Discussion Bulletin, December 1995

+ «hising Organisation of the Fourth International -¢ Al Discussion Bulletin The “Peace Process” Fails To Deliver, Jonn Meehan The Challenge Facing The Republicans, Gerry Foley (copied from International Viewpoint) Bill Clinton and the “Peace Process”, Gerry Foley (to appear in Socialist Action) 4. The ICMP, the “Draft Call” Group, and the Fourth International, John Meehan December 1995

The “Peace Process” Fatis to Deliver Introduction : A responsible analysis of the Republican Movement is necessary at the present time. A basic distinction needs to be drawn between the IRA Ceasefire and the “Peace Process”. Commenting on the row between the Sinn Féin and the British Government over “decommissioning” Gerry Foley observes : The British Minister for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew chose Derry, the cockpit of republican militancy, for a speech on November 22 announcing that Britain had no intention of backing down on its demand that the IRA start handing in its weapons before the republicans could be included in any “all-party talks.”

A Reuters dispatch reported: “Initial reaction from Sinn Fein was one of bitter disappointment. There had been hopes Mayhew might set a date for all-party talks while an international panel discussed the timing and practicalities of disarming guerrillas.”

The greatest danger in this situation, and that is probably what prompted Adams to say that he felt “fear,” is that groups in the nationalist community may be provoked by the British into isolated armed actions that would provide an excuse for a massive military crackdown.

The British government seems to be preparing for that by letting it be known that its intelligence service thinks that there is an imminent danger of a breakdown of the ceasefire.

In this situation, however, nothing can undermine the authority of the republican leadership more quickly and give greater encouragement to desperate attacks on the British forces than Sinn Féin leaders like Gerry Adams relying on false friends like Clinton, to say nothing of British Prime Minister Major.

An attempt was made to develop a discussion within the ICMP on this issue with the publication of the document “Ceasefire Yes - Peace Process No” (CYPPN) last May. To date one documented reply has been made by comrade John McAnuity : “Factions Yes - Factionalism No” (FYFN). Ata National Meeting held last June a discussion took place around these two contributions. Since then the committee has not functioned internally - i.e., no further National Meetings. Most of the decisions taken at the June Meeting have not been implemented. The line described in CYPPN continues to be expressed in the Journal “For A Workers’ Republic”.

Referring back to CYPPN, it was argued that “small Marxist organisations......often use theory as a justification for their own total isolation. They tend not to analyse a political problem objectively, but instead target what rival organisations are doing and saying, and generously issue slanders.

A pristine pure example of this is the ICMP declaration that the Republican decision not to take armed action in the South means that “Republicans generally” have never had a strategy to bring down the Southern neo-colony and “have consistently rejected the demands of socialism” FYFN does not retract the declaration about the Republican decision not to take armed action in the South. It moans that the ICMP is “accused of outlandish calls for war in the South” and cannot even accurately report what I said [According to FYFN I said that ‘its sectarian to say that the Republicans don’t have a strategy to bring down the 26 county “neo-colony” ‘]. If comrade McAnulty and his supporters do not grasp that debating methods like this belong to the school of Stalinism ( if you lixe it is part and parcel of the Stalinists’ “historic programme”), people can easily predict the sort of “Marxist Programme” that might (eventually) emerge from their long drawn out deliberations.

There are many more examples of this political method within the committee, it would be tedious and time consuming to list them all. Asa genera! ruie this method is becoming part and parcel of the committee’s political line. That is why most of what the ICMP says is irrelevant to any serious discussion or activity. “Decommissioning” and the “Peace Process” The course the Sinn Féin leadership has chosen is gravely mistaken because it relies on the combined forces of the British and Irish States and the SDLP to secure a favourable political settlement. It must be emphasised over and over that the Republican Movement still claims to be fighting for an end to British Jurisdiction and everything that goes with it - in this respect they are still a good distance away from the evolution into hardened reformist politics we saw with the Officials in the mid to late 70’s. It is true that the course they are on will lead them to this type of end point if the process reaches its logical conclusion. That is the aim of the 26 County Establishment parties. This brings us to the row between the Dublin and London Governments over “decommissioning”.

a) It is not a real block to negotiations b) Decommissioning would be seen as surrender by many Republicans c) It increases the pressure for a republican split.

