Hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it. Karl Marx 
Economic & Philosophic Science Review	
Subscriptions  £20 p.a. [P&P Bulletin Publications, PO Box 50 London SW17 9NL] [Post Office Regd] 
No 1007 July 21 1999                                                                                                                                              10p

Polemical-struggle, or 'internecine' warfare, is the only way for any movement to develop, and the only possible means for correct theory to emerge, without which no party can grow to the successful building of socialism. The splits all round the 'left' are a healthy sign of great ferment and will eventually force the labour movement to make a proper accounting with the mistakes of the past, pushing aside shallow Trot idealism and bureaucratic museum Stalinism in the process. Apologists for SLP philistinism exposed again. Simplistic pap cannot build what the working class needs.

Opportunities for serious debate about the crisis of capitalist society and the struggle for a socialist alternative have never looked better as increasing sections of the fake-'left' fall apart in turmoil.

The EPS Review support is itself experiencing the same surge of doubt and new thinking but cannot wait to drive home the advantages of such conflict which fit exactly into the EPSR's longstanding conviction that a revolutionary ferment of discussion — about everything — will have to take place before the next serious great phase of anti-imperialist class war begins to make organised progress.

That development too will only advance through contradiction and argument, — the permanent requirement for permanently healthy expansion of revolutionary theory about nature and civilisation in general and about constructing a socialist society in particular, — but a sound base of agreement for a party of leadership must increasingly be settled too.

The fake-'left' 57 varieties are of course pushed into controversial discussion, along with the rest of society, but disruption, collapse, and closure are the noticeable pattern in this area precisely because they have either never seriously entertained divisive polemics before, or else have harboured so much unthought-out political rubbish (as a result of not having really conflicting debate) that the new mood of inquiry and challenge into everything is totally demolishing their shoddy sectarian philosophical foundations to start with.

At the time of the astonishing CPSU self-liquidation and dismantling of the Soviet workers state in 1990, the EPSR explained, — as a sideshow on the main event, — the strange paradox that the Trotskyite 57 varieties of anti-communism would eventually be plunged into as much chaos by the disintegration of the USSR as all the Revisonist CP groups around the world would be. 

This was because the destruction of the dictatorship of the proletariat by bureaucratic insanity in Moscow would -
a) rob the fake-'left' of the powerful formal anti-imperialist stage provided by Soviet-workers state strength on which the Trots everywhere in practice depended for their own ultra-left 'revolutionary' posturing (while all the while sneering abusively at that platform for being 'degenerated', or 'not really socialist', or even not there at all); 
b) destabilise such shallow petty bourgeois non-Marxist posturing with confused impressionism about some imaginary all-powerful 'imperialist New World Order' which was supposed to ensue; and 
c) totally devastate all Trotskyist credibility by demonstrating (via the collapse of the USSR's anti-imperialist role) that it had NOT collapsed before 1990 (despite all the Trot lies for 65 years about 'revolution betrayed', and 'gone over to the counter-revolution' and become 'agents of the imperialist system' about the USSR, and by demonstrating that the only 'revolution' which could possibly follow the beheading of the Soviet workers state (that the Trots were incessantly calling for) would be not the non-existent 'political revolution' (which would supposedly restore non-existent 'rank-and-file socialism') but COUNTER-REVOLUTION.

So it has proved, and the paralysing doubt crippling the Trot groups now arises because these crucial unresolved questions of PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP are creeping back onto the agenda as the crisis of 'freemarket economics' and of all capitalist society relentlessly deepens, and as the achievements of the Soviet workers STATE POWER look more and more to be the only possible direction forwards.

But sorting out exactly where Stalinist Revisionism went wrong, on one side, and where Trotskyite opportunist idealism went just as sadly wrong on the other side, is exactly what the whole of the fake-'left' WILL NOT DO but is exactly what must be exhaustively thrashed out in the coming period of great debate.

It is plain insanity for any 'lefts' to be throwing themselves excitedly into this or that 'great socialist development' (supposedly) when workers, still living in a world of total brain-washing anti-communist propaganda, are left clueless as to what they are supposed to make of the workers states that already have existed in the 20th century.

With non-stop anti-Soviet lies still pouring out 24 hours a day, some middle-class 'socialist' philosophy has so capitulated to this counter-revolutionary brainwashing tyranny that it advocates party-building on a deliberately 'multanimous' basis, — i.e. do without any agreed working-class view of the workers states at all.

This hopeless cowardly despair is, of course a typical petty bourgeois retreat from the difficulty of ferocious anti-communism and, equally obviously, leaves the field clear for the most reactionary bourgeois prejudices to prevail against the epoch-making achievements in the USSR, China, Cuba, etc.

The SLP nearly paralysed itself by pretending to simply ignore such 'dead theory' and paid the price in party-splitting conflict between incompatible Trot and Revisionist attitudes which brought some development to a standstill in some regions, in the women's section, and even at NEC level, and which helped keep the party newspaper uselessly devoid of any serious leadership on difficult political questions by either ducking the issue, or a bit of facing-both-ways, or a complete down on all polemics. 

Bizarrely, only the EPSR's voice was silenced inside the SLP for supposedly stoking 'internecine strife' when it was precisely advocating the only way forward from unresolved contradictions, holding up party development, by the only means possible, — namely via a much more detailed further elaboration of SLP philosophy to begin developing a firm attitude to fundamental historical questions, — on the imperialist crisis; on the role of theory; on how to build a party around purposeful discussion and conflict and how to train a mass leadership in that way; on the practical achievements of all 20th century workers-states experience, and their Revisionist weakening; etc, etc, etc.

