Land Civil Wa Danger Looms

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REPORT FROM JOHN DOHERTY IN LISBON The North East of Ireland bas never been so near the long predicted full scale civil war. At the root of the conflict is an unfinished national revolution which today can ronly be brought to completion lander the leadership of the *rish working class.

The partition and dismemberding of Ireland, James Connolly predicted in 1914:

would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set lack the wheels of progress, would atroy the oncoming unity of the id movement and paralyse all tranced movements whilst it enweed. To it Labour should give le bitterest opposition, against it abour should fight even to the "death".

As that carnival of reaction heads towards a bloody climax it is imperative that the English working class demand the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland as well as materially support all those who are fighting for a united socialist republic in Ireland.

SAME FORCES

Those forces whom Connolly urged labour to fight to the death against in 1914 are essentially the same reactionary forces who are plotting, with British imperialism if they can, against it if they must, the ways and means of frustrating the democratic, national and socialist aspirations of the Irish people.

The Convention talks are deadlocked. Even by transferring them from the public debating chamber to the private committee rooms the bourgecis politicians of the dhan hannonio nolitician UUUC and the SDLP still cannot shake off their rank and file. On the basic contentious issue of power sharing the Loyalists could cón cede nothing whilst the SDLP couldn't capitulate enough.

All that is left for the UUUC to do now is drait proposals for a new parliament in which they will be undisputed masters. No party in the Convention bar themselves will sign it of course but as Ernest Baird, the deputy leader of Vanguard, has said "The atmosphere in which the British Government decline to accept the UUUC's report is the one in which loyalist politicians will give a nod and a wink to the activities of the protestant paramilitary groups"

Anticipating that nod the loyalists have started to regroup their forces on the one hand and withdraw their forces from the official state structure on the other. The six paramilitary groups, the Orange Volunteers, Ulster Defence Assoc iation, Red Hand Commandos, Ulster Special Constabulary Association, Down Orange Welfare and the Ulster Freedom Fighters have all come together (the UVF is excluded) in the Ulster Army Council for the purpose of forging a loyalist army of 20,000 men that will be capable of holding the Province at least for a short time.

Under the new name of the Ulster Central Coordinating Committee the leaders of last year's reactionary strike that brought the Province to a standstill came together again this week to protest at "excessive policing" in loylaist areas and demand more measures against the IRA.

GER The murder of a young protestant in Newtown Hamilton was the pretext for the eight' unionist councillors on Newry and Mourne District to walk out of the Council. At the same time the UUU Association of Local Councillors threatened to withdraw all their members from office unless there is a change in the security policy.

"INDEPENDENCE

Where all this loyalist activity is leading to was spelt out at Portadown a few days ago when the Ulster Special Constabulary Association passed a resolution "to ask the people of Northern Ireland to support independence rather than submit to shared power, a Council of Ireland or an indefinite period of disastrous direct rule"

In this situation the leadership that is being offered to the working class by those that consider themselves Marxist generally either ignores or denounces the national struggle as a "sectarian diversion" that alienates protestants. The alternative, a Bolshevik approach, would fight for proletarian leadership of the national struggle, since only the programme for a workers' republic can rally the forces North and South that can expel imperial ism frọm Ireland.

Leading opponents of this Bolshevik position are the Stalinists who lead the official IRA and the 'Militant' Group in the Labour Party. While the former pursue their reformist bill of rights, the latter pursues the panacea of nationalisation. Both however attempt to attract the protestant working class to their programmes by reducing the Irish struggle to the level of an English trade union demarcation dispute.

On August 18tir the Stalinist Executive of the N.W. Republican er Otelo de Carvalho, together with when the nationalist population of the north east stands in danger of pogroms from the loyalists, served no other purpose but to promote Stalinist collaboration with the forces of reaction. It offers no way forward, and can only provide cover and legitimation for the daily onslaught of protestatt assassination squads.

Despite this contemptible policy the Stalinists were rebuffed the same day in an Ulster Defence Association statement which showed that the basis for the collaboration the Stalinists so eagerly seek just does not exist. "We reject the contention" (the Stalinist content ion) said the UDA statement "that violence in Northern Ireland can be differentiated between sectarian and non-sectarian elements. The violence of the IRA is a direct outcome of their political aim and objective of creating a single political unit in the geographical area known as Ireland"

So loyalist gunmen now have to remind the Stalinists what they are formally committed to! Nothing could better destroy the illusion that catholic-protestant working class unity can be forged by trade union and bread-and-butter struggle. While the English working class and the Irish catholic working class have achieved what they have achieved in a struggle against capital the protestant worker has achieved what he has achieved as a reward for his collaboration with capital.

And while that struggle against capital taught the English and the catholic Irish the importance of unity and the common interests of the members of their class, the rewards of collaboration have taught the protestant working class exactly the opposite.

It is for this reason that even today there is no Labour Party in the North. The NILP is a joke, not a party. Its pro-imperialist support for the link with Britain undermines the very reason for existence. For if the link with Britain brought the adyances the protestants have made, ON away from the reactionary elem-