dismissed as rhetoric, or an especiaily devious tactic, but the evidence of a rapprochement, however limited and temporary, between a section of the loyalists and the Republican Movement is there for all to sec.
RATS IN A TRAP No one who has followed Red Weekly will be surprised that this has happened. Ever since the British White Paper, we have been forecasting the destruction of the Orange monolith, and its regrouping around new political objectives. The split between those who support the Union with Britain and those who wish to maintain the Protestant Ascendancy has created a deep crisas among the protestant plebeian elements of the former monolita.
Like rats in a trap they have scurried frantically in every direction, oniy to find no escape. It was inevitable that sooner or laler some of them would venture timidly up the path that leads to some kind of understanding with the Republicans. The only sutprise is that they found it so soon.
The Republicans can congratulate themselves. They are reaping the harvest of having smashed Stormont, they have fragmented the most powerful anti-national force in Ireland; and may eventually win new allies in the strug gle to drive the British out of Ireland.
On the other hand, British imperialism has achieved a closer alliance with Cosgrave, while the SDLP is a dagger aimed at the heart of Republican support in the catholic ghettoes. And, of course, the loyalists have not yet been won over to the side of the Irish revolution. The path forward is a very complex one. So the A section of the Loyalists will, doubtless, jump over the wall, and join with the Republicans and socialists in fighting for a new Ireland. But the proportions of this three way split cannot yet be forecast. The Republicans must act now to ensure that the largest possible foroes are drawn into the latter category.
LOYALIST-REPUBLICAN LINK-UP With the Loyalists in their present mood, a debate over ideas is irrelevant. In a world of bewildering change they are looking for new certainties, and the biggest asset of the Republicans is the determination of their struggle against the British Army and the mass resistance of the anti-Unionist population.
The best way to destroy sectarianism, and to isolate the opportunist leaders of the protestants, is to broaden the social base of the opposition to British imperialism.
This must mean the development of mass opposition among the working class in the South to the coalition, and its collaboration with Britain, through the integration of the current industrial upsurge in the South with the national struggle in the North.
THREAT TO SUNNINGDALE
The recent rejection of the National Wage Agreement in the South heralds a long series of industrial struggles, which will be strengthened by the backbone of the rank-and-tile shop stewards movement, principally the Dublin Shop Stewards Committee, which campaigned for the rejection of the agreement.
This wave of industrial militancy has a direct bearing on the Sunningdale agreement because It could eat away one of the props the Southern Coalition Government. A major Governmental onslaught against the industrial working class would destroy the Labour Party and leave as the only credible government a issue quite separate and apart from their own struggle, and have approsched the workers mainly on national issues REPRESSIVE LURCH No revolutionary can afford to leave out of account the iremendously uneven development of the crisis in Ireland. In the North the struggle of the catholic minority against British imperialisa leads towards the socialist revolution: in the South the working class struggle ohjectively poses the problem of uncompleted national revolution -but not yer as an immediate probiem problem.
There is no guurantee that both strugeles will grow together automatically. What is needed is a strategy based on an understanding of the long term need for a combined struggle, and which pinpoints those aspects of the immediate struggles which can lead to a closer integration.
The main opportunity, open at present, to draw the struggles closer together is the building of mass opposition to the repressive lurch of the Free State, taking up such issues as the Offences against the State Act, and the current recruitment campaign for the Army. Republic ans are suffering now from this repression, and increasingly trade unionists will get it in the neck as well FUSING THE STRUGGLES If the national struggle being carried out by the Republican Movement can be combined with the industrial struggle in the South, the resulting fusion between the minority in the North and the working class in the South will produce a force with sufficient social weight to pull the protestant workers in the North behind it.