First Published: Worker’s England Daily News Release, September 4, 1973
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Over the last few weeks several letter bombs, “carrier big bombs” and incendiary devices have either exploded, or been planted and found in London and most recently in the Midlands. As a result of this, the monopoly capitalist press has been frenziedly shouting “outrage”, “wave of terror” etc., and calling for retribution against ”IRA gunmen” and progressive people in England. The monopoly capitalists are creating public opinion for “banning the IRA and Sinn Fein in England” and for new restrictions on travel between England and northern Ireland. The have used the opportunity to launch widescale intimidation, searches and harassment of progressive people in England and of Irish patriots living in England.
Despite having no evidence to prove that the IRA were responsible (the Special Branch has said that it believes the IRA weren’t responsible), the monopoly capitalists have popularised the existence of an “IRA bomb squad led by a woman”. They have used the bombings in order to:
1, Suggest that, the main problem in society is “gunmen”, “terrorists” and communists.
2, Accelerate racist, propaganda, against the Irish people, and
3, Prepare conditions for more fascist legislation against progressive organisations in England and against the working class.
The British monopoly capitalists have always blamed all the problems in society on the working class as a whole, or on particular sections of it. They claim that the working class causes inflation by being too greedy and striking for more money, when it is they who deliberately create inflation by increasing the money supply. They claim that strikes are caused by “troublemakers” and “militants”, as if the working class has no reason for fighting against, the monopoly capitalists. They claim that national minorities are the cause of “overpopulation” and must be shipped back home. They claim that divisions amongst the people are caused by people being inherently racist or sectarian, when they themselves deliberately create and foster these divisions. The monopoly capitalists promote the idea that the English working class has no basis for rebelling against this society and that they should peacefully work together with their exploiters. They promote the view that the Irish people have no basis for fighting against British monopoly capitalism. When the people rise up and refuse to accept this view which is in antagonistic contradiction with their everyday experience then they attempt, on the one hand to divide the people (protestant v. catholic or black v. white or even one section of industry against another) and make them fight amongst themselves, and on the other hand, to blame all the problems on “IRA gunmen”, “blacks”, “communists”, etc.
In fact, the British monopoly capitalists are past-masters at deception. They learnt the importance of deceiving the workers as well as using naked fascist repression against them at an early stage of their rule. Whereas, when the proletariat was a small and immature force, the capitalists could afford to use naked, violence as the main means of maintaining its rule, by the time he working class became large, mature and organised, violence was no longer sufficient to hold it down and throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the capitalists introduced a sophisticated bourgeois democracy as the means to deceive the workers. They bought out the leadership of the trade unions with the super- profits earned from exploiting the colonies and popularised the Labour Party in order to deceive the workers in parliament. In no way did the monopoly capitalists give up the use of violence and terror against the working people, but used deception to disguise it and to prepare, the conditions for more violence, The capitalist class sent out its troops to shoot on the workers on many occasions in the nineteenth century, to shoot down the Welsh miners in the 1920’s and 1930’s, to attack and arrest thousands upon thousands of workers on demonstrations in the same period, and since, to starve thousands of others to death and to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of others in wars of aggression abroad. Their tactic of using violence and terror along with deception is seen in most concentrated form in Ireland today, where they consciously shoot down unarmed people (carried out by the SAS and Military Reaction Force) and call them “senseless sectarian, murders”, carry out widescale harassment and intimidation of the people including invasion of whole areas with tanks, the shooting down of 13 unarmed people in the “Derry massacre” of January 30th. 1972, at the same time as offering the people a “Northern Ireland Assembly”, civil rights, etc.
Throughout the world, the British monopoly capitalists fight fascist wars of aggression in their colonies, using violence and terror against whole populations, and support the most fascist and racist regimes in the world. For example, the white racist regime of Vorster in South Africa is propped up and supported by British monopoly capital. The United Kingdom is by far the largest investor in South Africa – sterling investments in South Africa were 58% of the total foreign investment at the end of 1970. The total sterling investment by 1970 was £1,983 million whilst 10% of British investment goes directly to South Africa. By 1971, more than 500 British companies has subsidiaries or associates in South Africa; and of South Africa’s top 100 industrial companies one quarter are partially owned by British corporations and 12 are direct subsidiaries of British companies. Britain takes 29% of South Africa’s exports and nearly all of them enter Britain duty free. The British monopoly capitalists would like us to believe that a class which is such a rabid supporter of violence and terror abroad is not the perpetrator of violence and terror at home.
Yet all the time the monopoly capitalists are stepping up their preparations for fascism in the political, military, economic and cultural spheres,. All the time they are introducing more fascist legislation against the working people – the Industrial Relations Act which claims to be to introduce a code for “fair” and “unfair” industrial practices, but which is designed to prevent the workers from organising economic struggles against the monopoly capitalists; the Immigration Act which claims to be to distinguish between “patrials” (those with grandparents or parents born in Britain) and “non-patrials” but which is designed to intimidate and harass national minorities and create a docile, national minority wage-slave; the Pay and Price Code (Phase Two) about which the monopoly capitalist press claimed “Stage Two puts the squeeze on companies” (Guardian) and “Heath puts tight rein on profits” (Daily Express), but which gives free rein to the maximisation of profits whilst fascistically decreasing real wages, The Financial Times of. August 15th, 1973, reported the following: “Company profits reported in July continued the previous buoyant trend. Pre-tax profits of industrial companies were up by 36,7 per cent over the year before.” Profits made by industrial companies in the first quarter of this year were 34 per cent above those made in the first quarter of 1972. Yet whilst, the monopoly capitalists are reporting a boom in profits , the working class is tied to £1 plus 4 per cent which means a cut in real wages.