One of the most unfortunate Stalinist legacies from the Third International in this matter is the line, variously expressed, that "now is not the time for discussion; now is the time to be out there doing something"; or "the ruling-class will be laughing at seeing our party and the left torn by debate"; or "just keep your head down for now, and discuss all this later when there is an opportunity"; etc, etc, — all the more insidious for being so plausibly well-meaning.

But it is the absolute essence of the WHOLE REVISIONIST DISASTER which eventually befell the Soviet workers state; and it is not 'well-meaning' at all, of course, in the sense that it is so subjectively WRONG that it amounts to party-disruption by ignorance from purely cosy conservative motives utterly at odds with the really revolutionary spirit of Marxism which grasps unity AND conflict in all things as the only basis for all progress.

Equally seductive but just as destructive is the approach which acknowledges the role of theory in words, but in practice lets it play second fiddle to "getting on with party building so as to have an arena within which correct theory can eventually play its role, and without which all theory will be useless".

This separation of party-building practice and party-building theory is wholly bogus. There is no such separation, nor can there be. Perspectives, programme, strategy, and tactics are either all there to help create truly MASS revolutionary consciousness in practice, the only final point of socialism; — or else they are part of the bureaucratic apparatus which can be used to protect a particular leadership, a different class philosophy entirely. 

The working class is both end and means, but the ultimately tragic Soviet self-liquidation into counter-revolutionary disaster was marked by decades of a culture of manipulative secrecy by the CPSU leadership which deliberately dumbed down mass consciousness and left it paralysed and bemused by the astonishing self-liquidation of the workers' own state when it finally was unleashed, easily brushed aside by the most pathetic counter-revolutionary nonsense from the likes of Boris Yeltsin, a complete drunken oaf. The Soviet working class was a magnificent working class, let down by the rotten culture of a leadership conceit which saw its own wheeler-dealing as the star role rather than the development of mass consciousness.

It might be argued that the manipulative bureaucracy and secretive cliquishness of the SLP, Scargill-leadership circle is routine trade-union/labour—movement stuff, aped by every last Trot and Revisionist sect and clique that was ever thought of. 

Maybe so, but what is the point??? This is the culture from the last 80 years of Labourist and Stalinist bureaucratic domination which finally abandoned the working class to counter-revolution, having comprehensively failed to lead the working class to a trained fitness of independent political-revolutionary consciousness wherewith it could see the need itself to rout reaction and be able to do it.

What is the Scargillist SLP culture? A dumbed-down newspaper once every two months where all political articles are censorially toned lower and the editorial brief is for contributions to aim deliberately negatively, patronisingly described as "at the level of Sun or Mirror readers".

This leadership-conceit fits in with another tragic strand of Revisionist tradition which Scargillism has picked up which declares that "people on the doorstep do not want to hear about revolutionary theory", (announced from the platform by three different leadership elements at SLP Congresses), and echoed elsewhere as "people on the doorstep are not looking for a high-level political debate", or as "people won't read a complex wordy leaflet".

No need to close down the EPS Review, then, presumably, because no one will read it anyway!! Or maybe this whole line is just a pile of patronising gobshite, handed down by generations of labour leaders for their own protection, and mimicked by followers with more or less sincerity, depending on who is saying it. 

Maybe this one brief patronising notion encapsulates the entire historic political essence of trade-union/labourism, from Ramsay MacDonald to Bill Morris, the "labour lieutenants of capital" in Lenin's phrase, keeping the working class dumbed down so as to keep it ruled, — an entire trade-union army of electoral and extra-parliamentary activists who "shall know nothing of revolutionary theory and do not wish to know".

Forget low-brow, forget high-brow. Eventually the most powerful force in history is precisely working-class understanding, — when a revolutionary idea is grasped, ripe for its time, which then becomes an irresistible force when understood and acted upon by hundreds of millions of workers.

That revolutionary grasp of the outdatedness of imperialist warmongering-bankruptcy created the world's first workers state in 1917. It went on to some prodigious, world-shattering achievements. That mass working-class consciousness needed to be muscularly trained up to a full understanding that without the world socialist revolution, all the great gains and triumphs of the past could all be undermined or bamboozled into retreat.

But all that this key to history, — international working class consciousness, — got from its worldwide Stalinist-influenced trade-union & labour-movement leadership was total dumbing down. World revolutionary perspectives were relentlessly replaced by daft notions of the "peaceful-coexistence triumph of socialism over capitalism", — with imperialism still exploiting two-thirds of the world to death, and inevitably able to subsidise phenomenally higher living standards in selected areas of the 'free world' (while hiding the poverty of the Third World on which such affluence is based), — especially in key places like West Berlin to make any normal running of the GDR (East Germany) all but impossible, and the rest of the workers states suffered just as badly from relentless propaganda onslaught and subversion from the Cold War.

Instead of the honest good order of the planned economies of East Europe shining, with a job for everyone, higher education open to all, free health care and education for all, virtually-free housing for all, and a massive free cultural life of worthwhile music, literature, and sport, etc, — the consumerist glitz and glitter of the West was allowed to make all the running. And the dumbing-down bureaucrats in Moscow eventually followed the logic of their own nonsense about which looks superficially better, socialism or capitalism, and opted for the free market themselves.

