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Eoghan Harris

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229-478: Eoghan Harris (born 13 March 1943) is an Irish journalist, columnist, director, and former politician. He has held posts in various and diverse political parties. He was a leading theoretician in the Marxist-Leninist Workers' Party (previously Official Sinn Féin). Harris was a fierce critic of Provisional Sinn Féin , from which they had split, and became an opponent of Irish republicanism . For much of

458-484: A troika that featured Stalin as General Secretary, the de facto centre of power in the party and the country. The direction of the party was decided in confrontations of politics and personality between Stalin's troika and Trotsky over which Marxist policy to pursue, either Trotsky's policy of permanent revolution or Stalin's policy of socialism in one country . Trotsky's permanent revolution advocated rapid industrialisation, elimination of private farming and having

687-491: A " tribal time bomb" and writing "if she wins not on a technicality but because so many people gave her their number one, then I am living in a country I no longer understand." McAleese won, and Harris later expressed regret for his sentiments and praised her presidency. Harris in the mid-2000s began endorsing the centrist, populist Fianna Fáil, which was in a coalition government with the Progressive Democrats . Harris

916-480: A 4 April Eoghan Harris column in the Sunday Independent . On 7 May 2021 Twitter announced that a further eight accounts linked to "Barbara J. Pym" had been suspended. Twitter announced that the accounts had breached "policy on platform manipulation and spam". Harris's ex-wife, Anne Harris , was formerly editor of the Sunday Independent . In December 2007, Harris married Gwendoline Halley, from Waterford . He

1145-587: A controversial incident that had made the news, wherein a female reporter from RTÉ had allegedly been groped by an inebriated Fianna Fáil TD . Its catchphrase Úna gan a gúna ("Úna without her dress" in Irish ) was deemed sexist and demeaning to a victim of alleged improper conduct. Harris, along with fellow Sunday Independent columnist Eamon Dunphy , became an outspoken critic of Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume over Hume's decision to hold talks with Sinn Féin prior to an IRA ceasefire. Harris urged

1374-618: A country with "a smaller, more dynamic and more responsive political system" by reducing the size of the Dáil by 20, changing the way the Dáil works, and by abolishing the Irish senate, Seanad Éireann . The question of whether to abolish the Seanad or not was put to a referendum in 2013 , with voters voting 51% to 49% to retain bicameralism in Ireland. The Irish health system , being administered centrally by

1603-504: A fake Twitter account, under the name "Barbara J. Pym". The account had been set up in February 2020. The editor, Alan English, described his position as "untenable", saying that "Regardless of where they stand on any issue, we expect our writers to put their views across in a transparent manner. Readers can agree or disagree with these opinions. We will not, however, tolerate hidden agendas." Irish Examiner journalist Aoife Moore stated that

1832-520: A high degree of centralised control by the state and Communist party , political repression , state atheism , collectivisation and use of labour camps , as well as free universal education and healthcare , low unemployment and lower prices for certain goods . Historians such as Silvio Pons and Robert Service stated that the repression and totalitarianism came from Marxist–Leninist ideology. Historians such as Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick have offered other explanations and criticise

2061-581: A historic coalition government with its traditional rival, Fianna Fáil, and the Green Party , with Simon Harris serving as Taoiseach since April 2024. Fine Gael was created in 1933 following the merger of three political organisations; Cumann na nGaedhael (CnaG) led by W. T. Cosgrave , the National Centre Party led by Frank MacDermot and James Dillon , and the National Guard (better known as

2290-652: A massive urbanisation in the country. Unemployment was virtually eliminated in the country during the 1930s. However, this rapid industrialisation also resulted in the Soviet famine of 1930–1933 that killed millions. Social developments in the Soviet Union included the relinquishment of the relaxed social control and allowance of experimentation under Lenin to Stalin's promotion of a rigid and authoritarian society based upon discipline, mixing traditional Russian values with Stalin's interpretation of Marxism. Organised religion

2519-569: A mobile phone license to Esat Telecom by Michael Lowry when he was Fine Gael Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications in the Rainbow Coalition of the mid-1990s. Lowry resigned from the Cabinet after it was revealed at the Moriarty Tribunal that businessman Ben Dunne had paid for an IR£395,000 extension to Lowry's County Tipperary home. Lowry, now an independent TD , supported

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2748-762: A model for later Soviet-type regimes; its global influence, having at its height covered at least one-third of the world's population, has made Marxist–Leninist a convenient label for the Communist bloc as a dynamic ideological order. Historiography of Marxist–Leninist states is polarised. According to John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr , historiography is characterised by a split between traditionalists and revisionists. "Traditionalists", who characterise themselves as objective reporters of an alleged totalitarian nature of communism and Marxist–Leninist states, are criticised by their opponents as being anti-communist , even fascist , in their eagerness on continuing to focus on

2977-459: A new meaning since the Russian Revolution , as they became equivalent to the ideas of Marxism–Leninism, namely the interpretation of Marxism by Vladimir Lenin and his successors. Endorsing the final objective, namely the creation of a community-owning means of production and providing each of its participants with consumption " according to their needs ", Marxism–Leninism puts forward

3206-746: A number of CnaG TDs , including Thomas F. O'Higgins . In early 1933, Eoin O'Duffy took over the ACA, renamed them the National Guard, and began instilling the organisation with elements of European fascism . However, in August 1933 the Fianna Fáil government banned the National Guard, fearing a planned parade in Dublin might be an attempt to emulate the March on Rome , which saw Benito Mussolini rise to power in Italy. In September 1933,

3435-489: A political ideology which Harris later said he abhorred. During the 1970 split of the movement into Provisional Sinn Féin and Official Sinn Féin, he was close to leading Official Sinn Féin members Eamonn Smullen and Cathal Goulding , the latter of whom was at the time Chief of Staff of the paramilitary Official Irish Republican Army . Alongside Smullen, who had spent many years in British prisons for IRA activities, Harris worked in

3664-596: A preference for postmaterialist values. Fine Gael supported civil unions for same-sex couples from 2003, voting for the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Bill 2010 . In 2012, the party approved a motion at its Ardfheis to prioritise the consideration of same-sex marriage in the upcoming constitutional convention. In 2013, party leader and Taoiseach Enda Kenny declared his support for same-sex marriage. The Fine Gael–led government held

3893-426: A pro-enterprise point of view. Its fairer budget website in 2011 suggested that its solutions are "tough but fair". Other solutions conform generally to conservative governments' policies throughout Europe, focusing on cutting numbers in the public sector, while maintaining investment in infrastructure. Fine Gael's proposals have sometimes been criticised mostly by smaller political groupings in Ireland, and by some of

4122-400: A proponent of economic liberalism than its traditional rival, Fianna Fáil . Fine Gael describes itself as a "party of the progressive centre" which it defines as acting "in a way that is right for Ireland, regardless of dogma or ideology". It lists its core values as " equality of opportunity , free enterprise and reward, security, integrity and hope." In international politics, the party

4351-410: A referendum on the subject on 22 May 2015. The referendum passed, with the electorate voting to extend full marriage rights to same-sex couples, with 62.1% in favour and 37.9% opposed. In 2015, months before the marriage equality referendum , Leo Varadkar became the first Irish government minister to come out as gay. In May 2019, former Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh , was elected as a Fine Gael MEP for

4580-630: A reinforcement of proletarian revolution in Europe. In 1912, Lenin resolved a factional challenge to his ideological leadership of the RSDLP by the Forward Group in the party, usurping the all-party congress to transform the RSDLP into the Bolshevik party. In the early 1910s, Lenin remained highly unpopular and was so unpopular amongst international socialist movement that by 1914 it considered censoring him. Unlike

4809-534: A rise in support for the Government. Harris also claimed that other newspapers, namely The Irish Times and The Irish Daily Mail waged an anti-Ahern campaign. All other news outlets dismissed the claim, with most accusing Harris and the Sunday Independent of doing its own U-turn following a Cowen-O'Reilly meeting. The paper had previously been highly critical of Ahern's failure to reform stamp duty, but after

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5038-485: A service in Ireland more akin to the Canadian , German , Dutch and Austrian health systems . Fine Gael's current healthcare policy revolves around the implementation of Sláintecare , a cross-party plan for the reform of the Irish health system. Sláintecare is focused on introducing "a universal single-tiered health service, which guarantees access based on need, not income… through Universal Health Insurance". Fine Gael

5267-851: A successful revolution occurred in Asia, when the Mongolian Revolution of 1921 established the Mongolian People's Republic (1924–1992). The percentage of Bolshevik delegates in the All-Russian Congress of Soviets increased from 13%, at the first congress in July 1917, to 66%, at the fifth congress in 1918. As promised to the Russian peoples in October 1917, the Bolsheviks quit Russia's participation in

5496-453: A version of Korean ultranationalism , which eventually developed after losing its original Marxist–Leninist elements. According to North Korea: A Country Study by Robert L. Worden, Marxism–Leninism was abandoned immediately after the start of de-Stalinisation in the Soviet Union and has been totally replaced by Juche since at least 1974. Daniel Schwekendiek wrote that what made North Korean Marxism–Leninism distinct from that of China and

5725-483: A voice that we would all miss if it was forced to be quiet for too long". Marxist-Leninist Marxism–Leninism ( Russian : Марксизм-Ленинизм , romanized :  Marksizm-Leninizm ) is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution . It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout

5954-478: A way to enhance energy security and the digital reputation of Ireland. A very broad-ranging document, it proposed the combined management of a portfolio of semi-state assets, and the sale of all other, non-essential services. The release of equity through the sale of the various state resources, including electricity generation services belonging to the ESB , Bord na Móna and Bord Gáis , in combination with use of money in

6183-487: A year and suggesting Ireland needed a "fundamental rethink" of its security approach. Since Brexit , Fine Gael has taken a strong pro-European stance, stating that Ireland's place is "at the heart of Europe". In government, the party has launched the "Global Ireland" plan to develop alliances with other small countries across Europe and the world. Fine Gael is a founding member of the European People's Party (EPP),

6412-527: Is "new historians of American communism", but that has not caught on because these historians describe themselves as unbiased and scholarly and contrast their work to the work of anti-communist traditionalists whom they would term biased and unscholarly. Academic Sovietology after World War II and during the Cold War was dominated by the "totalitarian model" of the Soviet Union, stressing the absolute nature of Stalin's power. The "revisionist school" beginning in

