Political Policing.Special Measures and Extra-Judicial Executions

Political Policing 

Special Measures and Extra-Judicial Executions 


Fourth Edition

(Adapted from the Third Edition with additional material from 1998,1999, 2000,2001, 2002 and 2003)

©Joseph Paul McCarroll L.L.B 2001,2002, 2003, 2014,2018,2019,2020,2021, 2022,2023

Who are the ‘Players’?

“Recruit those to whom life has been unkind”, (General Sudplatov quoted in The KGB by Brian Barron, Pan,1978)

Up Close and Personal

One of the most insidious and subtle activities of the police and military in a crisis is to arrange “street scenes” with the socialists. Since the late 1930s the old Communists have protested at these “street scenes with fascists”. The name is to deceive, confuse and neutralize the radical workers. This “targeting” of “key players” is accompanied by sleep deprivation inside and outside jail and physical attacks on radicals in and beyond the workplace. Radical sentiment is, by and large, not the product of the isolated socialist cells or of leading individuals -  it is more often the outcome of a crisis in the accumulation of capital which can only be understood by linking the national economy to the world market.

On the streets, the militant labour activists of the 1980's met the freaks of nature in such a brilliant array of extremes and opposites that they called it “Barnum and Baileys” after the famous American circus troupe. In the 1930s, violent fascist thugs were sent by the political police and military to confront the nationalist-socialist party.

In the 1990s  the leaders of the socialist workers in Dublin met the same caricatures of comrades, republican heroes, British soldiers, sporting celebrities, former republican prisoners and activists in such circumstances as to imply a “resonance” for themselves. Sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes heavier, sometimes thinner -  the authorities drew on their wide pick of personnel and associates to create these captivating impressions, reminders of the past and portents of the future.

To achieve a result and the proper impression, revolutionaries were isolated beforehand and afterwards subjected to violent assault by the Dublin “gougers” (the cutthroats). Sleep deprivation can only be practiced under these conditions with the assistance of the bribed gutter proletarians and thieves. Everywhere in the south, the Neighbourhood Watch mobilized the eager householders to slam shut their doors as the ‘target’ approached.

The art of ‘targeting’ developed in Germany before socialism was put on a scientific basis using old police tricks learned from the anti-Semites who hated the Jews with a vengeance. The soundalikes, lookalikes etc.are identified by Military Intelligence and political police from their files and intelligence gathering. They call this, in total, “all kinds of sensory information”.  The term “Erkenntnisse” ("things that put one in the mind of something else", German) sums up these phenomena perfectly.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation exploited the decline of the Northern physical force party in 1984 to employ more subtle yet brutal methods of drug disorientation. Fortnight magazine (January 1985, Belfast) recorded their assistance to the northern police. This magazine omitted to describe the use of lysergic acid (LSD) as a matter of routine to incapacitate the Northern radicals as the movement went political (William Sargent, Battle for The Mind, Penguin, 1972). The US authorities have been publicly shown to have experimented with LSD on prisoners and soldiers in the 1950s.Tthe United States government agencies are the main exponents of psychological operations (“psyops”) and have gathered in the accumulated experience of many countries. The FBI hounds musicians, writers, actors, playwrights, producers and political activists of every conceivable hue when it judges them to be “communists”. The English military authorities ‘target’ those whom they believe are “a threat to the security of the state”, a geometrically expanding multitude.

While the American songwriters may plead “Stay away from my window, leave at your own chosen pace …”  the friends of the socialist movement warn “Keep your head down!” and “The rush-ons are coming! The rush-ons are coming!”. On the street during the months of targeting, one is privy to “overheard conversations” and estimates of the numerical strength of the socialists. Likewise, in shared accommodation, De te fabula narratur, Marx said of such allegorical tales.

One thing is certain: these riff-raff are not productive workers, they exist at the expense of society. Throwing shapes will never avail them.

“Unauthorised Publishers” - A Problem for Socialists

“He fell victim to a shot, his agency was soon forgot” (Christy Moore, The Ballad of Farmer Michael Hayes, 1978)

Ever since the retreat of socialism in the 1930s, revolutionary socialists have been at the receiving end of the attention of the police and the military intelligence - informer rabble who attempt to combat the influence and spread of socialist organisation.

From the Smith Act trials in the 1920s and 1950s in the United States to the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Communists in Indonesia in 1965 an unrelenting campaign of vilification, harassment and intimidation has been pursued by the United States /NATO leadership.

