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The third annual International Summer School, held by, the Workers Socialist League in the last week of July, marked a new step forward in the struggle for the reconstruction of the Fourth International.

in addition to a strong attendance of members and supporters of the WSL itself, the school drew international delegations from the USA, Greece, Denmark, . Turkey, Spain and Zionist-occupied Palestine, as well as members of the newly formed Workers Party -the latest grouping to emerge from the degenerated British Workers Revolutionary Party.

Method

The first day's discussion centred on what was to become very much a theme running through the school-the necessity for a grasp of the Marxist method of dialectical materialism if revolutionaries are to understand and intervene correctly in the complex and contradictory processes of the international class struggle.

The second lecture, on the international economic crisis, brought together. a general examination of the Marxist theory of crisis with a specific analysis of some of the main features of the post-war 'boom' period and the way in which these contained the contradictions which proved to be the British Labour Party in the 1950s was also examined infthe context of the objective political and material conditions facing Trotskyists at that time, with a view to assessing the early political strengths and weaknesses of the Healy leadership which of course has since degenerated to the point of acting today as the most servile apologists of the reactionary Iraqi Ba'athist hangmen.

Adaptation

The fourth day saw a discussion on the political history, method and positions of the French OCl, the dominant grouping in the Organisation for the Reconstruction for the Fourth International (OCRFI).

The OCI's long-standing and characteristic blend of sectarianism and opportunist adaptation to world social democratic and nationalist currents was drawn out, and its entirely opportunist concept of international work was detailed in the discussion.

On the Friday, representatives from the IMG and the USFI 'Bolshevik Faction' were invited to contribute in a major discussion on the positions of the 'United' Secretariat of the Fourth international.

Analysis

The main report centred on an extensive analysis of the political inadequacies of the USFI's main documents for its forthcoming eleventh world be regarded as revolutionary.

Through this crude sleight of hand Grogan attempted evade any political accounting for the positions of the USFi and substitute an organisational debate on whether or not the WSL and its co-thinkers should be a faction within the USFI.

His problem in doing so is of course compounded by the growing political crisis now emerging within the ranks of the USFl itself (see centre pages).

Saturday saw more detalled political examination of the analysis and struggle for programme in Ireland and in Iran.

And on the final day of the School the issue under discussion was the construction of an international tendency to carry forward the fight for the continuity and development of Trotsky's Transitional Programme in opposition to the opportunism and sectarianism displayed by the main tendencies of the world Trotskyist t movement.

The WSL, which had tablea as the initial basis for that discussion a draft programmatic t statement, proposed to take the initiative with the launching of an international discussion bulletin, and suggested that the necessary debates and amendments on the programmatic platform of an international tendency should proceed rapidly, with the perspective of a conference to adopt a finalised platform by the end of 1979.

This perspective was warmly For the group of cynical US bourgeois politicians in the ad-hoc Congressional Committee on Irish affairs, to the Royal Ulster Constabulary was a handy electioneering manoeuvre.

But the outcome has been once again to point the finger of international opinion at the systematic torture and maltreatment of republican prisoners by the RUC in Britain's most long-running and barbaric colonial war.

The US decision no longer to supply the RUC with additional supplies of the lethal "Dirty Harry" Magnum pistols and high powered rifles they. have ordered can of course be circumvented by placing orders for equipment elsewhere.

But the renewed blow to the international standing of the British imperialists and the carefully cultivated "impartial" image of the sectarian RUC not so easily undone.

Duty

The irony is that this attack has come not from the British labour movement, whose duty is unmistakeably to struggle in every way possible alongside the Irish people to force the withdrawal of the British occupation forces from the six counties, but from capitalist politicians in the USA who stand fundamentally opposed to the working class.

In Britain both* Labour and Tory politicians have maintained their reactionary "bipartisan" line of endorsing every aspect of British military terror in Ireland.

bid to challenge this and to raise the issue of Ireland The eviction of the Huntle within the workers' movement, a committee including delegates from a number of trade union bodies in the Oxford area has commenced publication of a labour movement bulietin on Entitled War! What War? the first issue features a transcript of a major speech on Ireland given by Brendan Gallagher at the highly successful Oxford labour movement conference on Ireland in May.

The committee has also conducted a publicity campaign to mobilise forces on the 'troops out' contingent on the August 12 demonstration on Ireland.

Under conditions where the anti imperialist movement within Ireland itself is plainly on the rise, it is essential that similar initiatives arę taken by trade unionists elsewhere, and that the fight for action to force the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland is taken up throughout the workers' movement.

WAKI The Oxford bulletincopies available from Socialist Press

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WAK, RATION LAWSIN

led by Congressman Mario Biaggi, the ban on arms sales