Power to Destroy - Power to Create

Although the current spirit of the working class is not a revolutionary one, the problems we have today in understanding the nature of revolutionary action do not stem primarily from an insufficiency of capitalist development or a lack of historical experience of class struggle. The Socialist Party analysis does not provide a guarantee of a libertarian future. That depends now as before on the workers' response to their conditions. But we endeavour to  show that such a future is not just a utopian dream but a real possibility worth fighting for. Marxist ideas are, if anything, more relevant today than it was in Marx's time, when large portions of the world were still untouched by capitalism. At the present time, it is true, the workers' movement has reached a uniquely low point even though  the world working class, larger than ever, and more closely than ever linked through their exploitation by the world market, faces the very conditions and necessities that Marx discerned over a century ago. The current recession demonstrated that the capitalist crisis was not something of the past now made obsolete but rather the crisis rendered  obsolete those theories of both the right and left wing economists. If  Marx is now more relevant than ever, the ‘Marxist’ tradition of the Leninists has little to offer us as a guide to understanding, and much to confuse us with.

From the past we draw not only inspiration and still-meaningful ideas but also lessons on mistakes to be avoided. The fundamental idea of the old labor movement, that the working class can build up its forces in large organizations in preparation for the "final conflict" has proven premature, if not false. Whether the organization was that of reformist or of ‘revolutionary; parties, producer or consumer cooperatives, or trade unions, its success has always turned out to be a success in adapting to the needs of survival within capitalism. The Bolshevik vanguard preparing for the day when they would lead the masses to the conquest of state power has also proven useless for our purposes. Such parties have had a role to play only in the unindustrialized areas of the world, where they have provided the ruling class needed to carry out the work of forced economic development unrealized by the native bourgeoisie. In the developed countries they have been condemned either to sectarian insignificance or to transformation into reformist parties of the social-democratic type.

As our goal in the Socialist Party is that of democratic control over social life, our principles must be those of collective action for only successes which have a future are those involving the class as a whole. We see our party as neither leaders nor bystanders but as part of the struggle. We organize lectures and study groups. We publish a journal and pamphlets. We hope to be of some use in making information available about past and present struggles and in discussing the conclusions to be drawn from those. At some point in history the world's working class will  move from resistance to revolution, expropriate the capitalists, and create a society on the basis of "the free and equal association of producers".  It was in order to aid the workers to realize their collective capabilities that Marx wanted to "lay bare the laws of motion of capitalist society" in Capital. He wanted to understand, and so help others understand, the social realities that make possible new forms of social action, and the new forms of thinking that such action involves. The historical process Marx was interested in would consist precisely in people's attempts to change the society in which they find themselves. Theoretical work, in leading to a better understanding of society and so of the tasks involved in changing it, should serve as an element of these attempts. This is the content of Marxist politics of the Socialist Party.

The nature of the goal dictates the form which revolutionary organizations must have. Thus the General Rules for the International Working Men's Association, began with  "That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working class themselves." Its intention, in Marx's words, "to combine and generalize the spontaneous movements of the working classes, but not to dictate or impose any doctrinaire system whatever." Regarding organization, Marx argued against centralism, on the grounds that a centralist structure, "goes against the nature of trade unions," organizations of workers. Typical of his attitude is his remark in a letter of 1868 that especially in Germany, "where the worker's life is regulated from childhood on by bureaucracy and he himself believes in the authoritarian bodies appointed over him, he must be taught above all else to walk by himself." In the same spirit, Marx refused the presidency of the International in 1866, and soon afterwards convinced its General Council to replace the post with that of a chairman to be elected at every weekly meeting. He put his writing skills at the service of the International, in preparing statements of position, official communications, and so forth.

The main task that Marx took on as a revolutionary intellectual, however, as the task- of theory: the elaboration of a set of concepts, at a fairly abstract level, that would permit a better comprehension of the struggle between labor and capital. He prefaced the French serial edition of the first volume of Capital with an expression of pleasure, because "in this form the book will be more accessible to the working class -a consideration which to me outweighs everything else." The function of theory was to help the movement as a whole clarify its problems and possibilities; it did not, in Marx's view, place the theorist in a dominating (or "hegemonic," as the currently fashionable term has it) position vis-a-vis the movement, but was rather what he had to contribute to a collective effort.

Discussing the utopian socialists, Marx observed that:
"So long as the proletariat is not yet sufficiently developed to constitute itself as a class, and consequently so long as the struggle itself of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie has not yet assumed a political character, and the productive forces are not yet sufficiently developed in the bosom of the bourgeoisie itself to enable us to catch a glimpse of the material conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat and for the formation of a society, these theoreticians are merely utopians who, to meet the wants of the oppressed classes, improvise systems and go in search of a regenerating science. But in the measure that history moves forward, and with it the struggle of the proletariat assumes clearer outlines, they no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become its mouthpiece.”

 History offers us more than a supplement to the observation of what is happening before our eyes, as it allows for the detachment from it of concepts and models to aid in the interpretation of present-day events. Such utopian concepts and models cannot provide us with strategy and tactics for the situations we face and will face, but they are essential as an education that helps prepare us for the creativity that revolutionary activity requires.

To the extent that a real workers' movement put into existence, the little parties and groups should " merge in the class movement and make an end of all sectarianism." as Marx explained. The reborn protest movement does not represent a new stage in the development of radicalism, but rather an enlargement of what existed before. The workers fought massive and militant struggles to establish the unions against the corporations and won definite advantages.