Divided Ulster: Liam de Paor. 208 pages. Penguin Special, 5/-.
Blacks with White Skins Liam de Paor doesn't seek to give a complete history of Ulster but "a view of the problems of the divisions of Ulster as these appear in its history". This is a useful approach for English revolutionists. There is a shortage of good who settled intensively East of the Bann material on Ireland, as is not altogether surprising in the oppressor country. This little book is a valuable contribution towards alleviating that shortage and helping revolutionaries clarify themselves on the complex contradictions that exist in Northern Ireland. Quite correctly he begins by stressing that the problems of Northern Ireland are those of a colonial country where "Catholics are blacks who happen to have white skins". This is, of course, as he admits, an oversimplification but a much more useful one than the pseudo-theological division into Catholics and Protestants. The colonisation of the North took place a long time ago in the seventeenth century. There have, however, always been strong forces preventing the integration of settler and native. This wasn't always the case with the English in Ireland, however. It was a running complaint of Elizabethan administrators that the original settlers of the English Pale (in the middle rather than the north of Ireland) tended to lose their identity in the surrounding Gaelic countryside. The administrators practised a primitive apartheid by forbidding the use of the Irish language, customs or dress within the Pale, particularly by born English. The native Irish were left to go their own bey, accore ing to Trish law, literally The Settlement The book begins with a very outline William of Orange's forces in 1690/1. De Paor adopts a materialist approach and reveals the actual social forces at work behind the ideological manifestations of the struggle well. Within the framework of the colony, the early settlers are in a position similar to that of the English in America. They regard themselves as pockets of civilisation in a sea of barbaric Gaelic Irish. The Scottish Presbyterians in the seventeenth century turned what had been pastoral land into croplands. They constructed towns and, protected by long lease and recognition of improvements, became prosperous. Ulster at one time had been the most backward area of Ireland; now it became the most advanced. The Scots settlers were able to bulld up some small industries, tanning, weaving and linenmaking. Their position was not secure until the final defeat of the Catholic landowning class. After the original settlement, a revolt on the part of the natives was long expected and finally came in 1641. A Roman Catholic Parliament was convened to meet at Kilkenny late in 1642. The Protestant numbers and many murdered. These numbers and many murdered. murders were exaggerated in the Protestant consciousness, and made more bloody the eventual suppression of the revolt by Cromwell's troops in 1649. This defeat did not lead to more settlement but to the confiscation of a lot more land throughout Ireland. English Protestant landlords were given the land in the South to extract rent trom the Irish settlers. The remaining Catholic landlords were displaced to smaller holdings in the west. Restoration brought the English Irish a little but returned nothing to the Gaelic Irish. The power of the Irish was finally broken in1691. James II had replaced Protestants with Catholics in the Army and James II's army at the siege of Derry and Enniskellen, which contributed to William of Orange's victory a year later in 1690: "By the end of the century almost all the land of Ireland was in the hands of new owners and the old landowning class, the Old English and native Irish gentry and aristocracy were dispossessed." References are made to the Irish tribal system but this section, useful as it is in many ways, would have been improved by a more amplified description of the types of land tenure of the Irish before the confiscations. Clearly marked, however, is the significance of this period as the establishment of Protestant ascendancy throughout the island and the destruction of the remnants of the leaders of Gaelic culture. The Irish were now leaderless and open to the exploitation by English landlords and 'settlers. The settlers felt rightly that they had won a victory.
The Sectarian Division The next century presented a complicated picture of increased tension between Protestant landlord and tenant, between Settlers and the Home Country, between Catholic tenant and Catholic landlord, and last but not least between Catholic tenant and Protestant tenant. Both Protestants and Catholics organised agrarian secret societies, the Peep O'Day Boys and the Defenders. These organisations were used both to cow landlords and by the two groups of the opulation against one another. In 179. Nolfe Tone founded a radical middle class organisation in Belfast, The Society of United Irishmen, dedicated to religious equality and the rights of man and much influenced by the French Revolution. The combination of United Irishmen in the towns and Defenders in the country began to worry the authorities. They began to look to their American republican model began to fade before the ruthless suppression of the rebellion. "The year of misery and terror answered among others the question whether the Protestant lower orders in Ulster would combine with the Catholics against landlords and rulers, or would combine with landlords and rulers against Catholics. The Dublin administration divided Ulster and ruled it." To the conflict between Catholic tenant and Protestant was to be added that of Catholic and Protestant worker in Belfast's growing industries. The Protestant workers began to feel insecure as they saw unemployed Catholics flooding in from the rural areas. So the fatal base for the division of the masses in Ireland was laid.