In quieter times and in backwaters such as Ireland, more subtle (yet, paradoxically brutal) methods have been put in place by the state. The agency of repression is carried out by the unproductive classes: house-breakers,  thieves, billyboys, cutthroats, pimps, former male prostitutes, former policemen, vagrants, registered “aliens”, ambitious psychiatric nurses, bankrupts, promoters, Catholic school managers, millionaire state narcotics dispensers, dealers in prescribed drugs on the street, waifs, newsagents, the cast-off mistresses of the aristocracy, penniless daughters of the landlords and unemployed ‘actors’ and ‘actresses’. This riff-raff are organised by the police to give the “news” to the socialists.

In their “Spiel”, movements of waves, colours, lights and sensations give way to violent attacks when their “moral pressure” to censor, isolate and “neutralise” socialists no longer avail.

As the number of the Church faithful has steadily waned and the forces of manufacture and Industry grown, so has the quantity and quality of these “players”. When met with resistance, these  riff-raff have shrunk away and the uniformed (and armed) police have stepped into their station. When pressure of the mob proved too much for the police, the soldiery has been sent in by the politicians in aid to the civil power.

Socialists endeavour not to respond to provocation but, truth be told, the attempts to disperse the rabble has dissuaded their police masters from running any police 'play' in the North of Ireland for more than three decades.

The drone of helicopters, the hum of taxi engines and the blight of constant police surveillance has taken the place of what radicals loosely call “informers”. In the south, the old methods are still practiced against those who have traditionally inspired opposition to the state censorship and private property.

Of late, international socialists have been hauled before the courts as the mask of mutual agency has slipped off in the south.

 (In 1986, this author maintained a meticulous record of daily and weekly expenditure in a notebook, which he left his London lodgings. I never published this notebook - it was for personal calculations only. The authorities had, however, taking an interest in matters. In late 1986, the Catholic Chaplaincy in Camden Town - known as the Irish Hostel - published their estimate of the weekly expenses of living in London. These living expenses amounted to  £96 per week. This was the exact amount calculated by the author in his notebook.

A strange coincidence, perhaps?)

Economic Damage

It is a well-known truth that the police regard radical labour activists as a collection of individual lawbreakers. They never see, an economic or social crisis developing and see the socialist party as an aggregate of ‘malcontents’ and “terrorists”. They often send in to the socialist movement the cast-off mistresses of the old rulers of society to wear out the ‘key’ organisers with their constant carping and attention seeking. When a radical movement is “getting too big to handle” they also endeavour to cause it “economic damage” i.e. force it into bankruptcy. The taste for tittle tattle, gossip and bankruptcy proceedings display no scientific appraisal of the socialists as products of objective (economic) and subjective (political) conditions.

Experienced radicals must therefore verify the claims of “spouters” by investigation.

In terms of finance - the radical labour party has to avoid running up liabilities. This is the task of the party as a whole and, in particular, of the servants of the party who mann telephones and officers - the party officials (or secretariat).

Intellectual Property Rights

Speaking on RTE Radio One’s series on globalisation on the 11th of November 2001, the head of the World Trade Organisation, Sutherland, claimed that the production of cheap generic anti-AIDS drugs was “extremely dangerous” for the profits of the billionaire drugs monopolies. Generic drugs are those medicines which are produced in dependent countries to the same chemical formulae of the drugs giant without a payment for the use of the formulae to the patent holders. The World Trade Organisation organises the world market for the capitalists and its warnings are to be taken seriously - as threats. China recently joined the WTO to boost its exports of commodities.

The recognition of “intellectual property rights” is being forced onto the dependent and weak economic nations by the United States, Japan and western European powers through the WTO. The term “intellectual property rights” has sinister connotations for socialists.

In the early 1980s and early 1990s, the audio recording of copyright music performances was used as a pretext to incite the filthy, greasy, drug-crazed criminals, smackheads and heroin dealers against radical socialists and revolutionary socialists and communists in Dublin. Violent attacks and sensory deprivation, including sleep deprivation were carried out under the auspices of the Musical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), a front for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The pretext for the attacks of cutthroats and criminal scum was the innocent recording of charity concerts.

Firstly, no recording of copyright auditory material which bears the stamp of the MCPS. Secondly, no purchase of material, which bears this impress and thirdly, a boycott of all music and video shops which sell material bearing the MCPS impress!

The price of production of a compact disc is about 25 pence.

