Speed the Social Revolution!

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904 to organise and to prepare the conditions for the overthrow of the capitalist system in order to establish the socialist system, a system which guarantees the genuine emancipation of the working class. Thus the Socialist Party fights against the rich and against those who are their servants and to build socialism, ending the exploitation of man by man with the creation of a class-free society as the next stage in human social development. We have always considered our enemies our best teachers. The Socialist Party declares that its final purpose is a social revolution. A social revolution means nothing more or less than adoption of a system of production, distribution, and consumption which is based on common ownership in place of the present inconsistent and anarchistic system of private ownership based on the brutal power of capital. Democracy, i.e., the equality of rights can be fully realised only when a social revolution has abolished the privileges of private property and the wage-slavery of the working class. The Socialist Party does not confuse revolution and violence with one another. Violence and bloodshed do not make any movement revolutionary, and essentially they have nothing in common. Being a party which stands for the brotherhood of humanity, and directing its activities toward the attainment of general happiness and well being, the Socialist Party hopes that its victory will be accomplished by systematic and peaceful organisation. But in its attempt to capture political power the working class cannot reject any weapon and the form of its revolution will finally depend upon prevailing conditions, and especially upon the opposition directed against it.

Our party, the Socialist Party, is also aware of the fact that the success of the social revolution is guaranteed only when it occurs at the moment when the minds of the people and the events have matured for it. Therefore, our greatest duty is to educate and organise the working class so that it will become capable of carrying out this historic duty. But just as we cannot define the form of the revolution, neither can we determine the moment. The social revolution is the hope of the oppressed people. Those upon whom the working class has set its faith must not betray this hope. We welcome with pleasure every sign of revolt which represents an independent class-conscious attempt at class liberation.

Recent events around the world have proved once and for all that reforms under the capitalist system will be rolled back by the capitalist class at the earliest opportunity. The hard fought for working conditions of prior generations have been whittled away to such an extent that many workers no longer have sick pay, holiday pay, proper lunch breaks, eight hour working days or even secure employment. Austerity measures have been put into place for the majority whilst capitalists continue to make extravagant amounts of profit. The cuts do not occur randomly because of the narcissistic nature of individual capitalists or because of particular world economic crises, although they do contribute. This phenomenon largely occurs due to the nature of the capitalist system itself. In their drive to continually increase profits the owning class attempt to find new markets and continually strive to find new ways to increase profits, by increasing production, whilst at the same time paying less in on-going costs. To illustrate this point one only needs to look at the enormous profits that multinational companies have made by moving their businesses to poorer communities like Bangladesh. Whilst the cost of materials may be lower in these countries, companies move to the third world because the one production cost they can dramatically alter is an employees’ wage. Capitalists make their enormous profits by paying workers very little and in the third world this wage decreases dramatically with wages being closer to the subsistence level. It is because the Capitalist class continually strive to make a profit, and to increase their profits, that workers find themselves in constant struggles with their employers for better wages and conditions.

It is clear that the only way to stop this continual battle for a meagre existence for basic working and living conditions is to change the system. We need to change the system yet many people still continue to attempt to work within the capitalist system. These people try to change the system from within rather than focus their efforts on changing capitalism towards a new socialist system. If we focus on reforms we condemn the working class to continual struggles for their basic working conditions. In attempts to achieve palliatives workers sometimes unite in ‘left coalitions’ made up of differing groups with different political objectives, into one whole movement. These reform campaigns often mean in reality coalitions with the sections of the capitalist class who have no inclination towards changing the system. The left reformists attempt to replace capitalism with socialism by stealth, from within the capitalist system and by using the capitalist apparatus to do so. This theory suggests that all we need to do to destroy the capitalism is in small steps or stages thereby putting off the need to attempt to replace capitalism with socialism which is seen to occur only in the dim dark far away future. It is not possible to unite these differing groups with differing ultimate aims, differing ideologies and objectives into a united front. In attempting to unite these differing groups ultimately we are forgetting the class we most of all need to attract, the working class. Reformists tail along behind whatever political discussion is trendy at any given time, particularly issues popular in the media, instead of campaigning on the one issue of real significance and importance to the working class – the establishment of socialism. The Labour Party support reforms as palliatives. Reforms are only made by the Labour Party to the extent that they can placate workers by offering them small concessions whilst at the same time retaining capitalism. It is important to understand that the Labour Party have strong connections to Big Business who add to their funding and therefore influence their policies Do the more radical Greens, for example, want to overthrow the capitalist system? The answer is no, many Greens are conservative with a small c and seek to keep the economic system intact. As Marx said it is the workers who are the ‘gravediggers’ of the capitalist system not some group of leftists.