Extracts from 'The People's Democracy 1968-73'
by Paul Arthur (1974)

Conclusion

The violence of October 5, 1968, and the subsequent growth of the People's Democracy came at the tail-end of a series of student riots in the Western world, a fact noted by Michael Farrell:

'The savagery of the RUC in Duke Street ... shook the students in Queen's University to whom the border was irrelevant but who suddenly found on their own doorstep, the sort of thuggery that shocked them in Chicago, Paris or Vietnam.'^[1]

Leaving aside Farrell's grossly inflated analogy, he was touching on something which deeply concerned sociologists, educationalists and politicians, that is, the world-wide student protest movement.

It would be facile to place PD in the forefront of the student movement, because what strikes one about it is its peculiarly Irish nature. In one important respect it differed from the type of student protest in other parts of the world; it was not concerned, not even initially, with campus grievances. Of course in its earliest days it did have a militant off-shoot, the Revolutionary Socialist Students' Federation^[2] which was concerned with the reform of the university structure. After producing two editions of a juvenile publication Detonator and making a nuisance of itself on PD's early demonstrations, it soon faded away because it did not have leaders of any political stature and, more importantly, there were much greater grievances in society which had to be faced.

PD's early success can be explained partially by the fact that it was an important fragment of that strong wave of civil rights agitation which protested against genuine grievances in a dignified manner. While its undergraduate counterpart in England was involving himself with such ersatz problems as the political allegiance of a Vice-Chancellor, the revolutionary and the reformer was dealing with much more concrete - and complex - problems in Northern Ireland.

The Government of Northern Ireland lacked full legitimacy and the opposition parties lacked drive and direction and unity. In these circumstances - that is, ' . . . where, in a condition of political tension the existing adult elites and counter-elites are ill-organised and ineffectual^[3] - PD as a student organisation was -able to become more important in the political sphere. In this respect it was analogous with the two western student movements which have mounted the most serious challenge to the state - the French and German - because all three made much of the weakness of genuine parliamentary opposition in their countries.^[4]

One should not dismiss completely, however, PD's role in the mainstream of the student protest movement. It shared with other students a combination of political disillusion, moral concern, enthusiasm, frustration and a certain amount of imitativeness As it developed it underlined its earlier lack of ideology, a factor not uncommon to students in other countries:

'. . . what British students have been making is moral protest; they have not been responding to any theoretical analysis of society. Theoretical analysis has indeed arisen from the protests rather than vice-versa.'^[5]

Apart from the facts that it was not concerned with campus grievances and that it was dealing with a political situation peculiar to Northern Ireland - in the Western world at least - there is one major factor which stresses its Irish nature. One notices its lack of reference - or reverence - to the 'gurus' of the New Left in its developing ideology: Sartre, Fanon, Marcuse and even Marx are missing from its list of distinguished thinkers. One could suggest unkindly that PD ideologues were unaware of the writings of these men. The probable explanation is that if PD was to win support in Ireland it would have to wean its potential members on a diet of Irish thinkers and activists, and avoid at all costs the alien culture of 'Marxism.'

This is not to suggest, however, that the lynchpin of the PD Political Manifesto,^[7] Connollyite Republicanism was adopted on grounds of expediency. What was expedient was the (implied) decision not to refer to the 'New Left' ideologues. And again if one reads through the pages of Free Citizen or the Northern Star. one is struck by the parochial nature of its content, since very little news or analysis is presented on the international situation.

In using the word 'parochial' above we are not using it in a pejorative sense. One of the problems for the political activist in Northern Ireland was to come to terms with its localism. It was a small area - 5,242 square miles - with a parliament which had most of the trappings of sovereignty, and fifty-two MPs who were accessible to their constituents. At the lower level Northern Ireland had seventy-three local councils, all of which had varying degrees of power and were seen to have power:

'. . . it is inevitable that the local councils should be seen to be important centres of influence and power. In a small area such as Northern Ireland the politics of welfare are necessarily and properly local politics.'^[9]

'The work of local councils . . . cannot simply be judged, as it might be elsewhere, from the way these bodies deal with drainage, health, education or the social services. Always overshadowing these pre-occupations is the larger question - is local government to remain in the hands of those who uphold the political settlement as it is now or to those who wish to destroy it.^[10]

