DUMP FITT | No to Boycott
Socialist Republic1981Elections and electoral tacticsPrisoners and the hunger strikesCivil rights movementRepublicanism and the IRAJames GallagherElections and electoral tacticsPrisoners and the hunger strikesCivil rights movementRepublicanism and the IRA
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the Stormont elections of 1969 following the Burntollet march. We stood ona Civil Rights and militant leftist programme with the aim of exposing the hollowness of Unionist Prime Minister O'Neill's promises of reform and challenging the right wingHibernians of the Nationalist Party. Our strategy was successful.
O'Neil! failedin this attempts to fool the minority into supporting him and the Nationalist Party, withits'halfaloaf isbetter than no bread! was defeated. PD got a total of 23,645 votes. More importantly, in the areas we contested, there developed bothPD branches and militant Civil Rights actiongroups. After the campaign, the movement on the streets was bigger and more firmly based thanever. £41 =_ ELECTORAL ALLIANCE In this election, we plan to build a broad intervention by an electoral alliance committed to fightSince PD decided its candidacy lieve, the only appropriate polin the May Local Government icy for the campaign and the electionsin the North, we have danger tounity comes from those had discussions both with other who urge ageneral boycott, anti-imperialist political parties thu s going beyond the basis of and militants. the five demands and narrowing the base of the campaign.
We have received enthusiastic support but we have also been The tag of opportunismneedsno criticised. The IRSP hasasked answer. Our 13 yearsof involveusto withdraw topreserve the mentin the struggle and our 5 unity of the campaign and a mem- year involvementin the defence ber of Beifast Sinn Fein has pub- of political statusis sufficient licly accusedus of opportunism. answer.
On the question of unity our posThe real answer tothe criticisms itionisclear. TheH-Block/Artles in Bobby Sand!s campaign in magh campaign'snationa! policy Fermanagh/South Tyrone. It is to harass candidates who oppgives an opportunity to mobilise Ose the prisoners. We stand the mass of the Irish people bewithin that policy andinfact, our hind the prisoners andprovides candidacy is aimedat extending La strategy for victory. Asimithat into an active intervention lar strategy in the North!sLocal in the elections.
Government elections isessenGeneral opposition to the oppon- tial. The politicsof the boycott ents of the prisonersis, we be- do not provide this.
WHY DONT You SHORTEN IT 12: “You NEVER HAD IT”? I WAS ONLY TRYING To CUT DOWN ON THE PRINTING costs! masses.
The way Bernadette Devlinused her position as anMP in the early seventiesisacaseinpoint. Similarty her campaign for the EuroParliament served to unite broad forces behind the H-Block/Armagh prisoners and paved the way for the Smash H-Block/Armagh campaign.
REVOLUTIONARY TACTICS Sometimes, boycott tacticsare justified. The following acid test can be applied to them, as well as to all other revolutionary tactics: do they strengthen the mass movement and the revol— utionary consciousness of the workingclass? Inparticular, can an 'active! boycott be mounted in whichrevolutionaries counter— pose to the bourgeoiselectionsa viable and more democratic alter— native which will attract the masses -— whether it be behind the slogan of calling for the workers! own organs of power, soviets, street committees. Ifnone of these aims can be achieved through aboycott, itisamistaken tactic.
Lenin in disguise, July 1917 tne bourgeois state somehow A failed 'active! boycott holds gives thema "false legitimacy". no advance for the struggle of the The problem however is that the working class and exposes the these institutions already have political misjudgment of those legitimacy. The masses auto- who made the call. Similarly, a matically turn to them andplace Ipassive! boycott campaign which demands on them in times of pol i- offersno alternative to the bourtical upheaval. Inother words, geois structure, save possible they are seen as the main polit- abstract callstostruggle, ex— ical focusin society. By poses the political impotence of refusing to put for ward candid— the groups involved and will conates who fight on an action pro- tribute to their isolation from gramme to bring forward the the masses. level of mass struggle, we would be abstaining fromrelat— (Part Two will appear in the next ing to the political life of the issue of Socialist Republic)