movement for GEOFFREY years, the LCI the history of Irish solidarity and building a withdrawal which left and sectarian couple of its errors of the past. BELL examines outlines a avoids the ultra over the last leadership has neglected grass-roots Britain Page 19 successes. Therfore in was and is wrong lo adopt a strategy bused on building a movement on u Bring the movement was also rather too ohsessed at times again copying the Vietnam model of The Troops Out Now' successor time to tie in with a projected Bring erected as a barrier to the building of a qualifying it or adding to it could find Many of those on the far left espe Cially used Troops Our Now not as a guide to building a movement but as a stick with which to heat those who did not agree with it. Which is not to especially when it was linked to Irish Certainly, those movements or campaigns on Ireland which did sur- face during the 1970s and were based pacifist campaigns for withdrawal or the Better Life for All campaign achieved even less than TOM in terms of building a movement or mobilising public opinion. For, while Betler Late port. receiving as it did the support of the TUC. it was heavily based on the denominator, which is never likely to stimulate the active enthusiasm neces- The death of Beller Life For All coincided with the birth of the Labour Committee on Ireland. The LCT's most important achicements in the carly and mid 19%0s were those which political likely to prevail, despite recent IRA Boys Home' sentiment. although such a sentiment could be a contributory with parading the purity of its slogans. The carliest one of the Irish Solidarity *Victory to the Victcong was used was also based on the Vietnam model. and was specifically advanced al the the Boys Home' sentiment. And yet. wak movement. Anyone who did not agree with it, even to the extent of mildly say the demand in ilseif was wrong. For All attracted all sorts of paper sup- only to prove how revolutionary " Victory to the IRA" too often "Troops Out Now The early "solidarity" sary to build a movement. on alternative slogans those advancing it were her/himself denounced. Comman selt-determation. Campaign factor: not be simply laid at the door of ol- amples of the Irish Solidarity Cani- circumstances were not and are not Look at the ex- and most important point of all: that this is due to the enormous ditticulties Nevenheless. it was not inevitable that Isings would lom out is disap- An instant snapshot of the current stage of the withdrawal movement Troops Out Movement (TOMI Ircland (LCI) have scen a fall in atten- dance, and as we go into the Year of davided thun they have heen for five or This i most obviously illustrated among other reasons - and with jus- care on there is still not a united There is no lish equivalent of the old Victnam Solidarity Campaign, or the END of today. There is not even an emhiyo of one. And that failure can- There have been a whole series of Vietnam movement in the USA and the belief that Ireland would galvanise large sections of British society as the Victnam War did in the United States. Perhaps if the British army had body count of British soldiers In Ircland had been much greater, such a campaign could have built. Bur those that have to be laced in trying to swim against a tide of chauvinist idcology Certainiy docs bot show a lot to be proud of The membership of the remains small, the last three conferen- ces of the Labour Committee on Action' those forces which are active on Treland are, in some ways, more the TOM and the Irish in Britain Representation group (BRG) withdrawing from the the organising committee for it, accusing the LCI icadership of undemocratic practices- The obvious truth is that Twenty been a conscript one and perhaps it the movement for British withdrawal. paign of'the carly 1970s and its suc The model for cach was the anti by arguments abour the "Year. Irwas a simplistic parallel. pointingly as they have, cessor the carly TOM. false assumptions. lective difficulties" six years. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 9 October 1988 political consciousness within its own constituency, in its ability to limited success in consciousness raising on the Irish issue, leaving a British political establishment of the dreaded new realism' of Brilsh socialism, it is an updating of an old Karl Marx in IN70, in relation lo the Irish worker, feels hunselt a member. of the ruling nation. and few would riority. as well as an apathy as 1o what happens to the backward Irish. With the exception of the British Labour Parly for a few shori weeks in the summer of 1920, no major British tion. Today this includes not just the Greens, and the Welsh and Scottish porarily, even those which, on paper. supported unconditional Irish Socialist Workers Party today, do so with an obvious lack of enthusiasm or low prioritisation in terms of day-to- The failure to hurld any semblance of a mass withdrawal movemcut in the Tast twenty years soes history repeal- ing itselt. Which makes the obvious In its capability to mobilise mas- ses. in its success in raising confuse and harass British im- perialism, the Irish resistance has recorded many gains. But the twenty year struggle in issuc' has, by and large, been a negative experience, recording no mass mobilisation, and very which, despite opinion polls in favour of withdrawal, is unwor- ried and untroubled by such Such a judgement is not an example romains a characteristic of British conditional Irish self-determina- perficially radical ones like the Party in 1920-21. or the Britain to 'make Ireland an political party has ever supported un major parties but smaller and more su- Both bistorically and contem deny that a similar sense of supe self-determination, such the Com rcalism. "The English worker", political and social culture. day political activity, sentiments.
