class you worry that if you go out and argue socialist politics with workers you might come across as “telling workers what to do!” and yep that’s a problem. Something for middle class socialists to worry about.

But when you are working class, already a part of the working class, chatting with other workers about the best path forward is about being on the level with them. Leadership isn’t about being in some ivory tower talking down to people - it’s about being on the level with people and raising them up.

Leadership is like being a good shop steward in a workplace - you’re on the same level as other workers but you’re the first to call a strike or stand up to injustice and you’re open and honest about strategy and tactics.

Every member of the Red Network should be a leader. If you join us we’ll help you achieve the great potential that’s usually ignored in most working class people - sometimes even on the left. You can change the world - if you link up with other workers who want to do the same.

We want you to be a leader and we will do our best to give you all the tools and support you need to do that. If we can seed an organic working class leadership throughout our class we can change this country for the better.

NO DIVISION (BUT DON’T BE A MIDDLE CLASS MUPPET!)

The system will throw everything they can at us to try to stop the working class from winning socialism. Divide and conquer is an old tactic. If they can get workers fighting among ourselves, then bosses sit back and laugh all the way to the bank.

The bosses will try to pay women workers less than men and then try to make the men feel the demand for higher wages for women is an attack on working men. It’s a trick to divide and conquer. The bosses also like the idea of not having to pay to raise the next generation of workers so they stuck that on the backs of women.

Then the bosses’ media spread sexist ideas about women to reinforce the whole set up. But we won’t win workers away from the bosses’ ideas by having middle class students lecturing working class people about how we talk on twitter.

The twitter “pile on” drives working class people away from the left.

If the left wants to be a working class left we have to challenge division in a way that makes sense to workers but also doesn’t just push people away. There are lots of people who think that activism is just about calling people out online.

Life is tough for us workers - we are belittled and made to feel small our whole lives. We are told we’re stupid, uneducated, our estates are demonised and from the Church to the class bias of the education system we are brought down.

The last thing a worker needs is to be told to get lost by some middle class twit because they don’t know the right words to use in a situation that’s new to them. That’s not about empowering people - it’s smug class prejudice pretending to be about liberation.

And there’s so much of it about right now. It makes the left a bubble that’s only for an elite of college educated people who studied the latest trendy theories. It’s another approach that keeps workers away from the left, from leading themselves and imposes middle class leaders on workers.

Some of us in the Red Network have been on loads of strikes. One time down at the Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend there was an occupation of the workplace. Across from the picket there was a Traveller halting site.

The first day of the strike some workers were casually throwing out slurs about the Travelling Community. We could have got on our high horses about it and walked off the strike. But then we’d leave workers to fight alone and we wouldn’t have tackled the division.

We said, in a friendly tone “Ah here lads that’s not the way it is” and then explained the real life situation for that community and why the state treats them so badly. After a few nights of the Travellers bringing over food for the workers the workers were embarrassed to say anything against them and would pull up anyone who did.

We win people away from divisions in our class by rolling our sleeves up and building fightback, by talking to people with respect and on the level and by linking groups up during struggle. That’s how we can win workers away from division and empower them.

Struggle fertilises the soil - but you have to make your arguments too if you want to plant socialist seeds.

But the Travelling Community aren’t the only victims of racism - migrant workers, refugees and others are on the receiving end. Those divisions always weaken the working class. If you’re blaming the housing crisis on poor people fleeing war then you’re allowing our rulers to get off the hook.

There were 166,000 vacant homes in Ireland in 2022. And the government continued to pander to vultures, landlords and private developers. We should be looking up to those who are cheating us, not kicking down and distracting ourselves from real escape from a rotten system.

The corporations have realised that most workers want progress. Here in Ireland most working class communities voted for Marriage Equality and Repeal. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael lost so many votes after the banking crash that they were forced to appear to embrace this change.

Just like with corporate “woke” politics it’s about trying to convince us that our problems are sorted, that there’s no need to rise up and the ruling class are willing to change things. A minority in the ruling class want to go back to the old conservative politics - like Trump in the USA - but the majority are willing to talk about change while defending capitalism.

The “liberal” wing of the capitalist class will work us to the bone, fight unionisation and make us homeless but hand us a rainbow flag. The authoritarian wing of the ruling class will do all the same stuff but tear up rainbow flags.

We have to fight to overcome divisions in our ranks and unite with all workers and oppressed people. But we can do that while understanding that middle class pile ons keep the left middle class and that corporate woke politics is a con that cheats us all of real liberation.

One of the problems explaining this is that most opposition to corporate woke politics comes from a nasty far right minority. The far right in Ireland, for example, are people who want to drag us back to the dark days of Church rule and child abuse cover ups. We say no way!

That’s why it’s important we show we stand with all oppressed people when they are attacked and that when we criticise corporate fake liberation - but we do it in a way that doesn’t help the far right.

You can point out, for example, that Amazon put millions into a fund against racism and at the same time put millions into a fund for union busting. That shows their real face!

The Red Network is for confronting outright fascists when they try to organise. The far right in Ireland are the former grassroots of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael who were angry over repeal and now want to punish poor people who come here for a better life.

Most of the leaders of the far right are wealthy people - former editors of Catholic magazines, discredited journalists, landlords and builders.

They are Catholic extremists who long for the return of the dark days of Archbishop McQuaid. So we can’t just let them build. Most of the time the fascists are a tiny minority. But in times of crisis the mainstream establishment can turn to fascists to help put down workers.