6641-595: Is also involved in screenwriting work. He lectures at IADT Dún Laoghaire and teaches a screenwriting workshop. Harris was born in Douglas, County Cork , a village on the outskirts of Cork city , on 13 March 1943. He was educated at Presentation Brothers College , and subsequently at University College Cork (UCC), where he studied English and History. In the Cork Mid by-election in March 1965 he campaigned for Sylvester Cotter, who

6870-641: Is among the most pro- European integration parties in Ireland, having supported the European Constitution , the Lisbon Treaty , and advocating participation in European common defence. The party have been supportive of NATO . In 1998, party leader John Bruton called on Ireland to join the NATO-led Partnership for Peace . The party's youth wing, Young Fine Gael , passed a motion in 2016 calling on

7099-494: Is an atheist. Harris has had prostate cancer . Writing in the 3 May 2020 edition of the Sunday Independent , Harris stated that his cancer had returned. Harris had written his previous column from an emergency department in a Dublin hospital. Sworn enemies wished him well, with Fergus Finlay writing in the Irish Examiner : "Eoghan Harris’s self-aggrandisement might drive me nuts at times, but contrary as he is, his would be

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7328-458: Is an empty term that depends on the approach and basis of ruling Communist parties, and is dynamic and open to redefinition, being both fixed and not fixed in meaning. As a term, "Marxism–Leninism" is misleading because Marx and Lenin never sanctioned or supported the creation of an -ism after them, and is reveling because, being popularized after Lenin's death by Stalin, it contained three clear doctrinal and institutionalized principles that became

7557-463: Is commemorated each year in August. Although Fine Gael was historically a Catholic party, it became the de facto home for Irish Protestants. Its membership base had a higher proportion of Protestants than that of Fianna Fáil or Labour. The party promoted a strong Catholic image and depicted itself as a defender of Catholicism against Atheistic Communism , of which it accused the two aforementioned parties of being sympathetic to. Fine Gael adopted

7786-509: Is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil Éireann . The party had a membership of 25,000 in 2021. Simon Harris succeeded Leo Varadkar as party leader on 24 March 2024. Fine Gael was founded on 8 September 1933 following the merger of its parent party Cumann na nGaedheal , the National Centre Party and the Blueshirts . Its origins lie in

8015-615: Is highly supportive of the European Union , along with generally supporting strengthened relations with the United Kingdom and opposition to physical force Irish republicanism . The party's autonomous youth wing, Young Fine Gael (YFG), was formed in 1977. Having governed in coalition with the Labour Party between 2011 and 2016, and in a minority government along with Independent TDs from 2016 to 2020, Fine Gael currently forms part of

8244-452: Is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. The claim that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions evolved into the idea that he had updated it in a fundamental way applying to the world as a whole. Consequently, Mao Zedong Thought became the official state ideology of the People's Republic of China as well as

8473-470: Is so great that we cannot, at one stroke, restore full-scale factory, state, socialist production." He added that the development of socialism would proceed according to the actual material and socio-economic conditions in Russia and not as abstractly described by Marx for industrialised Europe in the 19th century. To overcome the lack of educated Russians who could operate and administrate industry, Lenin advocated

8702-510: Is superior to Stalin only in one respect, namely, in being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, and more attentive to comrades." Upon his death on 21 January 1924, Lenin's political testament was read aloud to the Central Committee, who chose to ignore Lenin's ordered removal of Stalin as General Secretary because enough members believed Stalin had been politically rehabilitated in 1923. Consequent to personally spiteful disputes about

8931-537: Is the Prix Futura, awarded at the Berlin Television Festival. He has since corrected the mistake. Harris has written in the Sunday Independent about Misplaced Pages , an online encyclopedia . He is a judge on the Irish language talent show Glas Vegas , on TG4 . On 6 May 2021 it was announced that his contract with the Sunday Independent had been terminated: this action was taken after he admitted using

9160-440: Is the ideology of the ruling parties of China , Cuba , Laos and Vietnam (all one-party socialist republics ), as well as many other communist parties . The state ideology of North Korea is derived from Marxism–Leninism, although its evolution is disputed. Marxist–Leninist states are commonly referred to as " communist states " by Western academics. Marxism–Leninism was developed from Bolshevism by Joseph Stalin in

9389-401: Is thought, by some, to have been significant in the rebranding of Robinson, just how influential he was, remains a matter of much controversy. Robinson and her campaign team blamed him for a near-fatal change in tactics: having previously been non-combative in dealing with the controversies that had engulfed the recently dismissed Tánaiste Brian Lenihan , Harris pressured Robinson into going on

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9618-506: The 14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) chose Stalin's policy, defeating Trotsky as a possible leader of the party and of the Soviet Union. In the 1925–1927 period, Stalin dissolved the troika and disowned the centrist Kamenev and Zinoviev for an expedient alliance with the three most prominent leaders of the so-called Right Opposition , namely Alexei Rykov ( Premier of Russia , 1924–1929; Premier of

9847-482: The 1934 local elections and concerns over his increasingly rabid rhetoric, O'Duffy resigned from the leadership after the party attempted to control what he said in public. He was replaced by W. T. Cosgrave, with James Dillon becoming deputy leader. O'Duffy attempted to regain control of the Blueshirts, but was rebuffed by the majority of them, who chose to stay with Fine Gael. Under the stewardship of Cosgrave and Dillon,

10076-593: The Axis powers , the native communist party usually led the armed resistance ( guerrilla warfare and urban guerrilla warfare ) against fascist military occupation. In Mediterranean Europe, the communist Yugoslav Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito effectively resisted the German Nazi and Italian Fascist occupation. In the 1943–1944 period, the Yugoslav Partisans liberated territories with Red Army assistance and established

10305-668: The Bavarian Soviet Republic . In Hungary, the disorganised workers who had proclaimed the Hungarian Soviet Republic were fought and defeated by the royal armies of the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as well as the army of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia . These communist forces were soon crushed by anti-communist forces and attempts to create an international communist revolution failed. However,

10534-519: The Blueshirts ), led by Eoin O'Duffy . Cumann na nGaedhael, born out of the pro- Anglo-Irish Treaty side in the Irish Civil War , had been the party of government from the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 until the 1932 general election , which it lost to the newly emergent Fianna Fáil . The National Centre Party was a new party that had done well at the 1932 election, and represented

10763-594: The Chinese Communist Party . After military defeat exiled Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang nationalist government to Formosa island ( Taiwan ), Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. In the late 1940s, the geopolitics of the Eastern Bloc countries under Soviet predominance featured an official-and-personal style of socialist diplomacy that failed Stalin and Tito when Tito refused to subordinating Yugoslavia to

10992-632: The Croke Park Agreement , arguing that the levels of pay it guarantees to public sector workers are "choking social solidarity". Harris continued to supply programme material to RTÉ through Praxis Pictures Ltd., the independent film company he runs with Gerry Gregg, formerly an RTÉ and Workers' Party associate. In 2012 RTÉ upheld a complaint against a Praxis documentary, An Tost Fada (The Long Silence) , written and narrated by Harris, and produced and directed by Gregg. The programme subject matter concerned Harris's controversial belief that some actions in

11221-613: The Fianna Fáil – Green Party government in Dáil Éireann until March 2011. It was also revealed in December 1996 that Fine Gael had received some £180,000 from Ben Dunne in the period 1987 to 1993. This was composed of £100,000 in 1993, £50,000 in 1992 and £30,000 in 1989. In addition, Michael Noonan received £3,000 in 1992 towards his election campaign, Ivan Yates received £5,000, Michael Lowry received £5,000 and Sean Barrett received £1,000 in

11450-562: The Health Service Executive , is seen to be poor by comparison to other countries in Europe, ranking outside expected levels at 25th according to the Euro Health Consumer Index 2006. Fine Gael has long wanted Ireland to break with the system of private health insurance, public medical cards and what it calls the two tiers of the health system and has launched a campaign to see the system reformed. Speaking in favour of

11679-760: The Irish War of Independence were sectarian, and involved the IRA targeting Protestants. Previously, in 2007, Harris participated in an equally controversial programme, Guns and Neighbours: The Killings at Coolacrease (Reel Story Productions), in which it was alleged that two Protestant farmers in County Offaly , killed by the IRA in June 1920, were killed for sectarian reasons. It was reported in The Sunday Times (Irish edition) that Harris

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11908-637: The Korean Armistice Agreement (27 July 1953); and the superpower Cold War in Asia then resumed as the Korean Demilitarised Zone . Fine Gael Fine Gael ( / ˌ f iː n ə ˈ ɡ eɪ l , ˌ f ɪ n -/ FEEN -nə GAYL , FIN - ; Irish: [ˌfʲɪnʲə ˈɡeːl̪ˠ] ; lit.   ' Family (or Tribe) of the Irish ' ) is a liberal-conservative and Christian democratic political party in Ireland . Fine Gael

12137-473: The Labour Party that Fine Gael returned to government in 1973. This period also saw Fine Gael becoming increasingly liberal in ethos, particularly under the leadership of Garret FitzGerald who took the reins of the party in 1977; It was during this time that Fine Gael campaigned in a number of referendums: the party supported Irish entry into the European Economic Community , supported lowering

12366-509: The Left Opposition to Stalin within the Soviet party and government, Leon Trotsky and Trotskyists argued that Marxist–Leninist ideology contradicted Marxism and Leninism in theory, therefore Stalin's ideology was not useful for the implementation of socialism in Russia. Moreover, Trotskyists within the party identified their anti-Stalinist communist ideology as Bolshevik–Leninism and supported

12595-455: The Live Register in a year by combining a National Internship Program, a Second Chance Education Scheme, an Apprenticeship Guarantee and Community Work Program, as well as instituting a German style Workshare program. In 2010 Fine Gael's Phil Hogan published the party's proposals for political and constitutional reform. In a policy document entitled New Politics , Hogan suggested creating

12824-507: The Politburo . In 1929, Stalin politically controlled the party and the Soviet Union by way of deception and administrative acumen. In that time, Stalin's centralised, socialism in one country régime had negatively associated Lenin's revolutionary Bolshevism with Stalinism, i.e. government by command-policy to realise projects such as the rapid industrialisation of cities and the collectivisation of agriculture. Such Stalinism also subordinated

