Why Political Action?

Part of the Socialist Party of Great Britain's argument is that by endeavouring to go through parliament and capturing the state machine which includes the armed forces the likelihood of bloodshed is minimalised. The state controls every part of the armed forces, from the policeman’s truncheon to the nuclear bomb. So long as the capitalist class is allowed to remain in control of the military, there would be no chance of dispossessing the capitalists, or abolishing their system. The primary objective of a revolutionary working class entails gaining control of the armed forces.

There is no possibility of the workers successfully engaging the capitalist class in violence. If the capitalist means of co-ercion was solely the police, then, we could organise workers’ battalions such as the Irish Citizens Army. But the tremendous nature of military force in society today preclude the possibility of prevailing. So capitalists has the supreme weapon - political power and with it, control of the army, navy, air and police forces and that power is conferred upon the representatives of the capitalist class by elections and that is why they invest such large amounts of wealth and much time and effort to win them .

The SPGB are not pacifists. We considered violence a possibility but we argue that the more workers understand and the more educated they become in socialist ideas, the less chance there would be of violence. Historically the battle of ideas has been waged both in the mind (in debates and discussions) and on the streets. The SPGB favour the first approach, and do all we can to keep activity there. Street fighting can only firstly divide us and secondly weaken us. Authoritarian parties such as the old Communist Party denigrate and suppress their opposition so as not to compete by demonstrating the relative values of their ideas. This is where street-fighting plays its negative role: physically removing opposition that one cannot overcome in a battle of hearts and minds. The revolution is aborted in the process, not defended. This is another reason why a socialist revolution must be peaceful. Revolutionary violence is a sign of weakness in the working class.

Our assumption in the SPGB is that significant numbers of capitalists will see the futility of resisting a well-educated, well-organised working-class majority. The capitalist class cannot continue its rule even through violence when enough workers decide to break with the capitalists’ legitimacy and the capitalist system. The position of the SPGB is that the control of the state neutralises the threat of a recalcitrant capitalist class thwarting the will of a class conscious majority, which is the precondition of establishing socialism .The SPGB reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the majority have come to want and understand it. Without a socialist working class, there can be no socialism. The establishment of socialism can only be the conscious majority, and therefore democratic, act of a socialist-minded working class. In many of the so-called revolutionary situations in the past that majority did not exist within the working class.

The capitalist class are the dominant class today because they control the State (machinery of government/political power). And they control the State because a majority of the population allow them to, by their everyday attitudes but also voting for pro-capitalist parties at election times, so returning a pro-capitalism majority to Parliament, so ensuring that any government emerging from Parliament will be pro-capitalism. Just as today a pro-capitalism majority in Parliament reflects the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population wants or accepts capitalism, so a socialist majority in Parliament would reflect the fact that a majority outside Parliament wanted socialism. The SPGB argue that control of parliament by representatives of a conscious revolutionary movement will enable the bureaucratic-military apparatus to be dismantled and the oppressive forces of the state to be emasculated, so that socialism may be introduced with the least possible violence and disruption. The SPGB is not pacifist and does not exclude if need be violence but has adopted the Chartist slogan "peacefully if possibly, forcibly if necessary".

The Russian and German Revolutions actually confirm in some ways the views advanced by the SPGB, that BECAUSE of their control of the state, the German SPD could enforce its rule. And of course, it was the control of the state again that permitted the Bolsheviks to assume dictatorial control over Russia through the coercion of the Red Army over the SR/Menshevik/Anarchist opposition.

The position of the SPGB is that the control of the state neutralises the threat of a recalcitrant capitalist class thwarting the will of a class conscious majority, which is the precondition of establishing socialism. The SPGB reject ALL forms of minority action to attempt to establish socialism, which can only be established by the working class when the majority have come to want and understand it. Without a socialist working class, there can be no socialism. The establishment of socialism can only be the conscious majority, and therefore democratic, act of a socialist-minded working class. I think in many of the so-called revolutionary situations in the past that majority did not exist within the working class.

The German SPD prevailed because they indeed had either the active or passive support of most Germans who sought simply a period of respite and recuperation after the war years. Luxemburg understood that the battle for the hearts and minds of the German working class was still to be won and that any insurrection would have been premature. The Sparticist / Revolutionary Shop Stewards Uprising was actually provoked by the Right and certainly not instigated by Luxemburg or Leibnecht. That the Left did what was expected of them demonstrated the political immaturity of the times. Only a majority of socialist-minded workers could have made the revolution in Germany. The bloody defeat showed how violence, especially by a minority, is suicidal against an existing organised state. That Luxemburg was against proposing a revolutionary putsch is on record and what she simply did, was what any honest representative of the working class could do when events actually began - she took the side of the workers against blood-thirsty mercenaries.

