We Want Revolution

“The history of all societies to date has been the history of class struggle.” - Marx

Britain is no stranger to revolutionary working class activity and some claim it has been to the very brink of revolution. In 1919, at Milford Haven, the crew of  HMS Kilbride hauled down the Royal Navy ensign down and hoisted the red flag.

Socialists agree upon one thing, and that is that they constitute a revolutionary party, the champions of the class interests of the workers. But unfortunately the idea of revolution is many-sided, and conceptions of the revolution differ very greatly.

The working class has many names, proletariat, labouring classes, labourers, waged workers. There are people who are clearly members of the working class who are not producers of real wealth, that is, who do not produce surplus value. But in a much broader sense it includes the families of workers, that is, their wives, their children, single parents, students, the unemployed and the retired and the infirm.

Revolution does not simply happen. Revolution is made by people who consciously and collectively assume control over their lives, their surroundings, and the society in which they live. They can only do so on the basis of their experience. No class can ever be reduced to its economic function alone to the extent that its not the simple result of the conditions of its existence but  its conditions of existence require of it a continuous struggle for transformation. Does the worker link his fate to all levels of his social existence and, consciously or not, to that of his class? Too often abstract phrases - class consciousness or class solidarity - overlooks the fact the worker is not only a member of his class, but an individual within a community and conscious of only being able to go beyond that by acting collectively. Seeing the worker only as victim would be a mistake. Although the working class is overwhelmingly fragmented by divisions of sex, ethnicity, and race, a by the division of labour,  job status and hierarchy, our can be unity is surprising strong.

Many wonder how workers will acquire consciousness of their situation and assume their role in the management of Humanity. Marx argues that capitalism has transformed the worker into a machine and robbed him/her  of “every human physical and moral characteristic” and that capitalism has removed from work all semblance of “individual interaction.” The result has been a “loss of humanity.” However, according to Marx, because it is totally alienated, the workers’ revolt against their fate can emancipate all of humanity. It requires “a class…for which humanity is entirely lost and which can only reconquer itself by conquering all of humanity” or “the proletariat of the present day alone, totally excluded from all personal activity, is able to realize its total personal activity and no longer recognize limits on the appropriation of the totality of collective forces.” (German Ideology).

 But how could the working class successfully make a socialist society?

One response could be: the working class undergoes a metamorphosis through revolution. But even if there is an acceleration of historical processes in a revolutionary period, one that upsets existing relations amongst men and establishes communication that links each to society as a whole, it would be over-optimistic to see the class as born of revolution. Its maturation is only possible due to prior experience that it interprets and puts into a positive practice.

 The working class is crucial to the socialist revolution for essentially two reasons. One is that the process of production, the production and transportation of food, clothing, shelter, etc., is fundamental to any society and the section of society which can gain control of that process can gain control of the society as a whole. For example, a strike of teachers may have a  political impact but it doesn’t bring the economy to  stop. But workers in a steel plant or car factory, can affect the economy far beyond their own specific workplace.  The second reason for the centrality of the working class is that the socialist revolution must involve the transformation of work and the workplace or it is not a social revolution at all. If the workers do not gain possession of the means of production, then governments may have been overthrown, but society has not been transformed. Class, is the product of capitalist relations of production; we are working class because our labour is alienated. Clearly, the working class will disappear when alienated production is obliterated. The anti-capitalist movement’s a dream of freedom and liberation is yet  to be realised but the power to  make the revolution, still lies with the working class.

However, the union movement is not a force for revolutionary change and the future outbursts of social discontent that are still to come will likely  have the appearance of new revolutionary forms, organisations that are not simply organs of struggle but organs for control of production.  The fact that society forces them to struggle begins to transform the working class.

The great lesson of history that the working class must be organised independent of, and in uncompromising opposition to the capitalist class can be forgotten only at the cost of continued  defeats. So long as workers resist alienation and oppression they will revolt. And these revolts will emerge, as they always have, with remarkable power and suddenness. It would be a pleasant change from past experience if, for once, it was not the revolutionaries who are caught unawares and unprepared, by the revolt of workers. Working class struggle can return but will we be ready.  Too many seem convinced that the idea that revolution is no longer possible yet the  struggles against capitalism continues unabated. The real workings of the capitalist system  has been exposed. We must see to it that the working-class tactics against capitalism in future are determined solely by the circumstances of the moment, and the possibilities of success, and not by any stale, crusty formulas.

What we should guard against are those Leninists and Trotskyist parties that aim to break our legs so it can provide the crutches.

There will be a revolution one day. Even now conditions are beginning to ripen for it. But this ripening will not take place overnight, and conditions for revolution are far from being ripe today. The majority of working people are just beginning to wake up, to fight, to take interest in politics. A successful revolution cannot be made by a minority. A revolution must be made by the masses of people. It has happened in past years that a small handful of self-styled revolutionaries have imagined that by bold action, by taking up arms or whatever, they could “incite the masses to revolution. But they failed. They have failed because people are as ready for revolution as they imagine. They have failed because, as already stated, a revolution cannot be made with a minority of the people. If we trust in the workers, we will never settle for a few reforms and we will never settle for a few crumbs.

Essentially, capitalism is the result of the exploitation of the labour power of the workers by the employer class, sole owner of the means of production.We live in a world where war and the threat of war characterise the relations between countries, peoples. Hunger, poverty, unemployment,racial and sexual discrimination are the lot of the majority of the earth’s inhabitants.

The mission and goal of the working class is  not only to replace the rule of one class with that of another, as has happened previously in other revolutions, but  to liberate all of humanity from the chains of exploitation and oppression by the abolition of classes themselves.  The divisions between the city and countryside, and between mental and manual labour will also be abolished, and a society without a State will be created, since the State is nothing other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over the others. The emancipation of the workers will be accomplished by the workers themselves and will be achieved through socialist revolution.

The bosses with most sincere conviction.
say there’s nothing wrong with the system,
It just needs a little fixin’.
But socialists around the world, 
we have the solution:
We want Revolution!