Use your vote against them, or they will use

In thiselection, we plan to build abroad intervention by an electoral alliance committed to fighting on the H-Block/Armagh issue.

The PD candidates will! themselves be fighting on an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist programme. We aimtochallenge Britishlies and show the support for the prisoners! struggle. We aim to challenge the opponents of the prisoners in the Nationalist parties and to give the peoplea real alternative toFitt andDevlin.

Above all, we want toorganise.

We want, through the campaign, to drawnew forces into the pohitical status struggle and tolay the basis for abroad struggle on the streets against the political, social and economic domination of imperialism fhe wizard of Stormont hasknown several different types of governments. Itisonly fifty yearsagointhe 1930's whenone major capitalist regime after another in Western Europe and Japan fell under fascism, easily the most ruthless and barbaric form of government the worldhas yet experienced. Even todayoneof the world's most power fulcapitalist countries, South Africa, is the one which most consistently tries to implement the poisonous anti-human theories of the fascists by oppressing the majority of the population because of the colour of their skin.

Finally, theright toelect agovernment on a full adult franchise was only won from the capitalists after decades of strugglesby the oppressedmajority. The capitalists only granted extensions to the franchise as parliamentary institutions began to play an ever smallerrole inthe governing of countries. Today, parliaments are subject to theirresistible pressure of capital, national and international; the opinions of the mass of the people can be over-ridden either by changing the rules of!!democracy!! -—like Britain didin Irelandhy imposing partition or like the Unionists have done in the six counties through discrimination and gerrymandering - or by simply denying the people aright to decide, like when Britain first entered the EEC even though at the time majority of the people People's Democracy has decided to give its first priority tochallenging Gerry Fitt and Paddy Devlin inthe North'slocal Governmentelections. Fitt'srecordis already known and we have already been engagedina'Dump Fitt! petitionrepudiating his attack on the prisoners and cal iing onhimtoresign. The petition has gathered over 5, 000 signatures — well over the number of votes cast for Fittin the last Council elections. About amonthago, Paddy Devlin followedinhismaster's footsteps witha savage attack on trade unionists supporting the prisoners.

We must oppose these individuals inorder to answer their challenge “Twey CAN HAVE oR were opposed.

FIGHT LIMITATIONS Revolutionaries must al ways fight these limitations, andthe pretensions of the capitalists. But it must also be recognised that when the majority of the people have illusionsin the electoral andparliamentary process, andtherevolutionary movement lacks the strength to do away the existing bourgeois state apparatus, revolutionaries must participateinthem. Thisis true of even the most counter— revolutionary parliaments as the experience of the Bolsheviks in pre-revolutionary Russia shows.

Lenin drew attention to many of them when he took up a debate with the "ultra-leftists! in the early 1920's. The ThirdInternational founded by Lenin and Trotsky Was initsearly stages andhadto findthe right tactics to deal with the fact that, inmost of Western Europe, therevol—" utionary tide had ebbed and most workers in the advanced capital— ist countries had deep illusions in parliamentary democracy and Social Democraticparties. In these circumstances, some mem= bers of the International were against contesting parliamentary elections.

LENIN'S STRATEGY By contrast, Lenin argued that participationin elections was "not only useful but indispensible to the party of the revol— it against you.

the Sinn Fein - Workers! party machine andare standing as Asrevolutionary Marxists, we ort for imperialism, attacks on on the economic and social oppthe tradition of James Connolly EQuauTy WiTw Loyausts THEY Become first bourgeoisrevolutionin Russia(1905) soas topave the way for the second bourgeois revolution (February 1917) and for the socialist revolution (October 1917). The quotationis taken fromLenin!'s 'Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder! which was written in 1920 specially to answer members of the ThirdInternational who took non participation in bourgeois elections. Lenin wrote that the Bolsheviks consideredit "...

reactionary parliament. !' He also argued against those who "obsolete!! by writing: "Parliamentarism, of course, is 'politically obsolete!....but— and that is the whole point - we must not regard what is obsolete for us as being obsolete for the class, asbeing obsolete for the (i. e. the masses) bourgeois democratic prejudices — prejudices. Butat the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of class consciousness and preparedness of the whole class The main criterion for Marxists ishowbest to break down the illusion in bourgeois democracy and expose the limiations of cap-— italist society. We wouldbe deluding ourselves if we thought, as some do, thatparticipatingin the parliamentary institutions of

; mu st recognise the importance SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 6 In arecent article inRepublican News (March 14th) Teresa Kelly adopts an attitude of hostility towards the independent women!s movement while feeling forced to accept support for the Armagh struggle even from such "trendy! quarters.

Quoting a sister Sinn Fein mem— ber, she says that feminists had taken years torealise the impor— tance of the national question while Sinn Fein women had at least got their prioritiesright fromthe start. She setsupa false division between those women (by implication, the 'better! women) who have been pushed to articulate their demands by their involvement in the fight for national liberation and those women who have come to the same positions by debate and struggle in the women's movement.

She also quotes arepresentative of Sinn Fein's women!s dept who states that feminists mustrelate to the ordinary women who have learned about politics fromthe streets of the occupied North! and criticises feminists for their at the conference organisedby the Southern government—app-— ointed Council for the Status of Women supported the five demands of the prisoners and called for the release of Pauline Mct_oughlin.

EXPOSE CONSERVATIVES The process of politicisation of women is an uneven one and certainly only sections of the women!s movement will be won to an anti-imperialist per spective, But revolutionaries have the duty and task tobe in that movement, toraise the issuesandto expose the posers (like Gemma Hussey, whoexposed her self asa woman more concerned wi th consolidating conservative power than with supporting suff— ering women during the debates on the Armagh women's struggle).

IMPERIALISM AND FEMINISM ; While it isimportant that feminists should take up andunderstand the struggles of women in the anti-imperialist movement, jialist women see the importance of becoming apart of, and supporting, the broader autonomous movement of women, It isnot just a question of individually supporting campaigns of men. itis equally true that anti-imperand Electoralism ine Women's movement around questions like divorce, contraception, abortion, etc although these are vitally important and centrally pinpoint the denial of democratic rights tolrish woImperialism has hindered the achievement of a woman!s right to control her own fertility. Thisis seen atits simplest in the creation of a confessional state in the 26 counties which has al ways bowed to the most reactionary clerical forces within it and whose existence would be seriously threatened if it didgrantbasicrights. Similarly, inthe 6 counties, only in the most indirect way has there been any advance in pursuing women!s rights and where social legislation tends more tomimic that which exists in the 26 countiesrather than in Britain. An anti-imperialist perspective of the issues which women are organising around today and integrate it into our under stan—ding of the denial of democratic rights of thelrishpeopleasa whole.

Women in Peoples Democracy have attempted to do this and have been in the forefront of the fight to make the women!s move— ment see the link between the denial of their democraticrights as women and the denial of the democratic rights of all Irish people. One isnot subordinated to the other -itisclearly wrong to argue that ''we will have national liberationfirst, then we will think about women!s rights!'! as some members of Sinn Fein attempted to do at the Women!s Conference inBelfas. on International Women's Day. Our slogan must be ''wherever women are oppressed we must support them today'"!, ROSE O!IMAHONY criticisms of the contraception

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