Socialism Is Our Goal

Socialists admire that slogan “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” but assert that ONLY by carrying on the fight for socialism can it be achieved. It will ONLY be accomplished by the declaration of labour’s independence and the proclamation of labour’s coming emancipation. There is  a multitude of reasons why socialism is not much of a force than it is today. We must understand, first of all, that revolution is not a simple process of raising the crimson red banner and rallying everyone who is exploited and oppressed to muster under it and rise up. Capitalism is a very sophisticated enemy. It is a system which knows how to bribe and buy-off those who challenge it. It knows how to absorb reforms and innovations that offer a pretense of solving the people’s problems. It knows how to create a culture that makes it appear there are no bitter class antagonisms under the surface of society. And it is also very good at discrediting and slandering the ideas of social revolution and socialism in the minds of the people. In trying to change this system, we should never forget that these factors constitute an important part of the objective conditions under which we work. There are no short-cut schemes to alter them, only painstaking, and prolonged educational work of illumination and enlightenment.

People are seeking an alternative to the situation. They are disgusted by the capitalist politics. The world is divided not between “good men” and “bad men,” not between black, brown and white, not between foreign-born and native-born, but between working people and their capitalist exploiters. The government pretends to be the impartial umpire of the social struggle. This is a lie. The capitalist class has shown itself unfit to rule because it cannot even feed its slaves. To establish democracy is the aim of the Socialist Party. Not the fake limited political democracy but the real economic and social democracy which comes from a society where men and women collectively own their own means of livelihood, the factories and industrial machinery where “we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” In the view of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority.”

The theory of socialists is that if the enormous wealthy of society, controlled by the few, were controlled by the people, poverty could be eliminated, an end could be made to the mass murder of war, and mankind could live in peace and plenty. In a revolution, the power and wealth of society change hands. They are transferred from one class to another. In our time, there are two fundamental classes in society, the working class and the capitalist class. This kind of social revolution would be necessary on a world scale this kind of revolution would be necessary on a world scale. Since capitalism is a global system, to be successful, socialism must replace capitalism globally. The minority class owns the wealth, profits from it, keeps down the standard of living of the majority class which has no wealth. The workers are cajoled and propagandised to protect the wealth owned by the ruling class and to maintain the profits and privileges of the ruling class.

Socialism can be constructed only on the basis of a highly productive economy capable of producing abundantly. Where there is scarcity, with the consequent scramble for the meagre necessities, the fight for privileges takes place; the material basis for a privileged bureaucracy appears. Genuine socialists have confidence in the ability of the working class to overthrow capitalism and do not have the slightest doubt of the ability of the workers to dispose of the capitalist class.

Thanks to the extraordinary development of industrial technology, the world’s vast resources and the existence of skilled workers, the organisation of socialist production on such a scale as to ensure plenty and thereby economic equality for all, can be assured almost immediately. Once workers have made their revolution, the decisive factors of resources and technology will provide the material basis for the broadest workers’ democracy, leading to the fulfillment of the revolution in the classless socialist society. But the thing now is to make the revolution.