Socialism is the issue (4/4)

PART FOUR (concluding)

For time immemorial,  those who have built the houses, cultivated the fields, raised the crops, spun the wool, woven the cloth, supplied the food we eat and the clothes we wear, and furnished the homes we live in, have been the poor and despised, while those who profited by their labour and consumed the good things they produced, have been the rich and respectable.

Socialism will mean the beginning of a new era of civilisation and the dawn of a happier day for mankind. It will mean that this Earth is for all  those who inhabit it and wealth for those who produce it. It will mean society organised upon a co-operative basis, owning in common the sources of wealth and the means of production, and producing wealth to satisfy human wants and not to gorge the insatiable appetites of the privileged few. It will mean that there shall be leisure for the workers and that all shall enjoy it.

A privately owned world can never be a free world. Such a world is a world of strife and hate and such a society can exist only by means of coercion and physical force. There has never been “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men;” and we shall have to go forward and not backward to realise that ideal.

When shall peace come to earth? Capitalism makes war inevitable. Capitalist nations not only exploit their workers but ruthlessly invade, plunder, and ravage one another. The profit system is responsible for it all. Abolish that, establish a social democracy, produce for use, and the incentive to war vanishes. Until then men may talk about “Peace on earth” but it will be a myth. Let us show the people the true cause of war. Let us arouse a sentiment against war. Let us teach the children to abhor war. We are socialists, world socialists, and we have no use, not one bit, for capitalist wars. We have no enemies among the workers of other countries; and no friends among the capitalists of any country; the workers of all countries are our friends and the capitalists of all countries are our enemies.The class war is our war and our only war. We have no interest in national wars for ruling class conquest and plunder. In all these wars the workers are slaughtered while their masters grow fat on the spoils of conquest. The time has come for the workers to cease fighting the battle of their masters and to fight their own; to cease being slaughtered like cattle for the profit of the ruling class and to line up in the class struggle regardless of race or nationality for the overthrow of class rule and for the emancipation of their class and humanity These are our principles and convictions as  revolutionary socialists. Would or patriotic critics have us believe for one moment that Wall Street and City of London is recruiting to fight for freedom, justice and humanity? These arch-enemies of democracy, these plunderers of the people, these corrupt ruthless exploiters of the working class, these are our enemies and the enemies of our people, and it is a a mockery,  to attempt to persuade the working class that these, their brutal, relentless, uncompromising enemies, are their friends. The oligarchy’s purpose is to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth and they do not shy away from waging war upon one another. But the the the the industrial barons do not go to war themselves.  The feudal lords of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all the wars and their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their social betters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their loyal obligation to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the aristocracy who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars and  the subject class has always fought the battles. The ruling class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subjugated class has had nothing to gain and all to lose - particularly their lives. The rulers of every land  have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. It is the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.
“Yours not to reason why; 
Yours but to do and die.”

The Socialist Party since its founding has stood opposed to having its members and our fellow workers slaughtered in capitalist wars.

 Every wealth producer, every wage worker, ought to be in revolt against the system that robs  him, and, if he was, the capitalist system would  not last overnight. The reason the workers of this  and every other nation on earth are not in open  revolt against the system that robs them is that the beneficiaries of capitalism control every avenue of information and education from the cradle to the grave. Every child is a potential revolutionist. All the institutions of capitalism, including  the state, the church, the press, the schools, and even the centres of amusement, conspire to poison  the receptive mind of the children. Just so long as the capitalist class control the education of the masses, so they will despise them as beasts of burden. We need to grow out of the selfish, sordid, brutal spirit of individualism which still lurks even in socialists and is responsible for the strife and contention which prevail where there should be concord and good will.

Socialism is the issue. There is no other. Proclaim it everywhere! Socialism or capitalism! Freedom or slavery? Which? That is the issue and the only issue. The working class may be robbed, trampled upon, crushed, broken, clubbed, imprisoned, and shot but its march continues. The mercenaries of the ruling class can not turn back the progress of the working class of the world. The very defeats promotes solidarity, and will insure ultimate triumph. The class struggle against the class-ruled society is as wide as the domain of capitalism, and as deep-rooted as the exploitation of the working class. Labour and capital are locked in an international conflict that rocks the globe. Economic freedom will elevate humanity to a higher plane than it has ever known. Wealth and leisure for all is now possible for the first time in the history of the human
race. We are fit for better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to understand that you were not created to enrich an idle exploiter and impoverish yourself in the process. You need to know that you have a mind to improve and develop. You need to know that you are at he door-way of a great new world. You need to get in touch with fellow workers and to become conscious of your interests, your powers and your possibilities as a class. You need to know that you belong to the great majority of mankind. You need to know that as you remain indifferent, as long as you are apathetic, unorganised , you will remain exactly where you are. You will be exploited; you will be degraded, and you will be a beast of burden. You will get just enough to keep you in working order, and you will be looked down upon with scorn and contempt by the very parasites that live off your sweat and unpaid labour.

The planet has vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most incredible productive machinery, and millions of eager, skilled workers ready to apply their labour to that machinery to produce for every man, woman, and child. And if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of Nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity.

 All things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all. We oppose a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. We shall have the universal commonwealth - the harmonious cooperation of every land on Earth.

Let us build! Let us build ourselves and one another by building our movement and our party.