New Year message to CPI leadership
We are prompted to address this new year message directly to the leadership – recent past and present – of the Communist Party of Ireland in response to yet another rehashed and uninspiring New Year message published in the Party website.
A short review
More than three years ago you decided to purge a few itches in the form of a large number of members who, for various reasons, found themselves unable to accept the malicious and persistent breaches of internal rules and procedures, among other issues. You used illegitimate means to address the itches, and eventually you were successful in expelling or otherwise excluding the selected members.
However, while in the past such methods were successful in stopping any itching, the unexpected happened: most of those excluded members declined to meekly accept their fate and the itching continued though this time you could not find any relief.
Some expelled members went on to form a new communist party while others choose to organise in Guerrilla Communists. The Connolly Youth Movement (CYM), a long-time close affiliate, went its own way.
Consequences
Whatever about the response of the excluded members – whether their individual or collective responses were valid or otherwise, there is no question about the consequences for the CPI in the wake of its illigitimate purge of members to manage internal difficulties.
You found yourselves exposed to having to handle issues over which you had relinquished all control or influence.
And having used illegitimate ways to achieve this outstanding success you retreated in total denial mode, paralysed to total helplessness and unable to mount a single defence to any of the accusations made against you.
We are aware that at least one former member has made repeated attempts to have your decisions re-examined and has offered a number of possible ways to try to resolve the outstanding issues. You have refused all overtures and refused to correct the obvious errors in your initial judgements and procedures.
Your initial handling of the expulsions/exclusions exposed your amateurish management and leadership ‘skills’. However, mistakes can be rectified but instead you have dug your heels in and refused to even explore what opportunities may have existed.
Head-in-the-sand standoff
Going into a fourth year of this head-in-the-sand standoff isn’t very clever. As we have pointed out before, past indefensible actions, unless corrected and repudiated, remain current indefensible actions. The longer it takes to rectify those actions the harder it is to achieve any success.
A point will shortly be reached where it will not be possible to achieve any rectification of obvious, let’s call them, miscarriages of justice.
Even if some rectification is achieved it will then be legitimate to ask why it took so long to address such obvious and indefensible errors.
Leadership responsibilities
As we pointed out recently HERE there can be no progress in the Party until your skeletons have been given a decent burial. You, the current and past leadership, have the responsibility and the duty to clean up your mess. When that has been done successfully then you should immediately resign all your positions, preferably get out of the Party altogether, and allow a new leadership to emerge with a clean sheet to start with.
Do not put your personal embarrassment before the necessity to build an effective communist party.
Start this new year with courage and hope. Courage to acknowledge your personal and collective responsibilities not just for the state you left the Party in but also courage to recognise your requirement to correct those calamitous errors.
Only when that has been achieved successfully can the members of the Party and the working class as a whole find a glimmer of hope for the future development of the CPI.
Have you got it in you?