13053-636: The Pro-Life Amendment Campaign (PLAC) and Catholic bishops, and Fianna Fáil , the largest party in the State at the time, but then in opposition. The amendment resulted in the addition of Article 40.3.3° to the Constitution, giving the unborn child a qualified equal right to life to that of the mother. In 1992, in the X Case , the Supreme Court held that a risk to the life of woman from suicide

13282-446: The RTÉ Radio 1 programme News at One on 3 December 2007, Harris strongly defended Bertie Ahern, saying that the Irish Daily Mail was a "lying newspaper", which practised "sensationalist, sick journalism" and which had a "record of fascist appeasement in the 1930s". He also said that the Mahon Tribunal should be shut down because "there is no natural justice available", and that in ten years' time "people will look back and say that

13511-417: The Red Army , who were poorly led, ill-trained and under-equipped. As a result, they fought poorly and suffered great losses of soldiers (killed, wounded and captured). The weakness of the Red Army was partly consequence of the Great Purge (1936–1938) of senior officers and career soldiers whom Stalin considered politically unreliable. Strategically, the Wehrmacht 's extensive and effective attack threatened

13740-422: The Russian Civil War (1917–1922) against the Bolshevik government. Moreover, despite the White–Red civil war, Russia remained a combatant in the Great War that the Bolsheviks had quit with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which then provoked the Allied Intervention to the Russian Civil War by the armies of seventeen countries, featuring Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States and Imperial Japan. Elsewhere,

13969-402: The Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) , the Soviet Union, and the Communist International to establish universal Marxist–Leninist praxis . The formulation of the Soviet version of dialectical and historical materialism in the 1930s by Stalin and his associates, such as in Stalin's text Dialectical and Historical Materialism , became the official Soviet interpretation of Marxism , and

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14198-403: The Russian Republic (September–November 1917). Later in the October Revolution , the Bolshevik's seizure of power against the Provisional Government resulted in their establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991), yet parts of Russia remained occupied by the counter-revolutionary White Movement of anti-communists who had united to form the White Army to fight

14427-409: The Sino-Soviet split (1956–1966) and the two countries broke their international relations (diplomatic, political, cultural and economic). China's Great Leap Forward , an idealistic massive reform project, resulted in an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths between 1959 and 1961, mostly from starvation. In Eastern Asia, the Cold War produced the Korean War (1950–1953), the first proxy war between

14656-474: The State Duma and the Russian Constitution of 1906 ) were the Tsar's piecemeal and cosmetic concessions to social progress because public office remained available only to the aristocracy , the gentry and the bourgeoisie . These reforms resolved neither the illiteracy , the poverty , nor malnutrition of the proletarian majority of Imperial Russia. In Swiss exile, Lenin developed Marx's philosophy and extrapolated decolonisation by colonial revolt as

14885-463: The Sunday Independent that "hindsight history has no moral status". In May 2003, he wrote "Already, as I predicted in the lead up to the war, the neoconservative hawks have done much better than the liberals in getting down to the dynamics of opening up the gulf to democracy. Already, and this I predicted too, there is substantial hope for an Israeli–Palestinian settlement now that Saddam no longer scowls at Israel". Commenting in November 2003 about

15114-507: The Sunday Independent' s editorial. This happened after an episode of Questions & Answers , with Gannon implying Harris was a lackey for Tony O'Reilly . Harris reacted angrily to this, dismissed Gannon as a " Shinner " and presenter John Bowman had to step in to separate the two men. Bowman suggested that the men agree to disagree, but Gannon, a 1998 Leinster Minor Hurling Championship medallist and staunch Fine Gael supporter, suggested: "No. Let's agree that you agree with me." Harris

15343-452: The Third World socialist regimes, have been variously described as "bureaucratic-authoritarian systems", and China's socio-economic structure has been referred to as "nationalistic state capitalism". Criticism of Marxism–Leninism largely overlaps with criticism of communist party rule and mainly focuses on the actions and policies of Marxist–Leninist leaders, most notably Stalin and Mao Zedong . Marxist–Leninist states have been marked by

15572-469: The Tito–Stalin split , the Sino-Soviet split , and the Sino-Albanian split . The socio-economic nature of Marxist–Leninist states, especially that of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era (1924-1953), has been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of bureaucratic collectivism , state capitalism , state socialism , or a totally unique mode of production . The Eastern Bloc, including Marxist–Leninist states in Central and Eastern Europe as well as

15801-421: The Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939) and to jointly invade and partition Poland , by way of which Nazi Germany started the Second World War (1 September 1939). In the 1941–1942 period of the Great Patriotic War , the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa, 22 June 1941) was ineffectively opposed by

16030-481: The Ulster Unionist Party . In the 2000s he supported the Fianna Fáil –led government of Bertie Ahern . Ahern nominated him to Seanad Éireann in 2007, where he served until 2011. He also continued producing some documentary programmes for RTÉ. Harris was a columnist for the Sunday Independent until 2021. He was sacked after admitting running a fake Twitter account , which harassed journalists he believed were sympathetic to Irish nationalism and Sinn Féin. Harris

16259-449: The Western Front (4 August 1914 – 11 November 1918), Imperial Germany impelled the withdrawal of Imperial Russia from the war's Eastern Front (17 August 1914 – 3 March 1918) by sending Lenin and his Bolshevik cohort in a diplomatically sealed train, anticipating them partaking in revolutionary activity. In March 1917, the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II led to the Russian Provisional Government (March–July 1917), who then proclaimed

16488-556: The Workers' Party . However, in 1990 he published a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Social Democracy in which he surmised that socialism would not survive the Revolutions of 1989 . He called for a shift to social democracy and that the party should seek a historic compromise with the social democratic wings of Fine Gael and the Labour Party . The document was initially submitted by Eamonn Smullen on Harris's behalf for publication in

16717-516: The X case ruling of the Supreme Court, granting access to a termination of a pregnancy where there is a real and substantial risk to the life, not the health, of the mother, including a threat of suicide. Five TDs and two Senators, including Minister of State Lucinda Creighton , lost the Fine Gael party whip for voting against the legislation. Creighton later left Fine Gael to found Renua . The Act

16946-699: The absolute monarchy of the Tsar of Russia . Most importantly, the experience of this revolution caused Lenin to conceive of the means of sponsoring socialist revolution through agitation, propaganda and a well-organised, disciplined and small political party. Despite secret-police persecution by the Okhrana (Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order), émigré Bolsheviks returned to Russia to agitate, organise and lead, but then they returned to exile when peoples' revolutionary fervour failed in 1907. The failure of

17175-492: The death of Lenin , Joseph Stalin completed his rise to power and was the leader of the Soviet Union who theorised and applied the socialist theories of Lenin and Karl Marx as political expediencies used to realise his plans for the Soviet Union and for world socialism . Concerning Questions of Leninism (1926) represented Marxism–Leninism as a separate communist ideology and featured a global hierarchy of communist parties and revolutionary vanguard parties in each country of

17404-410: The means of production , suppress opposition , counter-revolution , and the bourgeoisie , and promote Soviet collectivism , to pave the way for an eventual communist society that would be classless and stateless . After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Marxism–Leninism became a distinct movement in the Soviet Union when Stalin and his supporters gained control of the party . It rejected

17633-668: The permanent revolution to differentiate themselves from Stalin's justification and implementation of socialism in one country . After the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union claimed to be the sole heir and successor to Stalin concerning the correct interpretation of Marxism–Leninism and ideological leader of world communism . In that vein, Mao Zedong Thought , Mao Zedong 's updating and adaptation of Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions in which revolutionary praxis

17862-428: The struggle for Irish independence and the pro-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War , with the party claiming the legacy of Michael Collins . In its early years, the party was commonly known as Fine Gael – The United Ireland Party , abbreviated UIP , and its official title in its constitution remains Fine Gael (United Ireland) . Fine Gael holds a pro-European stance and is generally considered to be more of

18091-548: The trade unions , who have raised the idea that the party's solutions are more conscious of business interests than the interests of the worker. In 2008 the SIPTU trade union stated its opposition to then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny's assertion, in response to Ireland's economic crisis, that the national wage agreement ought to have been suspended. Kenny's comments had support however and the party attributed its significant rise in polls in 2008 to this. Fine Gael's Simon Coveney launched what

18320-404: The "Just Society" policy statement in the 1960s, based on principles of social justice and equality. It was created by the emerging social democratic wing of the party, led by Declan Costello . The ideas expressed in the policy statement had a significant influence on the party in the years to come. While Fine Gael was traditionally socially conservative for most of the twentieth century due to

18549-610: The "totalitarian model", as outlined by political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich , which stated that the Soviet Union and other Marxist–Leninist states were totalitarian systems, with the personality cult, and almost unlimited powers of the "great leader", such as Stalin. It was considered to be outdated by the 1980s and for the post-Stalinist era. Some academics, such as Stéphane Courtois ( The Black Book of Communism ), Steven Rosefielde ( Red Holocaust ), and Rudolph Rummel ( Death by Government ), wrote of mass, excess deaths under Marxist–Leninist regimes. These authors defined

18778-419: The 1920s based on his understanding and synthesis of classical Marxism and Leninism . Marxism–Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism . A vanguard party , organized through democratic centralism , would seize power on behalf of the proletariat and establish a one-party socialist state, called the dictatorship of the proletariat . The state would control

19007-557: The 1960s focused on relatively autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level. Matt Lenoe described the "revisionist school" as representing those who "insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong. They tended to be interested in social history and to argue that the Communist Party leadership had had to adjust to social forces." These "revisionist school" historians challenged

19236-675: The 1970s until the start of the 1990s, Harris was for a time a central figure in shaping the current affairs output of RTÉ . He pushed the organisation towards a perspective heavily critical of Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA . It was stated in the November 1997 issue of Magill magazine that he set up an RTÉ branch of the Workers' Party called the "Ned Stapleton Cumann ", which gave the party considerable influence in RTÉ. Michael O'Leary , then leader of

19465-673: The 1970s, a small portion of Marxist–Leninists began to downplay or repudiate the role of Mao in the Marxist–Leninist international movement in favour of the Albanian Labour Party and stricter adherence to Stalin. The Sino-Albanian split was caused by Albania 's rejection of China's Realpolitik of Sino–American rapprochement, specifically the 1972 Mao–Nixon meeting which the anti-revisionist Albanian Labour Party perceived as an ideological betrayal of Mao's own Three Worlds Theory that excluded such political rapprochement with