It was a little more successful in the Irish Republic. Some radicals from University College Dublin were in the Burntollet march, and some were involved in organising the march to Dublin at Easter 1969. The bad organisation and recrimination following that march largely broke off relations with that source. PD speakers addressed meetings at the University Colleges in Cork and Galway but they didn't succeed in generating enough support - with the exception of a few students who joined the Western Civil Rights Movement march to Dublin during Easter 1969. Again we do not have to search far for the reason why this policy failed. PD was not over-concerned about making contact with students; its ostensible interests lay with workers. Students in the South largely directed their grievances at the campus - as for example, the campaign in University College Dublin in March 1969,^[12] or the continuing battle against the authorities at the National College of Art in Dublin.

The problem of evaluating PD's contribution to the civil rights campaign and to the much greater Northern problem is much more complex. There are obvious difficulties in studying an on-going organisation in a highly volatile political situation. The particular difficulty with PD was in its evolution from a norm-oriented to a value-oriented movement. The distinction has been explained by Philip G Altbach:

'Norm-oriented student movements generally aim at the correction of a specific grievance or at a particular goal, and do not have broader ideological overtones. The norm-oriented movement is unlikely to maintain itself after its goal has been attained, although as had been noted, such movements often provide an impetus for further activity.'

'While the norm-oriented movement is concerned with specific goals and is more likely a product of emotional response to a specific limited issue, the value-oriented movement is concerned with broader ideological issues, and, when it is involved in concrete action, this activity is usually linked directly to a broader concern. Most revolutionary political movements, and most of the on-going student political organisations, particularly "underground" groups, are value oriented. A value orientation does not prevent students from participating in limited campaigns or agitations, although such participation is usually done for reasons transcending the specific object. In the student community a value-oriented movement has a more important influence in the long run and is often a leading element in apparently norm-oriented actions . . . there is some overlap between these two types of groups, and it is often difficult to make a clear distinction between them, since the leadership of a group which is seemingly norm-oriented may be ideologically sophisticated and able to turn the attention of participants to broader issues.'^[13]

It was the 'underground' of ex-students who supplied the political sophistication. They had nurtured radical student dissent in the period before October 1968, and it was they who provided the ideology which turned the attention of the participants to broader issues. (Some of those participants, notably Kevin Boyle and Bernadette Devlin, were converted to active socialism after coming into contact with the forces of the State in PD's early demonstrations).

That 'underground' was composed of people of calibre. Owen Dudley Edwards described them as 'off-spring of the communications revolution,' and wrote of them:

'Michael Farrell emerged as an able and effective pamphleteer. Cyril Toman's brand of abrasive knowledgeability proved well adapted for television appearance. Eamonn McCann as an orator won the admiration of almost every audience he encountered Bernadette Devlin in the course of her intellectual Odyssey from liberal nationalism to Connolly Socialism became an outstanding debater.'^[14]

'Ideologies combine an evaluative and an empirical element in the diagnosis of social situations. Because of evaluative pressures, they tend towards selectivity and sometimes towards outright distortion, both in stating the case of the proponents and attacking that of the opponents. It is typical that the former are pictured as 'actuated by the highest of idealistic motives, while the latter are guided by the grossest forms of self-interest. That is, ideological definition of the situation tends to get drawn into the general polarization.'^[15]

'Revolutions take place when governments break down, not just by purposeful and heroic struggles from below. And those who fortunately seize the chance of power are, certainly in their ideologies and their historical writings too obsessed with themselves and their opportunities to understand the basic reasons for the decline of the old order.'^[16]

One of the few socialists imbued with a sense of self-criticism, Eamonn McCann, was to complain later of 'the transitory attractions of illusory mass influence.' He had seen the fundamental mistake made by the Left:

'When we were confronted with an audience tens of thousands strong our reaction was to abandon the attempt to win people if necessary in ones and twos to a hard political position, and instead to try to exert some general influence over a broad political movement.'^[17]

