Socialism is the Issue (3/4)

PART THREE

You cannot make socialists by passing resolutions. Men have to become socialists by study and experience, and they are getting the experience every day. There is one fact, and a very important one and that is the necessity for revolutionary working class political action. What is a party? It is the expression politically of certain material class interests. You belong to that party that you believe will promote your material welfare.  Our interests as workers are identical.  If you support a party that opposes your interests it is because you do not have sufficient understanding to know your interests. The question of poverty, which is really the question of all humanity, will never be solved until it is solved by the working class. It will never be solved for you by the capitalists. It will never be solved for you by the politicians. It will remain unsolved until you yourselves solve it. As long as you are willing to stand these conditions, these conditions will continue; but when you unite across the globe, when you present a solid class-conscious mass, economically and politically, there is no power on this earth that can stand between you and complete emancipation. As isolated individuals we are helpless, but united we are an irresistible force.

We may, at times, temporarily better our condition within certain limitations, but we will still remain wage-slaves, and why wage-slaves? For just one reason and no other we have got to work. As long as the bosses owns the machinery and the tools, he owns our job, and if he owns our job, he controls our fate. We are in no sense free. We are subject to his interest and to his will. He decides whether we shall work or not. Thus, he can decide whether we shall live or die. We will never be free, we will never stand proudly erect  until we are in charge of production, and when we can freely work without recourse to any employer, and when we do work, all the community shares in what we produce. Will you insist that life shall continue as it is, where it is always a struggle for existence and one prolonged misery to which death often comes as a blessed relief?

You organise in unions to fight the exploiting class. It is along the same line that you have got to organise politically. Nature has provided a bountiful abundance. There is plenty for all, and any system of society that denies a single one the right and the opportunity to freely help him or herself to the necessities and luxuries of life is an iniquitous system that ought to be abolished.

The Socialist Party is not satisfied with things as they are, and no matter what government is in office, there will be no material change in the condition of the people until we have a new social system based upon the mutual economic interests of the people - until all of us collectively control and in common own those things that we need and use. There are  only a few things that cannot be produced in abundance. Nature has provided a full larder and is a treasure-mine of raw materials. Marvelous machinery can transform these raw materials into whatever we desire. Why should any man, woman or child suffer for the want of food, clothing or shelter?  Look at the great technology at our disposal, why should we permit any one individual to lay claim to this legacy of all humanity and demand tribute? Instead, why not jointly own the machines, and operate them co-operatively and share the products among ourselves. Farmers work all day long and hard enough to produce enough to live the quality of life fitting a man, not as of one of his animals, but of a human being.

We socialists propose that society with all its capacity to produce enough that all shall take according to needs and give according to abilities; that every man and every woman shall be economically free; that all have what is necessary to keep them in comfort and satisfy their requirements. We will reduce the working day and give every person a chance to develop their talents and indulge their pleasures.

The development  of industrial processes has rendered the capitalist a useless functionary while  at the same time evolved productive organisation co-operative in character, so that industry may be carried on without friction, for the benefit of the whole people instead of the profit of the individual capitalist. The control of industry will be delegated to men and women who are technically familiar with all its processes, similar as it is now entrusted to line managers by the shareholders of a corporation.  Actual details of the re-organisation may well be left to the future when the time comes. It is not the responsibility of the Socialist Party to speculate concerning the manner in which the workers will conduct their affairs when they have taken possession of their inheritance. Society will have a new birth and humanity a new destiny.

Workers have had their eyes opened in spite of themselves. They have been made to see what the present system means to them and to their children.  They see machinery that possess the potential to liberate but produces only misery and deprivation. They see millions idle and poverty-stricken all about them, while a few are glutted to levels of degeneracy. They see parasites in palaces and honest workers in hovels. They see the politics of the ruling corporations dripping with corruption. They see vice and crime eating away at society like a cancer. They see disease sapping the mental and physical vitality of people.

 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! THERE MUST BE A CHANGE!