Independence & Socialism The latter half of the book bringing the narrative up to date is necessarily more discursive than analytical. The book devotes relatively little space to an analysis of political developments and possibilities for revolution in Ireland now, which is a little disappointing. If it is more history than on-going politics, the book remains thoroughly worth reading, however. It does not pretend to be a major work of revolutionary theory, but as a short introduction to the divisions of Ulster goes well beyond the limitations of Green Tory nationalism. It ends with a classic quote from Connolly, which can't be bad: "If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin castle, unless you set about the organisation of the socialist republic, your efforts would be in vain.
"England would still rule you. She would rule vou through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercialist and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of
YUGOSLAVIA: DOCKERS' STRIKE A third of the 1,500 dockers at the port of Kopar on the Northern Adriatic coast went or trike last month when the port authorities refused their demands for wage increases.
The port authorities have sent a delegation to Ljubljana to report to Stane Kavac, President of the Federal Republic of Slovenia, on the difficulties in which the port has found itself during the last few months and on the improvements in working conditions which are needed.
The present strike was provoked by a failure to fulfil promises given originally a few months ago.
This is not the first time that dockers have stuck on rais part or te adriauc coast. lne most violent strike occurred in Rijeka in June 1969. The following on-the-spot report of that strike is translated from Ilustravana Politika (Dusan Sekulic, Belgrade, June 3, 1969).
On 2 June, some 800 workers employed by the Port of Rijeka stopped work. The building of the Port Authority was taken over by the striker; all executives and employees found inside were thrown out and beaten up. While a. group of about fifty workers dealt with the executives, the others armed themselves with laths, hooks and other improvised weapons until wusstve once relntorcements intereneni The strike began when the adoption of new regulations on earnings had reduced the labour force in the port by 20%. Last year the Port Authority had had a loss of 1,200 million old dinars. Consequently at the beginning of this year it was decided to reduce earnings by 10% of the basic wage, but the Port Authority is still losing money. At the same time, the new regulations had banned overtime, reduced unemployment and illness benefits, and abolished certain holiday facilities. The workers canteen was closed down and it was decided instead to reimburse the workers their transport fares. The strike, which had begun on 2 June, went on the next day, but on the 4th, work was resumed. Seven of the strikers were arrested.
On 7 June Borba (Belgrade) announced that, on the previous day, Party and trade-union leaders had "denounced the violence" of certain workers at Rijeka.
