Dear Comrades,

I was extremely disappointed to read 'Ireland: The Way Forward' - a Statement from the NCMLU. This analysis of the so-caIled Peace Process is remarkably superficial, and fails to offer any Marxist-Leninist strategy, as opposed to extremely short-term tactics, in relation to the 'Irish Question'.

Firstly, the statement barely addresses the actual content of the 'Good Friday Agreement' Even the most casual study of the GFA quickly reveals that it is a thoroughly bourgeois document. More than that, it has been cogently argued, even by bourgeois commentators, that any advantages flowing from the agreement, will accrue to the Nationalist, rather than the Republican, community. Indeed, as a result, as one Unionist politician has correctly pointed out, Sinn Fein representatives have virtually abandoned Republican, in favour of Nationalist ideology. (Of course it suits the Unionists to note this.) Nevertheless, this shift denotes a lurch in the Republican Movement' s position, from petit-bourgeois revolutionary, to petit~borgeois reformism. When was the last tirne anyone heard other than ritual lip-service to socialism, or a democratic socialist republic, frorn the Republican leadership? Today's rhetoric is directed en-masse towards an apparently undifferentiated Catholic population.

Turning then to the specifically Marxist-Leninist element of the Statement. We are informed that "...the situation in Northern Ireland (sic) has qualitatively changed. (...) and the British Imperialists have had to accept the prospect of the transformation of Northern Ireland(!) from directly ruled colony to indirectly ruled colony AND EVENTUAL FUSION WITH THE NEO-COLONY IN THE SOUTH (my emphasis). NO EVIDENCE is however, forthcoming for the latter assertion.

I do not assert that the change in Provisional Sinn Fein's tactics was "a betrayal of the Irish people's struggle for national liberation", but I do believe it was yet another petit-bourgeois diversion of that struggle into a reformist cul-de-sac.

Nor would I characterise the Statement by the NCMLU as 'tailisrn' of the Republican Movement, although it veers dangerously close to such a position. As a Marxist-Leninist 'Way Forward' for Ireland, it is not adequate.. Communists require further and deeper debate on that topic. I respectfully suggest that the critique by 'O'Cuinnegan' in 'Revolutionary Democracy' April 2000 (Recent Events In Ireland) would repay reprinting in International Marxist-Leninist Review.

I congratulate the 'National Committee for the Marxist-Leninist Party on providing a forum for debate between Communists, without resorting to vulgar abuse, and wish you success in your venture.

With Fraternal Greetings

E.M.