The State is the governmental power that makes and enforces the laws and regulations of society. Since it developed it has always represented the social class that is dominating. The armed forces of this State were organised for the purpose of defending the interests and the social arrangements that suited the dominating social class.
Every rising social class has had to struggle for control of, or influence in, this State power in order to abolish or modify the existing political arrangements that hindered the further development of the rising class.
In present society, this holds true of the working class movement which seeks to overthrow the domination of the Capitalist class; a domination that keeps the working class in a subject position. The fact that most of the workers do not yet recognise the source of their subjection, or only vaguely do so, does not effect the question. Thus, before the workers can throw off this domination they must obtain control of the State power in order to take out of the hands of the dominating class the power that defends this domination.
Parliament is the centre of state power in modern “democracies” and the workers, who comprise the great majority of each nation, vote the representatives to these parliaments. Therefore, when the workers understand the source of their subject position and the action they must take to abolish it, they can do so by sending representatives to Parliament to take control of the State power for this purpose. By doing so they will take out of the hands of the Capitalist class the control of the powers of government, including the armed forces.
Once the workers have obtained control of the governmental power what then? They will proceed to reorganise society on a Socialist basis. Now we come into the region of conjecture. While we hold the view that the overwhelming mass of the people will participate, or fall in line with, the process of re-organisation (in other words that, while the workers will participate in the movement, and probably individual Capitalists, the Capitalists as a whole will realize that the game is up, as they have lost the power of effective resistance) we make allowance for a theoretically possible attempt in some form of violent sabotage during the revolutionary re-organisation. The control of the armed forces during this period will be an effective deterrent to any such violent attempt without these forces having necessarily to be used. Should a violent minority attempt to destroy Socialism they would have to be forcibly dealt with. While at full liberty to advocate a return to Capitalism, no violent minority could be allowed to obstruct the will of the majority. Hence the phrase in the 6th clause “in order that this machinery including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.” There will be no suppression of speech, opinion, or peaceful organisation.
A revolutionary policy is one that recognises that since the capitalist system gives rise to, and perpetuates the problems of war, poverty, and insecurity; and that these and many other problems are inherent in the system itself, the only solution to these problems is the abolition of the system itself and replacement by another—a socialist one. Programmes of social reform cannot solve these problems; they only help to perpetuate the system that causes them. Therefore one would expect a "revolutionary” not to advocate, say, a national minimum wage, but the abolition of the wages system altogether. Many claim to stand for socialism—sometime in the future. But what do they mean by socialism? Do they mean by socialism—or for that matter, communism—what Marx and Engels meant by socialism or communism? Socialism to Marx and Engels and socialism to the Socialist Party means a world-wide universal system of society based on the common ownership of the means of wealth production. It will be a classless society, democratic throughout—a free society, where the coercive forces of the state will have disappeared, and where production will be solely in order to satisfy the needs of the people. When a socialist society "gets on its feet” the watchword will be: "From each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her needs.” Socialism will have no need of the state apparatus. That the state will have “died out"; and that the state ownership of the land, farms and the factories is, in fact, State Capitalism.
Fellow workers, your masters take advantage of your hunger and nakedness to enlist you in their battalions. For what? To defend their property at home and abroad; to keep your fellow slaves in subjection. You own no property to defend; you have no freedom to conserve. It behooves you, therefore, whether inside or outside the army, to join the Socialist Party. The aim of the Socialist Party is to abolish the property conditions that give rise to wars; to institute a system wherein armies and navies become unnecessary and merely figure in the memories of a hated past.
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