Changing Everything

The class war is the basis and hallmark of socialist politics. The Labour Party has always shied away from accusations of class warfare, aiming to speak for the whole community. Socialists contend, though, that where the community is divided by class it cannot be treated as a whole. Inevitably, government policies will benefit one side or another in the struggle between the tiny minority who own the wealth of society, and the vast majority who only own their ability to work.

When we talk of class warfare, we are not talking about rioting in the streets, attacking ‘middle class’ people or anything of the sort, but the continual day to day struggle to secure access to the means of living for millions of people. So far as we are concerned, there is no middle class, no separate privileged mid-layer between the workers and the capitalists, only a vast army on different pay scales being exploited by the same bunch of owners.

Once we accept this, we cannot conscience co-operation with parties that advocate policies to the betterment of the ruling class. We are hostile to them - Labour, Liberals, Tories, nationalists - and seek to frustrate their ends by building a socialist movement to abolish the system they prop up. Workers run society from top to bottom, it's time they ran it in their own interest.

Capitalism can be seen as the mass production of the working class, by the working class for the benefit of a tiny minority of parasites, it is the domestication of humans into a working class. Socialists work for the time when there are no classes just humans. Socialists stand for a social revolution - that is a fundamental change in the way our society operates - where a tiny minority own the means of production and the rest of us slave upon them. There was a time when, if you mentioned revolution, people immediately thought of guillotines from the French revolution, or gulags from the Russian.

The modern world though, is changing that. Year on year we are being treated to popular uprisings and mass movements bringing down unpopular regimes. General strikes and streets full of demonstrators have been able to topple the mighty and powerful.  Of course, socialists are far from satisfied with these revolts - often instigated by splits within the ruling elite, or for nationalist causes - we want more. They are often hijacked by the professional politicians who take control and return to almost business as usual after the fireworks have died away. So long as they leave the fundamental aspect of ownership of the productive wealth in a tiny minority's hands, so the effects of these revolts will be a new elite.

But we take heart that they show that it can be done, that peaceful radical changes could be made. They are a part of the learning curve for all humankind, and we can look to the day when we take to the streets to secure democratic control over the means of production, to back up our democratic organisation, and we can do without elites entirely.

Today the Government uses new anti-terror legislation giving the authorities more powers of surveillance. They say they are motivated by their duty to protect citizens. The reality, though, is that irrespective of the legislation - which is dubious at best - state power can and will be used arbitrarily in the interests of the ruling elites anyway.  During the miners’ strike the Thatcher government established an unlawful national police force, unofficially suspended freedom of movement and used arbitrary arrests to break the miners.  Judges have never been any help in the past. Hide-bound and caught up in their support of deference and power, they defend the establishment - and are no more likely to protect people from arbitrary arrest than a Home Secretary would. These powers, though, are part of a war being fought between the capitalists of Britain and Middle-Eastern capitalists, wannabe capitalists and their respective camp followers. It is a war of power, control and oil. The threat of terrorism cannot be removed by ever greater use of power, but by removing the source of the conflict - greedy men seeking to own the riches of the Earth.

The Socialist Party unequivocally opposes the war. War is completely unnecessary. We are living in a world that has enough resources to provide plenty for all, to eliminate world poverty, ignorance and disease, to provide an adequate and comfortable life for everyone on the planet. Yet under capitalism resources are squandered on armaments, of individual as well as of mass destruction, and, as now, in actual war. We place on record our horror that capitalism has once again provoked the orgy of death and destruction known as war. We extend the hand of friendship to our fellow workers in Iraq who our political masters have designated as targets for destruction. We pledge to do all within our means to bring the slaughter to an immediate end. We pledge ourselves to continue to work for the establishment of a world socialist society of peace and cooperation.  We call upon fellow workers everywhere to join in the struggle for world socialism. We believe that we can peacefully and democratically build a world of common ownership, and oppose all wars in capitalism as against the interest of the working class. Constant war only weakens the workers everywhere. We are against all rulers, all national boundaries, and are for a world co-operative commonwealth. You have the choice of supporting these aims, or supporting the slaughter of capitalism's wars.