Marxist-Leninist Weekly, Vol 17. No. 5. May 2nd 1987

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Many thanks to Tommy Graham, editor of History Ireland, for making this document available to the Archive.

This edition of Marxist-Leninist Weekly, from the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist), is of some interest. Dating from May 1987, a day late for May Day and interestingly having no mention of that date, it has a range of pieces.

The headline article asks ‘Why are unions discussing an alleged ‘Plan for National Economic Recovery’ with the ‘Free’ State Government?’. This concerns negotiations between ICTU and the then Fianna Fáíl government that took place in April of 1987 which resulted in a joint commitment to reach agreement on ‘a plan for national recovery’. The CPI (M-L) queries why ‘unions are conducting this kind of discussion with the government in the first place, when government policy, as shown by the recent budget, is straightforwardly to launch the most savage offensive against the wages, jobs and living standards and social welfare, health and educational entitlements of the masses of the working class and people’. 

Another article examines the British Public Order (Northern Ireland) Act, arguing that this is of a piece with the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. There are pieces on the National Debt of the Republic of Ireland and on amendments of the Conditions of Employment Act that allow woman access to night working. There is a piece that demands “Vote No to the Single European Act!”.

Of particular note is an article reprinted from the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), a party with the same ideological orientation as the CPI (M-L). The piece is on ‘The British Labour Party’s Stand on British Imperialist Warmongering, interference in Other Countries and Great Nation Chauvinism’. This is one of the few times that materials for this other party are included in CPI (M-L) publications, at least those that are in the Archive. The history of the RCPB (M-L) is to be found here. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Communist_Party_of_Britain_(Marxist–Leninist)