The Party of Marx

By socialism, Marx meant a class-free, money-free, wage-free society. In Marx’s first published writing as a socialist (The Jewish Question, 1843) Marx made it clear that human emancipation “will only be obtained by doing away with the state and with money", a view he held for the rest of his life. Marxian socialism is based on associations of free individuals in a society with no commodity, no money, no wage labour, no state. Men and women will never be free from exploitation and oppression until all work is voluntary and access to all goods and services is free. Socialism means a world-wide society, democratically controlled, without profits, wages or money. This is a practical proposition now. We say that tinkering with administrative forms is of no use. Buying and selling must be abolished. The wage packet—the permission to live—must be abolished.

Misery is mounting among people who want freedom and a right to live, for some way out of this madhouse. The misery and desperation around the world has increased to the point where they desire at all costs a radical change. A political revolution, as called for by Bernie Sanders, can occur without any radical transformation of the underlying economic structure of society, the property basis of society, a “revolution” designed merely to change the ruling bureaucracy of the country and without touching the property system.  A social revolution, on the other hand, affects not only the government but affects the economic system. By social revolution, we mean a transformation, a political and economic transformation of society. It is fundamental and affects the property system and affects the method of production. Marx laid down as a law that no social system can be replaced by another until it has exhausted all its possibilities for development and advancement. That is, you may say, the fundamental prerequisite for a social revolution. There must also be a tremendous sympathy and support among the majority of people for socialist ideas and for a socialist revolution. The revolution can’t be stopped by suppression because the revolution is a tremendous social movement of great masses of people.

What we mean by “exploitation” is the employment of wage labour at a rate of pay less than the value of the product of the labour. When we speak of wage labour we speak of the average, and the general rule. Marxism deals in the general and not in the analysis of each and every individual worker. The workers, taken collectively and an average struck, produce an enormous amount of wealth for which they do not receive the equivalent wage. That is surplus value, according to Marx. That is profit that goes into the hands of the capitalists, not in return for labour but as profit on investment. The Socialist Party wants to eliminate the whole profit system. We want to have production for use, not for profit.

Socialism and communism are more or less interchangeable terms in the Marxist movement. Some make a distinction between them in this respect; for example, Lenin used the expression socialism as the first stage of communism, but he exercised only his own authority for that use. It was Lenin’s own particular idea picked up from currents within the Second International. The Socialist Party considers the terms socialism and communism interchangeable, and they relate to the classless society based on planned production for use as distinct from a system of capitalism based on private property and production for profit.

Marx was of the opinion that the social transformation could be effected by purely peaceful and legal means where a parliamentary system, its democratic processes, and civil political procedure existed. Engels qualified that by adding: “To be sure, Marx did not exclude the possibility of a proslavery rebellion on the part of the outmoded and dispossessed ruling class.” That is, after the transfer of power. We should also add to make clear that the conditions of Britain in Marx’s time exist no more and therefore his calculation is out of date and no longer applicable.  At any rate, Marxism, without a doubt, is the doctrine of revolutionary action. But it has nothing in common with terrorism by individuals or small groups”, or any other form of action wherein individuals or minorities attempt to substitute themselves for the working class. The revolutionary action which Marx contemplates is the action of the working class majority. It is a lot less romantic than that of impatient leftists who dream of shortcuts and miracles to be evoked by the magic word “action”. A party which lacks mass support and membership, which has yet to become widely known to the workers, must organise along the lines of propaganda and education, of patient explanations, and pay no attention to impatient demands for “action”. But neither did we represent ourselves as pacifists. “Peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary”.

“Dictatorship of the proletariat” is Marx’s definition of the state that will be in operation in the transitionary period between the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of the socialist society. In the opinion of the Marxists, it is to be a class dictatorship in that it will frankly represent the workers and will not even pretend to represent the economic interests of the capitalists but to dispossess the capitalist class. We will expropriate from the owning class the means of production and distribution—take them out of their hands and place them it in the hands of the people. The popular impression of dictatorship is a despot, one-man rule or a one-party state. This is not contemplated at all in the Marxian term dictatorship of the proletariat. This means the dictatorship of a class which is the majority. The position of the Socialist Party is that the most economical and preferable, the most desirable method of social transformation is to have it done peacefully via elections. If we can have the possibility of peaceful revolution by the registration of the will of the majority of the people, it seems to the Socialist Party it would be utterly absurd to reject that, because if we don’t have the support of the majority of the people, we can’t make a successful revolution anyhow.

Marx contended that present day society is divided into two main classes. One is the capitalists, or the bourgeoisie (the bourgeoisie is a French designation which is used by Marx interchangeably with the expression “the modern capitalist”.) The other main class is the working class, the proletariat. These are the two main classes in society. The workers are exploited by the capitalists. There is a constant conflict of interests between them, an unceasing struggle between these classes, which can only culminate in the eventual victory of the proletariat and the establishment of socialism. We believe that the modern world is an economic unit. No country is self-sufficient. It is impossible to solve the accumulated problems of the present day, except on a world scale; no nation is self-sufficient, and no nation can stand alone. The economy of the world now is all tied together as one whole, and because we think that the solution of the problem of the day—the establishment of socialism—is a world problem, we believe that the advanced workers in every country must collaborate in working toward that goal. We have, from the very beginning of our movement, collaborated with like-minded people in all other countries in trying to promote the socialist movement on a world scale. We have advocated the global organisation of the workers, and their mutual cooperation in all respects.  The Socialist Party has opposed all forms of nationalism, chauvinism, racism and sexism, and been against all prejudice, discrimination or denigration of fellow-workers. We believe that the wealth of the world, the raw materials of the world, and the natural resources of the world are so distributed over the earth that every region on the planet contributes something and lacks something for a rounded and harmonious development of the productive forces of mankind. We visualise the future society of mankind as world socialism in which will have a collaborative division of labour between the various regions according to their resources, a and production of the necessities and luxuries of mankind according to a coordinated world planning.

