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Ireland: ‘Common History, Common Struggle’ – from an error of emphasis to opportunism

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that Peter Hadden's Common History, Common Struggle, while attempting to recover the suppressed history of working-class struggle in Northern Ireland, makes a fundamental theoretical error: it places Republicanism and Unionism on the same plane as "two equally reactionary camps." This is not a minor emphasis but a distortion that, when persisted in and drawn to its logical conclusion, leads the Socialist Party of Ireland (SP) into outright opportunism — specifically, the advocacy of repartitioning Ireland into separate Protestant and Catholic "socialist" states.

The central thesis is that the SP, in seeking to appeal to the most backward layers of loyalist workers, has abandoned the Marxist position on the national question. By treating Protestant and Catholic workers as constituting separate nationalities, the SP ends up endorsing a position that would require ethnic cleansing to implement, and which fundamentally misunderstands how class consciousness develops. The article insists that the revolutionary tradition of Irish Republicanism — from Tone to Connolly — is qualitatively different from Unionism, which is a tradition of defending British imperialism and Protestant supremacy. To equate them is to abandon the method of historical materialism for a false symmetry.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on classical Marxist positions on the national question, particularly the distinction between the nationalism of an oppressed nation and that of an oppressor nation. The article grounds itself in the tradition of James Connolly, who argued that the national struggle and the class struggle are "the same struggle at root" — that the fight for a Republic is inseparable from the fight for socialism. This is contrasted with the "stageist" theory of the Stalinist tradition, which the article identifies as the source of the Civil Rights leadership's fatal error: raising the slogan of "anti-unionist unity" rather than connecting democratic demands to a socialist programme.

The article employs the Marxist concept of contradictio in adjecto — a contradiction in terms — to describe any attempt to blend socialism with unionism, which takes as its starting point the defence of British imperialism. It also draws on the Leninist understanding of how consciousness develops: that a revolutionary organisation must first turn towards the most advanced layers of workers and youth, forming a core of Marxist cadres, before the more backward layers can be drawn behind them. The SP's error is presented as a violation of this dialectical method — trying to "leapfrog" the stages of building a revolutionary party by opportunistically bending positions to reach the most backward layers.

The article sits within the broader Marxist tradition that rejects both reformist adaptation to existing states (as with the NILP) and the methods of individual terror (as with the Provisional IRA). It insists on the necessity of working-class self-defence organised through the trade unions, and on the distinction between the revolutionary content of Republican youth's aspirations and the false methods of their leaderships.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in February 2020, at a conjuncture shaped by the aftermath of the Brexit referendum and the renewed salience of the Irish border question. The Good Friday Agreement's arrangements were under strain, and the question of a border poll — a referendum on Irish unification — had moved from the margins to mainstream political discourse. The article references this directly: "the idea that a united Ireland is a real possibility in the years ahead is now seriously posed in the minds of many Catholics."

The SP's position — that even raising the demand for a border poll constitutes "coercion" of Protestants — is presented as a capitulation to the sectarian logic that the Troubles entrenched. The article argues that this position flows logically from Hadden's original error: if Republicanism and Unionism are equally reactionary, then the demand for a united Ireland becomes merely "green nationalism," and the Marxist must stand above both. But this "above both" position, in practice, means abandoning the anti-imperialist content of the national struggle.

The article also situates the argument within the broader crisis of British imperialism, noting that Protestant workers are already "turning their backs on the unionist parties en masse." This suggests a conjunctural opportunity for Marxists to win advanced Protestant youth to a revolutionary programme — an opportunity the SP's opportunism would squander.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is itself a review of Hadden's book, but it points forward to the SP's contemporary positions as articulated by Ciaran Mulholland in the book's introduction. The argument continues in the ongoing polemic between the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) and the SP on the Irish national question. The article's author, Ben Curry, writes for Socialist Appeal in Britain, which is the RCI's British section.

The theoretical issues raised here — the relationship between national oppression and class struggle, the method of building revolutionary consciousness, and the critique of opportunism — are developed in other IDOM articles on the national question, particularly those dealing with Scotland, Catalonia, and Palestine. The article also connects to the broader Marxist literature on the national question, including Lenin's The Right of Nations to Self-Determination and Connolly's Labour in Irish History.

The argument about how consciousness develops — that a small organisation must first turn to the most revolutionary elements — is a recurring theme in RCI writing on party-building and the transition to socialism. The critique of "leapfrogging" stages of consciousness is developed further in articles on the united front tactic and the relationship between reform and revolution.

Connections

  • James Connolly, Labour in Irish History — The foundational Marxist text on Ireland, arguing that the national and social struggles are inseparable.
  • V.I. Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination — The classical Marxist formulation of the national question, distinguishing between the nationalism of oppressed and oppressor nations.
  • Peter Hadden, Common History, Common Struggle — The book under review, which the article argues contains the original error of emphasis.
  • Other IDOM articles on the national question — Particularly those on Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country, which apply the same method of distinguishing between the nationalism of oppressed and oppressor nations.
  • Against the Stream episodes on Ireland — The RCI's podcast series has covered the Irish national question in several episodes, developing the critique of the SP's position further.
  • Marxist writings on the united front — The article's argument about how to reach backward layers connects to the broader Marxist discussion of the united front tactic and the relationship between the vanguard and the mass.

Key Quotes

  1. "Throughout, unionism and Republicanism are incorrectly placed on the same plane by Hadden as two equally reactionary camps. Persisting in what was largely an error of emphasis, the Socialist Party of Ireland (SP), to which Hadden belonged, has today found itself mired in the swamp of opportunism."

  2. "There is a world of difference between Republicanism and Unionism... Unionism, on the contrary, is a tradition with a starkly reactionary past marked by a defence of British imperialism and Protestant supremacy, from Carson to Paisley, which was nurtured to serve the interests of British imperialism and the Protestant bourgeoisie."

  3. "Marxists, rather than dismissing the struggle of the Republican youth as 'sectarian' ought to distinguish between what was revolutionary in their Republicanism from the false methods of both the Provo and Officials leaderships."

  4. "Thus the SP arrive at the hair-raising conclusion that we, as Marxists, ought to support the notion of repartitioning Ireland into Protestant and Catholic 'socialist' states! ... We would be interested to know how the SP imagine such a repartitioning will be achieved in a city like Belfast, for instance, without resorting to the method of ethnic cleansing!"

  5. "A small organisation, if it is to reach the most oppressed, backward and downtrodden layers of our class must first turn towards the most revolutionary elements of workers and youth – both Catholic and Protestant – and form the core of a Marxist tendency here."

  6. "In the words of James Connolly, 'In their movement the North and the South will again clasp hands, again will it be demonstrated, as in '98, that the pressure of a common exploitation can make enthusiastic rebels out of a Protestant working class, earnest champions of civil and religious liberty out of Catholics, and out of both a united Social democracy.'"