There is nothing highbrow, complex, or wordy about a Marxist appeal to the INTERNATIONAL working class that the glitzy capitalist system works brilliantly for those countries with the good fortune, skill, and historical advantages to have always had a head start in the monopoly free-market rat race, but can mean almost permanent degenerate catastrophe for the even vaster numbers who throng the poorest parts of the Third World.

And the criminal injustice and often tyrannical exploitation and bullying with which the US-led monopoly-imperialist bourgeoisies dominate the planet, vastly over-consuming its resources for their own selfish ends to no good purpose frequently, — is a potentially crisis-ridden situation which will inevitably at some stage hit the whole world's population in the guts, just as it last did in the 1930s, leading on to slump, all-out trade-war, and then to inter-imperialist shooting war again.

All of this simple Marxist understanding was utterly dumbed down to total censored silence by the end of Stalinist bureaucratic leadership in the Soviet workers state and the international communist movement, (with a few honourable exceptions).

But as well as refusing to address this still-hidden problem of Lalkar's dodgy past record in the dumbing-down game and the "just say yes for a while" game, and the dodgy unaddressed dumbing-down past of other old Scargill political associates, — the already-watertight and unapproachable bureaucracy running the SLP and dumbing everything down also refuses to recognise perhaps the most vital question of all facing the whole history of the working class; — namely, what method of workers-state building could have avoided that steady bureaucratic degeneration which finally ended with such bitter humiliation in the USSR. 

The answer, of course, is to return to the methods of Lenin and the Bolsheviks which was to deliberately seek out and highlight CONFLICT within the party, in order to have-out leadership differences IN FRONT OF THE WORKING CLASS for all to understand, so as to educate the party AT THE HIGHEST POINT of the class struggle, namely inside the leadership-party itself, where the most subtle differences of scientific understanding (but ultimately decisive differences) receive their STRONGEST expression, most difficult but most necessary to make correct decisions about, before tackling the reflexion of such differences further afield in the workers movement and among the population generally.

For the Bolsheviks to agitate against the cruder forms of pro-war chauvinism on the streets was one thing. But to agitate against the much more subtle forms of social-chauvinism (ultimately equally pro—war) among so-called 'left' and 'anti-war' leaders, and even so-called 'Bolshevik' leaders who wavered, — was even more priceless, denying leadership to mass social-chauvinism even as it was getting going.

This Bolshevik-Leninist method of openly organised polemical CONFLICT inside the party itself, eventually produced the greatest political leadership the international class-war and anti-imperialist struggle has ever known. The closed-shop SLP bureaucracy is utterly opposed to all such Leninist understanding and viciously censorially hostile to even such questions being too effectively raised around the SLP, — hence the crude manipulative rigging of the abrupt back-stabbing to have the EPSR closed or the editor of the Review, — and vice-president of the party (elected by Congress against Scargill's wishes) expelled from the party. Even Stalinism was never quite so crudely philistine and autocratic, or quite so blinkered.

Which raises a huge question about the SLP as to whether Scargill's break from Blairism was more a signal step forward towards a future restoration of socialist values, or more a case of additional Revisionist/Labourist rats leaving a sinking ship? Is Scargillism opening the door to a revived mass movement for socialism as it should always have been? Or is it yet another belated Revisionist flake-off from a now clearly-discredited past programme of the supposedly 'communist' Alternative Economic Strategy, still creeping along in the shelter of the broadly pro-Labour circles of trade-union office and influence? Is it a new dawn? Or is it another old New Communist Party?

It is surely the latter, only even less appetising, honest, and competent than the first NCP. The Scargillist stunt is a self-protecting, museum-Stalinist bureaucracy plus demagogic conceit but minus even the pretence of 'left' political literacy that some of the less shame—faced Stalinists still bluster on with.

Its dismal record already proves it. A monstrous, epoch-shattering blitzkrieg of imperialist warmongering has just crushed the vestiges of anti-imperialism clinging to the Milosevic regime in Serbia, determined to wipe out all remnants of past workers-statehood in the process, — and Scargill, in a televised party political broadcast totally under his scripted control, declined to even denounce the warmongering. 

Throughout three months of blitzkrieg tyranny, the SLP and its paper could AT BEST only fatuously demand peace and an end to the bombing, — social pacifist nonsense which Bolshevism hammered into humiliated silence in the First World War, replacing it with the ONLY serious anti-war working-class programme which is for the revolutionary overthrow of the imperialist bourgeoisie, the only real way to get the bombing stopped now and forever. At worst, the SLP paper carried 'celebrity' articles (as a boost to the whole bureaucratic leadership culture of the SLP) which actually publicised the NATO-Goebbels nonsense justifying the blitzkrieg about supposed Serb 'ethnic cleansing', totally distorting the Serbs' part in mutually murderous civil-war conflict with land-grabbing KLA separatism (bourgeois-nationalism promoted by CIA imperialism) to isolate it as "the new fascist-NAZI threat to the world", etc.

This is opportunist and reactionary light-mindedness which would have been right off the Leninist scale of contempt for those fake-'lefts' who had retreated from the Marxist internationalist line of 'overthrow one's own ruling class' as the only socialist policy towards imperialist warmongering. 

