Socialism - the Political Case

FOR A REVOLUTION FOR THE MAJORITY BY THE MAJORITY

Many of the arguments against the case for socialism are in reality criticisms of parliamentary action. The two spheres of activity must not be confused. Parliamentary action believes that by placing a series of reforms upon the Statute Book—  “one step at a time” — the economic position of the workers can be improved, and that they will be finally emancipated by such reform measures. Such a line of activity is the aim of the “reformers” or State-"Socialists". Many reformists pose as socialists with claims of helping the workers by nationalising or controlling the means of production through the State. They endeavour to argue that "evolutionary socialism” is superior to revolutionary action. Every advance in nationalisation is heralded as socialism in practice; every extension of State control greeted as a conquest by the workers. Thus a false conception of socialism becomes the means of misleading the working class. So eager have these State-"socialists" (or more accurately State-capitalists) been to bestow the label of "socialism" upon profit-making institutions that any Labour or Tory could say "we are all socialists nowadays." Any demands, such as the reduction of taxes or increased business regulation has been advocated as "socialistic" legislation.

Marx in his criticism of the French crisis of 1848 described how the capitalist class promoted  reforms under the title of socialism. He says: —
"Whether the question was the right of petition or the duty on wine, the liberty of the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual freedom or the regulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again, the theme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged: Socialism! Even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic; socialistic, alike, is pronounced popular education; and, likewise, socialistic is national financial reform. It was socialistic to build a railroad where already a canal was; and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a stick when attacked with a sword."

It has been customary for people to be told that they must look to the State for salvation. For years Old Labour have assured us that the hope of the workers lay in State control. Nevertheless genuine socialists have consistently argued that State ownership takes all control away from the workers and leaves them at the mercy of unsympathetic and irresponsible ministers. It is impossible for State officials to understand the nature of the problems arising in the industries, or to appreciate the grievances of the workers.

The attempt of the State to control industry is therefore the attempt of the ruling class to dominate Labour.  It seeks to make socialism a term at once contradictory and confusing; and it accomplishes this by declaring the most essential things necessary to the development of capitalism as state intervention and nationalisation are all "steps" in the direction of socialism rather then the reality that they are merely the general centralisation and concentration of capital.

 Capitalism due to the ever increasing conflict for markets and the intense competition involved will tend to accelerate rivalries and lead to the need of the productive forces to be controlled with greater urgency. The desire to control national production, the fear of industrial unrest, and the wish to enforce discipline upon the workers may compel the capitalist class to extend State control. The extension of State control will bring with it armies of official bureaucrats, who will only be able to maintain their posts by tyrannising and limiting the freedom of the workers. And instead of having to overthrow a system buttressed by a handful of individual capitalists, the workers will be faced with a system reinforced by a gigantic army of State-subsidised officials, who will fight to maintain their status and power. Such indeed is the logical outcome of nationalisation. Socialists deny that State ownership can end in anything other than a bureaucratic despotism. Whenever a politician is appointed to control any industrial concern he has to select a technical expert and
permanent officials who know something about that industry. These officials are appointed by the State — i.e., from above; they are only answerable to the State minister who has to depend upon them for all his information regarding his department. The officials are conscious of their power, and they use it. There is no method whereby it is possible to have democratic State control. These officials, when appointed, simply act as rulers appointed above the heads of the people who do understand the industrial processes. State Control can never be democratic control; hence it becomes a bureaucratic autocracy. It is a social despotism organised from above.

By its victory at the ballot box, and its consequent political domination, the few members of the capitalist class are able to rule over the majority. State departments are in the hands of unsympathetic bureaucrats who are appointed by our masters. The bureaucrats have no organic connection with communities or industry and are unable to understand working-class problems. Being appointed by the master class, who control the State, the bureaucrats can only maintain their jobs by serving those who control them. Here, again, is another problem, the destruction of bureaucracy, which can be only solved if the revolutionary organised workers defeat their masters at the ballot box.

Capitalism cannot be controlled. But it can be destroyed and replaced by a workers' co-operative commonwealth, an association of producers.

Socialism will be fundamentally a system democratically owned and controlled by the workers electing directly from their own ranks into industrial administrative committees and those carrying on the social activities and industries of society will be directly represented in the local and central industrial councils of social administration. In this way the powers of such delegates will flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant with the needs of the community. When the central administrative industrial committee meets it will represent every phase of social activity. The transition from the one social system to the other will be the social revolution. The political State throughout history has meant the government of men by ruling classes; Socialism will be the government of industry administered on behalf of the whole community. The former meant the economic and political subjection of the many; the latter will mean the economic freedom of all — it will be, therefore, a true democracy

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is convinced that the present political State, with most of its attendant institutions, must be swept away. The political State is not and cannot be a real democracy. It is not elected according to the social wants of the community. It is elected because the wealthiest section of society can suppress all facts through its power over the mass media. By its money the capitalists can buy up large newspapers and these trump up false election issues. The electorate is not asked to vote upon facts but only upon such topics as the media, representing Capital, puts before the viewers and readers.

