The Socialist Party of Great Britain is the oldest socialist organisation in the UK and have far outlived most other groups. As for recruitment, the SPGB has perhaps the highest rate of member retention of any group and certainly isn't miniscule in comparison to other “Marxist” parties, (its among the larger groups in Britain which doesn’t say too much, though). Most “Marxist” groups disillusion and burn-out more people than they recruit. The master-disciple relationship is perpetuated in many “socialist” parties where the theorists of the executive committee “do the thinking” in private meetings and the rest “do the action”. The SPGB answer to how socialists should organise is transparence with all meetings being open to the public as the best education for the class self-organising for themselves.
It is only right and proper that the Socialist Party’s case is subjected to the closest scrutiny. We encourage questioning. Marx said his personal motto was to “Doubt Everything.” Nevertheless it is comical to read criticism of the party from those on the Left who decline to look in the mirror and identify their own even more stark failings. Of course, the SPGB are not perfect in its communication or interaction with the working class and we are always striving to improve but are the others on the Left any better at it!!
In 1879 Marx and Engels felt the need to distribute a circular where they stated:
“...when the International was formed we expressly formulated the battle cry; the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, cooperate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.”
How should socialists organise
The Socialist Party of Great Britain advocates that parliament can, and should, be used in the course of establishing such a socialist society. This position is based on our understanding that before socialism can be established there has to be a majority actively in favour of this, and that it is essential for this majority to win control over the machinery of government/ the state before trying to establish socialism. Since control of parliament is obtained via elections based on universal suffrage, a socialist majority can win control of the machinery of government through winning a parliamentary majority via the ballot box. Two ideas prominent to liberal democratic political ideology are that we live in a society which is both democratic and free. If this is not the case but if we live in a society where there is a semblance of democracy and freedom, what better way is there to challenge that ‘democracy and freedom’ than by using the accepted legitimate channels and thereby being able to call its bluff.
Capitalism cannot be gradually reformed into socialism. There is no gradual parliamentary road to socialism through a series of piecemeal reform measures introduced by a reformist government. Anarchists are right to say this. We in the Socialist Party say it too. The socialist political party (of which the SPGB is just a potential embryo) will not be something separate from the socialist majority. It will be the socialist majority self-organised politically, an instrument they have formed to use to achieve a socialist society. There is nothing to prevent workers who want socialism selecting one of their number to stand as a candidate to go to parliament as a socialist delegate, pledged to take instructions from socialists voting for them organised in the socialist political party.
What about the dangers of a capitalist class coup ? On the eve of a socialist election victory most workers would already be convinced of the need for socialism and would have organised themselves in unions and other bodies ready to keep production and administration going after the election victory. Socialist ideas would also have penetrated into the armed forces. Should some of the pro-capitalists think of staging a coup: any wavering elements, especially in the armed forces, would tend to side with those who have the undisputed democratic legitimacy, i.e. in this instance those who want socialism. Even the anti-parliamentarian Anarchist Federation said in 1996:
“ The majority of military personnel are working class, and however indoctrinated they are, we doubt that they will be prepared on the whole to shoot down their friends, neighbours and relatives. Examples from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the Romania of 1990 show that the army will switch sides when it becomes clear that the people will no longer tolerate their government and are prepared to take to the streets to prove it” - Beyond Resistance.
The State
The Socialist Party holds that Socialism will entail the immediate abolition of the State.
Marx wrote of "storming heaven" which is the break up of the bourgeois political state, in this instance he was talking of the 1871 Paris Commune. The State in the example of the Paris Commune of 1871 offers many examples of the working class taking over and what is effectively the abolition of the bourgeois state.
Engels: “Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” - run by the workers in the interests of the workers, Commune no longer a state, absence of a standing army, self-policing of the quartiers.
Bakunin on the Commune: “a bold, clearly formulated negation of the state”
Kropotkin: “by proclaiming the free commune, the people of Paris proclaimed an essential anarchist principle, which was the breakdown of the state”.
The working class conquest of political power will entail what Marx wrote to Dr Kugelman it will “smash the bureaucratic military state machine”
Lenin in Lessons of the Commune: “the Proletariat, which had seized power, carried out the democratisation of the social system, abolished the bureaucracy, and made all official posts elective” and “Commune replaced the smashed state machine with a fuller democracy, transformed from bourgeois into proletarian democracy”.
Parliament can, and should, be used in the course of establishing such a socialist society, the majority of the working class will win control over the machinery of government/ the state before trying to establish socialism and proletarian socialist democracy.
Marx wrote in 1872: “All socialists understand this by Anarchy: once the aim of the proletarian movement, the abolition of classes has been attained, the state power which serves to keep the great productive majority under the yoke of an exploiting minority small in numbers, disappears, and the governmental functions are transformed into simple administrative functions”. In 1847 'The Poverty of Philosophy', Marx writes:“there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society”.
