Change the World

Commonly the word “socialism” is used as a political trick. The Labour Party is called “socialist”. Labour governments are no less capitalist than the Tories. It is suggested that countries such as in Scandinavia with large welfare programmes are socialist or that nationalised industries are socialist. This has nothing to do with the socialism dealt with here.

A socialist means a man or a woman who recognises the class war between the worker and the owning class as the inevitable historic outcome of the capitalist system and of the direct economic and social antagonisms which it has engendered and fostered. Those antagonisms can only be resolved by the complete control over all the great means of production, distribution, and exchange, by the whole people, thus abolishing the class State and the wages system, and constituting a co-operative commonwealth or a socialism. The preliminary changes which must bring about this social revolution are already being made, unconsciously, by the capitalists themselves, and is anxious to use political institutions and forms to educate the people and to prepare, as far as possible, peacefully for the social revolution which must result in national and worldwide socialism. Socialist change should be completely democratic in every respect. The logical outcome of the fight to extend democracy is to weaken and undermine the power now held and exercised the capitalist class and the winning of political power by the working class. Without such a revolutionary change in society socialism cannot be built. Without such a revolution every advance that has been made in living standards and democracy will be threatened again and again. It is in the best interests of the working people, of the vast majority of the nation, that this mass struggle for political power should be carried through by peaceful means, without violence or civil war. When a socialist majority in Parliament is won it will need the support of the mass movement outside Parliament to uphold the decisions it has taken in Parliament. Conversely, the Parliamentary decisions will give legal endorsement to popular aims and popular struggles. The strength of the mass movement will be felt in Parliament, and the strength of the socialist movement within Parliament will strengthen the movement outside. The one supports the other. In this way, by political action, Parliament can be made into the effective instrument of the people's will and replace capitalism by socialism.

The class struggle may well have reached a turning point. The working class is looking to regain its fighting strength after years of setbacks. There is the mood and the feeling of a radicalisation taking place. There is a growing debate going about how to make a revolution, about who is going to make the revolution and change the world. However, there are people who are reformists, who think of themselves as socialists—the classic reformists who think that we’re going to get socialism by an accumulation of reforms, of gradualism. They’re not revolutionary socialists even if they believe themselves anti-capitalist. The Socialist Party are revolutionaries talking about a Revolution.

The hope for all mankind depends upon the determination and courage of the working people; let us rise to our task. The future lies with socialism