Fianna Fail in a sweet and sour sauce.

I’m currently reading Robert McGregor’s excellent “The Party” about the Chinese Communist Party, and I’m really struck by the parallels with Fianna Fail. Like the CPC, FF fought in a civil war, although Mao fought Chiang Kai-Shek who was a dictator, whereas FF’s founders attempted to overthrow the democratically elected Dail Eireann and replace it presumably with a military dictatorship. Of course, once in power FF did not murder its opponents and accepted democracy belatedly, leaving office just as Mao came to power in China.

The other interesting comparison is how FF, like the CPC, are obsessed with paying heed to very old stated values even though in government those values were largely set to one side. Finally, the CPC puts loyalty to the party above everything else, and regards the state and the party in power as being the same thing. In every CPC appointee’s office is a special phone connecting that official to the party machine. It is primarily used, apparently, by party officials to get government and semi-state jobs for that official’s family and political cronies. Sound familiar?

4 thoughts on “Fianna Fail in a sweet and sour sauce.

  1. All rubbish basically a corrupt party sorry a party controlled by corrupt individuals for a long time and the rank and file participated as they were often the beneficiaries of snmall patronage such as old IRA pensions, jobs etc. Now lead by a milk and water politician who has been pretty insipid all through his career. Should be disbanded.

  2. No fan of Dev or FF, a virulent opponent of both in fact. I still have to point out that it is shocking rubbish to state that the anti-treaty forces wanted a military dictatorship. That has to be one of the most foolish lines I have ever read on that period. Thankfully it is one that I have only heard here.

  3. Sorry Jason, but this is a slur too far against FF. It was FG that brought Lenin to Ireland and got praise from the Chinese for attaching the Pope. And it’s Labour now that that thinks Catholics shouldn’t be allowed to lobby their politicians on abortion.

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