An Reabhloid: Vol. 4 no. 2, Dec 1989/Feb 1990

AN REABHLOID

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DEC 1989/FEB 1996

FREE THE

SIX!

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FRAMEUP

LAWS!

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EXTRA-

DITION!

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 1

CONTENTS

An Reabhloid (the Revolution) is the political journal of Peoples Democracy. Normally, unsigned articles indicate a formal statement of the views of the organisation. Signed articles do not.

IN THIS ISSUE:

EDITORIAL

FREE THE SIx!

A LIBERATING PHILOSOPHY...

LEFT UNITY - IRISH UNITY

FIGHTING THE ‘MORAL POLICE’

REBIRTH OF SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY

REVIEW

JOIN US IN

THE FIGHT!

The massive changes sweeping across Eastern Europe are a major issue for the anti-imperialist movement here (page 2) The release of four Irish Hostages makes a campaign on the issue essential (page 3) The controversial views of a Republican militant on marxism - and our response (Page 5) A discussion article dealing with the possibility that the anti-imperialist movernent can intervene in the radicalisation towards \Labour (Page9) We interview a student activist on the fight against SPUC harassment (Page 12) James Mackin looks at the Marxist critique of Stalinism and its relevence to events in Russia and Eastern Euniope (Page 15) H-Block prisoner Tony McIntyre reviews "A Pathway to peace (page 18)

PEOPLES DEMOCRACY

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EDITORIAL

After 20 years the Prague Spring has begun again. The Berlin Wall has fallen, and with it the Stalinist belief that Socialism could be built in a prison camp. In its place we see a pluralism of ideas and of debate which was seen by the founders of the marxist movement as essential for the building of socialism and an unleashing of creative and human energies of immense significance, Irish revolutionaries often see their situation in isolation. The Irish struggle seems unique, and the connection wich struggles around the world unclear. nothing could be further from the truth. Twenty years ago the attempts to build a democratic socialism in Czechoslovakia during the ‘Prague Spring” was one of the major influences in the radicalisation of youth and the building of a mass resistance in the North. Today again history is on the march and revolutionary militants must run to catch up. In order to do this many militants must fight their own fears and misconceptions. The crimes of Stalinism have made communism a dirty word in many East European countnes. Among the opposition movements there are those who have called openly for the restoration of capitalism. We must say firmly that socialism cannot be established by force. Any decision taken democratically by the peoples of Eastern Europe should be respected. In any case these calls are based on illusion. It is quite clear that capitalism has no answer to the problems of the working class in these countries. In fact it is the interest on foreign loans which is driving countries like Poland to bankruptcy. The open dismay of George Bush and Margaret Thatcher shows that they realise that the real issue is the creation of democratic forms of worker’s power and that they fear the influence that this will have on the working class in the West.

One immediate consequence of the upheavals will be the explosion of the national question to the centre stage of European politics. We must ensure that the Irish question becomes part of that debate, and we must do so not simply by propaganda and diplomacy, but by direct contact with the new national liberation movements. To do this successfully we will need areal internationalist framework. We must have an alternative to bureaucTatic control and imperialist rule - a free and nonexploitative relationship between nations. Peoples Democracy would put forward its own concept “For A United Socialist States of Europe” in such a discussion.

That means that we must throw out another piece of Stalinist baggage - the ‘Stages’ theory that has been used to put socialism on the long finger and has influenced various sections of the Irish resistance. Its lastcry can be seen in futile attempts by the Republican leadership to find any section of Irish capitalism that will support a call for national liberation. We need to put socialism on the agenda now. There is no task more urgent than the creation of a revolutionary current within the Irish workers movement.

The really telling fact about the events of the past weeks is that 72% of East Germans oppose reunification with West Germany, while in Prague Alexander Dubchek has come to the fore as a hero of the resistance. In context these represent a mass support for socialism and worker's power. They show that workers in East Europe are rediscovering central elements of the marxist tradition buried with Stalin’s slaughter of the left opposition in Russia. As the Irish section of the Fourth International, Peoples Democracy is proud to stand in direct physical continuity with that tradition of revolution.

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FREE THE SIX!

The Guildford four are victims of a conspiracy, but it is one that goes much wider and deeper than a few British police and extends beyond the four, the Birmingham six, the Winchester three and many others. In fact the central plank of British policy in Ireland is a conspiracy of repression directed against the majority of the Insh people. There is no ‘new evidence’ in the Guildford four case.

All the facts establishing their innocence have been known for many years. The only ‘new’ fact was the fact that some copper was stupid enough to write down and file the details of the frameup. A few relatively junior police are now being fingered,but the individuals involved in the case go all the way up to Peter Imbert, Chief of London metropolitan police, and include a conspiracy at the highest levels of the British Directorate of public prosecutions to hide evidence. Many of the facts were exposed by the defence and presented to senior judges at the appeal court, only to have the evidence rejected. In fact a ‘fit-up’ sheet similiar to the document that led to the release of the Guildford four was presented in evidence at the recent Birmingham six appeal, only to be rejected by the judiciary. The disbandment of the Midlands serious crime squad and the release of the Guildford four has not been enough to obtain their release. Even when it came to the eventual release of the four the Brits did not dare trust their judiciary and instead withdrew the prosecution case. Yet the state has this power in all the cases - then Home Secretary Hurd could have pardoner the prisoners at any time. He has refused to do so and refused to offer the slightest apology to his victims. Today the British protect the conspirators, hang on like grim death to their other innocent victims, and maintain and extend the legal loopholes that allow this reign of terror. Censorship even today prevents protest songs about the Guildford four and the Birmingham six from being broadcast. The PTA allows virtually limitless powers of arrest, used mainly against Irish citizens, and the power of seven-day detention is held even at the cost of public condemnation by the European court. This law especially is designed as a torturers charter - allowing time for isolation and illtreatment to produce the sort of ‘confessions’ that jailed the Guildford four.

In the North the Diplock courts provide ‘quickfit’ justice and are presently the spearhead of a witchunt against moumers at the Milltown massacre funerals for defending themselves against attack by undercover soldiers. Attheend of November chief steward “Cleeky’ Clarke got 9 years for this offence. The next day we had the ludicrous spectacle of Lord Justice Gibson retiring to consider by himself if he could be impartial in the latest “corporals tials’ case (he had already convicted on substantially the same evidence). He decided to continue with the trial but promised to keep an eye on himself for evidence of partiality!

The other side of the coin is Crown forces who are above the law. They can shoot to kill or leak information that enables Loyalist gangs to carry out assassinations, confident that the law, the courts and the government will support their case. British policy is to terrorise Irish people and make sure that there is no mass resistance to their rule in Ireland.

