Why haven't we had a socialist revolution? How much longer can capitalism last? How bad must conditions become before workers take action? These questions trouble ourselves and our fellow class-conscious workers. Capitalism long ago developed the material conditions prerequisite for socialism. It has created production on a scale sufficient to banish forever want and the fear of want. Moreover, necessary production is carried out by socialised labour - by a working class organised at the point of production by the very nature of capitalist production itself. At the same time, capitalism is no longer a progressive social system. Instead, its inherent contradictions stand in the way of further progress and disrupt the workings of the productive forces already developed. Yet there has been no revolution.
Capitalism can be counted on to produce recurring economic crises. However, an economic crisis is not a sufficient condition of revolution. Even if the economy should utterly collapse, the result may not necessarily be socialism. For in the absence of class consciousness and a revolutionary organisation, the ruling class would readily impose its own totalitarian alternative.
If capitalism continues to exist, the likely results are environmental destruction or an unthinkable world war, either that could end human civilisation. Faced with such dangers, workers cannot afford to wait for capitalism to collapse. Because socialism is not an automatic affair, workers as a class must play an active role in the socialist revolution. Capitalism will remain until it is overthrown. And capitalism can be overthrown only as the result of class-conscious mass struggle. Promoting class-consciousness and advocating radical change, however, is no easy matter. People are bombarded daily with capitalist propaganda by the media. Politicians and economists obscure the capitalist roots of the economic crisis and falsely predict a better future after a painful period of "adjustment." And many union leaders tell workers that they need to make concessions and reach compromises with their employers instead of fighting back. Even worse, many so-called “socialists” confuse workers by talking about myths such as "immediate reforms" or by raising false hopes that workers can force the political state to solve the problems of unemployment and poverty. Such notions can only help convince workers that they have a future under capitalism and that capitalism is, at this late date, somehow capable of being reformed. In truth, ending the effects of capitalism requires ending their cause -- the capitalist system.
It is imperative that workers come to recognise that there is an alternative to capitalism. For the sooner the working class understand that the misery imposed by capitalism need not be endured, the sooner will workers turn to socialism. Workers already hold in their collective hands the potential power capable of restructuring society. Workers need to transform that potential power into an active force –political organisation- that is needed to establish socialism. Workers need to form a mass socialist party to challenge and defeat the political state for the purpose of dismantling it. That will clear the way for the workers' on the economic field to administer the socialist society by ousting the capitalists from economic power and by operating the economy in workers' interests.
An economic crisis produces the discontent, the social unrest and the objective need for change that provide opportunities for effective socialist agitation and education, for raising class consciousness and for creating the working-class organisation required for a victorious ending of the class struggle. It is up to us, the working class. The Socialist Party considers itself as the political party of the working class. This is so because it is the sole advocate of the principles which the working class must adopt if it is ever to achieve its complete emancipation from wage slavery and, at the same time, save society from catastrophe. The Socialist Party is the only organisation demanding the abolition of capitalism and advocating the socialist reconstruction of society. It has been doing so for well over 100 years. It is, in short, the organisation through which the workers can establish their majority right to reorganise society. The Socialist Party provides a way for workers to organise their potential political power as a class so that they can replace the capitalist system with a democratic class-free society. Such a socialist party is also needed to convince the working-class majority of the need for socialism and to recruit the forces for carrying out the revolution. We believe that the Socialist Party's position on electoral activity offers the best -- indeed the only realistic -- chance to achieve socialism by non-violent and peaceful means. We know that we are in a race with time. We will either succeed or fail in our mission to penetrate the consciousness of the working class before all avenues for peaceful change are sealed off. No matter which way it eventually turns out, however, the need for change -- for socialism -- can only increase.
We live in a world of increasing chaos and violence, as the conflict now raging in the Middle East attests. We aim for a world in which cooperation and peace will be combined with prosperity and freedom for all. The longer it takes to wake up the working class to accomplish the change in a non-violent way, the longer the working class tolerates ruling-class despotism, the more difficult it will be to achieve our hopes and aspirations. Accordingly, we work hard to get our message across now, knowing that if we fail the chances for a nonviolent and peaceful transition to socialism will diminish and eventually disappear. Let the working class allow themselves to be fooled and led by the nose much longer by the politicians, and they will be confronted with the alternative that confronts their fellow wage slaves in many other countries: either absolute submission and slavery or the need for armed rebellion. Where the ballot is silenced, the bullet must speak. Peacefully if possible or forcibly if necessary as our Chartist forefathers declared.
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