The mental degeneracy to publish this sort of demented 'left' cover for NATO's much closer approach to really reviving the NAZI warmongering era, would make even NCP social pacifism, as backward and discredited as that is, seem slightly less depraved, cowardly, and head bangingly wrong. (The only alternative SLP line, — the deluded judgement about Milosevic defencism, on the rebound from benighted pockets of Stalinist revivalism, was dealt with in last week's EPSR).

The SLP stance on the Euroelections was no better, — chauvinist opportunist electoralism which effortlessly grooved in on piecemeal sniping at the more obviously grotesque monopoly-bureaucracy features of the Brussels gravy train, but all in order to ignore the just-as-bad British monopoly-bourgeois greed, corruption, and exploitation; — and even worse to ignore and avoid analysing the total political and economic crisis of the entire global imperialist-system crisis as a whole, with its truly colossal implications for the whole future of civilisation and the triumph of rational philosophy.

What else is the revival of socialism going to be about at the end of a century of dramatic workers states development, now stalled in considerable confusion as a result of things which went wrong, and matched by ever-more-frantic imperialist-boom expansion interlaced with ever-more catastrophic fascist-breeding slump-crash and inter-imperialist warmongering, — all to the tune of the most demented Cold-War anti-communist brainwashing phenomenon the world has never seen the like of, with entire international art movements, for example, invented and financed by the CIA as part of the battle against the logic of planned socialism, etc, etc.

Is this astonishing period of world history, chaos, and confusion to be turned round just by knocking on a few doors by a party which says little more than "socialism would be a nicer way of doing things than capitalism and will immediately virtually transform Britain and nearly double all your living standards", but which refuses all discussion on the 'more complex'(!) questions of "did they not have socialism in Russia"; or "what if big business ignores parliament"; or "do we need a workers state"; or "how will we control the bureaucracy"; or "what will stop imperialist subversion from corrupting our currency and our economy as it did all the time throughout East Europe"; or "how do we stop the CIA overthrowing the socialist government as it did in Chile"; or "will not an imperialist blockade starve us out as it is trying against Cuba"; etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

And if it is still insisted that an SLP of simple honest well-meaningness could nevertheless win the battle for socialism if it just keeps on trying, just like Forrest Gump won through, it must be pointed out that Forrest Gump was not real, — pure fairy-tale fantasy. And in any case, this simplistic honesty approach, — ignoring or avoiding all difficult questions, — has already been tried on the doorstep in Britain by the old CPGB which for decades just ignored all difficult questions, just like Lalkar does now.

This fingers-crossed fantasy-world of sudden immaculate doorstep conversions to socialism is already, not surprisingly, showing signs of flagging in terms of results on the knocker, and even in terms of a nationwide TV broadcast, and regular Any Questions TV appearances for the tame 'left' Scargill, (who would not be on there if the SLP was a real threat to the bourgeois order).

To win even in countries of huge illiterate proletarian masses like Russia and China, the working-class parties which triumphed with socialism developed a vast output of political philosophy to train a highly-intelligent cadre party which could tackle every question concerning the public better than any bourgeois party or 'expert' could. Without an up-to-date weekly newspaper of political discussion such as the EPSR could have been for the SLP, — expanded and with even more conflict in it, — a serious revival of socialism and a cadre party to lead the whole country forward is out of the question.

And it is just fanciful nonsense to pretend that the fight for theory is in fact going on in private inside the SLP, and that the whole complete socialist-party article will emerge into the daylight soon like a resplendent butterfly out of a chrysalis.

This is a total fixer's pipe-dream. Correct understanding can only come out of a LIVING struggle, — in front of the working class, — by and involving the experience of the mass struggle with complex political and philosophical questions, — AS they arise. The international imperialist bourgeoisie is trying to prepare the ground NOW for a future of mass warmongering psychosis. It is rehearsing its demonisation routine NOW, — to practice its brainwashing techniques to be all ready for even more serious blitzkrieg warmongering against other 'evil enemies' or 'new Nazis', — as tiny Serbia has been demonised on this practice run, — as and when required in the near future as the trade war crisis of the imperialist system bites deeper and deeper right into the very survival prospects of the monopoly bourgeoisie.

Imperialist propaganda warmongering has now got these victories tucked under its belt FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. The war of 'demonising Milosevic' has been fought and won. And where was the SLP? It was either aimlessly dragging along behind the imperialist propaganda onslaught muttering its own dimwitted drivel about 'Serb ethnic cleansing'; or else it was hopelessly misleading the working class with its social-pacifist cover-up for incurable imperialist warmongering ("Stop the bombs. Peace now"); or else it was pathetically trying to rely on a bit of resurrected shamefaced Stalinism, implying defence of the Yugoslav workers state but without the slightest intention of digging up the whole unresolved question of Revisionism's failure (which desperately needs doing) because it is frightened of the challenge, and fears losing face or position even more to the Marxist-Leninist scientific process which has contempt for respecting or protecting reputations, — anyone's reputation, — and just establishes the next necessary understanding for the further advance of the class struggle.

The fight for the theoretical sanitation of the SLP can ONLY succeed on current issues facing the party and the working class, AS THEY TAKE PLACE. And the time to start the sanitation process can only be right NOW, today.

