Revolution by the people for the people

War sometimes breeds revolution. Continued for any length of time, it seems to defeat revolution. The working class should not adopt the same methods as the capitalists. Socialists do not hide the fact that we are consistent enemies of capitalism unlike those “friends of labour” in the ruling class who mask their anti-worker agenda with fake promises.

The most important issue confronting the working class to-day is the question of the proper method, the proper tactics, to adopt in order to attain our aim, the overthrow of the capitalist system. Our aim is to take into our possession of the tools of production and the means of distribution from the capitalist class and operate them for the benefit of the whole of society. It is important that this question should be openly and widely ; that the uncertainty which now divides workers should be dispelled and we arrive at a position upon which all workers may unite. Without the organisation to realise our objective it will always remain an ideal. The question is how to attract support that will constitute that much needed organisation.

The capitalists maintain their power due to their economic strength to control the government and use it as an instrument of oppression against the rest of society. It is on the issue of the taking of political power by the workers that the widest division of opinion exists. Whether this taking power by the working class, or the Social Revolution as it is called, will be accomplished gradually or suddenly, legally or illegally, peacefully or violently is the most vital question facing those in the labour movement. It is the view of the Socialist Party of Great Britain that achieving socialism is based on the education of the working-class. The socialist revolution cannot contently  rest upon its laurels after it has abolished capitalism; it must create the new types of organisation and administration  under which production is to be carried on and the relations of property are to be regulated. But this new social system cannot be implemented by a minority. In the enormous task of social construction, the immense majority of citizens must co-operate and create the various forms of social property and firmly established the foundations of the socialist order that is to be maintained not by the authority of one class over another but by free will of the community members,  a system based on free collaboration.  How can such a system be instituted against the will of the greater number? Any opposition or reluctance would hinder and obstruct socialist production, causing frictions, that the whole system would end in disaster. Socialism can only succeed by the general and desire of the community.  If the majority of workers are hostile to the ideas of socialism, it will be crushed.

The basic premises of socialism is that we live in a class society, that the dynamic force of that society is the class struggle, that the capitalist class maintains its position by control of the government, and that labour can only free itself by wrestling political power from the capitalists for the purpose of building a classless society. No member of the Socialist Party will disagree with these fundamentals. We further agree that the owning class are the ruling class because it controls the government. The government protects the capitalist class by protecting the source of its economic strength private property. It is the will of the capitalist class that the rights of private property be protected. It uses its control of government to write down its will and call it law. It uses its control of government to enforce its will, the law. The law is the voice of the ruling class. The process of government by which the capitalist class rule is called, democracy,  literally means “rule of the people”. But as we live in a class society in which one class maintains its favourable and advantageous  economic position because it controls the rule by the people, since the capitalist class is a small minority. The capitalist class controls the government only as long as  the majority of people support the present system and therefore the majority of the voters permit them to. The ruling class maintains the education system and owns the media that it uses to control the views and opinions of men and women, that pollutes and poisons the minds of the people. Capitalism controls the channels of information to teach the masses to vote against their own. interests. Why is such power necessary? Because we, the working class, outnumber the ruling class at the ballot box. Among the valuable things that capitalism has introduced is the idea of peaceful methods for settling disputes. In doing so, capitalism provided a weapon against itself. Democracy offers the revolution a weapon that is indispensable. Political agitation enables the revolution to be preached in the open, and thereby enables the revolution to be brought before the millions.

 Even if the whole working class abstained from voting, there would be not one single seat vacant, the capitalist candidates would then be elected unanimously by the capitalists themselves.

The Socialist Party is revolutionary because its purpose is to change the foundation of this society from an exchange of commodities to the cooperative commonwealth. The Socialist Party demands the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. The Socialist Party preaches and teaches revolution, and only recruits those who accept revolution as the solution. The Socialist Party once it triumphs would forthwith dissolve as the political state is abolished and the workers without let or hindrance assume the administration of the productive powers of the land.