The Dublin Government (and especially the SDLP) oppose this strategy. They want to go straight for talks. They want to split the British Government from the Unionists, who remain hostile to any meaningful concession to the Catholic Minority in the 6 Counties. Fianna Fail has thrown its weight behind the SDLP on this issue. At the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis party leader Bertie Ahern ruled out an elected assembly in the 6 Counties saying “it would be neither sensible or acceptable”. Furthermore “the Northern situation was not amenable to any so-called “internal solution” “ (Zhe Irish Times, November 11 1995) Ahern and Dick Spring (the Labour Leader and Tanaiste) know that if an attempt was crudely made to return to a Unionist Assembly it would not be accepted by the entire Nationalist population. In Ahern’s words “it would inevitably revive and further embitter old antagonisms”.

These bourgeois politicians calculate that while initially there might be little response from the South, in the context of the Armed Campaign having been called off, the chances of the 26 County population being roused against the blatant injustice of such a settlement are extremely high.

There may be some wishful thinkers in the Dublin Government (especially John Bruton) who actually believe a broad internal agreement could be reached between all the Northern parties. Or it may be that Bruton simply wants to say “Yes Sir’ to anything at all the British propose. In the short term Bruton could not follow the London agenda because he knew his party would immediately lose office to a new FF/Labour Coalition.

The British Government knows the scenario of a lasting deal between the SDLP/SF bloc and the Unionists is unachievable under present conditions, so John Major sees no point in allowing all-party talks to begin. On the other hand if the British government can split the Republican Movement, and provoke a section of it back to an armed strategy, they have a chance of inflicting a demoralising defeat on the Northern Nationalist population, dispensing with (or fragmenting) the SDLP, and allov he natural collaborati ‘sm of the 26 County parties to rise up like vomit.

This is the context in which we approach the debate about the IRA Ceasefire and the “Peace Process”.

The SDLP is playing for a bourgeois selution to the Maiicna! Question, which involves accepting the right of seit-determination being applied to the 6 County Unit. However, ana this is a change from the 1970’s to early 1980’s, they oppose any return to a Stormont Assembly. This was the main reason Hume pulled the SDLP out of talks with the Unionists and the Dublin and London governments a couple of years ago and turned to a public dialogue with SF.

Privately Hume has put to Adams that if the 2 main Nationalist Parties sign up for an unsatisfactory solution now, but tie it into the Unionists accepting any majority decision reached within the 6 County area, the Nationalists will be able to punish the Unionists via an electoral majority anyway within ten years. In the short term they can sign up the Alliance Party, creating a single bloc worth almost 45% of the vote. If the Alliance Party does not play ball, their (mainly Catholic) voters will defect to the Nationalist Bloc.

This is not as implausible as it might have seemed ten or fifteen years ago. All population and electoral surveys suggest a steady rise above 40% in the Catholic share of the 6 County population.

It will not do to revert to abstract formulas - “the bourgeoisie cannot solve the national question” etc - remember the lessons of the bourgeois solution to the end of the apartheid dictatorship in South Africa, and the construction of a new government based on universal franchise.

The real problem with this kind of approach concerns the political dynamics. Unionism has nothing to do with the 6 county area, it is fundamentally about the maintenance of sectarian discrimination directed against the Catholic population. That after all is why they abandoned the rest of Ireland after the 1920’s, and settled for the 6 County bit. The dynamics of this society, faced with a possible electoral defeat are clear - a brutal form of re-partition. Those who say now they only want a United Ireland “by consent” look democratic. In such a debate we should say (subbing it down) : Is consent desirable - Yes Is consent necessary - No This “consent” principle in fact masks a very dangerous sectarian “counting by numbers” solution.