And the other illusion of this "creeping up on London" fantasy about theoretically nobbling the SLP in due course via a lot of "just say yes, yes, yes for a while" and "circumspectly keeping your head down", etc, is the conceited contempt it shows for the greatest achievement in history of the process of human collective struggle, — the fight for Marxist-Leninist scientific understanding.

So what ideas will actually be smuggled in on the day that the SLP is finally theoretically nobbled?? Will they be picked out of a hat, or off a shelf at B&Q, or what??? The conceited contempt for the struggle for ideas of this "creeping up on London" pretence is, hardly surprisingly, eager to prop up SLP philistinism for a while longer.

And the same can be said of the cynicism (current Weekly Worker and elsewhere) that the theoretical workshop that the EPSR has been running on the SLP's wretched failings is due to the Review editor's "fit of pique after his shabby treatment by Scargill". The opportunity to remain vice-president of the SLP was there throughout and was urged by a surprising variety of different quarters, including a Weekly Worker representative who suggested "just withdraw your resignation offer" when Scargill's ludicrous 'disciplinary procedure' first got stuck in the mud. At different stages of this whole farce, this advice took other forms such as "just tone it down for a while", and even "just pay your dues", when Scargill's hatred of theoretical struggle reached that degenerate level of pathetic back-stabbing.

But this problem facing the workers movement has nothing whatever to do with being or not being vice-president of the SLP. It remains exactly the same problem which the EPSR set out to grapple with when it was founded 20 years ago, — the need to build and clarify the fight for revolutionary theory by the working class internationally before the fight for socialism can take off again.

Remaining vice-president of the SLP was precisely what Scargill was offering, — not taking away. 'Stay as vice-president, but either close down the EPSR or avoid mentioning the SLP' was the deal. 

And the response was immediate. 'No, you can have your vice-presidential position back. What is vitally needed for the SLP and the working class is a full discussion about the role for revolutionary theory and polemic in the building of a successful party and the successful building of a socialist state'. Scargill's answer was just to step up his dirty expulsion racket.

Cynicism about a non-existent 'EPSR guru' is making the same philistine mistake as Scargill's nonsense. Arguments are indeed won and lost, and there isn't anyone else but individuals to play a role in this. But the various ideas, some good, some less accurate, — are eventually COLLECTIVELY put into conflict with the broader world, via publication and the subsequent further arguments and polemics and eventual conclusion-drawing about how correctly or incorrectly they have attempted to interpret and influence the outcome of events in the world.

After Scargill's assassination attempt on the EPSR, no one need be in any doubt about the ability of ideas to have a decisive impact. Stalinist philistinism has had the last laugh inside the SLP, but it is welcome to it. The COLLECTIVE fight for revolutionary theory is the decisive battle, and as long as that fight is kept going, the ultimate struggle to build a triumphant mass new Bolshevik Party is guaranteed success.

The EPSR has never argued for a sectarian approach towards party-building, and took all the small-minded feebleness of the original SLP in its stride, placing no ultimatums on Scargillism in agreeing to build the SLP on a non-factional basis. The achievements of some of its EPSR-educated supporters were some of the best around the SLP, — a little too good, as it turned out. 

The ultimatums only flowed in the opposite direction, and the censorship,— and all with the aim of shutting up the EPSR's fight for theory and for the polemical method of the open conflict of ideas as the only genuine chance of a really scientific understanding of the present world and of past mistakes in the fight for socialism, and the ONLY longterm hope for an eventually successful socialist movement in Britain. 

If Scargillism has chosen to cut itself off from the EPSR, the more fool Scargillism. The SLP ends up as just another wretched chapter of anti-communist fear and ignorance; just like Revisionism, it is afraid to open up the Stalinist past for constructive theoretical review, but at the same time still shelters behind Stalinist methods.

Build the struggle for genuine Marxist-Leninist scientific methods. Royston Bull

World Revolutionary Socialist Review 
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles).

Ql. Who are the real 'terrorists' in the north of Ireland. Q2. Whose illegal weapons were the greatest threat to democracy? Q3. Who will be the last to decommission? A1,A2,& A3. British imperialist colonial agents and secret policemen.

NOW there are three. A former British soldier and at the time active British Military Intelligence agent who, in his role as UDA chief intelligence officer, scouted Pat Finucane's house and provided a photograph of their intended victim to the loyalist murder gang.

A former British soldier and active RUC special branch informer who, in his role as UDA quartermaster, provided the weapons for the killing. 

And a British soldier who stole the weapon used in the shooting from a UDR arsenal. Three direct links in the conspiracy to murder a Belfast solicitor, whose death RUC interrogation officers procured and a British minister, Douglas Hogg, knowingly or unwittingly, politically endorsed.

And then there are the British Military Intelligence officers who colluded through their agent, Brian Nelson in the updating and reorganisation of UDA death lists. The intelligence officers who their agent claims were warned of the murder plot against Finucane but did nothing to prevent it. In the event of the Stevens Inquiry, the British Intelligence officers who hid a suitcase of UDA hit lists, which included over 1,000 crown force photo montages, at a British army barracks. Their actions threw the inquiry team off the scent for months.

And Colonel 'J',  a British army commander, who appeared as the chief defence witness in the trial of Brian Nelson to describe his agent in the terms of a 'hero' whose "biggest motivation" was loyalty to the British army. The list continues with British Cabinet Minister Tom King, whose letter of support sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions described Nelson as a valuable agent. And the trial judge, Basil Kelly, who described Nelson as a man who had shown "the greatest courage".

