The Capitalists Are Blood-Sucking Leeches

We in the Socialist Party are not reformers but revolutionaries. We do not propose to change outward appearances. We want to change the essence of society. Reformism skims the surface. The socialist movement cannot exist unless carried on by men and women because in the last analysis it is the human hand and the human brain that serve as the instruments of revolutions. The only path before workers is revolution. Only socialism can bring the solution and organise production to meet human needs. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for everyone. This is the aim of the socialist revolution. Only the organised working-class can fight and destroy the power of the capitalist class, can drive the capitalists from possession, and can organise social production to create a free and equal society. All production is directed solely to supplying people’s needs. It is for use, not for profit. Therefore every expansion of production means greater abundance and leisure for everybody. Because production is for ourselves and administered by our own organisations, it will spur on initiative and enthusiasm unattainable under capitalism. Through the rule of the people we can immediately realise the fruits of the revolution and end the present reign of inequality — inequality in respect of every elementary human need of food, clothing, shelter, conditions of labour health, education, etc., and bring the material conditions of real freedom and development to all. In this way we shall immediately banish poverty, offering a new life for all. The capitalists hold up the spectre that revolution means “starvation,” that the workers depend on capitalism for their existence. The contrary is the truth. The workers can by the method of social revolution, and by the method of social revolution alone can rapidly reconstruct this redundant social system and win prosperity for all of us.

Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” are being further exposed everyday. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse. The situation in health care, housing and welfare services is rapidly deteriorating. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing only – to make the most profits possible for a few people. It is the system under which we, and our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mined the mines, built the buildings, manufactured all the products: and then got just enough to live on – if we fought hard enough for it! On the other hand, the capitalist class reaps their huge fortunes from our toil and do no work themselves, except spending the money that we made for them. Class consciousness means that workers come to see that united in action they have enormous power—they can bring the entire economy to a halt and stop profit-making in its tracks. Our class becomes conscious of its true interests and the need for revolution not simply by reading textbooks but through practical action. Mass action is the only way even to defend past gains and to win new ones. Workers learn through experience, through fighting the capitalists in the living class struggle. And whatever the initial outlook of most of the participants, mass working-class action always carries the potential threat of a revolutionary challenge to the system.

There are other parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. We have important disagreements with them. These parties all have one thing in common – they all dress themselves up with high-sounding revolutionary phrases, but underneath they are defenders of various forms of capitalism. There are many who say that they are for socialism and claim to be in favour of the emancipation of workers. However, we mustn’t be taken in. Many of these “socialists” have abandoned the principles of Marxism.

Socialist revolution will put an end to capitalist exploitation and all the forms of oppression that inevitably accompany it. Since human communities have become class-divided communities through the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a minority of people who constitute themselves as the ruling class, class struggle has been the motor of history, and it will remain so as long as the class division of society has not been abolished from the surface of the globe. The Socialist Party always stand for class solidarity in the course of workers’ struggle. We do not drop our support for the fight against the bosses because we do not like particular trade union leaders or their policies.

It is time no for to turn away from the capitalist system, with its mounting mass misery, exploitation, war and terrorism, and look towards socialism. Socialism abolishes the chaos and anarchy of capitalist production and social organisation; it does away with the dog-eat-dog competition of capitalist industry, breeder of commercial crises and war. It sets up instead a planned system of economy in harmony with the worldwide character of modern industry and social relationships. Capitalism robs the toilers of what they produce. Under capitalism everywhere wealth piles up automatically in the hands of the parasitic owners of the industries, while the masses of actual producers live at the bare subsistence line. But in socialism this is fundamentally different. Production is carried on for the benefit of all those in the ommunity. There are no artificial limits placed upon production by the need to sell. There can be no “exploited” when there is no ruling, owning class, no class to get a rake-off from the worker’s production? With private property abolished (but, of course, not in articles of personal use), with exploitation of the toilers ended, and with the capitalist class finally defeated and all classes liquidated, there will then be no further need for the State, which in its essence, is an organ of class repression. The State will, in the words of Engels, “wither away” and be replaced by a scientific technical “administration of things.” The guiding principle will be: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” That is, the distribution of life necessities—food, clothing, shelter, education, etc.—will be free, without let or hindrance. Production for use, carried out upon the most efficient basis and freed from the drains of capitalist exploiters, will provide such an abundance of necessary commodities that there will be plenty for all with a minimum of effort. There will then be no need for pinch-penny measuring and weighing.

The road to this social development can only be opened by revolution. This is because the question of power is involved. The capitalist class, like an insatiable blood-sucking leech, clings to the body of the working people and has to be dislodged.