The Provo Ari Campaign and Anti-imperialist St

The Provo justification for their military campaign has generally been founded on two premises: firstly, the need to defend the Catholic minority; secondly, a desire to inflict major economic lomes,on British imperialism, But do the military tactics of the Provos flow logically from these premises?

Defending the minority from what? What is actually meant by the “defence of the Catholic minority? It is our view that the Provos have a very narrow conception of this defence. They see it merely as resistance to the Loyalist terror and the police-army brutality.

The Catholic minority however, is under a much more general form of attack — state repression. It was to defend themselves against this type of repression that the people initially came into the streets to fight for civil rights. Any jen which claims to defend the minority must be assessed primarily in terms of of its impact on the level of state repression.

What has the Provo military campaign achieved in this respect? A strong case can be made that the combined strategy of mass mobilisation and guerrilla activity helped smash the British-Unionist machinery of state-repression leading to the abolition of Stormont, With some qualifications we would accept this arguement.

The abolition of Stormont was however, the culmination of the Provos success, Subsequently the Provos placed considerably less emphasis on mass activity and turmed the anti-imperialist campaign more and more into a purely military gifair, Since the fall of Stormont the Provos have made no real attempt to encourage broad based civil resistance and disobedience, There have been a few half-hearted exceptions to this trend. But their main approach has been to try to substitute themselves for the people by using thei military muscle coupled with secret diplomacy.

This strategy was bound to have a depoliticising effect on the Catholic masses. British imperialism responded quickly to this changing mood and began to repair and reconstruct its: machinery of state. In addition to building up the presence of the British army, restoring some of the prestige of the RUC and the UDR, a whole new network of repressive laws was imposed. While British imperialism and its allies have not fully recovered from the blows mffered in the period up to the fall of Stormont they have nonetheless made a substantial recovery, It has to be frankly admitted that the weight of state repression weighs more heavily on the Catholic minority than at any time since the late sixties.

When we look at “the defence of the Catholic inority” in terms of state we are forced to conclude that the rrovos military campaign has not been of much help, Let us add that this conclusion should not be confused with the view of those socialists who argue that the Proves campaign has in fact been responsible for the growth of state repression, The truth is that British imperialism would have found a pretext for repression anyway — after all, what pretex did it need for such brutal acts of repression as the Bloody Sunday massacre.

The question of who is responsible is not really the issue at all, The crucial point is that yepression has grown by leaps and bounds and the Proves military orientation has been powerless ta stop it, This is the grounds — and not any wishy-washy moralising — on which the Provos armed tactics must be indicted.

Loyalist terror Apart from the question of state repremion what justification is there for the Provo campaign in terme of defending the Catholic minority from the “extra-legal™ harassment of the Loyalists and their abbetters in the security forces?

After initial attempts to raise its head in 1969 the Loyalist backlash fizzled out. Up until 1972 the Loyalist reaction remained pfpotent. Once again it was the abandonment of the mass movement by the Provos and the adoption of tactics incompatible with mass action which — a 1 created the conditions in which Loyalism could re-emerge as a credible force and resume its terror campaign, When the Loyalist terror campaign was initiated it had a dual purpose. It was designed to gather intelligence about resistance activity in the Catholic ghettos, It must be remembered, the first wave of assassinations came in the wake of Craiz’s call for an “IRA” dossier and the asassinations were accompanied by vile and brutal “interrogation” of the victims. More to the point, the Loyalist terror was unbeashed to undermine the Provo truce of June 1972. Following the abolition of Stormont the previous March the mass movement amongst the Catholics had abated and the Provos were for the first time feeling the isolation which their new tactics were making inevitable. lt was because the Loyalists were afraid that the trace would increase the morale of the Catholic minority and lead to a resumption of mass action that they did everything possible to provoke the minority. The correct line of action would have been to call for massive demonstrations against the assassinations and for local popular defence, But before any thing like this could be organised, the Provos responded to the Loyalists provocation and fell right into their trap.

Two lessons can be drawn from the above, First, the precondition for Loyalist terrorism is a dtuation where the Catholic minority's

- : . "| rugele for democratic rights has not been ‘feated but where it has become — in the ence of channels for self-activity — demoralised id apathetic. Secondly, the aim of the Loyalist ror is to keep the Catholic masses imoralised and apathetic — not simply by ling individuals at random, but by provoking vé Proves to carry out actions which by their iture prevent the Catholic masses from taking ition themselves.

So, even at the level of defending the Catholic jasees from “extra-legal™ harassment it must be did that the Provos campaign is misconceived and effective, economic withdrawl? he second major justification for the Provos ampaign is the belief that the North can be made conomically unviable resulting in # British ‘ithdrawl, More recently this argument has been roadened to include, not only business-property ut business personnel as legitimate targets, fhat credibility do such arguments have?