And don't forget Patrick Mayhew, DPP at the time and later British Secretary of State, and his role in the deal in which 15 of the most serious charges against Brian Nelson were dropped in return for guilty pleas on 20 lesser charges. A deal which it has been alleged was designed to protect details of British involvement in the procurement of loyalist arms.

The British magazine Private Eye claimed in February 1992 that a trip to South Africa in 1985 by Nelson to procure loyalist weapons had been cleared not only by the British Minister of Defence but also by an unnamed government minister. Neither the minister nor Nelson's trip were mentioned during the trial. The bulk of the subsequent illegal arms shipment, which involved another British agent, Charles Simpson, was not intercepted despite British Military Intelligence knowledge of the transportation route.

Three weeks before the murder, RUC interrogation officers in Castlereagh suggested to loyalist detainee Tommy Little, a leading West Belfast UDA man that he should target Finucane and two other leading Belfast defence lawyers. Pat Finucane was "the brains behind the IRA", the RUC interrogators said.

Then there's RUC Special Branch, whose agent Billy Stobie provided the weapons used by the loyalist gang who carried out the Finucane killing. Stobie insists that he gave his Special Branch handlers enough information and in sufficient time for them to have prevented the solicitor's murder.

A week before the killing, Stobie was summoned by his UDA commander and told to provide weapons for an operation they were planning. The UDA leader rejected a Heckler and Kock offered by Stobie and requested a Browning 9mm, a weapon more suited for assassination, "a special job". "We're going to hit a top Provie," Stobie was told.

Stobie telephoned his RUC handlers, providing information on the murder plot which included the name of the gang leader. The UDA leader and two loyalist squads with which he operated were known to the RUC. Despite the RUC's vast surveillance and legislative resources, the gang was neither watched nor intercepted before the murder. The weapons they were to use were not bugged. The RUC sat on its hands.

Stobie contacted his RUC handlers again on the evening of the shooting when the operation was clearly imminent. The weapons had been collected from Stobie. He had seen three members of the gang getting into van and realised the operation was underway.

When Stobie subsequently complained to the Special Branch about their inaction, the RUC claimed "they hadn't had time -to get things organised" and that "anyway" Finucane "was just an IRA man."

Even if Stobie's information was too late, as the RUC claim, to stop the killing from happening, it was not too late to apprehend the loyalist gunmen on their way back, still armed with the murder weapons. The RUC did nothing. Later still, with the names of the killers known to the RUC, no one was arrested.

According to Stobie, rather than pursuing Finucane's killers, RUC Special Branch instigated two plots to frighten their informer to ensure his full compliance. The first, a thinly disguised death threat, almost exposed Stobie's role as an RUC agent to the UDA killers upon which he was spying. The second, in which illegal weapons were planted in Stobie's flat, put him in court. 

Stobie claims that the prosecution case against him collapsed after he threatened to expose the fact that RUC Special Branch had been informed but took no action to prevent the Finucane murder. A recent claim by RUC Chief Ronnie Flanagan that John Stevens had investigated the murder of Pat Finucane and found no evidence of RUC collusion was dismissed by Stevens, who said he had never even been asked to investigate the murder, only the implications of the Nelson trial in relation to allegations of British army collusion.

Flanagan responded, to head off the growing pressure for a fully independent inquiry, by requesting Stevens to lead a team of British detectives to investigate the murder. Last week that team identified their first suspect, Billy Stobie, and the story of his role as a RUC Special Branch informer, kept under wraps for over a decade, finally came to light.

As with the case against Brian Nelson before him, the trial of Stobie is unlikely to establish the full truth behind the murder of Pat Finucane. But at the very least, Stobie provides just one more piece of the jigsaw and the picture which is emerging shows more than the mechanics of the Finucane murder. It exposes the very nature of Britain's role in Ireland and the operation of its "dirty little war". 

•BAIRBRE DE BRUN, Sinn Féin Assembly member for West Belfast and spokesperson on policing, has said that "a fully independent public inquiry is now the only course available to ensure the full circumstances surrounding the killing of Pat Finucane can be revealed".

Her comments come after revelations made by ex-UDR man and former UDA quartermaster William Alfred Stobie, from Forthriver Road, Belfast, that he was an informer at the time of his involvement in the Finucane killing. 

Stobie was charged on Thursday, 24 June with killing the Belfast solicitor ten years ago. When Stobie was charged, he replied: "Not guilty to the charge you have put to me tonight.  At the time, I was a police informer for Special Branch. On the night of the death of Patrick Finucane, I informed Special Branch on two occasions by telephone that a person was to be shot. I did not know at that time the person who was to be shot".

Stobie's lawyer added that his client had asked him "to state that the murky web of deceit and lies spun around this murder doesn't emanate from him and he looks forward to the truth coming out at the inevitable trial at Belfast crown court".

That the RUC and its agents were involved in the slaying is not a new accusation. However, the claims made by Stobie in court have implicated the RUC as major players in the cover-up which followed the killing.

After Stobie's claims, it emerged that the RUC had dismissed evidence which was published six years ago by the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which linked an RUC agent to Finucane's murder. At the time of publication, an RUC report on the new evidence came "to the conclusion that it does not merit detailed comment".

