The Politics Of The Red Network

The Red Network is a working class socialist organisation. If you join the Red Network you are committing yourself to promoting socialism by building our branches, throwing yourself into campaigns, protest movements and strikes. This pamphlet explains what we Reds are fighting for.   

REVOLUTION

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

A working class 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 replaced capitalism with a new system, socialism.

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

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

Firstly, we are for winning reforms - win a higher wage here, fight to 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. As long as we don’t have power in our hands.

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 threaten to move money abroad or lay off thousands of workers.

They can use that power to engage in economic 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 even 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 capitalist class. The same goes for Stormont or Westminster.

When Sinn Féin went into Leinster House after the 2020 election to discuss government formation they had to meet senior civil servant Martin Fraser. Fraser had advised previous governments and had recommended vicious austerity during the years after the 2008 banking crash. 

Any party wishing to form a government meets with these 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. 

Many 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 us workers. Working class 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 about the state machine. 

Over the last 120 years, all across the world, left government after left government has been pulled into managing the 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 capitalist 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. Every government is a coalition with this machine.

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

Imagine a government made up of Sinn Féin, Labour, the Greens and the Social Democrats. It’s not going to rock the boat. Replacing Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be a step forward. But we need to take another step forward after that - not fall back.

So if we had a Red TD they would support a Sinn Féin Taoiseach from outside government - offering external support on a case by case, vote by vote basis - but only as long as that 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, to stir up revolt and prepare the working class for a confrontation with the system. We need to use the platform to educate, agitate and organise our class.

If the rich moved against a left government, or the establishment state did, we would mobilise workers on the streets and in the workplaces to resist and push them back. A left government can start a tug of war - the rich pull on one side, we have to be organised to pull the other way. 

But Sinn Féin aren’t as radical as people think - they talk about balancing the interests of workers and bosses. They say they are “pro-business”. Mary Lou McDonald said Sinn Féin would not tax business into “oblivion” and said that Sinn Féin 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 you have to choose a side. A better life for working class people means taking the wealth we’ve created back from the rich. It’s about control - we need to democratically control the wealth.

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 and housing crises we have to worry about. War is rising as the economic competition of the major powers becomes military competition. 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. 

Revolution breaks out when people feel they’ve run out of options, when they’ve tried a 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 other way out. 

Loads of workers and poor people flood onto the streets all excited - finding joy in their new collective 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 back into safe channels. And once the movement is calmed down the establishment attacks.

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 created to challenge the old one.

How does that work?  Imagine a general strike. If the grassroots 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 that general strike is and the more disorganised the government is the better. This is a “dual power” situation. There’s the old state that works for the rich standing opposed to the embryo of workers’ state, who are creating their own decision making assemblies.

We’d like to see circles of workers take over their workplaces and strike. A general strike run by delegates from occupied workplaces would be the seed of a new democratic state that is run by workers for workers. 

Revolution is when the dual power situation is won by workers and we set up our 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 current 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, war 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 worker leaders who are organically rooted in workplaces and communities and identified as the go-to fighters, as socialists. We need to offer a path from the day to day struggles of our class to a future revolution. To do this you need a party programme.

THE PARTY PROGRAMME

If you just stand on the sidelines calling for revolution most workers would think you’re mad. You need to roll up your sleeves and get involved in every struggle going on today, to win authority for our long term goals. 

A party programme can help indicate our “line of march” - where we intend to start fighting and where we want to end up. The programme we offer can be printed on one A4 sheet, easily read and by arguing for it every member gains confidence moving from today’s issues to the need for revolution. We use the minimum/maximum method. Minimum demands are those we make today. Maximum demands are indications of the things we’d suggest the working class does after a rising. 

We suggest the following programme as a starting point to build a new revolutionary left around:

Socialists raise workers’ fighting spirit and class consciousness and oppose anything that limits workers’ horizons. As the working class is an international and diverse class, we stand for united fronts of action that unite workers against the existing establishment. Within these movements we battle those who hold our class back while we advocate for the need to challenge capitalism.

