“Although is small revolutionary group the fact that we…”

Although P.D. is a small revolutionary group the fact that we have a clear political perspective has allowed us to play a real role in the development of the mass struggle. This was shown when we broke with the C.R.A. twice, with O'Neill through the Burntollet march. When the C.R.A. stood aside we organised the first mass protest against internment Again when we broke with the C.R.A. to form parliaments of the streets around the Northern Resistance Movement. during this period we were able to begin to extend the struggle to the South, first with a cross-border march and later with a series of marches to the Curragh, exposing the Southern state's collaboration in repression.

‘The N.R.M. collapsed following secret discuss‘ions between Republicans and the British. (The Republicans admitted that ‘this secrecy was a mistake several years later) When the P.D. attempted to continue the protests two ‘leading members, Mike Farrell and Tony Canavan, were jailed and went on hunger strike. The campaign around this made it possible for P.D. to forge a new unity around the Political Hostages Release Committee (P.H.R.C.).

The P.H.R.C. ran into serious trouble when Sinn Fein withdrew, alleging that P.D. had too great an influence in it. There followed a long period of downturn and fragmentation. In 1976 we reassessed the situation and agreed internally that the British offensive against the H-Block prisoners would become a central issue. We fought hard to get a campaign and then within the campaign we fought again to get the sort of open 32-county, struggle that the H-Block/ Armagh movement was eventually able to form.

It was during this period that we argued for an electoral intervention. First around the 1978 British General Election and then with Bernadette McAliskey in the E.E.C election. Even during the hunger strike itself we had ‘to break with the campaign to stand candidates in the 1981 Local Government elections. The, Republicians eventual acceptance of these arguements in the North led to a massive advance for the struggle. But the Republicans failure to unite with P.D. and Bernadette in two successive General elections in the South resulted in the gains of the H-Block struggle being largely frittered away.

THE BATTLE OF IDEAS P.D. has never been *simply an _ agitational organisation. The success of propaganda and of the ideological battles is marked by the way in which they are generally accepted today. How many ordinary people believe today that the Republicans are green fascists? We fought this battle with the Workers Party at a time when the Provisionals were abstain ing from political debate. Do you think that there are "two nations. in Ireland? We fought against that concept in 1970. Is there an organic link between the National struggle and Socialism? Hardly anyone thought so when P.D. was founded.

We fought to defend the anti-imperialist movement but we also fought within it to change the consciousness of militants. We argued against the illusions of the Republican right-wing in loyalism and their belief that sections ‘of the U.D.A. and U.V.F. could adopt a progressive role - in fact the concept of federalism was recently rejected by Sinn Fein. We arguéd against the ambiguity of Eire Nua and for an unashamedly socialist programme. We fought in both parts of the country to win Republicans to a role in the Womens Movement and in workers struggles.

But the history of P.D. is not a history of uninterrupted advance. In the "70s we relied too heavily on a purely political analysis and tended to ignore underlying economic changes. As a result we over-estimated the autonomy of Loyalism from Britain. Following the 1974 Loyalist strike we saw a danger of a Fascist takeover and began to stress more and more the need for military defence.

The Loyalist takeover never came, and when we began to adjust our political strategy to take account of the reality there was a serious division in our organisation and almost half the membership split away. However the long-term results of the split were healthy. We were able to go back to political first principles and re-state our programme differences with Republicanism - our belief that the major force for revolution came from the activity of the masses and that the driving force within this mass struggle could only be the organised power of the working class. We see the Republicans belief in militarism as often cutting across the work needed to mobilise the mass struggle. _ THE WORKING CLASS At the height of the struggle in 1970, P.D., alongside a high level of activity in the Civil Rights campaign, launched a series of campaigns on economic and — social issues. One campaign in particular, against higher bus fares in Belfast, attracted wide support from unionist workers and led to an R.U.C. baton charge against a mass demonstration of unionist and republican workers in Belfast city centre.

These experiences and later experiences in the Trade Union movement, ‘showed that such a joint mobilisation was possible. It-also showed that it could not be easily generalised to change the consciousness of workers and challenge State power. Later we attempted to build a unity of socialists on an all-Ireland basis. In 1970 we built a Socialist Labour Alliance with 26-county socialists but this collapsed under the pressures of internment and the confusion of many leftists about the signifance of the National Question. We ‘went through a_ similar experience with the Socialist Labour Party more recently and found that no real socialist unity could be built without an accept- ° ance of the centrality of the National Question.

All these experiences reinforced our conviction that revolutionary socialists in Ireland had to be part of the anti-imperialist movement. Questions of Trade Unionism and women’s rights, we tried to develop in collaborative debate with Republican militants. So we used our paper to engage Sinn Fein militants in debate and have always worked for united action of socialists and republicans.

### TODAY

Conditions today have changed. As the imperialist crisis hae deepened so too tne unperialist offensive has broadened and economic and _ social struggles have assumed a IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN JOINING THE PEOPLES DEMOCRACY AND FIGHTING FOR A SOCIALIST 32 COUNTY REPUBLIC, FILL IN THE FORM BELOW AND SEND IT-TO:

connolly bookshop, new importance alongside the ‘National Question. Anti-imperialists have to be able to provide leadership in all these sections.

The Peoples Democracy of 1968 played a heroic role, but that loose association of activists could not have survived the 15 years of struggle. The Peoples Democracy of today strives to build a professional organisation of revolutionary militar ts, and has its own uniqu place in Irish political life We stand &s.the inh tors of Connolly's revolut' ary Socialism. Thoug our membership of the F. _ th International we _ als? stand in an unbroken line of revolutionary class _fighters stretching back through Lenin and Trotsky founders of the international workers movement, Marx and Engels. We are . confident in the integrity . of that position and its role in the defeat of imperialism and the construction of world socialism.

— 6, avoca park,

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