Two weeks ago, Catholic residents in Lurgan marched through parts of the town they hadn't been able to visit for years. This time, as they marched out of their ghetto, there were no barricades manned by the RUC or the British Army to stop them reaching the town centre, and no Loyalist mobs to harass or stone them. On the contrary, Catholic and Protestant workers were marching side by side to the same destination, and listening to the same speakers at the same platform.
Have things changed in Northern Ireland? There are a lot of people, both here and in Ireland, who would like to think so. And there are a lot of people, both here and in Ireland, who have learnt very little from the experiences of the past seven years.
The Lurgan march took place soon after the massacre of ten Protestant workers in Armagh, and was held to protest at sectarian killings in Northern Ireland. Inevitably it has been used by a number of forces in the workers movement to call for 'working class unity' in Northern Ireland.
The northern committee of the Irish conrederanon or trade unions, rollowing rapidly on the Lurgan march, launched a petition calling for the 'right to live free from violence, sectarianism, intimidation and discrimination; security of employMCaL and WOll Daid WOrK, EnC TEn LO associate recy ana to aevocate bonnical change by peaceful means; good housing accommodation, and equality of opportunity'. The Morning Star hailed this as a "brave union role', and reported soon after that the Greater London Association of Trades Councils had backed the initiative and described its programme. 25ocenea to une coes and Catholic workers (Morning Star, 12 January ).
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, influenced by the same DEMO AGAINST THE CUTS ands TUC in Birmingham, 21 Feb. Speakers include MANCHESTER Angola solidarity campaign. 29 Jan united metorm church, MilDrook of toening AUCy ? Feb: 12,45, film "Angola' and speaker, University of GLASGOW SOCIALIST FORUMS: every Thursday the fond corernanty centres soon. CRITIQUE SEMINAR: Chris Harman and Hillel Tick tin, he soviet Union-what is it and where is it gonor veds 4 reD, 1.30, London school ot cconomics ot clements bunding, hoom 3421 MOTOR INDUSTRY-Institute for Workers Control NAC National Plannino Meeting Sat 31 Jan, Astor University, birmingham. Perspectives, 3 Apr deme and regional co-ordination to be discussed. New ALRA oil to be presented DEMONSTRATION in support of Iranian 21, Sat 14 reb-assemble 1om at Cavendish So nr Oxford Circus tube for march to iranian embassv. Also picket. Mon 1ö reb. trom 10am at Centra Crimi nai court, Old Balley notions, held a conference at the weekend calling for the introduction of a Bill Of course, everybody on the left is in favour of 'working class unity' in Northern Ireland, including the Provisional IRA. But on what basis shall there be. can there be, unity.
More than anything else, workers in of Ireland. However, what the ICTU, the Communist Party, etc. all fail to understand is that this issue is not a "diversion' from some other class issue" (jobs, houses etc.). On this interpretation, the Mantlor civil tients sauncned by te Catholic minority several years ago, should logically have united the working class in the North (but for the fortuitous intervention of "sectarianism'). ACTIVE ROLE The fact is that since the partition of Ireland, the majority of Protestant workers have played an active role in maintaining the undemocratic and sectarian state- in which all the problems of unemployment, bad housing and so on are offloadc• on to me capuve natonals! minority. And these same workers, these same trade unionists, have turned every institution, including the trade unions, into an instrument for applying that strategy This "solution' to their problems has "worked" in the past. It worked" because the British guaranteed it with money and guns. Why shouldn't it work in the future, the Loyalist WOrKerS ask Memselves!
Under only one condition might it not work in the future: if the British leave Ireland.
What will shift the Loyalists from this perspective is not moral appeals "workers unite, democratic rights for al workers, cre. coupica witn prop aganda about how British capitalism is responsible for their problems - but rather a determined struggle by the nationalist majority in the whole of Ireland to kick the British out, and therefore to say to the Loyalists: "You at our expense. The time has come for you to choose another road. We will unite with you to help find that road, but not to return to your old ways. That will only lead to the unity of the graveyard'.
we shoule asinouse between e -WHAT'S ONWORKING WOMEN'S CHARTEh Campaian nationa 49 Lowiner Hil. London SE23 1PZ DEMONSTRATE acainst Youth Unemolovment Sat 7 Feb in Birmingham, assemble 12 noon Victoria Sq. Demo to be followed by rally at AUEW Hall, Holloway Circus-speakers include Bill Jarvis (TC Exec), John Graham (AUEW shop ste Brian Chai Cttee). Organised by Birmingham Trades Council. ACCOMMODATION urgently needed by Red Weekly on worker one steve 00310954 WORKING WOMEN'S CHARTER -planning meeting tor national conterence. Thurs 5 Feb. 7.45 in the George, Liverpool Ha, Ni. All Charter groups and sup porting organisations invited HULL SOCIALIST FORUM: Dodie Weppier on 'The Nomen's Movement Today', Fri 6 Feb, 7.30, at th Nhite Hart Hotel. Alfred Gelder Street. Hul Dic Camden Working Cemen Care verant mid-day Fri 13 Feb to mid-day 14 Feb-Canonbury Sa, Islington. Join the picket for as long and often as you can- all groups lighting the cuts welcome BWNIC General Meeting starts Sat 31 Jan at noon and triars Hall, southampton Rd. NwS Chalk Farm tube sorts of people who neglect this truth.
On the one hand, there are the nationalist people of Lurgan. We must say frankly that, no matter how justified their condemnation of the senseless killing of the Protestant workers may have been, the nationalist people of Lurgan were duped by the Royal Ulster Constabulary who looked on.
