[The following article was published in the April 22 issue of the French Trotskyist daily Rouge. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The women's peace movement was a flash in the pan. Created with the aid of the British to drive support away from the Irish resistance, it faded out during the winter. The imperialist offensive in the North, reinforced by the state of emergency in the South, had one positive aspect. It forced the Irish resistance movement to rethink its strategy.
The attempt to treat the fighters in the North as criminals and the repression in the South, whose character is shown by the recent revelations of torture and by the complaints of the Portlaoise prisoners on hunger strike, posed a challenge. Facing this situation, the republican organizations (Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA, and the Irish Republican Socialist party [IRSP), the reformist organizations (the Irish Communist party and Official Sinn Féin), and the small far-left groups (People's Democracy and the Movement for a Socialist Republic, Irish section of the Fourth International) have raised the question of a regroupment of antiimperialist forces in Ireland.
While 1976 was a year of splits in virtually all the left organizations, 1977 has been marked by a desire for unity. This aspiration has had a two-sided result. On the one hand, it has brought together socialist and republican activists, primarily at the rank-and-file level. But it also produced lines of cleavage running through some organizations.
Inspired by the Relatives Action Committee (RAC) in Belfast, which at the end of 1976 included People's Democracy, the IRSP, and the Provisionals, broad-based committees spread throughout Northern Ireland. They grew up primarily around the issue of supporting the prisoners' struggle to maintain their political status. In Newry and Armagh, broad committees were formed. However, the richest experience developed in Derry.
In Northern Ireland's second largest city, the Irish Front was formed. It included Provisional Sinn Féin, the IRSP, the Nationalist party, and former members of "Official" Sinn Féin, such as Michey Montgomery, who had been a top leader in the "Officials." It has been able to mobilize the population of Derry on an ongoing basis around anti-imperialist demands.
Organized as a federation of neighborhood committees, the Irish Front was formed on the basis of the following demands:
1. End torture and repression.
2. Full support for the campaign to maintain political status and for a general and unconditional amnesty for Irish politi. cal prisoners in Ireland and abroad (Great Britain and the U.S.).
3. Repatriation of all Irish political prisoners in British jails.
4. Withdrawal of British occupation troops and an end to British interference in the political and cultural life of the Irish nation.
The two main components of this unitedfront group are the Provisionals and the IRSP. However, they have different conceptions of what the united front means. For the Provisionals, what is involved is primarily a tactical question, an alliance with anti-imperialist forces where the IRA is not dominant. For the IRSP, which since 1974 has concentrated on advancing a broad-front strategy, forming a national liberation front is the decisive question.
Recently, however, these two different political conceptions of unity have become part of the political debate inside the Provisionals. A debate has developed in Republican News, the organ of the Provisional IRA in the North, between left activists in Derry and in Belfast. The Derry activists call for the formation of a national united front based on the experience of the Irish Front in their city. The Belfast activists, represented by Peter Dowling, tend to want to preserve the Provisional dominance in the ghettos:
"The situation is different not only in the areas outside Belfast and Derry but also in certain neighborhoods in these cities. In these places, there are no other anti-imperialist groups besides the Provisionals. So, proposing unity with such groups would be meaningless. It is, on the other hand, possible to form local committees under [Provisional] republican leadership" (Republican News, April 2, 1977).
Although this debate has not yet led to any conclusion, it has the merit of being the first debate on a major political question in the Provisionals and the first one conducted on a socialist basis.
The far-left groups-People's ]
Democracy, the Movement for a Socialist Republic, the Socialist Workers Movement (close to Lutte Ouvrière), etc., on the other hand, look to the formation of a united front of the far-left forces, which could then, in practice, take part in the debate with the IRSP and the Provisionals. So, on February 21, they came together to form a Socialist Committee for Unity Against Imperialism, based on the following demands: withdrawal of the troops, defense of political status, and an end to repres sion.
Although this group is numerically weak and based essentially in the South, except for People's Democracy, its formation is an important symptom of the general trend toward unity. And this step should enable the groups involved to bring some weight to bear in the debate among the larger republican organizations.
In the South, the Committee to Defend Noel and Marie Murray showed that, united, the republicans could halt the repression. This is why about twenty liberal intellectuals close to the Provisionals and the IRSP decided to call on the anti-imperialist organizations to discuss the possibilities for setting up an antiimperialist united front.
The Provos, the ISRP, and the Communist party seem interested by the proposal of these intellectuals. Concretely, the formation of a committee to commemorate the 1916 insurrection and a series of rallies this week should facilitate discussions. The only organization that rejected this proposal was "Official" Sinn Féin, which, faced with the need to respond to the repression in the South, has split into several factions.
Ironically, the "Officials'" main ally, the Communist party, seems more willing to mobilize against the quisling government in Dublin, and it has just recruited another group of "Official" Sinn Féin members in the South. Moreover, the physical confrontations between Provisionals and "Officials" in Belfast a couple of weeks ago have only reinforced the most right-wing Stalinist tendency in the organization, led by Dessie O'Hagan, who is fiercely opposed to any alliance "with the Provisional fascists and the Trotskyists of the IRSP."
In any case, this is the first time in eight years of struggle in Ireland that the perspective of a united front of the people's forces North and South has been taken up in a political way and apparently drawn together the vital forces of the Irish resistance.