The basic principled reason for fighting for an end to partition - and on this we can go back to James Connolly - is that it gives us by far the best chance - a revolutionary chance - to destroy the sectarian partitioned states that shackle the Irish working class.

The Irish revolutionary nationalist movement, in the various forms it has taken since the early 1920’s, has directly addressed the nature of the states created by partition. This has meant that it has tended to play a more progressive role than reformist working class currents.

Historically the split in the workers’ movement between reformists and revolutionaries was created by the following questions e Was it possible to win greater reforms for the workers under capitalism and ultimately reform it out of existence? e Was it necessary to smash the capitalist state and establish a workers’ state (in Ireland a 32 County Workers’ Republic)?

The effect of this, especially when the class struggle reached a high level, was to place the reformist left (in both its social democratic and Stalinist varieties) on the right of the political spectrum so far as the main issue of the class struggle was concerned. The revolutionary nationalists placed the question directly on the agenda, usually by engaging in armed struggle.

When, for various reasons, the movement has not actively pursued an armed struggle, it has tended to fall back into reformist politics (the latest example being the retreat of the Official Republicans away from revolutionary nationalism to reformist Stziiaism, and since 1989 to social democratic reformism, in no way qualitatively different from the much bigger Labour Party).

It is not excluded that today’s Sinn Féin could also fail back into social democratic reformism, much of its practice in the 26 Counties falls into this pattern, although it tends to have a more activist and militant appeal than either Labour of the Democratic Left. Its membership and milieu still tend to be much more open to revolutionary politics than the people organised by the major social democratic machines.

From the outset of the debate within the ICMP I have argued that objectively an IRA Ceasefire was justified and necessary. For some time Republican Leaders (for example Mitchell McLaughlin at a Dublin Public Meeting in the summer of 1995) have reassured people doubtful about the “Peace process” that, if things did not work out, the option of going back to the IRA Campaign was always available. The huge turnout in Derry and Belfast for the visit of Clinton shows clearly this is not an option at all. The Dublin and London governments put together a ridiculous framework to look good for Bill Clinton’s visit. The British are still insisting on decommissioning, but they are putting off a final answer till February. In the meantime they say there can be no “decommissioning” of the RUC, British Army etc. But this is what SF continue to say.

The SF leadership continues to sow illusions in this “peace process” as an alternative to their armed strategy. This is absurd nonsense. But they now increasingly say “there is no peace process” etc.

They also say, repeatedly, that the ceasefire is in danger.

The real road out of this is going back to mass struggle, highlighting issues like the prisoners, loyalist triumphalist marches, etc. It means putting an end to the “Peace Process”. So far as the George Mitchell Commission is concerned, it means highlighting the military and repressive arsenal deployed by Imperialism and its allies and calling for it all to be decommissioned.

Such sentiments were touched on by the Andersonstown News in its October 28 Editorial : “The sight of protesters on the street carrying placards demanding all-party talks is one that for many nationalists has become a virtual irrelevance, because in real terms it means nothing to them in their daily lives. The phrase ‘all-party talks’ has become a cipher for cul-de-sac politics and spiritsapping mean-mindedness....

“We should all be out in search of the things that can be delivered, which are ours of right and which we haven’t yet got because we haven’t started to demand them. and as those things start to come our way, which they certainly will if we want them enough, the new found confidence and optimism thus engendered will prove more potent in the search for a new Ireland than a lifetime of sterile and hollow demands for talks.”

Slowly but surely a strategy built on that kind of activity would and could reverse the ruling class offensive, not just in the North but also in the South.

It is time to return to these traditional basic politics of PD and the Fourth International in Ireland, and sweep away the sterile dogmatic denunciations which have become the trademark of the ICMP John Meehan, December 4, 1995

Ireland by Gerry Foley

FOR SOME TIME, THE LEADERS OF THE IRISH REVOLUTIONARY

nationalist movement have been warning that the so-called peace process is in a crisis. On Sept. 30, about 500 activists of Sinn Féin, the political organization that supports the Irish Republican Army, met in Dublin to discuss the results of the negotiations since the indefinite ceasefire declared by the IRA more than a year ago. The negotiations have run up against two main obstacles — the refusal of the British government to offer any remission of sentence for the large number of republican political prisoners and the demand of the British government that the IRA surrender (“decommission”) its weapons before all-party talks can begin. On the eve of the Sinn Féin conference, the clandestine leadership of the IRA issued a statement saying: “[British Prime Minister] John Major’s government know enough of Anglo-Irish history to understand that there is no possibility of disarmament except as part of a negotiated settlement.

