The inability of seemingly powerful and well-entrenched liberal
and left parties to prevent the triumph of right-wing reaction has been a bitter
pill to swallow. The conditions have aggravated the sense of working-class
political impotence. Forced to abandon their traditional beliefs and failing to
find satisfactory alternatives, the workers have become easy prey to demagogy
and trickery. As standards of human existence deteriorate these factors will
not contribute to clearer thinking by the workers.
Capitalism is insane. It cannot work efficiently— it can't
work at all! The Socialist Party does not direct its appeal for the
establishment of socialism to the capitalists. We know it would be worse than
useless. No ruling class ever gave up its power of domination without being
forced to do so. Make no mistake about it, when the master class are confronted
with a serious attack upon the private property institution no abstract “civil rights”
will prevent them using all the might at their command to maintain their power.
The appeal of the Socialist Party is directed to the working class because this
class has everything to gain by the acceptance of socialist principles. At this
stage the question arises as to the means to be employed against the might of
the ruling class. We assert that the workers must look to themselves to get out
of capitalist conditions. While it is true that the master class use their
power to consolidate their domination of the working class, it is also true
that this power has been handed to them by the latter. In other words, at every
election the workers have voted the capitalists into power. It is as though the
lamb delivered itself over to the lion. The workers must understand that they can
use this political weapon in the interest of themselves. They must study socialism
wherein they will learn the cause of their subjection, how they are subjected,
and the means by which they can combine their forces as a class and use their
might to ensure the right to live a comfortable and healthy life.
It is true that the workers control in politics, in the
sense that they have a majority of the total votes; but once they have voted
that power, either to Coalitionists, Liberals or Labour Leaders, their control
is gone, and the party they vote into office wields the full power of the
State. The workers can only use the power that their number gives them when
they consciously organise for a specific object and send their own
representatives to the national and local assemblies for the accomplishment of
that object. The whole question of slavery or freedom centres around this
point: will the workers continue to allow themselves to be led, or will they
direct the affairs of life in their common interest, through representatives
selected and appointed by themselves? They can only do the latter when they are
in agreement as to the object of their political activities. The only object,
correctly understood, on which all workers could agree is the socialist object.
The establishment of a system of society based on the common ownership and
democratic control of all the means of wealth production. The task for every socialist
is, therefore, to help in the work of making more socialists.
Before a socialist revolution can take place a majority of
the working class must understand and accept the essentials of socialism and
organise to establish it. This understanding not only renders “leaders”
unnecessary, it forbids their existence. The working class will keep control in
its own hands and administrators will have to carry out the workers’
instructions. To talk of a “socialist revolution” as being “led by socialists”
is at once to proclaim one’s entire ignorance of even the elements of socialism.
Capitalism itself rests upon ignorance,
and its political parties, with their symbols and slogans, their banners and
big drums, are all up to their necks in it. The mass of the people are taken in
by the ballyhoo. They support the system of private property for the flimsiest of
reasons and never seriously consider the proposition that there is a better way
of running the world. As long as such ideas keep their grip, the world will
remain in confusion. Apart from anything else, democracy will always be unsafe.
Both Labour and Conservative parties support this chaos of ignorance. Beside
that momentous fact, what does it really matter which has the bigger posters,
or the more press advertisements, or bangs the bigger drum?
Only socialism can guarantee the conditions of a life worth
living for all. Because its establishment depends upon an understanding of the
necessary social changes by a majority of the population, these changes cannot
be left to parties acting apart from or above the workers. The workers cannot
vote for Socialism as they do for reformist policies and then go home or go to
work and carry on as usual. To put the matter in this way is to show its
absurdity. Socialist ideas are not acquired merely by the experience of
hardships and tragedy under capitalism. They must be propagated and learned.
The party of the workers, therefore, cannot be anything less than a socialist
party; its task, the conversion of the working class to the principles of
socialism. Nor can it at present be much more. It must eschew all the cheap
tricks of electioneering and propaganda; whether these consist of open support
for capitalism on the plea of "urgent" problems, or a futile appeal
for "a socialist Britain now." Such activities will not bring
socialism any nearer; the workers who support them are only postponing or
evading their real responsibility. That they do so is not due to any evil
machinations or secret plots by these power-seeking parties. On the contrary,
the existence of these organisations and the popularity of their illusory
remedies is conditioned by the inadequacy of working-class political
understanding. So long as the workers do not comprehend the necessity and
meaning of a revolutionary social change, they will have no choice but to leave
their fate in the hands of "parties" and "leaders." With
the development of socialist consciousness (class-consciousness) will come the
realisation that they, the workers themselves, must take
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