The months of decline and fragmentation following the general election indicated that it had fallen between two stools. It had lost mass student support and it had not found a working class base. It floundered around seeking a role, reacting to events and government policy rather than initiating radical alternatives. One exception may have been the march to Dublin at Easter though there is no strong evidence that PD was aware of its significance. The march highlighted two features in PD's development. One could be seen in the composition of the march itself; it was a conglomeration of left-wing activists extending from social reformers through traditional communists to Anarchists and Trotskvites. The concept of PD as an umbrella group was important in its development, a concept which has been noted elsewhere:

'Behind the surface of every modern youth movement lies a babel of tongues, a chaos of competing rubrics and prescriptions for the new social order, springing from the mass of more specific social interests and identities contained explosively within the chimera of the younger generation.'^[18]

The second feature was that PD demonstrated its all-Ireland character by marching to Dublin and by warning the Fianna Fail Government that it was not in the position to be critical of Northern politicians. It was the first Northern group to export the civil rights 'idea' to the South, and in its criticism of the parliamentary 'republican' party, Fianna Fail, illustrated that its (ie FF), Northern policy was a sham and that it was not prepared to govern a thirty-two county Ireland. It is much too early to quantify PD's contribution towards the growing dissatisfaction with politicians in the Irish Republic but there can be little doubt that it helped the export of agitation across the border^[20].

The events of August and September 1969 and the Free Belfast experiment showed that PD had become more irrelevant to the situation. It foisted itself upon a Catholic ghetto where it worked usefully articulating the fears and grievances of the people. But it was obvious that PD had been working in a vacuum and that it had to re-organise itself. In becoming a disciplined movement committed to Connollyite Socialism it pledged itself to the unity of the working class and immediately came up against the fundamental dilemma which faces all socialists in Belfast.

At no stage had it heeded the advice of Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien when he wrote:

'Now I think it is likely that these young people will find as the civil rights struggle develops, that religion is more important than they thought it was, and that historically formed suspicions and animosities are not quite so easy to dispel - even in themselves -as they now assume.'

That is not to say that PD became overtly sectarian. There are instances - from as early as April l969^[21] when PD has attacked Catholic sectarianism. After a weekend of serious rioting in Belfast in which some Protestants were killed at the end of June 1970, PD Central Committee issued a statement which said, among other things:

'The week-end incidents also show that sectarianism is not the monopoly of the Orange Order. Catholic bigotry and direct action to exploit sectarianism was rampant. Socialism must remain clearly opposed to the reactionary policies of the Green as well as the Orange militants. No one can be blasted into Socialism.'

PD's main error has already been mentioned by Talcott Parsons:

'. . . ideological definition of the situation tends to get drawn into the general polarization.' PD saw the solution to the Northern Ireland problem in a 'class-war.'

'. . . the coupling of socialism with Quebec independence is ethnic in a sense since . . . national lines coincide with economic lines and to soak the rich means to soak Anglo-Saxons.'^[22]

The New Left in PD compounded error upon error by adopting the Catholic working class as its agent for advancement. We have already seen that the central issue for the New Left has always been the one of agency:

'. . . which classes and strata in the society are more disposed towards active opposition to the status quo, what means of power can they exercise, and with what effect.'

In fact that was what happened: French students had made the same mistake:

'The workers were attached to the 'consumer society' the students wanted to destroy: only in isolated cases, specifically those where the bureaucratic representation of the trade unions was weakest or non-existent, did the students fulfil a sort of "vanguard" role, and then only in helping to formulate demands that were qualitatively radical (workers' control) but easily compromised by quantitative concessions (a wage rise whose maximum was fourteen per cent).^[23]

Conor Cruise O'Brien described PD's dilemma succintly. He criticised 'those who think it sufficient to conjure with the names of Tone and Connolly and pretend that revolutionary sloganeering based on the ideas associated with these names will in the present circumstances bring members of the Protestant and Catholic communities together.' He said slogans of this kind coming from Catholic ghettos in the North might be subjectively non-sectarian and socio-revolutionary but to most Protestants in the North including the Protestant working class they remained repellant and suggestive of attempted Catholic dominance.

