Elections and The Socialist Party

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.

Let us trust in the people so that the dream of John Ball may become at last reality.