A Personal Re-appraisal

WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

It may be advisable to take a look round upon the position of the Socialist movement in this country, to take stock as it were, and to consider where we are and where we are going. We are bound to admit that there are grounds for disappointment.  The fact that we emerge from elections having been unsuccessful in winning a substantial vote seems to have led some to the conclusion that our policy and our methods have been wrong, that our work has been wasted, that we have utterly failed, and that we should adopt some other policy, apply other methods, and work in other directions. We do not at all share that view. We have failed. That is true. But failed how? And in what?

What are we out for? Nothing less than a social revolution, a complete transformation of human society from its base. That is not a little thing. It is about the biggest job that any body of men and women have ever set as their task. And what are the means at our disposal? We have no other material than ourselves and no other means other than those limited resources at hand. Apart from the tremendous forces set in motion by the economic development - forces which are hastening the revolution more rapidly every day, and which make it, as we believe, inevitable - the revolutionary tool we have  forged is a socialist political party. So far, our efforts in this direction have not been favourable. Indeed, it is just here that we have failed. But what of it? Didn't we know, when we started, that that was the most difficult part of our challenge? Didn't we know it would take years and decades? Didn't we know that we would meet with disappointments and set-backs? Didn't we know that many of our members would go to their graves without a glimpse of that free co-operative commonwealth of which they were unquestioningly assured, and which, even in their lifetime, seemed so near?

How many years ago is it since William Morris wrote the words: "Only three little words to speak: We will it!"? And the people do not will it yet! But the numbers grow of those who do; and slow as is the work, it is none the less sure. And bitter as may be the failures, every one brings us nearer to the goal. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class themselves. There is no other way. Even were it otherwise, a political or intellectual leadership cannot "let the people go," even if they desired to do so.  The socialist movement is fundamentally a movement for the emancipation of the working-class, they cannot be emancipated against their will, and so far we have not succeeded in inspiring them with that consciousness of their present wage-slave status, or inspire that passionate desire for their own emancipation, which is essential to a revolutionary movement. That is where we have failed.

 But is the failure due to our own fault, and should it cause us discouragement and despair? We think not.  If we saw others succeeding where we have failed we might conclude that the fault was indeed ours. We have been frequently and constantly derided by critics, who we do not see having faired any better than we have. Over the long decades of our existence our political rivals have endeavoured to show what a poor, hopeless lot of ineffectual cranks we of the Socialist Party were, and proceeded to map out a "better” way for the realisation of socialism. They have at times rallied activists and academics to their ranks but now many have now been forgotten, lost on the wayside of their 'shortcuts' to socialism. The SLP. The ILP. The CP. None mustered  the workers to any significant greater extent than ourselves, and only achieved better success in their recruitment of card-carriers because their 'socialism' was more hazy and less definite, the proverbial all things to all people. Then came the Trotskyists,  red flags fluttering, their banners and placards proclaiming 'follow the vanguard'  They tried and also failed to accomplish what earlier left-wingers had hoped to do, i.e., organise a working-class political party, independent of, and hostile to, all capitalist parties, as an instrument for the political, economic and social emancipation of the working-class preferring instead to hold on to the shirt tails of the Labour Party and other out-and -out reformists. They failed completely in rallying the general body of the workers  for socialist independent action, or even for militant rank and file labourism.

It is not pleasing to dwell upon these failures to organise a mass socialist political party, and it is not recalled in any spirit of exultation or feeling of schadenfreude. On the contrary, we as equally suffering members of the working class would have been delighted had any one of them succeeded. We could then have heartily joined with them in their work and rejoiced in their victories. But honesty expect us to refer them, however, as evidence that the cause of our failure must be sought for deeper down than in their own supposed errors or blunders, and because the present weakened position of the socialist movement is not a matter of the sole failure of the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s case to rally the workers into a class-conscious political party, but the failure of all bodies calling themselves 'socialist' which have took up the challenge.

That is not to say that there is no occasion for self-examination, or for review of our tactics or methods. We have no occasion for complacency.  But we do claim that the road we have marked out is the right road, and that no other political organisation  has, as yet, discovered a faster or more direct way towards our goal.  Whatever may be the sins of omission or commission with which we have to reproach ourselves, it is scarcely a fault to be laid at our feet if the working class to whom we appeal decline to take the road we indicate to them, and persist in continually marching up and down a blind alley, spurred on by short-sighted or blinkered leaders. This is the chief difficulty and cause of our non-success - the people themselves remain chained to the prevailing chains of capitalist ideas of what is and what is not possible. Our fellow workers are imbued with the bourgeois ideology that we can reform society in our interest, rather than re-form it into something new.

But we ought not despair. For we knew it all along. It is a quite common mistake on the part of enthusiastic recruits to our movement to imagine the working class are in a state of seething discontent and latent revolt, only waiting for an opportunity to spring into revolutionary action. Such ardent spirits soon, as a rule, become discouraged by disillusionment. But we know better - have always known better. We did not raise false hopes or make rash promises.

For it has not been all failure. Not by any manner of means. Capitalist dominated as still are the ideas of the working class,  they are, thanks to the irresistible pressure of the economic development, far ahead of what they were only a few years ago. Their universal outlook and standpoint has changed. The basic tenets of socialism are increasingly generally accepted or, at least, acquiesced in, by the working-class. The mass protests such as Occupy rejecting the leadership of the mainstream Left has grown in prevalence worldwide and if we cannot claim the change of attitude towards socialist theories and principles as the result of our agitation and campaigns, we can, at least, point to it as evidence that our teaching and position have been in line, and in accord with the trend. Where we have failed is in disseminating the conscious application of our ideas and conceptions.

Let us look to and eliminate the defects of our own organisation, for it is not free from them. The causes which have operate to prevent our success in rallying the whole working-class to our banner do not supply the reasons for the fact that so many sincere and active socialists are outside our party.  Let us look into these reasons and if possible remedy them. In some cases, doubtless, they are purely accidental, but this may not generally be the case. Are we, as is often alleged, too narrow, too sectarian, too intolerant? Are we too discourteous, not to our class enemies, but to would-be comrades and allies? Do we seek to antagonise people rather than to win them over? These are questions to which it may be worth while to give some consideration. We do not desire anyone inside our party who is not committed to our common cause of establishing socialism by mutually agreed tactics but there should be no heresy-hunting; no undue emphasis of non-essential points of difference but rather seeking the essential points of agreement. In things doubtful, liberty; in things essential, unity.

  Our immediate duty is to strengthen our organisation; to muster new recruits under our banner; to disarm hostility and to bring together all those sharing our viewpoints into a united Socialist Party, a live, active, vigorous instrument for the realisation of socialism - the emancipation of humanity. It behoves us not to yield to political pessimism and persist in the direction of building up our class-conscious working-class Socialist Party. Agitate! Educate! Organise!

AJJ