Die Spiel

Aberglauben und Pest,

Volle Strassen, Leere Strassen,

Ruhe und, Larm und Streit,

Staub und Schrott,

Hunger und Not, Not und Armut, Armut und Elend

The military “targeting” of revolutionaries (or “occult intelligence”, as Marx put it, Capital, Volume 1, Introduction) has been a feature of state repression since the emergence of socialism in the 19th century. Where terrorism, arrests, imprisonment and fear of assassination or fatal “accidents” fail to deter, the army steps in with more subtle, more brutal methods (Massnahmen, Measures, German Abwehr).

The role of a military intelligence officer is to gather “all types of sensory information” about revolutionaries. This means visual appearances, traits, mannerisms, features, manner of speech, verbal cognates and so on. Then the search begins for lookalikes, soundalikes etc. from the ranks of the soldiers, their families and those compromised by the police, namely, criminals and the lumpen proletariat.

After a process of selection and acquisition of clothing such as worn by the revolutionaries (and vehicles of the same mark and colour where the ‘target’ is mobile), the ‘racing’ of soldiers and police through the streets when their ‘target’ appears in the morning can begin. Speed-up (or “The rush-ons are coming!" as  Irish military intelligence calls it) is followed by frosty responses from barmen, shop assistants and public officials.Plays on words i.e. semiotics, semantics or semiology is practiced by these reprobates and numerology is used to make an impression on the visual faculties of those rendered suspicious by constant aggravation and attrition.

When the rebel keeps his head down he is met by dog dirt and obstructions on pavements near his home.

This too, may not have a sufficient deterrent effect on the police “target”. Then, constant auditory disturbances during the night are deployed. Steel lamp posts are tapped with a small, metal-working hammer in the immediate vicinity and taxi drivers are enlisted to run their engines underneath the target’s flat or make a ‘drop’ during the early hours of sleep. Where there are heavy steel doors on a shop or office in the vicinity, these doors are noisily slammed shut at regular intervals with military precision (sleep deprivation).

The offal of society are enlisted by the army for the purpose of these “plays” of waves of sensations, lights, colours and movements. To punish the more resilient radicals when months of “targeting” have not had the desired effect, Irish lazzaroni are paid with alcohol to attack them with cut-throat razors or to throw rocks through their windows. In the end, after the police are called, the culprit is arraigned and cautioned since the military and political police are oath bound (under the Official Secrets Act) not to disclose their activities to their colleagues. Juridical cannon-fodder compliment the activities of the police.

What is to be done?

Firstly, avoid unnatural sensory information by “keeping the head down”. Secondly, change the radio stations one listens to, the pubs and shops one frequents, buy a different daily newspaper, turn off the television for the duration of the ‘targeting’, count your money at the local shop so as not to provide the pennies given to the waifs to cause annoyance and keep in credit with the banks. Thirdly, listen to your friends and socialise positively. Those who fight alone, fall alone. Do not take servants of the state into your confidence.

The Devil is Good to his Own

On the 4th of October 2002, Irish workers demonstrated for better redundancy payments. 6 to 7000 members of SIPTU and the craft unions assembled at Smithfield, Dublin. Thousands more demonstrated in the Midlands.

Statutory redundancy payments are calculated at half of a week's pay per year of service in the south and from half a week to 1 and a 1/2 weeks’ pay per year of service for northern workers. (The payments for northern workers vary in accordance with the age of those paid off). The media - apart from the socialist press - ignored the protests.

In the case of Irish Glass Bottle workers, the employers, Ardagh, offered £42,500 to each redundant worker after a sit-in and demonstrations. This offer was rejected. The Ardagh Group owns 5 or 6 glass factories in Europe and grew up as “a protected industry” in the 1930s under Fianna Fail tariffs. IGB had - as its name suggests -a  monopoly of Irish glass production and recycling until 4 years ago.

Let us move on to the 200 redundancies at RTE in December 2002. these cost the state broadcaster over IR£100 million in redundancy pay-outs. the minister with responsibility for RTE, Dermot Ahern, approved these payments of in excess of £500,000 for each employee made redundant and immediately increased the television licence fee - a proportionate rather than progressive tax which is levied on the unemployed workers with an income of €118 per week (2002) at the same rate as the billionaires - by €43 from €107 to €150 per annum.

These southern place-seekers and sinecure-holders are drawn exclusively from the privileged class. They disseminate government press releases and blacklist radicals and their activities.

 A productive worker is worth less than 1/10 of a functionary when it comes to a redundancy payment.

  

Grins, Grimaces and Menaces

The call up of troops and their Irish auxiliaries has taken the ‘players’ in the street scenes with the socialists to faraway climes.

