What is the place of socialism in the world and what is its
future? These questions are inseparably tied to the more relevant question,
“What is our view of socialism?” If socialism is being advocated what kind of
socialism is it? Are we being utopian in the sense of advancing a pleasant but
impossible dream?
Apologists for capitalism have long devoted enormous efforts
to arguing against socialism. They argue that it is a completely utopian
exercise that flies in the face of human nature but more seriously some on the
left suggest that talk by the Socialist Party of a peaceful transition to
socialism is nothing but naiveté, a denial of history’s lessons. But is this
true? While there are examples of ruling classes using force to block social
change, there are also instances where corrupt and discredited regimes have
been swept away without mass blood-letting. The brutal South African apartheid
regime gave way to the forces of freedom without the country being thrown into
civil war; Russia and its Eastern Bloc satellites jettisoned the Communist
Party dictatorships and state-capitalist economies practically bloodlessly.
Iran threw out the Shah, Philippines rejected Marcos. Thus a peaceful
transition is possible. We would be organised in the workplaces and communities
so as to defend democratic change.
Today millions of people feel alienated from the political
process (nearly one-third of the population doesn’t vote.) Many people see
politics as disconnected from their day-to-day lives, even an obstacle to their
aspirations. But the Socialist Party is well aware that along with political
action to capture the state machine, new popular institutions and indirect
forms of governance will likely emerge during the revolutionary process that
draw millions into struggle and devolve and disperse political power to the
grassroots. We need a radically different political system: a system of
participatory democracy that empowers the people who are currently excluded
from genuine decision making power. This would be based on organisations of
popular democracy in localities, workplaces and schools which could directly
make decisions affecting their respective communities. Any administrators or
officials elected by these bodies should be subject to recall through a simple
process if their electors are dissatisfied.
The problems we face are not the result of mistaken policy
positions by government or a poor choice of leaders. They are the inevitable
product of a system based on the interests of a tiny minority. Under
capitalism, a tiny handful of people—the capitalist class, “the 1%”, control
the means of production, distribution and exchange. They own the corporations
that own the mines, factories, banks, transport networks, supermarket chains,
media empires, and so on. It is not enough to simply appeal to the better
nature of the current rulers or try to persuade them by clever arguments to
make changes. Even to win very limited reforms and improvements within the
current system requires the pressure of a popular mass movement. This is
because the corporate elite fight ferociously when their interests are
challenged. We need revolutionary change. Revolution doesn’t mean a violent
coup by a minority: a revolution can only come about when the majority of
people see the need for radical change, and are actively involved in bringing
it about. A revolution is a mass struggle to create new and far more democratic
forms of political power and a new social system.
If our vision of socialism is simply a modified version of
what presently exists today, don't expect too many to embrace it. Only a vision
that is forward looking will capture the imagination which places people at the
centre of a new society and, and this is paramount, its creation. Our picture
of socialism must be painted in many colours. Socialism's vision and practice
must be democratic, emancipatory but above all humanistic.
Economic crisis alone, however, is not the sole cause of
revolutionary change. It doesn't follow that it will simply automatically emerge
out of everyday struggles. As someone once said, people do not live by bread
alone; they also need ideas, understanding and inspiration. The soil in which
our revolutionary ideas take root is prepared by the cumulative effects of many
different material conditions - economic, political, social, and moral - taking
place over time, during which people's understanding grows deeper and their
political consciousness expands in sophistication going beyond the simplistic
"the system sucks". Cut-and-dried formulas, simplistic answers,
and high-sounding slogans with no reflection in concrete reality are of little
help. The old determinist idea that an economic breakdown is followed by
"the revolution" should be discarded. Socialism must be the product
of a united and politically engaged majority. The point of political action isn't
to conjure up illusory shortcuts to socialism. It is to change the world. If we
struggle for the new society then it must really be new.
Socialism cannot be achieved without the support and
activity of the majority of people. Marx and especially Engels thought that
universal suffrage, for example, is big step forward and important weapon in
hands of working class. Marx wrote in the Statute of the First International
that liberation of working class must be done by itself. It is expected to be
done by it and only by it because if socialist revolution is fundamental change
of one society with another, if it means that the class of owners who ruled for
centuries have to disappear economically, it is impossible to reach this aim
only with activity of political organisation, no matter how well organised,
mass and supported it is. It is said that new society is in the interest of
great majority of people. If this society is to come, this majority have to
understand and accept it as its interest and ideal. You can't liberate those
who don't want liberation. The substance of socialism is that there is no a
group of people who will be in position to hold the power and in that way to
exclude all others from exercising democracy. The Paris Commune was the best
example of self-governing society. Marx highly evaluated this experience which
had so strong impression on him. Engels also described the Paris Commune as a
form of dictatorship of proletariat, although it proclaimed political freedoms,
multi-party system and workers' self-management in enterprises. Rosa Luxemburg
insisted that, “without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of the
press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every
public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the
bureaucracy remains as the active element.” Hence, the requirement of
“socialist democracy,” she insisted, “begins simultaneously with the beginnings
of the destruction of class rule and the construction of socialism.” Socialist
democracy is not to be conceived as applying merely to the political sphere,
narrowly conceived, but would have to extend to all aspects of public and
private life. Socialism is not just a dream or a utopia that can be wished into
existence. It depends on workers taking over the massive wealth of capitalism
and using it for human need.
“Democracy in
government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and
universal education, foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which
experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending. It will be a
revival, in a higher form, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the
ancient gentes [people].” - Lewis Henry Morgan
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