Stobie alleges that he told his RUC Special Branch handlers of the UDA's plans, once five days before the attack, the second on the evening of the killing. He claims that he never knew Finucane was the target but claims that he gave the RUC enough information and time to save Mr Finucane's life. He says when he complained to his handlers about their inaction they replied that "he (Finucane) was just an IRA man". 

After the attack, the RUC made no attempt to seize the weapons used even though Stobie gave the Special Branch detailed information about how the killers planned to get rid of their guns.

Stobie also claims that the RUC conducted a campaign to scare him into silence over the Finucane killing even going as far as to sabotage weapons under his control in order to draw UDA suspicion on him. Eventually the RUC planted guns in his flat in order to frame him on arms charges. At his trial on the arms charges he instructed his lawyers to tell the Director of Public Prosecutions that he would publicly reveal that he had given the Special Branch warnings before Finucane was killed if they continued proceedings against him — four months later the Crown prosecutor announced that no evidence would be offered against Stobie and a "not guilty" verdict was entered against him.

The claims made by Stobie are substantiated by the Lawyer Committee for Human Rights publication, which was dismissed by both the RUC and the NIO. The document, published in 1993, details the threats made against Finucane by the RUC, explains the role of British army agent Brian Nelson in the killing and then details the RUC connection.

According to the report, "two independent sources told us that the RUC also had a double agent in the UDA. They stated that they had learned from loyalist sources that in late December 1988 or early January 1989, Brian Nelson came to a UDA meeting and passed a file on Finucane to 'R'. Those present took the transfer of this file to mean that Finucane would be killed. A week later, the double agent alerted his handlers in the RUC Special Branch who were stationed at Castlereagh. About two weeks later, 'R' came to the agent and asked him for weapons, including a Browning. At the next meeting with his handlers, the agent told them of R's request and that he would be supplying the weapons in the next few days. In both instances, the agent gave the information to his handlers on the assumption that they would do something to prevent the murder from taking place.

In Castlereagh interrogation centre, a group of UDA men were told by mid-level RUC officers to forget about indiscriminate sectarian killings and concentrate on three solicitors who they claimed were the "brains behind the IRA".

That Stobie informed his handlers before Finucane was killed is also backed up by the earlier publication. It states that "according to another source, the Special Branch had one last opportunity to prevent the killing just hours before it occurred. On the day Finucane was murdered, an adjutant UFF commander under R called the RUC's agent at about 3pm. This adjutant told R to deliver the weapons to a nearby social club at 5pm, which he did. He then called his Special Branch handlers; told them that he had handed over the guns; and impressed upon them that he thought they would be used quickly. By 7.30pm, Finucane was killed".

All of this appears to back up the family of Pat Finucane, who assert that only an independent public inquiry can attain the truth. After a meeting with British Secretary of State Mowlam in June, the family released a statement saying that "a criminal investigation (no matter who carries it out) will not be a public process and its sole function is to attempt to secure criminal convictions and not to expose the truth".

This again was echoed by Martin Finucane on the day that Stobie made his revelation. According to Finucane: "The fact that the person charged today said that he was a paid agent of the RUC installed in the UDA group which carried out the murder makes a full public judicial inquiry imperative so that we can establish the full extent of the involvement of the RUC in the murder of Pat Finucane... The eventual trial of Mr Stobie will not be an adequate vehicle for establishing the full truth of the circumstances surrounding the murder as has been proven by the trial of Brian Nelson, when the truth was fudged and covered up by the authorities."

Finucane concluded: "It is abundantly clear that the arguments for a full independent public judicial inquiry is overwhelming and should now be established forthwith. Today's development verifies and bolsters our demand for such an inquiry. Public concern over the case has reached such a level that no other course of action can be acceptable." •

***************** 

CONTROVERSY about that telephone call to Geneva continued to stalk RUC Chief Ronnie Flanagan this week. Recently interviewed by BBC Panorama journalist John Ware, Ronnie Flanagan couldn't recollect telephoning UN special rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy to request comments attributed to the RUC Chief in the UN draft report were deleted from the final document.

According to the UN official, the RUC Chief accused some lawyers of working for paramilitaries, working to a paramilitary agenda, during an interview at RUC Headquarters in Belfast in 1998. Flanagan's words were noted down at the time by Param Cumaraswamy's assistant.

On camera Flanagan, stricken with apparent sudden amnesia, having denied the comments felt compelled to deny the subsequent telephone call about the comments. However the RUC Chief couldn't deny two letters posted to Geneva a short time later. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. It was, in short, all a bit of a mess.

In a valiant attempt to redress his dismal TV performance, RUC Chief Ronnie Flanagan remembered this week that he had not forgotten that he had made a telephone call to UN special rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy because he had never made that call.

"I have now had all billing records checked. I made no such phone call," Flanagan informed the press. Now a telephone call was received by the UN's Geneva office and the person who took the call understood he was speaking to Ronnie Flanagan at the time but maybe he was mistaken. Perhaps someone else made the call on behalf of the RUC Chief whose comments were still in the draft report. There may have been a phone call made by a representative of the UK government," speculated Flanagan.•

World Revolutionary Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles).

As the talks aimed at securing the establishment of political institutions ended in failure Sinn Féin issued the following statement

It concludes with two statements - ANNEX 1 and ANNEX 2, which are what Sinn Féin would have been prepared to sign up to in the context of the establishment of the political institutions and the implementation in full of the Good Friday Agreement.