RED CIRCLE/RED MOLE CONTACTS f you live in or near any of the areas listed below, you people for any queries about Th Red Mole and for information on distributing th nover ane seneme m loca rerors in anumper o. these areas (asterisked) functioning Red Circles exist. to us tere at 182 Pentomville Road, Lanpton Nt. Red Circle in write *BIRMINGHAM: Gerald Hitman, 28 Brighton Road, Balsall Heath, Birmingham 12. *CARDIFF: Alastair McNiven, 5 Major Road, Canton, CaTal. *COVENTRY: John Presland, Rootes Hall D16, University of Warwick, Coventry *DERBY: John Hewitt, c/o The Red Mole, 182 rentonyue Kode. Lonconyi & Bruce Bebbington, 41 Leopold Street, Derby, DEI 2HE. *EDINBURGH: Robin Duncan, 13 Blackthorn Court, bannton. COmOUren *HAMILTON: Walter MacLellan, 37 Smyllum Road, anark, Scotlan IUL.L: John Bearpark, 88 Park Street, Springban) *LANARK: Walter MacLellan, 37 Smyllum Road, , Scotland LANCASTER: Dave Riddell, 35 West Road, LEEDS: Gwyn Vorhaus, 89 Victoria Roed, Leeds 6. Drawing on what strength he could still muster, Kazimir Jelovica, general manager of the Port of Rijeka, ran desperately along the Promenade of the Jugoslav Navy in Rijeka. Pushing his way through the crowd of holiday-makers and passers-by he veered suddenly to the right in the direction of the Hotel Vonavia. In order to escape from his pursuers, the manager ran into the hotel restaurant, where numerous tourists were having break fast, followed by a group of strongly-built, large-handed men dressed in worn-out overalls. Without looking at anything else, they grabbed the manager, and, with much swearing, set upon him with their fists. It was all over quickly. The frightened and perplexed tourists ran out, to the accompaniment of the sound of broken crockery. Inside the room there was left only Kazimir Jelovica, beaten up and bleeding. He had been beaten up by the workers of his enterprise, who had also attacked those workers who had tried to protect him.
A similar scene was repeated almost immediately afterwards. The finance manager, Petar Cujeca, was thrown out of the Port Authority building which had been broken into by a group of angry workers. It looked like a suspense sequence from a film: a few workers pushing the pale and frightened man through the door; outside, a mass of workers brandishing hooks and laths, shaking their fists, shouting, "We want to try him". Fists began to beat on the finance manager. Protecting himself as best he could with his arms, he ducked alongside the wall of the building and, instinctively taking a chance, barged through some workers and ran for his life. He ran as never before in his life, s fast that his pursuers, although in much better condition, were not able to catch up with him. The race went on for several hundred metres, with the finance manager jumping over obstacles ond Thier, inier: Hn tas solen ou nd hey shouts Workers of the "Torpedo' enterprise hearing all the noise, went out into the street.
eeing a man running, out of breath, escapin from a group of people shouting Thief, thief they naturally stopped the "thief", who was knocked and trampled over by his pursuers.
The same happened to the commercial manager, the chairman of the trade union and Contacts Contacts Contacts Contacts *GLASGOW: Murray Smith, 61 Fergus Drive, Glasgow N.W.
LEICESTER: Alan Lenton, 19 Gotham Street, *CENTRAL LONDON: Frank Hansen, City Polytechnic, Students Union, Moorgate, EC1 *NORTH LONDON: Dave Kendall, 75 York Way, London N7 *SOUTH LONDON: Tony Jones, c/o The Red Mole, toz rentonville koad, London NI *WEST LONDON: Bob Purdie, 19 Hamilton Road, LOUGHBOROUGH: Mike Smith, 59 Toothill Road, Loughborough, Leics. No Selenoes, Univers Yordiast Sno, O remia Sciences, University of East Plain, Norwich 88( *NOTTINGHAM: Nick Beeton, 25 Henry Roed, West Bridgford, Nottingham OXFORD: Bernard Reaney, Corpus Christi College Oxford PLYMOUTH: Martin Durham, c/o 19 Clifton Street, EADING: Nigel Brown, St. Patricks Hal lymouth suevon Northcourt Avenue Reading, Berks *STAFFORD: : Chris Pailthorpe, Dunston Hall, DUISLOL. NE.SEROTO Neil Williamson, 266 Stirling Street, Denny, *YORK: Mike Lomax, Fairfax House, Heslington many other officials. There were not many in that building who managed to get away without being molested in some way. All this happened on 2 June during a strike in the port of Rijeka The town was soon flooded with blue uniforms; 2,000 militiamen were urgently sent from neighbouring towns... in cae expiosive atmosphere, , the militia did the best it could: it cordoned off the port area, prevented the disorders from extending into the city, and triec to give protection to those who were being attacked There were, nevertheless, ugly incidents in the afternoon as well. One official was seen escaping through a window by a rope and it was thus found out that there were stil people in the building. They were hiding in cupboaras ana coners. tne minua demanded that there be no violence.