To that end they maintain a corrupt police force and judiciary, legislate to allow the torture of suspects and censor attempts to expose the resulting injustices.

In Dublin one of the main results of the latest furore has to tie the 26- county government into direct involvement with the repression through the Hillsborough agreement, the use of extradition and Garda information ‘leaked’ to the British.

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The Birmingham six and other Irish prisoners framed by the British must be released. The “emergency” laws, deliberately designed to assist the British to torture and frame innocent people, must be repealed. Censorship in Britain and the 26 counties which helps to cover up these injustices must be ended. Above all, no more Irish people should be extradited to face British ‘Justice’.

These tasks deserve more than a routine condemnation by the anti-imperialist movement. They are objectives supported by the majority of the Irish people and require a real campaign of mass proportions if they are to be won. Peoples Democracy, in the last issue of An Munster fight against extradition Approximately 40 people representing all 6 counties of | Munster met in Limerick at the end of September to discuss the state of the anti-extradition campaign in the province following the very impressive election campaign in support for Fr. Ryan for a seat on the European parliament. It was generally agreed that while some of the momentum had been lost over the summer period, the 30 000 plus votes for Fr. Ryan still provided a strong | base on which to revitalise the fight against extradition.

The meeting decided that the unity and co-ordination which made the election campaign such a success Reabhloid, called for the building on an open conference by the ant-imperialist movement. That call should now be discussed by the members of the various groups and parties. But we don’t have to wait for conferences. There is nothing to prevent unity in action on these issues now and a real opportunity to drive back repression and collaboration.

FREE THE SIX!

END THE FRAMEUP LAWS!

STOP EXTRADITION!

should be continued and expanded and a pro- | posal to establish a “Munster Co-ordinating Committee Against Extradition” was adopted.

Delegates from each of the Munster Dail constituencies were selected to represent their areas on the committee. The initial work of the committee will be to encourage and promote the establishment of local committees. Tentative proposals for a Munster anti-extradition rally were discussed, as was a suggestion that a Munster conference should be arranged at a future date at which broader forces might be encouraged to participate.

JOE HARRINGTON.

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A LIBERATING PHILOSOPHY...

Back in August, as part of the West Belfast Festival, the ’63 committee organised a public meeting inthe Conway Mill, Belfast to discuss the last 20 years of struggle and to look to the future. The meeting was chaired by Gerry Adams, MP and President of Sinn Fein and platform speakers included Bernadette McAliskey, Nell McCafferty and Jim Gibney.

An Reabhloid is printing the speech made by Jim Gibney at the meeting because of the important themes taken up within it. Gibney is a member of Sinn Fein and a tireless political activist for many years. The speech is clearly a personal statement and not an exposition of the formal policy of Sinn Fein. However we believe it is a significant element of the debate currently ongoing within Sinn Fein and therefore deserves wider circulation than afforded by the Conway Mill meeting.

In the accompanying article John North discusses some of the themes of the speech from the point of view of Peoples Democracy. An Reabhloid welcomes views from our readers for future publication. Just looking around the hall, there are a lot of people here tonight, some just home from prison, some whose families have been devastated by the last 20 years of war, who have lostrelatives tothe British forces. There are others who have left us at some stage along the way because the struggle for them has got too heavy.

So there isa legacy of broken people, destroyed minds over the past 20 years and for some people... the last 20 years for a lot of people in the North and the South, and but also on the opposite side of the political divide. the last 20 years have been a nightmare for all to have lived through. And I suppose, because the stnuggle iscli has almost settled into a military conflict between the ingenuity of the IRA to outmanoeuvre the British Army, that the essential questions which should have been looked at over the past 20 years, political questions about the nature of the society, the new society that we are trying to bring about, that those sort of questions are not reall being asked. Becausc what most of us are observing, and it is probably one of the major weaknesses of the struggle, is that the number of people who have actually participated in this struggle over the past 20 years, compared with the people that we're trying to liberate and bring mto some sort of new socicty, ts minuscule.

So, the larger number of people out there are spectators and they have been spectating on a struggle, ona war of positions between the Republican forces and the British forces. Attempts have been made to focus our minds on the quality of life, on the vision that the leadership of this struggle have in their head and have the capacity to put down on paper, for the rest of us to pick up and read and ZO out into the streets and convince other people that this is something worth putting your life on the line for, this is something worth joining the IRA, joining a political struggle or going to prison for...

I don’t believe, .his is a personal thing, I don’t believe

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struggle over the last 20 years has the capacity any more tomotivate people. While the republican struggle holds out the prospect of a united country, this is a vague notion and we don’t know the composition of that state, we don’t know the ingredients of that society. This is what Gerry (Adams)... talked about, the ‘limitations of republicanism’, as a philosophy to deal with the 20th century and I think he was absolutely correct. Republicanism holds out the prospect for political independence while socialism holds out the prospects for a new society. The anti-imperialist community in this country, before its too late, have got to produce a liberating philosophy, a liberating ideology which is capable of motivating people again, which is capable of bringing people out of the apathy which they are sunk under, under the type of society that we’re living in today.

The fact that people are still resisting after 20 years is commendable and I’m not decrying the sacrifices that have been made in the last 20 years, the sacrifices that are being made at the present time by people in the struggle. What I am saying is that there needs to be a new ideology, a new philosophy to take on board the questions that people are asking themselves; the working people of thiscountry who are ground down, notjust by military repression, but who are ground down by the economic circumstances that they live in, who have an intellectual poverty as much as an economic poverty, hecause they don’t havea culture, not just the absence of @ gaelic culture which inspires them, that means something to them. | believe that there is a philosophy, that it hasn't entered into the political debate in this country and that for me is creative marxism. I think that it is long past the time when the leadership of this anti-imperialist movement, and I'm not just talking about the Republican movement, it is the largest constituent element in it and there is expected to produce a lot more argument than other people who are involved in the struggle, but I just feel, that the terrain in which, the ideological terrain if you like, the philosophical terrain in which the struggle has been waged over the last 20 years, needs to be looked at because within marxism, a creative and not a dogmatic view, is a liberating philosophy.

Itisan ideology which will meet the needs of the people who have been ground down, not just by the war, but who have been ground down by the economic and social circumstances in which they live.

There is a lotof work to be done to develop that concept, to bring out that argument and a lot more meetings need to take place and a lot more writing needs to be done in order that we popularise the notions contained in marxism, that we graft on to the dynamism, and there has been a tremendous dynamism associated with this struggle over the past 20 years, and its come from ordinary

people who were motivated and have been motivated by the notion of Irish independence, by the aspiration that their country will be restored to them free from military occupation, free from partition.