What all this argues is, that as well as sectine of the Irish commumly, the withdrawal movement of the future will be localed within the labour and socialist movement Ay far as the probably possible to go further than that and suggest that it will he the lett wing of the Lahour Party which will Recently. for example. it has boon the Bennite wing of the party which has been the most receptive to the write them off un to try and exclude other great muscle of a strong Labour Party is concerned it is them from a withdrawal shovement. be the most fruitful for Irish work. for the relcase of the Fenian prisoners: in the 1870s, the Irish Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain/Trish National Leugue in the late 1870s and carly 1880s, the Trish Self-Determin- lion League (IDSL) of 1919-21 - were based either overwhelmingly or en- tirely on the Irish community in Britain. Fach mobilised anything up To 100, COD working class Irish in- ments and campaigns concened with Ircland in this country since the Irish first Lame to Britain in significant mumbers after the Famine, hut those cesstul - the campaign around the call which have been by far the most suc EN EM /PPL 1920. This Tail was in some ways The victory at the 1984 conference was due to grass-roots campaigning of were hased on suppon from within the In 1984 an LCI resolution was passed at the party conference: the tirst (and, as yet, last) time this had happened to an Irish resolution op- posed by the party leadership since more signiticunt than the content of the resolution: a civil rights one in- cluding the demand for the end of the Diplock courts - which was the specific insue the parly leadership op rank and file of the party. S U Diplock courts the material, withdrawal movement building a "It should taking on forgotten never be we are that in
black and women's movements, but Iy or combined have the potential that the Insh community and labourmove- overturiel its previous position of Any worthwhile mass withdrawal movement must always week to hulld grounds of the irish and the lell. There Has been some success in involving More attention should be paid to the Welsh and Scottish nationalists. the Creens and various sections nf thie issue of Ireland. That can be con- trasted with the much sotter left/Kin- nockite Labour Co-Ordinating Com- mittee which recently substantially heyond its traditional recruiting the leadership of the Young Liherals, there is no material evidence to sug gest that any of those, either separato calling for withdrawal. successes that have been achieved it would be silly to draw lin exact to build replica ofthe ISDL today. but both history and common sense sug- withdrawal is to huilt in Britain then the Irish in Britam will be a major componcil of it. This is all the more obvious given the growth of Irish im yours, and a projected further growth What cisc can he said about the fu- ture shape of such a movemem? The within the Labour Party underline the existence of widespread sympathy historical parallel and say it is possible gests it a powerful, quantitatively im British migration into Britain in the last lew of 500,000 by the end of the century pressive movement on migrants. conference of Greater London Labour Anglo-Irish Accord, Such successes forced the Icadership of the Labour the LCI but also to growth of the left and the mass mobilisation and the electoral suppore it produced in Ireland. All this helped to build a con- sciousness ahour Ircland witfun the rank and file of the party which the LCI and Labour Women for Treland se> have heen winning the regional Party ter withdrawal and the national Labour Women's conference to withdrawal and opposition to the within the party - the Bennite move- ment - and the ellect of the 198I hungor strikes of republican prisoners (L WI) have heen ablc to utilise since. The two most spectacular succes imperialism" interests of strategic political, British and
and the labour hurcaucracy, will never This is whk the vast makirity of those within that establishment. in- cluding its members and servants within the Labour Party Icadership Aril That to return co the question of objective ditticulties', is why the ment have for huilling a withdrewal gest that the majority of a future withdrawal movement. and its leader- ship, will come Trom these arcas. For it should never he lorgotten that in building u withdrawal movement we are tiking on the material. political and stralegio interests of British im- Accordingly, it seems sate to sug- give such a moventent the time ofitay. perialism and its establishment movemen!. the Insh issue, the passing of thin withdrawal from Ircland. That has vet And there are other paris of the ample, the annual conference of the Assnciation of Cinematographic: Television and Allied Technicins, CACT) recently passeda Troops Out Nos resolution. Although individuais within that union have done work on resolutium was unexpected and was There have heen successes in other unions, most inportanily in the Na- tional Union of Mincworkers, the Na- tional Union of Railwaymon and the National Union of Students, and in anung the rank and file for British lahour movement which remain vir- gin territory for Irish work. For ex- to be utilised to its full porential. not really worked for leadership on Ireland, in favour of Icadership, albeit more junior sed- What has been a recent positive develogument is the willingness of the LCh and the TOM to work together on specific ventures. There has heen a third wing to this partnership: the trish in Britain Representation Group, an organsation formed at the time of the Hunger strikes, which campaigns for he rights of the Irish in Brain and Party to adopt a more radical approach to the north of Ireland than it practised Unfortunately, over the last coupic of ycars, the LeT leadership has neglected its grass roots work, contain- negotiatine with sections of that ly in terms of challenging the party when in government. specific lions.
mement has been so difficult to haild: But it is aiso why socialisteneed seriously than most have done over to take such a task a good deal more SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 9 October 1988 Ireland Twenty years on, Important new book on published this October Both Geoffrey Bell and by Brandon at 4.95. Michael Farrell are contributors to an the pastwenty years Ireland, and the RCT also has a record of activity. While many Irish activists see as the Nectarianism of these ut- gunsatious, it would be answering sectarianism with Sectarianism to other sections of the Labour Party: the example of the women's conference has ilready heen cited, and to that can be added Black Sections which have always in the fast heen very sym- To all of these can be added sochilist orgamnations outside the Labour Party. The SWP and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) have principled postions on are, quite rightly, critical of what they patbetic. by the All. Built through tours of For this there are historical prece gredient to the withdrawal movement which has not been treated with the seriousness it has deserved it is the ment League (NIL) in the carly 1970% made any sustained attempt to mvolve. thy that the biggest demonstration overthe last 20 years was onc called. dents. There have been many move- which calls for British withdrawal The birth and growth of the IBRG Trish in Britain: Only the Ann-intem the Irish In Britain. and it Is notewor is significant. For if there is one in building sites in London. from Ircland. territory for parts of the Irish work" movement "there are remain labour which virgin Page 20
GORBACHEV'S Soviet Union I ш z
Second, the massive state subsidies on hasic goods and ser- vices - housing. transport, food and so on - have also created a huge financial and budgetary burden. The later was directly the product of the reforms of the Khruschey era. which aimed at securing at least the grudging acquiescence of core sectors of the Soviet working class, through a combination of political repres- Of course. the fact that the