The Left

We are asking the working class to learn the lesson of history and reject the advice of “intellectuals” and act on the principle, “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.” The last thing these “saviours” suggest is that the workers should reject all leaders—including them. Our advice to the working class is clear. It cannot hope for an end to its misery under capitalism. It must abolish capitalism and establish socialism; it must become the owner of all the means of work—land, raw material, machinery, etc.—and, thereby, owner of the whole of the produce of its own labour. To do this, the workers must organise politically, because “a struggle between two great classes of society necessarily becomes a political struggle," and they must win political power.

The revolution is always round the corner. They believe that one day a “ revolutionary situation ” will arise in which they will seize power and lead the masses to victory. This wearisome nonsense abounds in the columns Trotskyist literature. The “revolution” would have taken place but for the fact that the workers were betrayed by their leaders, is a typical Trotskyist interpretation of workers history. According to Trotskyists, every political upheaval, every wave of strikes, would have resulted in the “revolution” but for the fact that workers lacked “real revolutionary leadership.” On almost every page of their journals, the idea is promoted “The leaders must show the way.”

 It is precisely because the workers lack socialist knowledge that leaders rise to power. If the workers’ leaders do not represent the interests of workers, they do certainly reflect the outlook of the workers. When workers do acquire socialist understanding, they will not require leaders. An organisation which claims to be revolutionary must be badly led indeed when its revolutionary object—the only excuse it can advance for its nominal separation from the Labour Party—becomes secondary or ultimate and has to wait while something else is done first.

Our task is to make socialism clear to the workers, and we shall persevere with that task until the game of the leaders is played out—until there is no one to lead, because the rank and file are ready to go forward of themselves, leaving the vanguard in the rear to follow on.

Socialism is the complete dispossession of the entire capitalist class and the reorganisation of society on the basis of production solely for use. We hold that when a majority understand the nature of capitalism, understand the futility of electing leaders to reform it and that a complete change of the basis of society is both necessary and possible. The candidates of other political parties pander to a variety of tastes and requirements and play off one group of people against another. “Something for everybody” is their motto.

You will find no “Great Men” in the S.P.G.B. The parts that its members play are varied, but no attempt is made to measure one against the other—the keynote is co-operative effort, as it will be in socialist society. One of our objections to the existence of “Very Important Persons” is that it presupposes that some persons are accounted of little importance. We are a band of ordinary folk, but each is as unimportant (and therefore each is as important) as the other, whether chosen for speaker, secretary, organiser or by-election candidate.

Capitalism casts aside hundreds of millions of workers classified as “redundant” or “surplus” to requirements. It disempowers the underpaid and the unprotected toiling in global sweatshops, keeping them cowed, anxious and compliant. It financialises the economy, creating predatory global institutions that extract money from consumers, institutions, and states through punishing forms of debt peonage. The 400 richest individuals in the United States have more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population, and the three richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population. It shuts down genuine debate in regard to vast income disparities and social inequality.

Attack the symptoms and the state will be passive. Attack the disease and the state will be ruthless. Time is no longer on our side. If we can build socialism we have a chance.  We cannot be distracted by the symptoms and apply palliatives. We must cure the disease.