A Guid New Year to Yin an' A'

New Year is a time for looking back over the year—and forward to the year to come to wonder what will it have in store for the socialist movement.  For our part, we can say we would like to see socialism. On the surface, it is true, there may seem little reason for optimism. The introduction of socialism cannot be the work of a few hundred or a few thousand or even tens of thousands. It must be the work of overwhelming numbers. All ideas that oppose socialism must be persistently and strongly challenged and followed up where possible with a positive socialist point of view.

 The Socialist Party stands for a world in which people have risen to a mastery over property, not one in which people are mastered by it. Your experience, as a worker under various ‘Labour’ governments ought to show you that the Labour Party does not represent the interests of the working class. When in office, it behaves like any other Capitalist party—it runs Capitalism; when you go on strike, you are branded as 'troublemakers,' you are told that you are 'harming the nation.’

The solution of the poverty problem lies in the hands of those who suffer most from it—the working class, and can only be achieved when that class realises its historic mission, when, freed from tho illusions bred by capitalism and fostered by religion, it goes forward to solve for ever the problem of poverty by establishing socialism

The Socialist Party campaigns in elections not to win votes but to use them as a platform to put the truth about the capitalist system before the workers at a time when they had increased interest in politics. There is plenty to speak out about in elections, that is because of capitalism, for all its talk of democracy, is, in reality, the dictatorship of Big Business. The Socialist Party is a genuine workers’ voice, speaking out against the anti-worker policies of every government and the very system they represent. Rather than make pledges to run capitalism better, the Socialist Party takes the opportunity to speak up and expose some home truths about the system and why it is time to start thinking about a revolutionary alternative. Socialist Party speakers pointed out the treacherous role of the Labour Party over its long history, showing how the Labour Party leader have always served the capitalist class and that it has been a long time since Labour Party even pretended to be a workers’ party. The Socialist Party campaign is very different from that of the capitalist parties. We are not vote-catching, but taking a message out that what the present system offers is simply not good enough, and it´s time to stand up and fight for change. We seek to reach people who want to understand the world in order to change it. For sure, the Socialist Party is still very small, and we have no illusions that we will get big votes. We know that there is much work to be done to transform the present situation where the majority of workers feel powerless to change things. Nevertheless, there are growing numbers of people who are not prepared to quietly accept the present order. Since the system we live under, capitalism, is based on our exploitation, workers desperately need a political movement of our own. A movement which puts our interests first because it is a movement by, for and of us. Such a movement needs to be explicitly anti-capitalist. It needs to aim for the overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement by a new truly socialist society, based on organising production to meet the human needs of all rather than private profit for a super-rich few. That’s the kind of movement the Socialist Party is trying to build and part of this movement-building is running in elections, to challenge the pro-capitalist parties which defend and manage exploitation and to get our ideas out to the widest possible audience.

This mad world of ever more rapid changes has had its effect, among other things on the fortunes of political parties. Many that flourished are gone and almost forgotten. Others, while retaining their original names, have completely transformed their character, while a few surviving parties are but shadows of their former selves. For political parties dependent on leaders, promises to remove some present evils at a not too distant date keep its members and voters united and enthused. The led are willing to accept with a great deal of trust the belief that the reforms they are working for will produce the desired beneficial results. It is with the achievement of office that the testing time comes and the party’s cohesion or even its existence is imperilled. When the hopes and the fire have departed they try to find how to regain what has been lost. They seek new leaders and new policies that will carry them back into power. We can be sure that capitalism itself will go on producing evils at home and abroad around which the capitalist-reformist parties can build up fresh manifesto pledges to form the basis of election battles.

The Socialist Party with its consistent adherence to the principles of socialism stands out as an exception. Our clear understanding and unity of purpose highlights the difference between the Socialist Party and all other political parties and gives it its scientific basis based on Marxism. The fact that membership of the party has been conditional upon understanding and agreeing with its Declaration of Principles, explains to an extent its survival through conditions which have and destroyed so many others.  Our D. of P. still stands as a clear, concise and consistent case for socialism.  While capitalism lasts, that exploitation will continue, and until it is ended the Object and Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party will remain valid. No matter the form of government the prevailing condition is the exploitation of the wealth producers under wage slavery. The problem is the same today as when the Socialist Party was founded and will remain the same until socialism comes into existence. The struggle between the two classes, struggle over wages and conditions, is the natural consequence of capitalism and socialism will be established with the growth of understanding and by the struggle to end exploitation. Exploitation prompts and generates the effort to secure emancipation, and emancipation to the working class can be nothing but socialism. Socialism is, therefore, the outcome of the class struggle.

Capitalism, the private ownership of the means of life, enables one class to live by the exploitation of the other. The character of the means of production makes common ownership the only practical method of ending class ownership. As control is an essential part of ownership, and the only way society as a whole can control is by democratic means.  Not only will socialism free society from the toils of class and national conflict, but will give the humanity a larger measure of choice in the conduct of social affairs than it has ever experienced before.

We must not, however, allow the wonderful prospect of a class-free society to blind us to the hard realities of the struggle we must face and conquer before the promised land is ours. None of the disappointments that our fellow-workers have endured were unforeseen. The Socialist Party has foretold that no matter how much capitalism is reformed and bureaucratised the world will still find no solution for social problems except through socialism.