Capturing Political Power

“Beside the bourgeois democratic candidates there shall be put up everywhere working-class candidates, who, as far as possible, shall be members of the League, and for whose success all must work with every possible means. Even in constituencies where there is no prospect of our candidate being elected, the workers must nevertheless put up candidates in order to maintain their independence, to steel their forces, and to bring their revolutionary attitude and party views before the public. They must not allow themselves to be diverted from this work by the stock argument that to split the vote of the democrats means assisting the reactionary parties. All such talk is but calculated to cheat the proletariat. The advance which the Proletarian Party will make through its independent political attitude is infinitely more important than the disadvantage of having a few more reactionaries in the national representation!!” Karl Marx

The Socialist Party concurs with the attitude of Marx, and it is a great shame that we cannot contest every constituency in the country. Until that time when there is no Socialist Party candidate standing - Spoil your ballot paper with a write-in for "world socialism".

 As the General Election on the 12^th of December draws near, all parties are using their resources to the utmost in the effort to persuade the workers that one or other of the programmes put forward will solve the difficulties that face the workers to-day. These  parties seek to remedy the most glaring evils yet still leave unaltered the present basis of society.

To the workers who read this blog we would ask, ‘Are you satisfied to let things go on in the same old way?’ 

You are slaves to-day because you allow your masters to own the things you produce and thereby control your lives. Your masters take no part in production, yet they take what you have produced. In return for the labour you spend in the field, the factory and the workshop you receive, at the best of times, only a beggarly pittance that does little more than keep you alive and enable you to bring up children to replace you in slavery. Even when in work you are always watchful lest, through no fault of your own, you lose your job. Out of work, your lot is miserable indeed—often a more or less rapid journey to the grave through insufficient nourishment. In numbers you are the overwhelming majority of the nation, and yet you hand over to a relatively small group of masters the product of your work. There is no common interest between you and your masters within the present social conditions. It is their interest to extract from you as much wealth as you can produce for the lowest outlay in wages, as by this means they wax wealthy. It is your interest to obtain possession of the means of production with which you produce wealth in order to produce wealth for your own benefit. Do not heed the smooth-tongued orator who would tell you to work in harmony with your masters for your mutual benefit. The capitalist lives by the exploitation of the worker. Between exploiter and exploited there can be no harmony of interest. When exploitation as a system is done away with, then there will be neither exploiter nor exploited.

Between you and the possession of the means of production stand the laws of capitalism, and behind these laws stands the State—the organised oppressive power of the ruling class. Before you can obtain control of the means of production you must, as a first step, capture the State power. This State power is centred in Parliament and the group in a majority in Parliament has the power to control society.

If you wish to get out of slavery, to send delegates to Parliament to capture the control of affairs. In choosing your MPs, you must remember it is servants you want, not masters nor leaders.

The Socialist Party is a political party of working men and women organised together for the purpose of getting control of political power in order to introduce socialism. Its parliamentary candidates arc selected as fitting tools for the job. Its members control the party throughout and determine, by majority decisions, the policy of the organisation. This policy is set forth in all the literature the party publishes. The party is, controlled entirely by its members and is not at the beck and call of either a place-hunting individual or a group of self-seekers.

If you are tired of the chains of slavery, join the party and thereby give us your aid in the work of speeding out of existence the system that oppresses us all. The Earth and its fullness is for no person’s private possession. Let the workers of the world determine that it shall be for the equal benefit of all.