We are socialists because we recognise in it the only
principle by which the working-class men and women can emerge as free people and
not as mere profit-making machines for the service of others. The future advocated
by the Socialist Party is the socialist commonwealth. Our objective is aimed at
the right of the community to control for the good of all, the production of
its social wealth. The Socialist Party’s goal is a class-free society based on the
common ownership and control of the industries and social services to be
administered in the interests of all society. Socialism means production to
satisfy human needs, not as under capitalism, for sale and profit. Such a
system would make possible the fullest democracy and freedom. It would be a society
based on the most primary freedom—economic freedom. For individuals, socialism
means an end to economic insecurity and exploitation. It means workers cease to
be commodities bought and sold on the labour market, and forced to work as
appendages to tools owned by someone else. It means a chance to develop all
individual capacities and potentials within a free community of free
individuals. It means a classless society that guarantees full democratic
rights for all workers. Socialism is that social system under which the
necessaries of production are owned, controlled and administered by the people,
for the people where political and economic despotism has been abolished and
class rule is at an end. That is socialism.
If it does not fit this description, it is not socialism—no
matter who says different. We must not be swept off our feet by revolutionary phrases
and radical slogans. Those who claim that socialism existed and failed in
places like Russia and China simply do not know the facts. Socialism does not
mean a government command economy or state ownership. It does not mean a one-party
system run without democratic rights. Those things are the very opposite of
socialism. Socialism has so far never existed anywhere. It did not exist in the
old U.S.S.R., and it does not exist in China. When the working class takes
control of state power it controls all that is necessary to run production on
socialised lines. A dictatorship of the proletariat is unnecessary, the workers
being in a majority. There will not even be a rule of the proletariat because
the act of socialising the industries automatically abolishes all classes and
therefore the proletariat as a class ceases to be.
The Left wants a dictatorship over the proletariat. It argues
that the large mass of workers will never become Socialist and will have to be
led by an intelligent minority. So, it is willing to unite with any movement of
workers, no matter how wrong this may be, in order that they will have some
masses to lead. The Socialist Party knows that no leaders are going to pull the
workers into Socialism. As Marx stated, “The emancipation of the working class
must be the class-conscious act of the working class itself.” An ignorant
muddleheaded working class will never be able to act correctly or move in the
proper direction no matter how clever the leaders may be. “The day is past,”
says Engels, “for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head
of unconscious masses.” In order to gain a following the left-wingers caters to
the ignorance of the masses and so we find its platforms filled with all kinds of
petty reforms. The Socialist Party holds that the political party must be a
party of no compromise. Its mission is to point the way to the goal and it
refuses to leave the main road to follow the small bypaths that lead into the
swamp of reformism. The crimson banner of socialism is held high by ourselves and
not dragged down into the quagmire of reform. Capitalism cannot be reformed. It
must be overthrown.
The Socialist Party is opposed to violence or the advocacy
of violence in the labour movement because it knows that such tactics are
playing right into the hands of the capitalist class. It is not cowardice that
dictates our position but common sense. In many countries, workers have the
right to openly and agitate for the overthrow of capitalism and the
establishment of socialism. If we did not have this opportunity then no
alternative would be open for us but to advocate the forceful overthrow of
capitalism. The capitalists can steal elections, miscount votes, and resort to
a thousand and one political tricks, but it is merely tampering with a
thermometer — it cannot change the temperature. And the temperature is the
organised power of the working class. Let a revolutionary moment arise and
unless the workers are organised, all the armed insurrection and physical force
will bring us nowhere unless the working class are politically and industrially
organised so an invulnerable unity be offered to the master class. Advocacy of
violence brings naught to the workers but imprisonment and executions.
Socialism will be a
society in which the things we need to live, work and control our own lives—the
industries, services and natural resources—are collectively owned by all the
people, and in which the democratic organisation of the people within the
industries and services is the government. Socialism means that government of
the people, for the people and by the people will become a reality for the
first time.
You need to be in the Socialist Party fighting for a better
world—to end poverty, racism, sexism, war and to avert the threat of imminent environment
catastrophe. The Socialist Party calls upon all who understand the critical
nature of our times, and who are aware that a basic change in our society is
needed, to join us to put an end to class conflict and all its poisonous results.
By placing the land and the instruments of social production in the hands of
the people as a collective body in a cooperative socialist society we seek to
build a world in which everyone will be free.
The Socialist Party alone of all the organisations on the
political field has a concrete, clear, concise, principled vision, the only one
possible of inaugurating. The time is ripe for action. It is the responsibility
of every class-conscious worker to line up on the side of that organisation
that has the conviction, the principles and the tactics necessary to the
emancipation of the working class. Right now, the Socialist Party alone points
the way to freedom. The only argument ever made against the Socialist Party is
that we are small. When the time is ripe for the social revolution, it will be
the organisation, no matter what its size, that has the correct principles and
tactics that will be the rallying point of the working class.
The Socialist Party never compromises truth to make a
friend, never withholds criticism of mistakes lest it make an enemy. It pursues
its course unswayed by a desire for temporary advantage. Its integrity of
purpose by which it is inspired will, in the long run, win the respect and
confidence of our fellow workers.
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