of the struggle against British imperialism in both the North and South of Ireland. And after this massacre it is clearer still that the mass struggle in the North cannot be fought and defended without arms. Yet of the many protests which Monday's Morning Star urges should "flood Downing Street", few enough will help militants in Britain to draw the necessary conclusions from this. All shades of liberal and reformist opinion will today be protesting against the actions of the British Army-but at the same time they will more or less openly be pointing the finger to the IRA as the main enemy of "peace in Ulster.
The reaction of the British press to Sunday's killings throws into sharp relief the need to make support for the IRA a central task of the solidarity movement in Britain.
Running through many of the reports is the *idea that the main responsibility for the killings lies with the IRA. Imperialism's use of internment, the presence and high concentration of British troops, the terror tactics and the murder, are all justified as being regrettable aspects of a necessary campaign against what it dubs a cancer within İrish workers on strike march on the British Embassy in Merrion Square, Dublin.
BELFAST: Students at Queen's University, Belfast, occupied the Vice-Chancellor's office and other parts of the administration block on Monday evening in protest at the Derry massacre the previous day. In the afternoon 3 mass meeting of over 3,000 students was held which among other things called for the withdrawal of troops to barracks and supportad the three-day strike which had been called.
After the meeting 2,000 students marched (illegally) on the Army Headquarters in Belfast; seven marchers were arrested, including one Englishman who had previously bought himself out of the British army.
The main purpose of the occupation of the University which followed was to attack the university authorities for refusing to take any stand on the Derry massacre. As one of those occupying pointed out: "After World War Two the British government condemned the German Universities for not condemning the growth of Nazism. Now the same situation is developing in the North, but all they can talk about is 'academic neutrality."
OXFORD: Members of the International Marxist Group and others occupied the Army Recruiting Office in St Giles for almost eight hours on Tuesday in a demonstration of solidarity with those shot down in Derry. The comrades moved in as soon as the office opened in the morning, and shortly afterwards the building was cordoned off by about fifty policemen; but no immediate attempt was made to remove the occupants, partly because they were supported by a further picket 70-80 strong outside the office.
While the occupation continued, 400 other people gathered at Balliol College in the early afternoon and after brief speeches also marhed to the Recruiting Office via the Hish the Northern Catholic community-the IRA. A solidarity movement in Britain has to have as its main task the combatting of such mystifications. This can only be achieved by showing that at this period the struggle of the IRA is the legitimate continuation of the struggle of the Irish people for self-determination. For militants who take the side of the oppressed minority of N. Ireland against the Stormont regime, the N. Irish State, and therefore British imperialism, it is vital to solidarise with the IRA, the only force capable of giving an immediate perspective of struggle against an enemy which is determined to crush the resistance of the Irish people. A refusal to take up this position, in the present situation, means running the tik of falling into the arms of the British bourgeoisie, which is desperate only to smash the IRA before clinching a political deal with Lynch, Stormont, and the reformists in the N. Ireland opposition who are prepared to sell out on the national question and accept less blatant but equally exploitative forms of in serialist domination.
The Irish Solidarity Campaign has been fighting within the British left and in the inst internment for a princiStreet. There they took over the road; linked arms, and sat down bringing the traffic to a halt. The police them attempted to clear the road, but to have any chance of success were forced to bring over many of those assigned to guard the occupation. As soon as this happened, in a pre-arranged and highly skilled operation, a small body of the demonstrators moved rapidly over to the Recruiting Office and were able to get out all the occupants without a single arrest being made. Shortly afterwards, however, police started arresting people in the main body of the demonstration, and by the end of the afternoon, when the demonstration had dispersed after marching to the police station, the total of those arrested had risen to fifteen.
Only one thing marred the success of this demonstration: the fact that the major emphasis of the I.S.'s intervention (in collaboration with the C.P.) was to denounce the comrades of the IMG for occupying the recruiting office; and further, to refuse then to co-operate in the evacuation of those occupying the offfice.It seems to be a characteristic of this group nowadays (e.g., also the march to the Coal Board) that not only do they oppose any such actions as 'adventurist", but even if the operation is proved successful they merely compound their original mistake by continued denunciations, instead of making any attempt to deal with the problem politically. LONDON: On Monday afternoon students from the London School of Economics and elsewhere marched from LSE to Whitehall. Later, at 6 pm, there was a mass rally outside Downing Street. The same night Bernadette spoke to a packed meeting organised by West London Anti-Internment League, which was followed by a march to the army recruiting center in White City.