The SPGB position is to capture parliament to abolish capitalism as you well know, not to assume political office or to institute a policy of reforms. Therefore, we can agree with Luxemburg when she says:

"Our participation in the elections is necessary not in order to collaborate with the bourgeoisie and its shield-bearers in making laws, but to cast out the bourgeoisie and its shield-bearers from the temple, to storm the fortress of the counter-revolution, and to raise above it the victorious banner of the proletarian revolution. In order to do this, is a majority in the National Assembly necessary? Only those who subscribe to parliamentary cretinism, who would decide the revolution and socialism with parliamentary majorities, believe this. Not the parliamentary majority in the National Assembly, but the proletarian mass outside, in the factories and on the streets, will decide the fate of the National Assembly.... It, the mass, shall decide on the fate and the outcome of the National Assembly. What happens in, what becomes of, the National Assembly depends upon its own revolutionary activity. The greatest importance therefore attaches to the action outside, which must batter furiously at the gates of the counter-revolutionary parliament. But even the elections themselves and the action of the revolutionary representatives of the mass inside parliament must serve the cause of the revolution. To denounce ruthlessly and loudly all the tricks and dodges of the esteemed assembly, to expose its counter-revolutionary work to the masses at every step, to call upon the masses to decide, to intervene – this is the task of the socialists’ participation in the National Assembly."

Again the example of the army in Russian Revolution answers those that argue that soldiers (and state employees in general) due to their indoctrination, would not obey the instructions of a workers' parliament but would still respond to the orders of the capitalists. They claim that they could then be used to put down the revolution and this gives rise to further speculation about the need for workers' militia, by-passing parliament and so on. It is quite illogical to assume that the wave of enthusiasm for socialism which would be sweeping through the working class as a whole would somehow miss out that section which forms the bulk of the armed forces. Our evidence for this is the record of previous revolutions. The success of the bourgeois revolution in Russia in 1917 was guaranteed when the military, which for decades had brutally put down all opposition to the tsar, succumbed to the general revolutionary discontent and refused any longer to protect the old ruling class. If soldiers then took up the slogans of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SRs, how much more likely will they be to accept socialist policies put forward by workers like themselves organised in a mass socialist party?

The vote is merely the legitimate stamp which will allow for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of the States and the end of bourgeois democracy and the establishment of real democracy. It is the Achilles heel of capitalism and makes a non-violent revolution possible. What matters is a conscious socialist majority outside parliament, ready and organised to take over and run industry and society; electing a socialist majority in parliament is essentially just a reflection of this. It is not parliament that establishes socialism, but the socialist working-class majority outside parliament and they do this, not by their votes, but by their active participating beyond this in the transformation of society. We fully agree with Luxemburg that "Without the conscious will and action of the majority of the proletariat, there can be no socialism."

Of those organisations with agreed positions, the SPGB has perhaps the most thought out argument for maintaining that there is all possibility that socialism can be achieved by little violence. It has been discussed and debated within the SPGB since it began all through the various stands of popular contemporary political currents of the time, from insurrectionists to syndicalism. So far, it has been a matter of the SPGB unfortunately saying "we told you so" and that hurts and gives no satisfaction to most SPGB members. We want to be proved wrong and that somehow there is a shortcut to socialism. But we are a miserable lot of gloom and doom merchants, but again at same time, we are rosy eyed optimists too in our views that the workers are fully capable of eventually understanding socialism and organising for it with the minimum of social disruption and upheaval and chaos, normally associated with revolution.

You and others may not agree with the SPGB case, but it is nevertheless a valid proposition for the working class to choose or reject and it should not be denied to them though omission or by misinterpretation. Our critics say the working class have been rejecting this "proposition" for the past 100 years" It is the case, yet it seems like they too have all shared the same rejection by any measure you choose to use, votes or membership or actual workers activism so lack of success is nothing to crow about in sole regard to the SPGB.

To summarise, the SPGB position is that we deem it as very unlikely that the capitalist class would be capable of resisting socialism violently. But not being soothsayers or determinists , we say that there may indeed be a reaction from the capitalist class and it would be resisted and thus we adopt the slogan "peacefully if possible, forcibly as necessary " and that's been part of the SPGB case since 1904 and the reason we emphasise the importance of capturing political control of the state machinery INCLUDING the armed forces to guarantee the will of the majority over any recalcitrant minority .