described as the year of the tug-of-War.
It was ushered in during the ill-fated truce between the British Army and the Provisional IRA. The pundits of the capitalist press predicted in their journalistic horoscopes that the end of the Irish war was in sight. By that they meant that the anti-imperialist resistance - and in particular the Provos - were in for a year of defeats in the Six Counties.
But there were smirks on the faces ot these press hacks when Old Father Time was hustled out at the end of the year under a hail of bombs, bullets, bricks and bottles, and in the face of large demonstrations demanding the re-introduction of political status.
Certainly, it was a year in which the nationalist workers of the North of Ireland had their fair share of defeats. Britain successfully removed political status from political prisoners in March; there was the emergence of the peace at any price' brigade with not inconsiderable support from within the war-weary Catholic ghettoes.
There was the dramatic escalation in sectarian assassinations, primarily carried out by Loyalist extremists but with the SAS continuing to play their part. It is a matter for deep regret that some Republican activists also adopted TRIS taCc on a few occasions during the past year.
On top of these there was rocketing unemployment large-scale slashing of social services. Berhaps most important of le was the failure in the South to mobilise any mass opposition to the repressive collaboration of the ruling class with British However, 1976 was also a year which saw the Irish working class begin to fight back, North and South of the border. Demonstrations of up to 30,000 people took place on the streets of Belfast in defiance of the armed might of British imperialism. A similar number paraded through Dublin to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Easter Rising, in defiance of a government ban on the march.
Also South of the border, workers in Navan went on strike in protest against the State of Emergency imposed by the Cosgrave Government, while demonstrations in Ennis, Killala and Limerick confirmed that not everyone in the 26 JOHN MAGEE reports from Belfast 1976 IN IRELAND might well be Counties is prepared to turn a blind eye to the repression which is the cornerstone of the Coalition's policy.
It was a year in which British strategy was ever more exposed as little more than military repression. This despite British attempts to discredit and thereby isolate the anti-Unionist resistance as nothing but a motley collection of gangsters', 'thugs' and 'godfathers' -not to mention 'psychopaths' and "madame guillotines'.
The collapse of the Constitutional Convention in May confirmed how impossible it is for imperialism to provide any solution to the political divisions which it itself has sown. It also marked the bringing into the open of the many divisions within the once solid and monolithic Loyalist bloc.
The regroupment of Loyalist organisations which had been given impetus by the UW stoppage began to crumble. already sine gone to Sources ster say that Ireland Office objection; but that the application was directed to it at all clearly shows that the decis ion on whether or not to allow the use of the Square will be a polucal one The Bloody fore long rumblings Ian Kyle Paisley.
RUMBLINGS master.
FAILED No First of all, one-time Loyalist fuhrer Bill Craig saw his Vanguard Unionist Party split over his timid voluntary-coalition proposal, and then within weeks found himself driven out of the United Unionist Coalition (UUUC). Bewere also heard within the Official Unionist Party (OUP) against the alleged influence of Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, the Rev. Dr These rumblings quickly became shouts of "Paisley must go!" when one Sunday night in May Paisley joined with Ernie Baird of the United Ulster Unionist Movement (UUUM) to announce that 10,000 armed members of the Ulster Service Corps would be taking to the roads and lanes of rural Ulster as part of a Save Ulster Campaign'. The Official Unionists were not ready to throw the gauntlet in the face of their imperial can end The Ulster Service Corps failed to provide a pole for Loyalist regroupment or to secure Britain's acceptance of the Convention Report. The splits continued, and Christmas approached with the paramilitaries talking of going it They being crucial alone' and threatening to spill the beans about the involvement of Paisley, Baird, Taylor and Co. in illegal violent actions.
With the mass demonstrations in anti-Unionist districts, the continued military campaign of the Provisional IRA, and the increasing disarray of Loyalism, 1976 was clearly not a very good year for British imperialism. Indeed could be said that there was only one bright star in the 1976 sky for programme which provides comBritish imperialism - the arrival of the "peace trio of Williams, needs. Corrigan and McKeown These puppets of John Bull gathered thousands on the streets of Ireland to sing hymns and say prayers in praise of the British Army and RUC. At least that was the effect, if not the intent; but in the North of Ireland such a mission will not cross the sectarian divide, so different recruiting slogans were used in different areas.
On the Protestant Shankill the rallying cry was Smash the IRA': on the Catholic Falls it was We all violence'. Such unity could not last, and the end of the year saw dwindling support for the peace' superstars, with less than 400 turning up for the final event — a carol service in Belfast.
In some ways, however, they had already served their purpose had slotted in -WITHO tish imperialism has been following. Thus they talked of a "Northern Irish identity", denoun ced the resistance fighters as 'criminals, and stated openly their support for the torturers of the RUC who simultaneousl condemned by the Strasbourg Human Rights Court.
CRUCIAL They had also pinpointed the weakness of the anti-imperialist struggle: the falling away of the mass movement.
There is no doubting the capacity of the Provos to continue with their militarv Callodi! nor l there any doubting the determination of the militant hard-core of Provo supporters and the revolutionary left to continue the fight until victory is won. That this hard-core is not limited to a few cranks but numbers tens of thousands was also demonstrated amply by the massive marches held during 1976.
But even this impressive hard core will be whittled away unless it is given an active role in the struggle under its own leadership and not that of an Army Council over which it has no control. The mass movement which reached its height in 1971-72 will not be rebuilt as a stage army wheeled onto the streets at the whim of the Provi sional leadership A mass anti-imperialist move ment capable of bringing the Irish revolution to triumph will only be built on the self-organisation of Irish workers. It will be a movement under the democratic control of the workers, mobilised around a prehensive answers to all their 1976, the year of the tug-of-war, was a critical year for the Irish revolution. It showed that after seven years of resistance unparalleled in Western Europe, the antiUnionist workers of the Six Coun ties have not been defeated.
The exemplary combativity of the anti-Unionist workers provides an excellent base on which to re build the mass movement, which through giving leadership to all Irish workers can place national independence and the Socialist Republic on the agenda. 1977 may well prove to be the turning-point, and it is to that task that the , Movement for a Socialist Republic (Irish section of the Fourth International) dedicates itself in this new year of struggle.
JOHN MAGEE