To Win

If misrepresentation could destroy a new thought, an idea, or a movement as the expression of theories crystallized, then socialism would have been dead long ago. The adherents to the principles and the program would have been buried with the death of the idea. They would today be remembered only as confusers of minds trained in the school of dogmatism. The advocates of implied faith in the textbooks of never-to-be disputed authorities on social phenomena would have another rest. Questions would no longer need answering; the workers could trust its fate in the hands of and to the intellectual guardianship of self-styled “leaders”. The tide is turning. The workers have begun to think, to meditate and to act. In ever-increasing numbers, stirred by a deeper knowledge of the principles underlying the socialist ideal, they have begun to move of their own accord and to take matters into their own hands. Perhaps great "leaders" have been blind to the fact that the economic forces in society are among the great factors in overturning all the vague theories and plans upon which the would-be deliverers believe a benevolent kind of Welfare State could be ushered into existence.

The owners of all resources and means of wealth form a class of their own; the owners of labour power as their only possession in the market, another. Political, judicial, and other institutions are only the mirror of the prevailing system of ownership in the resources and means of production.
One class owns and controls the necessaries,: the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all other institutions to their prevailing class interests.

Conversely, there is a class that strives to change the foundation of the society. The workers realise that immediately following the change these social relations will also be shifted; institutions deriving their support and sustenance from the class in power will be made to conform to new conditions after the overthrow of the previous system. Co-operative control of industries by all engaged in the process of production must build its foundation on the highly perfected form and methods of production, and upon the conditions which accelerate the passing away of the capitalist system of ownership in the instruments of production and distribution. The working class alone is interested in the removal of economic inequality, and that can only be accomplished by revolution. The workers, in their collectivity, must take over and operate all the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all humanity.  Harmonious relations of mankind in all their material affairs will evolve out of the change in the control and ownership in industrial resources of the world. That accomplished, the men and women, 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 socialist movement is a worldwide movement. We are "patriotic" for our class, the working class. We realise that as workers we have no country. National flags and national anthems mean naught to us but oppression and tyranny.  As long as we quarrel among ourselves over differences of nationality we weaken our cause, we defeat our own purpose. Our party is open to all workers. Differences of colour and language are not obstacles to us. In our organisation, we are all on the same footing. All are workers and as such their interests are the same. An injury to them is an injury to us all. Local unity is not sufficient. It seems that the working class in every country has to pass through the same school of experiences before they will find the road that leads straight to the storehouses of wealth created in abundance by the toilers of the world.


The arsenal of facts based on economic developments and conditions, in support of socialism, is almost inexhaustible. Socialism is not an infallible dogma hatched out in the brains of a few doctrinaires. It is a theory based on investigation of the organized forces of production, and on the proposition that these organized elements of production should be utilized to create things for the use of all human beings and not for the profit of the few who are in control of the machinery and implements with which, by the application of obedient human servants of the machines, all wealth is created. Human intellect and energy has developed the system of production to a very high point of perfection. But the great majority realizes more and more that they are denied a just share in the enjoyment of the yields and fruit. 


What workers of all epochs have been after has been a better world. No one knows the suffering better than the slaves themselves, and therefore it must be they who must free themselves from the lash of the masters. Nothing can be stronger than the working class, when all the workers are properly organised; when they all stand together, the same as the masters do today.

Technology today is used to enslave people, while it could be used to help society as a whole. Practically all inventions and everything worthwhile are made by the workers; and as soon as we wake up to the fact that everything should belong to those only who produce and who do useful labour—then they need not suffer any longer, because then the machine—the real organiser—will be a blessing to mankind, instead of a curse as it is today.

Then will come the time about which poets all through the ages have dreamed; the time which broken-hearted, sweating toilers, men and women, have suffered for; the time which the Socialist Party is fighting for, and will fight for until the workers come to their own, and the master and the slave shall have disappeared from the earth. The bankers, brokers, merchants, soldiers and the whole gang of parasites do not produce one day's need in their whole lifetime; they make money, but do not create wealth. But, one might say, the capitalists furnish the machines. But it was the steel mill workers who did that. The capitalists keep them alive while they are building the machines and then take the machines away from the workers, by power of police, if necessary.


To go toward victory in the socialist revolution that is already in its beginning stage, the workers must embue their brains with the spirit of attack. That means, "To Win."