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| Logo of the World Socialist Party (India) |
Comrades and Fellow Workers,
Today is a very important day for the Socialist Revolution. For the first time in history, some men and women of the working class in India are embarking on the necessary task of transforming society from one of oppression, exploitation and degradation to one of fraternity, co-opertion and emancipation.
The history of the world‟s working class has been one of exploitation. Despite the differences in that exploitation in Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa and Australia, one common theme is ever-present. The working class produce a surplus that the useless minority, the exploiters, consume. Here, in this hall in Calcutta, we start the process of ending that exploitation and the building a new society based on common ownership and democratic control.
The ideas of the World Socialism Movement are based on science. We do not worship gods. We do not believe in miracles or divine intervention. We take the view that men and women make
society we are born in. We are not dreamers who imagine a perfect world and ignore the realities of our own existence. Therefore, it is necessary, before considering the socialist transformation of society, to analyse the present society of world capitalism.
Global capitalism
Capitalism is indeed a global system. It stretches from the North Pole to the South Pole; from the Rockies to Siberia. The basis of that society is production for profit. All wealth takes the form of commodities – articles that are produced for sales or exchange on the market with a view to realising a profit.
Wherever the tentacles of this monstrous society stretch, it tears asunder the customs, cultures and mores of previous societies and replaces them with the madhouse economics of the capitalist market place. Thus small producers and subsistence farmers are wrenched form the traditions of the past and thrown onto the labour market as mere “hands”. Mere producers of surplus value, to be hired in times of boom and fired in times of slump.
Capitalism is competitive society. Indeed its apologists and supporters laud its competitiveness. They praise this aspect of capitalism and say it leads to efficiency and productiveness. We deny this. The working class produce all wealth. They not only produce it, they manage its production and distribution. A modern factory is run from top to bottom by members of the working class. From labourer to engineer to manager – all are members of the working class. They own little but their ability to work. They must sell this ability for a wage or salary. But during the time they work in the factory or workshop they produce more than the price of their labour-power – they produce a surplus value. This surplus value is pocketed by the owners of the factory. They live off the surplus value created by the working class.
How efficient is this system? Firstly, workers have to compete with each other. In a desperate struggle to get enough wages to live they compete with each other in the factory. They compete with workers in other factories. They compete with workers in other countries.
It is the capitalists‟ aim to pay as little as possible in wages and to get the workers to produce as much surplus value as possible. On the other hand, it is in the workers‟ interest to get as high a wage as possible and to produce as little surplus value as possible. Between these two classes, the capitalist class and the working class, there is a constant struggle in the industrial field. This shows itself in strikes, go-slows, lock-outs and productivity drives.
But there is not only conflict between worker and worker; and worker and capitalist – there is also the conflict between capitalists. In order to realise the surplus value produced by the working class, the capitalist has to sell the commodities produced on the market. Here, he enters into conflict with other capitalists. He must constantly strive to cheapen production in order to claim a portion of the market for his commodities. The more ruthlessly he can exploit his workers the better chance he has to compete.
Should he be unable to sell his commodities, he cannot realize his surplus value. He goes out of business. Horror of horror he may even lose his capital and become a mere worker.
This happens locally, nationally and – because capitalism is a worldwide system – globally. In the international struggle for markets, whole groups of capitalists struggle for markets, sources of raw materials, military bases. This commercial rivalry leads to military rivalry. To threats, counter-threats and, eventually, war.
How efficient is capitalism when, in defence of its markets, the world capitalist class spend on armaments (on weapons of destruction) more than one million US dollars per minute every minute of the day and night?
How efficient is capitalism when, millions live in sub-standard housing, suffering malnourishment and, at the same time, food is destroyed to keep up prices and building workers are unemployed, banned from producing the housing that is so desperately needed?
How efficient is capitalism when, throughout the so-called civilized world, millions of pounds, dollars, marks and roubles are spent on policemen, gaols and gaolers in the hopeless task of curbing the ever-mounting crime wave?
Wasteful and destructive system
Capitalism is a wasteful social system. It destroys property in wars, closes factories, destroys food and, most wasteful of all, it starves millions and denies education and medical care to the world‟s working class.
