Socialist Voice Review
23 June 2026
It is always interesting when writers can confidently ask questions and pose possible ways forward without having to give the impression that it is their way or the highway. There are three articles on distinct subjects in the June edition of Socialist Voice that are worth reading in full (consequently, we will not quote from any of the articles).
We regularly criticise the party and its publications particularly for the lack of organisational analysis and strategies. The party and contributors to its publications frequently (all too frequently) invoke Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Karl Marx and (increasingly of late) James Connolly, as reinforcement for arguments and positions that are often weak and sometimes just wrong.
Allow us to do a little invoking of our own: permanently going backwards was not what Lenin had in mind in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY). Which takes us to Crisis and the Continuity of Capitalism. Before a problem can be tackled it is imperative to understand that problem. Eoghan O’Neill starts off on the right foot and leaves room for working out how to deal with the problem. That is, he allows that we may not have the answers to the problem, but in understanding it, we might be able to confront it. Sometimes, that is the best that can be achieved. It is a welcome and necessary break from always knowing the answers to issues that are not fully understood and never having a plan to either understand them better or how to confront them.
Back to Lenin, he wisely contended that “If the writer of these lines has succeeded in providing some material for clarifying these problems, he may regard his labours as not having been fruitless.” In this regard, O’Neill can take a bow.
Similarly, in A Strategy of Power, Not Petition, Niall Cullinane also manages to explain a position and then suggest possible ways forward – in contrast to the usual lazy and useless collective condemnation of the trade union movement by other contributors and from the party leadership.
Delightful satire
Back to Lenin again. Lenin Syndrome: The Diagnosis and Management of a Troubling Delusional Disorder, by Aisling Each, is a delightful piece. So good, we wish we had written it ourselves. While it might well be a cheeky commentary based on characters within the CPI, the fact is we can all recognise ourselves and our behaviours at some point in our political lives. Should be taken very seriously.
CPI website
Over on the CPI website, however, there is nothing insightful – humorous or otherwise. There have been no updates to date in June. And a full two months after the National Congress the newly adopted documents have not been put up on the site.
Still, if it takes your fancy you can fill up on the 2022 Party Programme and Constitution. How many steps back is that?