photo: Paul Mattsson
ETOL Writers: Peter Hadden
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photo: Paul Mattsson |
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“Socialism ... means no privileged elite, only the right of people themselves to manage their own affairs. It means creating an international brotherhood and sisterhood, a unity based on respect of difference and in which all national and minority rights would be guaranteed. It is the unity of the working class, built in the struggle for such a society that will solve the national problem in Ireland.” |
Peter Hadden was a representative from Ireland at the 1974 founding congress of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) and was re-elected to its International Executive Committee thereafter. Born into a Protestant household in Country Tyrone, Northern Ireland, he joined the ‘Militant’, in Britain, while studying at Sussex University in the late 1960s. He returned to Northern Ireland in 1971, committed to building the forces of Trotskyism and the unity of the working class, along with the other initial forces of the Irish Militant. After a few years working for the NIPSA union, he worked full time as a leading member of the National Executive of the Irish Militant/Socialist Party for the rest of his life, serving as a guiding influence on the party, both north and south. Peter was Northern Secretary of the party, including during the long years of the ‘Troubles’.
Renowned for his clarity, Peter made very important contributions on many political issues and Marxist theory, in particular concerning a socialist analysis of and programme for the national question in Ireland and internationally. He wrote prolifically for the socialist press in Ireland, Britain and internationally, including Militant Irish Monthly and The Socialist. In addition to his journalistic work, Peter wrote pamphlets and books, such as Common Misery, Common Struggle (1980), Divide and Rule (1980), Beyond the Troubles? (1994), Troubled Times: The National Question in Ireland (1995) and Towards Division Not Peace (2002). This archive is intended to give an outline of his full life of political work.
Irish Times: Peter Hadden – Co-founder of Socialist Party (May 2010)
Kevin McLoughlin: A tribute to comrade Peter Hadden’s contribution (May 2010)
Niall Mulholland: Peter Hadden – an inspiring life for socialism (May 2010)
April 1972: Derry murders condoned – The Widgery whitewash
November 1972: Officials’ Civil Rights demand – inadequate at this stage
January 1973: Officials’ Ard Fheis – Adopt socialist ideas demand rank and file
July 1974: Conference of Workers Parties needed Now (as Peter Hunt)
September 1974: After three years of internment in Northern Ireland – Only workers’ movement can solve the problems (as Peter Hunt)
August 1976: Shankill Peace March
October 1976: Peace Movement – Labour Movement must intervene (as Peter Hunt)
April 1979: Bennett Report – Police Torture exposed
February 1980: Northern ICTU Conference – Support Grows for a Labour Party
August 1980: Divide and Rule (pamphlet)
February 1981: British Labour Right rejects democracy
November 1983: Guerilla warfare – no alternative to mass struggle
Spring 1986: The Anglo-Irish Agreement – A Warning to Labour
June 1987: Sri Lanka – Only socialist revolution can end the bloodbath
February 1988: Palestinian youth revolt
October 1988: 1968 – Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement
October 1989: Provos bomb marines in Deal (as Harry Peters)
December 1989: Greece – the prospect for world capitalism
1994: Beyond the Troubles? (pamphlet)
1995: Troubled Times – The National Question in Ireland (pamphlet)
1999: The Struggle for Socialism Today (pamphlet)
May 2000: IRA Statement: Is the war over?
July 2000: The Alternative to the annual battleground
July 2000: Parades crisis needs working-class solution to wider sectarian conflict
November 2000: Northern Ireland – Another Middle East in the Making?
August 2001: Stop the slide into conflict
March 2002: Private finance initiatives
March 2002: Towards Division Not Peace (pamphlet)
June 2002: Sectarian violence worsens in Belfast
Spring 2004: Nigeria – A country in crisis
December 2005: George Best wrote poetry with his feet
April 2006: The real ideas of James Connolly
April 2006: Strike threat at Visteon
February 2007: Sinn Fein’s major U-turn
May 2007: Belfast airport workers – Campaigning for justice
May 2007: Northern Ireland – 1907 Dockers and Carters’ strike
June 2008: Belfast Airport workers – The long battle for justice
October 2008: UNISON union expels socialist activist
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism OnLine (ETOL) | Trotskyist Writers’ Index
Last updated 31.3.2012