Given that history, and the reality that they and their loyalist death squad allies hold the largest stock of licensed and unlicensed weapons, the demand for an IRA handover of weapons is ludicrous.” AT THE SINN FEIN CONFERENCE, the lack of any important British concessions to the republican prisoners was apparently a major source of tension. The Irish Times of Oct.

2 quoted a north Belfast delegate as saying, “Offering prisoners 50% remission [time off for good behavior] — what they had in 1989 — is an insult. There is great frustration in my area about the ‘peace process’. There were indications of tensions at the conference but not of any explicit challenges to the peace negotiations policy of the Sinn Féin leadership.” However, the same north Belfast delegate also said that: “One benefit has been the relationship Sinn Féin has developed with the SDLP [the bourgeois Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland] and the US. administration. Though, they could both dump us if we go too far for them.” THE MOST NOTABLE RESULT OF THE IRA CEASEFIRE is that republican leaders are now being treated as statesmen by bourgeois governments. In particular, the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, has been received at the White House and allowed to tour the United States and to raise money for his organization. Apparently republican activists are beginning to think that their seemingly broadminded bourgeois interlocutors might not be very reliable. Well they might. For every word the republican leaders get into the Gerry Foley is the editor of the San-Francisco based newspaper Socialist Action, and a former editor of International Viewpoint 46 = Intemational Viewosint o° 271 — Movember 1995 mass media, the bourgeois rulers get in a thousand. And = the republicans now have better access to the public, thev ca also be more vulnerable to the pressure of public opinio-.

which in n smal circumstances is dominated by th: bourgeois ruil s and press.

For example, polls show that the majority of Catholics + Northern Ireland think that the IRA should give up i:: weapons. That is not surprising. The IRA military strugee had long been in a blind alley, and their arsenal is deriso= by comparison with the weaponry of the police and army. = there were a real chance an acceptable peace, even Casholiz could think that it would be foolish to let the IRA‘: arm: stand in the way. In any case, the involvement of tre Catholic population in Northern Ireland in the struggle = uneven, and the republicans’ popular base depends on ma= involvement. On the other hand, politically experrence: people, even moderates, such as some prominent Catholx priests, have expressed fears that the disarmament of the IR+.

before the achievement of a democratic settlement, wou: expose the Catholic population again to pogroms.

An international commission on decommissioning, chaire= by U.S. Sen. George Mitchel, is expected to be meeting r advance of President Clinton’s planned visit to Ireland r December. In the Oct. 2 Irish Times, political reporter Daglr- De Braden wrote: “Senior sources believe that once it ha: been agreed to establish the commission, it will be citficur for any of the parties to reject its recommendations.”

The British government knows better than anvone that te IRA arsenal is not a significant obstacle to peace negotiztion: The advantage for them in pressing this issue is tha: the know that a section of the movement would regard tre turning in of weapons as surrender. Thus, by mz2kirz “decommissioning” a condition for negotiations, they cat hope to produce a split in the movement.

At the same time, they are increasing the pressure b threatening a new military crackdown. The repusiica: leadership has responded to these tactics by calling for ma= demonstrations to demand multi-party talks. The protiem © that it difficult to mobilize masses of people for such 2 vague and unverifiable objective. On the oher hand, there mzv be : basis for a mass movement for amnesty for the repidlicaé prisoners. On Sept. 27, the European Court on Ruma: Rights at Strasbourg handed down a verdict condemning te British for shooting down three IRA members wiihoiwarning Gibraltar in 1988. The following dav, the S5nts- High Court condemned the Major government for detavinz parole of five republican prisoners. For some vears, humarights advocates defending Irish political prisoners hav: been winning important victories that indicate that tre British repression is becoming discredited in the eves «r informed public opinion. ¥ Se aaa

BILL CLINTON & THE “PEACE PROCESS”

by GERRY FOLEY At the start of President Clinton’s visit to Northern Ireland, the U.S. capitalist media announced with great fanfare that there had been a breakthrough in the negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the decades long conflict in the British-ruled enclave.

