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Gerry Foley

The Test of Ireland

(August 1973)


International Internal Discussion Bulletin, Vol. X No. 17, October 1973 (whole issue).
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).



The British Section Follows the Line of the Ninth Congress

How the IMG Changed from a Mass Orientation to Vanguardism

From the United Front to a New Brand of Sectarianism

Forming a Revolutionary Pole of Attraction –
Sectarianism in a New Costume


The Acrobatics of Left Opportunism

The IMG in an Impasse

How the IMG Got So Far Ahead of the Masses
That It Ended Up Behind the Social Imperialists


The IMG’s Idea of Revolutionary Morality and Ours

Extension of the Latin American Guerrilla War Line to Europe

An Irish ERP

The Trotskyist Guerrilla Expert

Armed Struggle, Yes; National Liberation, No

The Irish Had Better Not Call Off the ‘Armed Struggle’

Reformism Turned Upside Down:
An Ultra-Left Revision of Permanent Revolution


The IEC Majority’s Guerrillaist Rejection of Mass Struggle
Extended to Europe


The IMG Tail-Ends the Centrist Official IRA

The IMG Tail-Ends the Provisionals’ Terrorist Course

The IMG Covers Up the Failure of Terrorism

Adaptation Leads to Eclecticism and Confusion

Supporting Guerrillaism Leads to Supporting Blanquist Program

The ‘Fusion Between Marxism and Republicanism’

The Trotskyist Martyrs; or the International ‘Secret Army’

What Role for the Trotskyists in the ‘Armed Vanguard’?

The Theoretical Gains of the Irish Trotskyists

Irish Trotskyists Without a Political Compass

Unresolved Contradictions

Rationalizing Subjectivism

Trotsky on ‘Mass’ Terrorism

The Example of Algeria

What Road Forward?

The Need for Leninist Clarity

‘Seek Another Road’


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