Are We Nearing The Revolution?

Although we are living in changing and dangerous times, for the first time in history, a true flowering of humanity is possible. Our fight is to reorganise society to accomplish this goal. Our vision is of a new, co-operative society of equality. The revolution we need is possible. There has never been anything like this revolution in the history of the world. It will be the first organised movement of men and women to become a world movement. To change society, we need a plan to get from where we are now to liberation - a strategy that will work. Any successful revolutionary strategy must address the fundamental issue of who are our friends and who are our enemies. Our ruling class have built empires that spans the planet. The world has been divided up between the big capitalist powers, which will stop at nothing to expand their spheres of influence and control. Capitalists have accumulated untold wealth based on the exploitation of the world’s working class. They live on the labour, land and natural resources of others. Only socialism can save us and only a class, the working class, can bring that about. Socialists all over the world, will replace the competitive struggle of capitalism by the human co-operation of socialism.

Capitalism has been unable to provide people with the minimum levels of comfort that our modern technological society is clearly able to produce. Humanity lives in a desperate situation where poverty and unemployment, racism, sexism, bigotry are all endemic. Industrialisation have wreaked havoc on the environment. People starve, not because there is no food, but because food is distributed only when it can make a profit. Even the wealthiest nations are ridden with debt. Corruption is common in politics and business. Disease, random violence and homelessness are eating the heart out of every major city on Earth. Work, for most people, continues to be drudgery, with fewer and fewer opportunities for creative initiative. Capitalism should be replaced by a more humane, civilised, cooperative society. Socialism is the answer to modern-day barbarism. People are becoming more distrustful of their governments. Antagonism and polarisation has penetrated every aspect of our lives. The capitalist class has proven itself incapable of solving the many social problems. Every step the ruling class takes only makes the situation worse. Our understanding that the events of today are the basis for the events of tomorrow demands that we not only carefully examine today, but use that knowledge to prepare for tomorrow.

The Socialist Party recognises that to win the class war, workers must move from the defensive to the offensive and fight for a cooperative society that is possible. We attack the system of private property. We point out the necessity, this time, of overthrowing private property and transferring the means of production into commonly-owned property. The goal of the Socialist Party is to give people a vision of what is possible. It is a vision of a world where no one has to fight another for the daily bread of existence. It is a vision where cooperation and fulfilling the needs of humanity are the guiding principles. It is a vision that satisfies the deepest yearnings of the people for peace. The first step is that people have to be won over to the reality that private property can be brought to an end. We can take inspiration from the famous statement by the former slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman when she said, “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” Many of our fellow-workers do not understand they are wage-slaves. The first thing in liberating the slaves is to make them understand their slavery.

Socialism is the common ownership of the socially necessary means of production and the distribution of the social product according to need. It is no Utopian proposition, but an expression of the deepest strivings of the people: independence from the chains of exploitation, the guaranteed ability of every person to contribute to society, freedom from want and an expectation of a better life. New technologies have made possible the realisation of this goal. It is only through widespread promotion and campaigns that we can get this vision over. We must make connections withthe life of fellow-workers. We must communicate the message that private property can be brought to an end. We must show a cooperative society is not only possible, but is the only practical solution to the problems they face. Socialism is the rule of freedom under which the state disappears. An overly bureaucratised administration based on the employment of force, and which the masses must obey, is irreconcilable with the socialist organisation of society.

In a cooperative society, production could be planned to fit everyone’s needs. Distribution could be organised socially. It followed that in socialist society, there would be no need for anyone to fight anyone else. There would be more than enough for everyone, and it would be distributed not on the basis of who is the strongest but on the basis of who’s needs are most pressing.

How can it be changed? It certainly was no good just thinking and talking about a new society, or trying to attract others to it by example by setting up communes and co-ops. The working class has to take control of the means of production in a social revolution.  It is up to the working class. No one can do it for them. The self-emancipation of the workers through their own struggle and the democratic society which follows such emancipation is at the heart of socialism. Socialism will replace a hierarchical, bureaucratic and undemocratic society – capitalism – with a genuine democracy in which the working people direct their own delegates. Socialism depends upon control from below, and control from below can never be brought about from above.