The Workers' Party () is an Irish republican, Marxist–Leninist communist party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The party can be considered a direct descendant of the original Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It took its current form in 1970 following a division within Sinn Féin, in which the majority faction followed the leadership in a Marxist direction. It was known as Sinn Féin (Gardiner Place) or Official Sinn Féin, to distinguish it from the minority faction of "Sinn Féin (Kevin Street)" or "Provisional Sinn Féin". It changed its name from Sinn Féin to Sinn Féin The Workers' Party in 1977 and then to the Workers' Party in 1982. Both groups were tied to corresponding paramilitary groups, with Official Sinn Féin tied to the Official Irish Republican Army.

The party reached its electoral peak in the Republic of Ireland at the 1989 general election, winning seven TDs. In 1992, following disputes over ideology, party organisation and alleged links to the Official IRA, six of its seven TDs left to form Democratic Left, which merged with the Labour Party in 1999. The continuing Workers' Party retained its Marxist–Leninist orientation. It has since operated on a smaller scale, retaining local representation for periods but failing to regain representation in Dáil Éireann. A further split occurred in 2021, when a group led by Ted Tynan broke away and continued using the Workers' Party name.

Name In 1971, it registered to contest Dáil and local elections in the Republic of Ireland under the name Sinn Féin. From the early to mid-1970s, it was known as Official Sinn Féin or Sinn Féin (Gardiner Place) to distinguish it from the rival offshoot Provisional Sinn Féin, or Sinn Féin (Kevin Street). Gardiner Place had symbolic power as the headquarters of Sinn Féin for decades before the 1970 split.

At its Ardfheis in January 1977, Official Sinn Féin renamed itself Sinn Féin – The Workers' Party. Its first seats in Dáil Éireann were won under this new name. A motion at the 1979 Ardfheis to remove the Sinn Féin prefix from the party name was narrowly defeated. This change would come about three years later.

In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin was organised under the name Republican Clubs to avoid a ban on Sinn Féin candidates (introduced in 1964 under Northern Ireland's Emergency Powers Act). The Officials continued to use this name after 1970, and later used the name Workers' Party Republican Clubs. In 1982, both the northern and southern sections of the party became The Workers' Party.

The Workers' Party is sometimes referred to as the "Sticks" or "Stickies" because in the 1970s it used adhesive stickers for the Easter Lily emblem in its 1916 commemorations, whereas Provisional Sinn Féin used a pin for theirs.

History

Origins

The modern origins of the party date from the early 1960s. After the failure of the then IRA's 1956–1962 border campaign, the republican movement, with a new military and political leadership, undertook a complete reappraisal of its .The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party, Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, Through the 1960s, some leading figures in the movement, such as Cathal Goulding, Seán Garland, Billy McMillen, Tomás Mac Giolla, moved steadily to the left, even to Marxism, as a result of their own reading and thinking and contacts with the Irish and international left. This angered more traditional republicans, who wanted to stick to the national question and armed struggle. Also involved in this debate was the Connolly Association.Patterns of Betrayal: the flight from Socialism, Workers' Party pamphlet, Repsol Ltd, Dublin, May 1992, page 74 This group's analysis saw the primary obstacle to Irish unity as the continuing division between the Protestant and Catholic working classes. This it attributed to the "divide and rule" policies of capitalism, whose interests were served by the working classes remaining divided. Military activity was seen as counterproductive, because its effect was to further entrench sectarian divisions. The left-wing faction believed the working classes could be united in class struggle to overthrow their common rulers, with a 32-county socialist republic being the inevitable outcome.

However, this Marxist outlook became unpopular with many of the more traditionalist republicans, and the party/army leadership was criticised for failing to defend northern Catholic enclaves from loyalist attacks (these debates took place against the background of the violent beginning of what would be termed the Troubles). A growing minority within the rank-and-file wanted to maintain traditional militarist policies aimed at ending British rule in Northern Ireland. An equally contentious issue involved whether to or not to continue with the policy of abstentionism, that is, the refusal of elected representatives to take their seats in British or Irish legislatures. A majority of the leadership favoured abandoning this policy.