A mixed patrol was formed to "clean out" the building. Militiamen and workers looked "Come out.
Into all une dark comers, snoucing:
We won't hurt you. Frightened officials emerged one by one. Among them was the secretary of the Port Conference of the League of Communists.
Someone then shouted, "Hold them, these are the people who stayed behind in order to forge the doeuments.
The mass then rushed in and, taking n notice of the militiamen, began to pound on the men who, a few minutes earlier, were being told they had nothing to fear.
AN ERROR IN MOSCOW Just at the time when four officials of the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party have been relieved of their posts, it appears that a serious mistake has slipped into the editing of the "theses" for the centenary of Lenin's birth SmallAds Pioneer Book Service has moved to 182 Pentonvill Road, London N1. Phone 01-278 2616. An up-to-date. catalogue will be brought out shortly.
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Cuban Day of Solidarity Poste onville Road, Posndon fr /- includi The Red Mole, 182 Penquarterly from 87 Brooke Road, London N.16. Single militant teachers" journal. copy 1/2d. 9/- per dozen. Annual subscription Ged Mule, 182 Poltonv De Rioad, L-podon N from TT UTIQUIEY ко-g-, rrenca kevononary weekly of the Ligue Or wale to. The Re Moe, 102 ,BP201, Paris 19e, France write to The London N1, enclosing 2/- for an individual copy Sn Urdu, 2e-y revolpioary Paia cio antihian uana! ist Group, 182 Pentonville Road, London N1. Middle East for Revolutionary Socialism East socialist journal. 1, Marxist Youth Journal. No. 3. Now out. Articles on Permanent Revolution; The Cultural Revolution; Th Middle East; The DES Proposals. 1/- per copy, and Bulk Orders. Mike Lomax, Fairfax House, Hestington Road, York INTERNATIONAL: latest issue includes Mandel on Althusser; Cambodian Coup; Scottish Teachers; Healy' Bolivian Slanders AnsWereo. Dos 182 Pentonville KOaO. LOnGORN published by. Pravda on 23 December last. The fourteenth point of the "theses" reads, "In his sketch-plan for the report on the international situation and the principal tasks of the Comintern, Lenin listed five 'social force factors' of the working class: 1) the activists;
2) the organisation; 3) the place in the production and distribution processes, 4) industry; 5) education.
The list is in fact borrowed from the Germa Social Democrat Otto Bauer, more precisely from his work Bolshevism or Social Democrac It was actually used by Lenin in his report to the Second Comintern Congress on 19 July 1920, but in the following terms: "Here is an example of how Marxism has been degraded, oi the baseness and of the defence of the exploite to which one can bring the most revolutionary theory. It takes the German variety of the petty-bourgeois spirit to produce 'the theory' according to which the 'social force factors' are the activists, the organisation, the place in the production and distribution processes, industry and education... ."And Lenin went on, "My example may seem a little humorous, but it is the nature of opportunism today that the struggle against contemporary Bolshevism grow out of humour. " (Lenin, Collected Works, 1966 Vol. 31).
By an unfortunate inadvertence, what Lenin denounced fifty years ago as the expression of "the German variety of the petty-bourgeois spirit" appears in 1970 promoted to the rank o official party thesis. It was the Germans themselves (those of the DDR) who first became aware of the confusion and at once warned their Soviet friends. A month later, the Centra Committee's theoretical review Communist published a version of the "theses" from which this passage had been removed.
LENIN Centenars / issue of Red Mole. Copies available Red Mole, 182 Pentonvile Road, London NL. ite The /IETNAM-monthly magazine of the VSC, availab from J Suddaby, 182 Pentonville Road, London N. Price 1/KEY BOOKS LTD specialise in Socialist, Communist Peace and Progressive literature. Only bookshop of it: kind in the Street, Birmingham 5. Phone 021 692 Ck65. Midlands. Red Mole Socialist Woman is produced by a group of socialis women of the Nottingham Socialis mittee. A subscription I costs only 4/- for 6 issues (bi monthly). Send to 16 Ella Road, West Bridgford Notumunam.
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