But if we don’t begin now the debate as to the quality of that life, the other side of British withdrawal, then we Tun not only the risk that we repeat 1921 all over again and that we will have the border rolled back and a 32counties ‘Free State’, you don’t only run that risk, but you actually run the risk of being defeated, that this sttuggle, because it’s confined, it’s restricted to one particular political philosophy, that you run the risk of the thing actually being defeated.

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I don't have all the answers ... what I am saying is that it needs thought out, ... we need to talk about it, we need to examine what it was that in the 20th century brought liberation to most of those countries who were occupied by imperial powers. In my opinion it was a philosophy based on the needs of ordinary working people and that philosophy was marxism, a creative marxism, not one that isdogmatic thatis not going todrive us all in despair over whether Lenin said this, or Trotsky said that, or Stalin said the other but something contained in there that we need in Ireland today... to rekindle the hope that all of us know who have lived through the last 20 years, brought us into this struggle and | am convinced that if we set about that task then we can bring other people into this struggle and move forward to a new Ireland.

OUR RESPONSE...

There is a lot in Jim Gibney’s speech with which Peoples Democracy can agree. After twenty years it is very welcome to hear a member of the Republican movement publicly accept the limitations of the Republican programme and base the need to overcome these limitation on “the liberating philosophy of Marxism”.

That is a case that we have argued for the past twenty years. With some slight quibbles, which I will explain later, we certainly believe that Marxism should be creative rather than dogmatic. Any discussion of a future programme for the anti-imperialist movement should take account of the relative success of third world liberation movements and the use of the marxist programme in those struggles. And Jim Gibney is right to say we will have to put in a lot of hard work. A discussion which up to now has been sporadic, fragmented, split between the republicans and the left and to a large extent limited to a handful of cadre in the republican movement will have to be brought to and made real for the vast section of anti-imperialist militants who are central to the continuation and development of this struggle and also force the interest and attention of a generation of young people who must be convinced anew of the necessity of struggle and the potential for victory.

It this need that fuels our overall support for the Gibney speech, that makes it important to make it available to a wider audience and develop the discussion. Above all we agree that it is on the issues raised that the final success or failure of the present struggle will be decided.

Jim Gibney is night to say that we run the risk of being defeated. No matter how angry this makes some militants, being silent about the weaknesses of the struggle will not protect us. Jim Gibney’s views are far more realistic and positive than the static militarist conceptions of the ‘long war’ - holding in the face of all historical evidence that there is a hard core support that can not be broken, that the character and direction of the military campaign are unaffected by demoralisation and inaction, or that military action can give an isolated minority the power to defeat imperialism, or even to survive repeated imperialist offensives, in the face of apathy or hostility from the mass of the Irish population.

This is not to say that we are in complete agreement. Far from it. Jim Gibnevy’s view, from the standpoint of the republican acuvist, is seriously askew. He says that the number of people who have actively participated in the struggle is minuscule. This may be true in relation to

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IRA membership or membership of Sinn Fein, but it totally ignore the real dynamic of this struggle - the series of mass mobilisations in the North and the promise of victory that has been held out on the occasions when the mobilisations have spilt across the border to involve major sections of the Irish people. It is in fact this process, and the central role that the working class have had at these key points (for example the general strike following Bloody Sunday) that makes the question of a marxist programme a concrete issue rather that the rather abstract question of philosophy that the tone of the speech tends to pose.

This has the effect of breaking the direct link between theory and action. It is important that a marxist proeramme help to motivate militants to continue supporting the struggle and that we have a clear view of a future free Ireland that poses an alternative in socialism, but what is really crucial is our actions now - that we develop a critique of Insh capitalism that enables us to tum the movement today away from futile attempts to build pan-nationalist unity and towards a struggle for the leadership of the working class.

There are other criticisms that we could make. The questions of national independence and socialism tend to appear as separate in the speech. Opposition to “dogmatism’” can too easily mean throwing out the Marxism - a major current in 3rd world struggies heritage of marxist theory which ts, after all, the condensed experience of the working class ona world scale.

Right now these aren't the important issues. What is important is that we teat Jim Gibney’s warning about the future of the struggle with the seriousness that it deserves, and that we give to the debate the urgency that it so obviously requires.

OPEN CONFERENCE -

ACTION PACK RELEASED

In the last issue of An Reabhloid Peoples Democracy released a call for an open conference of Anti-imperialists that could begin to resolve the political crisis facing the movement and build a 32-county resistance firmly oriented to the Working class. Since then we have held a number of internal discussions and discussions with sympathisers.

One outcome of these discussions was a firm decision that we as an organisation would not go ahead and call a small conference of the far left. The sort of conference needed must be a good deal broader and have considerably more authority if it is to plot a way forward and stand any chance of seeing its ideas translated into action by militants in the street.

We will be looking in the coming period for a series of open discussions with other political parties, trade union, campaign and community groups to gain their views and hopefully win support and sponsorship for the canference. A number of the articles in the present Journal are aimed at stimulating that debate. We would point especially tothe publication of Jim Gibney’s speech and our response and also to the analysis of debate in the Labour left in the 26 counties.

We welcomea response from our readers to this call and intend to devote space in the next issue to seu FSEP ID StscHL RAGESRLA oF Tem SAPS ormally W groups. At present an li os of lealets is ee.

produced and can be obtained by writing to any of the addresses in the journal. We would also welcome the opportunity to provide speakers or members of the organisation to join in local discussions.

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LEFT UNITY / IRISH UNITY

MAKING THE CONNECTION

One feature of the 1989 General Election in the South was increased electoral support for the Labour Party and for the Workers Party, which campaigned on a program of ‘Left Unity’. The National Question did not feature prominently in the election, but since then it has begun to surface as one of the major problems for the Fianna Fail/Propressive Democrat Coalition.

Sections of the Labour Party see a more radical position on the National Question as an issue which would help transform their old image as partners in a Blueshirt Coalition. Last May Emmet Stagg took a small but welcome step in this direction by supporting the British ‘Time to Go’ movement. This led to an hysterical attack from the Workers Party - accusing Stagg of ‘supporting Fascism’ - hardly a hopeful sign for their concept of left unity! In fact there are all sorts of overlapping debates taking place in the Labour and the anti-imperialist movements on Irish unity, Left unity and the idea of a ‘broad front’. In the discussion article below JOHN MEEHAN examines the opportunities offered by these debates. An Reabhioid welcomes contributions and responses on this issue.

