Revolution! Not Reforms!

Capitalism is a disgusting social system. Tens of millions of people have been killed in capitalism’s wars and countless hundreds of millions more have died from preventable disease, starvation, and poverty. This toll of human life and misery has had the sole purpose of keeping a tiny minority of the population in wealth and privilege.  Experience has shown that for all the fine talk of reformists wanting to make the system fairer, the system has ended up changing them. Revolution means getting rid of the bosses, getting rid of working for a wage or salary, getting rid of the whole rotten buying and selling system. It means that people will freely come together to produce what is needed and will freely take from the abundant products of their labour. It will involve the abolition not only of the ruling class but also doing away with their protector, the State.

In order to accomplish the socialist revolution, the working class must have a political party. There are several parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. The Socialist Party has important disagreements with them. These parties all have one thing in common – they employ fine-sounding revolutionary Marxist phrases but underneath they are defenders of capitalism, either as a mixed-economy or a centralised command economy. Socialism is our programme for the working class. First of all, there is no “common interest” between the workers and the capitalists. What we mean by class is how the person makes a living. The two classes in our society are the employing class, which owns the factories, banks, stores, etc., and the working class which, of course, works for them. 

The idea of socialism is powerless without a social force powerful enough to see to its implementation. There is but one such force in modern society – the working class (the proletariat.) the working class cannot escape its exploitation by capitalism without socialism. Without socialism, the working class is reduced to a constant struggle against the effects of capitalism because without socialism the system of capitalism remains intact. Socialism is powerless without the working class and the working class cannot advance without socialism.

The working class’ struggle for survival and an improved standard of living is a constant threat to the employer’s search for profits. The interests of the owning class is acquiring profit from our labour. We create a surplus which goes to the owning class and gets recorded in the annual reports as profits and dividends. The struggle between the working class and the owning class, are opposite interests, is a fact of life regardless of how the media try to mask it. As workers, our task is to make sure that our class isn’t forever on the losing end of this class struggle. The bosses, landlords, and politicians are organised to take from us and keep us in place.  Likewise, we must be united to defend ourselves, supporting each other’s battles in the class war and creating mutual solidarity against all the racial and sexual prejudices that divide us. The capitalist class fears unity within our class more than anything else. A united class, clear on its goals, is unstoppable, and the capitalists realise this. This is why they constantly seek to promote divisions in our class. The old are pitted against the young, men against women, the native-born against the foreign-born.

We cannot learn all we need to know from our direct experience.  Sound socialist knowledge and understanding is needed. The Socialist Party calls for study and discussion but let’s not confuse education with book worship. Workers learn from their own experience but this education does not happen spontaneously. Agitation must not be mere phrase-mongering “calls to action” based on little or no political analysis. We exist not as something separate from the working class, not as some leadership for others to follow, but as part of the class working for our own liberation. If you agree with what we have to say, why not join with us to hasten the day of capitalism’s destruction? The goal of the Socialist Party in the electoral field or any other one, is to raise consciousness for revolution and socialism. A revolution that overthrows capitalism and establishes socialism is the only way to solve problems facing workers. A revolution of this kind requires a mass socialist party that only the working class can form. It is not a business-as-usual political party under a new label. We are told that a vote for the Labour Party or Democratic Party is a vote for working people. Experience of history tells us otherwise. We need a real socialist party to fight for our political and economic freedom. Then, we’ll be on our way to a better future.

In our numbers and in our hands lies the power to make our future.