An ironic feature of Sinn Fein/Republican Clubs - the Workers Party - is its title. Although it is laughable to those republicans familiar with the "Stickies", it helps to disguise their real politics.

Moves to get rid of the prefix Sinn Fein, or Republican Clubs as they are called in the North, were defeated at their 1979 Ard Fheis with some astute observations from the leadership about the electoral disadvantages of such a step.

There is much confusion about the name and politics of the party which is to their advantage. Down in North Cork, for example, Joe Sherlock has become the party's biggest votecatcher by pretending that the title means something. Recently, some of his own local committee members also took the name seriously and expressed their support for the H-Block struggle. A horrified Sherlock drew on his years of experience inside a party used to dealing with dissent and simply expelled them from the organisation.

Other dissenters are not always so lucky.

Assault

Several members who left to join the Communist Party of Ireland were assaulted with hatchets and pistols in a Dublin pub over a year ago and Hugh O'Hanlon of Moyard, Belfast was bludgeoned to death with hurley sticks by the shadowy and - according to SFWP - non-existent Official IRA.

This attitude is based on the crudest conception of the working class in modern capitalist society. Trade unionists are the working class, so the theory goes, and everybody else can jump off the nearest short pier. This amounts to a rejection of the marxist theory of Imperialism and underdevelopment.

That Ireland is not a fully developed economy is obvious. The Leninist notion of the National Question teaches that underdevelopment and the disunity of exploited countries are a direct result of Imperialist domination. Only through the confrontation and defeat of Imperialism can the people of an oppressed country achieve full democracy, and control and use of their economic resources and thus lay the groundwork, politically and economically, for socialism.

Racialist

SFWP, while claiming to be marxist, has rejected this scientific socialist theory of Imperialism and oppressed nations. Instead of blaming British Imperialism it looks inward, to Irish society itself for an explanation of underdevelopment. The three factors it identifies are the Catholic Church, rural society and nationalist ideology.

In short, they blame the Irish people for the underdeveloped nature of their country and their own oppression - a view which can only be described as racialist.

The road to Irish industrialisation, therefore, is not something that the Irish people are capable of traveling by themselves, according to the Stickies. The solution is, apparently, for Ireland to remain within the political and economic orbit of lmperialism and for an Irish Government steadily to nationalise key sectors of the economy.

How will our Government check the rapacious will of British and other multinational corporations? Easy - an elected government of SFWP technocrats will negotiate with Imperialism to ensure fair play. In just the same way fair play for Catholics under "majority" rule in the Six Counties will be guaranteed by a Bill of Rights ‹ the only plank in SFWP's programme for the North which distinguishes it from the Unionist parties.

If Irish workers were aware of precisely what SFWP stands for it would be quickly obliterated from the political map and hounded out of the union positions it has slipped into over the last few years.

But the organisation relies on two techniques to disguise its aims: stealth and fear. By means of stealth and deliberate concealment of their political and party affiliation SFWP members have infiltrated key sections of the bourgeois media and workers' organisations.

R.T.E.

The former does not, perhaps, make too much difference. The ruling class will always ensure that the media is staffed by obedient mouthpieces. This is why SFWP member Joe Mulholland is editor of RTE's current affairs programme, Today Tonight, whose coverage has managed to beat the BBC and Independent Television for pro-British bias on the present hunger strike. It also explains why Eoghan Harris is acceptable as a producer at R.T.E.

One could fill pages with accounts of the Stickies' violence - including those chronicled recently by Hibernia Magazine. Two of the paper's journalists received threats' from SFWP members complaining about exposure of the Official IRA.

I.T.G.W.U.

The main point, however, is that none of these attacks are directed at British Imperialism or its forces in the Six Counties, but are invariably against republicans and socialists.

Meanwhile the party machine and members exert tremendous energy in cultivating a socialist, non-sectarian and peaceful image.

Having ditched the concept and practice of armed struggle against Imperialism eight years ago, SFWP then steadily shed any anti-imperialist pretensions whatsoever. It has ended up by advocating majority rule in the North. Another of its views is that all farmers are reactionary. It now believes that the only sections of the Irish people worth relating to politically are the Dublin working class and the Belfast Protestant working class.

Infiltration of the trade union movement is more damaging. SFWP member Des Geraghty, has captured the editorial post of Liberty, the official newspaper of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. (His secretary, incidentally, is one Dee McGarry, another Stickie sleeper whose full-time career in the trade union movement was helped along the way via a post in the Union of Students in Ireland.

Cork

In Cork City, manipulation of the dockers section of the ITGWU by Doc Doherty has led to a split in the workforce. The most appalling aspect of the Stickies' manipulation in Cork docks is their support for the anti-union casual system, whereby men are hired and fired on each job.

This system sets the men at each other's throats.

To retain control of the Cork docks committee the Stickies are willing to countenance any type of corruption.

In 1971 Official Sinn Fein opposed the E.E.C; called for the release of political prisoners; involved itself in fisheries agitation and opposed the sell-out of the country to the multinationals. In 1980 they are in favour of the E.E.C.; they say there are no political prisoners in Ireland - only "criminals"; they have stopped all social agitation in favour of respectable respectable parliamentary politics and they now back the sell-out of the country to the multinationals.

In 1973 the Stickies demanded the release of all political prisoners. Now they call those prisoners "criminals" and support their imprisonment.