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party Pand wars Lette virtuauy every thinking Virtually every thinki man or woman is increasir man or woman is increasingly concerned these days at the threat of nuclear war.

The American war budget under Carter has risen to over $160 billion each year. Reagan is committed to increase it still further-and to establish the basis for an American "first strike" against the Soviet Union.

Thatcher's government is a willing assistant to the American warmongers. It has offered bases for the new Cruise missiles, and promised to spend £5,000 million on a new American missile system.

Such resources are spent freely by the capitalists in a time of recession because they authoritarian recimes thranchout the world which guarantee continued supplies of oil and other crucial commodities.

Most obvious on a world scale is the military backing by British and American imperialist governments to the Arab sheikdoms in the oil states.

But, much nearer home, the British army is tar more actively engaged in a daily round of repression in the six counties of Ireland in a bid to crush the war of national liberation.

The working class is an exploited class. It does not own the factories, the banks or other means of production. It has no interest in perpetuating the capitalist system of production for profit. - course that we necessarily support the policies or tactics of those currently leading the fight against imperialism.

To take Ireland as an example, we defend unconditionally the right of the IRA to struggle against British rule: but we give only the most critical support to the IRA as an organisation, insofar as • it actually advances that struggle.

Programmes

We stand unambiguously for the defeat of British imperialism in Ireland: the question is over the necessary programme and tactics to secure that defeat.

Similarly we resolutely oppose imperialist intervention into any country -whether it be tries or semi-colonial regumes, our position must be for such agitation by the workers' movement on both sides-to turn the war into a civil war against each ruling capitalist class.

We fight above all to defend and maximise the revolutionary strength of the working class, and to defend the gains that have been made in the struggle against imperialism.

At the forefront of these gains are the nationalised economies of the workers' states, which remain as the fruits of the Russian ' Revolution of October 1917.

Workers must stand unconditionally for the defence of the workers' states: against imperialist attack, while fighting