19694-733: The 20th century. It was developed in Russia by Joseph Stalin and drew on elements of Bolshevism , Leninism , Marxism , and the works of Karl Kautsky . It was the state ideology of the Soviet Union , Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc , and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War , as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization . Today, Marxism–Leninism

19923-471: The Bolshevik government fought the internal Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and repelled the external Allied intervention to the Russian Civil War (1918–1925). Vast industrialisation was initiated mostly based with a focus on heavy industry . The Cultural revolution in the Soviet Union focused on restructuring culture and society. During the 1930s, the rapid industrialisation of the country accelerated

20152-492: The Bolshevik government had achieved economic production levels equal to Russia's production levels in 1913. Initial Bolshevik economic policies from 1917 to 1918 were cautious, with limited nationalisations of the means of production which had been private property of the Russian aristocracy during the Tsarist monarchy. Lenin was immediately committed to avoid antagonising the peasantry by making efforts to coax them away from

20381-602: The Bolshevik régime because they had not resolved the food shortages and material poverty of the Russian peoples as promised in October 1917. From that social discontent, the Cheka reported 118 uprisings, including the Kronstadt rebellion (7–17 March 1921) against the economic austerity of the War Communism imposed by the Bolsheviks. The principal obstacles to Russian economic development and modernisation were great material poverty and

20610-400: The Bolsheviks into the party's political vanguard which was composed of professional revolutionaries who practised democratic centralism to elect leaders and officers as well as to determine policy through free discussion, then decisively realised through united action. The vanguardism of proactive, pragmatic commitment to achieving revolution was the Bolsheviks' advantage in out-manoeuvring

20839-584: The Cold War in Europe were the Soviet and Yugoslav, Bulgarian and Albanian military interventions to the Greek Civil War (1944–1949) on behalf of the Communist Party of Greece ; and the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949) by the Soviet Union. The event that precipitated the Cold War in continental Asia was the resumption of the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949) fought between the anti-communist Kuomintang and

21068-467: The Cold War. These academics include Mark Aarons , Noam Chomsky , Jodi Dean , Kristen Ghodsee , Seumas Milne , and Michael Parenti . Ghodsee, Nathan J. Robinson , and Scott Sehon wrote about the merits of taking an anti anti-communist position that does not deny the atrocities but make a distinction between anti-authoritarian communist and other socialist currents, both of which have been victims of repression. Although Marxism–Leninism

21297-609: The Communist International and then through the concept of socialist-leaning countries after de-Stalinisation . The establishment of other communist states after World War II resulted in Sovietisation , and these states tended to follow the Soviet Marxist–Leninist model of five-year plans and rapid industrialisation , political centralisation, and repression. During the Cold War, Marxism–Leninist countries like

21526-524: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union , Khrushchev denounced Stalin and Stalinism in the speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences (25 February 1956) in which he specified and condemned Stalin's dictatorial excesses and abuses of power such as the Great purge (1936–1938) and the cult of personality . Khrushchev introduced the de-Stalinisation of the party and of the Soviet Union. He realised this with

21755-455: The Congress of Soviets, a committee dominated by Vladimir Lenin , who had previously supported multi-party free elections. After the Bolshevik defeat, Lenin started referring to the assembly as a "deceptive form of bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism". This was criticised as being the development of vanguardism as a form of hierarchical party–elite that controlled society. Within five years of

21984-730: The Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, resulted from dual origins, namely the nationalist Koreans' post-war resumption of their Korean Civil War and the imperial war for regional hegemony sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union. The international response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea was realised by the United Nations Security Council , who voted for war despite the absent Soviet Union and authorised an international military expedition to intervene, expel

22213-417: The Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. Yugoslavia's international relations matured into the Non-Aligned Movement (1961) of countries without political allegiance to any power bloc . At the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became leader of the Soviet Union and of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and then consolidated an anti-Stalinist government. In a secret meeting at the 20th Congress of

22442-591: The Eighth Amendment, which would be considered by an Oireachtas committee, to whose report the government would respond officially in debates in both houses of the Oireachtas. Fine Gael Oireachtas members were promised a free vote on the issue. Leo Varadkar succeeded Enda Kenny as Taoiseach on 14 June 2017 and promised to hold a referendum on abortion in 2018. Several Fine Gael TDs, notably Health Minister Simon Harris and Kate O'Connell , were prominent supporters of

22671-632: The English journalist Robert Fisk , he wrote: "Far from wanting to pour venom on Fisk, I think he does us a favour by being so forthright. For my money, his analysis of Middle East politics is a first cousin to believing that aliens take away people in flying saucers." Harris gave media training to Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi in advance of the invasion of Iraq, and wrote in the Irish Independent that: I first met Chalabi in Washington in March 2001, in

22900-614: The European Parliament . Without denying the tragedy of the events, other scholars criticise the interpretation that sees communism as the main culprit as presenting a biased or exaggerated anti-communist narrative. Several academics propose a more nuanced analysis of Marxist–Leninist rule, stating that anti-communist narratives have exaggerated the extent of political repression and censorship in Marxist–Leninist states and drawn comparisons with what they see as atrocities that were perpetrated by capitalist countries , particularly during

23129-470: The European People's Party (YEPP). It is inferred from the party's relationship with its European counterparts via membership of the European People's Party that Fine Gael belongs on the centre-right . The party conforms generally with European political parties that identify themselves as being Christian democratic . The Moriarty Tribunal has sat since 1997 and has investigated the granting of

23358-564: The European socialists had failed the working classes for preferring patriotic war to proletarian internationalism . To debunk patriotism and national chauvinism , Lenin explained in the essay Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917) that capitalist economic expansion leads to colonial imperialism which is then regulated with nationalist wars such as the Great War among the empires of Europe. To relieve strategic pressures from

23587-495: The European socialists who chose bellicose nationalism to anti-war internationalism, whose philosophical and political break was consequence of the internationalist–defencist schism among socialists, the Bolsheviks opposed the Great War (1914–1918). That nationalist betrayal of socialism was denounced by a small group of socialist leaders who opposed the Great War, including Rosa Luxemburg , Karl Liebknecht and Lenin, who said that

23816-619: The European-Russian and the Asian-Chinese interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism in each country. The political differences then provoked geopolitical, ideological and nationalist tensions, which derived from the different stages of development, between the urban society of the industrialised Soviet Union and the agricultural society of the pre-industrial China. The theory versus praxis arguments escalated to theoretic disputes about Marxist–Leninist revisionism and provoked

24045-575: The February Revolution exiled Bolsheviks, Mensheviks , Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists such as the Black Guards from Russia. Membership in both the Bolshevik and Menshevik ranks diminished from 1907 to 1908 while the number of people taking part in strikes in 1907 was 26% of the figure during the year of the Revolution of 1905, dropping to 6% in 1908 and 2% in 1910. The 1908–1917 period

24274-430: The Fine Gael government held a referendum on the Eighth Amendment , the provision in the Irish constitution which forbid abortion . The party campaigned to repeal the amendment and was successful. After the 2020 general election , for the first time in history, Fine Gael entered into a coalition government with its traditional rival Fianna Fáil , as well as the Green Party , with Leo Varadkar serving as Tánaiste for

24503-607: The Great Patriotic War (1941–1945), the Soviet Union was a military superpower with a say in determining the geopolitical order of the world. Apart from the failed Third Period policy in the early 1930s, Marxist–Leninists played an important role in anti-fascist resistance movements , with the Soviet Union contributing to the Allied victory in World War II. In accordance with the three-power Yalta Agreement (4–11 February 1945),

24732-656: The Great War on 3 March 1918. That same year, the Bolsheviks consolidated government power by expelling the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets . The Bolshevik government then established the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission) secret police to eliminate anti–Bolshevik opposition in the country. Initially, there was strong opposition to

24961-513: The Irish government, at the time led by his friend John Bruton, to end all support for Hume's peace efforts. He wrote, "If we persist with the peace process it will end with sectarian slaughter in the North, with bombs in Dublin , Cork and Galway , and with the ruthless reign by provisional gangs over the ghettos of Dublin. The only way to avoid this abyss is to cut the cord to John Hume". Hume argued that he

25190-519: The Labour Party returned with their best results ever. For the first time in its history, Fine Gael became the largest party in Dáil Eireann. Once more Fine Gael and Labour paired up to form a government, their tenure marked by the difficulty of trying to guide Ireland towards economic recovery. In 2013, a number of Fine Gael parliamentary party members, including Lucinda Creighton , were expelled from

25419-551: The Labour Party, commented that RTÉ current affairs coverage was "Stickie orientated", a reference to the Official IRA, from which the Provisional IRA had split in the 1970s. Those who supported Harris within RTÉ became known as "the brood of Harris". The tensions within the organisation, between journalists such as Mary McAleese and Alex White on one side and the Workers' Party members on the other, led to major disagreements at

25648-645: The Mahon Tribunal. He then changed his mind and asked that the programme be re-recorded, but Halligan informed him that this was not possible. Harris wrote a column for the Sunday Independent . Harris worked at Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), the Irish national television broadcaster, on current affairs programmes such as 7 Days and Féach . He also made a documentary on mental illness, entitled Darkness Visible . In 2004, an angry RTÉ viewer, Kilmacud Crokes player Hugh Gannon, confronted Harris regarding

25877-577: The Midlands-Northwest constituency in the 2019 European Parliament election , running alongside Mairéad McGuinness MEP. Walsh was Fine Gael's first openly lesbian candidate. Fine Gael has an LGBT+ section, Fine Gael LGBT, and in 2017, Leo Varadkar became the first Taoiseach to march in Dublin Pride . In 1983, the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution , which proposed to protect the life of

26106-507: The National Pensions Reserve Fund, was Fine Gael's proposed funding source for its national stimulus package. The plan was seen as the longer term contribution to Fine Gael's economic agenda and the basis of its program for government. It was publicised in combination with a more short term policy proposal from Leo Varadkar . This document, termed "Hope for a Lost Generation" , promised to bring 30,000 young Irish people off

26335-844: The Nazi's lasted until the Schutzstaffel and the Einsatzgruppen began their Lebensraum killings of the Jewish populations, the local communists, the civil and community leaders—the Holocaust meant to realise the Nazi German colonisation of Bolshevik Russia. In response, Stalin ordered the Red Army to fight a total war against the Germanic invaders who would exterminate Slavic Russia. Hitler's attack against

