Advance, No. 24

This is a welcome addition to the materials produced by the Socialist Party of Ireland already in the Archive. This eight page edition of their newspaper Advance is very characteristic of the publication.

The headlines on the front page are ‘Expand state sector into productive industry’ and ‘Peace Campaign’.

The first notes:

After 55 YEARS in existence, the Irish capita.list state has proved its failure to meet the needs of the people, Over 100,000 unemployed, High prices and inflation, the lowest wage levels in the EEC, housing shortages and limited social serv­ices, provide graphic evidence of this failure. Prime Minister Cosgrave, a leading spokesman for Capitalist interests has publicly admitted this failure in recent speeches. But the solutions he pro­poses to the current crisis are the same old failed policies of the pres­ent and past capitalist governments. In doing this, he dogmatically rules out any possibility of structural changes in the ecmomy which would allow a new lnitative by state financ­ed, democratically controlled enter­prises, to develop the economy in the interests of the majority of the population. There are state enterprises which have had commercial success such as Bord Na Mona and Aer Lingus, but they a re prevented from expand-ing into any area which might lead to competition with ‘free enter­prise’ and most of their profits go to the banking monopolies as interest on loans and loan repayments . The role of the Public Sector, now as in the past has been one of support and service to the existing Private enterprises.

The Peace Campaign article asserts:

However, to return to the peace movement. As it has already stated, the Socialist Party welcomes its continuing development even though its shallow nature is fully realised By this is meant that it has no recognisable political base or ob­jective, simply a bland statement of peace with no further content. But in the present very backward state of affairs in Northern Ireland it is only such a movement which will be able to gain the broad base of support necessary for its success That success would be the weakening of the nationalists will to fight and the protestant reactionaries and minimising their support, This in tum would strengthen the hand of the ‘moderates’, the bourgeois demo­crats, allowing the return to a normal capitalist political democracy. Only from this position is it possible to visualise the development of a united working class in North­ern Ireland and a return to genuine class politics. And it is only this force, a united working class within either state of the territory of Ire­land which would be capable of de­feating British imperialism and a1 forms of monopoly capitalism. Then could begin the construction of a socialist state or states. When this stage of development is reached then the whole question of territorial divisions will have become irrelevant and they would eventually wither away.

There’s a wide range of other articles including one on ‘Darlings of the Western Press’ and ‘Victory for building workers’. There’s also a piece on ‘Darndale: Cutbacks cause problems’. Another piece is entitled ‘Northern Ireland: 1607-1976’. It argues:

The imponant question which faces socialists and all progressive people is how to bring about the unity of the two communities in Northern Ire­land. If one accepts reality, the answer is simple;

(1) take all possible steps to re­move the fear with which each community views the other. Immediate steps in this direction would be the introduction of a comprehensive Bill of Rights ln Northern Ireland and the deletion by the Republic of Articles Two and Three from the Constitution,

(2) the building of a common Iden­tity between the two communities . Logically, this would bemost effect­ively done by people being able to put trust in a Northern Ireland state which had agreed Institutions and which adhered to the norms of bour­geois democracy,

(3) the complete and visible separ­ation of church and state both in Northern Ireland and the Republic and the Introduction of a secular system of education in both states. Such developments would go a long way towards ensuring the develop­ment of class politics on both sides. The development of such politics and their Inevitable conclusion will determine not only the future political structures of this island, but of the whole planet.

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