The 1956 edition summarises the result of the violence during the 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence ( referred to by republicans , who considered independence as having been only partially achieved , as the Tan War ) with this passage : " The hammer blows of the guerrillas destroyed the British administration . The guerrillas acted in small numbers in the right localities and compelled the British to disperse to find them . Then as the British searched , they hit them at will by means of the ambush . Communications were systematically destroyed and even the British army 's transport system in the country was disorganised . " " The enemy 's intelligence service was completely dislocated . The R.I.C. - the eyes and ears of British rule - was demoralised . British justice courts could not operate -- for the people ignored them . The British gradually were forced to evacuate the smaller , more isolated garrisons . They concentrated in the larger towns . The areas evacuated came under sole control of The Republic . The next step was to isolate the larger centres and keep cutting communications and constantly hitting the enemy . In time these would have been evacuated too . Thus ended the last great phase of guerrilla operations against British rule in Ireland . " Compare to the Marxist interpretation in the 1977 edition , published during a new campaign and new conditions of waging war . The '' " struggle " '' is couched in more socio-economic terms , terms which would have made more sense to a generation living through unemployment and economic hardship in post industrial revolution Northern Ireland ( referred to here as the " six counties " ) . It is also an indication of the influence of Marxist Philosophy that permeated the IRA in the late 1970s : " The objective of the 800 years of oppression ' is economic exploitation with the unjustly partitioned 6 counties remaining Britain 's directly controlled old-style colony ' and the South under the ' continuing social , cultural and economic domination of London ' . This last led to Irish savings being invested in England ' for a higher interest rate ' and many hundreds of thousands of boys and girls from this country had to emigrate to England to seek the employment which those exported saving created . " " Another aspect of economic imperialism at work is the export of raw , unprocessed materials : live cattle on the hoof - mineral wealth , fish caught by foreign trawlers , etc . Further , from 1956 on , the Free State abandoned all attempts to secure an independent economy , and brought in foreign multi-national companies to create jobs instead of buying their skills and then sending them home gradually . Africanisation ' is the word for this process elsewhere . Control of our affairs in all of Ireland lies more than ever since 1921 outside the hands of the Irish people . The logical outcome of all this was full immersion in the E.E.C. in the 1970s . The Republican Movement opposed this North and South in 1972 and 1975 and continues to do so . It is against such political economic power blocks East and West and military alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact . " While the 1956 edition does not engage in any legitimisation of the struggle beyond the historical context of resistance to occupation , the 1977 edition does - claiming direct legitimacy from the members of the Second Dáil who transferred their authority to the IRA in 1938 after the takeover of the IRA Army Council by Seán Russell . This had always been the official ideology of the IRA , however after the split between the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA in 1969 it was probably deemed necessary to lay more of a claim to the historical struggle than the pre-split IRA had felt necessary . The 1956 edition would have also been published for use during a period when the failed S-Plan or Sabotage campaign was within living memory of younger IRA volunteers . Newer volunteers needed to be reminded of previous IRA activity in the '' " struggle for liberation " '' : " The moral position of the Irish Republican Army , its right to engage in warfare , is based on : " In 1938 the seven surviving faithful Republican Deputies delegated executive powers to the Army Council of the I.R.A. per the 1921 resolution . In 1969 the sole surviving Deputy , Joseph Clarke , reaffirmed publicly that the then Provisional Army Council and its successors were the inheritors of the first and second Dáil as a Provisional Government . " In November 2003 , during testimony to the Saville Inquiry on the events of Bloody Sunday , Martin McGuinness , the alleged former Chief of Staff of the IRA , denied that he had ever read such a book before reputedly leaving the IRA in 1974 . McGuinness reportedly said : " When I was in the IRA there was no such book , I do n't know when it came into existence . " When asked what the phrase " green book " meant , he stated : " I think it means the book was green . " The 1977 edition of the Green Book is very much focused on the mental strength of the volunteer . The manual is eager to draw a clear