Lothian Socialist Discussion (27/6)

Wednesday, 27 June
  7:30pm - 9:00pm
The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh,
17 West Montgomery Place, 
Edinburgh EH7 5HA

Class-consciousness is never more needed than now.  Today mankind is under a shadow without precedent. 

The working people of the world have it in their hands to end poverty, fear, hatred, and war. To those in the Socialist Party, class-consciousness is the breaking down of all barriers to understanding. Without it, militancy means nothing. The conflict between the classes is more than a struggle for each to gain from the other: it is the division which reaches across all others. The class-conscious worker knows where he or she stands in society, opposed at every point to those of the capitalist class. Our cause can only be the cause of revolution for the abolishing of classes. 

Class-conscious people need no leaders. The single, simple fact which all working people have to learn is that capitalism causes capitalism's problems so that the remedy – the only remedy – is to abolish capitalism. In that knowledge, they must take hold of the powers of government – for one purpose only: that the rule of class by class shall end. Socialism is not a benevolently-administered capitalism: it is a different social system.

Reform is no answer, even though at times – rare times – it benefits working people. The reformer has not even set out to change the world but has agreed that capitalism shall continue, and is merely trying to alleviate its worst effects. Has poverty been abolished by the reformers? Ask the people on benefits or the slum-dwellers or the sick. 

The Socialist Party has been intractable in its opposition to reformists. Political action must be revolutionary. That is the real message. The workers in Scotland have common cause with the workers of every other country. They are members of a world-wide class, faced with the same problems, holding the same interests once they are conscious of them. There is only one way of realising those interests: the immense productive powers of the world must become the common property of every man, woman, and child.

The need for socialism grows more urgent with each new day. It only awaits the conscious will of the workers of the world, and nothing more; when they desire it, it can be. The voice of the Socialist Party is a small one, but our members will strive for it to be heard. There are many who are with us but not of us. The struggle for socialism requires the help of every class-conscious man and woman. The spread socialist understanding is the great task of our time and every fresh adherent to the Socialist Party Principles is another step towards the liberation of humanity.