Whilst increasing fascist legislation, the monopoly capitalists are also stepping up their harassment of working people and progressive organisations. In the last couple of years, large numbers of progressive people have been harassed, intimidated and attacked by the British police. Last December, some supporters of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) were attacked by the London police and planted with drugs, ammunition, explosives and have been committed to trial at the Old Bailey on concocted charges. Comrade Lindsay Hutchinson, an active supporter of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), is at present serving a five year sentence on concocted charges of “malicious wounding” and “assault”. Many other progressive people and Irish patriots living in England have been given jail sentences of up to 30 years on concocted charges. Many workers pickets have been fascistically attacked by the police who encourage strikebreakers to break the picket lines and attack striking workers: and working people have been murdered by the police. Is this not violence and terror of the highest order?
Experience shows that the monopoly capitalists plant bombs, murder people and create incidents in order to blame them on “terrorists” and create public opinion for more fascist measures against the people. On November 30th of last year, British government agents acting on behalf of British imperialism set off two bombs in the centre of Dublin in order to pass through the fascist “Offences Against the State” legislation, which grants the courts powers to imprison someone as being a member of an illegal organisation if a senior policeman says he has “good reason” to believe they are. The “Offences Against the State” legislation was opposed by the opposition parties – Cosgrave’s Fine Gael and Corish’s Labour Party until the bombs exploded on the same day the legislation was due to be debated. The opposition immediately changed its stand, and this blatant imperialist tactic was used to pass the legislation. Even Lynch who colluded with British imperialism to have the bombs planted, has now claimed that he is “suspicious” that British intelligence was responsible, in order to divert attention from his own role.
Even earlier than this the British imperialists had been infiltrating and spying in the south of Ireland and using agents such as the Littlejohn brothers to carry out bank robberies and blame the IRA. Such depths are the British imperialists prepared to sink to that they were even prepared to tell their agents to kill British soldiers (even their own lackeys and mercenaries are not safe from the British imperialists) to create public opinion for their schemes. Kenneth Littlejohn “alleged that he had been acting on British Ministry for Defence instructions, and that when he was in the North he was told it was all right for him to shoot IRA men or British soldiers”, reported the Irish Times on August 4th. Nothing, including the murder of their own lackeys and the murder of unarmed Irish people is too low for the British imperialists who carry out reactionary violence and terror against the people and then accuse the people of being “terrorists” and “gunmen.” In June this year, Sgt Clive Williams was acquitted by a British colonial court in Belfast of the attempted murder of three unarmed Irish people in June 1972. Williams at that time, was a member of the British Imperialist army’s “top secret” “Military Reaction Force” whose job it is to tour in plain clothes and civilian cars around Belfast and shoot unarmed Irish people with weapons used by the IRA and then to disappear after the “senseless sectarian murder.” Williams shot and wounded three unarmed Irish people at a bus terminus with a Thompson submachine gun (used widely by the IRA, and was seen by several witnesses shooting at unarmed people. Williams claimed in court that the people were armed, that he was carrying the Thompson “to familiarise the N.C.O.’s with weapons used by extremists” (Irish Times, June 28th, 1973) and that the car drove off without stopping because “His unit had orders never to become involved in any follow-up action”!
These tactics of the British monopoly capitalists in England and Ireland are the tactics used by fascists in order to achieve their ends and create public opinion for their class. They are no different to the tactics of the Nazis who burnt down the Reichstag in 1933 and blamed it on the communists in order to introduce more fascist and anti-communist legislation. They carry out violence and terror and blame it on the people. They are the real perpetrators of “violence” and “terror” in England and Ireland and they will never change their nature until they are buried by the working people. As Chairman Mao points out: “MAKE TROUBLE, FAIL, MAKE TROUBLE AGAIN. FAIL AGAIN. . . TILL THEIR DOOM; THAT IS THE LOGIC OF THE IMPERIALISTS AND ALL REACTIONARIES THE WORLD OVER IN DEALING WITH THE PEOPLE’S CAUSE, AND THEY WILL NEVER GO AGAINST THIS LOGIC, THIS IS A MARXIST LAW. WHEN WE SAY ’IMPERIALISM IS FEROCIOUS’, WE MEAN THAT ITS NATURE WILL NEVER CHANGE, THAT THE IMPERIALISTS WILL NEVER LAY DOWN THEIR BUTCHER KNIVES, THAT THEY WILL NEVER BECOME BUDDHAS, TILL THEIR DOOM.”
The working people are learning many important lessons from the current tactics of the monopoly capitalists. They are learning first and foremost that the monopoly capitalists are prepared to go any lengths and sacrifice any number of lives of working people in order to deceive and divide the people and maintain their rule. This shows the necessity of uniting to overthrow that class and it means building the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) as the principal and most important task in preparing for proletarian socialist revolution and organising the working class as the ruling class.