The parliamentary left in the 26 counties has an appalling record on the National Question. In the name of “working class unity’ it denounces militant Republicanism, and has given practical as well as ideological support to the British policy of maintaining the partition of Ireland. In 1970 Conor Cruise O’Brien was able to exploit general anti-republican senument in the Labour party to facilitate coalition with the most pro-British of the bourgeois parties, Fine Gael. The result was continuous electoral and organisational decline for Labour. The decision in 1987 to abandon coalition halted the slide, and now there Is a revival beginning. The more far-sighted strategists among the Labour left know that revival won't develop very much unless a break is made with 20 years of being Fine Gael’s fifth wheel. The major sections of the working class support Fianna Fail, and the fundamental reason is the nationalist image of DeValera’s party.

Most people of the left have failed repeatedly to grasp this fact. Emmet Stagg is not one of them. He is right to say that unless the Labour Movement begins to set an agenda for Insh Unity; “the political leadership of Irish working men and women will remain with conservatives who are hostile to the broader goals of the Labour movement” Stagg goes on from this point to indicate a programme linking Irish Unity to broader social and economic questions. While I agree with the concept, the content is both bitter and sweet. Questions also arise on who participates in the debate, the shape of a movement adopting such a programme (does Emmet Stagg see it going beyond the Labour party’), and how (or whether) the Labour movement could endorse such a programme in all 32 counties. Finally it has to be established on what basis a programme uniting all strands of a socialist and republican left could be agreed, leaving to one side issues where disagreements continue. If a debate involving the labour left can proceed with that objective in mind, it could be a big help to the working class and the Irish left.

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Already a debate exists in both the anti-imperialisi movement and on the left about building alliances: one is on ‘Left Unity’, the other concerns a “Broad Front’.

They cross over common ground, and should be seen as sides of the same coin. During the 26-county general election there was a general ‘left unity’ vote that covered Labour, the Workers’ Party, the Greens and others such as Tony Gregory. Irish unity was not part of that agenda, but it has to be if the left is to make any headway. Butif itdevelops the Worker's party and Jim Kemmy’s Democratic Socialist party (DSP) immediately drop out of the ‘left unity’ equation. That would be their own choice, but personally I believe thata fairly significant part of the WP/DSP electorate would desert them in such a situation. In Limerick it is known that many people in working class areas gave their number 1's to Kemmy in the General election and Fr. Paddy Ryan in the EEC election.

At present there is some ambiguity among sections of the anti-imperialist movement on whether “Broad Front” includes ‘Left unity’ or whether it means only ‘National (Irish) unity. This ambiguity should be eliminated. That can be done by identifying the minimum necessary basis fora united structure. The first is clearly Irish Unity and British Withdrawal.

Emmet Stagg advocates a version of this which, in my opinion, is ultimately flawed. However there is no reason why that debate should not continue within a united structure, He contrasts a ‘simplistic’ Troops Out position with a positive endorsement of the British “Time to Go’ campaign. He then clouds the issue of British withdrawal by drawing a line between a British ‘declaration of interest in Irish unity’ and a subsequent “final stage’ where there isan ‘intention to withdraw’. The stated purpose of this laborious process is the gaining of ‘consent’ from Unionists. You might as well go chasing pots of gold at the end of a rainbow! While the strategy proposed would certainly signal to Unionists the imminent prospect of an end to partition, itis hard to see how it might win their consent. There is no guaranteg that it would. Say, five years after the “declaration of interest’ there was still no sign of consent what would be done? [f there was a move on to a ‘declaration of intent’ the consent principle would be abandoned anyway. If the policy stayed at the ‘declaration of interest’ stage we would still be at square one: partition would stay in place.

Consent of Unionists to Insh unity is certainly desirable, but it is not a ‘democratic principle’ as Emmet Stage declares. It is a guarantee to maintain partition until they change their minds. If you say partition is undemocratic, as I do, then the notion of consent is also undemocratic. Advocating both British withdrawal and consent is in fact ultimately contradictory.

All of this is certainly insufficient to offer as an.alternative to the IRA’s armed campaign. This would be true even in a Stagg scenario where British troops were withdrawn to barracks, prisoners released and ‘special’ legislation abolished. It is utterly absurd to appeal to Sinn Fein to ‘repudiate the armed struggle’ in advance of any of this. People outside Sinn Fein (including Peoples Democracy) have every right to draw attention to a flawed militarist strategy. However it is both pointless (and politically sectarian) to say that ‘ a national coalition for Irish unity’ is only possibleif Sinn Fein repudiates the armed struggle. Sinn Fein, to its credit, dropped its insistence that other political groups had to support the armed struggle before uniting in action was dropped when the H-Block/Armagh campaign was formed in 1979. Why not agree to disagree on this issue and simply keep support for British Withdrawal as a plank for a united movement/ left unity coalition? This is how the FADA August march in Dublin was built, and it got a tremendous response.

More positive is his proposal to link secular reform in the 26 counties to a programme of Irish unity. This analysis is an effective and damning critique of Fianna Fail and accurately links Unionist and 26 county sectarianism together. The central element here is Separation of Church and State. Here again there would be large elements of such a programme where there would be agreement (for example on divorce and contraception) and some where there would be differences (on a women’s right to choose abortion for example). It would have to involve opposition to the SPUC antichoice amendment in the 26 county constitution and defence of the right to information on abortion.

There is no room for a strategic alliance with people who do not support a secularisation of Ireland, even if some of them might be opposed to extradition or section 31. Stagg is right to pitch debate in the context of a failure of what he calls ‘conservative nationalism’. This is a superior approach to some elements in and around Sinn Fein who tall of ‘progressive elements’ in Fianna Fail,

and make amazing claims about people like Jackie Fahey, the FF TD from Waterford who resigned from the parliamentary party after the coalition with the Progressive Democrats was formed. Fahey failed totally to oppose the passage of extradition legislation through the Dail, yet is described as “anti-extradition’ in An Phoblacht/Republican News. This humiliating and pointless gazing into the entrails of Fianna Fail must stop. We are about building a political atemative, an opposition to Fianna Fail.

A crucial element to this is opposition to FF’s austerity policy, a strategy they share with Fine Gael and the fastsinking Progressive Democrats. A reason for the gencral risé in a protest/left votein the June election was an increasing perception that there were no fundamental differences between the three big mling class parties. This was bolstered by declarations from Labour and the WP that they would not go into coalition with these parties. It follows, though Emmet Stagg has not said so publicly, that this also must be part of a Left Unity/Irish Unity coalition. Stagg has held this position within the Irish Labour party, in amusing contrast to the position of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI), as outlined by Eoin O Murchu at aFADA meeting in August. He criticised the tactics of the Socialist Republic Page 11 FADA's August ‘Troops Out" Demo in Dublin showed the potential for a broad unity parliamentary left, which supposedly ‘drove’ FF into the hands ot the ultra-right progressive democrats!

