The Intellectual and the Class

The accupatiaos ef intellectuals wary greatly, Sut have tertalo chines in ramman, Apart from what we noted previously about their bourseols origina and sean, ther haw a somman difference Trem workers. in that Lt is net just their lsbour power that they sell te their state ar commericial/industrigl etplovers, but their mental capacities, These capacities are mot merely acquisitions from wilversities but are tlasely related ta personality and per= sonal mental activity, including gttit= des Of all kinda. The politi¢al ond eeclal attitudes of a factery worker are of of coocern in themelwes te ah enploye r (theaely militant action gris— ing out oof those attitudes may be of efeat ctticern), Bot ‘the political and sacigl attitudes of an intellectugl are Of concern in themselves to an employer.

The factory worker has the disad= Fattage Of Lnateguate education, of being constantly and insidiously dis— uraged from thinking independently, of alienation from intellectual life, COnRTIBNWED FRoe Bp most «urprising thing about the LP is that it has not split inte » theysand parts before mow, 4 LEFT =I ALTERNATIVE?

This d« the context in which Nord Browie (prebably the cnly LP TE with » conedetent kicteri¢al Tollewiag in the fublin working clas), Mott Merrdges ane Dave Nelican were forced te coo cage Peisne intesntentis of the LE kegetiee of the boreeices ta of the Heed Office, TALe nroses hac more reliever then the > pa ree La incisents| asture af it fetes is misht leat w= to helieve, Tie man Sant al Tet@ecratic n= ture of tha Irish Labour Party has always treated Strains, whether in the constituency parties (gs in the Socis]= tat Lehour Alliance (SLA) in P71) ar in the Trade Unions (whe hove slways Milatained beth their political aut= SuooF ot sc ambivalence towards the lack of dempersey in the Labeor Party]. These: tendons have been exarerhated by the exodus of radical militants out or the merce in the Ta70's, and many of those wha worked: for Browne amd 4ereigan in the eleccion Have beer demohilicpa poliricslly an the Lest FLY TO «even Foore, The ee Lreneement OF the HrowieHeerigen wine eraves ta ICTALEST REPUBLIC, in order to keap up regular raduction needa late of finance,Printing coats are vey Utersbie to inflytion, not ta mention the coat of tatritmcion. 34 Ef you haw: any money te spare, ma itter how small, please send it ta the «diter, to- 34 Clanawiey Road, Dublin § The intellectual, ky contragc, iz well equipped to understand socialism in detail and how it relates to his/her oe aspirations, is never pure Litellect, For them to arasp sacialion means to break BE individuals from their ow class in an isaloted way which ds Likely to 0 rasp soclaliem is to recognise the intereats of their om tlass; and even battle for their ideas. the sense of ur thet there f= no future Ter <ocia]= bet militant: in the Lebour Party sx Dre*ently cone tituted, FOR A DEMOCRATIC WIEKERS? PARTY Th wine itering the gueerion ef sheydiie li or Lesvine the Loboor Party there miet be ne wenuflectian= ieee ta tae MUperaerroe te ones bin menaanyed Nes This we om error ttre: kv tae SLA snen they sacked to ke -Llawee “fay in ton Labour Porty ao the erouet: cheat thoy 4 het constitite =i ergenicarian bat rh allianen. aparece fram famancde the wetential right ta exlet se-ae ta argeniee their eeppoertithe Boome Merrigan wing mest take advantoce cot the intermstionaltraditien af regl political as well as finanelal backing from the trade uniens for a Worheres" Labour Party, This gore Of party would encompass all the best traditions of the Trish working Glass allowing fora {Lexikln sffliistion SETuCtIFe Lt get over polities] gact= arianism, Only through the coostruction ef couch a party, that weld he respons dye to the policies! meade of rhe workers, tan the division dotween “sacigllt atid "ne tional polities, ta Tector wrich alea chowe iteslt areaiicationsl1y}, On trenccended, STORY EELLod 5 oa a at Bae af ae 3 But life, even for intellectuals, thrvaten their livelihoods, For workers when they may heave. be fight an isolated ideas. = be g very real streneth, The goecdsligt-inclined intellectuals are first and foremost tralters to their om class, Tet they are alsa strangers to the Lite of the class with which they identify politically. There haa Jonge been 4 tendency both amongst radical iotellestuals and in eocialigt moyements to say that they should "iterae thenselyurs in the masses".