The last word can be left with Michael Farrell - 'possibly the most determined political operator in Northern Ireland,' according to Eamonn McCann. He rejected Dr O'Brien's assertion: 'We're not concerned in the least justifying ourselves to people who have proved by their theory and action that they are not socialists.'^[24]

The arrogance of this reply typified an important factor in PD's failure - it lacked the ability to criticize itself and it refused the advice of potential allies. It might manage to struggle on for some time to come but it had condemned itself to the limbo world occupied by radical student movements elsewhere.

In a matter of months, the Civil Rights movement has succeeded in bringing its grievances to the notice of a sympathetic world. Its tremendous success to date has been due more to the brutal and repressive response of an arrogant regime than to any other single factor. The brief hard-fought campaign on the streets has exposed to the world, and to an embarrassed British government, the corrupt infra-structure of Unionist rule. It has shattered dramatically the self-confidence that has come from half a century's monopoly of power, and has rent the Unionist Party with internal strife. It is at this very moment, however, that the Civil Rights movement is in great danger of betrayal.

All who have worked so intensely over the past six months - and the few who have been diligent over the years - are tempted from sheer physical exhaustion to let up for the moment and be content with the sops so begrudgingly conceded under pressure. But this is the moment when the movement must maintain its impetus; when the advantages gained must be pressed home with greater urgency. To let up now would be nothing less than fatal. The Unionist regime, consolidated over the years, and entrenched at every level of society, has resources and machinery so powerful, that given any breathing space at all, it is capable of complete recovery. The recent speech of Captain O'Neill, which was written by Dr Doyle in 1822, exactly 146 years ago, and addressed to 'the deluded and illegal association of Ribbonmen' is having the very same effect on public conscience as the Bishop's pastoral had in his day. This must not be allowed; and just as Dr Doyle failed in the end to discredit the Ribbonmen, the Buachailli Bana, and the right of the people to possess the land, so must all those active in the Civil Rights movement continue to maintain pressure, and, in the course of time, make the name of O'Neill as repugnant as that of Dr Doyle's is in our own.

At the same time a new danger, and from within the movement itself, must also be recognised. This comes from those who appeal for moderation. Their voice grows daily louder, and unfortunately, is being heeded. But theirs is the voice that was so long silent over the years when injustices were the normal pattern of life in Northern Ireland; and they who cry loudest are the false champions of old who seek only to assert their former power. They, like the Unionists, fear change most for what it means to their privileges.

But to return to the present campaign, however, it must be pointed out that it is very doubtful if marches, as such, will achieve much more than what has been won to date. The time of year is also against them and an unfavourable public reaction is not unlikely. To continue a programme of marching, and nothing else, shows not only a paucity of ideas but would perhaps be pushing luck too far. That is not to say that marches should be abandoned but rather that they should be an adjunct in a more positive programme, and their timing and location planned in accordance with the strategy of that programme.

Marches to date have achieved another important end; they have shaken the people out of their lethargy and made them aware of their own strength. A new spirit has been born, and with it, an eagerness to participate in the struggle for civil and social reform. Goodwill exists that was never seen before. To sit back now and do nothing, to merely wait for a reluctant government to concede reforms would not only be rank stupidity but would be the very betrayal of the people's trust. A new programme and more positive action is an urgent necessity. Such a programme could be 'Civil Disobedience.'

To most of us the words 'civil disobedience' conjure up the post-war resistance of the Indian people to British over-lordship. It brings to mind the Land war and the Young Irelanders of the last century, and, in more recent times the Negro resistance in the United States.

But Civil Disobedience must always be adapted to the local scene. An overall plan for universal application is not possible and just how and when any co-ordinated action of disobedience can be effectively implemented in Northern Ireland will require the advice of experts. Nor will these specialists be required only to educate the mass of the people in such a programme but also to guide and advise the activists in the Civil Rights movement itself who are, perhaps, as equally ignorant of the know-how and the potentialities of a positive and integrated civil disobedience programme.

The following remarks are by no means intended as a programme and are suggested more as a guide line, high-lighting some of the more obvious actions in such a programme. It must be stressed, that in order to be wholly effective, a campaign of civil disobedience should be initiated only in those specific areas where success can reasonably be guaranteed, that is, it should be restricted to areas where the mass of the people, by their concerted effort, with a common and equal interest at heart, can give it their united and full hearted support. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the isolated protest of Professor Huxley, for example, in his declaration of intent to withold payment of taxes is to be disdained. To quote Fintan Lalor:

'Somewhere, and somehow, and by somebody, a beginning must be made. Who strikes the first blow?'