Alongside opposition to austerity, the left has to place itself inside the debate raised by Raymond Crotty on the crippling effects of the debt burden carried by the 26-county state. Once it is accepted, an austerity policy is inevitably the result no matter who is in Government. What also follows is areactionary hunt among the poorest sections of the community forextra revenue; a good example is the row over the rod licence. This was so heated in Galway that Labour leftest Michael D Higgins, who supported the campaign against this tax, nearly doubled his vote. The same applies to the water tax, the health cuts and the crisis in Woluntary Health Insurance (VHI), the witchunt against social welfare recipients working in the ‘black economy’, and so on.

In conclusion it must be said that the debate now opening up on Irish Unity and Left unity is a very healthy phenomenon. It is vital for anti-imperialists because it implies building a real mass force in the 26 Counties, where we are still very weak. The debate cannot stay open-ended indefinitely. The various coalitions and fronts are starting to take shape. It is time for everyone to put real proposals on the table.

We must make the connection - Irish unity - Left unity - British Withdrawal.

JOHN MEEHAN.

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INTERVIEW

students fight ‘Moral Police’ Ever since a campaign by the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC) and other far-right groups which led tothe Hamilton judgement of 1986 it has been illegal to publish information on abortion services in the 26 counties. In one of the legal cases arising from this the judge remarked that this did not give SPUC the right to act as a moral police force. Yet itis exactly this role that SPUC tried to establish in a private prosecution of the Union of Students in Ireland (USD) for publishing this information. The recent legal decision to refer the case to the European court is in fact essentially a victory for a militant campaign of mass action by students made all the more remarkable given the capitulation of many sectors of the established feminist movement in the face of thesome threat. In an interview with MARIE BRADY, development officer for USI, Peoples Democracy looks at the reasons for their successful resistance. Q. When did the issue of abortion information arise as an issue for the student movement?

A. When the Hamilton judgment came out in December 1986 - closing the pregnancy counselling services of the womens clinics - USI started to campaign and different students unions got involved in the Defend the Clinics Campaign. It became areally solid issue and we started to discuss it at our meetings and our congresses - particularly our womens meetings and conferences.

Then last year when UCD students were taken to court for publishing abortion information it really then hit home that students unions were going to be affected by the Hamilton judgment. Q. Why do you think SPUC reacted differently to the students unions publishing the information than it did when the Clinics campaign published thousands of abortion factpacks and leaflets?

A. My own personal opinion is that they thought the students movement would back down, that there wasn’t enough support in the colleges and that the student leadership would have to withdraw. I don’t think they realised how much support the union and the student leaderships in the colleges actually had and that the ordinary students would see it as a civil rights issue separate from the pros and cons of the abortion debate.

Q. How important was the student leadership’s willingness to defy the law and goto jail, ifnecessary, in mobilising students and defeating SPUC?

A. I think it was important. SPUC then realised that we were prepared to go that far and to put ourselves on the line. Before the court case SPUC said that they wanted to see the student officers committed to prison. Then during the court case SPUC’s senior council said they didn’t want to commit the students to jail, they instead tried to go for sequestration of union funds. They realised we weren't making an empty threat. We were prepared to go to jail because we totally believed in the issue, we were following the mandate of our students unions and congresses. Yes, we were prepared to go all the way to defeat SPUC on this issue.

Q. Do you think that the failure of the womens movement to confront the issue as the students did has contributed to the decline of that movement?

A. [think possibly that we were able to mobilise much more support than the womens movement probably could have done on its own. Within the student movement the womens movement is quite strong and has a high profile. I think probably the reason the students were able to it is because we knew we had the support there and that we would be able to galvanise it, whereas the womens movement maybe thought they wouldn’t

a ee be able to get that sort of support.

Q. I myself had been involved in the Defend the Clinics campaign. Wecompiled a Declaration on the Right of Access to Information, but came up against a lot of problems in getting people to sign it - including feminists! It seemed to us that a certain amount of co-option, career feminism - call it what you will - had developed in the movement. For example, the Irish womens Guidebook and Diary stopped publishing the information. Where you able to go beyond this? A. Yes, I think so. We knew the support was there and we were able to touch that support and draw it into the campaign. We had lists of maybe 60-70 people who were willing to go to jail following the original 14 under threat. We had a conveyor belt of people who were talking about filling the prisons if they had to, of students who were willing to give out the information, whether or not they agreed with abortion.

Q.. Looking to the future. Do you think the young student activists who were in this campaign could help to re-invigorate the broader womens movement and help re-establish it as a defence organisation for womens rights?

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 13

A. Inthe student movement as a whole we constantly have people coming in who have a new outlook on things and are constantly refreshing the whole student movement. With the womens movement within the student movement we constantly have a stream of new women coming along who are extremely passionate about their interests and rights. I have noticed some of the women coming in believe we should be fighting for equal nghts and equal opportunities, but the main core of women students would feel we're nowhere near achieving that status yet and that’s not exactly what we want. We want women not to be oppressed any more.

The majority of us would support that approach.

Q. SPUC has broadened their attack through the censorship board, For example, the magazine Cosmopolitan, under pressure from the censor, has agreed to stop publishing abortion information in Irish editions of their magazine. What's your view?

A. This definitely will have an impact but 1 would say that the European court will have the biggest impacton the whole campaign. I have every confidence that the court will find in favour of the students and that people will be able to legally distribute this information and not be taken to court by groups like SPUC again, Q. What are your plans for future activity?

Fundamentalism US-style - as crowds of bigots mobilise to blockade abortion clinics Nike this one in Atlanta

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 14

A. We are slowing down a bit - we don’t want to bum people out. The issue is still very much a live issue in the colleges, people are still distributing the information and we're having petitions, meetings and referendums all over Ireland. We are also concentrating on our Supreme court appeal. Then there is also the National committee where political parties, trade unions and others can support us. Q. The Labour party seemed prominent in supporting the students. What was the extent of this support? A. Their support was actually quite good. They have spoken out a lot more than any of the other parties. They have done it asa party where some other TD's have done it as individuals. They have passed motions of support at branch level and we also had Emmet Stagg and Ruairi Quinn speaking for us. Q. Are the students asking them to publish the information if they can? A. We haven’t asked them to do that! I think that’s something for the Labour party to decide for itself. We certainly wouldn't demand that they do it. That's a decision they have to take for themselves.

Q. So what is your position?

A. We would suggest that groups involved in the National committee would publish the information whenever the time comes, but at the moment that doesn’tseem to be necessary. I think it would have been necessary if we had all been jailed.

