The Deal Three Months Own!

The Loyalist protests against the deal have had their farcical side, We have the RUC, ready at an instant’s notice to use plastic and lead bullets against Nationalists, hold up their hands and going ‘Now’ ‘Now' as they try to restrain Lovalist protests. We also haye the same sort of process im courts, where Loyalists continually ignore ‘their’ law and are given new deadlines and asked to think again. But the darker side is more evident - sectarian killings, the mobilisation of the paramilitaries, the use by Thatcher and Fitzgerald of the Loyalists as justification for increasing repression and the continuing threat of full-scale violence against nationalists - the strike weapon especially targets trade unionists and the Catholic workers who, according to Dublin and the SDLP, are supposea w be benefiting from the deal.

Why are the Unionists protesting? They held their mass base through _ Stormont as a “Protestant parliament for 4 protestant people’ - open state support for dicrimination and the use of the state forces as a protestant militia. The minor changes of direct role led to massive protest, and now they believe that Dublin has the influence and the will to altack their raw bigotry.

The Strike and the ‘Ulster says No’ banner on workplaces shows the reality of Unionist control over jobs. At the same time statements by RUC Federation representative Alan Wright express the reluctance of RUC members to move trom their traditional role of Lovalist militia.

In fact Thatcher and Fitzgerald propose only cosmetic changes. They want to prop up Loyalism but the Lovalists are too bigoted to see this!

Yet they have no real target. For all their threats they are too much creatures of imperialism to seriously fight it. There is a danger that they will lash out at the Nationalist community, but the main thrust of events 1s for imperialism to use the protests to step up attacks on democratic rights.

Loyalist protest doesn't mean that the Anglo-lrish pact is progressive nor does it mean that Loyalists fulfil a progress ive role in opposing impenalism, The dogfight between imperialists, collaborators and Loyalists 1 not one that can lead to any victory for the Irish people. The task for soctalists and republicans 1 to organise the mass intervention that will bring them all to heel!

*.

The Febuary conference of Peoples Democracy saw the organisation facing up to whole series of major issues -issues involving the Irish revolutionary movement as a whole and also a reassessment of the role of Peoples Democracy as an independent marxisi organisation within that revolutionary The external crises were clear enough -the new united offensive by British imperialism and Irish capitalism around the Anglo-[rish deal and the associated austerity drives on both parts of the border. Of specific interest to PD was the response - the confusion among the mass of the population, the lack of a coherent leadership able to mobilise the working class in a global fightback and the role of a small marxist organisation in helping to build that leadership and unify the revolutionary forces.

### OUR ROLE

To do this we had to redefine the role of our organisation. Since the period when we spearheaded the Civil Rights agitation of the "60s we had generally seen our role as organising a marxist layer in a broad anti-imperialist movement which, as the political and economic crises became more acute,. -P.D. CONFERENCE would link up with independent leaderships within the working class.

The H-Block struggle forced us to think again. We saw that the organisation of workers within the anti-imperialist movement and the challenge to traditional pro-imperialist leaderships Was no easy thing that would occur spontaniously. It would have to be fought for within the workers movement itself.

It was this experience, and discussion of developments within the Fourth International - the worldwide revolutionary Marxist organisation to which we belong - that led us over the past three years to ‘tum to industry’ and try and implant our organisation within the working class movement. This has recorded some successes but it also became clear that we had not fully defined our role or come to terms with programmatic and straicgic questions posed. The conference set about re-examining these questions.

### SPLIT

Sadly this re-examination came too late for a minority of our members. They argued that our failure to recruit more new members and past failure to fully develop our political line showed that there was no longer any role tor an independent marxist organisation.

They pointed to the move to the left within Sinn Fein and the growth of their political organisation and also to the large sector of H-Block militants who had joined Sinn Fein. There conclusion was that the place for marxists today is inside Sinn Fein and that Peoples Democracy should be dissolved.

This view was decisively rejected by the delegates. We did not disguise the need to redefine our political positions and strategy but pointed out that we had had to do so in the past and invariably our organisation had been politically strengthened as a result.

Despite our difficulties we had been able ta develop the only clear and unambigious analysis of the Anglo-Irish sell-out presented so far.

We pointed out that a foundation of Marxism was the need to organise collectively. This doesn't necessarily mean the slavish defence of one political Organisation but some method of organisation must be preserved. All our members welcomed and supported the leftward trend in Sinn Fein but argued that while there are quite detailed political debates within Sinn Fein there is no tradition of organisation around a general political program. To abandon this broader need to organise is essentially to abandon the struggle for a marxist program.

Since the conference the six members proposing the dissolution of the organisation have announced their intention of resigning from PD, We deeply regret this - the more so since they outlined no political propect or concrete tasks for individual Marxists within the Republican movement. Essentially they appeared to believe that a miarxist leadership would develop spontaniously inside the Republican movement, For us however the development of such a leadership for Irish workers will involve a long, complicated process of mass struggles, many of which will be led by the Republican movement. Such struggles will raise mew political problems and tasks. We are convinced that marxist will be best placed to deal with these problems in an independent organisation - not as isolated individuals. whatever their fine qualities.

NEW BEGINNING This was demonstrated by the discussion at the conference. One fundimental issue debated was the nature of the Irish revolution. Do we look to third world countries like Nicaragua or to the industrialised Continued on page 3

-P.D.- A NEW BEGINNING countries of Europe? The answer was that Ireland was a country dominated by, imperialism but situated within Europe. We could therefore expect that the political struggle against imperialism would be the dominant question but that its expression would be modified by the size of the Irish working class and their expectations. We could learn much from other revolutionary movements but our task as marxists is to struggles in the past have been defeated by lack of political clarity. Fighting for our program is our best way of ensuring that the same fate does not befall the present struggle. Future progress can only come through developing our ideas and winning new members. Thus the conference outlined some key tasks; developing our propaganda through the production of a journal, centering activity around a response to the Anglo-Irish deal - and last but not least a drive to recruit. That's why we ask those who agree with our analysis to join - NOW!