Edouard Vaillant, Communard:
“If socialism wasn't born of the Commune, it is from the Commune that dates that portion of international revolution that no longer wants to give battle in a city in order to be surrounded and crushed, but which instead wants, at the head of the proletarians of each and every country, to attack national and international reaction and put an end to the capitalist regime”
Reformism
The message from the SPGB is clear; the removal of capitalism and the establishment of real socialism. This should be the aim of all socialist factions. If it is not, then the faction is not socialist. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class themselves, not a vanguard. Therefore, the working class need to know what socialism is, and want it. If the working class do not know what socialism is, they will just accept reforms, and not realise that they are still being exploited under capitalism.
The present floundering of socialism has been caused by the damage done to public perception of socialism by dictatorships and state capitalists that call themselves socialist. The three things that ruined the working class in Europe and the World in the 20th century; The reformism of the 2nd International , secondly, the national chauvinism of the First World War, and thirdly and probably the most insidious - Leninism and the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917.
Reformism does nothing but stabilise the capitalist system, preventing the runaway self-destructive tendency of the neoliberal free market, whilst placating the working class, and thus preventing any further moves toward socialism. Marx recognised that the capitalist class could see the benefit of legislating against limitless working hours in Chapter 10 of Capital Volume 1, The Working Day. Lord Sainsbury recently authored a book which advocates ‘progressive capitalism’ where the government upholds public interest i.e. protects the public against the free market. Capitalists know that the interests of the working class need to be considered in order to increase capital, and they rely on the working class ignorance of socialism and the workings of capital to keep the working class in their place. History has shown time and time again that this intervention provides a temporary reprieve from some of the results of capitalism. Reforms won are just undone by the next administration. The cause of the problems is capitalism, thus it is capitalism that needs to be removed.
Have workers become socialists through day to day struggles? Historically, once reforms have achieved a certain level that the worker is happy with, the drive for socialism seems to desert the worker. This would suggest that the worker did not want socialism after all. This is the ongoing class struggle within capitalism. Worker wants reforms, capitalist resists reforms, worker action affects profit, capitalist reforms to improve profit, worker happy until capitalist discards reforms, and so on, and so on. To end this cycle the workers need to know how capitalism works, what socialism is, and to want socialism. Only then will workers be able to see a way out of this merry-go-round.
Leading the proletariat up a blind alley by letting them believe that a reformist agenda will save them from a capitalist system that they do not even know is oppressing them is misleading. Education is the key, by whatever means possible. And honesty.
Marx suggests in Capital that it is very difficult for workers to have the time to develop class consciousness, due to the very fact that workers spend all of their time focused on getting by, day by day. This may appear to contradict the idea that all workers can achieve a class consciousness, and thus enable the revolution to occur from the bottom up.
Lenin's idea of the proletariat being unable to develop more than a trade union consciousness, and thus needing a vanguard party, may seem to be supported by this idea. However, it is not that the proletariat do not have the ability to develop class consciousness, it is that they do not have the time to do so. When times are good, neither do the workers have the inclination.
But have any of these insurrections lead to the establishment of socialism? In countries where revolution has not happened we have a load of reformist parties continuing the endless class struggle within a capitalist state. Where revolutions have happened, and states have defined themselves as socialist, a vanguard party has imposed its own form of state control on the proletariat. The workers councils have ended up subservient to a dictatorial state, and wage slavery continues. Historically socialism has yet to happen.
Any vanguard action is likely to fail without a socialised working class, and a socialised working class would negate the need for a vanguard. Consider the events in Paris in May 1968. The student protest managed to obtain massive support from workers, resulting in a general strike. De Gaulle flees the country fearing a socialist revolution. The workers are offered reforms. The protesters stand down. An election is held, and De Gaulle wins with a massive majority. The working class were happy to continue with De Gaulle because of the reforms, and the capitalists won. Things could have been very different if the working class were knowledgeable socialists.
The workers aren’t going to organise themselves now for revolution, unless they know that they want revolution, and workers will not know that they want revolution, unless they know what socialism is, and want it.
With regard to violence, the SPGB aims to achieve socialism by wresting control of the state through the democratic process, and then dissolving the state once all threat of counter revolution has subsided. This would hopefully achieve a non-violent revolution. Should a minority use force to try to oppose the majority who want a socialist state, then the majority will need to use force to prevent them. Our understanding is that the vanguard is separate from the proletariat, as the vanguard 'understands' what socialism is, and the proletariat are just expected to follow them. If the vanguard was part of the proletariat, and socialism was understood and wanted by all, then there would be no need for a vanguard. The socialist proletariat, as a majority, could take control of the state apparatus, including the armed forces and the police, democratically. The state could then be dissolved. I cannot see how a move by the non-propertied classes against the bourgeoisie and a well armed state could successfully achieve a socialist society.
If we look at the historical precedent of social revolution we see a raft of failed uprisings, suppressed by the state, dictatorships and state capitalism.