The following minimum demands are some of the key issues we fight on today, but we will raise new demands as our class needs them:

• End the housing crisis, establish a state construction company with worker input to build universal public housing, serious rent controls, ban on evictions, take vacant buildings, resource all new estates.
• Build an all Ireland NHS, a one tier free health service paid for by heavy taxation on the billionaires and millionaires. Nationalise the private hospitals and fight for public nursing homes.
• Education for all, for a state funded third level system, abolish fees, cap students’ rents, fight to double the education budget, free early years childcare.
• Abolish ‘90 - the 1990 industrial relations act is a undemocratic limitation on the rights of all workers, it bans solidarity actions, effective picketing and political strikes. Tear it up.
• A 4 day work week for all workers with no loss of pay, for a living wage. We fight for the highest possible wages for all workers and fight against bogus self employment.
• Less taxes on workers, make the millionaires and billionaires pay up, close corporate tax loopholes, end tax exile status for billionaires like Denis O’Brien.
• We support a “Left Government” externally and case by case because we need to get rid of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but parties like Sinn Féin & Labour need to be disciplined and forced to deliver.
• Put all politicians on the average worker’s wage
• No to NATO, No EU Army, defend neutrality we fought against an Empire for centuries. We will not be cannon fodder in rich men’s wars.
• For a United Ireland, end partition and remove British troops. We would vote yes in a Border Poll while using any campaign to argue for a 32 County Workers’ Republic.
• No carbon tax on workers, make corporations pay for climate change. Nationalise energy companies, cap energy bills for workers and fight for free public transport, system change not individual blame.
• Break beef barons like billionaire Larry Goodman to pay for a transition to sustainable farming for small and medium farmers, we oppose neoliberal trade deals like Mercosur and CETA.
• Abolish Irish Water and put all water and waste services back under public control, enshrined in the constitution.
• Justice for all victims of Garda and State violence like the family of Terence Wheelock.
• Separate Church and State religion is a person’s private business, get the Church out of schools and hospitals, use their vast wealth to pay survivors of abuse and house the homeless.
• Legalise, regulate and educate making drugs a health issue ending the scourge of gang violence and addiction that blights working class communities.
• Free contraception, funding for domestic violence refuge spaces, for free, safe, legal and local access to reproductive healthcare.
• Free Palestine, support resistance to Apartheid Israel, isolate Israel in every way, for a one state solution to restore Palestine.
• No Hate Speech legislation because these laws can be used against the working class.
• Immigration is not a crime, every pair of hands is a pair of hands that can work, we need to end profiteering in IPAS, we will fight for community integration and resources as we do with every population change.

None of these reforms are secure until workers have political power. Without a 32 County Workers’ Republic the establishment will roll back on gains we make.

We will keep fighting until we workers are in the driving seat. To do that we need a people power revolution. We want to dismantle the Dáil and Stormont in favour of a Workers’ State made up of democratic workplace, industry wide and community assemblies which will elect delegates to a working class national assembly. Once workers are in power we suggest implementing the following maximum demands:

• Recallable representatives on average wage to all assemblies and to the workers’ national assembly.
• For a democratically planned economy controlled by the working class.
• Set up a single state bank under democratic control.
• Nationalise all major industries under democratic control.
• Nationalise the private hospitals, nursing homes, big pharma companies and private insurers.
• Nationalise all vulture fund landlords, there would never be a housing crisis in a planned economy.
• Regulate the market sector which would still exist in the initial years of a workers’ state but keep it democratically controlled and subordinate to an expanding planned sector.
• Confiscate the wealth & assets of billionaire tax exiles.
• The Catholic Church owns many properties, land, schools and hospitals. They should be the property of the workers’ state. Personal religious beliefs are no business of a workers’ state.
• Integrate City and Country as part of a sustainable approach to economic planning.
• Incentivise cooperative and sustainable farming.
• Community canteens and laundries.
• Abolish the Guards and PSNI replace them with democratically accountable community patrols.
• Abolish the Irish Defence Forces command and establish a working class Defence Force with its own democratic assemblies and representatives in the workers’ national assembly.
• Stand up to Brussels, defend the sovereignty of our workers’ state and call on workers across Europe to rise up in our defence if we are threatened.
• Become a beacon of anti-imperialism, assist all working class and liberation movements internationally, stand in solidarity with all progressive movements.

