A programme for Ire

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Drganised:

If you agree with what we have to say, you can help. Become a supporter of the Socialist Organiser Alliance -groups are established in most large for more information, write at once SO no 115 carries two letters no 115 carries two letters on Ireland, both critical of Ireland, both critical of John O'Mahony's article in : - netinla SO 113 and of SO's Irish coverage in general. Peter Jones makes a valid criticism of the paper's inadequate coverage of both industrial struggles (eg. NHS, De Lorean) and of developments within the Republican movement - notably the emergence of a campaigning, leftist current around people like Gerry Adams, in opposition to the old guard militarist nationalists. I hope comrade Jones' constructive criticism will be taken to heart by SO.

Tony Richardson's letter, however, is a horse of another colour. He typifies the kind of maximalist, abstract sloganising that has passed for 'analysis' for too long within the British Trotskyist movement. Apparently incapable of developing any programme beyone the endless repetition of timeless truisms ('the only solution is a socialist united Ireland' 'this means connecting the anti-imperialist struggle with the need for the working class to take power through a socialist programme'), Richardson actually reproduces all the methodological errors of 'Militant', albeit with a nationalist, rather than economistic bent.

Worse, he counterposes his maximalist phrase-mongering to O'Mahony's proposals for a democratic programme to deal with the national question, which would take into account and (hopefully) neutralise the protestant community's fear of and hostility towards unification: Such a static, dead- end approach is completely alien to the method of Trotskyism and can only help reproduce and perpetuate the very "pro-imperialism' that the comrade seems to feel is reason enough to deny the protestants any degree of autonomy within a united Ireland. A vicious circle, indeed!

Surely, it is A-B-C forrevolutionaries to both give unconditional but. critical support to the anti-imperialist struggle and to seek to win over (or at least, neutralise) the protestant working class by developing a programme of democratic and transitional demands to answer their fears regarding the effects of being a minority within a clerical state. So while Richardson pays lip service to the need to 'break down the pro-imperialism of the protestant workers' , he actually offers no propesals for setting about such a mamoth task, but still feels able to breezily dismiss O'Mahony's tentative guide-lines.

Finally, what exactly does comrade Richardson mean by "fighting for the permanent revolution' in the Irish context? If he uses the phrase loosely, to mean attempting to establish the maximum unity between the national and the economic struggles, as part of the fight for a socialist Ireland, then fine (although it might have been better not to have used the phrase). But I suspect he means more that that - and is attempting to suggest that Trotsky's very precise theory is applicable to the Irish situation.

This suggests either a fundamental misunderstanding of Trotsky's theory, or a considerable ignorance of the nature of Irish society. Trotsky specified that his theory related to countries with a 'belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries' , where the peasantry is 'the overwhelming majority of the population'. In such countries, he argued that socialism could only be achieved by the proletariat making an alliance with the 'peasant masses' to attain the 'complete and genuine solution of the national and agrarian questions.

Does comrade Richardson seriously believe that such a strategy is appropriate in an advanced, industrialised country like Ireland? The idea that Permanent Revolution' can be applied to Ireland is surely preposterous, and has led many would-be 'Trotskyists' to the most bizarre conclusions in the past.

Yours.

Jim Denhain Birmingham Get Socialist Organiser is not just a We fight to organise workers struggle for a new leadership labour movement.

towns.

To 'Get Organised" in the fight, us at 28 Middle Lane, London N8. Name Address paper. in the in the

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Socialist Organiser no. 116, 20 January 1982, page 14