An old joke has Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky shipwrecked on a desert island. They have a can of beans, but no tin-opener. Lenin studies the tin, finds its weakest point, and strikes it with a stone. No joy. Then Stalin picks up a massive boulder and drops it on the tin, which remains unopened. The Trotsky speaks: "Comrades: let us imagine we have a tin-opener." For Trotsky, read the SPGB. Whatever is proposed that results in something less than perfect, universal, socialism, is rejected. If both the south and the north of Ireland are capitalist, it makes no difference if they constitute one state or two. (Compare the SPGB line at the start of WW2: anti-fascist unity is pointless if it is not committed to the achievement of socialism in one leap.) But if socialism is ever achieved it will be after countless battles and campaigns that won't achieve socialism at once but will lay a better and better basis for its achievement. This is a realizable aim; the SPGB line that if we keep talking to people and explaining why socialism is a good idea, eventually everyone will agree and we will be able to enter the sunny realm of socialism without force or violence, is not.