On the streets, this class of ne’er-do-wells with time on their hands frown, smirk, grimace and attempt to menace the socialists. When these ‘plays’ no longer availed the Irish military, they organised gangs in Dublin and Cork in the 1930s and 1940s. These reprobates went by the name of Catholic Action and the Army Comrades Association. (For a time, they drew the most degraded and oppressed elements of the poor into their circles). They attacked and savagely beat Palmer and burned Connolly House.The Irish Catholic led the chorus of disapproval of ‘a Communist’s wedding to a Catholic girl’!

Events have moved on. Social democrats must expose agent provocateurs to the workers.

On the street ‘overheard’ remarks (“street commentaries”) are directed at the radicals to project an image of an all-knowing state apparatus. These ‘captivating impressions’ are false sensations. The state is neither all-knowing, quick-off-the-back-foot nor indestructible.

Of Maggots and Parasitic Excrescences

The dark world of the military and police must be eliminated by those who seek a fundamental reconstruction of society. Two of the most common devices employed by those who have wormed their way into the circles of radical politics is to play on  personal friendships to ‘draw out’ the ‘key players’. The more educated political police read the nationalist histories of the 19th century about ‘race’ history (as well as the vast array of detective novellas).

Charles Singer identifies the mystical belief in the worm, the number 9 and the ‘elf shoot’ in the history of Anglo-Saxon folk medicine.

Agents provocateur have since the 1860s been given to placing the eggs of tapeworms in the food and beverages of the radicals, having insinuated themselves into their confidence or gained access by the usual police methods to their apartments. The practice of occult intelligence goes back to the enlistment of swathes of lumpen proletarians into the armies of Europe. These reprobates are the mainstay of the right-wing extremists on the streets and in politics.

There would be little harm caused if the doctors treated the revolutionaries as the Hippocratic Oath requires i.e. “Do no harm”.

We all must learn again t6hat there is no such thing as ‘free’ medicine. Unless one pays hard cash, one is given the status of a mendicant.

Playlists and Producers

It is a truism that a state will mobilise all its social base in a political and military crisis to neutralise the radical movement whether it be democratic or socialist. The permanent military and political crisis in the North offers ample proof of this phenomenon. All civil servants must gain the approval of the police to the effect that they are politically “vetted” and leading public figures in television broadcasting, radio communications and executives in the civil service must be positively approved by the police as ‘safe’ (‘positive vetting’). Any taint of radical or terrorist attitudes means instant disqualification.

In public and ‘private’ broadcasting the producers, news readers and presenters are positively vetted by the authorities. All functionaries must perform ‘safely’.

In the ‘targeting’ of socialists and democrats, radio and television play an important role in “getting at” the revolutionary and insurgent just as news editors ‘manage’ the latest sayings and doings of government  ministers. The targeting of individuals goes hand in hand with police surveillance and ‘active measures’.

A musical playlist of even the most innocent nature is occasionally chosen on the ground that it will have a “resonance” for the police target. Non-conformists are likewise forced to live a precarious and unsettled existence. The heavy hand of police government pervades all areas of civil society in a political and military crisis and it's often followed by attempts to injure the police target financially, socially etc.

 Trommeln in der Nacht

The Irish police and army use sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation to ‘neutralise’ their ‘targets’. These practices are long established and entirely unwritten. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the main training and organising centre of Irish (and world) reaction. This ‘dead knowledge’ is supplemented by the recognised methods of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. The South African regime's Interior Minister once remarked that he would swap all his arsenal of repressive laws for the Special Powers Act (Northern Ireland) 1922.In the south, the testimony of a Chief Superintendent of police that a person is a member of a terrorist organisation is sufficient proof to secure a conviction on that charge.

The favoured methods of the Southern police have been practiced without the interruption of those acts of terror caused by the insurgency and revolutionary violence in the North. As was documented in The Guinea Pigs by John McGuffin (Penguin, 1972) sleep deprivation is a standard method of weakening a prisoner’s resolve and extracting valuable information. This practice was used against suspects in Girdwood army barracks in East Belfast in the very earliest years of the military crisis in the North when the state was put to the test. Assassinations by Special Branch and Military Intelligence agents directly and through “pseudo gangs” (Kitson) followed internment curfews and State provocations; loyalist gutter proletarians proved to be willing helpers.