A Workers’ Republic would allow the working class majority to have a secure life, enjoy full employment and exercise real democratic control over the direction of the country. The idle classes - the bosses and landlords - should be made to work.

Enemies of the working class will say “they would take your home, your property!” But that’s nonsense. The only “property” socialists are after is the factories, offices, machinery and immense wealth hoarded by the billionaire boss class, who live off the backs of our labour. Our labour created all that wealth.

Real democracy means having a say in how it is used. Personal property like the family home of a worker is no business of a workers’ state. In fact everyone would be guaranteed a home for the first time and homelessness would be a thing of the past.

The great socialist James Connolly once said that “the only true prophets are they who carve out the future which they announce”. We are not just in the business of predicting possible futures, we are going to fight for it every single day in our unions, in our workplaces and in working class communities.

CENTRE THE WORKER

For decades the left has been in retreat. What they call “neoliberalism” - privatisation, outsourcing, the destruction of public services and the erosion of worker’s rights - has pushed back the working class. 

But victorious movements like the water charges showed the working class we can still fight back. Red Network members are mostly workers, so of course we always fought hard for our friends, families and workmates. We always will. 

Our members have been part of campaigns for a long time: nationally in campaigns like the bin tax, and locally to save bus services or respite care. 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 - activists who went on to form the Red Network have 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 2017 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. 

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 mostly student based left will attract more students. The moralism that comes with a 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 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 Reds 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.

YOU’VE GOT TO 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 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 argue against it despite us having to do these things day to day?

Some socialists 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.

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. 

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

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. 

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.

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. You need to engage in united front mass movements and also stand in elections. That’s the only way to win a mass audience for socialist ideas. You gotta knock on every door.

Our elected reps, like Cllr Madeleine Johansson, know how to work hard, go out and win over working class people. 

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 united front campaigns. 

This is what we did on the water charges. 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 could 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 their leaders. The united front isn’t about tailing bigger parties but instead getting to talk to their audience while struggle gives real examples that show in practice the difference between socialists and other parties.

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

As Red Network member and Cllr Madeleine Johansson said: “In my role as a 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 will be outside the ranks of the existing left. 

That means you can’t for example tell workers you’re going into government in public and then have internal meetings where you say the opposite. That’s what parties like People Before Profit do. They’ve some good activists but we can’t agree with that approach.

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, security guards, building workers. We are working people. 

Our unions are run by a bureaucracy that’s loyal to the system that will betray rank and file workers. You could just say “well let’s leave the unions!” and weaken your workplace. But you’ll just sew demoralisation 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. We will use united front movements, elections and union work to fight on the issues of today for the revolution of tomorrow.

BE A LEADER

“Agitate! Educate! Organise!” is an old socialist slogan. 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.

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.

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.

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. 

Our members were tenants at Tathony House in Dublin 8 and organised mass resistance to evictions from the block. They filled in every tenants’ RTB forms, encouraged the other tenants, organised protests and press conferences. They argued with TDs and the council.

Red Network activists are resisting evictions in Swords and in Cork. Other members of the Red Network are playing a leading role in rank and file union groups like Forsa Left. Our members were some of the first to call local protests for Palestine when Israeli attacks began. 

We want you to take a lead too. If we could seed worker leaders in as many workplaces and communities as possible imagine the difference we could make?

CLASS WAR NOT CULTURE WAR

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. 

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. That’s counter productive.

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.

The last thing a worker needs is to be excluded from the left by some middle class twit because the worker doesn’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. It’s another approach that keeps workers away from the left, from leading themselves and imposes middle class leaders on us 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 class war, by building a 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. 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 that the ruling class are willing to change things. A section of the ruling class wants to go back to the old conservative politics - like Trump in the USA.  

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 overthrow them both.

That doesn’t mean we ignore any attack on democratic rights by any wing of the ruling class. But we look at everything from the point of view of the working class. 