It remains, for such rural areas as Tyrone, .Fermanagh and South Armagh, and specifically the urban districts of Derry, Newry and Dungannon, for example, to initiate and implement the new campaign.

A passive form of disobedience would be the delayed payment of rates and taxes for the maximum length of time. Were this to be organised on a large scale in an entire city, or even in a housing estate in one of the ghettos, its consequences could be significant.

Of more importance, is a policy of active civil disobedience which can best be summarised under the following:-

1. Boycott and Ostracism.
2. Industrial Strike.
3. Hunger Strike.
4. Non-payment of rates and taxes.
5. Disruption of Public Transport.
6. Picketing.
7. Squatting.
8. Disruption of Civic Weeks.
9. Organisation of Unemployed.
10. Local Elections based on Universal Adult Franchise.
11. Seizure sod Occupation of Public Buildings.
    

To deal with these specifically:-

(1) Boycott has been successful in the past and is still one of the most powerful forms of pressure in that it requires little or no sacrifice on the part of those who use it while severely crippling the victim. It can be used against the small firm or businessman, for example, who is aggressively engaged in perpetuating undemocratic practices against his fellow citizens. The larger businessman can best be hurt at trade union level but is not necessarily immune to boycott.

Allied to boycott is ostracism, older in time than the boycott and for centuries the only form of punishment that could be executed in an Ireland that had no police force or means of punishment. John D Stewart recently declared his intention to adopt a form of ostracism when he publicly stated that he would no longer associate with any person who openly professed the right-wing Unionist view, and not only would he turn down public engagements where such people were likely to gather, but he would leave any company which included such people. This was a brave declaration, by a very brave man, whose sole means of income depends to a large extent on the goodwill of those who control communication media and who, for the most part are those very people corrupted or pressurised by right-wing Unionism. In recent years he has suffered materially for having expressed his honest opinions in that the TV medium, a source of income, is now virtually closed to him. In fact, a form of ostracism has been, and is continuing to be used against him. Like Professor Huxley he too fights a lone battle. They, both of them show an example in courage.

(2) Industrial strike: This is probably the most effective weapon of all and possibly the most difficult to evoke. One can only despair at hearing of demarcation disputes, however legitimate, when considered against the background of disinterest shown when a man's religion or political affiliation is a barrier to his obtaining employment. It is disheartening, therefore, when on the verge of a breakthrough, when the Dockers, the Factory girls and others from the Maydown Estate came out, with loss of pay, and marched for democracy through the streets of Derry, they were hastily ushered off the scene by the Derry Action Committee, the very people who set themselves up to be the arbitrators of the people.

(3) Hunger strike: Another form of protest that comes through the centuries from the Brehon Code down to the present day. This should be the final act of peaceful protest after all other means have been exploited. The classical example in modern times was the supreme protest of Terence McSwiney when, true to his words - 'Not all the armies of all the world can conquer the spirit of one true man, and that one man will prevail,' he focussed world attention on the Ireland of his day. No other single factor at that period made more impact on British public opinion. His hunger strike brought an end to the Black and Tan reign of terror.

(4) Non-payment of Rates: Most people even in a normal democratic society are loath to pay rates at the best of times. It should not be difficult, therefore, to persuade a majority to withold payment altogether, or better still, to pay them into the account of a Citizens' Committee to be held in trust for the people until such time as a democratic council or corporation is elected.

(5) Disruption of Public Transport: This can be brought about by various means. There can, for instance be total boycott as was done in one city in America with the result that the local Transport Company, brought to near-bankruptcy, was forced to yield to the demands of the protesting negro population.

Another tactic is the mass sit-down in a city or town centre, or at strategic junctions. This could be augmented by sympathetic motorists converging on such areas at peak traffic hours. This tactic has the additional effect of disrupting the normal business of a city or town.

The People's Democracy very recently annoyed Belfast Corporation when they implemented a scheme of bus-fares. Their gallant effort, in spite of a lot of goodwill from bus crews, failed from lack of public support; but that is not to say that as a tactic it should be abandoned. It is still very much one to be considered for future action in the appropriate area.

