Left Archive: Hands Off Ireland! Subscription leaflet, Revolutionary Communist Group, c.1977

To download the above please click on the following link:

rcp-subs-docDownload

To go to the Archive please click here.

This is a short document from the Revolutionary Communist Group advertising their publications including Hands Off Ireland! As noted before:

The Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) is a Marxist-Leninist political organisation based in the United Kingdom which is avowedly socialist and communist in nature. Developing in the early 1970s, the RCG grew out of the “Revolutionary Opposition” faction of the International Socialists (IS), (forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party), being strongly influenced by the politics of Roy Tearse.

When the leading figures of the “Revolutionary Opposition”, the name itself only first appearing in print in their appeal document, were expelled from the IS its members met to decide on their course of action, and disagreements between Tearse’s allies and the majority of the faction around David Yaffe rapidly surfaced. The result was that Tearse’s supporters formed the Discussion Group which led a quiet life for a number of years inside the Labour Party before dissolving. Meanwhile, Yaffe and his comrades proceeded to found the Revolutionary Communist Group in 1974.

The Revolutionary Communist Tendency split from the RCG and went on to be the Revolutionary Communist Party. The RCG:

Believing that the British electoral system under capitalism cannot bring about any real change in society, and as it does not consider itself a party (believing that a communist party, led by a vanguard of the proletariat, has not yet developed in Britain), the RCG has not taken part in elections since 1979.

The group also publish their own newspaper, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, which has been running since November–December 1979 and now appears every two months.

We already have a copy of Hands Off Ireland! in the Archive and have another we will post up in coming months. However this is a good document that gives a sense of the group.

Four pages long it offers a subscription to Hands Off Ireland! but also gives an outline of ‘Revolutionary Communist’, the ‘Theoretical Journal of the Revolutionary Communist Group. It outlines the contents of previous issues up to Issue 6, April 1977 as well as the then current Issue 7.

This includes:

The main article in this issue offers a Leninist critique of the Draft British Road to Socialism. The RCG has consistently intervened in the debate taking place throughout the country on the Draft BRS and this article links together in a unified critique many of the political criticisms we made. In a struggle against the opportunism of the CPGB the article re-establishes the Marxist ­Leninist standpoint on imperialism, the state and revolution, democracy and the working class.

Unlike those of the radical left, our critique is based not only on our general understanding of the politics of the CPGB but also the experience we gathered through discussion with many working class militants involved in the debate. Many of these comrades have now left the CPGB to form the New Communist Party, thus carrying through the logic of their standpoint. Revolutionary Communist 7 includes a major review of the first publication of the New Communist Party.

And notably:

Amongst the other articles is an analysis of the CPGB’s attitude to the  struggle of the Irish people for self-determination. This article shows that  at critical periods the CPGB has failed its duty to consistently support and defend the Irish working class. This article, like all the others in this issue is a major contribution to the struggle against opportunism in the British labour movement.

It also includes an order form for the RCG which outlines the publications of the group which include  a 1978 calendar and a poster ‘No British Plans for Ireland – Troops Out Now’. The focus on Ireland is very clear – with ‘Ireland; British Labour and British Imperialism’ and single issues of Hands Off Ireland! for sale.