26564-625: The Pym account had contributed "sexualised messages about whether Mary Lou McDonald 'turned me on', the size of my arse and called me a terrorist from the month I started at the Examiner . Since then, I've had to go to counselling and the guards ". English described attacks by the Pym account on Aoife Moore as "contemptible". An account associated with Barbara J Pym, 'WhigNorthern', targeted Francine Cunningham, wife of Sunday Independent publisher, Peter Vandermeersch. She observed, "For anyone who hasn’t seen it,

26793-546: The Red Army began to repel the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, especially at the Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943) and at the Battle of Kursk (5 July – 23 August 1943). The Red Army then repelled the Nazi and Fascist occupation armies from Eastern Europe until the Red Army decisively defeated Nazi Germany in the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation (16 April–2 May 1945). On concluding

27022-520: The Republican Industrial Development Division, an organisation set up in 1972 by Seamus Costello to co-ordinate trade union activities, along with John Caden , Des Geraghty and others. According to Henry Patterson in his book The Politics of Illusion , Harris's pamphlet Irish Industrial Revolution (1975) was influential in shifting the party away from republicanism. Harris continued to do media work for it as it became

27251-587: The Robinson campaign, Harris was asked to work for Fine Gael by its leader, John Bruton . However, he received criticism from both within and outside the party in April 1991, when he wrote the script for a sketch for the Fine Gael Ardfheis in which a cleaner (played by the comedy actress Twink ) interrupted the leader's speech. The sketch was criticised as being in bad taste and tacky, particularly in its references to

27480-596: The Sinified Marxism–Leninism of Mao Zedong—his Chinese adaptations of Stalinist interpretation and praxis for establishing socialism in China. To realise that leap of Marxist faith in the development of Chinese socialism, the Chinese Communist Party developed Maoism as the official state ideology. As the specifically Chinese development of Marxism–Leninism, Maoism illuminated the cultural differences between

27709-433: The Socialist Revolutionaries, allowing a peasant takeover of nobles ' estates while no immediate nationalisations were enacted on peasants' property. The Decree on Land (8 November 1917) fulfilled Lenin's promised redistribution of Russia's arable land to the peasants, who reclaimed their farmlands from the aristocrats, ensuring the peasants' loyalty to the Bolshevik party. To overcome the civil war's economic interruptions,

27938-497: The Soviet Russians learned the technology and the techniques required to operate and administrate industries. Importantly, Lenin declared that the development of socialism would not be able to be pursued in the manner originally thought by Marxists. A key aspect that affected the Bolshevik regime was the backward economic conditions in Russia that were considered unfavourable to orthodox Marxist theory of communist revolution. At

28167-513: The Soviet Union (Nazi Germany's erstwhile ally) realigned Stalin's political priorities, from the repression of internal enemies to the existential defence against external attack. The pragmatic Stalin then entered the Soviet Union to the Grand Alliance , a common front against the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan ). In the continental European countries occupied by

28396-552: The Soviet Union , 1924–1930), Nikolai Bukharin ( General Secretary of the Comintern , 1926–1929; Editor-in-Chief of Pravda , 1918–1929), and Mikhail Tomsky (Chairman of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions in the 1920s). In 1927, the party endorsed Stalin's policy of socialism in one country as the Soviet Union's national policy and expelled the leftist Trotsky and the centrists Kamenev and Zinoviev from

28625-501: The Soviet Union and its allies were one of the major forces in international relations . With the death of Stalin and the ensuing de-Stalinisation, Marxism–Leninism underwent several revisions and adaptations such as Guevarism , Ho Chi Minh Thought , Hoxhaism , Maoism , socialism with Chinese characteristics , and Titoism . More recently Nepalese communist parties have adopted People's Multiparty Democracy . This also caused several splits between Marxist–Leninist states, resulting in

28854-506: The Soviet Union included Stalin dismantling the remaining elements of democracy from the party by extending his control over its institutions and eliminating any possible rivals. The party's ranks grew in numbers, with the party modifying its organisation to include more trade unions and factories. The ranks and files of the party were populated with members from the trade unions and the factories, whom Stalin controlled because there were no other Old Bolsheviks to contradict Marxism–Leninism. In

29083-407: The Soviet Union promote the spread of communist revolution abroad. Stalin's socialism in one country stressed moderation and development of positive relations between the Soviet Union and other countries to increase trade and foreign investment. To politically isolate and oust Trotsky from the party, Stalin expediently advocated socialism in one country, a policy to which he was indifferent. In 1925,

29312-657: The Soviet Union purged native fascist collaborators and these in collaboration with the Axis Powers from the Eastern European countries occupied by the Axis Powers and installed native Marxist–Leninist governments. Upon Allied victory concluding the Second World War (1939–1945), the members of the Grand Alliance resumed their expediently suppressed, pre-war geopolitical rivalries and ideological tensions which disunity broke their anti-fascist wartime alliance through

29541-503: The Soviet Union was that it incorporated national feelings and macro-historical elements in the socialist ideology, opting for its "own style of socialism". The major Korean elements are the emphasis on traditional Confucianism and the memory of the traumatic experience of Korea under Japanese rule as well as a focus on autobiographical features of Kim Il Sung as a guerrilla hero. In the other four existing Marxist–Leninist socialist states , namely China, Cuba , Laos , and Vietnam ,

29770-527: The Soviet Union. In 1948, circumstance and cultural personality aggravated the matter into the Yugoslav–Soviet split (1948–1955) that resulted from Tito's rejection of Stalin's demand to subordinate the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia to the geopolitical agenda (economic and military) of the Soviet Union, i.e. Tito at Stalin's disposal. Stalin punished Tito's refusal by denouncing him as an ideological revisionist of Marxism–Leninism; by denouncing Yugoslavia's practice of Titoism as socialism deviated from

29999-403: The Soviet communists to fight throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, creating agreements with France to challenge Germany. After Germany and Britain signed the Munich Agreement (29 September 1938) which allowed the German occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945), Stalin adopted pro-German policies for the Soviet Union's dealings with Nazi Germany. In 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to

30228-435: The Soviet people's sociological transition from poverty to relative plenty when politically illiterate peasants passed from Tsarist serfdom to self-determination and became politically aware urban citizens. The Marxist–Leninist economic régime modernised Russia from the illiterate, peasant society characteristic of monarchy to the literate , socialist society of educated farmers and industrial workers. Industrialisation led to

30457-572: The Third World. With the end of the Grand Alliance and the start of the Cold War, anti-fascism became part of both the official ideology and language of Marxist–Leninist states, especially in East Germany . Fascist and anti-fascism , with the latter used to mean a general anti-capitalist struggle against the Western world and NATO , became epithets widely used by Marxist–Leninists to smear their opponents, including democratic socialists , libertarian socialists , social democrats and other anti-Stalinist leftists . The events that precipitated

30686-489: The Tribunal time was scoundrel time". The Irish Daily Mail denied his allegations. In a debate with Fintan O'Toole on the RTÉ TV Primetime programme on 4 December 2007, Harris further alleged that "the entire [Mahon] Tribunal is a fantasy of [Tom] Gilmartin ". During an interview with Ursula Halligan on the TV3 programme The Political Party broadcast on 9 December 2007, Harris threatened to walk out because he did not wish to further discuss Bertie Ahern's appearances at

30915-418: The Troubles , from the 1970s until the 1990s, Harris worked in Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and was influential in shaping the current affairs output of Ireland's national broadcaster. Later he began writing for the Sunday Independent newspaper. In the 1990s, he left the Workers' Party and was a short-lived adviser to Fine Gael leader John Bruton , before Bruton became Taoiseach ; then an adviser to

31144-432: The West. To the Albanian Marxist–Leninists, the Chinese dealings with the United States indicated Mao's lessened, practical commitments to ideological orthodoxy and proletarian internationalism . In response to Mao's apparently unorthodox deviations, Enver Hoxha , head of the Albanian Labour Party, theorised anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism, referred to as Hoxhaism , which retained orthodox Marxism–Leninism when compared to

31373-406: The age of puberty) and paederasty (sex with youths aged 16-18)." Harris pointed out that Ó Searcaigh's sexual preference was common among the great philosophers of Ancient Greece , and that the age of consent in Nepal is 16. He also wrote that Nepal is a notoriously homophobic society and that some of the accusers may have their own agendas. In 2011, Harris voiced strong antagonistic views towards

31602-426: The attitude of journalists at the paper was influenced by an alleged meeting between the deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, Brian Cowen and the owner of Independent News & Media , Tony O'Reilly . Shortly before the election, Harris appeared on The Late Late Show on RTÉ, in which he praised Ahern and poured scorn on those criticising him over his personal finances. Harris's Late Late Show appearance coincided with

31831-416: The campaign, Fine Gael then health spokesman James Reilly stated "Over the last 10 years the health service has become a shambles. We regularly have over 350 people on trolleys in A&E, waiting lists that go on for months, outpatient waiting lists that go on for years and cancelled operations across the country..." Fine Gael launched its FairCare campaign and website in April 2009, which stated that

32060-419: The cause of world communism ; and by expelling the Communist Party of Yugoslavia from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform). The break from the Eastern Bloc allowed the development of a socialism with Yugoslav characteristics which allowed doing business with the capitalist West to develop the socialist economy and the establishment of Yugoslavia's diplomatic and commercial relations with countries of

32289-399: The centres of revolutionary action were too far apart for proper political coordination. To generate revolutionary momentum from the Tsarist army killings on Bloody Sunday (22 January 1905), the Bolsheviks encouraged workers to use political violence in order to compel the bourgeois social classes (the nobility, the gentry and the bourgeoisie) to join the proletarian revolution to overthrow

32518-412: The collectivisation of agriculture. It achieved 23.6% of collectivisation within two years (1930) and 98.0% of collectivisation within thirteen years (1941). As the revolutionary vanguard, the communist party organised Russian society to realise rapid industrialisation programs as defence against Western interference with socialism in Bolshevik Russia. The five-year plans were prepared in the 1920s whilst

32747-405: The common notion among Western Marxists of world revolution as a prerequisite for building socialism, in favour of the concept of socialism in one country . According to its supporters, the gradual transition from capitalism to socialism was signified by the introduction of the first five-year plan and the 1936 Soviet Constitution . By the late 1920s, Stalin established ideological orthodoxy in

