Fourteen months ago I defended the Offi- the artificial nature of the Stormont junta, It is necessary not only to maintain the cial Republicans in a reply to a letter from a leading militant of the People's Democracy, Gerry Ruddy. I particularly condemned the misleading, and distorted version of your policies contained in Gerry's letter. I still think that I was right to attempt to break through the propaganda image of your movement which Gerry presented, and to discuss the real significance of the political differences between PD and the Official Republican Movement. I now find it necessary to write in defence of PD against the much more distorted and misleading article which appeared in the December issue of The United Irishman under the heading *PD Ally With Provisionals Against NICRA".
The article concerns the conference at Omagh which set up the "Northern Ireland Resistance Committee". It quotes a statement from the Six County Regional Executive of the Republican Clubs as follows:"It is regrettable that certain elements should now decide to attempt once more to subvert and smash the NICRA as they tried and failed to do in the past. We refer to the establishment of the Northern Ireland Resistance Committee, which was red in Omagh on Sunday by the same bo attempted to take over NICRA in eral weeks ago. The formation of purpose other ti disobedienc to the : the s ment armoury This is a serious political statement, and it needs to be backed up with analysis and facts. d the article proceeds to slander PD, ассць ing them of acting consciously in the incrests of the Blaney/Haughey wing of Fianna Fail, and in concert with Aidan Corrigan of the Provisionals:.... Now, it appears, the PD has joined the ranks of those who can be bought by Fianna Fail gold.
The Fianna Fail agents, Corrigan and Farrell, cloaked their sinister activities in a call for broader representation....
It further quotes the Six County Executive statement:"Now, as in the past Mr. Corrigan's motives are suspect, as also are those of Mr. Michael Farrell and the People's Democracy, who are courting the Provisionals in an attempt to win the poli tical influence for themselves which they failed to do within NICRA.
Why is it necessary to impugn the integrity of PD and Michael Farrell? Corrigan's SDLP is trying to retain the old corrupt, past is indeed murky, but this does not prove that the PD are acting on behalf of Fianna Fail. Can you show one scrap of evidence to prove that the PD are in receipt of "Fianna Fail gold"? Can you show any reason why PD should now become corrupt? If you were to make a detailed political criticism of the PD, if you were to show inconsistencies and errors in their present policies this would be legitimate; but to use such slanders is a severe biow to the struggle in the North, and ought to be rejected by every Republican who has any respect for the memory of Tone, Pearce and Connolly. The leadership of the struggle in the North is now faced with a series of extremely difficult problems, which are without precedent in the history of Ireland. These problems are the result of the tremendous sharpening of the crisis since the introduction of internment, and the totally new tasks which are faced. The Catholie minority has opted out of the Northern State, its civil disobedience campaign is exposing and combined with military action against the British Army, and the Northern State forces it is capable of destroying any further pretence by the Unionists to be able to maintain a stable government. The minority can smash Stormont, but the split at the Dungannon conference of the CRA, which led to the Omagh conference was caused by different answers to this question amongst the participants. By polemicising against PD in such a vicious and slanderous way the Official Republicans cut across any real discussion, and can only add to the kind of confusion and disunity which they purport to deplore.
No answer to this problem is to be found in the pages of the December United Irishman, It is not even discussed, nor is it discussed in the preceding November issue. The October issue did put forward a tentative formulation of a "properly democratic autonomous administration" to replace Stormont, but this was left as a formless abstraction. We are entitled to ask: comrades what is your policy? And we are entitled to take seriously the contributions of those who do put forward a policy.
The urgency of the problem mounts with every day that Hume, Fitt and the SDLP maintain the Dungiven "Parliament". Their policy is absolutely clear, and is shown by the make-up of their assembly; the fact that it is composed of councillors and Stormont MPs is no mere whim. The street-corner-politician type of political representation for the minority. The fragmentation and despair of the minority had always led them to elect these opportunists, who retained their positions through a combination of patronage, and demagogy. The Dungiven assembly reflects the former political backwardness of the minority, and their failure to develop a strong political movement. Since the launching of the Civil Disobedience campaign they have demonstrated clearly that they have broken from this political backwardness. Dungiven represents only the past of the Catholic people, it has nothing to offer for their future. But it exists, and is a potential factor in the situation; if the civil disobedience campaign begins to flag, if the military resistance falters there is danger that the minority could turn back to the Fitts and Humes, who would use their support as a bargaining counter for a negotiated sell-out with British Imperialism. impetus of the resistance, but to give the minority a clear lead, and a viable perspective about the outcome of their struggle, only in this way can they be expected to maintain their present level of militancy and self-sacrifice. It is not sufficient to limit the aims of the civil disobedience campaign to the ending of internment, the repeal of the Special Powers Act, and the withdrawal of troops from the national areas. The demands which revolutionaries pose must be capable of taking the people forward, beyond the present state structure; they must constantly reiterate the fact that there can be no justice under Stormont, and there can be no guarantee of Stormont's destruction without the construction of an alternative state based on the mass of the people.