We view the trade-union movement as the basic organisation of the workers engaged in the class struggle to defend their interests from day to day. We are in favour of trade unions, recognising them as independent, autonomous organisations that should be outside the control of a political party and we support their efforts to strengthen themselves.  The trade unions help the workers to resist the extremes of exploitation, possibly to gain improvement of working conditions; that is for us are decisive reasons to support them because we are in favour of anything that benefits the workers. In general, we are in favour of industrial unionism. That is that form of unionism which organises all the workers in a given shop or given industry into one union. We consider that a more progressive and effective form of organisation than craft unionism, so we support the industrial-union principle. But we don’t condemn conventional mainstream trade unionism even though we do not accept craft unionism. The Party continually argues for improved democratic structures inside the unions, demanding the rights of the members to speak up, to have free elections, and frequent elections, and in general to have the unions under the control of its membership through the system of democracy.

Modern wars, in the opinion of our party, are caused by the conflict of competing rival nations for markets, colonies, sources of raw material, fields for investment, and spheres of influence. As long as the capitalist system remains, and with it those conditions which flow automatically from the operation of the capitalist system recurring wars are inevitable. Our party has always stated that it is impossible to prevent wars without abolishing the capitalist system which breeds war. It may be possible by public protests to delay a war for a while, but eventually, it is impossible to prevent wars while this profit system remains. The Socialist Party is of the opinion that wars are caused by international economic conflicts, and not by the good will or bad will of some people. That does not entirely eliminate the possibility of incidental attacks being caused by the acts of this or that ruling group of one country or another but fundamentally wars are caused by the efforts of all the capitalist powers to expand into other fields. The only way they can get them is by taking them away from some other power, because the whole world has been divided up among a small group of nationalist powers. That is what leads to war, regardless of the will of the people. Our party is unalterably opposed to all wars. By that, we mean that we do not give any support to any war. We do not vote for it; we do not vote for any person that promotes it; we do not speak for it; we do not write for it. We are in opposition to it. We write against it; we speak against it; we try to create sentiment against it. We carry out public political agitation against ALL war. We do not want all the bloodshed to make profits for Capital. We are going to oppose war; we are going to speak against it.

The government is the tool of the capitalists. It is the representative of the capitalists. We do not think capitalist political parties can or will solve the fundamental social problems which must be solved in order to save civilisation from the shipwreck. We believe that the necessary social transition from the present system of capitalism to the far more efficient order of socialism can only be brought about by the workers themselves who must organise themselves independently of the capitalist political parties. They must organise a great party of their own, develop an independent socialist party and oppose the capitalist parties. Our party runs candidates wherever it is able to get on the ballot. We conduct campaigns during the elections, and in general, to the best of our ability, and to the limit of our resources, we participate in election campaigns. The immediate purpose is to make full use of the democratic possibility afforded to popularise our ideas, to try to get elected wherever possible; and, from a long range view, to use the political power to capture the state machine.  We hold public lectures and educational meetings to advance the doctrines of the party. We publish a monthly journal and issue leaflets to present our ideas. The Socialist Party does not accept all of the statements found in all of the writings of Karl Marx. The party has never obligated itself to do that. We do not consider even Marx as infallible. The party accepts his basic ideas and theories as its own basic ideas and theories. That does not prohibit the party or members of the party from disagreeing with things said or written by Marx which does not strike at the fundamental basis of the movement, of the doctrine. We interpret and apply Marxian theories under conditions that prevail at the present time.

Marxism is not a dogma but a guide. As things are going now, and as they conceivably can in the near future, we, as a minority party, will keep preaching our case for socialism, recruiting members, doing our best to grow bigger, more popular, and get more support. If we have to rely solely on the effectiveness of our arguments, things remaining as they are, we will not grow very fast; but we, as Marxists, believe that historical development will come powerfully to the aid of our ideas. Continued bankruptcy of the present system, its inability to solve its problems, its worsening of the conditions of the people, will push them on the road in search of a solution of what seems to them an absolutely hopeless situation. Under those conditions, our goals can appear to the people more and more plausible, more and more reasonable, and we can begin to become a stronger party. It has happened before with parties of similar ideas. As our party grows, it in itself will be a reflection of the growth and development of the broad labour movement. Socialism is a democratic movement and can be realised only with the support of the majority. The party’s basic task, while it remains in the minority, is propaganda to win over the majority. At this moment in time, when the people of the world, when they are constantly fed on lies, need, more than anything else, is to know the truth. Our party is built on correct ideas and therefore is indestructible. Our comrades are devoted to each other and trust each other. That is an intangible source of power that will yield great results in the days to come. The socialist goal is no trifle ant o serve that goal that is enough reward.