32976-431: The communist political authority that became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . To end the Imperial Japanese occupation of China in continental Asia, Stalin ordered Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party to temporarily cease the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949) against Chiang Kai-shek and the anti-communist Kuomintang as the Second United Front in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). In 1943,

33205-464: The company did not reveal the owner or owners of the Pym account. Larkin was attacked by 'Barbara J. Pym' on 29 March and by an associated 'Dolly White' account, when the Irish Times published his review of Brendan O'Leary's three-volume A Treatise on Northern Ireland . Pym tweeted, "How can the Irish Times justify publishing this Provo sectarian poison? Why was Larkin not asked to tone down the tribal rhetoric?" Larkin's solicitors noted similarities with

33434-426: The company of Richard Perle, a few months after George W Bush had been elected, and met later in London where I gave him some media training. We bonded from the start, and the basis of the bond was his instinctive feel for Ireland. Chalabi was one of the sources of the false intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction . In 1997, Harris denounced Fianna Fáil presidential candidate Mary McAleese, calling her

33663-417: The concept of totalitarianism into the anti-communist Western Bloc and the Marxist–Leninist Eastern Bloc . The renewed competition for geopolitical hegemony resulted in the bi-polar Cold War (1947–1991), a protracted state of tension (military and diplomatic) between the United States and the Soviet Union which often threatened a Soviet–American nuclear war , but it usually featured proxy wars in

33892-523: The conservative Christian ethos of Irish society during this time, its members are variously influenced by social liberalism , social democracy and Christian democracy on issues of social policy. Under Garret FitzGerald, the party's more socially liberal, or pluralist, wing gained prominence. Proposals to allow divorce were put to referendum by two Fine Gael–led governments, in 1986 under FitzGerald, and in 1995 under John Bruton, passing very narrowly on this second attempt. Its modern supporters have shown

34121-493: The construction of socialism in one country, the NKVD established the Gulag system of forced-labour camps for regular criminals and political dissidents, for culturally insubordinate artists and politically incorrect intellectuals and for homosexual people and religious anti-communists . Beginning in 1928, Stalin's five-year plans for the national economy of the Soviet Union achieved the rapid industrialisation (coal, iron and steel, electricity and petroleum, among others) and

34350-417: The continual and permanent development of Marxism–Leninism, with ideological adaptation to material conditions. The Bolshevik Party lost in the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election , obtaining 23.3% of the vote, to the Socialist Revolutionary Party , which obtained 37.6%. On 6 January 1918, the Draft Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was issued by the Central Executive Committee of

34579-474: The country). By 1939, with the exception of Stalin himself, none of the original Bolsheviks of the October Revolution of 1917 remained in the party. Unquestioning loyalty to Stalin was expected by the regime of all citizens. Stalin exercised extensive personal control over the party and unleashed an unprecedented level of violence to eliminate any potential threat to his regime. While Stalin exercised major control over political initiatives, their implementation

34808-436: The debate, Harris said that the decision to support the Government was taken because "we got what we wanted on stamp duty ". Where Fintan O'Toole denied Harris's claims of a campaign by The Irish Times against Ahern, and accused the Sunday Independent of having its own political agenda. Harris left the studio mid-debate. Ahern nominated Harris to Seanad Éireann on 3 August 2007, where he served until April 2011. On

35037-409: The dekulakisation to lessen the negative social impact in the relations between the Soviet peoples and the party, but Stalin took umbrage and then accused them of uncommunist philosophical deviations from Lenin and Marx. That implicit accusation of ideological deviationism licensed Stalin to accuse Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky of plotting against the party and the appearance of impropriety then compelled

35266-451: The development of a technical intelligentsia who would propel the industrial development of Russia to self-sufficiency. As he neared death after suffering strokes, Lenin's Testament of December 1922 named Trotsky and Stalin as the most able men in the Central Committee, but he harshly criticised them. Lenin said that Stalin should be removed from being the General Secretary of the party and that he be replaced with "some other person who

35495-452: The dismantling of the Gulag archipelago of forced-labour camps and freeing the prisoners as well as allowing Soviet civil society greater political freedom of expression, especially for public intellectuals of the intelligentsia such as the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , whose literature obliquely criticised Stalin and the Stalinist police state . De-Stalinisation also ended Stalin's national-purpose policy of socialism in one country and

35724-491: The earlier 1987 election. John Bruton said he had received £1,000 from Dunne in 1982 towards his election campaign, and Dunne had also given £15,000 to the Labour Party during the 1990 Presidential election campaign. Following revelations at the Moriarty Tribunal on 16 February 1999, in relation to Charles Haughey and his relationship with AIB , former Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald confirmed that AIB and Ansbacher wrote off debts of almost £200,000 that he owed in 1993, when he

35953-598: The election of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party government in Germany initially caused the Soviet Union to sever diplomatic relations that had been established in the 1920s. In 1938, Stalin accommodated the Nazis and the anti-communist West by not defending Czechoslovakia, allowing Hitler's threat of pre-emptive war for the Sudetenland to annex the land and "rescue the oppressed German peoples" living in Czecho. To challenge Nazi Germany 's bid for European empire and hegemony, Stalin promoted anti-fascist front organisations to encourage European socialists and democrats to join

36182-457: The establishment of the Soviet Union in the former Russian Empire , Bolshevism was the ideological basis. As the only legal vanguard party , it decided almost all policies, which the communist party represented as correct. Because Leninism was the revolutionary means to achieving socialism in the praxis of government, the relationship between ideology and decision-making inclined to pragmatism and most policy decisions were taken in light of

36411-444: The event, the Russian peoples created an economy of barter and black market to counter the Bolshevik government's voiding of the monetary economy . In 1921, the New Economic Policy restored some private enterprise to animate the Russian economy. As part of Lenin's pragmatic compromise with external financial interests in 1918, Bolshevik state capitalism temporarily returned 91% of industry to private ownership or trusts until

36640-587: The first half of the government's five-year term, then becoming Taoiseach in December 2022. Leo Varadkar resigned as leader of Fine Gael on 20 March 2024, and was succeeded by Simon Harris , who was elected unopposed on 24 March. As a political party of the centre-right , Fine Gael has been described as liberal-conservative , Christian-democratic , liberal , conservative liberal , conservative , and pro-European , with an ideological base combining elements of cultural conservatism and economic liberalism . Although Ireland's political spectrum

36869-417: The first preference vote. Fine Gael formed a government between 1994 and 1997 with the Labour Party and the Democratic Left . This government legalised divorce after a successful referendum in 1995. The party's share of TDs fell from 54 in 1997 to only 31 in the 2002 general election , its second-worst result ever at that point. It was at this point Enda Kenny took over leadership of the party and began

37098-405: The focus on the upper levels of society and use of concepts such as totalitarianism which have obscured the reality of the system. While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally communist state led to communism's widespread association with Marxism–Leninism and the Soviet model , several academics say that Marxism–Leninism in practice was a form of state capitalism. In

37327-399: The government as a minority government , made possible by a confidence and supply agreement with Fianna Fáíl, who agreed to abstain in confidence votes. Enda Kenny resigned as party leader in 2017. Following a leadership contest , Leo Varadkar became his successor as well as Taoiseach. In doing so, Varadkar became one of the first openly LGBT heads of government in the world . In 2018

37556-458: The government to apply for membership of NATO. Under Enda Kenny, the party called on the state to end Irish neutrality and to sign up for a European defence structure, with Kenny claiming that "the truth is, Ireland is not neutral. We are merely unaligned." Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , Fine Gael called for an increase in defence spending, with Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney proposing an increase of €500 million

37785-423: The government's own bill. The arrangement between Fine Gael and Labour proved pleasing to both parties and their election pacts remained throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, seeing the pair enter government a number of times together. In 1985, Fine Gael/Labour voted to liberalise access to contraceptives. That same year FitzGerald signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher , paving

38014-500: The health impacts" of cannabis. Fine Gael has, since its inception, portrayed itself as a party of fiscal rectitude and minimal government interference in economics, advocating pro-enterprise policies. In that they followed the line of the previous pro-Treaty government that believed in minimal state intervention, low taxes and social expenditures. Newly elected politicians for the party in the Dáil have strongly advocated liberal economic policies. Lucinda Creighton (who has since left

38243-451: The health service would be reformed away from a costly ineffective endeavour, into a publicly regulated system where compulsory universal health insurance would replace the existing provisions. This strategy was criticised by Fianna Fáil's then-Minister for Children, Barry Andrews . The spokesperson for family law and children, Alan Shatter TD , robustly defended its proposals as the only means of reducing public expenditure, and providing

38472-400: The ideological basis of communist parties around the world which sympathised with China. In the late 1970s, the Peruvian communist party Shining Path developed and synthesised Mao Zedong Thought into Marxism–Leninism–Maoism , a contemporary variety of Marxism–Leninism that is a supposed higher level of Marxism–Leninism that can be applied universally. Following the Sino-Albanian split of

38701-489: The ideology of the post-Stalin Soviet Union. In North Korea , Marxism–Leninism was superseded by Juche in the 1970s. This was made official in 1992 and 2009, when constitutional references to Marxism–Leninism were dropped and replaced with Juche . In 2009, the constitution was quietly amended so that not only did it remove all Marxist–Leninist references present in the first draft but also dropped all references to communism . Juche has been described by Michael Seth as

38930-428: The importance of Stalin's leadership to the Marxist–Leninist ideology. Radek's suggestion failed to catch on, as Stalin as well as CPSU's ideologists preferred to continue the usage of Marxism–Leninism . Marxism–Leninism–Maoism became the name for the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party and of other Communist parties , which broke off from national Communist parties, after the Sino–Soviet split , especially when

39159-456: The intent of orders from Moscow, but this allowed their corruption. To Stalin, the correction of such abuses of authority and economic corruption were responsibility of the NKVD. In the 1937–1938 period, the NKVD arrested 1.5 million people, purged from every stratum of Soviet society and every rank and file of the party, of which 681,692 people were killed as enemies of the state . To provide manpower (manual, intellectual and technical) to realise

39388-490: The interests (political, national and ideological) of Asian and European communist parties to the geopolitical interests of the Soviet Union. In the 1928–1932 period of the first five-year plan , Stalin effected the dekulakisation of the farmlands of the Soviet Union, a politically radical dispossession of the kulak class of peasant-landlords from the Tsarist social order of monarchy. As Old Bolshevik revolutionaries, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky recommended amelioration of