distinction between volunteer and his enemy : " A member of the I.R.A. is such by his own choice , his convictions being the only factor which compels him to volunteer , his objectives the political freedom and social and economic justice for his people . Apart from the few minutes in the career of the average Brit that he comes under attack , the Brit has no freedom or personal initiative . He is told when to sleep , where to sleep , when to get up , where to spend his free time etc. " In the 1977 edition , the term guerrilla is dropped in favour of " volunteer " ; the new edition also stresses that this volunteer is part of a movement with common aims and objectives . From the PIRA 's point of view , this would have been necessary to combating competing interpretations encountered in the community and the propaganda efforts of the enemy they faced : " Before we go on the offensive politically or militarily we take the greatest defensive precautions possible to ensure success , e.g. we do not advocate a United Ireland without being able to justify our right to such a state as opposed to partition ; we do not employ revolutionary violence as our means without being able to illustrate that we have no recourse to any other means . Or in more everyday simple terms : we do not claim that we are going to escalate the war if we can not do just that ; we do not mount an operation without first having ensured that we have taken the necessary defensive precautions of accurate intelligence , security , that weapons are in proper working order with proper ammunition and that the volunteers involved know how to handle interrogations in the event of their capture etc , and of course that the operation itself enhances rather than alienates our supporters . " The 1956 edition on the other hand stresses the physical aspects of IRA operations : " Outside of the support he the guerrilla gets from the people among whom he operates - and this support must never be underestimated for it is vital to his eventual success - he fights alone . He is part of an independent formation that is in effect an army by itself . He must be self-contained . If necessary he must act alone and fight alone with the weapons at his disposal - and these very often will not be of the best . He must find his own supplies . His endurance has to be great : and for this he needs a fit body and an alert mind . Above all he must know what he is fighting for - and why . " The 1977 edition describes the military objectives of the IRA as : " The position of the Irish Republican Army since its foundation in 1916 has been one of sustained resistance and implacable hostility to the forces of imperialism , always keeping in the forefront of the most advanced revolutionary thinking and the latest guerrilla warfare techniques in the world . " The enemy is described as : " The establishment is all those who have a vested interest in maintaining the present status quo in politicians , media , judiciary , certain business elements and the Brit war machine comprising , the Brit Army , the U.D.R. , R.U.C. ( r ) reserve , Screws , Civilian Searchers . The cure for these armed branches of the establishment is well known and documented . But with the possible exceptions of the Brit Ministers in the ' Northern Ireland Office ' and certain members of the judiciary , the overtly unarmed branches of the establishment are not so clearly identifiable to the people as our enemies as say armed Brits or R.U.C. " The military objects of the IRA in 1977 are presented as closely tied to the political objectives of politicising the citizenry . Rather than the tactic of surgical strike , the tactic of continuous escalation or the strategy of what has been called the PIRA 's Tet offensive is preferred : " By now it is clear that our task is not only to kill as many enemy personnel as possible but of equal importance to create support which will carry us not only through a war of liberation which could last another decade but which will support us past the ' Brits Out ' stage to the ultimate aim of a Democratic Socialist Republic . " " The Strategy is : The 1956 edition stresses military objectives and barely mentions political objectives . It contains a lot of practical advice on operating as a guerrilla fighter and how to inflict damage on targets . No mention is made of the establishment of '' " a Democratic Socialist Republic " '' . This can probably been seen in the context of the IRA keeping pace with social changes and the material aspirations of Irish men and women living within the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland . At the time of the Border Campaign the communities the IRA came to rely on were not politicised to the same degree as those in 1977 . A lack of support within their host community is commonly given as the reason for the failure of the Border Campaign . This edition of the Green Book even goes so far as to announce the aim of restoring the Irish language as the national language , an aim not mentioned in the earlier edition
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1972)
The Green Book (IRA)