This ig lareely.a naive and ranmanric nation which, wiile it can be valuable af 4 short-term editative excroise, Eeads soomr rather than later to fruatestians and eistertionsy gad it falls te recognise the potentigl velo te the working class of the specific skills and capacities of the intellectuals, fe the other ogteceme from the ides of the intellectuals teyine to tross— Tart tommselwes iota parker actirigts, is the nation of expres#ice ont socialism ins purely i¢salevical Tater within the cantext cefined far on: by the ourgeais eteuctures = at, for example — the wilversitz, oth these notions fail to tackle the oxtremely difficult and etaplex tyalr Of relating the intellectugle) rele and gctivity as producer ta the Tight for socialism, One person in whom we can see elements of this relationship warking themselves out ats particular Stage of his developornt ig Wilhelm Bei ch, the peychoanalyst, Hig liter uareer, in America followin the tragic aiashing af the dwstrign Social Den crate Party, Gllugcrates the War in wich the cCTajectory af inteLlecturls in Closely dependent in many cases on te strength and ceedisility af the sOclalist movement, The defeat of the working clase in Aostria was a. defeat alge dn terms of rhe developaient af his But the perdod I want ta briefly tention iz that of the rise of Aus tren Social Demecracr and that of the poo ereséive development of Reich" thearv, In the late 19205 he prete "isle cttleal Materialism and PsychoansLysign, jained. the Social Penocrstic. Party. snd started OP a Workers’ sex clinic which pravided information on tontragaption, abortion, ahd sex edocstion, fis well se ceiving out infor, tior at the clinic, Reich was atle ta obe= ecve at close quarters and in detail tir nature of the sexual Tepressian Of te workers. Tt was a my jae stin— ulus to Wis thowsht, which led in the directien af Widerstandine the gpec— {ically historical chargetar of. Tee dal repression ald its infirtsoce: ag 4 heapoo of bourgrais bower, While it stimulated bis moyt poo dictim theoretical developrent, it Also revealed the Limitations ef Ais activity ag ak detellectugl, He did fot make the mistake at this stuge af balieviowy aither thgt his theoretical Week was Ghough, of thet hig elinie Wea fO0ue to sadee the proddeng of fekual repression, He reneonised bath the valu: and the Limite af hig work: "Wor precisely the social cans iderat— loa af these qoestions leads ta race ognitian of the exctren: ipertance of the prolotardar Lernent, of ths prol— etsrisn elgas strigele, aq that in this area solutions to the qe s tLeen tan only ke expected in Sine ction With the proletarian revelotion,?

Throughout the last nine months the uonquenchable militancy of the women of Torf Lodge haa burst inte flame time and again as the British Arey han sought to jackboot ite authoritr over the area ani demoralige the spirit of the resistance, With the motgble exception af St. James, Turf lodge bas bean the only ares in Belfast to orcanise openly on the streets against escalating herrasment by British troops, to try to throw them out af the area, and ta keep alive the traditions of nme-eo areas of the early 1laT0s, But, as wr Said in the Socialist Neouklic 3 months ama, Turf Ledge cannot win an ita owns Che ¢reatest danger is that the Pritish will sHoceed in their aim of demoralising the prapl« by default — simply becquse the undoubted synpathy which exists througheut the anti=wnioeist ghettoes is net tranatoerned inta active physic= sl selidarity, RELATIVES ACTION GOMHITTEK Thia point has been made very clearly in the dast. few weeks, Following the Loyalist "strike" repression has escalated on a1l fronts - raids and arrests, terture in Castlereagh #hich te date has driven tw man to nmegr-insanity, freal attempts te re-introduce the RUG, In Turf Lodge Taide were carried aut with increasine frequ= Bncy, wien started getting beaten up, achoolkids were deliberately proveked aa they were coming out of school, causing riots which cave the troops an ever=ready excuse to step up their vielence, AQ othe end of May the women decided they had to organise again in protest at thig fresh wave of terror. The local Relatives Action Committee (RAC) branch called a meting to discuss their resmaied, but with a poor turn-out and lack of organisation, the meeting launched o petition defanding withdrawl af British forces trem Turf Ledge, Two days later the more militant ween decided on a course of direct actian — the RAC branch organised a series of réad-blachs ~ tro s dar, ont in the morning, om: in the aftermon - t protect kids leaving scloel and to prevent military harrassment, These raadblocks wert planned to contigue indefinitely, uncil a Satigfactary reapanse was forthcoming fram the COOo ps On Wednesdsy night the troops trind to intimidate the people with a show of strength -) Oe persa's arm wax heoken dn tw places, 5 week, the coadblocks had came ta an end thraugh, lack of oumbersy and at the tim: of weitlog there aft 1 oregnised pretesty going an om the streets Of Turf Lodge, and the level of military terror as as bigh as ever, HEED FOR POLITICAL LRAngRSutP : ‘ nat | ; fed - and it is quite probable that its widerlving militaner could erupt st any time ia the mar futare, So, the question must be ashed: Why did the protests : th lh a sede end. id unre Lent} Presence of : rues? |The angver lies in the izolation of Turf Lodes, the fact that no leadership cate forward te mobilise aoti=yalaniets from gl] greag id support at the strugele taking place in Trt Loder, It wagn't ag if the Local militants werent conscious of the necessity of breakiog down that: lealation; or that they didn't trr cto call for the sert of aupport they needed. Mid=way through the pratests the Soclalist Committee for Anti= Inperialiac Unity held 5 public meeting in the COmninity centre an the theme "The Loyalist strike - the way forward.’ The Camnittee's sin was to emphasise: the need for the unity in actian of all soti=inperiglist forces bebiod a peeerpme: which would reverse the declio. of mss militetcy; at the meting it put forward a call far a conference of all these farces: ese. the Irish Frant in Derry, the Irish Civil Rights landciation in Dublin, the RAC in Belfast.

Over Liki peeple, mainly frou Turf Ladee, abd including a sprinkling of representatives from all the anti=imperialist forces, turned up, making it one of the largest indoor political meetings for a long time, There can be no doubt that the large attendance fram Turf Lodge wos a clear illustration of the militancy of the area, and more importantly, demonstrated the need for political leadership and direction, Hence the gecting was an ideal opportunity for a wide discussion sheut the struggle teing waged in Tarf Lodger at that tim and how ta take ic fore ward, baild support, snd generalise it, Ditertenately, the testing togk a Lawes time ta discass this, far the most time coocentrat= Ui OH a peapagandistic line of calling far ‘anite" bet mot giving any resl lnediste Lead ta the militsynts fran Turf Ladze, However, eventually a groposal received virtually wan ims support: — te canpiten thraazhawt fhe Ry A Lrc ae : ce] =z aul _ e a = | =i Z o = ta a —

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