39617-417: The interests of farmers. The National Guard were not a political party, but a militant group made up of former pro-Treaty Irish Army soldiers, and was previously known as the Army Comrades Association. Following the disruption of Cumann na nGaedhael meetings by members of the Irish Republican Army , the ACA had begun providing security at their events. This led to the leadership of the ACA being taken over by

39846-544: The issues of the Cold War . Alternative characterisations for traditionalists include "anti-communist", "conservative", "Draperite" (after Theodore Draper ), "orthodox", and "right-wing"; Norman Markowitz, a prominent "revisionist", referred to them as "reactionaries", "right-wing romantics", "romantics", and "triumphalist" who belong to the " HUAC school of CPUSA scholarship". According to Haynes and Klehr, "revisionists" are more numerous and dominate academic institutions and learned journals. A suggested alternative formulation

40075-486: The lack of modern technology which were conditions that orthodox Marxism considered unfavourable to communist revolution. Agricultural Russia was sufficiently developed for establishing capitalism, but it was insufficiently developed for establishing socialism. For Bolshevik Russia, the 1921–1924 period featured the simultaneous occurrence of economic recovery, famine (1921–1922) and a financial crisis (1924). By 1924, considerable economic progress had been achieved and by 1926

40304-407: The largest European political party comprising liberal conservative and Christian democratic national-level parties from across Europe. Fine Gael's MEPs sit with the EPP Group in the European Parliament , and Fine Gael parliamentarians also sit with the EPP Groups in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Committee of the Regions . Young Fine Gael is a member of the Youth of

40533-416: The late 1930s, the Soviet Union adopted the 1936 Soviet Constitution which ended weighted-voting preferences for workers, promulgated universal suffrage for every man and woman older than 18 years of age and organised the soviets (councils of workers) into two legislatures, namely the Soviet of the Union (representing electoral districts) and the Soviet of Nationalities (representing the ethnic groups of

40762-432: The liberal and conservative political parties who advocated social democracy without a practical plan of action for the Russian society they wished to govern. Leninism allowed the Bolshevik party to assume command of the October Revolution in 1917. Twelve years before the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks had failed to assume control of the February Revolution of 1905 (22 January 1905 – 16 June 1907) because

40991-532: The meeting, this criticism stopped. Soon thereafter Fianna Fáil promised to carry such reform if re-elected. In February 2008, Director-General of RTÉ Cathal Goan and RTÉ director of news, Ed Mulhall appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Communications. Both men stated that they were "uncomfortable" about Harris's appearance on The Late Late Show as it took place so soon before the election. On 26 May 2007 Harris appeared on an election special debate on Today FM 's The Last Word with Matt Cooper . During

41220-453: The members of the Research Section of the party. This was the prelude to a bigger split in 1992 when senior members alleged that the supposedly moribund Official IRA still existed and was implicated in criminality, and sought to move to some extent in the direction proposed earlier by Harris. In 2006, during an RTÉ Television debate Harris stated that the leaders of the Easter Rising were "suicide bombers, I mean suicide terrorists". During

41449-406: The northern invaders from the south of Korea and restore the geopolitical status quo ante of the Soviet and American division of Korea at the 38th Parallel of global latitude. Consequent to Chinese military intervention in behalf of North Korea, the magnitude of the infantry warfare reached operational and geographic stalemate (July 1951 – July 1953). Afterwards, the shooting war was ended with

41678-418: The offensive on a live debate on the current affairs programme Today Tonight . This action was generally seen to have backfired horribly. Harris made three election videos for the Robinson campaign, and claims to have been responsible for a memorable line from her acceptance speech: "the hand that rocked the cradle rocked the system." Robinson won the election, becoming Ireland's first female President. After

41907-432: The party for defying the party whip on anti-abortion grounds to oppose the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill . These members subsequently formed a political party called Renua . In 2015, the Fine Gael/Labour government held a referendum to allow gay marriage under the constitution . The government campaigned for a yes vote and were successful. Following the 2016 general election , Fine Gael retained control of

42136-447: The party returned to the more traditional conservatism espoused by Cumann na nGaedhael, with the moribund League of Youth disbanded by 1936. Fine Gael remained out of government and at a low ebb for a prolonged period until the aftermath of the 1948 general election , which saw the party form a grand coalition with several other parties in order to oust Fianna Fáil and place Fine Gael member John A. Costello as Taoiseach. The coalition

42365-403: The party termed a radical re-organisation of the Irish semi-state company sector. Styled the New Economy and Recovery Authority (or NewERA), Coveney said that it is an economic stimulus plan that will "reshape the Irish economy for the challenges of the 21st century". Requiring an €18.2 billion investment in Energy, Communications and Water infrastructure over a four-year period, it was promoted as

42594-403: The party to the left in a social democratic direction with a document entitled "Towards a Just Society". The document was adopted as the basis for the party's manifesto for the 1965 general election ; however, when the party failed to make headway at the polls the momentum behind the Just Society document wilted and faded. It was not until leader Liam Cosgrave secured an election pact with

42823-423: The party's theoretical magazine Making Sense , but when this was refused, Harris and Smullen published it themselves as a publication of the party's Economic Affairs Department, of which Smullen was head. When the pamphlet began to circulate it was banned by the Workers' Party, and Smullen was suspended from his position on the committee. Harris resigned in protest and Smullen resigned subsequently, along with many of

43052-447: The party) and Leo Varadkar in particular have been seen as strong advocates of a neoliberal approach to Ireland's economic woes and unemployment problems. Varadkar in particular has been a strong proponent of small, indigenous business, advocating in 2008 that smaller firms should have benefitted from the government's recapitalisation program. Its former finance spokesman Richard Bruton's proposals were seen as approaching problems from

43281-420: The periods and countries vary among different ideologies and parties, they generally accept that the Soviet Union was socialist during Stalin's time, Maoists believe that China became state capitalist after Mao's death, and Hoxhaists believe that China was always state capitalist, and uphold the Albania as the only socialist state after the Soviet Union under Stalin. Communist ideologies and ideas have acquired

43510-565: The policy of War Communism (1918–1921), a regulated market , state-controlled means of distribution and nationalisation of large-scale farms, was adopted to requisite and distribute grain in order to feed industrial workers in the cities whilst the Red Army was fighting the White Army's attempted restoration of the Romanov dynasty as absolute monarchs of Russia. Moreover, the politically unpopular forced grain-requisitions discouraged peasants from farming resulted in reduced harvests and food shortages that provoked labour strikes and food riots. In

43739-510: The political repression by communists as a " Communist democide ", "Communist genocide", "Red Holocaust", or followed the "victims of Communism" narrative. Some of them compared Communism to Nazism and described deaths under Marxist–Leninist regimes (civil wars, deportations, famines, repressions, and wars) as being a direct consequence of Marxism–Leninism. Some of these works, in particular The Black Book of Communism and its 93 or 100 millions figure, are cited by political groups and Members of

43968-432: The praxis of Leninism , the October Revolution veterans Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev said that the true threat to the ideological integrity of the party was Trotsky, who was a personally charismatic political leader as well as the commanding officer of the Red Army in the Russian Civil War and revolutionary partner of Lenin. To thwart Trotsky's likely election to head the party, Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev formed

44197-400: The principles of socialist realism and Russian traditions that Stalin admired were allowed to continue. Foreign policy in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1941 resulted in substantial changes in the Soviet Union's approach to its foreign policy. In 1933, the Marxist–Leninist geopolitical perspective was that the Soviet Union was surrounded by capitalist and anti-communist enemies. As a result,

44426-430: The pro-choice side before and during the referendum. While the party was divided, the majority of Fine Gael TDs and Senators, as well as most members, were in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment. A referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment was held on 25 May 2018 and was approved by 66.4% of voters. The party has traditionally held a strong stance against the decriminalisation of drugs. In 2007, Fine Gael's leader at

44655-410: The process of rebuilding it. At the 2007 general election Kenny was able to bring Fine Gael back to its 1997 levels with 51 TDs. The collapse of the Celtic Tiger resulted in the post-2008 Irish economic downturn , which threw Ireland not only into economic turmoil but also political upheaval. The 2011 Irish general election saw the governing Fianna Fáil collapse at the polls, while Fine Gael and

44884-408: The recognition of the class struggle as a dominating principle of a social change and development. In addition, workers (the proletariat ) were to carry out the mission of reconstruction of the society. Conducting a socialist revolution led by what its proponents termed the " vanguard of the proletariat ", defined as the communist party organised hierarchically through democratic centralism ,

45113-430: The resignations of the Old Bolsheviks from government and from the Politburo. Stalin then completed his political purging of the party by exiling Trotsky from the Soviet Union in 1929. Afterwards, the political opposition to the practical régime of Stalinism was denounced as Trotskyism (Bolshevik–Leninism), described as a deviation from Marxism–Leninism, the state ideology of the Soviet Union. Political developments in

45342-432: The ruling parties hold Marxism–Leninism as their official ideology, although they give it different interpretations in terms of practical policy. Marxism–Leninism is also the ideology of anti-revisionist, Hoxhaist, Maoist, and neo-Stalinist communist parties worldwide. The anti-revisionists criticise some rule of the communist states by claiming that they were state capitalist countries ruled by revisionists . Although

45571-505: The secret police NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) to rise above the law and the GPU (State Political Directorate) to use political violence to eliminate any person who might be a threat, whether real, potential, or imagined. As an administrator, Stalin governed the Soviet Union by controlling the formulation of national policy, but he delegated implementation to subordinate functionaries. Such freedom of action allowed local communist functionaries much discretion to interpret

45800-506: The split was finalised by 1963. The Italian Communist Party was mainly influenced by Antonio Gramsci , who gave a more democratic implication than Lenin's for why workers remained passive. A key difference between Maoism and other forms of Marxism–Leninism is that peasants should be the bulwark of the revolutionary energy, which is led by the working class. Three common Maoist values are revolutionary populism , pragmatism, and dialectics . According to Rachel Walker, "Marxism–Leninism"

46029-461: The stated purpose of @WhigNorthern is to track Sinn Fein’s “subversive influence on Irish media.” Over the last year, it first targeted me directly by name: “Francine Cunningham has always been at the extreme end of radical nationalist politics” and claimed I was the ex-wife of someone I have never met who was also deemed to be suspect.” On 15 April 2021 Twitter was threatened with legal action by lawyers acting for journalist and novelist Paul Larkin if

