Socialism From Below

What is socialism? If we are socialists, what are we actually striving for? These days many activists are busy rethinking their idea of socialism. It is a sign of the times that more and more people are discussing the meaning of socialism. They are not content with the reiteration of  generalisations and want to know how socialism will be applicable in contemporary conditions. Some socialists stress finding the correct definition in the writings of Marx and Engels, who, however, failed to offer up a detailed picture. The label “socialist" is not particularly informative. The range of conflicting and incompatible ideas that call themselves socialist is a wide one. The nearest thing to a common content of the various “socialisms” is a negative: anti-capitalism. Even anti-capitalism holds little meaning when it too lacks any clear definition. Blurring the terminology so much that vague varieties of “socialism” and capitalism are indistinguishable from one another.

There has always been different kinds of “socialists”, reformist or revolutionary, peaceful or violent, democratic or authoritarian, anarchist or statist. There has been the “socialism-from-above”, a conception that “socialism” must be handed down to the working class in one shape or other, by an elite which is not subject to their control. The opposing view is “socialism-from-below.” that socialism can be realised only through the self-emancipation and action of the majority of workers. Socialism, without a doubt, is the doctrine of revolutionary action. But it has nothing in common with violence practiced by individuals or direct action by minorities. It is important for socialists to analyse the past so that future action will not be impeded.

Marx steadfastly refused to supply a blueprint for socialism. The question “what is socialism?” is, he argued, inextricably entwined with another question: how can socialism be achieved? No socialist Utopia s worth the paper it is written on if its authors expect the workers to be passive while the Utopia was achieved. The only way workers  can be emancipated from capital is from below – and the struggle from below cannot be set in motion from above.  By changing the means of getting socialism, reformists changed the meaning of socialism itself. When socialism became a “reformed capitalism” – a different goal-  it ceased to be socialism, and became something completely different.

Socialism, as it was understood by Marx and Engels, would be a society that would have no need for repression and oppression because it had overcome economic scarcity. Marx and Engels envisaged a society in which the social productive forces had developed to a point that they would be capable of producing such a surplus of goods and services that the majority of people would no longer have to spend the greater part of their lives in work. The planned allocation of resources and human labour, in such a future society, would also ensure that no one would have to degrade themselves by working for another human being in order to survive. Instead of work being something we all try to avoid, it would gradually be transformed into one of a wide range of creative activities people engage in to make their lives meaningful. It would be foolish to abandon hope in the promise held out to humanity by the socialism of Marx and Engels.

For centuries the wisest minds and the most far-sighted of our thinkers had thought about and tried to work out plans for a human society not dominated by exploiters, be they slave-owners or factory-owners; a society in which human beings could enjoy the fullness of life without the need to make others their servants, or to be servants of others. People have dreamt of a world where there would be no oppression but where people would live in peace without being robbed. Marx and Engels predicted that the development of the productive forces under industrial capitalism would for the first time in human history build the material basis for such a fundamental transformation of society.

Socialists have always stood opposed to the proposition that it is the destiny of most human beings to live an unfulfilled life. Human progress and social evolution has relied on the grossest forms of oppression and misery. But such economic exploitation, oppression and repression, though regrettable, are unavoidable features of human history as long as the combined output of human labour, science, the machines and technology people have created, is not large enough to provide sufficient food, shelter, recreation, education and necessary luxuries for everyone. Socialists call this condition “economic scarcity.” Economic exploitation, oppression and repression therefore, pose not an unchanging human problem, but are historical problems which could disappear when our productive forces have developed to an extent that nobody goes without what they need for a fully human life.

We will not put the socialist movement on the right track and restore its rightful appeal to the best sentiments of the working class of this country and above all to the young, until we begin to call socialism by its right name as the great teachers did. Until we make it dear that we stand for an ever-expanding workers’ democracy as the only road to socialism. Until we root out every corruption of the meaning of socialism and democracy, and restate the thoughts and formulations of the authentic Marxist teachers. Socialists should not argue with workers when they say they wants democracy and don’t want to be ruled by a dictatorship. Rather, we should recognise this demand for human rights and democratic guarantees, now and in the future, is in itself progressive. The socialist task is not to deny democracy, but to expand it and make it more complete. That is the true socialist tradition. Socialists throughout the long history of our movement, have always valued and defended bourgeois democratic rights, restricted as they were; and have made use of them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether. Socialism cannot be soundly built except on a foundation of trust in the capacity of ordinary people to manage their own affairs which requires methods of administration on a scale not so large as to deprive them of all possibility of exerting any real control over what is done.

Our challenge is to ourselves, to study what went on before, by standing upon the shoulders of the earlier working-class fighters and applying the discoveries of our predecessors to the problems of our time. It s up to the exploited class – the working class – to seize the means of production in a revolution. No one can do it for them. It certainly is no good just thinking about a new society, or trying to attract others to it by example. A socialist economy cannot be planned for workers. Socialism depends upon control from below, and control from below can never be brought about from above. Our task is to persuade the many members of working class  that their interests and aspirations are bound up with the struggle against capitalism. This socialist project is  grounded in the growing awareness of vast numbers of men and women that the capitalist system cannot deliver on the promises which its apologists so generously dispense. Our priority as a socialist party is to convince our fellow workers that there exists a feasible, achievable socialist alternative to capitalism. What is badly needed, is a reaffirmation of the principles and values which make up the socialist objective, and an insistence that there are radical, rational and viable alternatives to the ways of life dictated by a system whose own needs are ever more sharply in conflict with human needs. No piecemeal reforms or partial solutions can bring an end to this state of things. We must resist the efforts to sow illusions about “reforming” capitalism, and instead build our movement with the perspective of overthrowing it. When the Socialist Party climbed up and spoke on soapboxes in almost every town this was the meaning of socialism we were teaching. Part of the lesson naturally consisted of casting aspersions upon the validity of rival political parties and de-throning others’ ideological saints.

The socialist movement has felt obliged to abandon the use of an important word because it had become too corrupt. After the First World War, “Social-democrat” became a dirty word, and as a self-description was dropped. Many socialists who would have been quite happy to call themselves “communists” in the days of Marx or Morris, would now be reluctant to do so. When these words were abandoned as favourable descriptions,  it was not just a matter of changing a label, but of establishing the identity of a valid idea, which would otherwise be confused with a degenerate idea. The same procedure may well have to be adopted again if we cannot successfully reclaim the terms socialist/socialism and if its social vision cannot be assimilated as one coherent piece into the body of a modern social protest.