sion and the destruction of the party apparatuses which followed the coup. But contacts were maintained or have been renewed, If there has so far been no significant agreement-and no united structure has yet seen the light of day inside Chile-the reason is to be found not in so-called 'technical or "organisational" difficulties, but in fundamental differences on questions of political strategy, which divide the seformist and revolutionary workers' organuations and sometimes- as in the case of the Socialist Party-even run through these organisations themselves.
In this regard, we should not be fooled by the two united appeals signed by the representatives abroad with a programme of strugeles for the restoration of democratic freedoms and for the defence of the standard of living of the masses, will regroup all those who are prepared to struggle against the junta, militants of any political party or none, explained MIR leader Miguel Enriquez recently (declaration of 20 January).
The movement, described in the same declaration as a large bloe of social forces opnosed to the dictatorship", must be based on 'committees in cach factory, estate, ghetto, school, university.
On the other hand, the MIR also calls for the formation of a Political Front of the Resistance-an urgent task, according to Miguel Enriquez, issued by the national secretariat and Given these basically correct positions (which determine the priorities around which the MIR's own work is organised today-concentration on work inside the working class, rebuilding nuclei of underground trade unions, preparing the organisation for the tasks of the armed struggle) how call one explain the ambiguity and confusion on the question of moves towards unity?
REFORMISM
Some would argue that these ambiguities can be explained on of struggle for the proletarian dictatorship (according to various declarations Miguel Enriquez since 11 September).
present situation.
Eamonn McCann was one of the small | this (Irish) revolution we need a centre around the struggle for democratic freedoms and defence of the standard of living The fact that a section of the Chilean capitalist class symbolised by the Christian Democracy —is also opposed to the present policies of the junta for its own reasons, means that the reformists can once again attempt to pose an alliance with them as the way forward in the Hence any attempt to establish a common front with the other workers organisations must be preceded by an insistence on the working clas character of such a front. This in turn requires an open political struggle against the Communist Party whose strategy of making political revolutionary party. This book is intendedas a contribution to discussion of how bear to build it.' Whatever the book's other merits, as an attempt to deepen the theoretical analysis of revolutionary strategy in Ireland it is a failure, Every so often Eamoon self-consciously halts the flow of narrative to pontificate about what Irish revolutionaries should have dune, or ought to do. Rut almost always he gets it wrong.
CONNOLLY AND ON For example, he makes the by now ritual criticism that Connolly did not leave behind a revolutionary party, and the reformist labour leaders were able to dominate the workers" movement because there AS BEESE BLESSE CHIR ly seen as the repository of his concessions to sections of the capitalists temporarily opposed to the junta would put the whole operation at the mercy of the latter.
Only once the clear class character of such a front is established, in its programme und in its organisation. can one begin to talk about the pos sibility of tactical alliances with the capitalist sectors opposed to the dictatorship-or as comrade Enriquez puts it, 'the progressive sectors of the Christian Democracy'. However, the evidence available suggests that this is not the approach adopted by the Bur Connolly left behind not one, but three organisutions which were a repository of his thoughts: the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, the Irish Labour Party, and the Irish Citizen Army.
The problem was not simply the repository, but also the 'thoughts" Connolly made a correct turn towards the national question when the Home Rule crisis posed partition. But he did not prepare his followers for the new tasks which were posed, and in making the turn he accepted the national struggle too much in the same tetins as the petit-bourgeois Sean O' Casey in his The Story of the frish Cirisen Army recounts the utter confusion in the ranks of the ICA when Connolly led them towards an niliance with the Irish Volunteers whom they had been denouncing as