The Future Belongs to the People

“What is it you want?” is one of the most frequent questions directed at the Socialist Party (a name which should shock no one as it only means all those who profess anarchist principles and work for their realisation) We respond, no private property, no privilege, no difference in status, no coercive government.  We seek a free community.

No serious-minded person would venture to predict exactly how the Revolution will come about. Revolution is not the act of a few persons; it does not take place according to a preconceived plan but is produced by circumstances which no individual can command. We do not, therefore, intend to draw up a blueprint for the future revolution. It has been claimed that the revolution can’t be hastened by a single second. However, mankind is always the agent, the principal actor of social transformations. History is made by people: the more conscious they are of their goals, and the more conscious individuals there are, that much more certain and rapid is the march of progress.

The character of the revolution must at first be negative, destructive. Instead of modifying certain institutions of the past, or adapting them to a new order, it will do away with them altogether. Therefore, capitalism will be overthrown and the government will be uprooted, along with all their subservient institutions. But the same time the Revolution is also positive in that the workers take possession of all the means of production and distribution. It is evident that collective labour is imposed by the very nature of the work and, since the tools of labour are no longer simple individual tools but machines that must be tended by many workers, the machines must also be collectively owned. Each workshop, each factory, will re- -organse itself into an association of workers who will be free to administer production and organise their work as they think best. Will these enterprises belong to all the workers in each factory, or will they belong to society as a whole? Workers in revolt don’t have to ask permission of anyone to take over factories, workshops, stores and houses and to install themselves there. It is just that this is barely a beginning of taking possession, a preliminary. If each group of workers, having taken holds of a part of capital or wealth, wanted to remain absolute master to the exclusion of others, if a group wanted to live on the wealth taken hold of and refused to work and come to an agreement with the others for the organization of labour, we would have, under another name or for the benefit of others, the continuation of the current regime. The original taking of possession can thus only be provisional: wealth will only truly be placed in common when everyone works, when production will have been organised in the common interest. Unlike some who promote syndicalism or cooperatives we claim that all will be the property of all.

But when we say that ownership of the factory itself, should be with the community, we do not mean that the workers will be ruled by any kind of government having the power to do what it pleases with the tools of production. No, the workers in the various factories have not the slightest intention of handing over their hard-won control of the tools of production to a superior power. What they will do is, under certain specified conditions, to guarantee reciprocal use of their tools of production and accord to their fellow workers in other factories the right to share their facilities, receiving in return the same right to share the facilities of the fellow workers with whom they have contracted the pact of solidarity. Social organization cannot be restricted to the local commune or the local federation of producers’ groups. We will see how social organization is expanded and completed, on the one hand by the establishment of regional federations.The revolution cannot be confined to a single country: it is obliged under pain of annihilation, to spread to the whole world. It goes without saying that artificial frontiers created by the present social system will be swept away by the Revolution. Districts and regions will freely unite and organise themselves in accordance with their economic interests, their language affinities, and their geographic circumstances. This will not be a rupture of unity and a return to the old fragmentation of petty, isolated, and warring political states. These diverse federations of communes, while maintaining their identity, will not be isolated. United by their intertwining interests, they will conclude a pact of solidarity, and this voluntary unity founded on common aims and common needs, on a constant exchange of informal, friendly contacts, will be much more intimate and much stronger than the artificial political centralization imposed by violence and having no other motive than the exploitation of peoples for the profit of privileged classes.

 In an association, workers will reciprocally commit to a certain number of hours of labour, in another to accomplish in a given amount of time a given task. We possess, even today, sufficient means of production to satisfy all reasonable needs, i.e., to provide a well-being to all greater than that of the average of the capitalist class of today. But all this well-being must be created by labour, by the transformation of industry and technology. There will no longer be, as is the case today, men and women condemned to long days of toil and drudgery, to stupefying fatigue. People will pass from one job to another, from manual labor to study to artistic recreation. But in working, in studying, in cultivating the fine arts, etc, the purpose will always to be useful to others. Work is life and also the tie that unites men in society. There must be solidarity in labour in order for society to function properly.

The revolution we conceive of can only be made by and for the people, without any false representatives. The success of the revolution lies in the immediate organization of the working class. The Socialist Party contributes to the revolutionary orientation of working class organizations in that we caution against power and activity is concentrated in the hands of a few leaders and where “followers” are called upon only to pay their dues and obey orders. We show the drawbacks on democracy, the ease of betrayal or abandonment of principles by chiefs, the rivalries for office, the internal discords, and intrigues that can come from such. The workers have no need of leaders: they are quite capable of delegating one of their own with a particular task, as long as they are on their guard with proper procedures such as the right of recall.

The Socialist Party seeks expand the goal of the workers and their associations. Instead of thinking of its own self-interests, fellow workers must fraternise, practice solidarity on a vast scale. It is in the interest of the better-treated workers to take the cause of the less-favoured workers and the unemployed in their hands. Assisting the latter to improve their situation is the most certain, if not the only means of durably improving their own lot. For their part the unemployed workers should not stand in the way of the demands of those workers in a better situation. By making it understood that it is in the interests of every category of workers to support the demands of all other categories we will reveal to the workers their true strength. The employing class must know that it has against it, not detached and divided groups, but all workers and that every strike is necessarily the signal for the general mobilisation of the working class. It must know that the workers place the general interest above every particular interest, and above all questions of wage and work they aim for total emancipation, at doing without bosses and exploiters. The Socialist Party is intent upon teaching workers the need to learn from each other, to build a true solidarity that has as its basis common aspirations and a community of ideas. It is only through this that workers unite, even if they don’t have the same organisation. The sacrifices demanded by the struggle against the bosses can only be carried out by men and women with convictions. A person with convictions will never betray his or her own kind. There is thus a too-neglected real force for the working class in the propaganda of principles. The existing associations pay too much attention to immediate self-interests, and too little to principles. And it is principles that truly assure the triumph of trampled upon interests. It is necessary that in each association there be a means of agitating the great social questions, that all ideas be discussed, that the workers be intellectually prepared for the task incumbent upon them: that of renewing society.

When our fellow-workers demand improvement in conditions, pay rises, reductions in working hours; when they go on strike to defend their dignity or to affirm their solidarity with another mistreated by bosses, we have to say to them that none of this resolves the question. We must profit from the occasion to preach more widely and effectively the need for the revolution for the abolition of private property and the profit system. We must do everything possible to widen and generalise the movement and give it a revolutionary character. But above all, we must be with the workers, support and struggle along with them. To turn away from the movement would mean appearing to be friends of the ruling class, rendering our ideas and persons unsympathetic to our fellow-workers and consequently renouncing the people indispensable for making the revolution. If the outcome of strikes are partial, transitory, or even disastrous, that doesn’t change the fact that every strike is an act of dignity, an act of revolt, and serves to get workers used to thinking of the boss as an enemy and to fight for what he wants without waiting for permission from on high. A striker is already no longer a slave who bows to the boss: he or she is already a rebel, engaged on the path toward revolution and socialism.

It is up to the Socialist Party to speed the advance along that road. This then the objective of the socialists: the social revolution as the immediate goal, agitation among the working class as principal means to attain it. We want to dedicate ourselves to the cause of the social revolution. Our strength is presently limited; we know we can increase it with through mutual aid and solidarity. Wanting the revolution, and wanting it completely and seriously, we will choose the means that seem most apt to bring it closer. We want to dedicate our organisation to the cause of the social revolution. We think that the moment has come to take from the hands of the reformists and left-wing politicians the heritage of the working class movement. Everyone now knows that partial palliatives and ameliorations are worth nothing.