Contrary to what the bourgeois media claim, revolutions
are not made by individual agitators or small groups. They are made by the mass
of people and they are prepared for years by the decay of the old system which is
no longer able to take society forward. On the other hand, when a society is ripe
for revolution, that is, when all the contradictions have accumulated to a critical
degree, a small force can play a large role in the events that are about to
unfold.

Today (February 14th) marks one month since the
revolutionary overthrow of the hated dictator Ben Ali in Tunisia on
January 14. The last month has been a constant struggle between the
ruling class which wants to return to bourgeois normality and workers
and youth who carried out the revolution and who are struggling to stop
the old regime from trying to make a comeback.

IRELAND: While the political arithmetic of the next Dáil won’t be clear until after February the 25^th,
the battle lines in the state have been drawn for some time. The Irish
bourgeois are well aware that Fianna Fáil are a dead duck. Now Enda
Kenny has decided to concentrate his fire on the Labour Party. There is
one reason alone for this. The bourgeois want full control of the levers
of power and to all intents and purposes they want a continuation of
Cowen and Lenihan’s austerity programme, regardless of whoever leads the
government.