A Clarion Call

The time has come for revolutionists to make a statement of their principles in order to interest their fellow-workers in the class struggle which is the fight for economic and social emancipation and the abolition of class rule. The idea of class-conscious resistance against capitalist exploitation has recently been gaining ground. The quickened industrial strife, the rise in the cost of living and the worsening of working conditions have fanned the discontent always existing within the masses.  Help raise the banner of the social revolution and to free ourselves from capitalism.

There is a need for angry denunciations of capitalism. But there is also a need for inspiration, for a vision of the socialist goal. With capitalism, the class war is never calm for very long. We are always being told by politicians and the media that the capitalist class are the “Captains of Industry” without whom none of us could survive for long. However, they always remain silent on the embarrassing question that if the working class who produce ALL the wealth are not entitled to it, how is the Capitalist Class which produces NOTHING, entitled to any? The persuasive powers of the capitalist media will always try to divide the workers; this is an old game. The strength of the workers lies in their solidarity and, looking to the time when they really wake up and organise politically with us for socialism, a solid, world-wide, socialist working class would hold every trump in the pack. Any improvements or gains the workers can obtain under capitalism they, as the sole producers, are more than entitled to. The Socialist Party maintain that the hardships of capitalism arise, directly out of the fact that the means of living are owned by the few, the many are therefore a propertyless-class who must work for wages in order to live. The antagonism between employers and workers will know no end while the wealth of the one is derived from the exploitation of the other.  THE VERY EXISTENCE OF WAGES-SYSTEM AT ALL shows the economic enslavement of the working class to be a fact.

There are two delusions that cloud the minds and paralyse the hands of those who mistakenly believe that capitalism is evolving into Socialism. One is that the so-called Welfare State has changed the old order at home. The second is that global capitalism has been humanised into giving up the naked struggle for raw materials, strategic bases, and markets. This is supposed to have been brought about by the United Nations an many other international organisations. A glance at the world should blow away this dangerous self-deception. Capitalism without tears is the reformist version of socialism. 

Nothing so much arouses the hatred of the capitalist apologists, nothing so much enrages them and exposes their deep-seated chauvinism, is the socialist denunciation of  "patriotism," and the "the national interest". Any lie, any falsification will do to corrupt, and distort the real meaning and significance of the defense of one’s country. As industrial and technological development grows by leaps and bounds, monopoly capitalism, rather than narrowing national differences and ameliorating oppression, exacerbates them both. It is no wonder that the world is literally divided into rival competing nations. It imparts a great urgency for the revolutionary cooperation and solidarity of all workers. Only socialism, which is based on democratic planning and the common ownership of the means of production, can purge the world of capitalist chaos, its unpredictable crises, and the reign of the arbitrary based on markets, profits and share prices.

We have to refute the idea that socialism can be established before the understanding and acceptance of it by the majority of the workers. Despite all the defeats, hardship and bloodshed experienced by workers in trying to oppose the powers of the State machine by force, groups advocating such methods which, if put in effect, could only lead to further defeats. Despite all the experience they have to draw upon, they appear to have learned nothing. The Socialist Party has since its foundation stressed the need for the working class to organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government in order that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.  Gaining control of Parliament to introduce socialism is not parliamentary expediency. When we of the Socialist Party have contested an election we have always put the socialist case. We have always requested the working class not to vote for the socialist candidate unless they understand and accept socialism. Up to the present the mass of the workers have lacked political knowledge and have voted for personalities instead of principles. When things go wrong they blame the party leaders. Unfortunately, the workers have not a clear consciousness of their position as a class. The only possible hope of the working class is common ownership of the means of production.  Socialism is the economic security for the human family.