In September 2009 I interviewed John Throne about his own history, as well as the Irish left and working class. We talked for about two hours and after I had stopped recording, I asked John would it be ok to ask him about his expulsion from the Committee for a Workers’ International. He said yes, it would be ok, and so I started taping again, and below is the recording.

I feel I should make clear that I initiated the conversation about the CWI and the expulsion, and I did so because I knew nothing about it and wanted to find out the background to it. In other words, John didn’t bring this up, I did.

The clip is about seventeen minutes long.

Sherry Linkon is co-director of the Center for Working Class Studies at Youngstown State University. Here she is talking about definitions of working class, class identity, and the experience of working class students in academia. she was speaking to the Working Class Student Union which is based at the University of Wisconsin.

I’ve embedded part two of the video clips of her talk, as she starts talking here about working class studies.

The videos clips of her talk can be found here at the Working Class Student Union YouTube page.

The Working Class Student Union sees working class as:-

‘…a term that encompasses individuals who come from a spectrum of backgrounds, with varied educational levels, occupations, income, and geographic origins. We see class as based on a combination of factors ? what kind of work people do, how much they earn, their social and economic power, their education, lifestyle, and culture. We also recognize that class is closely related to race, gender, religion, and other social categories.’

[League for a Workers’ Republic, After the Election 1977, available here. (1.92MB)]

According to D.R. O’Connor Lysaght in his Early History of Irish Trotskyism, the League for a Workers Republic was formed in March 1968. Those involved in its foundation included Sean Matgamna, Peter Graham, Paddy Healy, and Liam Daltun. It arose out of a split within the Irish Workers’ Group. The LWR soon became a strong force within the Dublin Young Socialists. Early members of the LWR included Carol Coulter, Basil Miller, and Dermot Whelan.

In early 1970 a group within the LWR left the organisation. This group ?supported the International Committee of the Fourth International [ICFI] [and] demanded immediate affiliation of the LWR to the ICFI. This was unacceptable to a majority of LWR members, despite overall political agreement with the IC, because of a remaining lack of clarity on certain questions, and unease over various aspects of the IC?s politics, notably the positions of the British Socialist Labour League on Ireland? (Workers Republic, April 1974). Dermot Whelan was among those who left in 1970. This group became known as the League for a Workers? Vanguard, later simply Workers? League. It was linked with the Socialist Labour League.

In the summer of that year (1970) Peter Graham left the LWR, and joined the International Marxist Group which was the British section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. Peter was shot dead in October 1971. His body was found in a flat near the corner of St. Stephen?s Green and Harcourt Street. Peter had been involved at an unspecified level with the Saor Éire Action Group, and his murder, for which no-one was ever prosecuted, was rumoured to have been linked to a Saor Éire internal dispute. (Saor Éire were principally bank robbers, and had killed a garda, Richard Fallon, in 1970 during a bank raid.)

In 1970 the Young Socialists put forward a strategy for a new socialist labour party, one that would unite revolutionary socialists on both sides of the border. The resulting organisation was the Socialist Labour Alliance (SLA), which attracted support from various individuals and groups. According to John Goodwillie, the SLA was ?largely comprised of intellectuals, who were more interested in debating socialism than in practical activities. Its ideological disputations increasingly immobilised it as an organisation, leading to an outflow of members? The situation was further confused by the Young Socialists themselves being immobilised by a struggle between the LWR and the ?Left Opposition?, later to become the Revolutionary Marxist Group. Although less pervaded by arid dogmatism, they rejected the struggles of the working class as the primary area of interest and argued instead for involvement in the student movement, in the women?s liberation movement, in the fringes of the Republican movement.?

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Aisling Ryan from Sligo got in touch and asked us to highlight a campaign that is under way there to prevent O?Connell Street being ?depedestrianised?, that is opened to traffic.

Note to Aisling, although the name on the top is Dublin Opinion, the internet doesn?t have county boundaries. Good luck with the campaign.

On Monday November 2nd, the Sligo Borough Councillors made a decision to remove all mention of the Pedestrianisation of O’Connell Street from the 2010-2015 Sligo Environmental Development Plan. This was in the face of massive public protest. The Councillors made this decision as public representatives and claiming it was in the public interest.

Sligo’s citizens, the Sligo Chamber of Commerce and traders on O’Connell Street are currently seeking the support of Minister for the Environment John Gormley to overturn this decision, which was taken illegally, against the Sligo Development plan. Although the planned date to reopen the street is early December the Councillors plan on starting work immediately. While waiting on Minister Gormley to intervene the committee assembled to protest the depedestrianisation are seeking the support of people willing to sit out in the street to prevent works taking place.

I would really appreciate if you could post a call for supporters - we’re looking for people who may be able to come to Sligo at a couple of days notice for a few hours. The coordination contact email is sligoactivism@gmail.com.

John Throne was heavily involved with the establishment of Militant Irish Monthly, the newspaper of the Militant Tendency in Ireland. It began publication in June 1973, and a copy of the first issue, as well as some information on the Militant Tendency, is available on cedarlounge here.

The interview below is part of an Irish labour and working class oral history archive, the original tapes of which will be stored with Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. John has asked me to put the interview on the web.

There is a third part to the interview, where John talks about his expulsion from the American branch of the Committee for a Workers’ International. This incident took place around 1996 and is still somewhat of a live issue. John Throne is a regular contributor to Indymedia Ireland, and often the issue of the expulsion and the Irish Socialist Party dominates the posts. Because of this, I’ve taken the decision to post the third part separately, and to leave this post to focus on the history of Militant in the 1970s, as well as John’s personal and political background.

I will be posting the third part of the interview next week.

Part one: 1940s/50s - growing up - family life - school days - Donegal Orange Order - 1960s - working life at home - emigration - Canada - merchant ships - Vietnam - growing politicization - Australia - back to Ireland - 1967/68 - Derry Labour Party - civil rights movement - Young Socialists - Paul Jones and Militant - 1970s - internment and the rise of the Provisionals - end of the Young Socialists and NI Labour Party in Derry - Socialist Labour League - Gerry Healy - the Communist Party and Roy Johnston - Workers’ Party - Stalinism and Trotskyism (48:38)

Part two: 1970s - Stalinism - working in London - the International Socialists - joining Militant - the permanent revolution and Ireland - joining Crumlin Labour Party branch - building up Militant - selling the paper - Joe Higgins - anti-coalition - Northern Ireland - family life - religious sectarianism - development as a Marxist - Young Socialists and Derry in 1968 - Militant Irish Monthly - Irish Labour Party - collapse of Communism - working class consciousness - Trotskyism (1:06:51)