We are not a party who regard vote-getting as of supreme importance and of no matter by what method they are secured. The Socialist Party holds out no inducements and makes no representations which are not at all compatible with the principles of a revolutionary party. Other supposed socialists may seek to make their  propaganda so attractive by eliminating whatever may give offense so that it serves as a bait for votes rather than as a means of education, and votes thus gained in such fashion do not properly belong to the socialist movement and do injustice to our party,  as well as to those who cast them. These type of votes do not express a desire for socialism and in the next ensuing election are quite as apt to be turned against us and favour our enemies. It is better, in the first place, that they be not cast for the Socialist Party, as they register a degree of progress the party is not entitled to and indicating a political position the party is unable to sustain. Socialism can never genuinely grow by obtaining for it a fictitious vote. We seek only the actual vote of socialism, no more and no less. In our propaganda we state our principles clearly, and speak the truth, seeking neither to flatter nor to offend, but only to convince those who should be with us and win them to our cause through an intelligent understanding of its case.  We make it clear that the Socialist Party wants the votes only of those who want socialism, not for the sake of gaining political office to pass some palliative measures.

The working class character and the revolutionary integrity of the Socialist Party are a priority. The Socialist Party is organised and run from the bottom up. There is no leader and there never can be unless the party abandons its principles and ceases to be a socialist party. The education of the people, not the few alone, but the entire class,  in the principles of socialism can be performed only by themselves.

The Labour Party and the Conservative Party are in fact one. They both stand for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery. Both of these old capitalist class party machines have become corrupt and are worse than useless. They now present a spectacle of political degeneracy rarely witnessed in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with disintegration. Cameron and Milerand engage in a mad fight for the spoils of government and they exposed the whole game of capitalist class politics and reveal themselves and the whole brood of capitalist politicians in their true role before the people. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They are literally bought, paid for and owned, body and soul, by the powers that are exploiting, enslaving and robbing the toiling class. What earthly difference can it make to the millions of workers whether the Tories or Labour are is in office? These two parties differ in name only. There is no depth of dishonour to which they have not descended. Their hypocrisy and corruption cannot be efficiently expressed in words. How can any intelligent, self-respecting wage-worker give support to either of these corrupt capitalist parties?

 Labour and the Tories are on the side of the corporations, the banks, the plutocrats, the parasites and job-hunters of all descriptions; the filth and the slime of the ruling class glorify their plundering. Professional politicians of whatever party are very much alike and serve the interests of their masters. Their noisy theatricals have lost their magic and now excite but the scorn and derision. No longer can the political harlots of capitalism betray the workers. Both the Tory and Labour parties reek with corruption in their servility to the wealthy. Their manifestoes are filled with empty platitudes and meaningless phrases, but they are discreetly silent about the millions of unemployed, about the starvation wages of factory slaves, about the bitter poverty and hopeless future of the poor, and about every other vital question which is worthy of a moment’s consideration by any caring person. They are impotent and senile capitalist parties, without principles and without ideals.

There is but one issue for the Socialist Party and it is the unconditional surrender and utter destruction of the whole capitalist class. To this end the Socialist Party has been organised; to this end it devotes all its energies and resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers. In the name of the workers, the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom, it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of abundance, it condemns poverty and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilisation, it condemns the slaughter of  children. In the name of enlightenment, it condemns religious ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future, it arraigns the past as a barrier to the future. In the name of humanity,  the Socialist Party demands social justice for every man, woman and child.

Now is the time for the workers to develop and assert their political and their economic power, to demonstrate their unity and solidarity. In the coming social order, based upon the social ownership of the means of life and the production of wealth for the use of all instead of the private profit of the few, for which the Socialist Party stands in this and every other campaign, peace will prevail and plenty for all will abound in the land. The brute struggle for existence will have ended, and the millions of exploited poor will be rescued from the clutches of poverty and famine. Sexual exploitation and human trafficking, fostered under the old system, will be a horror of the past. Every child will then have an equal chance to grow up in health and vigor of body and mind and an equal chance to rise to its full stature and achieve success in life. These are the ideals of the Socialist Party. The spirit of our time is revolutionary and growing more so every day. The signs of change confront us everywhere. The Socialist Party stands for social ownership and co-operation, against  industrial despotism and for industrial democracy. The workers who have made the world and who sustain  the world, are preparing to take possession of the world. This is the meaning of socialism and is what the Socialist Party stands for. We demand the machinery of production in the name of the workers and the control of society in the name of the people. We demand the abolition of capitalism and wage-slavery and the surrender of the capitalist class. We demand that all children born into the world shall have equal opportunity to grow up, to be educated, to have healthy bodies and trained minds, and to develop and freely express the best there is in them in mental, moral and physical achievement. The Socialist Party is the only party that has the children at heart. We demand complete control of industry by the workers; we demand all the wealth they produce for their own enjoyment, and we demand the Earth for all the people. Not the modest demands of the reformists but the necessary ones for a social revolution.