An old world to overthrow. A new world to build

Why must the working class play the prominent role in the socialist revolution? First of all, working people are highly socialised by working side by side at their jobs. By making the products the capitalists sell for profit, workers learn through their own experience the need for organisation and cooperation. Clearly, the products could never be made if the workers themselves were disorganised and refused to cooperate with one another. In capitalist society these qualities of organisation, and cooperation are used to benefit not the workers, but the capitalists. The capitalists use these qualities of the workers to make their profits and, in the process, keep workers in a state of near or actual poverty. Since workers are the people who are directly exploited by the capitalists, they have the most potential for seeing through the capitalist system. Thus, of all classes in society, the working class also has the most potential for learning the need to overthrow capitalism and to replace it with a new system – socialism – that will benefit not a handful of capitalists, but society. Also, a mass movement of workers possesses great strength to cripple the capitalists. If the workers don’t work, the capitalists don’t profit. As the only productive class in society which manufactures and operates the things necessary for life, the working class is the only class with the ability to build the new, healthy socialist society. For all these reasons, the Socialist Party holds that the working class is a revolutionary class for the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. The Socialist Party does not believe in the old romantic notion of a handful of heroic revolutionaries making the revolution for the people on the behalf of the people, rather than the people making the revolution for themselves. We oppose those who lack faith in the ability of the people themselves to make a revolution, and who therefore feel that they must do it for them. Such individuals and parties never accomplish much. History shows over and over, however, that all such schemes based on minorities and vanguards are doomed to failure. The working class is a sleeping giant and when it awakens, it will recognise the great power it has in its hands. It is only a matter of time. Education, of the workers alone can fit and prepare them for the herculean task before them. It is only through the education of the workers that they can come to clearly understand the necessity of not only organising, but for the kind of organisation required to give them the power to carry on their struggle, to fight their everyday battles, and finally to conquer capitalism and come into possession of their own.

To-day all wealth, the largest and most fruitful tracts of land, the mines, the mills and the factories belong to a small group of private capitalists. From them the labouring class receive a scanty wage in return for long hours of arduous toil, hardly enough for a decent livelihood. The enrichment of a small class of employers and investors is the start and end of present-day society. It is to change this capitalist world which is the purpose of the Socialist Party.  All social wealth, the land and all that it produces, the factories and the mills must be taken from their exploiting owners to become the common property of the entire people, placing them under social control. To-day production in every manufacturing unit is conducted by the individual capitalist independently of all others. What and where commodities are to be produced, where, when and how the finished product is to be sold, is decided by the individual capitalist owner. Nowhere does labour have the slightest influence upon these questions. We are simply the robots to do the work. In socialism all this will be changed. Private ownership of the means of production and distribution must disappear. Production will be carried on not for the enrichment of a few individuals but solely to supply the wants and needs of the working class. Accordingly, factories, mills and farms must be operated upon an entirely new basis, from a wholly different point of view. Production will be carried out for the sole purpose of securing to all a more humane existence, of providing for all plentiful food, clothing and other forms of subsistence. The productivity of labour will be increased. Farms will yield richer crops, the most advanced technology will be introduced into the factories. It follows, therefore, that we need not, and will not deprive the small farmer or handicraft artisan of the bit of land or the little workshop from which he or she ekes out an existence by their own hands. As time goes by, he or she will realise the advantages of shared socialised production over private ownership.

Bountiful provisions, a decent education for the children, comfortable care for the aged and the infirm – these form the all-important part of the socialist system. Waste such as we find to-day must cease. Society will be more rational in the use of its products, its ways of manufacture and its deployment of labour power. The production of armaments will pass out of existence, for a socialist society ends war. Instead the raw materials and the enormous amounts of labour power that were devoted to this purpose will be used for other more useful production. The manufacture of costly luxuries for the of wealthy will stop. Work itself must be completely altered. Today employment in industry, on the farm and in the office is usually a torture and a burden. Men and women work because they must in order to obtain the necessities of life. In a Socialist society, where all work together for their own well-being, the health of the individual worker, and the joy in work must be conscientiously fostered and sustained. Short hours and less days of labour will be established: recreation and leisure merged into the work process, so all may do their share, willingly and joyously. Today hunger drives the worker to the factory or the farm-owner, into the business office. Everywhere the employer sees to it that no time is wasted. With socialism all working people are free and on an equal footing, working for benefit and enjoyment, tolerating no waste of social wealth. To be sure, every socialist enterprise needs its technical superintendents who understand its technology, who are able to administer production so that everything runs smoothly, to assure the implementation of the most efficient methods. Workers inside socialist industrial democracy will must show that we can work decently and diligently, without capitalists and slave-drivers but of own volition.