To those who, while convinced of the soundness of the Socialist Party’s position, yet not taken the step of joining up or contributing to our campaigns, we would point out that every additional member and every additional pound increases the propaganda capacities of the Party and brings nearer the time when the working class will capture the seat of power for the introduction of socialism. The only sound policy for the working class under capitalism is to use whatever strength their economic organisation can give them to press for higher pay from the employers, not to lend themselves to stunt campaigns whose only result will be to make reputations for a few Left-wing leaders. The workers should, however, face up to the limits of trade union action. Socialism is the only remedy for the poverty problem, and trade union action cannot bring about socialism. When the workers acquire an understanding of their position under capitalism, they will not require to be told what to do, either upon the political or the industrial field. They will then be in a position to dispense with leaders with their poisonous doctrines of class conciliation.
The Socialist Party is very much anti-capitalist and for a different kind of society run by the people in the interests of the people. There is a gulf between the two classes—the capitalist class and the working class—and we are very firmly on the side of the working class where the people would control the means of production right from the workplace up. We encourage class struggle and try to amplify them through political action into electoral challenges to the ruling class. The Socialist Party right from its founding has attacked the policy of political bargaining. We held then, as we do now, that a socialist party must be independent and must be based on the demand for socialism, not on a programme of reforms to be obtained by cooperating with capitalist parties.
It often happens after an argument, with a fellow member of the working class who was sturdily supporting the master class in all their works and ways, that you are told: “You’re mad.” Socialists are “insane” when we point out that in society to-day there are two classes, the working class, who do all the work and live in poverty and misery, and the capitalist class, who do need to work to live in luxury and debauchery. We are insane when we point out that the workers, being in the great majority, can alter this ridiculous state of affairs when they desire to do so, and that the only thing that stops them desiring socialism is their ignorance of the socialist position. As the condition of the working class under capitalism must inevitably and inexorably get worse, and as socialism is the only remedy if advocating socialism is insanity, sooner or later the majority of the working class have got to go MAD.
Socialist ideas will never be forgotten so long as there are exploited and oppressed people fighting against the effects of capitalism. You can spot an employers' apologist by what he says about the role of the working-class in society. He will always say, that workers must follow the leadership of somebody else, that the working class not suited for the leadership of society; that they need a clever leader over themselves. These frauds teach the workers NOT to rely on their own class strength, NOT to rely on their own class organisations, NOT to act on their own class interests. “The emancipation of the working class is the work of the working class itself,” said Marx, proven how true this is in a hundred different cases. No social or political movement can advance, can bring the people to an improved position in any respect, and do it in a durable and consistent way, unless it is by the working class itself. The failure of the working class everywhere to follow the guidance of Marx has produced the heavy defeats it has suffered.
The socialist revolution is the necessity of the times, and it is essential to get prepared now. Many things need to be done. We need to overthrow the present tyranny and set up a genuine social democracy. Capitalist austerity and the continuation of class collaboration have both added to working-class disillusionment. In the eyes of many workers, the union organisations have lost their credibility because they failed to resist the capitalist offensive and were unable or even unwilling to maintain the positions already won. Events have clearly highlighted the barrenness of reformism. Capital has always used the reformist organisations for its own ends by involving and implicating them in the reduction of the living standards of the working masses.
The idea that the workers have power over industry is misleading. What conceivable force gives them any such power? That is a question the syndicalists and industrial unionists cannot answer. The most they can do is to come out on strike, which, instead of controlling industry, is a mere cessation of industry. Let them attempt to carry on production against the will of the owners of the means of production and they soon find the power which the workers daily have in their hands while in the workshops is not much of a protection against the State's baton or bullet. That power of the working class” which looms so large in the anarcho-syndicalist's mind is simply the power of the slave over the instruments of his slavery. The sooner you join us the sooner the modern class war will be over. Assist us to uproot the edifice of capitalism.
No comments:
Post a Comment