What the “breakthrough” amounted to was that the British agreed to temporarily suspend of their demand for the IRA to give up its weapons as a condition for accepting representatives of the republican movement into “all-party” talks.

According to the agreement, an international commission presided over by former U.S.

senator George Mitchell. is to make nonbinding recommentatons on the surrender of weapons by the middle of January. Then, “all-party” talks are to be convened by the end of February 1996. Thus, there is no guarantee that the British demand on mc TRA to surrender its weapons as a precondition for “all-party” talks will not be reraised ag in Seay with the additional force of an international commission behind it.

This is not the first time that the capitalist press has touted a breakthrough in the “logjam.” The first time was when the republican leaders accepted the principle of setting up an international commission to study the surrender of weapons. The British corresp sndingly accepted the possibility of “twin-track” negotiations, that is, that the discussion of arms surrender could proceed simultaneously with “all-party” talks.

Subsequently, the British spokesmen made it clear that they had no intention of yielding on their demand for surrender of weapons as a precondition to “all party talks,” even though of course, such talks in themselves mean nothing.

The latest “breakthough” is not even an agreement between the contending parties, but one strictly between the neocolonial Dublin government and its British overlord. On the day the agreement was announced, the leader of the republican political organization Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams promised only to “explore this positively as we have all other propositions to re-establish the peace process.”

In fact, the demand for the surrender of weapons is a trap laid for the republican leadership. The IRA is a small guerilla force up against an enormous British military machine. It has only token offensive weaponry, but the generations of young people who have hurled themselves desperately against the British machine over the last 25 years would regard its handing over as a betrayal.

As much wider section of the Catholic population view the hand guns held by the IRA as their only defense against the sort of Protestant pograms they faced in 1968. A handing over of these weapons would destroy the credibility the IRA as a force defending the Catholic ghettos. Thus, if the IRA agreed to hand over its weapons, it would almost certainly lose control over sections of its followers. And that is clearly the goal that the British are relentlessly pursuing. The “agreement” announced on November 29 is only another maneuver in this game, one that has the objective also of pulling the republicans into accepting the Dublin government and Clinton as their lawyers.

It is certain that whatever illusions the republicans may harbor about the “democratic” and “peace-loving” intentions of these governments, the British have none. They recognize their own kind and their own creatures.

In the buildup to Clinton’s visit to Ireland, which began November 30, Irish republican leader Gerry Adams repeatedly to the U.S. chief to save the “peace process.”

Speaking in Washington on November 15, Adams said, according to a Reuters dispatch of the same date: "We all need to focus on the need to have a Dayton in the Irish situation." (For an analysis of the Bosnian settlement imposed by the U.S. in Dayton, see article elsewhere in this issue. ) The Irish republican leadership has been warning for many weeks that the so-called peace process that was launched by the IRA ceasefire more than a year ago has reached the brink of collapse. In Washington, Adams told U.S. officials that he felt “fear” about what would happen if the negotiations remained stalled.

The Clinton administration has issued statements warning the public not to expect it to be able to do anything to break the deadlock. Of course, Great Britain is a power of another scale altogether than the contending parties in Bosnia. But why expect Clinton to force the British to offer concessions to the Irish republicans when his administration has offered no mercy to Irish Republican refugees in the United States?

The major test case in the U.S. is that of the “H-Block Four,” four men who escaped from the main British prison in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of the 1980-1981 hunger strike to the death of ten republican prisoners. They were tracked down in the United States by the U.S. political police, and imprisoned in California.

