THE WAY OF THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

People are beginning to speak more and more often of the ‘end of civilisation’, or at least of the ‘crisis of the capitalist system’. It is chaos and empty darkness that are now facing the world. Capitalism has nothing more to offer to people. Many people who describe themselves as socialists believe that socialism is about expanding the the state through nationalisation. The more left-wing they are, the more they promote state-ownership. What is wrong with the state is that it protects the ruling class, capitalism and private property. Reformists argue that the possibility remains that the state can be won to other, socialist purposes. It is an enemy in its own right; its existence is nothing but a barrier to socialism. State-free societies do not lack social regulation. For the longest period of human history, our species has managed without states. Those who oppose class exploitation must, necessarily, oppose the state. 'Socialists' who wish to maintain the existing state are simply not serious.

Necessity is driving them towards socialism. People need to choose between leaving the running of the planet in incompetent and incapable hands that have brought forth this disorder or taking power into our own hands. Necessity forces the working people to make their choice. There is a pressing need made the working class to stand up for socialism. We need to construct a kind of socialism where workers, consumers, and ordinary citizens make the decisions through both direct and indirect democratic processes at all levels. Do we really want to leave to our children and grandchildren a world that will still be controlled by corporations dependent upon such a private institution as the stock exchange where financial speculators control peoples welfare and well-being. Socialism deserves a discussion, because it is a debate about the issues that face our future generations. No rational discourse of socialism in mainstream media has been permitted. Having no socialism sort anywhere on earth, our movement is breaking new ground toward envisioning a new society of both economic prosperity and genuine freedom, that can protect the planet, ensure human rights, and raise the standard of living in a new world of peace.

The Socialist Party is opposed to the system of society in which we live today because knowing that there are millions of our brothers and sisters suffering for the barest necessities of life. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That theological question has now been answered by the Socialist Party. Yes, we are our my brothers (and sisters) keepers. It is that sort of society we are seeking.

Are today's anti-capitalists moving towards a common vision of a new social system? The people were fighting for a new way of life. This is the capitalist world. This is the world of competition, of exploitation, of production for profit. The great mass of working people are its victims; the downtrodden and suffering people who have paid for the universal slaughter with their lives and labour, who suffer hunger, homelessness and disease; the exploited, harassed and suffering people – they are being made to pay the price of capital's expansion. People cry out for real freedom, security and peace. There will be no peace, freedom or security for the hundreds of millions of people. The capitalist ruling class main achievement is destruction. The capitalist world remains an armed camp awaiting only the passage of a few more years before it is ready to plunge into bloody carnage to determine which of the great powers shall dominate the world in the interest of profit. Capitalism outlived its usefulness long ago. It is no longer capable of progress, of raising the standards of living of the people. Capitalism is only capable of guaranteeing new wars, poverty and misery. World history shows that we live in a situation where devastating wars and exploitation and oppression of working people have become a daily part of life. Hunger, poverty, illiteracy, and all kinds of degradations make the lives of hundreds of millions of men, women, and children scarcely tolerable.

In our world, injustice and the denial of the most elementary rights have become common practice. More and more peoples are under the fascist heel of military regimes and police states. The number of victims of world reaction has increased to such an extent that they can no longer be counted. Billions of dollars are spent to perfect methods of repression and torture. There has been attempts at the systematic elimination of entire populations. Humanity’s resources are wasted in senseless adventures while people’s basic needs remain unsatisfied, land is despoiled, misery increases, and poverty spreads. The gap between rich countries and poor ones, far from diminishing, is increasing. There is an increasingly evident imbalance between humanity’s capacity for progress and the wretched reality that hundreds of millions of people must live under daily. In the vast majority of countries, moral and cultural decay, crime, alcoholism, drugs, and prostitution are spreading like a cancer. Prisons are being built at an unprecedented rate. Factories are closed down. Populism, national chauvinism, racism, and bigotry are developing at an alarming rate.

The Socialist Party asks why is it that we have to put up with these conditions? Who is responsible? What economic, political, and social system creates and perpetuates this situation? How can things be changed? Representatives of the ruling class respond that this situation is inevitable, that oppression and exploitation and economic, political, and social inequalities have always existed and will always exist. They invoke the laws of nature, divine laws, and all kinds of things over which people have no control. Reality, however, is quite different. It shows that these are the explanations of those who profit from this misery and whose power depends on maintaining the present conditions. The reality is that, despite diversity in political regimes, in language, and in culture and beyond differences in race and nationality, the vast majority of the people of the globe share a common condition: that of living in a society where the owners of the means of production impose their will over those who possess nothing or little. In other words, the vast majority of people live in a society divided into social classes where the propertied classes, the capitalists and landowners, dominate the classes who have little or no property, the working class and the small farmers. The economic base of this social regime is the capitalist system.

But the people of the world want an end to this system. They want jobs, peace, freedom, security. They want a new life; they want a change from the chaos of the profit system which has proved its incapability to maintain a high level of production in the interest of the people. The struggle of the peoples of the whole world will go on. Capitalism has brought civilisation to the brink of disaster. A new life, a new social, system, that is, socialism, is the only hope for humanity. When they fight for plenty for all, they are fighting for socialism. If more workers are to be won to the cause of socialism it is clear that we must greatly advance in our ability to explain the advantages of a socialist world and how we can achieve it.