Outside the North, internal exile to the habitats of the gutter proletariat of Dublin is one of the most favoured tactics of Southern police and military who make repression a livelihood. In these dens, a couple of hundred army provocateurs in Dublin disturb the sleep of the police ‘target’. This involves constant auditory disturbances. These begin 10 minutes after the ‘target’ retires for the night. They follow a standard pattern and proceed with military timing. Targeting lasts from 3 to 6 months.

Doctors are the first to step forward with an explanation - these auditory disturbances are sensed by the ‘target’ alone and are ‘symptoms’ of mental illness. ‘Schizophrenia’ or manic depression are ‘diagnosed’. After all, the doctors, police and soldiers have the same paymaster - the state. Police surveillance is replaced by coercive medicine. The inmate of a sanatorium has no right to be brought before a court or a right to habeas corpus or examine the ‘evidence’ against him.

Constant displacement by the police sergeant acting together with the landlord - rentier class (Vertriebung) is likewise practiced in Dublin. A call to an uninformed officer of the Constabulary or a visit to a desk officer should usually result in the recovery of the ‘target’s’ property.

The main preparation for these “active measures” (Massnahmen) is the impoverishment of the rebel. From the professions, the Irish universities and civil bureaucracy the word goes out to potential employers (Berufsverbot). A ban on salaried employment for the revolutionary operates in all the leading countries. Only menial or manual employment for a definite period it's permitted. The ‘target’ is forced back onto his own reserves or on his family. Often, he must take the road out of his native country as an asylum seeker.

There is one defence! Show the attacker of that you are not isolated. In the 1870s, the French military bureaucratic caste did the bidding of the landowners and capitalists by shooting down 30 000 Communards. However, just a few years later the authorities admitted defeat in the struggle against the working class because they were organised in their trade unions.

When the chill winds of Irish state terror blow, a union represent the best (often only) defence.

Some Common Illusions about the Spy System

Three decades of insurgency have given rise to widespread illusions about the ‘omniscience’ of the police. In fact, the police know little about the socialist movement except when they are told explicitly what is going on and, then, they have no interest in politics. Police surveillance focuses on individual socialists, their movements and activities. The police are unable to see beyond trivial concerns to the social and economic system. They imagine that there will always be a need for the police and army “countermeasures” and never foresee their downfall from their position above society. Their main activity is to project an image of omniscience - an all knowing, ever vigilant armed body of men - to deter the radicals and to punish them individually when they act.

In the Anglo-Saxon countries, the police represent “the best” of the state can throw at the radical and trade union movement in the service of private property. The army is drawn from the riffraff or the strata which overlaps with the “dangerous class”.

At a practical level, the Irish political police attempt to spread misinformation e.g. the “terrorist” nature of political activity and strikes. The shopkeepers, tradesmen and big farmers provide the personnel of the police and shape its illusions. Against wrong-headed fancies and attitudes, the radical party tries to educate the thinking worker to reflect so onhis position in society and prepare him for action - not premature or terrorist outbursts.

For their part, the Irish political police and military endeavour to pre-empt the workers. The stoke up “unreal fears” on the general climate of fear through malicious insinuations and provocation. In their service they draw in the ex-soldiers, literary boheme, thieves etc. and pay them from small change and benefits in kind e.g. cheap loan rescheduling, tax avoidance measures, ‘doing the double’, running a small business, advice on government deals and so on .the Irish criminal lawyers vainly tried to classify the “helpers” of the elitists as political agents of influence (who tried to discredit the movement in the eyes of the working class), agent provocateurs, paid informers and casual informants. Political ‘authority’ figures, managers, civil servants, foremen, chargehands, paedophiles and layabouts are expected to play their part.

The Paris Commune of 1871 but on its banner “Morts aux Voleurs” and shot the thieves who were in the service of the State.

In the North of Ireland, we have long seen the more subtle yet more brutal methods of the police. This is the reflection of the police's greater experience in organising show trials and judicial executions of the national democrats and the most courageous and determined radicals. And yet, they still failed to strike a mortal blow at the democratic movement.

Pernicious doctrinaires would have us believe that radicals have nothing in common with national democrats.

The radical movement is in an international movement against capitalism.It holds no illusions about the ‘Politics of Irish Freedom’ or the ‘National Road to Socialism’. There are no appeals to the ‘British people’ or to the ‘Irish people’. Sober reflection on the old revolutionary outburst in Ireland and the international movement has removed the scales.

Police do not know everything radicals say, every movement or everyone they talk to or greet. The movement is too numerous to count by tele camera, the agents are not even known to them and they have no need to fear the police or the thieves. Parting with illusions is a step out of the shadows and into the crowd.