46258-415: The station and to criticism of what was perceived as its anti-republican political agenda. Harris recruited Charlie Bird (then a member of Official Sinn Féin) and Marian Finucane to RTÉ in the 1970s. The Labour Party and the Workers' Party jointly nominated former senator Mary Robinson to be their candidate for President of Ireland at the 1990 presidential election . While Harris's strategy proposal

46487-430: The successful October Revolution in Russia had facilitated the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and revolutions and interventions in Hungary (1918–1920) which produced the First Hungarian Republic and the Hungarian Soviet Republic . In Berlin, the German government aided by Freikorps units fought and defeated the Spartacist uprising which began as a general strike . In Munich, the local Freikorps fought and defeated

46716-413: The territorial integrity of the Soviet Union and the political integrity of Stalin's model of a Marxist–Leninist state, when the Nazis were initially welcomed as liberators by the anti-communist and nationalist populations in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . The anti-Soviet nationalists' collaboration with

46945-416: The three groups combined forces and merged to form Fine Gael. The National Guard (referred to informally by this point as "the Blueshirts") were to serve as the youth wing of the new party, "The League of Youth". CnaG members dominated the new party. However, to avoid the perception that Fine Gael was simply Cumann na nGaedhael under a new name, O'Duffy was made leader of the new party. Following poor results at

47174-441: The time Enda Kenny called for drug and alcohol testing to be performed in schools, saying cocaine usage at schools was "rampant" in some areas. At the party's 2014 Ard Fheis, a proposed motion to support the legalisation of cannabis was voted down by the membership. In 2016, the Fine Gael health minister James Reilly said that they would not be changing their policy on the legalisation of cannabis, due to "serious concerns about

47403-413: The time, orthodox Marxists claimed that Russia was ripe for the development of capitalism, not yet for socialism. Lenin advocated the need of the development of a large corps of technical intelligentsia to assist the industrial development of Russia and advance the Marxist economic stages of development as it had too few technical experts at the time. In that vein, Lenin explained it as follows: "Our poverty

47632-432: The unborn, was put to a referendum. Fine Gael initially supported the proposal, but then came out in opposition to it. Under leader and Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald , the party campaigned for a 'No' vote, arguing, on the advice of the Attorney General Peter Sutherland , that the wording, which had been drafted under the previous government, was ambiguous and open to many interpretations. Its stance conflicted with that of

47861-493: The voting age from 21 to 18, and supported a proposal to remove the "special position" of the Roman Catholic Church from the constitution. It was on the successful side in all three of these campaigns. The party also began to take a more liberal approach to the introduction of contraceptives to Ireland, although an attempt by the Fine Gael/Labour coalition to legalise contraceptives in 1974 stumbled after six members of Fine Gael, most prominently Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, voted against

48090-493: The way to devolved government in Northern Ireland . In 1986 the party campaigned for a Yes in that year's referendum on legalising divorce , which was defeated, with the No side obtaining 63.5% of the vote. The 1980s had proven fruitful electorally for Fine Gael, but the 1990s and early 2000s saw this momentum decline quickly. One of the first signs of this was the party's poor result in the 1990 presidential election , in which their candidate Austin Currie obtained just 17% of

48319-559: The world. With that, Stalin's application of Marxism–Leninism to the situation of the Soviet Union became Stalinism , the official state ideology until his death in 1953. In Marxist political discourse, Stalinism, denoting and connoting the theory and praxis of Stalin, has two usages, namely praise of Stalin by Marxist–Leninists who believe Stalin successfully developed Lenin's legacy, and criticism of Stalin by Marxist–Leninists and other Marxists who repudiate Stalin's political purges, social-class repressions and bureaucratic terrorism. As

48548-424: Was a permissible ground under Article 40.3.3° for abortion. In 2002, Fine Gael campaigned against the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution , which proposed to remove suicide as a grounds for granting a termination of a pregnancy. The amendment was rejected by Irish voters. In 2013 it proposed, and supported, the enactment of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 , which implemented in statute law

48777-472: Was at the centre of an internal investigation at the National Film School in Dún Laoghaire , where he lectures. Harris has also incorrectly, albeit accidentally, said he received a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in his entry in ' Who's Who ' in Ireland, for his documentary Darkness Visible . Harris insisted that he did win the award, saying that the Berlin Film Festival "mustn't keep proper records". The award he actually received

49006-483: Was created after Vladimir Lenin 's death by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, continuing to be the official state ideology after de-Stalinisation and of other Marxist–Leninist states, the basis for elements of Marxism–Leninism predate this. The philosophy of Marxism–Leninism originated as the pro-active, political praxis of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in realising political change in Tsarist Russia. Lenin's leadership transformed

49235-401: Was criticised by various anti-abortion groups and Catholic bishops, but supported by a majority of the electorate in opinion polls, with many indicating they wished to see a more liberal law on abortion. Enda Kenny's Fine Gael–led minority government took office after the 2016 election with a programme which promised a randomly selected Citizens' Assembly to report on possible changes to

49464-550: Was featured on the front cover of the August 2007 edition of Village . Inside, Harris was the subject of a number of critical articles written by Vincent Browne . In 2008, Harris defended the Irish-language poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh , who admitted buying gifts for and having sex with 16 to 18-year-old boys while on charitable visits to Nepal . Harris said that while he didn't "necessarily approve of people going to Nepal for sex with young men", Ó Searcaigh's critics had "made no distinction between paedophilia (sex with children below

49693-440: Was hailed to be a historical necessity by Marxist–Leninists. Moreover, the introduction of the proletarian dictatorship was advocated and classes deemed hostile were to be repressed. In the 1920s, it was first defined and formulated by Joseph Stalin based on his understanding of orthodox Marxism and Leninism . In 1934, Karl Radek suggested the formulation Marxism–Leninism–Stalinism in an article in Pravda to stress

49922-461: Was in financial difficulties because of the collapse of the aircraft leasing company, GPA, in which he was a shareholder. The write-off occurred after Fitzgerald left politics. Fitzgerald also said he believed his then Fine Gael colleague, Peter Sutherland , who was chairman of AIB at the time, was unaware of the situation. The leader of the Fine Gael party is Simon Harris . The position of deputy leader has been held since 2024 by Helen McEntee TD,

50151-560: Was in the control of localities, often with local leaders interpreting the policies in a way that served themselves best. This abuse of power by local leaders exacerbated the violent purges and terror campaigns carried out by Stalin against members of the party deemed to be traitors. With the Great Purge (1936–1938), Stalin rid himself of internal enemies in the party and rid the Soviet Union of any alleged socially dangerous and counterrevolutionary person who might have offered legitimate political opposition to Marxism–Leninism. Stalin allowed

50380-439: Was invited to address the UUP annual conference in 1999, where he described the Belfast Agreement as "an Amazing Grace" and urged the UUP to make a leap of faith in Sinn Féin. They eventually did so, forming a power-sharing executive, although it was later suspended on the issue of the failure of the IRA to decommission its arms. Harris strongly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq , and is unrepentant about its morality, writing in

50609-455: Was one of a minority of journalists to support Bertie Ahern during the " Bertiegate I" crisis, during which questions were raised over Ahern's financial propriety. Harris heavily supported Ahern and Fianna Fáil in the 2007 general election . Some alleged that the Sunday Independent's editorial stance prior to the election amounted to a U-turn from previous criticism of the government, but Harris explicitly denied there had been any U-turn or that

50838-415: Was one of disillusionment in the Bolshevik party over Lenin's leadership, with members opposing him for scandals involving his expropriations and methods of raising money for the party. This political defeat was aggravated by Tsar Nicholas II 's political reformations of Imperial Russian government. In practise, the formalities of political participation (the electoral plurality of a multi-party system with

51067-525: Was replaced with proletarian internationalism , by way of which Khrushchev re-committed the Soviet Union to permanent revolution to realise world communism . In that geopolitical vein, Khrushchev presented de-Stalinisation as the restoration of Leninism as the state ideology of the Soviet Union. In the 1950s, the de-Stalinisation of the Soviet Union was ideological bad news for the People's Republic of China because Soviet and Russian interpretations and applications of Leninism and orthodox Marxism contradicted

51296-476: Was repressed, especially minority religious groups. Education was transformed. Under Lenin, the education system allowed relaxed discipline in schools that became based upon Marxist theory, but Stalin reversed this in 1934 with a conservative approach taken with the reintroduction of formal learning, the use of examinations and grades, the assertion of full authority of the teacher and the introduction of school uniforms. Art and culture became strictly regulated under

51525-425: Was seeking to convince republicans to abandon violence. Harris praised the resulting Good Friday Agreement . Hume and David Trimble won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for their efforts. Harris became an advisor in the late 1990s to Trimble, the then leader of the Ulster Unionist Party . He wrote some of Trimble's speeches, one of which included the line that Northern Ireland had been "a cold house for Catholics." He

51754-422: Was short-lived but revived again between 1954 and 1957. However, following this stint Fine Gael returned to opposition for 16 years. The party went through a period of soul-searching during the 1960s, in which a new generation of Fine Gael politicians led by Declan Costello sought to revitalise Fine Gael with new ideas. In what has later been hailed as a landmark moment in Fine Gael history, Costello proposed moving

51983-420: Was standing for Poblacht Chríostúil . At this time Harris met his future wife, UCC student Anne O'Sullivan . The aim of the party was "to base the social and economic policies of our country on Christian social reform, as elaborated by the last six Popes." Harris was a leading Irish republican in Sinn Féin in the 1960s, and was an important influence in the party's move from Irish nationalism to Marxism ,

52212-440: Was taken as example by Marxist–Leninists in other countries; according to the Great Russian Encyclopedia , this text became the foundation of the philosophy of Marxism–Leninism. In 1938, Stalin's official textbook History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) popularised Marxism–Leninism . The internationalism of Marxism–Leninism was expressed in supporting revolutions in other countries, initially through

52441-419: Was traditionally divided along Civil War lines, rather than the traditional European left–right spectrum , Fine Gael is described generally as a centre-right party, with a focus on "fiscal rectitude". As the descendant of the pro-Treaty factions in the Irish Civil War, Fine Gael cites Michael Collins as an inspiration and claims his legacy. He remains a symbol for the party, and the anniversary of his death

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