The vanguard approach has led to the subjugation of the proletariat, and countless murders, as populations have had socialism forced on them against their will. The vanguard approach assumes that the working class are not capable of becoming conscious socialists. It is inherently un-socialist as it would result in a state where a minority group (the vanguard) become the bureaucracy presiding over the majority. If you are familiar with the history, the vanguard Bolsheviks oppressed and exploited the proletariat in Russia.:
Dictatorship of the Bolshevik (Communist Party) over the Proletariat
Privilege of Party membership leading to elitism and Nomenklatura
War Communism prohibited strikes - the only weapon the proletariat have against bosses (Even Bolshevik bosses)
New Economic Policy - market economy - state capitalism
Red Terror - repression, setting up of Cheka, NKVD, OGPU - implemented by Dzerzhinsky on September 5, 1918, described by the Red Army journal Krasnaya Gazeta: "Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands, let them drown themselves in their own blood"
Suppression of Kronstadt (the reddest of reds) rebellion - Emma Goldman: "The dictatorship under Stalin's rule has become monstrous, that does not, however, lessen the guilt of Leon Trotsky as one of the actors in the revolutionary drama of which Kronstadt was one of the bloodiest scenes"
The goal of all socialists should be to educate the working class as to what real socialism is, and to try to undo the damage done to the public perception of socialism. Socialists should say what they mean – Fellow workers, this is socialism, let’s organise for it now. Socialism cannot be forced upon society, society needs to understand and want socialism.
The SPGB don't propose to manage a bourgeois state. There will be no state. The state will be cease to exist once the majority who want socialism vote for socialism. To get to this stage the working class need to understand and want socialism, and so our role now should be to spread socialism. This will not happen overnight. Once a majority hold those socialist ideas, then they can move to practical action. A socialist minority cannot move against a majority that does not understand, or want socialism. The practical action needs to be to educate the proletariat in order to achieve a socialist majority. Once the majority support and want socialism they will vote for socialism democratically.
It should be the proletariat that seize power, not a leading party.The party has one role, to aid the overthrow of the capitalist state by the proletariat. The party does not have any other motives, unlike other so called socialist parties that aim to establish themselves as a vanguard, which will then take control of the state 'on behalf of' the proletariat. A political party standing for socialism does not engage in populism to gain votes. It stands for socialism. If the public do not want socialism, they will not vote for it. The public needs to understand and want socialism, and not be coerced into something that calls itself socialism, but which follows a reformist agenda. A socialist revolution will come from the people, with representatives of the people standing for parliament in order to win control of state mechanisms, prior to disbanding the state. A class conscious public will know what socialism is, and want it. If their representative did not stand for socialism, they would be replaced. The main political parties in the UK stand for capitalism, a system that owes its survival to lying to the public. Therefore, it's no surprise that capitalist politicians lie. Why would a socialist politician need to lie if the public understood and wanted socialism? if the majority of the public understood and wanted socialism, then a democratically elected socialist party would take control of the state, enabling the dismantling of the state, and the establishment of a socialist society.
The revolution will not be carried out by the political party, it will be carried out by the majority that have voted for socialism. The democratic process will be used by the majority that want socialism to take control of the state apparatus. People need to understand what socialism is before they can want it. Most people living within the current capitalist society don't even realise that there is an alternative.
Socialism is invisible to the proletariat for a variety of reasons, such as the coercion of the capitalist state to keep workers ignorant and working, and the mind numbing power of capitalism over the proletariat, who need to spend all their time worrying about how to get by from one day to the next, with barely any time for their own thoughts.
At the moment, many people are casting about looking for an alternative to capitalism. Perhaps the time is right for the proletariat to become politically aware. However, most people relate socialism to the state capitalist and dictatorial regimes that have marred the name of socialism. They are not going to stand behind a socialist group proclaiming that it will lead them to victory over capitalism. They need education as to what socialism actually is. The proletariat can then decide for themselves whether that is what they want, and when they understand socialism, I am sure that it will be what they want.
To reiterate, 'Marxists' claiming the mantle of the party to exclusively carry out revolution are wrong. The revolution will not be carried out by the political party, it will be carried out by the majority. The working-class is the vast majority of society. Workers do all of the work in society who are perfectly capable of class consciousness, socialist understanding and acting politically. Workers have had enough of parties 'intervening in day-to-day struggles' and 'linking up the economic with the political'. They're fed up to the back teeth with this. SPGB have always said a majority is necessary first, their opponents have rejected this and argued for 'intervention in day-to-day struggles' yet time and again this strategy seems incapable of achieving support for anything other than the day-to-day struggles being 'intervened' in.
The majority want revolution, and achieve this by voting for delegates to take control of the state apparatus to help ensure a smooth transition from capitalism to socialism. Parliament will no longer exist once the proletariat have taken control. There will be no state.
There is no idealism here. The transfer of ideas to empower the workers is action. Action happens whenever workers discuss ideas in the pub, workplace, on the web. How else can ideas be shared, but by action? This is action that will raise the class consciousness of the worker. This is action that will lead the proletariat to question the capitalist state, and lead to democratic action to overthrow the capitalist state. Ideas can be spread anywhere. Once a majority know what socialism is and want it, they can take action by seizing control of the state apparatus through democracy. The action is revolution. Where is the idealism? ”Revolutionary” moments can be strengthened by ensuring the workers understand how capitalism works, and know what socialism is, thus moving beyond protest and reform and into revolution.
Re-enacting failed insurrections, with promises to win this time, only demoralises the class further.
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