Real Socialism

Workers are not bound by tradition to the Labour Party; political parties are not formed by traditions, but by interests.

Reformism is a deception for workers will always remain wage-slaves, as long as there is the domination of capital. The capitalist grant reforms with one hand, and with the other always take them back, reduce them to nought, use them to enslave the workers, to divide them into separate groups and perpetuate wage-slavery. Reformism, even when quite sincere, in practice becomes a weapon by means of which to corrupt and weaken the workers. The reformists try to divide and deceive the workers, to divert them from the class struggle by petty concessions. Reformism actually means abandoning socialism and replacing it by liberal “social policy”. The working people are not content to remain wage slaves of the capitalists. There are no solutions within the capitalist system.

Under capitalism the workers are wage slaves, slaves of the bosses. The bosses run the factories in order to maximise profits. This means that they pay workers as little as possible, that they do not hesitate to cut corners on safety to cut overheads, and poor quality products are purposely produced in order to increase profit margins. History has shown that these conditions are always present under capitalism, and cannot be eliminated as long as there is capitalism. A capitalist has to exploit his workers in order to survive as a capitalist. Under capitalism there is rule of the bosses. The opposing forces are always the same – the master class and the working class.

Socialism means democracy at every level of decision-making. The guiding principle of a socialist society would be “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. One of the important tasks of the Socialist Party is to rescue the whole concept of socialism from mistaken views on what it actually means and to point out that real socialism is worth fighting for. The term ‘socialism’ has been identified by large parts of the population with what emerged in Russia under Lenin and then Stalin. The right-wing attempt to prove that socialism is incompatible with democracy, that socialism cannot be but authoritarian.

We often meet with the argument that “there is no alternative to capitalism, look at the a mess communism made of the Soviet Union and now even that has failed”. Of course, it was capitalism in the Soviet Union which failed and not socialism. Real socialism is something all together different. Under capitalism, workers have no control over what is produced and how. All that is decided by how much profit some capitalist will gain.The capitalists’ ability to purchase and to sell labour power at will is a characteristic of capitalism. For the capitalist, the aim of production is not to produce goods to use, but instead it is a compulsory drive to accumulate capital through exploitation – simply put, to make more money. Once money becomes the aim of production, labour power has to become a commodity. In other words, a worker’s labour power can be bought and sold. Labour power as a commodity is the necessary complement of the private ownership of the means of production by the capitalists. Only by buying the worker’s labour power can the capitalist make profits. Workers produce more than what the capitalist pays them in wages and benefits. This is the basis of exploitation of the workers. What the workers produce over and beyond the socially necessary labour for keeping themselves and their families alive and working is surplus value. Surplus value is the only source of profits and it is what socialist mean when we say the workers is robbed of the fruit of his labour.

In the old Soviet Union workers remained wage-labourers. In the West they may have had more civil rights – to express themselves freely, to organize, demonstrate, strike, struggle for the improvement of wages and labour conditions,  more social rights – to employment, health service, retirement. But their social position is the same. Workers, East and West, had no say about the organisation and planning; they do not decide about the distribution of the results of their work. Their social emancipation requires, therefore, the abolition of both private and state ownership of the means of work; these must be socialised.

But real socialism enables the workers to decide how to organise itself and the resources of society to meet the needs of the people. As long as profit for the few whether they be private owners, shareholders or government officials is the basis of the economic system, that system is capitalism. Socialism is the fundamental opposite of capitalism, substituting social ownership of the means of production for  private ownership.  In socialism labour power is no longer a commodity, you no longer sell your labour power to the employing class.

Marx expressed what socialism is with great clarity. Production is performed in an associated, not competitive way; which means that production is under the worker’s control, instead of by some other power. This clearly excludes a bureaucracy, whether it be a corporate hierarchy or of a State ministry. Real socialism means that the individual participates actively in the planning and its implementation; it means political and industrial democracy. Socialism is a society which serves the needs of mankind. Socialism is the condition of human freedom and creativity. It is the end of alienation where humanity is no longer in conflict with nature, where individuals will no longer be strangers among strangers as in a foreign land, but the world will be his or her home.

Socialism is the transformation of private property into common social property. To be common social property means: to belong to the society as a whole without anybody’s right to sell it or exclude another to its access. The justification for the socialisation of the means of production is that those means were actually produced by the accumulated social work of producers over a long period of time. Socialism is a truly democratic act is the effective introduction of worker’s self-management. The general assemblies in small communities, or the councils composed of delegates in large ones becomes the highest authority, responsible for the basic making of decisions regarding all issues of production, distribution and communal life. It has the right of full control, involving responsibility for decision-making. We place our trust in the people and their understanding of the needs of their places of work and their communities.

Where do our interests lie? Let it be in the slogan of common ownership of the means of life.