Now is the time for socialism

For as long as anyone can remember, the ruling class have been promising  “peace with prosperity,” while they have subjected millions around the world to agony and waged wars of plunder from one end of the globe to another. But today their whole system of legalised robbery are once again caught in a desperate and deepening economic and political crisis which is fast approaching the point of world-wide explosion. And now they demand of the world’s workers that we accept even more and greater hardship and misery in order to perpetuate this system. There is no return to the ‘happy days’ of the past or any other  prospect other than continued suffering and sacrifice, enslavement in one form or another and unparalleled destruction of the environment. This is the future for the people so long, and only so long, as the slaves of each country remain unquestioningly loyal and blindly obedient to their masters and set their sights and their aspirations no higher than the miserable horizons imposed by the ruling classes and the capitalist system. There is another path - a path not backward but forward – the path of resistance against and ultimately the overthrow of our oppressors. Revolution is the only means people can break free of the chains of exploitation and degradation.  The only path to real freedom and the only war worth fighting is the class war against the ruling class. The future must be wrested from the hands of those who, at the cost of unspeakable misery and destruction for the people of the world, are determined to preserve – and chain humanity to – the past.

So long as society is divided into classes, in whatever form, the economics and politics as well as the ideas, culture, etc. of society will be dominated by one class or another – they cannot serve all classes, exploiter and exploited, oppressor and oppressed, master and slave, equally. Capitalism has laid the basis for an unprecedented development of society, without scarcity and without therefore the basis for antagonistic social conflict. But capitalism itself has become the very force that stands in the way of the realisation of this potential, and the longer capitalism prolongs its existence the deeper become the antagonisms within it. The capitalist class made possible for the first time a thoroughly scientific view of society and the world, the recognition of class struggle as the motive force of society’s development and of the ultimate outcome of that class struggle – the achievement of classless society.

Capitalism has outlived its progressive role and its gigantic increase of productive power cannot be fully used under capitalist conditions. The interests of the capitalists and of the working class are irreconcilable. Exploitation and recurrent crises of the capitalist mode of production oppress the working class and working people in a thousand different ways. The continual attacks of the capitalists on working people meet resistance in fierce and bitter economic class struggles. This resistance limits the extent to which the capitalists can increase the rate of exploitation.  Capital must accumulate in order to survive. It grows by keeping for itself the surplus value produced by workers after they have reproduced the value of their labour power, their wages. Surplus value is the source of all profit. The unending search for surplus value, for profit, is the motive force of capitalist production. Capitalism can produce only for profit. It is forced constantly to seek new ways to achieve the maximum rate of profit. Competition between rival capitals (which still persists in modified form in the monopoly stage of capitalism) ensures the destruction of all capitals which do not conform to the blind laws of capitalist production.

The capitalists cut their costs of production mainly by stepping up their already vicious exploitation of the working class. They cut their wage bills by reducing wages and sacking workers. They also make the remaining workers work longer hours and they increase the intensity of labour. capitalists also reduce their wage bill by buying more advanced machinery in order to produce the same goods with less labour.

The cut-throat competition between capitalists, particularly at times of crisis, means that eventually factories using outdated machinery will inevitably be closed down unless the owners can make a profit by installing new machinery, and have the capital to do so. In many cases they cannot. And so repeatedly the capitalists are forced by the laws of capitalist production to destroy the means of production on a massive scale and make thousands of workers unemployed.

In its restless search for maximum profits, spurred on by ruthless competition, each capitalist company is bound to attempt to increase its productive strength to the full. Yet this continually increasing capacity to produce goods inevitably and repeatedly comes up with a jolt against the restricted purchasing power of the workers to buy these goods. Goods pile up unsold, factories run well below capacity or go bankrupt. These are crises of overproduction, cyclical crises of capitalism, which are now occurring with increasing frequency and without full recovery of production after each crisis.

Especially at times of crisis the capitalists tell us to tighten our belts and toil harder for them, “in the national interest”. They try to increase exploitation so as to get the huge profit needed to start capital expanding again. Competition among the capitalists to minimise losses is very fierce. In this battle the winners as well as the losers lay workers off and further reduce living standards. Inflation and unemployment are the two main ways the capitalists at present are trying to offload their acute crisis onto the backs of the working class.

 The socialist revolution simplifies all social relationships and gives them a purpose, at the same time providing each citizen with the real possibility of participating directly in the discussion and decision of all social matters, replacing the present mastery of the product over the producer by that of the producer over the product. This direct participation of citizens in the management of all social matters presupposes the abolition of the modern system of political representation and its replacement by direct popular legislation. Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes. That this constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end — the abolition of classes;

The economic emancipation of the working class will be achieved only by the transfer to collective ownership by the working people of all means and products of production and the organisation of all the functions of social and economic life in accordance with the requirements of society. The modern development of technology not only provides the material possibility for such an organisation but makes it necessary and inevitable for solving the contradictions which hinder the quiet and all-round development of those societies.

Eliminating the class struggle by destroying the classes themselves; making the economic struggle of individuals impossible and unnecessary by abolishing commodity production and the competition connected with it; putting an end to the struggle for existence between individuals, classes and whole societies, it renders unnecessary all those social organs which have developed as the weapons of that struggle during the many centuries it has been proceeding.

Without falling into utopian blueprints about the social organisation of the future, we can now foretell the abolition of the state, as a political organisation opposed to society and safeguarding mainly the interests of its ruling section. In exactly the same way we can already now foresee the international character of the impending economic revolution. The contemporary development of international exchange of products necessitates the participation of all in this revolution.

That is why the socialist parties in all countries acknowledge the international character of the present-day working-class movement and proclaim the principle of international solidarity.