One of them, Jimmy Smyth, after a long stay in prison, was_ released on bail some months ago, but the U.S. Justice Department is appealing a favorable District Court ruling and trying to put him back in jail and deport him.

Recently, the attempt to get the U.S. courts upheld the extradiction statute under which the three H-Block escapees still in prison—Pol Brennan, Terry Kirby, and Kevin Barry Artt— face the threat of being handed over to the British authorities.

U.S. courts have issued 15 deportation orders against Irish political refugees. In early November, federal judge Wayne Iskra ordered Gabriel Megahey deported.

The British have offered a small concession to republican prisoners, increasing remission (time off for good behavior). But the British Home office recently informed three republican prisoners sentenced to life that they have to expect to serve a minimum of 50 years. Adams commented: “It is absolutely astounding that 15 months into the peace process political prisoners are being informed that they can expect to serve at least 50 years in jail.

The British government is sending out clearer signals by the day....

“Coming hard on the heels of the derisory tinkering with the remission system, which will bring benefits to only a few prisoners, this is further magnification of the begrudging attitude which lies at the heart of the British government's approach to the peace process."

Another signal from the British authorities was the promotion of paratrooper Lee Clegg, a soldier who was briefly jailed for the murder of a Belfast teenager from a nationalist neighborhood. Clegg has only been out of prison a few months. His release in August

sparxed furious mass protests in the nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. The fact that the British army took him back and promoted him without even waiting a decent interval, was rubbing salt in the wound.

The British minister for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew chose Derry, the cockpit of republican militancy, for a speech on November 22 announcing that Britain had no intention of backing down on its demand that the IRA start handing in its weapons before the republicans could be included in any “all-party talks.”

A Reuters dispatch reported: “Initial reaction from Sinn Fein was one of bitter disappointment. There had been hopes Mayhew might set a date for all-party talks while an international panel discussed the timing and practicalities of disarming guermillas.”

The greatest danger in this situation, and that is probably what prompted Adams to say that he felt “fear,” is that groups in the nationalist community may be provoked by the British into isolated armed actions that would provide an excuse for a massive military crackdown. The British government seems to be preparing for that by letting it be known that its intelligence service thinks that there is an imminent danger of a breakdown of the ceasefire. In this situation, however, nothing can undermine the authority of the republican leadership more quickly and give greater encouragement to desperate attacks on the British forces than Sinn Fein leaders like Gerry Adams relying on false friends like Clinton, to say nothing of British prime minister Major.

The disillusioned nationalist people need another alternative besides pleading with the political mouthpieces of ruthless regimes. An editorial October 28, the Andersontown News, one of the main nationalist papers published in Belfast is probably, whatever else it may be, an indication of the direction in which minds are turning in the nationalist neighborhoods. “The sight of protesters on the stret carrying placards demanding all-party talks is one that for many nationalists has become a virtual irrelevance, because in real terms it means nothing to them in their daily lives. The phrase ‘all-party talks’ has become a cipher for cul-de-sac politics and spirit-sapping mean-mindedness....

“We should all be out in search of the things that can be delivered, which are ours of right and which we haven’t yet got because we haven’t started to demand them. and as those things start to come our way, which they certainly will if we want them enough, the new found confidence and optimism thus engendered will prove more potent in the search for a new Ireland than a lifetime of sterile and hollow demands for talks.”

In other words, back to the street for the concrete demands of the people, back to the line of action that created the mass upsurge in Northern Ireland in 1968, to the people relying only on their own strength to win concrete gains for themselves and those who have suffered on their behalf, like the republican political prisoners.

The “Draft Call” Group, the ICMP, and the Fourth International tn the document “Ceasefire Yes - Peace Process No” (May 8 1995) prioritising the International Internal Discussion within the Fourth International (FI) was stressed.. Shortly afterwards one meeting took place to discuss the 1995 World Congress.

The decisive features of that meeting were as follows : . Less than one week’s notice . The venue had to be booked by me three days before the meeting . Inadequate circulation of documents beforehand.

. Failure to give adequate notice to supporters of the majority International Executive Committee texts to come to any Irish pre World Congress discussion and present their views.

