“Together For All”

A few personal reflections by this blogger concerning organisation and the Socialist Party

We are all alienated under capitalism - alienated from the sort of work that might be meaningful, the sort of relationships that might sustain us, alienatated from the Earth and from the human community. We are also alienated from our own true selves. We want change but we don't want to see the world reproduced as it currently is. It is not just about dreaming up blueprints for a new society, though that can be important if we do that together.  It's about transforming our social lives and relationships, transforming ourselves. It’s about  challenging the lonely hopes of our fellow workers of winning the lottery to escape their misery, and of  disillusioning others of their  fantasies for violent revenge upon those who oppress us. We need to re-focus our aim towards the personal gain of collective struggle for common ownership, emphasising it is about working for ourselves yet not about individual survival. We have to succeed in tracing social and personal problems to their root - capitalism.

 The recession and the State’s austerity policies has made the need for a radical re-thinking of our politics more urgent than ever. In fact the bigger picture is that we are literally destroying the Earth and billions of lives in the name of capitalist economic growth. The Occupy movement which emerged around the world with its camps tried to present alternative social relationships, political power and future possibilities. Protest movements need to promise a different, better world in both word and deed. They cannot limit themselves to offering seemingly practical palliatives, but must act as catalysts to advance and defend visions of a very different world. An expanding capitalist economy provides suitable conditions for reformism and for many decades reformist ideas have been dominant in the working class. However, the belief that the systems we live under can be reformed or tamed is hopeless idealism whereas the revolutionary approach is pragmatic and understands the only real way out of the exploitation we are living under. Bold declarations of radical aspirations ignites and inspires the imagination and and when combined with thoughtful organization, can change the world. Revolutions are not built purely out of love and cosy sentiments. Rather, movements need to possess structures where disagreement, argument and critical thinking can flourish and emerge from the differences between people, ideas, experiences and strategies. It is by working through conflicts of opinion, and not by glossing them over in the name of false unity or claims to party efficacy that contributes to our vitality. Making room for these disagreements, but ensuring they don't handicap the movement, is key.

Why does the Socialist Party exist? Nothing less than to help make a social revolution which is a complete transformation of human society and all its social relations. That is no small thing. It is about the biggest job that any body have ever set itself and the means at our disposal is simply other people like ourselves. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class themselves. There is no other way. We endeavour to organise a working-class political party, independent of, and hostile to, all capitalist parties, as an instrument for the political, economic and social emancipation of the working-class. It is in the direction of building up a class-conscious working-class socialist party that we have concentrated our efforts and  energy. Agitate, Educate, Organise!

Perhaps, as some critics say, our methods are not perfect and we have never claimed that we haven’t made mistakes or that we should not engage in self-examination of our tactics or methods. We have no reason for complacency. But the Socialist Party does claim that the road we have marked out is the right road, and that no other political organisation has, as yet, discovered a better way.  Whatever may or not be the faults that which we have to reproach ourselves, it is scarcely a failure to be placed at our feet  if those to whom we make our appeal decline to take the path we point out to them, and persist in taking detours down every side-track and dead end in search of a short-cut. Where we could have missed opportunity is that in organising we could have failed to take advantage of new ideas and conceptions in communications. When we present our alternatives, we need to assess them on the basis of how well they allow us to confront and overcome systems of exploitation and oppression.

 Not only have we not succeeded mustering the working-class to our banner, the fact is, many sincere socialists remain outside our party. Let us search for the reasons and if possible remedy them. Do we distance possible friends and allies rather than to win them over? There must be adherence to the party’s principles but also there should be room within it for every genuine socialist. There should be no hunt for possible heresies, no obsession about reaching full 100% agreement on non-essential points of difference but instead a celebration of  the core points of consensus to bring all comrades into a united socialist party, a living, vibrant instrument for the emancipation of humanity!  It needs to make common cause with others of like mind for a real, material transformation of the world. Our confidence and hopes are activated and animated when we encounter examples of new ideas. The sound of the class war drums become a common beat as we increasing engage in shared understanding. There needs to be the realisation that building solidarity is never-ending work.

Rather than a slogan of “Alone Against All” it should be “Together For All”