Socialism Against the State

The Socialist Party is convinced that the only hope for the world lies with world socialism. In a world of sordid nationalism and populist opportunism, the cause we stand for is the world socialist cooperative commonwealth. We have noticed the spread of socialist ideas amongst the people. Yet there remains a lack of knowledge and clear thinking. There has been an influx of academics whose purpose is to cram into the heads of students at schools and universities all sorts of fallacious economic and philosophical theories and to discourage independent thinking.

On the economic battlefield, the hopelessness of the endeavour to reduce exploitation is abundantly plain. Increases in wages confessedly fail to keep pace with the rise in prices of necessities. Decreases in hours utterly fail to keep pace with the speeding-up of production and the more rapid exhaustion of the toiler. Consequently, there is as little hope in reform. We do not, however, counsel non-resistance. Far from it. That would be suicide. It would place us even more completely at the mercy of our unscrupulous exploiters. We do not preach passive acquiescence to the employing class any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We preach the struggle for socialism. And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future. For in its development we can play a more and more effective part. As the Socialist movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists

But it must be recognised that even though we slacken the inevitable increase in exploitation under capitalism, we are, nevertheless. still losing ground, and that victory lies not that way. Discontent is as strong now as ever it was, but it is still politically ignorant discontent. The future of humanity depends upon the revolution for socialism.   The energy of the workers must not be frittered away, as it has so often been, in futile demonstrations for utterly hopeless reforms. One thing above all others must inspire them—the need for the conquest of the world by the working class.

All the technology created by the genius of mankind is not applied for the benefit of mankind as a whole but used for the few. A socialist commonwealth would liberate the individual from all economic, political and social oppression and provide the basis, for real freedom and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative mind. Common ownership of the means of production and distribution means the end of all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good. Marx said: “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority.”

 The Russian Revolution revealed the grave dangers of State capitalism. By concentrating overwhelming power in the hands of the state, it places the citizen completely at the mercy of the State. The development of State capitalism brought in its train a new ruling class – the all-powerful bureaucracy. Under State capitalism, the government derives its income automatically from the economic enterprises of the State. It thus has a tendency to escape democratic control. The State, as the owner of banking industry, agriculture and transport become the universal employer, the universal landlord. It controls everything on which the fate and happiness of the individual citizen depend. The citizen is dependent on the State as regards employment and education, food and energy, leisure and amusement, housing and transport. Under State capitalism, the State would become employer and his or her landlord, and the misery ensuing would become boundless. A system of State property, production of commodities, buying, selling, wages – in a word, State capitalism is simply labelled socialism!

 

A conflict with the State might affect the citizen as an employee, tenant, etc. This enormous power of the State over the individual citizen must needs call forth or strengthen tendencies towards a despotism. State capitalism does not solve any of the deep-rooted social problems. It does not abolish crises, the classes, the wage system. Under State capital, sm there is production of commodities for exchange, not production for use. Between production and consumption there still remains the wall of buying and selling. In the one-party state the elections are a mockery. There can be no other candidates except those put forward by the one party. The word “election” loses its meaning as there is no selection, no choice. All the elector is called upon to do is to endorse the official candidate. He or she may decline to do so by abstaining from voting or by spoiling the ballot paper. When Marx coined the expression “dictatorship of the proletariat,” he had in view a democratically-elected body using coercive measures against an obstructive minority during a short transitional peril after a Revolution. Lenin perverted this clear meaning into dictatorship of one proletarian party. In the course of events in Russia party dictatorship narrowed down into the dictatorship first of the Executive Committee, then of the latter’s political bureau, finally of its general secretary – Stalin.

The mission of upholding human culture and rebuilding society on a basis of social justice to-day rests with the global socialist movement.