Social Revolution

We live in a society racked with crises. This society can neither guarantee them a secure future nor even promise there will be a future. The threat of nuclear war casts a shadow over the lives of all of us. This society places a premium on wealth. The vast majority of our people work out their lives for the enrichment of the small minority of profiteers who own the bulk of the economy and through their wealth control the entire society. The economy staggers from one recession to another, increasing an unending drive against the rights of labour, all these are hallmarks of the "system" we live under. The system is capitalism. Under it a small minority rule in fact if not in name, and profit is the be-all and end-all of economic life; human needs comes not-at-all.

Hunger and deprivation in the midst of plenty is the distinguishing mark of the capitalist system of production. Capitalism is long on promises, short on performance so that there is forever the recurring contradiction between words and deeds. The vicious capitalist drive to beat down the living standards of the workers is conducted under a barrage of propaganda about raising these living standards. The main illusion fostered by capitalist democracy is that of the State as being above the classes, acting in the “common” interest.  The working class by its own bitter struggle and bloody sacrifice utilizes the rights won by it to organiSe opposition to capitalist exploitation, to organize its own democracy in the form of trade unions and political parties. But the ruling class uses its power to shackle them to the capitalist system by controlling them through professional leaders, union bureaucrats and tamed politicians in the reformist parties. These “leaders” are experts in organising sham battles through which they “deliver”‘ (betray) the organised workers to the master class.

Freed from the clutches of the profiteers and their hangers-on, production, and distribution must be brought under common ownership and the economy planned by the people themselves in their own areas of work. The profit system cannot make use of automation for the benefit of society; socialism will! The future society that will be constructed under socialism will reduce work to an insignificant part of daily life and offer the individual the fullest possibilities to pursue his own abilities and interests.  Capitalism is a system in all its hideous absurdity, the great destroyer of social wealth, and of human happiness, security and life itself. The wondrous productive machine which it developed and which, if rationally organised, could easily supply the needs and comforts of all, proves to be a mechanism that degrades the people to misery, wretchedness, and suffering.

Socialists have often been accused of wanting to overthrow capitalism by force and violence. When they accuse us of this, what they are really trying to do is to imply that we want to abolish capitalism with a minority, that we want to force the will of the minority on the majority. The opposite is the truth. We believe we can win a majority to support a change in the system. First, you should be clear in your mind about the meaning of the word “revolution”. Many people have a stereotyped picture of what a revolution is like. They say a revolution is about building barricades and armed militias taking over a city. What they do is they confuse revolution with insurrection.

Everything you use, everything you eat or wear, your car, your housing — you didn’t make any of these things. We don’t produce these things as individuals. We produce socially. But, even though we produce socially, through co-operation, we don’t own the means of production socially. And this affects all the basic decisions made in this society about what we produce. These decisions are not made on the basis of what people need but on the basis of what makes a profit. What socialism means is not simply that a socialist party come to power, but that a class — the masses of the working people — come to power.  The ruling class is never going to solve its problems through the capitalist system. Therefore, the objective conditions for revolution are going to arise over and over again. We don’t create these conditions, but there is one thing we can do, we can be the socialist party in waiting.