Republican News series

War is politics by other means. And politics in our epoch are essentailly international. Therefore a real informative analysis would show the growth and development of the world-wide struggle against imperialism since the second world war. The rather narrow military analysis means that that the individual struggles them-— sleves are not clearly analysed and the same method of analysis leaves out very many political factors and even at points obscures the political lessons of the struggle.

CHINA The weaknesses of a military analysis are especially evident in this article, The military actions of the Red Army are seen as the de‘cisive element and the political activity of the Communist Party as aimed mainly to maintain support for the struggle. This viewis persisted in even though it is contradicted by quotations from Mao in the article. For example:

"When the red army fights, it fights not merely for the sake of fighting but exclusively to agitate among the magses, to organise them, to arm them, and to help them establish political power, !!

There is a good summing up of the military lessons of the Chinese experience --']. against 10, 10 against 1'' This sums up the common sense lesson that guerilla forces should be used to extend and disperse the enemy forces, and then concentrated at the weakest links in the chain. Good advice, but is it really "responsible for victory" as the Republican News article claims?

DISTRUST OF WORKING CLASS The one note of criticism in the article is touched on when Ciaran : O'Dowd says that a strategy of en-. circling the cities with a struggle based in the countryside "would not necessarily apply to a highly urban society". In fact this strategy was based on a fundamental A review of political weakness of Maoism-- a distrust of the working class as the central leadership of the revolution— ary movement anda willingness to make accomodations with the capitalist class -- the very weaknesses that the republican movement itself suffers from.

VIETNAM The article on Vietnam begins with a factual error. It says that dur— ing World War II the French and Japanese united in a drive against the Viet Minh, In fact the French withdrew in face of the Japanese invasion and the Viet Minh built their power by inflicting defeats on the Japanese. This is worth correcting if only to draw attention to the role of Britain. The Brits occupied Vietnam after the Japanese defeat and organised the return of the French, thus ensuring all the blood and suffering that was to follow.

Ciaran O'Dowd introduces the idea of "trading space for time!! —- that by sacrificing territory the revolutionary movement may gain time for regroupment, and makes the important point that the time gained is wasted if it is not used to raise the revolutionary consciousness and will of the masses, INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY IGNORED The article is at its weakest in giving reasons for the Vietnamese victory. It gives as the main cause the flexibility of the Vietnamese forces and their ability to go from conventional battles to guerilla warfare very quickly. General Giap is quoted as saying that a drawn-out and extended war favours the popular forces against the imperialists. .However the article ignores a major political factor which the Vietnamese rica, CUBA by armed force, CHE GUEVARA themselves acknowledge -- the international solidarity of the work-— ing class organisations and the mass mass demonstrations that brought the war home to the heart of AmeIn dealing with Cuba Ciaran O'Dowd points out that the revolution did not just involve Castro's forces but a whole social and political movement -—- the 26th July Movement. He also quotes Che to the effect that guerilla war is the continuation of revolutionary politics However the article as a whole does not deal with the Cuban struggle, but with a debate about the 'foco! theory -—- the idea advanced by Che that small armed groups could by their actions create part of the preconditions for revolution. Attempts to implement this theory in Latin America led to a series of defeats. Ciaran O'Dowd concludes that it was correct to try to extend the Cuban revolution to the continent and to try to 'take the heat off! Vietnam, but that the failures were based on lack of popular support.

This approach begs the question, Why was there so little popular support? If immediate armed action was a strategy for defeat, was there there an alternative strategy that would have made victory possible? For Marxists some level of agitation among the masses is always possible. If this sort of slow pa+ tient work does not always offer immediate and spectacular victories, it has consistently laid the groundwork for the mass upsurges of the working class and been an essential feature of all successful revolutions, PERMANENT REVOLUTION The absence of an analysis of the Cuban revolution is a disappvintment. This revolution more thon any other is a set-piece demonsira-— tion of the Trotskyist theory of Permanent Revolution. The Cuban revolutionary movement had a nationalist leéadership and was committed to a programme of democratic reform, yet it burst its own self-imposed boundaries and established a workers! state, This was only possible because the revolutionary nationalists were absolutely determined to carry out their promises, because the workers and peasants were themselves organised and active in the revolution and because there was a unity in action combined with an open debate between socialist and nationalists in the -anti-imperialist movement. The lessons for Ireland should be obvious, Given the continuing revolution in Nicaragua and the strategic importance of that struggle for the world revolution, it was to be expected that the article on Nicaragua would mark the high point of the series. In fact the basic lack of political analysis is shown most clearly here and in many ways it is the weakest of the series, USEFUL FACTUAL INFORMATION It does however provide a great deal of factual information. The Nicaraguan movement was deeply infected by the 'foco! theory and led three guerilla campaigns between 1963 and 1970. In 1974a successful hostage operation lea to the freeing of political prisoners but the founder of the Sandinista movement, Amador, was killed by the forces of the U.S, -backed dictator Somoza. Under the pressure of defeats the movement split into three 'tendencies! —- in reality i

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 5 and socially superior position they feel that their leader ship function has been usurped In order to