The triumph of socialism

The revolutionary hope of our class has once more found an awakening, with stirrings of renewed struggle. But an opportunity must be grasped or it will not be realised. People require revolution. But revolution needs organisation. Two paths are open to the workers. One is the path of class struggle; the other is the path of class collaboration. Common among people are a number of illusions preventing them from seeing the underlying cause of their problems and from looking toward a socialist solution. One of the most dangerous of these illusions concerns the idea of national interest, which in reality is the interest of the capitalists and their servants, not the people and  designed to protect the money and property of Big Business.  

People are coming to understand things, but their understanding proceeds slowly in the face of the almost total control of the press, radio, and television by the capitalist class. Socialists refute the lie that capitalism can provide individual freedom. What is called bourgeois democracy is the only exploitative system in which the political power (to form political parties, right to vote, to stand for election) are not the monopoly of the ruling class. Theoretically, the working class have the legal right to use their majority of ballots in any way they choose. Therefore, it is even more essential for the capitalist class than it was for the ancient slave-owners or medieval nobility to convince the masses of people that the state rules on behalf of all citizens. The more potential political power the oppressed possess, the more urgent it is for the ruling class to insure that that potential power is not transformed into actual power. In many countries this is assured chiefly by the myth that fundamental differences exist between and divide the two major parties. 

Many dismiss the revolutionary potential of the working class and advance false notions such as workers because they have secured a high level of wages and because real wages continue to rise steadily have acquiesced to a capitalist existence (which the recent recession and downturn in living standards has now disproved); that union leaders have been bought off and turned into  partners in plunder who head-off industrial struggles (again events around the world have exposed that this is an exaggeration); that automation, technological change is constantly reducing the work force and thereby destroying the working class as a vital revolutionary force (the impact is simply re-focusing the participants involved in struggles, presently fast-food and the low paid sectors); that poverty is not a real factor and, at best, afflicts only a small section of an underclass; that, in any case, impoverished people are too downtrodden and demoralised to play an important revolutionary role (and this too is shown to be mistaken as the so-called skilled  workers and “middle class” are hit by austerity cuts.) 

These ideas have led many radicals to believe that the working class is thoroughly corrupt, or completely dominated by the ruling class through the collaboration of the union bureaucrats. They have also led many to think that the workers are essentially stupid or dulled by society. The conclusion is that the struggle for social change must center on the “more enlightened sections” of the working class and on its “revolutionary" leaders, rather than the broad masses of working people. For sure, the media are busy spewing forth the line of the ruling class  to brain-wash the oppressed of the omnipotence, and invincibility of the oppressor. When members of the Left demand to be the vanguard leaders of the workers’ movement the status quo supporters, the professors and journalists, are only to happy to reinforce the misconceptions and undermine workers self confidence in their own capabilities and power. 

The capitalist class has done a magnificent job of obscuring the facts about poverty and about the actual conditions of the working class in general. It has fostered the illusion that there are only isolated pockets of poverty, and that poverty therefore is a personal failing. It has convinced a large section of workers to believe the tale that other workers, particularly in the state sector are for the most part, over-paid and privileged parasites because of powerful union protection. But slowly but surely these attitudes are changing. People are recognising aordinary average workers are suffering equally in this recession while the wealthy and powerful are benefiting. Unskilled and skilled are being replaced by new technology or finding their work out-sourced abroad. Millions are finding through short periods of unemployment that is growing longer in duration, and millions who once worked full time with company benefits are being told to work part-time with no sick or holiday pay that they have more in common than they previous held. They are discovering that the government, regardless of who is in office, is not a neutral arbitrator but the representative of the employers. The capitalist class, locked in a competition battle on a world scale with other employers, are forced more and more to refuse concessions to its workers. This creates the conditions for wider and wider sections of the working class to lose their illusions about the role of the State. The intensification of the class struggle leads to a greater politicalisation of the working class. Independent political movement on the part workers for freedom will lead to direct conflict with the ruling class. The working class is the only class that has the potential power for defeating capitalism. 

The Socialist Party will encourage every  tendency among the people to defend and resist employers. The Socialist Party will attempt to unify working people into a mighty avalanche that can unite with their fellow workers the world over to final victory over capitalism.