IT SEEMS to me that the real issue under discussion in the recent letters about Ireland is the role of the IRA's armed struggle.
That marxists and consistent andimperisists say they have the right to conduct an armed struggle against Bresn impenalem is not in queston. The dobate is around the contribution ducted in Britain and Ireland, makes to the dofeat of British imperialism.
My view is that it is making no contribution. The Brtish Army loses more sokiers in training exercises than i loses to the IRA and while blowing up the City of London inconveniences capitalists, it will not bring British capitalism to the table to negotiate its withdrawal from Ireland.
Mary summed to is imact on Bit ish workers when writing of earlier bombs in central London, one cant expect London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of the Fenian emissaries' The armed struggle is becoming from poltics. it is the one thing everybody in the Republican Movement can agree on, even 7 Gerry Adams is now saying that Sinn Fein understands rather than supports the IRA cam all is also the voico of a population excluded from political life, excluded from whole areas of the economy with no real industrial muscle - only the unionists are able to shut down the lectricity supply. , for example. Cheerina a sumesell iR action of provid ing a safe house is their way of retalial. ing against the British state.
Working class
This is the poitics of the powerless. The only force in Ireland with the power to defeat British imperialism is the working class. The task for revolutionaries in Ireland is to develop an organisation and a programme to lead this class, not to devise new ways of using Semtex.
Socialists in Britain have the duty to win the workigg class and as organisations to support the right of the Irish people to determine their own future.
There is a big contradiction between the armed struggle and the Republican Movement's avowed aim of a mass movement against British imperialism. esting debate in these pages to focus on this confict rather than the merits of particular armed actions.
Liam MacUaid East London Surrogate Kinnock I WAS pleased with the latest edition of the newspaper and the analysis of Labour's election defeat.
Labour's performance proves that Kinnock and his policies have been completely discredited, and yet the labour bureaucracy is rush. ing, ike lemmings, to appoint a sur ogate Kinnock' as the new leader.
They dont seem to realise that changing a name at the top, rather than changing is policies to offer an alternative to the Tories, wil not wir them any increased support.
Matt Gibbons York white population behind him, is now in a stronger position in his negotiations with the ANC and the other organisations in CODESA.
Two days after De Klerk hailed his victory with the state ment that this heralded the end of apartheid (again!), his udget which maintained the differentials in pensions for the still officially designated four racial groups, with the black majority, as always, at the end of the queue.
A weck after the referendum, the government announced that it was going to tions and tabled diluted power-snanny with the black majority. Far from moving toward the Con stituent Assembly demanded by the liberation movement, the at the its latest proposals for an interim administraton De Klerk was honouring his promises to the white electorate No. 21 national capitalism, despite the expressed request by Mandela and the ANC that sanctions should not be lifted until the constitutional issues had been settled. The culmination of this vas the red carpet reception for De Klerk in Nigeria - a visit which took without the approval of the ANC his is of particular sig nificance because historically Nigeria has been one of blad Africa's most implacable o ponents of white minority rule And Nigeria's president, Ibrahim Babangida, is the cur rent president of the Organisaton or Alcan Unity.
Meanwhile the massacre of black people in the townships of Natal and the Rand continue-a usert wes pon i the propagan da armour of the government -black organbanon waken carnot control their supt obviously not fit to take over the rule of the state!
Charlie van Gelderen.
Cambridge May 16, 1992
Under the bosses' thumb - Japanese unions struggle for survival Japan Features PHOTOS: Dane Orien established per cent benchmark.
This reflects bulging order books and rising profitability. already.
Workers are routinely moved from plant to plant, leaving family behind. The word Tan-