Why the Socialist Party?

Throughout history, the rich always looked down on the poor and denigrate their so-called inferiors as a way to justify their own privilege. They found all kinds of ways to distinguish themselves from everyone else to ensure they got preferential treatment and respect. They were either intellectually or morally superior from the rest of society, and so they deserve their higher status. Those who were poor, those who were of the wrong race or nationality, were considered morally reprehensible, if not outright criminal. High society saw their social inferiors as a potential menace, to be kept in check, and the wealthy had law and order on their side to keep themselves in power. But those who were truly criminal and deplorable were the rich elite in society who abused and exploited the poor. Never before has the capitalists provided such favourable conditions for the spread of industrial education, organization and agitation.

We in the Socialist Party hold the interpretation of society which can help the people to crystallise their many scattered isolated acts of rebellion into coordinated political action for radical change. The thinking of the workers’ movement is searching for answers. We must focus on the special contribution we can make – education about why our society is in crisis, what can be done to solve it and a vision for the future. Our organisation must be a place where both our members and the movement can learn what they need to explain, persuade and prove to the people the dangers and possibilities of the situation today. With this knowledge and understanding, the Socialist Party can participate in political activities in a way that elevates the consciousness of those around them. Ideas are our main weapons in the fight for the hearts and minds of the people. Together, education and agitation, are a mighty weapon in the Socialist Party’s revolutionary arsenal. How else can thesocialist message and the lessons of struggles waged by working people be propagated worldwides? How else can class struggle be waged in the crucial arena of public opinion against the ruling class–whose ideas also are the ruling ideas in society and who spend millions and millions yearly to produce a deluge of their own indoctrination spreading confusion?

 Our Party’s journals pamphlets and websites contain important articles which present an overall picture of our society and indicate the need for a political revolution to overthrow the present order and establish socialism. Fundamentally what is hidden and covered up by capitalism are the basic laws and class character of the contradictions in society which the Socialist Party strives to expose. Our task is to lay bare the truth about today’s economic system and its exploitation. Communists have always disdained to conceal our views. It requires a clear-cut stand. Our agitation must aim to hone, sharpen and intensify basic class anger at the injustices of today’s capitalist system.

The Socialist Party is composed of men and women organised to assist the working-class movement by a dissemination of its literature, to educate the working-class Irish in the knowledge of socialist principles and to prepare them to co-operate with the workers of all other colours and nationalities in the emancipation of labour. Such is our aim. Our method is political organisation at the ballot box to secure the election of representatives of socialist principles to all the elective governing public bodies to establish the principle of common ownership. The socialist revolution will not be accomplished by the action of a minority, but by the will of the immense majority of the citizens. Whoever depends on physical force to bring about the revolution rather than of winning over the immense majority of the citizens to our ideas, gives up on any possibility of transforming the social order. Socialist education is vital in nourishing the seeds of the future in the movement of today.