(6) Picketing: Although the most common form of protest, picketing is not always taken seriously. Its success would seem to depend to a big extent on the element of surprise, on its unexpectedness as when, for example, the Young Socialists picketed Crumlin Road Gaol.

For the most part, however, picketing seems to take place when the issue of protest is no longer news. It seldom makes news. It can be, and often is, effective. Genuine grievances have, in fact, been highlighted by picketing alone. As a form of protest it is easily organised and simple to execute; but it could and should take a more aggressive form.

(7) Squatting: This has been going on spasmodically for a number of years but it was not until Austin Currie with the aid of TV proved that it could effectively be used as a propaganda weapon. The Derry Housing Action Committee has been doing more frequently and for a longer period of time what Austin Currie did in a single day and achieved less from the point of view of rousing public conscience. That is not to say, however, that the efforts of the Derry Housing Action Committee and the Derry Labour Party are not successful. A recent court case when a fine of only one shilling was imposed was, in a way, a sympathetic gesture from the bench, and a measure of their success in this humanitarian field.

There was a token occupation of flats in London last month which gained national network TV coverage. Neither the Derry Housing Action Committee nor the Derry Labour Party got little or any publicity at all. That is a pity. These people, in concerning themselves in a practical programme solely of housing the needy have not time, it seems, to pay any attention to establishing a TV image. Be that a failure or not, the good work they are doing must not only be continued, but be encouraged as well. In any overall programme of civil disobedience such bodies as the Derry Housing Action Committee must play an essential part and all the machinery of publicity exploited for their support. The expertise of this and all other housing committees must equally be made available to everyone actively concerned with civil and social reform throughout Northern Ireland.

(8) Civic Weeks: The civic week with its false picture of a happily integrated community rollicking in a prosperous Unionist paradise must be exposed for the lie that it is - an O'Neill inspired gimmick designed to entice the entire community into the Unionist fold. The committees for these weeks are Unionist dominated and their programmes Unionist orientated. Very often these civic weeks are used to promote recruiting for HM Forces. But the mass of the people, ecumenically minded, are only too anxious to participate for the sake of good neighbourliness. For one week in the year they are allowed to get together, then it's back to the ghettos for another twelve months.

There is no doubt that the egotism of O'Neill will drive him in the forthcoming year into an even greater promotion of his PEP brainchild. This he must not be allowed to do. Civic weeks must be boycotted. 'No civic weeks without civil rights' must be our answer to O'Neill. The lick-spittle Nationalists who do not appear to resent O'Neill's sneering at our Gaelic traditions, and who feel privileged to be allowed to participate must be denounced for what they are - a gutless, unprincipled lot just as capable of exploiting the people as their Unionist counterparts.

When in t967, Danny Moore protested on the steps of Newry Town Hall against the local civic week being used for recruiting, he received a month's imprisonment. His case barely merited notice in the press far less than produce an outburst of indignation from an outraged Nationalist front.

(9) Local Elections based ha on Universal Adult Franchise: In every area where a Unionist minority returns a Unionist majority that election must be regarded as null and void and rejected by the electorate. An election committee, therefore, should be set up to organise a new election based on universal adult franchise and this election should be seen to be carried out dramatically, the co-operation of the entire electorate being sought. A council so elected, (the Council of the Majority) having a clear mandate from the people, should assume office immediately, should occupy the local town hall and proceed to carry out its functions of office. This will result in a situation where two rival councils will be in existence at the one and the same time, the Council of the Minority and the Council of the Majority. The people should be encouraged to recognise only one, that is, the Council of the Majority, and all local rates and taxes be paid to it alone.

(10) Organisation of the Unemployed: For the present, at least; there would appear to no direct end towards which the unemployed should be organised for civil disobedience unless it be along such lines as a citizens' police force to protect demonstrators and property, and to give aid to squatting families. Another function they could usefully serve could be in the capacity of election personnel.

Eamon Melaugh and Matt O'Leary of Derry have already organised the setting up of an Unemployed Action Committee with the sole purpose of looking after the interests of the unemployed. The advice of this committee should be sought at this stage.