We have to nip it in the bud.

Every society puts limits on what can be done or said. We wouldn’t allow child abusers to go around advocating for a right to “free speech” - to call for freedom to abuse! We don’t allow people to shout “fire!” in a crowded room. It’d be stupid.

That’s because the child abuser’s supposed claim to “rights” would be about harming another group of people with rights -kids. When a fascist says “I want to use free speech to call for genocide, call for burning refugees in their homes or for more attacks on migrants!” What about the rights of those they want to harm?

Hate speech leads to hate acts, hate speech is not free speech.

LGBTQ people have a right to free speech, black people have a right to free speech, trade unionists have a right to free speech. Fascists want to take all that away. Mussolini started by burning down working class union halls.

If they try to take away free speech from any worker or oppressed person then we have to stop them if we want to defend free speech. Stopping fascists is defending free speech. You have to choose - when one person’s right means the denial of another person’s right.

Anyway if the fascists win then they will destroy all free speech and start murdering people. No one gets “free speech” then. We believe in “no platform” for outright fascists. Every time they organise attacks on minorities begin. Workers should be champions of all the oppressed!

We need to stand up to division, win over workers by standing with them in struggle and talking to them on the level, at the same time we should oppose middle class pile ons on workers, corporate fake “woke” politics and stand up to any fascist rats when they try to organise.

REBEL TELLY

We run Rebel Telly. We think you can put out socialist politics and talk with a working class voice using social media. Everywhere we go working class people tell us they love Rebel Telly. The main thing we all need to do is get out and fight back - social media isn’t fighting. But it’s a useful addition.

RTE and the mainstream news often don’t cover strikes and protests and when they do they mostly offer the bosses view. We use Rebel Telly to help get the word out on strikes and protest movements from the workers’ mouths.

We’ve interviewed striking ambulance drivers, the Debenhams workers and helped share stories that would have been lost otherwise.

We have interviewed so many campaigns too from the family of Terence Wheelock to the disability campaigners in Access For All. We’ve built up a really good working class audience and a good reputation over the last few years and we want to massively expand on it.

By talking the way workers talk Rebel Telly often rivals the bigger left parties for engagement on social media. But we need more workers to join the team and help us expand. There is so much potential in Rebel Telly and our new Red Talks podcast hosted by Longford socialist Barbara Smyth!

Rebel Telly regular James O’Toole explains why he thinks Rebel Telly is important:

“As someone originally from Fatima Mansions flats I think it’s important there’s a left that speaks the way ordinary people speak, so they recognise themselves in us. We get a great response to Rebel Telly and people are constantly coming over to us on protests and saying they follow it!”

Anyone who joins the Red Network is welcome to help us in front of or behind the camera. We are a collective and every opinion matters. Join us and let’s grow the Rebel Telly team.

WHAT YOU WAITIN’ FOR?

Why join the Red Network? Because we are working class people who are fighting for real change and we have a clear understanding of where the left is at and where we think it needs to go. We see things clearly and we know what needs to change for the left to succeed.

We know we’re a small part of People Before Profit but so are all the other networks: After 50 years in existence the SWN has about 120 activists. Rise left the Socialist Party to join PBP and they have around 40 activists.

There are some great activists in all these networks that we work with in local branches every day. We want to win them over to Red politics and think that this would benefit them and the main party.

Everyone on the left is just a small stream trying to build a larger river. We know this. But we think we have something very important to contribute to the larger movement.

We want to see People Before Profit grow into a real mass working class party with strong socialist politics that workers understand.

There are thousands of passive members in PBP that we want to inspire to become activists, beyond them there are about 40 thousand voters who vote socialist, they need to eventually be pulled into activism and into organising if we really want an Irish revolution.

There are also workers out there who are good shop stewards, who are in community groups, who’ve never joined any party. We have to convince them that there’s a political home for them and that by uniting in a big socialist party we will all be stronger.

The most forward looking layers in the working class are fractured, divided and mostly don’t have socialist politics. There’s a long road ahead - of struggle and debate that will lead to future amalgamations of groups. The formation of a really big socialist party will require working with many streams.

And we can only get there through many strategic, tactical and theoretical debates. Those who try to stop these debates or claim they’re a “distraction from struggle” are claiming to have the all the answers themselves and so don’t want anyone else’s opinion.

We will not win over all the different strands of workers and fighters out there if we can’t accept debate and discussion. We are at the early stages of the formation of a rooted Irish revolutionary left.

We have something to say in debates about the future of the left. There should be room in PBP for many strands to work together and to discuss strategy and tactics as we walk along the same path.

If you want to join a working class network that talks the talk and walks the walk, that has strong revolutionary politics but also relates to where other workers are at, that fights hard but wants you trained up to lead, that’s principled but tactical - then what are you waiting for? Join us!

We will help you grow, we will learn from you and you will learn from us. Working class activists need to march side by side. Come to a Red Network meeting or meet one of us for a coffee - you’ll see we are the real deal.

From the Cost of Living to the escalating climate crisis - working class revolts are coming. We need to get ready for the fight! Join us now!

Sign up to the Reds at https://rednetwork.net/join-the-fight/

For further reading:

“The Irish State & Revolution”, “The Return of Class War Trade Unionism” and “Guards - the biggest crime gang in Ireland” by James O’Toole explore Red politics in far more depth. While “Reform or Revolution: Sweden, Socialism and the Welfare State” by Cllr Madeleine Johansson has more on our view of left government, socialism and the system.