Q. With magazines now afraid to carry this information will it not be more important than ever for groups other than the students to publish the information? A. Eventually I think it would be important. The campaign will nave to become a lot broader then. The students publishing the information won't be sufficient - student magazines just go within the college. Yes, | think it would be important for various other groups - a much broader spectrum to come together and start publishing the information.

CLINICS

LONDON; Raleigh Nursing home 031 222 0985 British Pregnancy Advisory service (BPAS) O31 222 0985

LIVERPOOL BPAS

035- 222-0985 DUBLIN Womens information network 797 700

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 15

THE REBIRTH OF

SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY

The fall of the Berlin Wall, the return of the Prague spring, the massive changes in Eastern Europe and Russia has led many commentators to proclaim the final victory of capitalism.

The rulers of the imperialist powers have been much more cautious. They have their own crises to face and they are aware that because the workers of Eastern Europe don’t want bureaucratic rule there is no guarantee that they support a capitalist restoration. Many want socialism and below JAMES MACKIN analyses the crisis and the opportunities that it opens for the working class on a world stage.

In his excoriating critique of the Stalinist state “The Revolution Betrayed’ (1937) Trotsky, leader of the red army, wrote; “The tendencies of bureaucratism which strangles the worker’s movement in capitalist counirics, would everywhere show themselves even after a proletarian revolution. But it is perfectly obvious that the poorer the society which issues from a revolution, the stemer and more naked would be the expression of this ‘law’, the more crude would be the forms assumed by bureaucratism, and the more dangerous it would become for socialist development. The Soviet state is prevented not only from dying away, but even from freeing itself from the bureaucratic parasite, not by the ‘relics’ of former ruling classes, as declares the naked police doctrine of Stalin, for these relics are powerless in themselves. It is prevented by immeasurably weightier factors, such as material want, cultural backwardness, and the resulting dominance of ‘bourgeois law’ in what most immediately touches every human being, the business of insuring his personal existence” later in the same work he wrote; “Competition, whose roots lie in our biological inheritance, having purged itself of greed, envy and privilege will indubitably remain the most important motive force of culture under communism too. But in the closer-by preparatory epoch the actual establishment of a socialist society can and will be achieved, not by those humiliating measures of a backward capitalism to which the Soviet government is resorting, but by methods more worthy of a liberated humanity - and above all not under the whip of a bureaucracy. For this very whip is the most disgusting inheritance from the old world. It will have to be broken in pieces and bumt al a public bonfire before you can speak of socialism without a blush of shame.”

Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism goes to the heart of the historic changes taking place today. The Stalinist ice age established over Eastern Europe is beginning to tremble and crack. The response to this outside the circles of revolutionary marxism can be placed in two complementary groups. The capitalist response has been to crow about the death of socialism and the tnumph of liberal democracy. Linked to this the Social Democratic left and the Eurocommunists are preparing to abandon the remnants of their socialist aspirations. For example, the Communist party in Britain.have launched a debate around the

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 16

slogan “new times’ in which many of the basic principles of marxism have been discarded.

The Worker’s party here has in its own way been atrendsetter, with its welcome for “market forces’ and for imperialist economic domination of Ireland. One of the keynotes of this sector has been the uncritical assumption that Perestroiaka in the USSR is irreversible and a tendency to see the decisive struggles being located in the Politburo around the Gorbachev leadership. After years of uncritical acceptance of the immovability of the Stalinist bureaucracy they have come to involve all in the reforming powers of that same bureaucracy! As events in Tianaman Square in Beijing have demonstrated, the potential repressive power that resides in the bureaucracy is still enormous.

Clearly the success of the reforms in Eastern Europe depends on the independent mobilisation of workers organisations and the development-of workers democracy.

In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union we are seeing a dialectic between political and economic crises. The bureaucracy is attempting to co-opt the political awaking of major sectors of the population to a pragmatic solution oriented to the dismantling of the social gains of the working class and towards opening the economy to the world market and the private sector of the economy. Clearly the process of change which is underway is real and deep-seated. There have been real gains against the repressive apparatus of the state. The space for a real unfettered debate so necessary for any real progress towards socialism grows greater every day.

This rupturing of Stalinism is even more pronounced in the satellite states of Eastern Europe, where the bureaucracy, rather than being the result of the degeneration of revolution, was Gorbachev meets the people in Siberia: can he deliver his economic reforms? And what will they cost the workers?

simply imposed by the red army. Poland has achieved its first semblance’ of democracy for generations and in Hungary the advance of similar reforms is proceeding swiftly. In East Germany the Berlin wall is down and the old stalinist leadership forced out of office. (Although in Ireland there is much cynicism about the refugee ‘crisis’ - there are no batteries of cameras to record the mass exodus of our young people for similar economic reasons).

In the heady atmosphere of reform in the workers states it is not surprising that much of the flavour of the criticism of the performance of Stalinist economies has a strong anti-socialist flavour. Much of this criticism is confused and self-contradictory. Many of the leaders of solidarity talk openly about the restoration of capitalism, ignoring the fact that debt to Westem banks is a major element of the crisis. This has already led to a ‘left solidarity’ current being formed among sections of the working class aware that they will pay a heavy price for capitalist restoration. Revolutionary Marxists are opposed to any command society, whether run by a bureaucracy, by managers or by so-called experts. While it has long been a maxim of marxism that a major area of market relations is inevitable ina society moving towards socialism, sucha sector must be dictated to by a choice of social priorities fixed democratically by workers organisations. It is a lie to suggest that the only way out of the stagnation of stalinism is to deflate the poverty-level buying power of the workers even further - the real priority of many of the socalled ‘reformers’ in the bureaucracies. In this they meet pro-capitalist ‘reformers’ in sections of the opposition coming from the opposite direction. Glasnost must be supported unreservedly, but it is the workers defending their own interests which is the only engine that can guarantee a victorious advance to full democracy ina multiparty system. In this respect the miners strikes in the USSR

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ers. By ‘efficiency’ they-mean mass redundancies. This is already happening in Hungary and Yugoslavia. In the absence of real democracy the workers will face this process unprotected. So for the ‘reformers’ in the bureaucracy mass mobilisations of workers are a real threat. For their part, the demand by the miners for the suppression of certain cooperatives (primitive forms of privatisation) demonstrates that they are aware that the reform programme reflects the concems of the social forces that have shaped it; the more dynamic elements of the bureaucracy, a part of the intelligentsia and the most privileged of the highly skilled workers. The majority of the working class has been excluded from this process and the regime fears their emergence as a political force. The force and dynamism of the miners strike are a foretaste of the real political revolution in the Soviet Union. As the quotes at the beginning of this article demonstrate, the Trotskyist tradition provides a rich theoretical framework for understanding the bewildering pace of change and the array of social forces which are shaping the upheavals in Eastern Europe. More importantly it provides a confident socialist policy which proudly proclaims that the advance of democracy must be unequivocally supported.