A group consisting of Seán Mac Stiofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Seamus Twomey, and others, established themselves as a "Provisional Army Council" in 1969 in anticipation of a contentious 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (delegate conference). At the Ard Fheis, the leadership of Sinn Féin failed to attain the required two-thirds majority to change the party's position on abstentionism. The debate was charged with allegations of vote-rigging and expulsions. When the Ard Fheis went on to pass a vote of confidence in the official Army Council (which had already approved an end to the abstentionist policy), Ruairí Ó Brádaigh led the minority in a walk-out,Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years, Brian Feeney, O'Brien Press, Dublin 2002, pg. 250-1, Sinn Féin: A Century of Struggle, Parnell Publications, Mícheál MacDonncha, 2005, and went to a prearranged meeting in Parnell Square where they announced the establishment of a "caretaker" executive of Sinn Féin.The Lost Revolution: The Story of The Official IRA and The Workers' Party, Brian Hanley & Scott Millar, Penguin Ireland (2009), p.146 The dissident council became known as the "Provisional Army Council" and its party and military wing as Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA, while those remaining became known as Official Sinn Féin and the Official IRA.Richard Sinnott (1995), Irish Voters Decide: Voting behaviour in elections and referendums since 1918, Manchester University Press, p.59 Official Sinn Féin, under the leadership of Tomás Mac Giolla, remained aligned to Goulding's Official IRA.The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party, Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, pp. 286–336

A key factor in the split was the desire of those who became the Provisionals to make military action the key object of the organisation, rather than a simple rejection of leftism.Stephen Collins, The Power Game: Fianna Fáil since Lemass, , p. 61 The pre-split leadership, they stated, had attempted to replace the programme of Wolfe Tone and James Connolly with "the foreign socialism of Marx and Mao". If this had gone unchecked, their argument went, the "traditional" IRA would have been replaced by the “so-called National Liberation Movement”, including Communist Party members.

In 1977, Official Sinn Féin ratified the party's new name—"Sinn Féin The Workers' Party"—without dissension.The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party, Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, p. 336 According to Richard Sinnott, this "symbolism" was completed in April 1982 when the party became simply the Workers' Party.

Political development OIRA ceasefire

Although the Official IRA became drawn into the spiralling violence of the early period of conflict in Northern Ireland, it almost immediately reduced its military campaign against the United Kingdom's armed presence in Northern Ireland, declaring a permanent ceasefire in May 1972. Following this, the movement's political development increased rapidly throughout the 1970s.

On the national question, the Officials saw the struggle against religious sectarianism and bigotry as their primary task. The party's strategy stemmed from the "stages theory": firstly, working-class unity within Northern Ireland had to be achieved, followed by the establishment of a united Ireland, and finally a socialist society would be created in Ireland.See Swan,(pgs 303,330) and Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The Lost Revolution, 2009 (pgs. 220, 256–7).

IRSP/INLA split and feud In 1974, the Official Republican Movement split over the ceasefire and the direction of the organisation. This led to the formation of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) with Seamus Costello (whom the Official IRA had expelled) as its chairperson. Also formed on the same day was IRSP's paramilitary wing, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). A number of tit-for-tat killings occurred in a subsequent feud until a truce was agreed in 1977.

In 1977, the party published a document called the Irish Industrial Revolution. Written by Eoghan Harris and Eamon Smullen, it outlined the party's economic stance and declared that the ongoing violence in Northern Ireland was "distracting working class attention from the class struggle to a mythical national question". The policy document used Marxist terminology: it identified US imperialism as the now-dominant political and economic force in the southern state and attacked the failure of the national bourgeoisie to develop Ireland as a modern economic power.The Politics of Illusion: A Political History of the I.R.A. by Henry Patterson, (1997) and Official Irish Republicanism by Swan.

The pamphlet advocated rapid industrial development through state investment, with state companies taking a leading role in most industries. It envisaged Irish products competing in international markets and proposed creating 330,000 public-sector jobs and 81,000 private-sector jobs by 1986.

Official Sinn Féin gravitated towards Marxism-Leninism and became fiercely critical of the physical force Irish republicanism still espoused by Provisional Sinn Féin. Its new approach to the Northern conflict was typified by the slogan it would adopt: "Peace, Democracy, Class Politics". It aimed to replace sectarian politics with a class struggle which would unite Catholic and Protestant workers. The slogan's echo of Vladimir Lenin's "Peace, Bread, Land" was indicative of the party's new source of inspiration. Official Sinn Féin also built up fraternal relations with the USSR and with socialist, workers' and communist parties around the world.

In the late 1970s, Sinn Féin the Workers' Party campaigned for tax reform to reduce the burden on PAYE workers. Its 1978 pamphlet, Come On the Taxpayers!, called for stronger tax enforcement and greater contributions from farmers, the self-employed and businesses. Party-aligned shop stewards helped press for strike action at Dublin Airport during the 1979 tax protests.

Throughout the 1980s, the party came to staunchly oppose republican political violence, controversially to the point of recommending cooperating with British security forces. They were one of the few organisations on the left of Irish politics to oppose the INLA/Provisional IRA 1981 Irish hunger strike.