Participation in elections are but a part, although not necessarily
the most important part, of socialist activity. Something even more important
than success at the polls is the progress of socialist consciousness in the
masses, and successes at the polls are in themselves of interest only in so far
as they permit us to judge of the increase of this socialist consciousness. It
is also evident that with the success of a socialist party on the political
field, success on the economic field by the trade unions will be multiplied.
As socialists, we supported no capitalist side in elections.
Voting for Labour or Tory means supporting both parties’ attacks against the
working class. The Labour Party, particularly its left-wing, claims to stand
for the workers’ interests and for socialism. Labour claims that socialism can
be introduced gradually through a series of reforms using parliamentary means.
In the early years of the Labour Party many workers voted for Labour, believing
that they could vote in socialism, but the experience of various Labour
governments has brought disillusion. Today no-one believes that Labour will
establish a new and better political and economic system. Even Labour politicians
themselves ask for votes with the claim that they can make capitalism work
better than the Tories. The Labour Party represents the capitalist class and no
other class. Many in the working class no longer holds any illusion that the
Labour Party represents its interests or will bring about any real change in
the system. At best, the Labour Party is seen as a lesser evil than the
Conservative Party. If the left-wing support Labour in election campaigns, even
as a lesser evil or with all sorts of qualifications to their support, they are
betraying the working class. This support amounts to an attempt to propping up workers’
illusions that if only Labour had a more ’left’, ’socialist’ leadership things
would be different. No party, however ’left’ its leadership, can effect
important changes to the capitalist system through Parliamentary reforms.
Whenever the power of the governing class asserts itself,
then the workers must fight. The State is the political expression of the
dominant class, and since that dominant class uses the machinery of the
State—law, justice, force—to maintain its own privileges and to impose its will
upon the labouring mass, the workers contest their claims by political action. The
reason why some Socialists participate in the every-day struggle in the
industrial field, and yet decline to take a part in political action, is that
they regard industrial action as more important than political. That belief is
without justification. When workers
votes for the Socialist Party candidate they vote against the whole of the
capitalist class; they votes for their own class without regard for divisions.
Nevertheless, we hear it every time an election comes along,
that patronizing and parroted rhetoric:
“A vote for anyone but the Labour Party is a vote for the
Tories!”
“A vote for any candidate but our candidate is a vote for
the candidate who’s worse than our candidate!”
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!”
“Don’t be a spoiler!”
“Don’t waste your vote!”
This line of political campaigning is that you are being
told to vote for a candidate you don’t prefer rather than for the candidate you
do prefer and they are telling you that your vote really belongs to the
candidate that they want. The “pragmatists” advise strategic voting. If you think
that Candidate A is just a little less bad as Candidate B, then decide to vote
for Candidate A instead of Candidate C who reflects your own actual views but
is deemed “unelectable” and can’t win. But why not vote for what you want instead
of voting against what you fear. Maybe you’d rather not vote at all than choose
from among a band of thieves. Your vote, your ballot and is YOUR choice, don’t
let them argue you out of it.
People can be educated to support socialism, but they cannot
be led, lured, driven or bulldozed into it. Socialism cannot be imposed by
force. Socialism applied in its full breadth and with all its beneficial
effects, is only possible when it is understood and wanted by popular consent
that embrace all the elements necessary to creating a society superior to the
present one. The socialist revolution will not be socialist if the people
making it are not socialist, as unfortunately it is presently the case.
However, the Socialist Party and its members are socialists, we must remain socialists
and act like socialists before, during and after the revolution. Without the
socialists without socialist activity, the next revolution, at best, would only
bring about a shallow improvement, largely delusive and by no means adequate to
the effort, the sacrifices, the pain of a revolution, instead of marking a
progress of freedom and justice and the start of a complete liberation of
mankind. At worse, it would bear new forms of oppression and exploitation more
severe than the present.
Socialism is seeking not simply some other way to regulate
the market, but to move toward a post-commodity economy. It is all about people
coming together to become masters of their own affairs, a direct democracy of
cooperation between everyone, a free solidarity. The object is not simply to
develop democracy further, but to undertake the disappearance of the state
through the re-appropriation by the citizens of their decision-making powers.
Marx spoke of the voluntary association of producers as the basis of the new
society, making possible the ‘free development of individualities’. He also
said “The proletariat is revolutionary or it is nothing.” Once again wide
sections of the people are being drawn into action against a ruling oligarchy.
The co-operative commonwealth will be inaugurated by the
action of the workers. To assert the contrary is a denial of the very
principles of socialism. Workers move along the road to socialism.
Circumstances compel workers to move along the road to socialism. Economic laws
operate whether they are known or not. As a socialist party we must bring this
knowledge to the workers. The function of the Socialist Party is to teach the
workers how the wealth their labour produces is taken from them; to inculcate a
sense of their duty to themselves and the part they have to play in completing
the emancipation of mankind. The Socialist Party must carry its message to the
workers; the workers will not come to us in order to receive it as a gift from
our hands. The stronger the Socialist Party, the better can it permeate the
workers’ movement.
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