Left Archive: Campaign Against Reagan Visit – Documents from the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) on the visit of Ronald Reagan in 1984

To download the above documents please click on the following links:

CPI ML REAGAN 1
CPI ML REAGAN 2

These documents from the CPI (M-L) are in some respects curious. They lack the clear newsletter format used by that party for much of its other documentation and instead are very text heavy. They are also in a four page A4 format with an additional double sided A4 leaflet.

They consist of a long piece on Reagan entitled ‘Fascist Warmonger, Get out of Ireland!’ with additional articles. These latter encompass a range of issues, including ‘U.S. imperialism’s ‘vital interests’’, ‘Imperialism is the cause of war’, ‘USSR- also an imperialist aggressor and exploiter’ and ‘Oppose Both Superpowers and All Imperialism! Throw British imperialism out of Ireland!’.

A number of quotes from the main article will give a sense of the overall tone of the document:

The visit of Ronald Reagan, President of the Untied States of America, is an insult and a very real threat to the Irish people. It is not, as the government and Dail parties pre tense goes, an ‘honour to welcome a distinguished son of our race’.

First and foremost, Reagan represents U.S. imperialism, which as one of the two superpowers along with the equally dangers Soviet social imperialism, is levying bloody wars against the peoples and nations it holds in servitude for super profits, all around the world, such s the lebanon and Central America. AND at the same time is preparing for another world war to save this rotten system of exploitation, suppress the people and secure unchallenged world monopoly; a world war still worse than the previous ones, with unimaginable devastation whether it is waged by nuclear or conventional weapons.

It argues that:

We in Ireland must rise in protest at Reagan’s visit to condemn this whole system of imperialism, and the ominous threat of both superpowers who are dragging the world to the precipice of another world war. We must demonstrate our solidarity with and support for all those peoples and nations who are justly fighting to throw off the yoke of these imperialists, especially the yoke of U.S. imperialism in this case, such as the people of El Salvador and so many other countries.

The A4 leaflet outlines further objections to Reagan, arguing that “Reagan is the friend of those who preside without the slightest humanity or democratic principle over the unjust and criminal military, fascist-type colonial regime in the north of Ireland, where torture to extort confessions or perjury is the order of the day, where assassinations carried out directly by the British army and their undercover SAS, or by fascist loyalist gangs incited and organised by the British military intelligence are simply normal instruments of colonial government, where political prisoners, genuine Irish patriots are branded as criminal, as they have been branded down through our centuries of struggle for freedom.”

It concludes by asking readers to Join the Campaign and:

…fight to avert the danger of another world war on the following principled basis.

1. Oppose both superpowers…

2. Oppose all imperialist war preparations, both nuclear and conventional…

3 Throw British imperialism out of the north!