IMGpapers

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1968–1988

STAND FIRM

The Red Mole Vol. 4, No. 63, 17 March 1973 · p. 1 of the scan · 527 words

The scan: v04n63-mar-17-1973.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-1 of 4; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 1 of the scan

It is not yet clear who organised the bombings in London last week.

If those who carried through the bombings were Irish Republicans, they had one aim: to free Ireland from British domination in order that the Irish people may decide their OWE TULLIC Every voice raised to condemn the bombings is a weapon in this imperialist war to beat down the heroic resistance of the Catholic masses in the North of Ireland.

WORKING CLASS The events over the last few days have proved yet again that the Irish war cannot wished away.

The IMG has never made any secret of its stand on the fighting in the North of Ireland. It does not equate the violence of the oppressor with the violence of the oppressed When the police and the troops try to crush struggle for civil rights and national liberation, we support the right of the Irish masses to fight back with everything they can lay their hands on. We do not say: you can use a protest march against the guns of the British, but you cannot use a bomb. How can anyone argue that, after Bloody Sunday in Derry last year?

Nor do we say: we support the fight of the Irish masses, but we refuse to support the IRA which has actually been organising that fight, providing some of the vital means for carrying it forward. Instead we seek to strengthen the hand of those organising the But having made our unconditional solidarity clear, nevertheless our assessment is that it would be mistaken for a military campaign to be initiated in Britain. From a technical standpoint it would be untenable, without mass support for the guerrillas they would be smashed long before they could inflict such damage as to cause real problems for the British government. From a political standpoint it would be completely counterproductive, A military campaign would polarise British society in the wrong way. While the London bombings will probably increase the support for getting the troops out, this will be on an anti-Irish basis, and would enable the Government to dispell any build-up of opposition, by a manoeuvre which would ensure continued imperialist dominance, "TERRORISTS' On the day of the bombing the BBC used the occasion to attack the International Marxist Group and other revolutionary organisations. We know very well their intentions and those of the Government and the repressive forces. They wish to weaken the fight of the workers in Ireland and in Britain by spreading the lie that the organisations in the forefront of these fights are terrorists. The IRA is not a terrorist organisation. It is the armed organisation thrown up by the Irish masses in their struggle against British imperialism. Neither is the IMG a terrorist group. We do not believe that isolated violence against property or individuals is the road to socialism. The socialist revolution will be made by the great mass of working people, Our role is to assist and develop their struggle.

But it is no assistance to the struggle of the working people of Ireland or of Britain to run for cover when the Irish war moves to London.

← Gunmen kill twoFORCE NEEDED →

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