Could the Provos military tactics really bring bout a collapse of Britain's economic interests i the North? Anyone who understands the omplex mechanism of the capitalist systemmust newer this question in the negative, Unlike the uman body which has a number of critically ulnerable and exposed points, the capitalist ystem conceals its weaknesses in the long term, Ip contradictory ness of its laws of development.rom the military point of view capitalism oes not exhibit any specific points which would snder the system asa whole vulnerable, nctusion. In the North the capitalist system as whole has escaped almost unscratched from ¢ Provo attacks, For example, the production ocess, which is the power-house of capitalism, i tarely been touched, The weight of the ovo attack has been directed almost entirely ainst the narrow and limited aspect of Pitalism, the retail sector, And even here eit attack has lacked any significent success, n article on the North’s economy in the ish Times last June begins as follows: Terrorist activity is a regular feoture of Northern @.. the main target since 1969 has been ¢ Northern retail establishment which strangely, Wiinwes to operate, to develop and to pay are attention to the influence of inflation and ultiple retailers than to revedution and ranilitary operations", ‘The North's businessmen em to understand better than the Provos, at the objective laws of capitalism will prevail ainst the subjective desires of revolutionaries, | Mr. Evan Ward, chairman of the Northern land Chamber of Tradé said (in the article oted above) “Yin spite of the troubles many hate retailers are doing well now because the ket ix still there... the market for the retalt trade is still there and seill growing despite the problem of security, recession inflation and Those who try to cheat objective economic laws usually get the worst of it. History has made no exception of the Provos, According to Mr, Ward the Provo campaign indirectly made Northern retailers behave more cautiously and helped them to avoid the abrupt booms and slumps which have affected their British and Southern counterparts. Even more ironically, the Provo campaign, according to Mr. Ward, by keeping out the large multiple retailers has.slov down the disintegration of the petty retailers w constitute such an important social backbone for extreme right-wing Loyalism, Listening to Mr. Ward one would get the impression that he would very much regret a return to “peace™!

Individual Assassination The more recent campaign of assassination against prominent businessmen is open to the businessmen does not affect the functioning of the capitalist system as such — least of all in the North of Ireland, The names and address of the assassinated businessmen first appeared in a list of the North's “top 20 businessmen™ published by the magazine ‘Fortnight’. Had the Proves read the accompanying article before launching their initiative they could have learned in advance how futile their actions would be. The article opens by asking “Who are Ulsters Top Businessmen"? Then it goos on to aay that “This is not the same as asking who are the most powerful men whoa cantrol the investment and production policies of firms operating in Northern Ireland. There are nearly half az many important manufacturing and construction companies in Northern Ireland without any ulster based members on their board as their domestic controlled ones," (June *76), 50 once, again ignoring the real nature of capitalism the Provos began blasting away at a phantom target. Once again, ignoring the complexity and hidden reserves of capitalism they opted for simplistic tactics which could only cause confusion and demoralisation In any case even if the Provos could bring about an economic collapse, this would salve nothing, The internal laws of capitalist development development which operate more surely than any military campaign have more than once made the North an unattractive proposition for British imperialism. Yet British imperialism has hung on tenaciously, Economic orises are are endemic to the whole capitalist system but they result in a strengthening rather than a weakening of the resolve of the capitalists. The capitalists have already put humanity through two world holocansts.and innumerable wars of aggression and plunder in order to protect their interests, Whether or not the Provos could bring Wait pan ile the Loyalist offensive? pie Ni a ot not ina British withdrawal but in an even greater and more.persistent imperialist intervention The Provos economic justification for their campaign — as the last point above shows bears a striking resemblance to those arguments put forward by the “economist” left who — in accordance with the bourgeois caricature ofMarxism as “economic determinism’ — imagine that there is a direct link between economic cause and political effect, In fact economic cTises do not necessarily lead to favourable conditions for revolutionary struggle in the Political sphere, Thus the whole strategy of trying to provoke an economic crisis by military means (even if it were possible) is without foundation, As long as the British army, the RUC and the UDR and the Loyalist paramilitaries toam freely, the question of armed resistance will be Posed, But armed resistance is only politics carried on by other means. The stuff of politics in Ireland is the struggle of the oppressed and exploited to wrest state power from their masters, Any form of armed struggle which is not an integral part of that strugele waged by the people themselves is not in essence part of the anti-imperialist struggle. Sooner or later it risks the possibility of becoming a barrier on the road to defeating imperialism.

JAMES CONWAY

Unemployment has once again become one of the central issues of the class struggle.

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Anti-Unionist workers march to defend their rights, The UDA on the march.Have the Provos 4 realistic answer to