Many non-socialists would agree that capitalism is, in many respects, a wasteful and destructive system, but they would claim that the system can be made more equitable. They believe that, by government legislation, capitalism can abolish the conflict between rich and poor. Soften the harsh exploitation of the working class. Solve the housing problem – lessen the growth of crime – feed the starving millions – bring co-operation to a system based on class conflict. They imagine that somehow we can have capitalism without war, poverty, ignorance and conflict. Such people we call reformers of capitalism. Such people we call dreamers.
The recent history of the working class has shown the futility of such reforms. In Britain, the Labour Party believe a programme of reforms could transform society. Promising workers a high wage, low prices economy, they were swept to power in 1945. Claiming that they could abolish poverty inside capitalism, they found that it was not a case of them running capitalism, but capitalism running them.
Today, in 1995, the British Labour Party are imitating the policies and slogans of the avowedly capitalist party – the Conservative Party – in a desperate bid for power. They have made the very term Socialist a word that stinks in the nostrils of the British working class, since experiencing their various terms of power. They have been proven to be just another reformist party eager to run capitalism.
In India, as you know, the congress party has adopted the same disastrous results. It makes no difference whether the reformers are honest, genuine, clever people (and we know that quite often they are not that), they are powerless to run capitalism in the interests of the majority. Capitalism is a system based on class exploitation. There is only one way to run it – in the interests of the exploiters.
There are yet another set of political parties who claim they can transform society in the interests of the majority. These people call themselves revolutionaries, they mouth a pseudo – Marxism and claim to be the saviors of the working class. These groups are Leninists, Trotskyites, Stalinists and Maoists. Whatever they may have by way of differences, they have one major thing in common. They see themselves as leaders; they have contempt for the understanding of the working class.
To them, the view of the World Socialist Movement – that we must have a majority of the working class understanding, desiring and organizing for Socialism – is a utopian dream. Lenin, their great leader, proclaimed that if we had to wait for working class understanding, we would have to wait 500 years for Socialism.
In power in Russia since 1917 until recently, and in power in much of Eastern Europe since the end of the Second World War, their ruthless dictatorship led to the imprisonment and death of all those workers who stood in their way. Stalin‟s Russia was as bloodthirsty as Hitler‟s regime in Germany and the rest of Europe.
In China today countless millions still suffer the lash of the Bolsheviks‟ harsh dictatorship. Tiananmen Square in Beijing being only one of its recent purges. Workers give up the right to think for themselves at deadly peril.
In 1917, the Socialist Party of Great Britain was almost alone in denying that there was a socialist revolution in Russia, pointing out that Socialism was impossible without the active, class-conscious efforts of the majority of the working class.
Organise for World Socialism
What are the lessons to be learnt from the tragic history of the world‟s working class? For make no mistake about it, your efforts to form in Calcutta an active party based on the principles of the World Socialist Movement, will only succeed if these lessons have been learned.
These lessons are firstly; the party seeking working class emancipation must be based on understanding. Each member of the World Socialist Movement must have basic knowledge of what capitalism is and how it operates. Must understand that World Socialism and only World Socialism can solve the problems of the working class. A policy of no-compromise to the policies of reform must be a fundamental principle.
The second lesson is that a World Socialist Party must base all its activities on the democratic decisions of that party. It must oppose the concept of leadership and elitism. Otherwise, it would cease to be a revolutionary party and succumb to leadership and reformism.
For some years now, the Socialist Party of Great Britain has been in correspondence with the Marxist International Correspondence Circle in Calcutta. Arising out of this, the Calcutta comrades have drawn up a basic statement, which you will consider over the next three days of your Conference.
You have much debate before you. You have to discuss the formation of a new political party; you have to discuss its organization and its campaigns. I am confident that based on your understanding of World Socialism and your adherence to democratic principles that at the end of this Conference, the World Socialist Movement will be welcoming a new vigorous adherent in the struggle for Socialism.
On a personal level, I would like to say that I joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain in the City of Glasgow in 1957. I have been at many debates, meetings and conferences in the United States of America during that time. Today, in Calcutta, is without doubt the most exciting and important in my political life.
In conclusion then, Comrades, let me commend to your Conference the famous words of the Communist Manifesto:
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE.
YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS.
YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN.
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