The CPI defied its own Constitution (Part 2)
In Part 1, HERE we responded to a comment that we are not specific enough in our posts on matters related to the Communist Party of Ireland by publishing a list of breaches of the CPI Constitution by the Party leadership.
In Part 2 we take a look at the fallout from those breaches.
We recognise how difficult it is for the CPI to operate and the various forces and interests that stand in the way of progress. However, there is no excuse for the CPI to bring itself into disrepute – and keeping it in that state.
We understand that a party can unintentionally be brought into disrepute. We do not understand nor accept such an occurrence being continued without every possible means being explored to rectify or even escape such an occurrence.
Only a party without ambition, a party without hope, would fail to consider its position in such a circumstance in relation to how its future development and its possibility of gaining influence would be impacted. Having a heap of skeletons in its cupboard that would inevitably be unleashed by hostile forces precisely at a point when the Party started to make an impact is political suicide.
The fact that the CPI has never grasped the concepts of planning, strategy and organisation is reflected in the current state of the Party. In the good old days, the leadership could exercise its ‘creative management’ of internal problems or conflicts using whatever means it wanted to, safe in the knowledge that the chances of any repercussions were slim. What happened in the Party stayed in the Party.
As always, the Partys’ failure to adapt to its surroundings, internally and externally, left it open to a backlash, and when such a backlash eventually and inevitably occurred, the Party was not equipped to deal with it. Indeed, in a short period of time the backlash turned into backlashes and the game was up.
Once again, the Party had no idea how to handle the new reality. Its ‘creative management’ proved no match to members (now former members), first standing their ground and then challenging the decisions of the various levels of the leadership.
The ‘clever’ solutions turned out to be dumb – and dumber. Even when the repercussions became both obvious and public, the leadership found itself reacting like the proverbial rabbit – stunned by the headlights.
Even most rabbits get round to taking some evasive actions and even learn something from the experience. But, not the CPI! No, the CPI is standing its ground still believing that it could not be hit. But, it has been hit – there was a split in the Party and then Guerrilla Communists started to challenge the Party publicly.
When issues or problems or differences of opinion are not properly accommodated within the Party and when those with the issues are forced out of the Party, it is stupid for the leadership not to consider the possibility that the members who were not allowed to resolve things within the Party might continue from outside the Party.
Above all, the leadership – at every level and over long periods of time – failed to consider what would happen if expelled members or members driven out of the Party by bullying, etc decided to continue their rejection of the undemocratic diktats from outside the Party. Only when that possibility became a reality did the Party understand that it had now lost all control over the various situations.
Frankly, that was stupidity at its best, or worst. Using brute force and assumed powers that had no real energy against members determined not to be intimidated proved only to be a sticking plaster within the Party. However, once the issues reemerged outside the Party, all control had been lost. And remains lost.
Expelled members and others have chosen different routes to challenge the Party. The outcome for the CPI is that it not only remains stunned by the headlights but it is now so badly injured that it is unable to defend itself, unable to answer a single question put to it, unable to rectify any of the decisions it made to get itself into such a calamitous, self-imposed stalemate.
The various positions we have published are backed by what we believe is indisputable recorded evidence. Of course, any evidence could be disputed, could be proved false or unfounded or otherwise. However, our evidence has not been subjected to any test whatsoever and all we can do is ask our readers and the CPI to reflect on that reality. Silence on the part of the CPI is not an answer – but it clearly exposes the utter impotency and helplessness of its current state and particularly of its current leadership.
That is what happens when a party has no direction, has ineffective leadership, believes in its own exceptionalism, ignores or blatantly manipulates its own rules and even its Constitution and operates in a parallel world of cultish obedience and make-believe.
Part 3 will sum up the current state of the CPI