As long as there is capitalism there will be struggle between workers and capitalists, with the capitalists normally holding the advantage. That struggle will ebb and flow, swinging from a low-level confrontation with a cop to full-blown armed insurrection.

A starting point is to avoid dogmatism. Legal defences are worth advancing, but the vast majority of cases will come down on the side of the capitalists. Any premature or excessive use of violence will be a green light for state repression, yet failure to offer any resistance will increase the arrogance of the state forces.

The great power of the workers lies in their numbers, so the starting point for a political defence is to raise the banner of a united class and resist attempts to scapegoat minorities through  racism and sectarianism. 

Much can be done by organizing communities, by contesting the ability of state agents to come and go as they please, by having defence organizations able to respond to arrests and raids and to be able to organize in solidarity with other areas.

However workers only demonstrate their real power when they organize as workers. They are able to directly challenge for control of workplaces and transport links and move towards the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist society.

One important element of a political defence is to target the middle class and reformist groups who lend their silence to state repression. The groups must be forced to say whose side they are on. If they say they are on the side of the workers, then they must join the defence. If not, the workers will learn a valuable lesson about who their real friends are.  For example, the denial of a collection licence for election funding to the Anti-Austerity Alliance is quite a fundamental attack on democratic rights, in line with the major criminal charges aimed at the Jobstown protestors and the long tradition of treating all protests as subversion.  The campaign should openly organize to   prevent Garda repression in working class areas, disrupt court activities that suspend democratic rights and call for active support from the unions and political parties.

Working people need intellectual and physical tools to carry on a successful defence.  They need to be convinced of the falsity of reformist ideology, telling them that the state is a neutral instrument that they can use to defend themselves.

Existing organizations such as political parties and trade unions have only a limited defensive capability. Workers need independent organizations that cut across formal trade union structures and are not constrained by bureaucratic self-interest.

Above all the workers need their own party. Theory and practice are brought together to express the interests of the workers - indeed the interests of all humanity - in a programme for socialist transformation.

Many doubt the possibility of resisting the enormous force represented by the capitalist state. They should remember that no society relies on force alone. The consent of the workers is also necessary.

The time will come, as Lenin said, when the capitalists can no longer rule in the old way and the workers are no longer willing to be ruled as before.