The Official Republicans should learn from the experience of the civil disobedience movement; before the internment crisis they had emphasised the need to retain Stormont, albeit in a "democratised" form, and had counterposed this to the Provisional's policy of smashing Storcial Republicans were behind the mass of the Catholic minority, and had to make a rapid political turn. By limiting the demands of the civil disobedience campaign they could find themselves behind the people again. The minority have gone through important experiences in the last three years, not the least of which was the period behind the barricades in Derry and Belfast in 1969, when they administered their own communities. To pose an alternative to Stormont is not to go very far beyond what they already understand.
Both the PD and the Provisionals have attempted to put forward a strategy for an alternative to Stormont, and it is this which motivated the Omagh conference. It would have been far better for the United Irishman to have discussed these clearly stated policies and to have shown why they are considered to be wrong, than to confuse the issues with foolish slander.
PD's position was stated most clearly in the Unfree Citizen of Oct. 8th 1971 in an article entitled "Where We Are Going" which analysed the basis of the crisis, and attempted to sketch in the next stages of the struggle. There is a lot I would disagree with in this analysis, particularly its stress on the impossibility of a united Ireland emerging from the present strug gle, and the fact that the PD strategy is for "drastie reform" within the context of the six counties. I think that the PD is still bound up with the limitations of a strategy confined to the six county area, and that the burning question for revolutionaries is how the mass of the workers and small farmers in the 26 counties can be drawn into the struggle against their triple enemies British imperialism, the Unionists and the Free State government. But the key factor in our attitude to PD is the role which it is playing now in the struggle, It has plunged into work in the ghettoes, attempting to build and knit together the civil resistance committees, street by street, and town by town; they have shed a lot of their former abstract ideas, which led them to counterpose working class "unity" to the actual struggle. I solidarise with their courageous work, in face of repression, and with their contribution to the struggle of the minority.
The Provisionals also have a clear policy, embodied in the work they are doing to build Dail Uladh and Dail Chonnacht, which are an attempt to create an alternative administration to, not only Stormont. In the wake of internment the Offi- mont, but Leinster House, since Dail Uladh involves the three counties of Ulster which are within the Free State; and the creation of Dail Chonnachat for the Province of Connaught, which includes the oppressed Irish speaking minority. The fact that the Provisionals pose these assemblies "from the top", and they provide no clear way of linking them to the mass of the people, does not detract from the fact that the building of local civil resistance committees could create the content which would bring life to the form of Dail Uladh. The backwardness of the leadership of the Provisionals on political questions, and their lack of understanding of what socialism means could hold back develop ments, but this is all the more reason for those who do have a better understanding to participate in the building of the civil resistance movement.
I would not like to be misunderstood. I think that as a revolutionary in Britain I have to give unconditional support to all who are involved in the struggle against British imperialism in Ireland. British revolutionaries have to continue to support the Official Republicans, and NICRA, whatever disagreements they may have with them. But it is also important to develop a dialogue between British and Irish revolutionaries about the course of the struggle, that is why it is essential to intervene in the dispute over the Omagh conference. My experience of the militants of the Official Republican Move. ment leads me to expect better of them than the article which I have referred to, that is why I challenge them: substantiate your allegations about PD or withdraw them. Give us some ideas about how you see the struggle developing, in particular what you see as the alternative to Stormont. If you continue with such methods of debate, and continue to give no leadership on these problems the immediate beneficiaries will be the SDLP, and through them British imperialism. We do not need to point out the demoralising effects this would have on the consciousness of the oppressed minority.
Yours for the Irish Revolution, Bob Purdie. • Glossary: •SDLP: Social Democratic & Labour Party NICRA: Northern Ireland Civil Rights Assn. FIANNA FAIL: Governing Bourgeois Party in the South.
STORMONT: Northern Irish Parliament House LEINSTER HOUSE: Southern Irish ULADH: Ulster CHONNACHT: Connaught,