GINO Gallagher's office in the Irish Republican Socialist Party headquarters on the Falls Road clearly showed where his political sympathies lay. On one wall is a picture of James Connolly, on another a portrait of Lenin.
Mr Gallagher was extremely critical of the peace process which he believed offered working class nationalists nothing.
"I reject the parliamentary road to socialism and to Irish unity," he told The Irish Times recently. "I cannot see the society we want being achieved by non violence."
Although substantially smaller than the IRA, the INLA is well armed and possesses commercial explosives, according to security sources. It has engaged in a tactical suspension of violence for 18 months but Gallagher had spoken of the possibility of a return to conflict within the next year.
He was well aware of potential threats to his own life. In an internal IRSP document a fortnight ago, he expressed concern that the IRA under the cover of its drug killings could attack INLA members.
He took over as INLA chief of staff last April after internal ruptures in the organisation. A statement was read out in a Dublin courtroom that month on behalf of four men arrested after an arms find in Balbriggan.
It declared an unconditional ceasefire. Mr Gallagher and others INLA activists claimed that the statement was made without the organisation's authority and they took over the movement.
"Those people received almost no backing in our organisation," said an IRSP source. He did not believe that anyone loyal to these men was likely to have killed Mr Gallagher.
Neither are loyalist paramilitaries believed to have been responsible.
Within republican circles, suspicion is falling either on the IRA or elements of British intelligence. A variety of IRA contacts had warned Mr Gallagher recently that their leaders could order his assassination over his vehement criticism of the peace process.
He had accused the IRA and Sinn Fein of "all but conceding defeat". In an unpublished interview with this reporter recently, he said that they had lied to their supporters and had "sold out" on their traditional goal of a 32 county Republic.
He was particularly critical of Gerry Adams and he condemned Sinn Fein for entering an alliance with "the SDLP, the Dublin Government and right wing Irish America forces who have nothing in common with the Irish working class".
Mr Gallagher, however, had a good relationship with grassroots IRA members and it was feared that he could become a figure around whom dissident Provisionals would gather. The IRSP has just reopened offices on the Falls Road and has been raising its public profile.
Suspicion that the gunman was from the IRA has intensified following a statement from Sinn Fein which did not condemn the shooting but simply described it as "tragic".
One republican source said "That is the sort of language Sinn Fein uses when the IRA kills somebody like a drug dealer and doesn't want to admit it. Sinn Fein must say something so it describes the killing as a tragedy."
Other republican sources believe that elements of British intelligence worried about the rise of the INLA and the IRSP were behind the killing.
Mr Gallagher had a political, as well as a military, role he was the IRSP's national organiser. The party refused to make a submission to the Mitchell commission, claiming that to do so would only confer legitimacy on the peace process.
An IRSP member said "The IRSP and the INLA will not be going away because of his death. But he will be sorely missed.
"He was a thorn in the side of our enemies. The question is, who wanted him out of the way most?"