5. A discussion where about 70% of the time was taken up by representatives of three different currents within the British Section of the Fourth International.

The majority current in the British Section was part of a small minority (10%) current within the FI (the “Draft Call” Group) ; the other two minority British currents were so small they did not even get one delegate elected to the World Congress.

AWN —

The comrade representing the international minority tendency tried to represent the views endorsed by a majority of the IEC.

One resolution was adopted at the pre World Congress meeting expressing support for the “Draft Call” (so far I have not seen a printed version of this resolution).

One comrade represented the ICMP at the World Congress. He made a verbal report at a meeting in June. This seemed to represent an effort to reverse the internal collapse of the organisation. A written report was promised for July.

To date (December 2 1995, 4% months later) no written circulated document has appeared about the World Congress from ICMP supporters of the “Draft Call”.

Part of a Trend If this was an isolated example, things would be bad enough. In fact it is part of a trend.

Since the middle of 1993 (2% years ago) the ICMP committed itself to producing a “Marxist Programme” but has repeatedly failed to complete the task within any sort of reasonable timetable.

For example at the last National Meeting of the committee (June1995) a whole series of promises were made that have not materialised.

e There was to be a “final draft” of the Programme circulated in the Summer.

e A draft perspectives document was to be circulated, and a meeting held to discuss it in September. e There was to be a meeting to adopt both in October, and the programme was to be “launched”.

At the time of writing I am informed that no national meetings are scheduled. The main speaker at a late November public meeting, John McAnulty, told the audience that the programme would be ready in the second month of February 1996 (in the light of previous experience, there is little reason to believe him).

However we have received a report on the World Congress from one of the main advocates of the “Draft Call”, Jeff Mackler. This is a welcome development and all comrades who have not seen this document are urged to get a copy and read it. It gives us a framework for a written debate on some aspects of the debate within the Fourth International today.

Mackler represented the US “Socialist Action” (SA) organisation at the World Congress. He was part of a “caucus of oppositionists” (the “Draft Call” Group) in which the ICMP delegate participated. Mackler states that the Draft Call group presented counter-reports to “all majority reports with the exception of Latin America”. The 5 reports debated were : 1. World Political Report 2. Ex-USSR/Eastern Europe 3. Europe 4. Latin America 5. Building the Fourth International.

It is further reported that SA did not agree with the rest of the “Draft Call” group who favour calling for a political revolution in Cuba. On this issue SA sided with a majority of World Congress delegates. Nobody can reasonably expect supporters of the Draft Call to agree on every minor detail, especially tactical matters. However, very grave charges have been levelled against the leadership of the FI by Draft Call supporters in Ireland. The alleged “centrism” and “programmatic revisionsism” of the FI leadership has been referred to verbally a number of times - comrades appear to support the “Draft Call” group because it espouses similar themes.

Comrade Mackler clearly sets out his views on central issues - for example on Eastern Europe. He states that To justify the majority’s view that capitalism has been restored, or is about to be restored, comrades are compelled to revise much of our programmatic acquisitions on the class nature of the deformed and degenerated workers’ states.

In the real world a process of capitalist restoration is going on in the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe.

It varies in country to country, but is in reality unstoppable unless there is a big turnaround in the level and co-ordination of resistance by the working class, its organisations and allies.

Unfortunately something of that dimension does not appear to be on the immediate or even medium term horizon. For that reason I think the approach of comrade Mackler is dangerously wrong.

Some Irish Draft Call supporters appear not to agree with Mackler on this issue - arguably the central issue - so, what therefore is the basis for their unity against the FI leadership?

The answer is that the “Draft Call” group’s basis was so general it made room for many tendencies which opposed the majority resolutions passed at the last World Congress, even if the different components could not agree a common line amongst themselves on the important questions.

The leadership of the ICMP verbally opposes liquidation of the FI abroad, this was one of the reasons stated for supporting the “Draft Call” Group.

Isn’t it weird that the record demonstrates they practice it at home?

John Meehan December 2, 1995