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 the middle class pile ons police the left, to keep the left middle class. We need to show 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. 

They take all their ideas from US and English fascists. But their end goal is capitalism - but a much uglier, more authoritarian version. We want a real revolution, they offer a fake one. The leaders of the far right are middle class. 

One wing of the middle class enters the left and disorganises it. They tie our shoelaces together. Then when we trip the other wing, the far right wing kicks us. That doesn’t mean both wings are exactly the same. 

That’s why it’s important we stand with all oppressed people when they are attacked and that when we criticise corporate fake liberation - we do it in a way that doesn’t help the far right.  In fact a focus on class war, not culture war, can help undermine the far right.

If the far right seem insurrectionary and the left seem tame - they will win support. 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 showed their real face! 

The fascists go on about free speech: but trade union members have a right to free speech, LGBTQ people have a right to free speech, black people have a right to free speech. Fascists want to take all that away. Mussolini started by burning down working class union halls. 

Hitler promised his supporters there’d be change if he made it into power. The poorer section of his support base was rewarded with the night of the long knives, literally stabbed in the back. That’s what awaits any worker that supports the far right. They’ll coalesce with the system and then stomp on your face.

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. 

But counter protests against fascists and the far right need to be organised in a smart way, breaking from just being performances of left moral purity. The protests by the Forsa union to stop fascists attacking library staff were a great example to follow. 

But standing behind a row of Guards with many from the inactive online left shouting “Nazis!” at a large protest of confused people is counter productive. By making our arguments against division a part of class struggle we make it a practical requirement of the movement and not external finger wagging. 

When members of the Red Network, who were tenants at Tathony House in Dublin 8, led resistance to mass evictions they made sure to argue against division on their protests and in the media. This organic anti-racism is practical anti-racism. 

One of the key questions facing the left is how to put the advanced workers back in the driving seat. Only class struggle does that. A major protest movement on housing or a national strike by nurses can start to put the good workers back in charge of the narrative. 

Anti-racist arguments made in that context get a hearing especially when a nurses strike for example would have many migrant workers on the picket lines. 

We need to stand up to division, win over other workers by standing with them in class 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 fascists when they try to attack our class.

RED MEDIA

We run Red Media - it used to be called 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 Red Media. 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 Red Media 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 Red Media 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 Red Media. Red Media regular James O’Toole explains why he thinks it’s 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. 

We also publish the Red Star magazine. It’s available from our members or on our website store. Why publish a magazine in a social media world? Because distributing a magazine involves face to face discussions with contacts. And the tech giants could shut down your favourite social media platform in the blink of an eye. 

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. 

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 a real mass working class party with strong socialist politics that workers understand. 

There are about 50,000 voters who vote socialist, they need to be pulled into activism, into organising and trained in revolutionary politics 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 one big left 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. This layer is usually called the “vanguard” - the advanced workers. Forty years of neoliberal attacks have atomised these workers. 

We need to merge socialist politics with this “fractured vanguard” and bring the best fighters together in one party. We know that’s going to be hard work. There’s a long road ahead - of struggle and debate that will lead to future amalgamations of groups. The formation of a 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 all the answers themselves so don’t want anyone else’s opinion. 

We are at the early stages of the formation of a really rooted Irish revolutionary left. 

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. For me, the Red Network is about togetherness, socialism, positivity, equality and fairness in a way that is refreshing and ensures that struggle is always about change from below.”

Sign up to the Reds at www.rednetwork.net

Check out our social media voice, Red Media, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok!

Buy our magazine Red Star in our online store. 

For further RED reading:

“The Irish State & Revolution” James O’Toole

“The Return of Class War Trade Unionism” James O’Toole 

“Sweden, Socialism and the Welfare State” Madeleine Johansson

“Guards - the biggest crime gang in Ireland” James O’Toole

“Tathony House - how we fought eviction” Madeleine Johansson and James O’Toole

“Lenin - Make The Revolution” James O’Toole

“Class War Not Culture War” Madeleine Johansson

All these books are available from www.rednetwork.net and explore our politics in far more depth.