In the final analysis it is the extension of workers democracy that will provide the antidote to the capitalists’ ahistorical crowing about the death of socialism. Far from being the death of socialism, the removal of the dead hand of the bureaucracy ushers in the socialist agenda on a world stage.

JAMES MACKIN.

pose big problems for the bureaucratic reform-

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 18

REVIEW

A PATHWAY TO PEACE

Gerry Adams with a direct simplicity and a refreshing avoidance of political “esperanto” has in his latest book “A Pathway to Peace” constructed an eloquent critique of British rule in Ireland. Adams didn’t learn to swim in the library otherwise he would have drewned by now; rather he is a man of the working class streets who can keep his head above water and talk to those around him in a language they can understand. It requires no interpreters or elaborate decoding device to see that the language in this book speaks forcefully and passionately about treachery. Written from a radical nationalist perspective, the main thrust of Adams’ critique is directed against the constitutional nationalists whom he rightly shows as having been responsible for continuously selling the national democratic struggle short. In the short period from the end of 1985 alone, the reader’s mind can focus on a frightening catalogue of injustices inflicted on the nationalist community. Yet this has been a “victorious” era for constitutional nationalism. Small wonder that Gerry Adams quotes Seamus Mallon as having said of the Hillsborough Treaty that “It’s the only LITTLE THING we have got in 65 years”.

The author leaves us in no doubt about which side of the partition line the southern ruling class stand on, As he says, “The ruling classes in the 26 counties have abandoned the principle of national self-determination, indeed they never really subscribed to it”. Yet there remains the suspicion that Republicans draw too great a distinction between party leaderships and rank and file members in the twenty-six counties. It is difficult to imagine that the rank and file in Fianna Fail are not in general happy (despite what they may nudge and wink to genuine republicans) with Fianna Fail policies including extradition. Surely at some point co-habitation in the same party with treacherous leaders must become complicity in their policies, and even if Fianna Gael does retain its Michael Collins tradition, it is a tradition republicans can do without.One Michael Collins was surely enough. - Regardless, constitutional nationalists will find little in the book to ease their apprehensions, Adams leaves little room for ambiguity that the Sinn Fein/SDLP talksas much as anything else they may have been designed to achieve-were an attempt to demonstrate the strategical paucity of the SDLP in the face of the armed struggle forced upon republicans. His call for the establishment of an economic democracy in Ireland - terrain now openly abandoned so opportunistically by Frank Ross and his Sticks - will be no comfort to the southern body politic. Coming at the book from a very different angle, the left, particularly Marxists, will probably find the contents confusing. Rather than argue fora strategy which has as its central plank the aim of exposing the southern party leadership on the national question, Marxists would emphasise the need to mobilise working class people against these parties on class issues as the one way of securing working class hegemony over the national democratic struggle, thus increasing its prospects for success.This is why Marxists would perhaps put forward the example of the African workers charter of the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) as opposed to the African National Congress (ANC) charter considered by Adams as a programme for action. The advocates of the ANC charter hound anyone attempting to raise socialism on to the agenda, while COSATU remain emphatic that apartheid will only be fully destroyed by a working-class led revolution which has socialism firmly in its sight and not deleted from the agenda.

There is indeed much to be said for the Marxist case, but a word of caution is called for, Marxists should not develop tunnel vision when looking at the intellectual produce of republicanism, and see only what a certain prejudice allows them. Rather than congregate in splendid isolation at the wailing wall- as some unfortunately are prone to do - bemoaning the book's omissions, Marxists should apply their powers of cultivation to what fertile ground is offered. This requires no negation of principle on their part. It is only through critical dialogue and ideological struggle, not huffy inertia, that socialism will force its way onto the agenda and strengthen the force of the national democratic revolution. ANTHONY McINTYRE.

H-BLOCKS, LONG KESH.

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 19

Cork and the IDA; Gombeen development The present economic policy of Insh capitalism dates from the Whittaker plan of 1958. The southern elite decided to abandon all pretence of autonomy and to throw open the doors to multinational capital penetration. Corporate investment from abroad would somehow do what native gombeens could not - without of course challenging the role of the gombeens themselves. Thirty years on it has come time to evaluate this ‘strategy’ - based more on pious wishes than sound economic principles. Fewer people are at work now than in 1958.

Mass unemployment has become the norm. Declining living and health standards are tangible realities. And, to cap it all, the multinationals that have arrived have shown themselves to be environmentally dangerous, anti-union and unwilling to invest, preferring instead to export their profits. The greater Cork region has been particularly targeted.

One of the largest natural harbours in Europe is ringed by potentially highly toxic subsidiaries of multinationals. As food processing, car assembly and ship manufacture collapsed the chemical giants moved in. Rumours abounded as to what they made - rumours almost as strange as the nauseous smells. Residents and workers began to highlight pollution, inadequate planning regulations and a high-tech disregard for the quality of life. Meanwhile state agencies launched an offensive. Aided by Trade Union bureaucrats they denounced opposition to their grandiose fantasies of industrialisation. Questions were clearly not to be asked. An asbestos plant rejected by Puerto Rico - was located in Ballincollig.

Massive local opposition (subsequently successful) was denounced by the IDA. Genuine concern was portrayed as naive, wwell-heeled liberalism.

While the focus of concern has understandably been the nature of corporations locating in the area, the time has come to investigate vigorously the role of the IDA itself.

Its largest ‘land bank" in Ireland lies in Ringaskiddy. It is over 1000 acres of prime land with publically funded gas, water and electricity laid on. It is empty.

The most recent fiasco centred on a chemical multinational, Merril Dow - the people who brought agent Orange to Vietnam. They snubbed Ringaskiddy and opted for Killeagh - a village in the heart of unpolluted and agricultural East Cork. A massive local opposition movement united farmers, workers, ecologists and citizen groups. The proposed project was defeated by a politically aware movement that mobilised extensive Opposition. The subsequent attack on this opposition by the Managing director of the IDA, Padric White, was outrageous.

He attacked “small unrepresentative groups” which were holding up the juggernaut of IDA financed multinationals. It was, plainly and simply, athreatagainst the people by an organisation funded by the people. - It is time for an alternative strategy of industrialisation to be advanced. The IDA has shown itself to be bankrupt intellectually and morally. It is the trojan horse of multinational rape nowhere is this seen as graphically as in the Cork region. Village after village has its empty “advance factory”. Union busting “management specialists” are wined and dined by the IDA in Kinsale bistros while local initiatives are denied funding. The state industrialisation agency has launched an attack on the people of the start who have dared to ask questions. Irishindustrial developmentand prosperity for its people is possible, but its achievement will mean confrontation with a 26-county gombeenism willing to poison Irish workers for their own profit and their servants in the

IDA.

