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| IT'S HELL |
Working men or women who tries to find a way clear through
the hardships of present-day conditions are faced with a difficult task. On
every side is distress and confusion. Rising bills, falling wages, the
uncertainty of a job, or the deepening misery of months and even years of
unemployment; wars and ever new threats of war; news of violent struggle and
disturbances abroad—all these are the daily conditions of life now. The Labour
Party has nothing to say. They are ready to make all kinds of promises for a beautiful future time when
they shall be holding government office. New cults and idols are held out
before the workers presenting sham solutions to conceal from the workers their
growing enslavement and hide from them the issue of Revolution. The workers are
beaten down, because they were divided and uncertain, of their path, because
they are misled by leaders in coalition with the capitalists. Capitalism can
only maintain itself by driving down the workers, by harder and harder
exploitation. Longer hours, lower wages, misery and war—these are the offerings
of capitalism in the present epoch.
Various left-wingers instead of the aim of socialism which
inspired the pioneers of the workers movement’, have in the past put forward the aim of a “mixed economy” and of state capitalism which leaves the
exploitation of the workers unchanged and has nothing to do with socialism. Nowhere in the world has socialism ever been established. The
failure of the Left is not the failure of socialism. The Socialist Party’s
electoral programme has never been a platform of election promises and
palliatives. It is the working of the capitalist system itself which produces
unemployment and crises, by piling up profits for the few while wages are kept
down to the minimum. In their insatiable drive for profits, the bosses in every
capitalist country keep down the wages and purchasing power of their own
working class and are constantly driven to seek new markets abroad. This is the
basic cause for the cut-throat competition, the sharp contradictions, and the
increasing unemployment in the whole capitalist world. We must stand together
against the employers. The only struggle for us is the struggle of the workers
against our exploiters. If the workers do not awaken in time to the issue
before us a terrible fate awaits all.
In the name of those millions of our class butchered in all
of capitalism’s wars; in the name of the mental and physical wrecks left to homelessness on the streets of our villages and cities; in the name of the bereaved and
desolate mothers and wives who mourn the vain sacrifice of their loved ones, we
appeal to you to arouse yourselves before it is too late. “War is Hell” and
Hell’s gate has once again been thrown wide open across many parts of the
globe. Workers, you have nothing to do with the quarrels of your ruling class.
Your task is to war against your exploiters as the only way of freeing your
class from all war and the industrial slavery that is grinding us down into
ever increasing poverty. Today governments tell us the old lie of the jingoists
that “the best way to keep the peace is to prepare for war” Aircraft or troops
in the Middle East are not a guarantee of peace but a provocation for further
war. It is madness to say that displays of military force can help towards peace.
What is wrong with the way society is organised, the “system
of society” which prevails? It is
divided into rich and poor—a tiny handful of rich (1 per cent of the population
own more than half the nation’s wealth) who do no work, and the overwhelming
majority who work their whole lives through. The aim of our Party is to
establish socialism and abolish the right of one person to rob another of the
fruits of his or her labour. This is what makes our Party different from all
others.
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