Marxism is a method of understanding the world for the express purpose of changing it. Marxism is a science which has as its object revolutionary class struggle. Marxism shows how ’liberation’ can be won, not in the mind, in fantasy, by piety and moralizing persuasion, but objectively and historically. The purpose of the Socialist Party is to create socialists. The working class is not only held prisoner by the capitalist mode of production. It is shackled by the unperceived but overwhelming intellectual hegemony of the capitalist class, which anchors it in capitalism. The working class remains ideological prisoners.
Contrary to the Left’s illusions of the workers experience in struggles, no matter how militant, generate theory – only disillusionment. Only when associated education and understanding can the learning process rise above the transient particularism of the individual, to the breadth, continuity and thus overview of the collective. Marx addressed the Brussels Communist Correspondents’ Committee:
“To address the working man without a strictly scientific idea and a positive doctrine is to engage in an empty and dishonest preaching game, which assumes an inspired prophet, on the one hand, and nothing but asses listening to him with gaping mouths, on the other... Ignorance has never yet helped anyone.”
Our minds are not blank sheets of paper upon which ’reality’ can be written. On the contrary, we approach the world full of preconceptions that are instilled by the society in which we have been brought up. And the general cast of these ideas, especially the socio-political component, is heavily influenced by the ideas necessary to justify the existence of the ruling class; hence ’the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas’ as Marx explained. Concepts and theories are as much part of their material reality – the conditions of existence of these interventions – as the material objects/processes being studied, or the technical equipment used to investigate them. The question is how working people will come to embrace the goals of revolution and socialism and how they will struggle to rid themselves of capitalist society by replacing it with a socialist society. The discoveries Marx and Engels succeeded in making were not the result of individual “genius” but rather the product of the collective experiences shared by masses locked in life and death struggle against the capitalist class. The Socialist Party refer to ourselves as Marxists because these discoveries point the way ahead for the workers’ movement everywhere. However, our revolutionary theory is not a catechism–a set of ideas and principles that work mechanically, as if by “magic.” Workers and revolutionaries must constantly evaluate their experiences in struggle and re-evaluate their ideas about these experiences. If working class revolution, proletarian dictatorship, and socialism correctly remain the goals of the revolutionary movement, there is no universally valid formula served up on a platter for achieving these goals.
There is a job to be done. It can be done only by doing it. Working people in every corner of the world know that they can solve the fundamental problems of their class only by making a revolution and winning the fight for socialism. Our agenda is to build up the socialist sentiment, and the socialist movement, and the Socialist Party. The Socialist Party stands upon clearly-defined, publicly-proclaimed and firmly-defended basic principles for the reorganisation of society. The difficulties we face are the mass of misconceptions and outright falsification of the ideas of socialism which the ruling classes have systematically cultivated in the minds of the people. Supposing you decide not join the struggle for socialism and work for its victory what will happen? The trend of capitalist development in every country has been known and observed for many generations. The race among the big nations and corporations for mastery devours more and more of the peoples and wealth of the world. Turbulence and strife, war and destruction, disorder and decay become increasingly prevalent in capitalist society. Stability and security are impossible. Peace is fleeting. War is an ever-present threat or a monstrous reality. Capitalism drives society to a new barbarism and becomes the great destroyer. Upon socialism depends the sustainable future of humanity. The working class is called upon to save society from barbarism and the only alternative to socialism. The inauguration of socialism - that is the aim of the Socialist Party. That is the task of the working class. That is the road to human freedom.
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