Bollocks to Insurrection

Elections serves as a barometer of the maturity of the working class. The working class as a class is still capitalistic-minded. Socialists cannot compete with the capitalists on the matter of amelioration of conditions of the workers; to do so means only to sink into the quagmire and quicksands in which the revolutionary outlook is buried. A mish-mash program of makes for confusion instead of clarity. The Left sneer with disdain at “parliamentarianism” and the Socialist Party’s electoral methods. They find education too slow a process. Yet they fail to tell us exactly how their revolution is to be brought about. That is a minor detail to a left-wing romanticist. As far as anyone is able to make out, it is going to be brought about by means of strikes, supplemented by street protests, which they describe as “mass action” or “direct action”. Grass-roots campaigns become the Left’s playthings in the eternal hope that they might trigger a people’s revolt. The slow, plodding processes of education they will have nothing of. The idea that working people who cannot summon up enough thought to vote for a socialist candidate will be ready for something more radical such as insurrection is a crazy notion. What does it matter to the street-fighting revolutionary that men and women of the working class, every time they have had a chance, have rejected socialist ideas.

 For the Leftist, all that is required is the correct chanting on demonstrations and marches. The case for socialism of the Socialist Party is far too advanced to suit the ordinary worker, so instead let’s reduce our demands to some simplistic slogans to justify building the barricades in the streets. The strategy of the Left is a mystic faith in the miraculous conversion of millions upon whom socialist knowledge and class consciousness are to descend like mysterious manna from heaven so they can behold the glory of the promised land. The Left consistently tries to shape people and interpret events to fit the theory instead of developing theory to correspond to reality. The reason that the Left reject the ballot box and parliamentary political action is because they know they are the minority and have not the patience to engage in debate and discussion to win over the majority. They don’t want the counting of votes, because they know the count will go against them, and because voting requires a degree of decision making and deliberation. They don’t want careful consideration of principles since their own fail to stand up to close scrutiny so they seek thoughtless rebellion and hope to carry their case on a wave of emotional excitement. Instead, they believe that the majority of people are fools who have to be led by an “enlightened minority.”

A socialism established by deception and intimidation would be no socialism at all. Political democracy has not failed: it has never yet been really tried. Rebellion, uprisings and all forms of terrorism have been tried and the results are there for the world to see. If reason and common-sense with actions determined for the well-being of all is not enough to bring about socialism, how can force and compulsion succeed? It is the task of the Socialist Party to explain the purpose and demonstrate the power of the universal franchise and to organise our fellow-workers for political action.

However, do not misconstrue for one moment that the Socialist Party for a moment advocates that the workers should relinquish the strike as an industrial or even as a political weapon. We cannot conceive of the workers ever renouncing the right to strike and to collectively withhold their labour in industrial bargaining or in certain political eventualities under a capitalist regime. What the sort of event which may arise that justifies the recourse to strike action will always depend on the nature of the principle at stake and the state of intelligence, knowledge and political awareness of the workers concerned. But in a country possessing complete political freedom – and especially where the workers are in such numbers as to be able to make or unmake Governments and laws – a general strike should be used only as a last resource, when the

will of the people is being opposed by unconstitutional action on the part of the Government – by military or police repression, or by sectional usurpation of public and civic power. For the mass strike inflicts suffering upon the whole community, but the poor, the sick and the elderly are especially vulnerable, and only in such extreme instances can the workers fairly and in accord with the mutual obligations of human society resort to what is virtually a form of civil war.