struggle took place in Dublin last weekend.
with People's Democracy.
The new organisation Democracy title struggle in Ireland.
the latest edition of newspaper of the fused organisation.
Democracy October 1968. Its prime movers Were Young Socialist Alliance, formed in Belfast in June 1968.
On 5 October 1968, 40 YSA supporters went to the Civil Kights march in Derry and were in the front rank when the RUC baton-charged the protesters.
COME Gays outraged students tried march from Queens University to the City Hall in Belfast, but were stopped by the RUC. The students were frustrated and demoralised.
VIGOUR YA members took iminauve and proposed the establishment of a permanent Civil Rights organisation. The People's Democracy was born.
PD was a mass democratic organisation modelled on the student/worker assemblies in Paris earlier in the year. The organisation was naive the vigour, energy and flair of the Paris upsurge.
PD quickly became driving force of the Civil Rights struggle, participating countless marches and protests, and turning out a constant stream of leaflets and posters.
Most dramatic was Belfast to Derry march January 1969, organised by PD and viciously attacked Loyalist and state forces Socialist Challenge 30 November 1978 Page 10 THE FIRST major fusion between two left-wing groups that Ireland has seen in the last ten years of The Movement for a Socialist Republic, the Irish section of the Fourth International, has joined forces is adopting the 'Socialist was notably at Burntollet just a few miles from Derry. The following month eight PD candidates polled 23,000 votes in the Northern Ireland general election.
BARRICADES
In August 1969 the Stormont LOVCEHTHCHI unleashed RUC, B Specials and Paisleyite 3,000 gangs to antack une carnonc to shettos of Bellast pond Derry, people responded setting up barricades set up Belfast' and produced a daily resistance paper. Both boosted morale in the ghettos and PD its first real roots in West the Two months later formally committed itself to a Workers Republic and moved awav from the University to establish itself in working class It also established Free Citizen as a regular weekly and journal of agitation propaganda.
LEADING the Over the organisation continued to play a leading role in the Civil Rights struggle well economic and social questions, both in the North and South. In a sort of unintentional of compliment to the organisation eight PD members were among by those interned in August 1971.
The paper changed its name to the Bridge, BEne *Rádio Free Movement contingent.
Unfree Citizen, and members of the organisation took leading role in organising rent PD and rate strikes in the first vital weeks after internment. / In November 1971, PD took the lead Northern Resistance ment, which took the struggle back to the streets and raised the clear and demand to smash Stormont.
PD worked
Provisional Sinn Fein in setting up the NRM, thus becoming year the the first socialist organisation to reject the then fashionable critique of the Provos as green as raising fascists.
Instead, along with Revolutionary Marxist Group (forerunner of the MSR), PD insisted that the Provos were a Following the suspension of Stormont in March 1972, PD months.
But the the Move- government by the uncertainty forward. closely By of hundred was set up Cine the SDLP.
was by anti-imperialist forces be ON 2,500 participated in the Prisoners Aid Committee march in London on Sunday. The march was in solidarity with Irish prisoners and two thirds of the demonstrators marched in the United Troops Out kept up a hectic pace of rallies position, and marches for the next nine demoralsanon overthrow of Stormont, the ceasefire by the Provos which followed, and the collaboration with the British reformist •Democratic & Labour Party all sowed confusion and But about CLIC way direction, Loyalist mid-1973, support for WHICHE marches was down to a couple hard-line A power-snaring executive in January 1974, with the full participation of When was brought down in May 1974 it Loyalists, not the the For the rest of 1974 and most of 1975 the Loyalists appeared Can alL!
consolidating their SHUELIC and there was among minority in the North.
Countering the arguments of the Provisionals, PD insisted that victory was not at hand; the the organisation also warned against flirtations with "working class Loyalists.
Herring In the other PD argued that a take-over imAt the beginning of 1976, when it was becoming clear that there could be no immediate political differences within PD came to a neac ane mere was a senous split in the organisation.
This was partly over the make take-over theory, partly over correct relationship between the Republican military and the overall The organisation was seri ously weakened by the split.
EVCI LOO" important initiatives PD was among the first organisations to raise the question of British plans to remove political status, and in May 1976 members of PD participated in the establishment of the Relatives Action Committee.
However there was still little support for mass struggle, and it wasn't until late 1977 that the tempo of popular protest again began to increase.
REPRESSION It was in October 1977 that PD and the MSR voted at separate conferences to begin discussions on fusion Both organisations played an SON important part in the Coalisland anti-repression conJanuary 1978 Attended by 700 people, this showed once more the potential support for a united campaign against repression.
The increasing mass demonstrations over the nine months have been further indications of that potential -demonstrations in which PD and the MR have participated and in which they have argued value of united front activity.
CONFIDENT The anti-imperialist movement, and PD with it, has come through the worst period of isolation and demoralisation. In the words of PD:
•We are confident that in a fused organisation the MSR, and in co-operation with fraternal Marxist organisations Fourth International, we will equally vital contribution to struggle as we have made in the past.
hope well to contribute to that struggle's ultimate victory
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- a name which has a rich history of This history of PD is taken from a longer article in Republic',