Political Discrimination in the Universities

As a part of its reform capitalism, government introduced free, universal education to third level in Britain in 1948. in 1964, The Stormont administration introduced grants for workers’ children at third level. In the North, grants were capped in 1986. Only the poorest students qualify for the full grant from the Education and Library boards. In 1997, Blair introduced tuition fees for all students which were set at the level charged by the individual universities. The Student Loans Corporation offers low interest loans to students for their subsistence expenses at university. Recently Blair has been trying to sell this corporation to the banks, but no bidders have come forward.

Since  1982 the student population of Queen’s University Belfast has doubled. Clashes with armed police have become a feature of the spring in Belfast’s university quarter.

In the 1980s, the Republican magazine, Iris, published a survey of the religion and national background of the professors at Queen's. Over 90% were English or Protestant.In the Law Faculty, there was no employment for a single Irish Catholic of a staff of professors and tutors of 50. This practice was in keeping with the core philosophy of the University Commission of 1848 which ordered that Queen's would be a Presbyterian university, Trinity College Dublin an Anglican university and the Irish Catholics would have University College Dublin. In 1908 University College Cork and University College Galway were established as small Catholic universities. In the 1980s, only the Department of Celtic Studies and the Chair of Scholastic Philosophy at Queen's were held by Catholics. The latter position was funded by the Catholic diocese of Down and Connor. In the 1980s a majority of the students were Catholic. Their strength was manifested in the elections to the Students Union. In 1980 to 1981, the hatred of the Catholic student for the University authorities and police government was manifested in well attended meetings organised by the Student Campaign Against Repression and hundreds strong marches against the brutalization of Republican prisoners in the H blocks. Some of the students took up arms against the state and were jailed. An academic-cum-politician was short for his advocacy of the supergrass system.

Before this assassination, The Faculty of Law professors and tutors had proven their loyalty to the authorities by baiting and casting out republican students. Four students of the 1980 intake were not allowed to graduate before 1986 and 1987. The course was  of 4 years duration in those days.

12 to 14 hours of studying per day earned the democratic students only third-rate degrees from the Faculty of Law. This measure crippled them in their search for employment and places as Bar students or in The Institute of Professional Legal Studies as trainee solicitors. Third rate degrees were thrown at students who intended to go overseas since the authorities were resolved that international mobility and languages ability would not allow the Northern radicals to escape the ‘eternal damnation’ of police government. There was to be no escape from the long reach of the political police.

Dialectical reasoning in examinations i.e. the characterisation of legal points in their interconnection and inter-relation earned students a ‘failure’.

The Faculty of Law was dominated by the sons and daughters of the unionist nomenklatura.

The mechanics’ and workers’ siblings were sent limping back to the building site from whence they had arrived.

Outside the universities, these graduates from the lower orders were faced with the big guns of the police  as soon as they stepped out of the relative safety of the students’ milieu. What little hope for a career their degrees had inspired was quickly blown away by the chill winds of police bans on anything other than casual, manual labour (Berufsverbot). The Irish Republicans inspired such hatred and fear that Hurd and Thatcher drew the Western European countries into the web of international policing with the Schengen Pact. The Tories determined that there should be no escape for those who inspired resistance. There was no respite for the graduates deemed to be a threat to the “security of the state”. They were met with traps (“accidents”) on the building site of London, psychological warfare and constant surveillance wherever they went. Finally, they were given directions to Dublin from whence 60 000 of the 120 000 young people coming onto the labour market every year were emigrating to escape unemployment. There they remained before the political thaw initiated by the Hume-Adams dialogue.

The experience of students’ lives were a preparation for the ‘real’ world of capitalist social relations. (It is also the task of the police to vet and, if necessary, ‘weed out’ the academics). On occasion, the military “contractors “will even ‘set up’ students for assassination by the loyalist lumpen proletariat. After the introduction of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for the deployment of ‘active measures’ against radicals soon began. In 1984 the police were the targets for a campaign of assassination.

Today the steadfast belief in the use of force has been replaced by the demoralization of the Republican militants. The international movement has taken off from the ground. It is proceeding steadily and irreversibly “onward and upward” and it is in this movement that the hopes and dreams of national liberation and democratic revolution for Irish students and workers alike are carried. No number of ‘agents of influence’ in the intelligentsia and in the universities or acid-eating FBI agents can halt the relentless progress of the anti-capitalist, democratic movement. The secret diplomacy of England and the United States will avail their rulers naught when they fall within the sights of the armed workers.