Socialism – or perish! That's the choice

One of the plainest phenomena of recent years has been the sharp swing to the Right that has taken place everywhere in the world.  What is the reason for this occurrence?  Once again it is the war crisis that strips bare the pretenders and betrayers within the working class, that separate the opportunists, the social patriots, the sectarians, from the revolutionary socialists. We must judge any and every statement of the question of war in relation to its class validity. No evasions, no half-truths can be accepted. The only answer to war is the full answer, the only possible answer, the Marxist, the revolutionary answer. with no sugar-coating.

There are two ways open to the people today. We can continue under capitalism, or we can take the path to socialism. It is our aim in the Socialist Party to build a society in which all are able to live a full life, free of class distinctions and divisions which condition development along prescribed lines. But we do not believe that this can be done for the people. It can only be done by the people.  Socialism, once a distant dream, is now a reality for all to achieve where the principle is 'from each according to ability to each according to needs,' and where, in the words of the Communist Manifesto "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". Such is the policy and perspective of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We in the Socialist Party hate capitalism with our heads and with our hearts because we see in it an out-dated social system, an anomaly in our present world, holding back that wonderful development of technique and material resources that the present state of our knowledge could turn to the well-being of the people. We see in it a social system that carries within itself slumps and wars, poverty amidst plenty, oppression. We want to end it as soon as possible. We aim at replacing the present capitalist system by socialism, understood as a system where there will be common ownership of the means of production and distribution,  a society that will secure for the producers by hand or by brain, the full fruits of their industry. We envisage socialism as a society where material wealth will be in the hands of those who produce it, where the exploitation of man by man will be ended, where production will be used not for profit, where a new relationship of fraternity will develop between peoples based on equality, where individual men and women will find totally new possibilities to develop their capacities. Although we strive to replace capitalism by socialism, we all of us believe that it is both possible and essential to fight now, within capitalism to defend and improve an immediate lot of the working people. We understand therefore the great importance trade unions, community and environmental organisations, and support every way to strengthen them. But more importantly we also see the need to win the overwhelming majority of the population for the fight against capitalism and for socialism.

As Marxists and as the experiences of the international working class movement has shown that without the winning of political power, no successful advance to socialism is possible. This, after all, is the essence of the old conflict of revolution versus evolution, because revolution means, in essence, a change of political power. We Marxists do not believe that the state in Britain is in essence different from the state in any capitalist country. We do not believe that it is neutral or above classes, and we do believe that in order to advance to socialism in Britain it is necessary for the working class majority to take political power out of the hands of the capitalists and to so that it becomes an instrument of the will of the majority. The Socialist Party has never said that violence is an aim in itself. A revolution means a change in political power, a change in state power; it does not necessarily mean a violent bloody insurrection. Our aim in Britain is to win over legally, constitutionally and peacefully the majority of the British people, pledged to carry through a radical economic and political transformation with fellow-workers around the world. But even though we have always made it clear that an aim is not a guarantee and that the form of the transition to socialism does not depend on the working people alone. We do not stand for violence, but if violence should be used by the old ruling class against the people, then the people themselves will, with all legitimacy behind them, have to find appropriate methods to deal with it.  Whether other countries'  revolutions are necessarily violent and illegal (against existing law) depends on the balance of class forces in the world in the given country at any particular moment and depends too on the traditions, customs, institutions of that particular country.  The essential enemy is modern capitalism. British capitalism is the oldest, most cunning, most skilled, most experienced in the world. It is no mean enemy to overcome and we would do wrong in any way to underestimate it. To defeat capitalism we need all our resources, and the best is unity for the common struggle.