In conclusion, it must be stressed, that even if the civil rights movement is not at present contemplating a programme of civil disobedience, it is still the clear duty of those who are directing the movement to be aware, at least, of the full scope and potentialities of such a programme. From this very moment, by lecture, symposium, and public meeting, the general public should be educated in all its aspects in order to be prepared if and when the occasion should arise that there is no alternative other than civil disobedience. That time could be very close.

The purpose of this talk is primarily to stimulate and promote an interest in the subject.

21st December, 1968.

Since the above talk was given the courageous march of the People's Democracy to Derry has made the need for more knowledge of civil disobedience a matter of urgency. It is to be hoped, that this paper will be used to further the interests of civil disobedience.

As a foot-note to marches, it seems almost unfair to expect people to come out and march if they are to be left defenceless against organised and well-armed thugs. Is it not time that marchers were defended - not by stewards - but by a volunteer body of citizens' police?

Aims:
The aim of the People's Democracy is the establishment of a socialist system of society in Ireland and throughout the world. The first step towards that objective is the establishment of a Workers' and Small Farmers Republic in the 32 counties of Ireland, But, since complete socialism cannot be established in any one country, or so long as the great imperialist powers like the USA remain capitalist, the PD will readily co-operate and render every assistance to socialists in all other countries.

Believing that both parts of Ireland today suffer from the twin evils of capitalism and imperialism the PD is firmly committed to the removal of British troops and Anglo-American economic control from Ireland, and to breaking the stranglehold of grasping native capitalists over the Irish people.

The Workers' Republic will be a society in which all natural resources, major industries and financial institutions will be publicly owned and jointly controlled by those who work in them, or use their products. It will guarantee to each citizen a home, a livelihood and a job, plus an adequate medical and educational service. It will encourage the development of cultural activities and end the tyranny of commercialism over art and culture. Believing that progress can only come about through intellectual freedom and the right to question the established order, the Workers' Republic will also guarantee to all its Citizens freedom of political and religious belief and freedom to disseminate political and religious views, It will not grant a special position or privileges to any religious group. The Workers' Republic will be based on a mutual respect for the different cultural tendencies in Ireland, and will work to create one unified community out of a synthesis of what is best in the different traditions in Ireland, rather than by the destruction of one tradition by another.

The Workers' Republic will be a thoroughly democratic society in which governmental functions will be shared by representatives elected on a territorial basis by all citizens over 18 and by delegates from councils of workers, tenants and farmers. All public representatives will be subject to re-call and re-election by their constituents. As much decision-making as possible will be devolved from the centre to local factory councils, tenants associations and farmers' co-operatives.

Methods of Achievement:
The PD believes that the Workers' Republic can only be achieved with the consent of the majority of the Irish people. The PD hopes to win that support by building a mass political organisation throughout Ireland committed to the establishment of the Workers' Republic and totally opposed to both Green and Orange Toryism, and to sham Labourism. This organisation will work for the immediate improvement of the conditions of the working class and small farmers, but will constantly attempt to show that only a socialist society can ultimately free working people from poverty and want and give them the opportunity to develop their personality to the fullest extent.

To secure its Objectives the PD will use both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary means as appropriate. Recognising also that grasping employers and exploiting imperialist powers rarely give up their ill-gotten gains without a struggle and that the law, the police and the imperialist troops constantly defend the exploiters, the PD will not be intimidated by the threat of force and recognises that a certain degree of counter force may be necessary to carry Out the wishes of the people.

While anxious to stimulate increased political awareness and political activity among working people, the PD recognises that haphazard and directionless activity will not overthrow the highly-organised forces of imperialism and capitalism. A well-organised political movement with a clear political strategy, whose members have a sound understanding of socialist theory, is the best weapon of the working class in the struggle for socialism.

Immediate Demands:
The PD believes that the following measures are necessary both immediately to improve the living conditions of the working class and to lay the foundations of the Workers' Republic by wresting control of the economy from the profiteers and exploiters. Some of these measures could be taken by a socialist administration. The PD will campaign for the implementation of this programme both by harrassing the existing government and by winning the public support necessary to socialism to come to power. These measures could be applied in the 26 Counties as in the 6 Counties.