Communism in the two Irelands is small and divided into rival groups. However, all appear to agree on press ing violence and seeking to apply enough force so that Britain ultimately agrees to let both Irelands unite, de spite the vigorous objections of Ulster's Protestant majority.

This concept is most urgently put forth by the Guevarists, not only in order to achieve settlement of the Irish problem but also to embarrass Britain and enfeeble the West. The current issue of a Havana magazine called “Tricontinental” proclaims:

“A blow delivered against British imperialist bourgeois rule by a rebel lion in Ireland has a hundred times greater political significance than blow . . . in Asia dr in Africa. . . . Ireland, unique today in Europe, re mains in the struggle for its national liberation.”

The Marxist thesis is that the British Empire began with the invasion of Ireland in 1169 and that in the seven teenth century Britain forced the in digenous population of Ulster to emi grate and gave their land to Scottish immigrants—ancestral core of today's North Irish Protestant majority.

The Marxist thesis stresses economic exploitation. It argues that Ulster's Catholic population was decimated by lack of jobs; that London won't will ingly relinquish control over Ulster because that would force it to pay for imports which now come duty‐free from the North.

Irish Communists apparently are trying to use their very small numer ical influence to burrow into the Irish Republican Army which itself is di vided. The Guevarists claim the I.R.A. “feels deep solidarity with the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions” as well as Al Fatah, the Arab guerrilla group, but such claims clearly could only apply to the I.R.A. “provisionals” who are leading the current Ulster cam paign.