Alan Bruce.

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 20

PEACE TRAIN-

A RECIPE FOR VIOLENCE

The ‘Peace Train’ campaign has won a great deal of sympathy and support - a sympathy and support which is wholly undeserved. Like all the other pro-imperialist ‘Peace’ movements its policy is a recipe for greater violence and repression - all the more dangerous for its claims to speak for the workers movement.

The hypocrisy of the group is evident. ‘Freedom of movement’ is invoked only when applied to IRA actions. Those involved manage to ignore the British blockage of border roads, the daily harassment of Nationalists at road blocks, exclusion orders and the forced movement of extradition an emigration. They attack the symptoms and ignore the cause of violence.

What is not so evident is the violent nature of their programme. The campaign called on the Dail to take “all necessary steps” to preserve freedom of movement.

What does this mean in the land of the ‘heavy gang’ and extradition? It is in fact a naked call for more violence and repression - quickly answered by Fine Gael support for the introduction of internment. A section of the Trade Union bureaucracy, having sold out the economic rights of workers, are equally willing to abolish democratic and civil rights.

Yet we must note that the campaign’s success in mobilising many outside the rabidly anti-republican ‘new consensus’ of the extreme right and the Workers party rests on its ability to focus in on the weaknesses of the anti-imperialist movement. The IRA’s explanation of why a movement committed to a united Ireland is bombing the Belfast-Dublin link is unconvincing. This is because it is not based on a political strategy but is in fact a military substitute for the failure of Sinn Fein to build such a strategy in the 26 counties. The need for such military substitution has also led to a gradual widening of acceptable ‘soft targets’ - a drift which many republican supporters view with disquiet and leads to an increasing isolation of the movement.

The task of defeating this new pro-imperialist offensive requires the republican movement breaking out of its isolation and building a radical 32-county political strategy aimed at the working class. A start was made with the “Peace Bus’ along the border, but the battle needs to be brought to the heart of the trade union movement and involve a broad democratic alliance of anti-imperialists. It’s worth noting that the last major disruption of the rail link was the “Belfast boycott’ launched by the Irish Citizen army at the start of the civil war in protest at sectarian attacks on Northern nationalists. This involved the armed siezure of trains but the bureaucrats of the day kept an discreet silence - they dared not stand up to a mass mobilisation with an organised voice in the workers movement.

FRANK ROSSA.

Leaks - P.D. Mem Recently a tattered photocopy was pushed through the letterbox at the home of one of our members by the RUC. It was to inform him that he was the subject of a ‘leaked document’. Behind all the hype, fake concern and enquires the RUC has lost no opportunity to show their lack of concern for the lives they and their cohorts in the British army and UDR have put at risk.

There is another aspect to the targeting of our member besides the complete contempt for the lives of nationalists shown by the RUC on many occasions. He has never been a member of the IRA or of any section of the Republican movement. Much of his political work has been connected with perfectly open Trade union activities. He has been arrested once - again this was on a perfectly legal and open May Day march in Belfast.

This open political activity was considered enough for his photograph to be taken and included in a photomontage - that is made a target for routine harassment by the

TROOPS OUT!

THE POTENTIAL FOR SOLIDARITY

The August demonstration in London to mark the twentieth anniversary of the British Army’s current stay in Ireland was a disappointing affair. Most realistic estimates put the number present at around 5000, this despite the fact that it was organised by the high-profile ‘Time to Go!’ campaign. This campaign was established just over a year ago by a self-appointed committee which includes Clare Short MP, John McDonnell (formerly Ken Livingstone’s deputy at the Greater London Council) and a few other figure who are quite well known on the British Left. The idea was to make this the campaign which broke out of the isolation of established solidarity organisations like the Troops Out Movement (TOM) by winning the support of large sections of the Labour party and Trade UNions, thus making Ireland a legitimate area of political debate in Britain. However the Time To Go! steering committee was determined from the very start to keep control of the campaign’s direction in its own hands. It won the ber Targeted state forces and for it subsequently to be leaked and his life put at risk. The issue of the leaks is not an issue of pieces of paper, security procedures, orthe old story of “afew bad apples”.

Itis about state collusion in sectarian killings. By resuming the everyday business of the Hillsborough accord the Dublin Government has now become directly involved in this process. The issue of the leaks must not be allowed to go onto the back burner or swept aside with a few dramatic arrests of the more obvious candidates in the UDR and Loyalist organisations. We must continue to protest at every opportunity this continuing collaboration in murder between London and Dublin.

FRANK ROSSA.

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 21

(largely rhetorical) support of the various fractions of the Communist party and, most importantly, the support of the Socialist Workers party, the largest of the revolutionary organisations in Britain. This guaranteed a large number of people who would work without asking any questions, but it alienated large numbers of activists, particularly in TOM, by its undemocratic practices. Even now, well over a year since its foundation, there has been no mention from the leadership of setting up a democratic structure which would allow activists to decide how the campaign should be run.

Nevertheless the campaign got off to a reasonably good start by persuading a hundred more or less famous people to put their names to a charter which, though weakly worded, came to the conclusion that Britain should get out of Ireland. Since then it has had a programme on BBC2, a number of well attended fringe meetings at union conferences and NALGO, a local government union with 500 000 members, voting to affiliate at its last conference - a feat no other solidarity campaign has achieved. But the NALGO affiliation reveals the contradiction facing Time To Go! The campaign was aimed at union leaderships, but affiliation was achieved despite the resistance of the union leadership, who didn’t want to be seen taking what would be perceived as a “Troops Out’ position, and partly as a result of many years of work by members of the “isolated’ solidarity movements.

At the end of the year of activity to mark the twentieth anniversary of the deployment of British Troops on the streets of the North there are reasons to be optimistic about the solidarity movementin Britain. A campaign around the media restrictions on Sinn Fein has attracted a wide degree of support and it provides a good example of how itis possible for activists to work together when no group tries to take over a campaign. Serious militants have learnt the lesson that real support for withdrawal can only be built by an open democratic campaign. More importantly, many now have experience of building meetings all over Britain where republican speakers were represented. This fact alone is evidence of the tremendous potential that exists for building a solidarity movement.

NAVIGATOR.

| SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 2:!

sy % ty ay - - |

AEF AST THREE

BYR ALST

RMA TIONAL S

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