It’s Up to Us

Hunger, poverty, unemployment, racial and sexual discrimination, and many other forms of repression, from the restriction of the most basic democratic rights like freedom of speech and association to the hideous barbarism of torture and genocide, are still the lot of the majority of the people of the world. Far from diminishing with the progress of science and technology, the various forms of misery endured by the masses are growing. The gulf between the rich and the poor, between the powerful and the dispossessed, is steadily widening.

The working class has a historical mission to unite its class behind one revolutionary banner and to overthrow the capitalist class, a class which has seized political power through treachery, robbery, plunder, genocide and vicious exploitation of the whole working class. The capitalists are acutely aware of the working class. They have made it known that workers have no right to fight against capitalist exploitation, no right to organise itself into associations of its own choice, and must remain a slave class under the dictatorship of the rich and powerful.

In a big business, there is always an owner or many shareholders that live off the work of others: these are the ones who really hold the power! The shop-floor management are only their watchdogs; they apply the rules the capitalist owners dictate; they “direct” the workers in such a way as to insure as much profit as possible, and when the industry is facing difficulties, they are charged with the laying-off, or they do the “pushing” to raise production; they also try to create division among the workers as they fight against their union or try to buy off their representatives. That is but one aspect of the capitalists’ power. As masters of production and of the economy, they control the state and the mass media. All the big newspapers, radio and television defend the outlook of those who invest in them, and they try to turn the people away from the true problems. The owners of capital continue to control production.

The basis for the profits of the capitalists is the exploitation of labour week by week, month by month and year by year.  The capitalists engage in most vicious fights with one another in order to enrich themselves at the cost of other capitalists where many are reduced to bankruptcy, while a minority get richer and richer and on the basis of maximum exploitation of the working class. Capitalists have only one reason for being – to accumulate more and more capital. They are therefore always looking for ways to increase the productivity of labour. The capitalists strive to make the working class servile to capital. They wish the capitalist system would remain forever. The working,class is basically disunited. There are no united struggles of the entire working class, and the capitalists’ agents have been able to split the working class into as many sections, trades and crafts as possible. As a result, there are struggles being fought of a trade, craft or section of the working class in isolation from the entire working class, but against the entire capitalist class. To fight any battle with the capitalists, the unity of the entire working class is absolutely necessary and essential.

Those who are deceived by the propaganda that we should pose“minimum” demands is to plead with the government for reforms and the “maximum” demand to overthrow the capitalist system, must wake up and see through the anti-working class consequences of this policies. These groups that have been talking about “minimum” demands for decades upon decades.  The capitalists will only undertake reform in order to strengthen the capitalist system. They do pick up reformist demands and put them into practice. There are many demands of the which are good for the capitalist system, and it is for this reason that they pick them up. But the real demands of the working people will never be taken up by the capitalists.  The capitalists will never agree with the right to sell labour power at the price agreeable to the labourer. They will never improve the working and living conditions nor will they provide job security and full employment. These are unachievable hopes. As far as the Socialist Party is concerned, it does not matter how much actual riches any one capitalist has hoarded and how much these leeches  are paying taxes or hiding off-shore.  Too often the slogan of “equalising of the distribution of wealth” means the equalising of wealth amongst the capitalists.

If a party does not want to abolish capitalist exploitation, it can only serve capitalism – its role is similar of that of the foreman in the plant. All the things that are tied to the state, the army, the laws, the injunctions, the taxation systems, are according to the needs of the capitalist class, not according to the will of politicians. In regard to the parliamentary circus and the disputes among politicians , one must see that the capitalists as the ringmaster and the elected  politicians as the performing seals.

If the Left truly had at heart the interests of the workers, why don’t they denounce the very essence of exploitation, the capitalists system? They call themselves “socialists,” but that doesn’t mean anything – these are hollow words. One is not truly a socialist who does not want to abolish the private ownership of the means of production and who does not want to expropriate the capitalists.  They fight each other for their own interests instead of attacking the system itself. The workers should oppose notions that workers should leave politics to the political leaders and party cadres. Building the unity of the working class is its own task. The working class will emancipate itself. The social revolution is an immense task. To achieve victory over capitalism the working class must organise itself on a solid base and have a political party under its own direction!

The exploited have aspired to a better life where the living conditions of all would be in keeping with society’s ability to use the wealth of nature. They have yearned for a society where all injustice would be banished forever, a society with no trace of corruption, a society in which the weak would no longer be oppressed by the strong, a society in which one class would no longer be exploited by another. Humanity has reached a turning point in its history. The dreams of the past have become real possibilities for a future that can already be foreseen, because the material conditions necessary for achieving them are growing steadily. Working people are becoming increasingly aware that this society can only’be achieved through revolution. Only a socialist  revolution can put an end to the capitalist relations of exploitation that are now the fundamental obstacle to further progress for mankind. This is the meaning of the struggle for a society of abundance, of justice and of freedom: socialism. The expropriation of the capitalists and the socialisation of the means of production will lead directly to the abolition of society divided into classes with opposing interests. The abolition of classes will in turn lead to the withering away of the State, and to its extinction, for the State is not, and can never be, anything other than the instrument of dictatorship of one class over others.