Why a class struggle

A labour organisation must bend its efforts toward overthrowing the system of industrial slavery. Only a Marxist party can the working class accomplish its historic mission, the overthrow of capitalism. Socialism is not some distant dream. It is the only road out of exploitation. The capitalist class is the irreconcilable enemy of the working class. Destruction of the environment, the ever-present threat of nuclear war and the looming problem of pandemics are calling the very existence of the human race into question. The battle is class struggle. The war is for the existence of humanity. A new society must be based on the common ownership of the means of production and the distribution of the social product according to need. Capitalism has made possible a sustainable economic paradise of abundance for all. Under capitalism, however, it leads to chains of poverty, exploitation, and toil. In socialism, all members of society in equal enjoyment of all the good things and comforts of life will be the arbiters of their own destinies in a free society. The working class alone is interested in the removal of social inequality. The workers, in their collectivity, must take over and operate all the essential industrial institutions, the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all humanity. Many have claimed the right to carry the red flag of revolution. No doubt there will be others still. But claims do not make a revolution, nor endow it legitimacy. 

 It is capitalism, with its system of production for profit, its system of international rivalry for domination of foreign territories and trade, which produces one war after another. It is capitalism which keeps millions subjugated and exploited by its wage system. Capitalism cannot give peace and plenty to its people but socialism can. Socialism means production for use and not for profit. Socialism means that one working class is not pitted against the others in wars, It means that one working person is not pitted against the other in the fight for a job. The criteria for production under socialism would be – how much is needed? Some people will argue that it can’t work, it’s a utopia. We can only answer that capitalism has demonstrated that IT can’t work. A society organised on the basis of production for use would have more of a chance of working than our present economic system. The thing to observe is it is impossible to make capitalism work. Untold misery, poverty, and unemployment are the living facts that prove that capitalism doesn’t work – not for the working class, anyway. In a system of universal co-operation for production for use, all destruction of wealth, all waste, would be a sheer loss. And all war is waste. Under the present system of capitalism – with its class ownership and control of all natural resources and all means of production – with universal competition and production for profit, waste means gain and is not only inevitable but necessary. It is as idle and utopian to dream of establishing peace in the midst of capitalism. Under capitalism war is inevitable. If you, fellow-worker, desire to abolish war, we say: Abolish capitalism with all its misery and replace it with a system of production for use and not for profit – all over the world.

Reformists refuse to see the truth of capitalist society that it does not function to achieve social goals the community as a whole regards as desirable, but rather operates to achieve the aims considered desirable by a small part of society, the ruling capitalist class, which places its profits as the paramount concern of society. Society does not exist to satisfy the requirements of the community but the profit needs of the capitalist class. The government, no matter whether conservative or liberal, remains a social organisation whose purpose is to ensure the rule of the capitalist class, and by its policies to assure the receipt of profits, which is considered the first claim on society. When the needs of the great majority of society come into conflict with the capitalist system and the capitalist class, the State's role is to ascertain that the latter triumphs. Capitalist class parties may differ and sometimes do differ deeply on how to achieve the purpose of the state, but despite these differences, all capitalist parties represent poorly or well the capitalist class. Only through an irreconcilable struggle against capitalism, towards its elimination and the establishment of socialism, will the people of the world find the full freedom, equality, and democracy for which they aspire.