The Party an Parliament

One of the achievements of the Socialist Party is simply that in the long period of the Labour Party ascendancy it was for all practical purposes the Socialist Party alone, which maintained an uncompromising socialist position. Even if today there are others who have come to argue that socialism is a wageless, money-free, state-free society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, this in no way detracts from the tremendous service which the Socialist Party performed in keeping alive the idea of what socialism is. Nor is this the only major contribution of the Party which has never deviated from the principle that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself. It has consistently denounced leadership and insisted that a socialist society can never be achieved until the majority have clearly understood what socialism is and have taken a conscious decision to establish the new society. The SPGB also pioneered the state-capitalist analysis of Soviet Union era Russia.

Socialism is a universal system of society where there will be no buying and selling. Consequently, all institutions which are now functioning only for the running of this buying and selling will disappear. Money, banks, insurance companies and several other institutions will disappear. All the resources of the world, the means, and instruments of wealth production and social services necessary to the sustenance of mankind will be held in common by the whole people of the community as you and I breathe air or drink water. All the people will happily work and they will have free access to their needs. Each and everyone will determine his own needs. There can be no wages system. Wages, of course, mean that somebody is working for somebody else – they imply rich and poor, two classes. To talk of wages under socialism is ridiculous. What is proposed is,that the whole system of money and exchange, buying and selling, profit-making and wage-earning should be entirely abolished and that instead, the community as a whole should organise and administer the production of goods for use only, and the free distribution of these goods to all the members of the community according to each person’s needs.

The Socialist Party has frequently pointed out how little difference there is from the workers’ point of view between State capitalism and private capitalism, whether under a Conservative or a Labour government’. Socialism will be a state-free society. The State, which is an organisation composed of soldiers, policemen, judges, and gaolers charged with enforcing the law, is only needed in class society, for in such societies there is no community of interest, only class conflict. The purpose of government is to maintain law and order in the interests of the dominant class. It is, in fact, an instrument of class oppression. In socialism, there will be no classes and no in-built class conflicts. The phrase ‘socialist government’ is a contradiction in terms. Where there is socialism there is no government and where there is a government there is no socialism. A distinction between government and the democratic administration has to be made. We refrain from extensive speculation about the precise organisation of the state-free society, pointing out that such decisions must be made by those establishing socialism, in accordance, no doubt, with ideas and plans formulated in the course of the revolutionary process. Many different kinds of bodies might be used by those in a socialist society. There is intrinsically nothing wrong with institutions where delegates assemble to parley (Parliaments, congresses, diets or soviets). What is wrong with them today is that they are controlled by the capitalist class. Remove class society and these various assemblies can be adapted to function in the interest of the whole people. The basis of industrial organisation and administration will start from the arrangements existing under capitalism at the time of the transformation, and this will present no difficulties because the socialist movement will already be thoroughly international, both in outlook and practical organisation. As far as the machinery of organisation and administration is concerned, it will be local, regional, national and international, evolving out of existing forms.


We, in the Socialist Party, insist that majority socialist consciousness is a prerequisite for socialism. The task of spreading socialist understanding and desire is not to be evaded, even though the faint-hearted may shy away, aghast at the prospect of trying to convince the world’s workers of the need for Socialism. It may seem an enormous task but there is no choice in the matter. Socialism depends upon the conscious support of its people. Unless people understand socialism and want it, they will never build it. The revolution must be a democratic act. Political action must be taken by the conscious majority, without depending upon leadership. It is upon the working class that the working class must rely on their emancipation. Valuable work may be done by individuals, and this work may necessarily raise them to prominence, but it is not to individuals, either of the working class or of the capitalist class, that the toilers must look. The movement for freedom must be a working-class movement. It must depend upon the working class vitality and intelligence and strength. Until the knowledge and experience of the working class are equal to the task of revolution there can be no emancipation for them.


To say – as some critics have – that the Socialist Party stands only for ‘socialism through parliament’ or are ‘parliamentarian socialists is misleading. As Alex Anderson, of the Party's early years put it when asked the question, ‘Does the SPGB really propose to establish socialism through the ballot box?’, his reply was ‘Yes, but more importantly we must win it through the brain box.’  This association of the conquest of state power with the concept of a consciously and democratically organised working-class majority is distinguished from the reformist parliamentarianism of those who, in the name of ‘socialism’, seek to enter parliament for other purposes than to express the majority mandate formally to abolish class rule. Engels points out that the conquest of state power will be the final act of the working class.