The Left Archive: Voice of the Youth – Communist Youth Union of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) – 1988 January 4, 2010
Posted by irishonlineleftarchive in Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist Leninist), Irish Left Online Document Archive.trackback
Many thanks to PJ – who has been a tireless support to the Archive – for the following to start off 2010…as he notes the pamphlet, a very interesting one…
[is] from the Communist Youth Union of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) published in August 1988. The CYUI(ML) was the youth section of the CPI(ML).
I picked this one up in Cork city during a public distribution of it. I suppose they must have given out a few hundred?
The pamphlet was distributed by the two Cork CPI(ML) regulars who were always active around the city with public meetings, street speaking and taking ‘ML Weekly’ around the pubs. Cork CPI(ML) had their own newsletter (even one in Gaeilge if memory serves me right?).
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
The Anglo-Irish Agreement was in 1985, and things were moving on by the time of this pamphlet I’d have thought. Sections of the pamphlet read to me like documents translated by foreign left-groups into English. Very weird that native English speakers would mimic the style to such a degree, or not change the style of a non-native English speaker. As for the argument of the pamphlet, I;d agree with parts of it, but lots of it seems to me wrong-headed.
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I agree with Garibaldi. I also thought that their images of workers and peasants on publicity material looked vaguely Chinese. Vipond was the main leader. I last heard off him in Belfast where he had taken up an interest in Irish culture.This was many years ago
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Anyone know what the CPI (ML)’s Rod Eley is doing
nowadays?
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A quick search located Rod Eley as the “publishing manager” of History Scotland magazine. By the way, the History Ireland website indicates that Tomy Graham has an association with the New York University Tisch School of the Arts Dublin programme.
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Wasn’t there a rumour that History Ireland magazine was
a Spiked Online style front group for the former members
of CPI (ML) ? Now it all fits together! 😉
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Leftist Trainspotters on Yahoo is a good place to look for the more obscure of leftist facts. It can be quite good and amusing at times
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Well, given the excellence of History Ireland (I’ve never read History Scotland, so I can’t say there) it’s hard not to argue that somewhere along the line at least some of their membership were doing something right.
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WBS mentioned previously how punk passed the CPI(ML)
by. Maybe they should have festooned the ad
for CYUI(ML) with the BTB “smiley-face” badge… 😉
On a serious note, I’m sure in the 70s a group of folk
musicians connected to the CPI(ML) travelled around the
Republic playing “Socialist Realist” music. Wonder how
it was received?
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Wasn’t avant-garde classical music well represented in the CPB (ML), or is that my imagination?
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Cardew was in the Communist Party of England
(Marxist-Leninist) in the 70s, but I couldn’t say if his
membership was representative of any
Maoist/avant-garde link in the UK.
Robert Wyatt did a song about Mao ,but I’m not
sure if he was an actual Maoist at any point.
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I should add you’re absolutely right, my bad Garibaldy. the AIA was indeed dated 1985.
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By coincidence, I recently bought Robert Wyatt’s “Greatest Misses” CD and was listening to it last night, He has a song (“The Age of the Self, orginally on “Old Rottenhat”) which contains the following couplet:
While Martin Jacques and Robert Maxwell play with printer’s ink
The workers ’round the world still die for Rio Tinto Zinc
Clearly not a fan of Marxism Today, whatever about Mao…
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While Martin Jacques and Robert Maxwell play with printer’s ink
The workers ’round the world still die for Rio Tinto Zinc
Gawd
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Chorus:
And it seems to me, if we forget our roots and where we stand
Our movement will disintegrate like castles built on sand
Bad things happen when people who habitually think in long words & abstractions try to write “accessibly”.
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Do you think he meant “in”?
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I seem to remember Vipond going into business – something to do with motorcycles…
What strikes me about this whole international tendency – and their mother party in Canada is still very much active – is what a charismatic figure Hardial Bains evidently was. Wherever he went in the world, he left a small party behind him. And not only that, but a small party whose literature read as if translated second-hand from Russian via Punjabi.
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The name Johnny Appleseed springs to mind… An ML Johnny Appleseed. But there’s no doubting he had a fierce charisma to be able to do what whole formations weren’t able to in identical circumstances.
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On a footnote, the Maoists like some Trotskyists tended to be sensitve to National struggles.In South Africa they supported the PAC who were more aware (if that is the right word) of the different national groups amongst the oppressed. (Zulu, Xhosa etc.).
A lot of the African states are artificial inventions of Imperialism
The Trotskyists tended to support the Black Consciousness movement.
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>>>A lot of the African states are artificial inventions of Imperialism
And?
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This leaves problematic legacies with national groups being in 2 or more countries.
I prefer national groups or groupings to tribes which has conotations.
Funnily Samalia is the only one without minorities and it is the most divided.
I don’t think any of the new regimes have successfully dealt with this. The Ethiopians reverted back quick quickly in spite of a good start afer overthrowing Mengistu.
I think pretending that there are not problems actually accentuates them.
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So you think Rosa Luxemburg might have had a point in
saying Marxists shouldn’t get in involved with nationalist
movements ?
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Anyone got a copy of the ‘Necessity for change’ pamphlet by H. Bains?
It was published in Dublin in 1969 by The Internationalists
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I wish I did PJ. I took a bit of a shine to his work reading the doc in the Archive from the 1990s or so when he returned to Dublin.
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Quite the reverse of Luxemburgs point. I feel that to ignore National struggles is a great danger.I feel that the struggle of oppressed nations becomes part of the greater struggle.
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I think DV might now be in Canada.
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[…] (1981) * League for a Workers’ Vanguard / Workers’ League – 1969 to c.1978 (1969-1978) * Voice of the Youth – Communist Youth Union of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) – 1988 […]
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Hey,
I’m starting a new socialist blog called Rosa’s Ghost. I
was hoping you might add it to your links page. It would be a great
help. Thanks in advance.
http://rosasghost.wordpress.com/
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Okay…
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