SINN Féin is totally committed to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in all its aspects. We believe that the whole-hearted implementation of the Agreement has the capacity to transform the existing situation through constructive and dynamic political development.

It is a matter of the deepest regret and frustration to Sinn Féin, and indeed to all who voted for the Agreement on 22 May last year, that the process of implementation has been repeatedly stalled.

The Agreement, particularly in terms of the political institutions, has been in default for 12 months as a result of a unionist pre-condition which is no part of the Good Friday Agreement. There are other aspects of the Agreement also outstanding.

Human rights, justice and equality on political, economic, social and cultural matters are central requirements. Policing is a key issue. The impact of demilitarisation on the day to day lives of people would be widespread. The promised British government strategy to give effect to this, as required by the Agreement, is yet to be produced.

Despite all of this, in an attempt to save the Agreement, Sinn Féin was prepared to try to create space for David Trimble. Sinn Féin proposed a new and far-reaching approach in discussions with the two governments and the US administration which would allow the UUP to move if it wanted. This approach went beyond anything we are obliged or required to do under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Gerry Adams alluded to this in the USA in March when he said there was no point in Sinn Féin moving if David Trimble was not in the loop — that we needed to jump together. This would mean stretching the republican constituency but we made clear that if this had the effect of moving, the process beyond the impasse we were prepared to do this.

Martin McGuinness outlined our ideas to' US officials on 5 May and these were further developed in discussions with the Taoiseach and British Prime Minister on 6 May.

In Downing Street on 14 May there was an agreement between Sinn Féin, UUP, SDLP and the British and Irish governments that d'Hondt would be triggered on the following Thursday, all the institutions would come into place in shadow formation and that power would be devolved on 1 July.

Despite the subsequent collapse of that deal, Sinn Féin persisted with our initiative but now, and because of the above, we felt that this could only work if it had the immediate effect of the full implementation and operation of the overall Agreement, including in particular, the removal of the preconditions set by the UUP and the immediate establishment of the political institutions agreed on Good Friday 1998.

At the core of this approach was: 

•	A clear statement from the two governments that they were returning to the Good Friday Agreement;
•	That the impasse could be removed only within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement;
•	That there were no preconditions in the Good Friday Agreement;
•	That a deadline would be set for the transfer of power to the political institutions;
•	An acknowledgement that all the parties to the Agreement have an obligation to help bring decommissioning about;
•	Our assessment that, in the context of the full implementation of the overall Agreement, all the participants acting in good faith could successfully persuade those with guns that decommissioning should take place within the timeframe set out in the Agreement and Gerry Adams' preparedness to make a declaration in that regard.

This initiative was to be expressed publicly in a)  A Sinn Féin Declaration – Annex 1; and b)   Elements of an IICD Report acceptable to Sinn Féin - Annex 2.

This approach could only succeed following the immediate establishment of the institutions by 30 June as promised by the two governments.

This required, in response to Sinn Féin's substantive initiative; UUP agreement to move into the institutions consistent with the Good Friday Agreement.

At the beginning of the current phase of negotiations Sinn Féin tabled papers on these positions, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, informed Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness that he showed the Sinn Féin position to the UUP.

In the course of the negotiations Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness explained our proposals directly, and on two occasions, to the Leader and Deputy Leader of the UUP.

They also met with and explained the Sinn Féin proposals in detail to the UUP negotiation team.

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness requested a meeting with the entire UUP Assembly team. This request was rejected.

The UUP rejected our proposals.

In a final attempt to overcome the impasse and see the political institutions put in place, we again met with the UUP leadership and showed them our detailed written proposals. These were again rejected by the UUP.

ANNEX 1 Sinn Féin Declaration

Sinn Féin has long argued that it is only through the full implementation of the Agreement, in particular the operation of its institutions and the delivering of equality and justice, that the issue of arms will be finally and satisfactorily settled. Sinn Féin has also emphasised the key role to be played by General de Chastelain and his colleagues. We have specifically said in our reply to the Independent Commission on Decommissioning that "the full implementation of the Agreement would demonstrably facilitate the decommissioning process."

Sinn Féin acknowledges the UUP statement in response to the Commission's report that they will now proceed with the SDLP and Sinn Féin to be part of the inclusive Executive. Against that background we believe that all of us, as participants acting in good faith, could succeed in persuading those with arms to decommission them in accordance with the Agreement. We agree that this should be in the manner set down by the Independent Commission on Decommissioning within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

This reflects our conviction that through the overall implementation of the Good Friday Agreement we are working to remove the causes of conflict. Conflict must be finished forever — it must be for all of us a thing of the past.

ANNEX 2

Elements of an IICD Report Acceptable to Sinn Féin

—   Notes that, all the parties are committed to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations and are obliged to use their influence to bring this about by May 2000.
—  Notes that, under the relevant Regulations, different methods of decommissioning are provided for and also that decommissioning can take place in accordance with arrangements made with the Commission.
Recommends that the decommissioning process be advanced this week through urgent discussions with the parties and a choice from the options available under the Regulations.
—   Recommends that these discussions be conducted urgently so that the Commission can report to the governments in October.
—   Following this, the Commission will recommend the earliest possible beginning of decommissioning, noting that decommissioning of all paramilitary arms be concluded by May 2000 as set out above.
—  Will submit progress reports to the two Governments in October next, in December and in May 2000. •