What every worker must realise is that through trade union struggle we are not fighting the causes which is capitalism but only its symptoms. We are fighting against the effects of the system and not against the system itself. When we fight for a demand like a wage increase we are merely fighting against the effects of capitalism. Not merely that. We are demanding it from the capitalists. In other words, we envisage the continuation of the capitalist system. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. That is why they degenerate to pure and simple reformism and, in the end, bolster up capitalism. Of course, every wage increase that is won by the workers is immediately offset by the employers by more intensive work, by stricter supervision etc. and by a general price increase. So that, usually the worker is back to from where he started. What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it with socialism. This is the fatal limitation of trade union struggles. The Socialist Party nevertheless does not oppose trade union struggles nor its members refuse to participate in them. It is very essential to organise workers and help them to fight against the reductions in their working conditions and for their day-to-day demands. The vote was given to us by our masters for their own purpose; let us use it for our own. Let us demonstrate at that ballot-box the strength and intelligence of the revolutionary idea; let us make the hustings a rostrum from which to promulgate our principles; let us grasp the public powers in the interest of the disinherited class.
The Socialist Party knows that no leaders are going to pull the workers into socialism. As Marx stated, “The emancipation of the working class must be the class-conscious act of the working class itself.” An ignorant muddleheaded working class will never be able to act correctly or move in the proper direction no matter how brainy the leaders may be. “The day is past,” says Engels, “for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses.” The Socialist Party correctly holds that the political party must be a party of no compromise. Its mission is to point the way to the goal and it refuses to leave the main road to follow the small bypaths that lead into the swamp of reformism. Its skirts are clean. The red banner of socialism is held high, uncorrupted, and not dragged down into the mire of petty reform.
There are many points on which the Socialist Party takes a different stand from that taken by other organisations claiming to be socialist. There are differences on principle and therefore, necessarily, differences in tactics. If an organisation’s principles are correct, the tactics reflected must also be correct. If an organisation’s tactics are wrong, it is nearly certain that its principles can be nothing else but wrong. For this reason, if organisations differ on tactics, there is apt to be a like difference in the principles espoused by each. Principles are fundamental and by showing that the principles of those other so-called socialist parties are wrong, we can proceed to demonstrate the incorrectness of their tactics. And at the same time, by contrast, it will be conclusively proven that the principles and therefore the tactics of the Socialist Party are the only logical ones to be followed.
The first difference to be noted is hinged around the conception each has of its goal. The goal of the Left is a form of workers' government. The goal of the Socialist Party is socialism. The Left claims that in order to achieve the workers must first go through a transition period. Therefore their aim now is for this transition period. The goal being such, the tactics adhered to must be in keeping with the same. The transition period, we are told, will last until the last vestiges of capitalism are destroyed and in order to safeguard the interests of the working class during this period, we must have a revolutionary 'dictatorship of the proletariat.'
When the working class takes political power, according to the Socialist Party, it controls all that is necessary to run production on socialised lines. A 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is unnecessary, the workers being in a majority. There will not even be a rule of the proletariat because the act of socializing the industries automatically abolishes all classes and therefore the proletariat as a class ceases to be. In order to run the industries for themselves the workers must first secure complete power over and ownership of them. In order to accomplish this, they must organize so that it can be done in a thorough manner to avoid anarchy and chaos. If the Socialist Party’s analysis is correct, then it follows that the tactics reflected by this analysis are also correct. And by showing that the left-wing's goal is wrong, that automatically disposes of the tactics that organization advocates.
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