We cannot build towards socialism and leave political control in the hands of the ruling class. We have seen what power the control of the State gives to the employers in its struggle with employees. It is through its political strength that the capitalists can deprive us of civil liberty, the loss of which makes the peaceful agitation for the revolution impossible. The maintenance of what limited rights and feedoms we possess is part of the political struggle. Political action must be used to combat the capitalist class in any attempt to filch away the rights of industrial action and other civil liberties. And to be used as a precautionary measure for when the socialist movement grows more powerful and the capitalist chooses to resort to the use of force and other methods of suppression. The coercive control flows directly from Capital’s control of the State which it secures at the ballot box. Therefore, in order to achieve a peaceful revolution, the working class must capture the powers of the State at the ballot box and prevent the capitalist class from using the nation’s armed forces against the workers. This can be described as the destructive function of the  role of political action. But this pre-emptive destructive political function is necessary in order that the constructive element in the revolution may not be thwarted.

 Socialism will require no political State because there will be neither a privileged property class nor a downtrodden propertyless class; there will be no social disorder as a result, because there will be no clash of economic interests; there will be no need to create a power to make "order." Thus, as Engels explains, the State will die out. With it will end the government of men and make way for the administration of things. The German social democrat August  Bebel declared: — "Along with the State die out its representatives — cabinet ministers, parliaments, standing armies, police and constables, courts, district attorneys, prison officials, tariff and tax collectors; in short, the whole political apparatus. Barracks, and such other military structures, palaces of law and of administration, prisons— all will now await better use. Ten thousand laws, decrees, and regulations become so much rubbish; they have only historic value. The great and yet the petty parliamentary struggles with which the men of tongue imagine they rule and guide the world are no more; they will have made room for administrative colleges and delegations, whose attention will be engaged in the best means of production and distribution, in ascertaining the volume of supplies needed, in introducing and applying effective improvements in art, in architecture, in intercourse, in the process of production, etc. These are all practical matters, visible and tangible, towards which everyone stands objectively, there being no personal interests hostile to society to affect their judgment."

The constructive element in the social revolution will be the action of the workers in the organs of their own making seizing the means of production in order to administer the wants of the community.

But, to repeat once more,  in order to tear the State out of the grasp of the ruling class the workers political organisation must capture the political machinery of capitalism. The work of the political weapon is purely destructive, to destroy the capitalist system. To think that Parliament can be used as the means of permanently improving the conditions of Labour, by passing a series of acts, is to believe in parliamentarism. The Socialist Party is not a parliamentary party. It believes in entering Parliament only as a means of doing away with all the institutions which stand in the way of the industrial union owning and controlling the means of production. It is general elections which affords the workers the opportunity of overthrowing those political institutions standing in the way of their emancipation. The Socialist Party seeks to educate the workers in order that they may organise to combat capitalism in every field of its activity.

Our anti-political friends wish us to devote our energies solely to the industrial field of battle because they imagine that the workers are sold-out when they enter politics. But the workers can equally be betrayed industrially as well as politically. The history of the trade union leaders indicates this point. Until the working class is conscious of its own interests—until it clearly realises what it wants and how to get it—then they are the tools of the Labour Party careerists and other political charlatans. The moment that the wage-workers understand their class interests they will not be betrayed either industrially or politically. Because “leaders” are only able to act treacherously when workers are kept in ignorance and confusion. If the working class does not recognise and understand its own  interests, it will, indeed,  be betrayed in Parliament, just as they are often sold out in their place of work by conciliatory union leaders.

 Every argument against political action can be used against industrial (or syndicalist) action. They react upon each other. There is nothing inherently dangerous in political action. All the arguments brought against it prove only that the socialist movement has neglected its educational work; it has paid insufficient attention to the creation of a sympathetic media and revolutionary press; it has not sought to organise workers as a class but sectionally, by occupation and trade or through one-issue campaigns or even by lifestyle; and the result is that these weaknesses are glaringly reflected on the political field. When our anti-political friends contend that the political field makes for the confusion of workers they are unconsciously passing censure on every other field of socialist activity. The critics of political action, unable to perceive the law of causation, which links together the various weaknesses operating in the different channels of the labour movement, places all the blame on the political field. They therefore decides to ignore political faction and  by doing so they neglect the whole problem.

The Socialist Party takes the political field with one demand in its programme—socialism. It emphasises that only socialists must vote for its candidates even if it means our candidates will not be returned to Parliament. If we receive only a few votes from class-conscious socialists in any constituency, so be it , that must be the extent of its success. If we simply appealed for any votes regardless of understanding and entered into alliances, compromises, and electoral pacts arrangements with non-socialist parties this would mean the return of a candidate, perhaps, but most definitely not provided with a mandate for socialism. Our political object is the capture of the political machine in order to tear the State, with its armed force, out of the hands of the capitalist class, thus removing the murderous power which capitalism may looks to use in its final conflict with workers. Therefore, the only revolutionary value of political action lies in its being the instrument specially fashioned to destroy capitalism. Political action, too, brings the propaganda of socialism into the daylight and lifts the revolutionary movement beyond that of being a secret conspiracy. Political action, by insisting on free speech, prevents the capitalist class from forcing the movement underground—because once there the State would crush it. And, above all, the political method by bringing revolutionary socialism upon the political field places it on that ground of social action where all conflicts tend to be settled peacefully. If socialism is ushered in by violent means it will be because the capitalist class repudiated the civilised or political method.

Adapted from some of the writings of Glasgow-born William Paul, when he was still in the Socialist Labour Party, before he joined the Communist Party.