Monday, April 01, 2019

Socialism in Scotland

Edinburgh Branch Meeting
April 4, at
The Quaker Hall, 
Victoria Terrace (above Victoria Street), 
Edinburgh EH1 2JL

Glasgow Branch Meeting
April 17 at
Maryhill Community Central Halls, 
304 Maryhill Road,
Glasgow G20 7YE


The very existence of human life is threatened

The Socialist Party offers something unique. It analyses the events of capitalism from a consistent Marxist standpoint. It is not misled by promises of reform of easing any social ills. Experience teaches it that this is futile. So, we shall continue to stand, alone, for the only effective way of dealing with capitalism’s ailments—the establishment of socialism. We have kept the socialist case alive and active. However, capitalism remains and its abolition is urgent. Only socialism will truly set free the people’s talents to build an abundant world of free access to wealth. Socialism will bring the uniting of the human race. The Socialist Party stresses the essential unity of the majority of the world’s people, to give mutual support during the class struggle of capitalism and-more importantly—in the struggle to end class society and replace it with the class-free society of socialism. Our weapons in this struggle are words — discussion, debate, and knowledge. Cogency, clarity, and coherency are vital to our work. We do not indulge in smears, or distort what our opponents say—they condemn themselves out of their own mouths. The Socialist Party tirelessly puts it case, in talks arguments, in speaking and writing. We tell the way out, and we are sure that if you think about it you will sooner or later agree with us.

Capitalism divides people on the basis of their country or their physical characteristics. The Socialist Party is at present so small so it might seem a better political strategy to switch to some vote-catching gimmick. But in the long run this would make our work harder still. It would signal the end of the socialist movement and leave us with the task of rebuilding once more.

The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production, distribution and communication. The working class owns none of these, and therefore workers must sell their labour power to the capitalist for wages in order to live. The worker creates a product of value, part of which is returned to him as wage, and the rest of which is taken from him by the capitalists as profit. Thus, is created the basic antagonistic contradiction between worker and capitalist, since the interest of one is, and has to be, directly opposed to the interest of the other. This most fundamental of contradictions will not end until capitalism with its private ownership and/or control of the means of production is itself ended, and replaced with socialism.

In socialist society, all means of production will be common property. There will be no classes and no class struggle. The consequences of class divided society – racism, national chauvinism, male supremacy, the monogamous family based on property, etc. – will all have disappeared. There will be no wars, no armies, and no need for weapons of war, which will become historical curiosities. There will be no distinction between mental and manual work. Socialism will be a life of material and cultural abundance and any problems arising resolved by mutual cooperation.

Piecemeal reforms cannot solve the problems our society faces. There can be no doubt that a new society based upon common ownership is the only way to end the problems of modern society. Our task is to keep that case alive, to sharpen our propaganda and to make our party into an ever more dynamic force for socialism. All the left-wing parties which said they knew how to humanise capitalism have failed, and the parties which thought they had discovered short-cuts to socialism have come and gone and the socialist proposition still holds the field. We ask you to try socialism.

We of the Socialist Party call on all to fight the political fight on the straight ticket of revolutionary socialism. We will fight this fight on principles which penetrate to the foundations of society in all lands: the abolition of the private ownership of the land and means of production. The Socialist Party is intent upon taking the fight not only into the institutions of the working class but also into the enemy’s camp itself - Parliament. Many arguments have been brought forward which deal with the propagandist and agitational value of electoral politics but there can be greater value in engaging at the ballot box. No important struggle of the workers against the exploiting class can take place outside parliament without having a mighty echo inside parliament. When workers are driven into a big industrial struggle, the state machine operates against them, as witnessed by the miners’ strike of 1984-5. We must fight inside parliament as revolutionaries. Parliamentarism is not an end but a means for the conquest of power.

The Socialist Party holds that power is in the hands of those who control the machinery of government including the armed forces, and that the working class cannot remove capitalist dominance and introduce socialism until, through socialist political organisation, they have conquered the powers of government for the purpose of introducing socialism.

We again place on record the important proposition that while the working class must in self-defence organise on the industrial field, and use their only weapon there, the strike, there is a definite limit to what strike action can achieve, for in the last resort the capitalist-controlled State forces can, and will, crush strikes, both large and small. As for the future and the establishment of socialism, it is obvious that when a majority understand and want socialism this will express itself in the trade unions as well as politically. 
Nevertheless, the key to the achievement of socialism will still be in political organisation and action to gain control of the machinery of government. Or, as it is put in our Declaration of Principles, the working class must conquer the powers of government “in order that this machinery, including the armed forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.”

No comments: