STREET COMMITTEES AND PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLIES in the ghettos that was once given them. Their Belfast RMG reports ghettos is not what we sometimes like to think it is

The street committees and the People’s Assemblies presence should serve to remind us that the present still exist, but they do not now have the total support _«™ political consciousness of the inhabitants of the For instance, compare their wages with the wages of . their fellow workers in the AKZO trust and then see the extent of exploitation they are undergoing.

What has happened at the Ferenka plant is only one example of the collaboration of the trade union class. Such instances may well become more numerous as unofficial strikes are used by the workers to combat the ever increasing redundancies, Against such collaboration, workers must take control af the course of events themselves, through democratically elected strike committees answerable at all times to mass meetings of the workers involved. , These committees can provide the means by which the strike is strengthened and extended until it is won despite the betrayals of the bureaucrats.

### MARXIST REVIEW

Theoretical Journal of the R.M.G.

No.3 ‘Towards a Leninist Party’

Conway—Leninist Theory of Organisation Dorn—Connolly and the Revolutionary Party _ Mandel—Ciass Consciousness and the Party COMING SOON No.4 ‘Guerrilla Warfare’

AVAILABLE FROM: 38 Clanawly Road, Dublin 5 or the GPO. leaderships with management against the working activities, instead of becoming broader and deeper, at one time might have pointed the way to a higher form of society, have deteriorated to being poor replicas of the old outmoded forms of government. What are the causes of this retrogression? The first street committees were seen in the period following the. pogroms of August ‘69. No one was quite sure of their purpose, and probably if discontent had not escalated to insurgency they would have disappeared without trace. There was vague discussion of defence, and vigilante patrols-were established in many areas, but it was really Brian Faulkner who saved the street committees from _ oblivion, The wave of anger which swept the country {and the world) when the concentration camps were opened and filled by this short-lived government unified the working-class in the anti-Unionist ghettos as seldom before. A strong determination was formed that they would never again accept the rule of the puppet regime at Stormont. This re- . jection was manifested in increased military action ‘by the IRA and in the increase in the number of street committees and People’s Assemblies. These organs of self-government had many problems to tackle. To an armchair revolutionary the providing of street-lighting may have seemed a trivial business, but more serious individuals realised the importance of involving themselves in have narrowed. These forms of*self-government, which _ the day-to-day struggles of the workers, In the New WEAKNESS Lodge Road areas, for example,-worthwhile work was done in the field of housing. The influence of People’s Democracy was recognisable, The People’s ‘ Assembly in Ardoyne, where the people had suffered considerably during the first weeks of internment, involved itself in various tasks from the mundane business of keeping the streets clean to rebuilding a street of burnt-out houses.

It must be noted, however, that these bodies reflected in a magnified form the weakness of the revolutionary movement as a whole. Much talk was made of the spontaneous nature of revolution—this from people who had spent weeks in preparing for even a small demonstration. Few fully understood the role which revohitionaries should play in such organisations and there were few with the political education necessary to play the correct revolutionary role. All too often leadership was left in the hands of elements which can only be described as petty-bourgeois and reactionary. A clerical influence was especially noticeable in the Ardoyne People’s Assembly. It was perhaps inevitable that Roman Catholic priests, whom many regarded as their natural leaders, should have disproportionate authority in these bodies, nor should it be assumed that this influence was always malevolent, but their It is not difficult to find ‘people’s representatives’ who may once have lived in ghetto but have long since moved to ‘nicer’ areas. Many of them have decided that the People’s Assemblies, far from being ‘potential soviets’, were - ste pping stones to a seat on the city council when things returned to ‘normal’. And it is on this point that a strong blow is being dealt to these new forms of self-government. The sicken- -ing treachery of the SDLP,-who are continuing ? their policy of betraying those whom they claim to represent, has already weakened the ‘parliament of the streets’. We are not surprised (disgusted, but not surprised)that politicians of the John Hume ana Gerry Fitt type should feel uncomfortable when power is in the hand of the people. But it is surprising that the Republican Clubs should help foster parliamentary illusions. Their decision to take part in the local government elections (albeit on an abstentionist ticket) serves only to provide Whitelaw with propaganda and to weaken the will to resistance of the anti-Unionists.

The street committees and the People’s Assemblies . should not be allowed to fade.away in order to assist the middle-class catholics in their greed for power, but rather to educate the working-class of the Six Counties in the knowledge of them own power. They may not be incipient soviets but they are a challenge to the bourgeois state and can be part of a unified assault on imperialism.

The Plough June 1973. Page 3