As Republican News put It: A march on Monday to protest about the murders at Ballvdougan and Whitecross in which five Catholics died at the hands ol Loyaust gunmen, would (a) nave had no support whatever from the Loyalist working class, many of whom refused to protest on Friday when they discovered that it might be a joint protest, (b) not have been allowed past the top of Edward Street by those friendly police on Guty SUPPORT RUC?
sectarianism include a protest against a sectarian police force, or did it contain a resolution of support for the RUC?' like those in the ICTU and in the Communist Party who believe that unity can be Drouent aDour Dy une dayonets or te British Army. For who else is to implement a Bill of Rights, who else to police "democratic rights" in the North? This is the essential meaning of the CP's demand that Rees introduce far reaching democratic reforms' and 'face up to the rightwing Unionists, instead of getting out of Ireland altogether.
at best, to take the edge off the resistance to the troops displayed by the nationalist minority, and facilitate a return to the majority rule of the Protestant ascendancy within a Northern Ireland statelet. At worst, it is to act as a left cover for further repression, by discuss me role or tie tooos ane disarming the nationalist resistance. As. part of this line, they are only too eager to condemn as terrorists' and 'sectarian murderers the Provisional IRA.
TRAP FOR WSL And now it seems that the Workers Socialist League is poised to fall into the same trap. An article in the latest issue of its paper. Socialist Press, argues that two steps are necessary: a ProtestantLamone workers cerence roree deals. (Sec, TC Youth Advisory sectarian murders'; and a joint Protestant Lamone camparn tor une wandraw al of troops. 'Only in this way can the road to class unity be opened up, it say s What the WL propose is not a socialist strategy for self-determination against the petty-bourgeois nationalism that the real issue in Ireland is sectarian Kings on born siacs. suen a view mes both in the face of the facts (many more Catholic than Protestant civilians have been murdered) and in the face of Provisional policy (which, unlike that of the UDA and UVI. is against sectarian killings).
ONE ABOUT PLACE Catholic workers!
And it asks: Did your march against On the other hand, there are people The objective role of these people is, Ared N. EAST YORKS LANCS WALES LONDON S.EAST S.WEST LoRO RANDOLPH 'Killing Fenians is one thing - but murdering Protestants is another. Sectarianism will have to be stamped out!
To present this as credible (despite all the left rhetoric about workers gett ing arms. as against the reformist CP with its parliamentary illusions), the SL are forced simultaneously to slander the IRA and talk nonsense about uniting Protestant and Catholic workers to get the troops withdrawn. This presumably is a principled position on the 'national quesuon. Presumably me Koc were forced to stand aside in Lurgan by the combined upsurge of the Protestant and TO MEET OUR £15,000 TARGET WE STILL NEED TO RAISE $9,137.02 Only £103.60 came in last week-but our thanks to: NUJ mem bers £6; Brighton IMG £30; Bristol reader £4; Manchester IMG £5; West London IMG £3.60; Swansea IMG £25; Sheffield IMG £15; Bradford IMG £5; L. Eynon £10.
THE NÓRTH EAST have really shown the way forward for all comrades in raising 78 per cent of their target already-and this in one of the areas worst hit by the scourge of unemployment. Clearly they realise the necessity of raising money for the only organisation with a strategy for fighting unemployment and the attacks on workers' living standards.
If the North East can raise money for the Fund Drive, then it should be much easier for comrades in the South. So come on, comrades-we only have five weeks left to raise the money to run a Scottish Centre, build a 16-page Red Weekly, and develop the work of the Fourth International in Britain. Even the smallest donation will help The address: Jo-Ann, 97 Caledonian Rd, London N.1. (cheques/POs to "The Week')
50% £££ It may well happen that a section of Protestant workers will also start to call for British withdrawal. But this will be because they now feel strong enough, after years of repression of the nationalist minority by the British Army, to step in and do the job themselves, recreating the Protestant ascendancy on une ones or tne nauronaust mmonty. Will the WL be hailing this as class 1,000 1,000
organ of the Central Committee of the Workers Revolutionary Party' accused Joseph Hansen and George Novack - well-known American Trotskyists, long-standing members of the Socialist Workers Party and numbered amongst Trotsky's closest collaborators secret police).
Under most circumstances we would not even bother to deal with such ravings. When Joseph Stalin swung the resources of the Soviet State behind manufacturing a gigantic lie, Trotskyists were obligated to reply charge by charge; when Gerry Healy uses his detailed knowledge of the Moscow trials to imitate une memous or me proscoutors, we can safely leave this question not to political and factual refutation but to the medical study of mental degeneration in the epoch of capitalist decay.
This is particularly the case when the sole evidence' which Healy produces is that of the capitalist state, self-confessed GPU agents and similar riff raff, ex-Trotskyists who have unfortunately degenerated to the point where they place in the same breath GPU agents and Palestinian commandos and IRA Red Weekly 29 January 1976 WRP/9 been in terms of a supposed revision of Marxism - and therefore transfer to the camp of the class enem carried out in the early 1950s by Michel Raptis (Pablo). This was supposedly concretised in a whole series of historic betravals carried through by the International Secretariat of the Fourth Internationas - 31 aer 190 as cared our D the SWP. A shibboleth had been established, and the SLL was subsequently to spend much time, energy and resources in explaining to the British working class the evils of 'Pabloite revisionism'.
SECTARIANISM The fact that Pablo's views were not those of the majority of the International Secretariat, that even if they had been these theoretical differences did not justify a split, was of no account. The battlelines had been drawn, the main enemy identified ane the batue sae to take oace.omau matte that the International Secretariet denied most of the slanders; small matter that the opponents of Healy were straw persons; and small matter that Trotskyists had been attacking these methods of debate in the workers movement for decades The political sectarianism became intensified when the victory of the Cuban Revolution and a
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during his last exile in Mexico - of being 'accomplices of the GPU' (the Stalinist