On Tuesday there was a march in South-East London to Woolwich Barracks, and on Wednesday a mass demonstration organised by the Republican Movement (Provisional) marched to Downing Street bearing thirteen coffins. Among those on strike on Wednesday were students at Enfield College of Techpled position of solidarity with the IRA. Founded fifteen months ago, and now organising around its paper, The Irish Citizen. ISC is a unique organisation: neither an Irish organisation in Britain, nor an organisation of British people in solidarity with the Irish struggle, it is an attempt to combine both of these and make use of the links between the two to grease the slope of British imperialism's decline. The Irish workers in exile are crucial to the building of an effective solidarity campaign: but it is of great importance for them to have the support of British militants. The student left, and all the youth who recog nise the existence of British imperialism, have been the first to begin to respond to this need. The third sector which must be brought into the struggle, is the organised British working class itself. However it is a fact of history that the British workers have rarely understood the necessity to make common cause with the nations oppressed by British imperialism. Their organisations have been dominated by the ideology of Fabianism and by a privileged bureaucracy which considers that collaboration with the ruling class, and gradual reform within capitalism, is the proper route for British workers.
Yet the British working class will be won to the support of the struggle in Ireland, which comes at a time of deep crisis for imperialism, and at a time when the ruling class attack on British workers is leading to a questioning LANCASTER: The Senate House at Lancaster University was occupied on Monday night. On Tuesday there was a demonstration to Heysham, the port for Belfast, after a meeting of 600 students had called for the immediate withdrawal of British troops. On Wednesday another mass demonstration was held through the centre of Lancaster.
YORK: All normal life at the University has virtually ground to a halt, following the Derry massacre. Two demonstration and a teach-in have so far been held, with the numbers involved growing to almost a thousand. A large plate glass window in the Army careers office was smashed during Monday's demonstration, and there were 28 arrests. PARIS: Sixty militants of the Ligue Communiste, French section of the Fourth International occupied the office of British Railways, in La Madeleine in the centre of Paris, on 1 February 1972. The commando action was watched by a crowd of many hundreds of Parisians. From the top of the building a Red Flag with the symbol of the Fourth International was flown, while four large red banners were draped from the windows. On these were inscribed the slogans: "Solidarity with the IRA", and "Victory to the Irish revolution". In addition a flag was flown bearing the slogan "For an Independent Socialist Republic of Ireland". This demonstration was the first action in a campaign which has been launched by the Ligue Communiste in Paris and other major cities of France: in the next few days, meetings in solidarity with the IRA will be taking place in the capital as the campaign gathers momentum.
WEST BERLIN: A demonstration of over 1,500 people, led by members of the GIM (German section of the Fourth International) marched to the British Consulate-General and called for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland.
STOCKHOLM: Sixty militants of the RMF (Swedish sympathising section of the Fourth International) occupied the BEA offices and are mounting a continuous picket on the of social democracy among the militants. The point, though, is that they will not be won through a campaign which capitulates to imperialist ideology on the Irish question because the left in Britain fails to support the most effective enemies of its own bourgeoisie.
The argument that the campaign in the imperialist country should be based on the lowest common denominator of demands, is a betrayal not only of the Irish struggle, but ultimately of the struggle of the British working class against the most experienced imperialist ruling class in the world. A defeat for that class in Ireland would greatly weaken its hold within Britain itself, preparing the way for the day when not only do the working class not want the old way, but the ruling class cannot carry on in the old way; for as Lenin pointed out, "only then can revolution triumph". We call for the building of a mass solidarity campaign because a campaign on any other lines will not only fail to provide the maximum aid for the Irish in their struggle but will equally fail to advance in any way the sharpening class strug gle in Britain.
SELF-DETERMINATION FOR IRELAND! WITHDRAW ALL BRITISH TROOPS IMMEDIATELY!
RELEASE ALL IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS NOW!
VICTORY TO THE IRA!
FROM MARX TO MAO TSE-TUNG Revolutionary Dialectics: Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the National Question, Socialism in One Country, the Party, the First Socialist State, The Proletarian Cultural Revolution, etc.
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IRISH SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN
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on "I.S.'s Analysis of the Struggle in Ireland", EDITORIAL BOARD: Tariq All, Dave Bailey, Robin Blackburn, J. R. Clynes, Peter Gowan, Teresa Hayter, Alan Jones, Pat Jordan, Branka Magas, Martin Meteyard, Neil Middleton, Bob Purdie, Daniel Rose. DESIGN: Dave Edmunds DISTRIBUTION: Phil Sanders Published by Relgocrest for The Red Mole, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.I. 01-837 6954, 01-278 2616.
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