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.”
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