The Purpose of the Socialist Party

Everywhere people are waking up and fighting against the oppression and exploitation which is a daily fact of their lives. The lies of the ruling class about “prosperity” in this country are being further exposed every day. There is prosperity alright – but it is for a handful of rich capitalists – the conditions of the working people are getting worse and worse yet profits continue to rise. The situation in health care, housing and welfare services is rapidly deteriorating. The source of all these conditions and injustices in the predatory system of capitalism. This system of capitalism is set up with one thing in mind – to make the most profits possible for the handful of people who own Big Business, the global banks and corporations. It is the economic system under which we, our parents and grandparents before us, have done all the work. We mine the mines, build the buildings, manufacture all the products: and then get just enough to live on. On the other hand, the small capitalist class accrues great fortunes off of our labour. The Socialist Party stands for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment by the working class of a socialist system. Once it is no longer possible to make a profit from the sweat and toil of working people the general misery and problems caused by capitalism can be quickly resolved.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to replace world capitalist economy by a world socialism. Socialist society will abolish the class division of society, the abolition of anarchy in production, and abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression of man by man. Society will no longer consist of antagonistic classes in conflict with each other, but will be a unified cooperative commonwealth of labour. For the first time in its history mankind will take its fate into its own hands. Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations, mankind will devote all its energy to the development and progress of humanity. After abolishing private ownership of the means of production and converting these means into social property, the world socialism will replace the world capitalist market, competitive and blind processes of social production, by consciously organised and planned production for the purpose of satisfying social needs. With the abolition of competition and anarchy in production, devastating crises and still more devastating wars will disappear. Instead of colossal waste of productive forces and spasmodic development of society there will be a planned utilisation of all material resources and a pain-free economic expansion to eliminate deprivation and poverty. The abolition of private property and the disappearance of classes will end exploitation. Work will cease to be toiling for the benefit of a class enemy. Want and inequality, the misery of being a wage-slave, and a wretched standard of life generally will disappear; the hierarchy created in the division of labour system will be abolished together with the antagonism between mental and manual labour; and the last vestige of the social inequality of the sexes will be removed. At the same time, the organs of class domination, and the State in the first place, will disappear also. The State, being the embodiment of class domination, will die out in so far as classes die out, and with it all measures of coercion will expire. This new culture of a humanity that is united for the first time in history, and has abolished all national boundaries. Unlike the alienation of capitalist culture, socialism will be based upon clear and transparent human relationships. Hence, it will bury forever all mysticism, religion, prejudice and superstition. As socialist we are distinguished from other working men and women only by this: At all times we point out the aim of the class struggle – socialist revolution - and we strive achieve this aim.

There is only one revolutionary class in the world capable of a successful socialist revolution. That class is the working class. In order to accomplish a socialist revolution, our class must have a political party so to capture the political power to carry through the revolution. The socialist party must be of class-conscious men and women of the working class who seek socialism and socialism alone.  The capitalist class is highly organised – they have the government, the courts and the army to protect their interests. The experience of the working class movement here and elsewhere confirms that it is impossible to make and consolidate a successful revolution without control of the State machine. The Socialist Party is a political party, which means that its concern is the struggle of the working class as a whole for State power. Whereas the primary concern of the trade unions is the economic struggle for better conditions; whereas the primary concern of the many reform organisation is the fight for amelioration and palliatives, the Socialist Party concerns itself with unifying them and giving them direction towards the overthrow of the capitalist system.

The Socialist Party participates in the election campaigns as a separate and distinct political party. It solicits votes to have its representatives in the legislative bodies. But its election campaigns and its purpose to be within parliament are fundamentally different from other parties. The Socialist Party not here to help the capitalists govern over the masses. We do not spread the false notion that there can be cooperation between the exploited and their exploiters. On the contrary, we go to the legislatures to prove to the workers that such cooperation must not be because it is good only for the bosses. In other words, we go to the legislatures — and we conduct our election campaigns — in the spirit of the class struggle. We use the platform of the legislatures, from which our voice can be heard better than the voice of private citizens, to advocate and promote socialism. For sure, we would help defend fellow-workers and press their masters to offer the maximum of concessions. At the same time, we’d endeavour to force the law-makers to pass legislation that would bring relief to the workers, not by pretty speeches, not by pleading with the law-makers who are servants of the ruling class, but by urging great movements of the masses which would make those gentlemen sit up and take notice. In other words, the Socialist Party does not beg for votes in order to reform the State and thereby to make it more effective for the capitalists. The Socialist Party practice revolutionary parliamentarism, by which is meant strengthening the working class and weakening its enemies. We go to the law-making institutions, not to tinker them up for the benefit of the capitalists, but put a monkey wrench in their State machinery, preventing them from working smoothly on behalf of the masters. We expose the agents of the capitalists before the people, to show what these so-called representatives of the people and what all these so-called democratic institutions actually are. We will use Parliament to abolish Parliament.

There are several parties around that call themselves “communist” or “socialist”. These parties all have one thing in common – they all dress themselves up with high-sounding revolutionary language, but underneath they are defenders of capitalism. The Socialist Party make it their purpose to communicate with our fellow-workers explaining to them the meaning of the class struggle so that they can recognises the truth of that explanation from their own experience. Understanding the nature of the class struggle, is the first step to actual participation in the socialist movement. Our critics say the workers are difficult to mobilise and that there is no hope of workers putting up a stiff resistance. We say, but let the worker recognise his or her class interests, and they will fight their lives, for freedom, for the liberation of all oppressed.