In July, 1973 Adams was interned
without trial in Cage 6 of Long Kesh Internment Camp where he partook in several escape
attempts and was sentenced to four and a half years for his efforts. He was imprisoned in Cage 11
in Long Kesh where he became Officer in Command of the IRA prisoners. During this period Adams
began contributing the influential 'Brownie' column to An Phoblacht/Republican News.
Adams was released from Long Kesh in 1977 and immediately resumed his Sinn Féin activities.
In 1978 he was charged with membership of the IRA and remanded to Crumlin Road Gaol and
Long Kesh for eight months before his trial when the case was dropped due to
insubstantial evidence.
At the 1978 Sinn Féin Ard Dheis Adams was elected Vice-President of Sinn Féin. In 1982 he
was elected to, but abstained from, the Northern Ireland Assembly. In 1983 Adams was
elected to Westminster for West Belfast on an abstentionist platform. In the same year he
was elected President of Sinn Féin. In March, 1984 Adams survived a UFF assassination
attempt.
In 1986 Adams was among those on the Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle who advocated contesting
elections in the Republic of Ireland which lead to a split in Sinn Féin and the
establishment of Republican Sinn Féin.
In 1988 and again in 1993 Adams lead Sinn Féin in negotiations with the SDLP which
culminated in their Joint Declaration for Peace. Following the IRA cease-fires of 1994 and
1996 Adams, together with other members of Sinn Féin, including
Gerry Kelly,
partook in negotiations to establish a new assembly at Stormont, culminating in the
Good Friday Agreement, 1998 and the creation of the Northern Ireland Leglislative Assembly.
Adams has published Falls Memories (1982); The Politics of Irish Freedom (1987);
A Pathway to Peace (1989); Cage 11 (1990); Who Fears to Speak? (1991);
The Street and Other Stories (1993); Before the Dawn (1997); Selected
Writings (1997) and has edited a
volume of work by Bobby Sands (1998).
The extract below is from Adams'
'Scenario for
establishing a Socialist Republic' first published in An Phoblacht April 19th, 1980.©
Many Republicans appear to have a rather simplistic, some would say elitist, attitude about
the manner in which a socialist Republic will be established in Ireland. The most popular
scenario - fortunately not as readily accepted now as it was a few years ago - appears to
go something like this.
Phase 1: The IRA's armed struggle in the six counties will succeed in bringing the British
to the conference table and will secure a Declaration of Withdrawal (or a declaration of
the British Government's intention to withdraw).
Phase 2: In the interim, or perhaps the post-withdrawal period, Republicans will either
talk with, or fight with Loyalists. Indeed, Republicans may have to do both if the
situation so develops. Eventually, however, the Loyalists (robbed of the British prop) will
see sense and come to terms with the new situation.
Phase 3: A National Irish Convention representative of all political opinions and
loyalities will be held. Republicans, flushed with the IRA's successful achievement of
British withdrawal, will win a significant electoral victory and will then establish a
socialist Republic for the people. This then is the popular, if hazy, and now, thankfully,
debated, projection of the way in which peace (with justice) will be achieved.
Let us examine it in some detail.
Phase 1: That the IRA on its own will secure a British
withdrawal. It is possible and indeed probable, given the present conditions, that the IRA
will eventually secure a withdrawal. However, given all the factors involved, this
development is not likely to come for some considerable time and given the IRA's present
reliance on its military 'strength', and because of the real lack of a comparable political
movement, it is most likely that the British will succeed in withdrawing in circumstances
and conditions most suitable to their own long term interests and to imperialist interests
in general.
Phase 2: Loyalism will be shaken by the removal of the British prop and sectors of Loyalist
opinion may accept that their future is best served in a Brit-less Ireland. However, other
sections will fight. In fact initially they may all fight. Undoubtedly there will be strong
resistance to a United Ireland. How sustained this resistance will be depends on too many
factors and cannot be accurately assessed at this time. At least two major developments are
possible: - A Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) type affecting perhaps 4 counties
and /or Loyalists negotiating from a position of some strength (and possibly under one
leadership) at the proposed Irish Convention.
Phase 3: Given that the Convention involves all organised political opinion, Republicans
will be in a minority, opposed by Loyalists and a whole range of compromised, or
compromising, nationalists of SDLP [Social, Democratic and Labour Party] and Free State
government types.
If the Loyalists have at this stage accepted the fact that Britain is going or has gone,
and if they are intent only on securing the best deal possible within a Britless Ireland -
without recourse to a UDI situation - they will undoubtedly go for, and secure, some federal
or confederal arrangement.
Phase 4: Elections, albeit national elections, to this government arrangement will see
Republicans contending against united conservative forces of a Finn Gael complexion, linked
nationalist forces (also conservative) of a Fianna Fail complexion and Loyalist forces
(in at least 4 counties). Also, a Fianna Fail type party will almost certainly be organised
nationally. This will leave Republicans, notwithstanding their military success, with the
radical rump of Ireland's political life, a rump incidentally which will be furiously
contested by other left wing parties.
Republicans will then be left in a minority position (again!) within the United/Federal
non-socialist Ireland which they fought so hard to free. One factor, of course, is missing
from what I have just outlined and that is the response from the majority of the Irish
people to a radical Republican Movement. It is conceivable that this response could be a
positive one.
I omitted this development because we have not, yet, got a radical movement capable of
building for, or of meeting, such a response. Are Republicans building towards such a
movement or, have they even commenced trying to understand how, or why, such a movement
could, or should be built?
There are then two factors which emerge from an examination of any projected scenario for
British withdrawal as a means towards establishing a socialist Republic. These are, clearly,
the need for a strong political movement and the need to secure a withdrawal in
circumstances and conditions most favourable to such a movement.
Paradoxically one cannot be achieved without the other. In summary, we can go nowhere, nor
achieve anything meaningful without building a strong radical Republican Movement. Also,
even with such a movement, Republicans, given even the most favourable conditions, cannot
simply establish a socialist Republic on their own and then hand it over to the people.
They can only with the people - create conditions in which the people themselves can
mobilise and establish control and they can encourage and educate towards such developments.
With just such a strong political movement Phase 1 (British Declaration of Intent) becomes
at least more certain and the time needed to secure it becomes considerably shorter. That
is, a British withdrawal can be secured more quickly and in more favourable conditions if
it is achieved not only because of the IRA's military thrust but also because resistance to
British rule has been channeled and built into an alternative political movement capable
not only of articulating the Republican position but also being representative of all those
with a commitment to a socialist Republic.
Furthermore, if such a strong radical Republican Movement can be truly representative of
the interests and the thinking of the working-class people, of the rural communities and
small farmers, then the influence of Free State government factions and of SDLP types
becomes diminished.
Therefore, the conditions and circumstances of British withdrawal can be organised in the
interest of Irish people and not to the advantage of the British Government or imperialist
interests.
And Loyalists, already destabilised by the effects of such a withdrawal, are more likely to
come more quickly to terms with their new position if faced with an honest, principled and
truly representative opposition than they would if 'opposed' only by a bunch of compromised
parties and a minority Republican group.
Phase 4 (National elections) if feasible at all as a way of providing the means by which
socialism can be established, is only viable from a Republican position if those
representing such a radical Republican Movement as envisaged here, secure majority support
in government. Once again, such support can only be achieved by building up such a
political movement.© An Phoblacht/Republican News.
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