OUR NEW YEAR MESSAGE

Another new year has arrived and with the commencement of another year we should send out to our fellow workers our customary New Year message. If we wish our readers a “happy new year” and if the sentiments of a new year’s wish could become a reality by wishing hard enough, life would be a lot easier, but whatever we may wish, in the end, capitalism will determine what we get, and for most of us it will be disappointment. The year which has just drawn to a close has not been a particularly happy one either for people. On the surface, it is true, there may seem little reason for optimism.

 From 1904 until to-day we have delivered the same message day after day, week after week, month after month and still, our fellow-workers let themselves be led up the garden path to despair, following leaders with pathetic trust on to a promised land that always remains beyond the horizon. The aim of the capitalists is to force or cajole the workers into the submissive attitude of willing slaves, while all the time heaping up wealth for themselves to enjoy. The workers of the world can control their destinies once they shed their delusions and cast off the useless burden of capitalist privilege that they have carried upon their backs for so long. But the task they have to do must be done by themselves to become freely associated workers. Whatever hope this new year may bring, it will not lie in working people placing trust an faith in the promises of a political saviour.

If we have a New Year’s message for the workers, it is that the progress of humanity does not require the loss of millions of lives. We think humanity is fully capable of constructing a socialist society once it has the understanding necessary. We must establish the new society soon if we are to survive. Helping people grasp this is the purpose of the Socialist Party. 

Our New Year message is one of struggle and hope. Work and live for world socialism!